Episode 173

Raythe Reign writes in the gay paranormal genre and joins us to talk about writing serials, podcasting audiobooks as a lead magnet, and running a membership on her own site.

Author Website:

www.RaytheReign.com & Raythe’s YouTube

💜 🎙 Become a supporter of the podcast! We can’t wait to give you a shoutout in a future episode. WishIdKnownForWriters.com/Support

Time Stamps:

0:05 Author Success and Learning From Mistakes
13:38 Exploring Gay Romance and Writing Success
17:36 Writing Techniques and Strategies
29:46 Navigating the Business of Writing
37:37 Building a Serial Fiction Business

Our Sponsor:

TryVellum.com/Wish

Transcript:

Jami Albright [00:00:17]:
And I’m Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have — Raythe Reign. Yeah. We do. It’s so good y’all. I was completely blown away.

Sara Rosett [00:00:37]:
Right. She shocked us with her, just how prolific she is and how much she’s doing. She does have a big team to help her. But she writes serials and just the amount of content that she writes and she has a podcast that she does. It’s a lead magnet kind of thing. And her membership site. So we talked a lot about those things.

Jami Albright [00:01:09]:
So the membership side is really the primary focus of her business. Releasing books on Amazon is second or any other subsequent site. It it it seems like.

Sara Rosett [00:01:27]:
It was really interesting to talk to her because it’s a completely different way of a business model. And it was really interesting. And, like, she said, she did her membership on her personal website or a website. because Patreon didn’t exist when she first started. So she’s been doing this for a long time. She created her own. And so she doesn’t necessarily recommend that for somebody starting out now, but that’s what she did. And she’s making it work. And, yeah, we just enjoy talking to her and kinda getting a different perspective. I thought it was great. Well, I’m back from a cruise. Had a great time. It was it was really good. I did not take my laptop with me, so that was really? That was a big step for me. Just because I was like, oh, if something happens, but I didn’t need it, it was fine. And we had a good time. And it was so hot, though. I wouldn’t recommend going to Mexico in June. If you can choose another month, probably wait till the fall. or the winter. It was a lot of fun, though. Yeah. It is. I love them. I love cruises. We had a good time. We’ll probably do another one, but we’re definitely gonna wait a couple months before. We had some friends that had never cruised. They went on a cruise, and they loved it so much. They went home. They had time off. They went home. I guess, did their laundry stuff repacked and went on another one. Like, because, you know, you can book a cruise when you’re on the cruise and, They said they did 3 in a row. And I was like gosh. Wow. Were these, like, short cruises? I didn’t get all the details. But, yeah, we’re gonna put it off a little bit. Not right away. It was fun, but we’re gonna take a break because it was hot. Yeah. Summer’s hot. So what about you? I mean, I don’t have much writing stuff to talk about.

Jami Albright [00:03:17]:
So — I don’t either. So, I mean, I have one one hip thing, but I’ve been teaching swimming lessons at my daughters and for less now 3 weeks. And I have another week to go, and then I’m gonna go home for a week, and then I’m gonna come back for 2 weeks, but and then I’ll be done. But yeah. I’m tired, but it’s been good. It’s been It’s just been good. It’s been good. It’s kinda stressful at times, but funny at times, you know, I’m yep. And this post and some of the funny things the kids have said yesterday. I was like, child, sewing some I won’t say the name. But are you listening to me? And he says, no. I’m looking at your belly button. At least he’s honest. Yeah.

Sara Rosett [00:04:09]:
Oh, killing us, man. Yeah, ma’am. Such good funny stuff from kids.

Jami Albright [00:04:16]:
I know. But anyway, one of the things that I writing wise so I’m gonna be part of the Zoe Pub this Friday, 30th. And I went in to set my book to free, and, of course, it said that I couldn’t do free because it was about to be it was gonna be reenrolled into KDP on the 22nd, I think, of June. And and it’s like, it blocks out a whole week or 2 weeks or so 10 days, something like that, and you can’t schedule any free promos after that. And I was like, oh my gosh. I really I’d already filled out stuff with Zoe, and and I don’t wanna create more work for them. And so I I just messaged KDP and said, hey. Is there’s some way around this, and the guy was like, yeah, just go in the day after it renews and schedule your promo. And I was like, what?

Jami Albright [00:05:19]:
So I didn’t know that. And I’ve this is not the first time this has happened to me, and I was just going, oh, I’ve gotta change books, so this isn’t gonna work. And no. It’s not a big deal. I I literally went in on the 23rd and set up my free promo. I mean, So if you don’t know if you’re like me and have been doing this for 5 years and didn’t know that, then there you go. if you’re new, that’s here’s your little bit of information.

Sara Rosett [00:05:48]:
Yeah. So Yeah. That’s great. Well, I I think that’s great. And there’s always things that we find out later on that we’re like, oh, no. I had no idea. Yeah. So, yeah, that makes perfect sense. I do have one writing related thing, I took a screenshot the other day. I was scrolling through Twitter, and I just thought this was really good because we talk about failure and, like, how hard it is and how difficult bad reviews can be. So Becca’s, Becca Syme, or if I take a drink, she replied to a question, if you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be? And she said a successful author friend once said, If I knew how many one star reviews it would take me to get to a $1,000,000, I would have wanted them to come so much faster. And I was like, that is a completely different point of view on what some people would consider something that would be bad. But it’s like you reframe it and think of it in a different way. And, anyway, I just thought that was good. So I thought I took a screenshot so I could share that. So that’s your encouraging word for the day.

Jami Albright [00:07:02]:
Right. Right. I love that. I love that. Fail faster and get it over with. But you never get it over with. Move on. You never know how we get it over with. I know. at InkersCon, which we’re we’re gonna talk about on a few future episode. I was talking to Enis Johnson, and she saw she you know, her big thing is fail fast. Mhmm. Fail fast, learn from it, and move on. Like, I I really want that mindset, but I have to spiral first after I fail.

Sara Rosett [00:07:31]:
So you just build that in because that time in.

Jami Albright [00:07:34]:
She literally looked at me like I was speaking another language. Like, she just did not even understand it. I’m like, I wish I was that confident. I wish that I had that mindset of failing fast, moving on.

Sara Rosett [00:07:54]:
Yeah. I think that is a gift. You may if you have that mindset, you don’t realize that that is the case. I know everybody has different struggles with different things. But, like, for you and I, I mean, I remember taking piano lessons and playing the piano, and I’d play a wrong note and I go, and my teacher would be like, it’s okay. it was a wrong note, but it was like, I didn’t wanna do anything wrong. You know, especially when I was a kid and you carry that over. So I totally get it. We’re in therapy for that. So yeah. We’re working on it. I know. Exactly.

Jami Albright [00:08:19]:
So we don’t have any new supporters this month, but that’s fine. We we really appreciate the ones we have. Thank y’all very much.

Sara Rosett [00:08:27]:
Yes. So thank you for supporting us and continuing to do so. We really appreciate it. It just makes the podcast; it gives us some financial support, and it lets us know that you want us to keep doing it. So we really appreciate And this month, we also do have an industry supporter. We’ve got Vellum, which we love as we’ve talked about a little bit. this month. And I did start when I came back from like, I’d spent a day after I got home, like, just kinda going through email and stuff. And then the next day, I started on formatting my book. I’m gonna do another Kickstarter. Mhmm. And so I went into Vellum. Remember I told you last time we but this is I think there’s an easier way to do what I did for the interior, and there is. I found it. So so they they have these beautiful page backgrounds. Like, if you want to do a like, if you wanna do a chapter heading, you can do, like, a small image. Or if you want the whole top part of your page of each chapter heading to be a full bleed image, you can do that. And they have some that are already in there that you just select them. And then, like, you can customize it do your own, so that’s what I did for this one that’s coming up. And then you can make it, I think, one page or two pages. So, like, if you have it could go across You know, like, you could have a full bleed on both sides of the page when you get to a new chapter. It’s so cool that we could do that. I love that. And it’s just there’s so many ways you can make your book look extra special. So and they’re super easy.

Jami Albright [00:10:03]:
Right. And have we talked about how just the ease of changing back matter and stuff like that? I think we did first time. That’s biggest thing for me because my first two books, I did not have Vellum. A friend of mine was doing it for me, and she wasn’t even charging well, maybe she charged me 20 bucks or something. I mean, it was nothing. But I hated asking her. Hey. Can you go in and change this? And it just makes it so easy to change your back matter and to update your back matter. And if you’re wide, holy cow, I can’t even imagine all the different yeah. because you can’t have the same link in the back of all your books, can you? Or You can’t. We can’t have redirectly. Could you?

Sara Rosett [00:10:51]:
Well, you can’t have, like, a link that goes to Apple in a book that goes out on Kobo. I mean, you’re not supposed to. Like, some retailers are way pickier about that than some. Most I think it is Apple who will kick them back. if you have any other retailer link in your book, they won’t they won’t upload it.

Jami Albright [00:11:12]:
So just having the ease and the the the convenience of going in and doing that whenever you need to is that for me, that’s one of the huge benefits. Vellum, and I’m not even wide. But knowing that if I wanna go in and update my back matter or if I want to add something like a chapter or something like that or take something out, I can do that literally in minutes. And what’s I love it for that.

Sara Rosett [00:11:46]:
Yeah. Me too. And I was that’s on my to do list is to go in and update my back matter now that I have my store. And I’m just going to direct people to my store and that will be but then that’s I’ve gotta go in and change all the back matter. Yeah. But it will not be such a big process because it will be easy. Because you can control it. And you can control it. And then the other thing I like about Velum is it’s You can pay each time you use it if you only need it a couple of times. Mhmm. Or you can pay once. It’s a one time fee which, you know, a lot of products now are recurring fees each month. And so if you purchase it, you get the updates, and it’s just super easy to use. So we highly recommend it.

Jami Albright [00:12:21]:
Yep. We love it. We love it. Yeah. We should probably get on with the interview. Shouldn’t we? Yes. But we should. We should. We need the link. Oh, y’all, we’re so mad at this. Sorry, Vellum.

Sara Rosett [00:12:35]:
Alright. So here’s the link if you wanna check it out. It’s tryvellum.com/wish

Jami Albright [00:12:40]:
There you go. Yes, sir. Now we should get on. Yeah. I should say I’m really bad at this sorry, Vellum. not Sara. If it weren’t for sure, we may never get this.

Sara Rosett [00:12:53]:
No. It takes both of us to get this going. It’s a it’s a team effort.

Jami Albright [00:12:56]:
Alright. Here’s Raythe. She’s awesome.

Sara Rosett [00:13:00]:
Well, today, we’re very excited to talk to Raythe Reign. Hi, Raythe. How are you?

Raythe Reign [00:13:04]:
I am doing great. It’s so great to be here.

Jami Albright [00:13:11]:
Well, we are happy to hear we’re happy you’re here. However, your voice may clash with our voice because it’s there yours is very smooth. Ours is very rough.

Sara Rosett [00:13:19]:
This is gonna be one of those people listen to just for your voice.

Raythe Reign [00:13:25]:
That is so kind. No. I actually do do some of my own recording, so I’ve gotten a little bit better at speaking into a microphone. We’ll see.

Sara Rosett [00:13:38]:
That’s great. Alright. Well, let me read your bio, and we’ll get right into the questions. A writer of gay paranormal serials, novel serials, And the Dragon’s Reign and Ever Dark gay romance fiction podcast is with us today. Raythe Reign.

Jami Albright:

Well, how’d you get into writing?

Raythe Reign [00:13:49]:
Exactly. Got it. Right? Oh my god. Honestly, my mother claims that I was telling her stories before I could even read or write. And I have to admit, I was actually running gay romance by the time I was ten. I don’t know how that was a thing, but it was. I am 49 now, so you can give get an idea of when that was. That wasn’t sparkle in the eye. Fan fiction wasn’t even there. And I just started doing it. I’m not quite sure why. But from the very beginning. I’ve just had this desire to tell people stories and tell people gay romance stories.

Jami Albright [00:14:31]:
That’s amazing. I wonder why at 10? That I think it’s insightful. I think it’s great.

Raythe Reign [00:14:33]:
I almost feel and I and I worry a little bit about this because I think I read a lot in the fan in the genres of fantasy and science fiction, which back in the day, the Point of view characters were male. You did have some female characters, but it wasn’t as prevalent. And I think that that became my point of view. And then later, I can tell you why I continued. I felt that romance was a little restrictive when it was heteronormative. Because the female character had to be someone the reader could identify with whether they could put themselves in her shoes want to be her best friend. And I found that very restrictive because you couldn’t make them. In my opinion, other people probably have different very bearing opinions. You couldn’t make them as complicated as I wish to make them. And maybe not likable, totally. So that where I just felt there was more freedom, and so I continued on.

Jami Albright [00:15:37]:
Yeah. I love that that you can explore a character’s a heroin unlikable side. I love that. because we all have them.

Raythe Reign [00:15:54]:
We do. Right? We do. But, you know, a a romance has an aspect of heightened fantasy in it, even if it’s contemporary, I think. And so we I don’t wanna say idealized characters, but to a certain extent we do. And I just found that the available prototypes for women in these roles were just not as expansive. Although I think that’s definitely changing. And I’m glad my readers have been really open, quite frankly, to having it’s the stereotypical strong female characters complicated female characters who have huge roles in the stories.

Sara Rosett [00:16:31]:
Right. You were a trendsetter, I think. Now we’re seeing a lot more of that. Sounds like you were on it early.

Well, what is your what is your definition of success?

Raythe Reign [00:16:44]:
That is a great question. And I ask myself that a lot because I, quite frankly, still feel like I’m scrabbling to find it. I told myself, once we hit a 1000 members on the serial website, raythereign.com, it would be a success. We hit that did not feel like a success. But what about 2000 or 3000? Still don’t feel like a success. It’s very strange to know that the more people I had reading and consuming, the content and speaking with me, I just always feel like, oh, what if there was just one more person? Even monetarily, when we got to the point where I can hire people to work for me and they have pretty much full time salaries has not been enough. So I keep going. My next goal to be perfectly honest with you is either to have an anime or live action done of one of my works. Right now, we’re doing a full narrated cast. It’s like there’s 8 actors who are incredible, who are voicing Ever Dark, which is a gay vampire romance on YouTube and Spotify. And that’s just given me another taste. So now it’s like, well, success will be doing an anime. Success will if you do a live action. Believe me, I’ll have another goal after that.

Jami Albright [00:18:08]:
Right. You’re a goal post mover.

Sara Rosett [00:18:10]:
Yeah. So I was gonna say, the goals we talked to so many people that that’s what they say. Like, their first goal, you know, is just to get the book written. And then as you hit those marks, it just It just continues to expand.

Raythe Reign [00:18:23]:
I I have over 30 serials on the site and dozens of books written. So I guess for me, it sort of, like, becomes addictive to just be like, what’s the next story you’re gonna tell? What’s next reaction you’re gonna get?

Sara Rosett [00:18:39]:
Yeah. That’s that’s a great place to be.

Raythe Reign [00:18:42]:
It it feels crazy to have done it this long and still feel like a newbie at it, which I love because you don’t you’re never sitting on your laurels.

Jami Albright [00:18:53]:

What do you wish you’d known about writing in craft when you started?

Raythe Reign [00:18:57]:
Oh my god. World Building. Yes. because you guys I don’t know. High fantasy requires extensive world building as does science fiction, and they all do. I really when I started though, what I would do is I would just have, like, an idea and, like, to the main couple, and I think I’d wing the rest. Because with serials, you get to really how I do them in any event. I’m writing that first chapter. I’m giving it to my readers. I’m asking them what they think, and I’m I’m really like, oh, I’m lithe and nimble, and I can, like, change whatever. No. Don’t don’t do that because, you know, you don’t have an idea about the world and have concrete stuff. So by chapter 50, suddenly you’re introducing concepts that should have been there in chapter 2. So I have learned my lesson. And I can honestly say, I I love when the readers say, Raythe You’ve come a long way. You’re such a better right now, and I feel so proud. I’m like, yes. Yes. I am.

Sara Rosett [00:20:03]:
Well, how long are your serials typically? That was my question.

Raythe Reign [00:20:08]:
Oh my god. 500 to 750,000 words.

Sara Rosett [00:20:11]:
Okay. So, like, how many installments do you have?

Raythe Reign [00:20:15]:
Well, It varies. A short serial for me would be 60 chapters, which would be approximately 300,000 words. Yeah. That would be a short one. A lot of them are in the 140 chapter range, which is again, like, 500, 600,000. And then we have I guess we have the next volume sometimes. Like Ever Dark, for example, is Ever Dark Academy, which is gonna be just as big. So these things are Millions of words long. Yeah. I don’t talk in pages, by the way, because with it being on the website, although we do now have hard backs, hard covers, and paperbacks, and ebooks. I just think of it more in terms of words. That’s my out. Well, what I found that it taught me, which I absolutely now love, because I think I suppose I’m sure most beginning writers come to you too with this same question. How do you finish the novel? And it’s like, if you get hung up, on each word, each sentence, each paragraph, each chapter. If you think there’s one book in you, and that’s it. You wanna get that perfect. And we all know that’s not how writing is. You have to just get it out, and then the next book will be better, and the book after that will be better. because you need to, like it’s a writing is a muscle and as much as it is, like, a craft. And so when I let go of the idea of perfection. Like, this book is not gonna be that, you know, socratic thought of, like, the perfect chair out there. Every book has its good parts, its bad parts, things you wish you’d done differently. I think that that really helped me up my production and also using the Pomodoro method of 20 minutes writing, 20 minutes doing something else, 20 minutes writing. And knowing that my honestly, my audience is there every I write.What? 3 chapters a week for reading for them. they’re waiting to read them. Wow. I have to get them out. Yeah. And it’s gotta be somehow good. Yeah. So and I’ve been doing that since 2010. It’s now 2023.

Jami Albright [00:22:36]:
Wow. Yeah. How how are the wrist and the fingers?

Raythe Reign [00:22:40]:
Shockingly, okay. knocking on wood for that. I did try to do because I really loved the dictation software, but it it made names and mistakes, and you know you read what’s there what you think should be there and not what’s there, it caused massive issues. Yeah. So I’m like, nope. Gotta just type, man.

Jami Albright [00:23:04]:
Yeah. I think I think with my fingers. That’s where I’m landed on that that I think with my fingers. Sara does dictate.

Sara Rosett:
Yeah. I I do some dictation, but you’re right. There is a lot of cleanup involved.

Raythe Reign [00:23:17]:
And I’m terrible at it as it is. And I but I what I do love about dictation is the dialogue is are better. It’s very more accurate to how people speak because you’re literally speaking it out loud.

Sara Rosett [00:23:27]:
I agree with that. Yeah.

Well, what about marketing? What do you wish you knew about marketing?

Raythe Reign [00:23:37]:
I’d wish I’d had Kat my marketer from the beginning. I did not. So Raythe Reign is its stand alone website, meaning that we have to draw people to it. It’s not like putting a book up on Amazon or Barnes And Noble Apple where they are bringing you the audience. And, hopefully, you are supplying a product that the that audience wants. Right? We have to draw people to Raythe Reign, which is a weird concept in and of itself. I mean, the name is weird. Why I thought that was a good idea? Don’t ask. But now no one’s ever gonna if anyone copies it, you know that they’re copying me. They’re, you know, whatever. But we have to draw people to the website, convince them that what we’re selling is actually legitimate, and we’re not some kind of weird scammer wanting their credit card. And to invest in a commitment i e, a membership versus a 1 off sales product, although we’re doing more 1 off sales products too now. So marketing is also for gay romance is a really hard thing because they see gay, and they they say porn. Literally, it doesn’t matter if it’s cleaner than a Harley Quinn romance. Does not matter. It’s not family friendly.

Jami Albright [00:24:55]:
Yeah. That’s too bad.

Raythe Reign [00:24:57]:
So we actually developed the podcast in order to have a free product that, like, for example, YouTube or, you know, Spotify, say, you know, the way to get someone is to give them a taste of something. And we actually give them most everything excluding the, you know, the sexy parts because those aren’t allowed on those particular platforms. Right. So if they want the clean, the full, they come to us at Raythe Reign, and we’ve just had people signing up for that and staying on for the rest of it. And it’s creating new art. You’re with especially with the other actors. It’s like that idea of the 3rd artist. You know, just me as the writer, them as the actors, and then the product is the 3rd artist.

Jami Albright [00:25:47]:
Go ahead, Sara. I was just gonna ask the next question. We’re gonna leg wrestle, and then we’ll get back to you. Right?

What assumptions did you make the beginning of your writing career and looking back, did they turn out to be right or wrong?

Raythe Reign [00:26:06]:
I actually was delusional in a lot of ways. On the one hand, I thought my stuff was too weird for any trad publisher to ever like. which meant that, you know, how many people were really going to like it and read it. But on the other hand, what ended up happening is that there are plenty of people. And I think that Amazon KDP has proven that. I think that indie authors can really, quite frankly I mean, how many times have we heard that vampires are over? Like, I remember after, like, Twilight, and they said, Oh, they’re over. They’re no more vampires. Or, you know, werewolves. Oh, well, no one will ever read that. Like, what’s what the what now?

Jami Albright [00:26:55]:
Exactly.

Raythe Reign [00:26:56]:
I think that I made assumptions that my stuff was really weird, and I didn’t think anyone would read yet in the same time, I built wraith rain on credit cards thinking that somebody must have and that they’d pay money to read this. So it was, like, a very strange, kinda you know, like, I’m, like, totally delusional here, but I’m doing this anyway because I loved these stories, and I wanted to share them no matter what, I was willing to put my money where my mouth was to get this out to people. And here we are 13 years later. And it’s… I have employees. I have actors. Yeah. So it’s crazy.

Sara Rosett [00:27:40]:
Yeah. I think a lot of us assume that because or I think it’s changed like you said. But years ago, people assumed, oh, this is too small. The audience is too small. But, really, if you have a small audience, sometimes that’s, like, even better than the wide audience because it’s you’re able to focus so much more.

Raythe Reign [00:27:54]:
You’re able to serve them best. And I think I always think that as broad of, like, listeners as we have, like, in Spotify. Like, we have a 180,000 listeners in Spotify or something like that. But truthfully, I think of the membership, which we have, like, 4000 members, you know, that sort of, like, whom I’m serving best. Because they are the ones who are invested to, you know, be with me and give me feedback. And it allows me to be experimental. I can fail. I can succeed. And quite frankly, they’re there for both. So that lets me have a sense of that. Although, as it gets bigger and bigger. I’m still thinking it’s small, and it’s, like, not quite accurate. I don’t know.

Sara Rosett [00:28:44]:
Yeah. But they’re the ones that are there. They’re your super fans.So they’re, like, the the closest in closest circle to you. Exactly. We’re gonna get back to the membership because we wanna learn more about that. But before we get to that,

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned?

Raythe Reign [00:29:02]:
That’s a really good point. I okay. I think the most important lesson I’ve learned is actually probably not good for most writers if you’re writing on Amazon or all this stuff, which is I do not chase trends. And I do though stick with what my trope is, which is normally like a chosen one trope. With, like, heroic aspects and, like, for example, with the romance, it’s normally older man, younger man, and there is like, the younger man is actually someone special. So and the older man’s like a vampire or an Elven king or something like that, Dragon king or whatever. I really like that. and there’s, you know, add humor into it. So what I would say is I’ve remained true to what I love and written what I love. But if I were to advise, for example, a writer who is writing to KDP, you should find something you’d love, but it should also be like something else out there. Because that’s how that algorithm works. So I feel very lucky, incredibly lucky that I established Raythe Reign, and it succeeded. But it is not the same as if I were writing, you know, purely for Amazon. Because truthfully, I hate to say it Amazon is to your customer as much as the audience they’re bringing to you and who they’ll serve your stuff to. So I just wanna caution those who listen to me and like, I should just write what I love. Yes. You should, and you should try to see if that works. But if you’re really going out to make a professional living at it, I would sincerely sincerely think, study the market, study what’s, you know, the the best seller list. Find something that speaks to you and understand the tropes in that.

Jami Albright [00:30:53]:
I think that’s very wise advice, but I love what you’ve done too. So I think that, really, it can work either way, but you are correct. When it comes to Amazon, there are just things that their, you know, their algorithm grabs onto that you need to consider.

What’s the biggest change you’ve had in your mindset over the years?

Raythe Reign [00:31:20]:
Well, I think I’ve had to continually take risks, and that’s very hard for me. And I when I say that so I, you know, Kat’s my marketer, and we always always do an ROI. It’s like very and we always do it so that we’ve been profitable. you know, throughout the career. So I’ve made sure that everybody gets paid. And, you know, it’s never a question of that. But when we realized that Facebook did I’ll give you an example. Facebook’s decided that you cannot target anyone who is interested in gay pride or is interested in certain magazines like that. They think they’re protecting the gay community. They are not. They are not, but that’s what they’re doing. So we would be we were doing advertisements, but we were not able to do, like, vampires and LGBTQ+ because we wanted to make sure that the people that were being served our ad, for example, would be interested or at least not offended and not tell me I’m going to hell, which happens a lot. And they got rid of that targeting. So now I’ve got vampires. Okay? Well, you know, that audience is more maybe transgressive because vampires themselves are transgressive in a weird way. But we still get the you’re going to hell. This is disgusting and all this stuff and more. So when we started seeing that, our main advertising venue you know, Facebook was suddenly not real great. So we had to think, what are what are we going to do? And that’s when we really considered doing Ever Dark, the Vampire podcast on YouTube, and having that be a way to reach people. And so I decided, well, you know, am I gonna do it myself? And I said, no. You know what? I can’t. It’s so much work. Maybe I’ll hire this this actor these 2 actors I know who have done my other books to do this. But it’s a lot of money and responsibility. It’s a lot of money to pay per finished hour. And those guys were high. But it was like, do I take this risk? Do I invest in this and assume that the product will return a profit and get more people in and do what we needed to do, and it it has. But that was a huge risk to take. And it’s grown and it’s grown and it’s grown and it’s grown and it’s grown and it’s grown. It’s been fantastic. Like I said, we have now 8 actors, and we’re gonna have more for you know, when it’s going forward with Ever Dark Academy. And quite frankly, I’m now doing audio versions of every new serial that I’m doing to just give you an idea of how that’s changed. But you have to keep challenging yourself, challenging your assumptions, going out of your comfort zone, even 13 years in as a company, you have to be able to grow. And what do you need to do to do that? And you have to say, instead of saying no, no, no. Maybe it needs to be yes, yes, yes. JAMI How many people do you have on your team? RAYTHE So there is Kat, my marketing person. Mhmm. Jeremy is tech the tech wizard. because we need him for the site to help help people and keep it running and keep it safe. I have Sylvia Frost, who is our graphic designer does all the beautiful stuff. I had Mathea Arconelle, who is one of our in house artists, I have a Tewolf who does manga, and those are the main people for Raythe Reign itself. And then Her Grace reads, is our partner to do the podcast.

Jami Albright [00:34:58]:
Wow. That’s impressive. That’s wonderful. Fantastic. Well, I mean and that’s why you can create quality products because you have a team to support that, and you can write.

Sara Rosett:
One person could not do all that.

Raythe Reign [00:35:12]:
No. I don’t get it as much anymore, but back in the day, I would get people asking me, well, how can I do this myself? And I would get authors doing this. And I’m like, look. You have to be. First of all, you have to be the type of writer that can write consistently on a schedule. And not most people can do that. A lot of these writers now can. Don’t get me wrong. They can. and they blow my productivity out of the water, but a lot of them cannot. And it’s like when people pay you money for you to get that chapter out, you need to get that chapter out. I said, then the second thing is you’ve gotta be technologically savvy, i e, you’re not gonna just be writing the stories, but you need to either have someone or have the ability to service people with that. 3rd thing, you gotta be a marketer or get a marketer. How are you gonna get people to your product, to your website? How are they gonna trust you? How are you gonna get all the copy up there? How are you gonna make this work? Mhmm. So you can imagine that this is, like, you know, Before we had Sylvia Frost, who’s the, you know, graphic designer, our graphics were crap. We had the most beautiful art, but we were, like, using comic sans. It just did not look right. I’m telling you text is where it’s at. Geez!

Sara Rosett [00:36:23]:
Yes. And if you’re not a graphic artist, it is hard to pinpoint what’s wrong. You you just know something’s not right, and you need that expert to come in.

Jami Albright [00:36:37]:
Unfortunately, our tendency is to throw some graphic sans at it. Comic sans. Yeah. Not graphic sans, comic sans.

Raythe Reign [00:36:48]:
But yeah. So I think, like, with every step, you become more professional, and you you understand what’s happening here. So I I would tell people, like, it’s not just the writing. The writing is almost the least part of everything that needs to happen for Raythe Reign to exist. So and you have to manage people because if you eventually become a business owner, I have people who I am managing, who work for me. I have to be thinking of them and their needs and my needs. And it’s, you know.

Sara Rosett [00:37:23]:
Well, that is fascinating to hear that. It’s like a glimpse into a world that I think a lot of authors would like to achieve, but it’s you know, quite a journey to get there. But a lot of the authors that we have listening are very new.

So if you were starting over today, what would you do differently, like, in this time frame? Would you change how you did things? Would you do things the same?

Raythe Reign [00:37:49]:
I don’t think that building Raythe Reign today would be necessary. you could use potentially. Now I I take this I say this feeling like I have the best possible situation. So keep this in mind. So I’m not suggesting that people don’t look at this because a lot of some authors who have been doing the serials like, you know, have actually decided they gonna band together with other authors and do websites like mine. and had the, basically, the Ku equivalent of their particular, you know, romance area, which is great to see that happening. But doing all of this, getting a tech person, a marketer, a graphic designer, artists, this was a lot of work and a lot of luck, and it took a lot of money. I mean, it took a ton of money to get it up and going. Whereas today, you could operate a Patreon. However, I keep this in mind I’ve heard rumors that Patreon are basically, like, blacklisting romance authors because of the sexy time stuff they don’t want it. And they make that problematic for them, supposedly. I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what I’ve been hearing in the grapevine. Because, again, when someone else controls who gets to see when they control that website. They aren’t they are the ones that get to choose who they support and don’t support and how much support you get. But you also then have you have a Patreon. You have basically a Royal Road where a lot of people would start their big serials, and then they would have people go to Patreon. You also have obviously Amazon KDP of ways to have your books up on Apple and stuff. I think if I were to tell anyone to start now, I would say, do the route that’s open and has the least amount of investment for you to begin with. Investment’s gonna be your time, i e, really understanding your genre, understanding its tropes, working on your craft, getting your books out on a consistent basis, building your either email list or Patreon. So there’s stuff that’s out there to support people. building Raythe Reign was something I did because simply none of these things existed really in 2002. It’s just not going to happen. So but I love what I’ve built, and I feel like it’s really secured me against the, you know, basically the ebbs and flows of, you know, what Amazon’s gonna do or what Apple’s gonna do or what YouTube’s gonna do or Patreon. So if you are established and you’ve done this, you might be able to think. Maybe I could create a website afterwards and do this. maybe with a bunch of other authors because I think I am insane to do as much as I do. But I’m, like, driven. I’m, like, I’m totally driven to do it. But if you’re a new author, don’t do this route. Take the routes that are open to you so that you can learn your craft, gain your audience, do it. Because that just getting those books out, getting those words down on the page is gonna be the success story for you. Before you take on all this other craziness of you know, a website like this.

Jami Albright [00:41:11]:
I think that’s great advice. Because, you know, I mean, you can always create something later with an audience, which is much easier.

Well, tell us about your membership site and then how you pair that with a wide release later.

Raythe Reign [00:41:37]:
So Raythe Reign, you sign up as you would for, like it’s a recurring membership, which means think of your gym membership. Guess what you could build every month. But guess what? It’s not hard to, I know, cancel. God. We make it very easy. You sign up for A month, 3 months, 6 months, or a year. So that’s how the you know, there’s the tiers that are out there. And, obviously, you save money. The more that you would subscribe to it first. Like, the year is much less than if you paid month to month for a year. And you will get access to a library of oh my god. Like I said, 30 serials, millions of words, plus dozens of manga, because we also create manga off of my work. with an amazing manga artist. She’s just spectacular. You get all of the uncut but fully edited chapters of Ever Dark, Dragon’s Reign podcast, and sexy time chapters of Empire of Stars. So my oral works of my written works. And going forward, there will be any new cereal I do that will have an audio component that will be part of your membership. And so you’ll be to listen to it and read it as it comes out, like, 1 to 1. And then what happens what I’ve been doing is then I’ve been taking, for example, EverDark which is that gay romance vampire serial. We put it into 8 to 9 hour chunks of audio for an audio book, and we create an ebook of that, a hardcover, and we’re gonna do paperbacks. and you can get the ebooks on Amazon. I’m gonna go wider than that, but it’s such a pain sometimes, quite frankly. Put on Barnes & Noble And Apple because they keep and and we never got any traction despite being wide. But we also have our own shop where you can purchase this stuff. So if you purchase, for example, a hardcover volume 1, you get I write you a note in there, sign it, wrap it up, and send it off, and stuff. So that’s sort of how this is working. Now are all the serials on Amazon? No. Only the ones that I am doing with these audio books for. So you’ll be able to get this material, and you’ll be able to buy it individually. But, I mean, members get it first, and they get included. So that’s how that works.

Sara Rosett [00:44:17]:
That’s very interesting. You have such a large amount of content. I could see how somebody might come in and they would want to stay because they get interested in the stories, but then there’s all this extra for them to delve into. So if you have a big backlist, it could be I’m heard of authors that they just want their readers to come in and just read to their heart’s content and just immerse themselves in their world.

Raythe Reign [00:44:42]:
Exactly. I think of myself as the Patterson of MM writers, which means they can consistently get it’s not the same story at all. It’s all different. But if you like one of them, you’re know that you’re gonna like the other ones. Even if it’s science fiction versus fantasy versus urban fantasy. You know? that sort of thing.

Sara Rosett [00:45:02]:
Well, that is it’s fascinating, and I’m I’m glad we got to to you about this because we talked a lot about subscription lately. And there is Rheem, which is kind of the alternative to Patreon now where it’s run by authors. So there’s that if somebody wants to do that. But it’s good to talk to somebody who’s doing it completely different just to give people different ideas.

And so on our podcast, Is there anything that you wish you had known about podcasting audiobooks looking back?

Raythe Reign [00:45:34]:
Oh, god. Yeah. Well, so I started doing it myself right around the when the pandemic happened to do Dragon’s Reign, which one is one of my favorite serials. And the first time I was doing it, we just did not know what the heck we were doing. I mean, you’d have my cat in the background and be like, you get out of here. And then my my marketer who also does all the sound tech because, of course, we were doing it all together. would be keep that in because it was funny. So but we are actually, for example, redoing Dragon’s Reign right now with my professional setup, and it will be audio book grade quality, and we are going to make this available for people to purchase. Because one thing that I think when I first started the serial business, I was really afraid if I allowed things to be purchased individually that the membership would just die in the vine. Because if you could purchase it individually, why even though it costs a hell of a lot less to have a 1 month of Raythe Reign than to purchase, you know, all these volumes of stories. But still, I was like, I didn’t believe enough in the fact that the members by the way, people have been there since the beginning are still with me, which is crazy. That there is the interaction that they really enjoy. And they feel that they’re supporting me by being a part of the membership, and they love the interactivity of talking to other members and be able to comment and be able to follow the story as it goes along in its rawest form. So that’s been huge. But I will have to say that I really didn’t understand with the audio how much people would love it and how it would sustain and enhance the membership, the serial aspect of it. And now, like I said, I’m doing every single one, and now you can purchase the serials in the individual books, purchased the audio and individual audio books. And it’s actually been a synergy between the two. Some people will purchase it. Some people will become members. Some people do both.

Sara Rosett [00:47:39]:
So you just offer everything and let them pick? I mean, if it’s a great system instead of saying, oh, I’m never gonna do print books. Right? I’m never gonna do this because somebody will like that.

Raythe Reign [00:47:55]:
Yeah. So I just realized what I was doing was acting out of fear. And that’s one thing that I think is authors that we have to really get over because we’re exposing ourselves. Every story is an expose of our interior in some ways. It’s to not act out of fear. and to give the reader as much choice as possible in how they wish to consume our work and where they wish to consume it.

Jami Albright [00:48:14]:
That’s I mean, that’s just a such a great mindset. I love that. I love that.

Raythe Reign [00:48:24]:
It’s something I’m working on still. I’ll be honest with you. It’s still hard, and I’m still learning even after all this time.

Jami Albright:
Yeah. That’s good. And you also have merchandise on your side too. Right?

Raythe Reign:
We do. We have the fun stuff. We’re still figuring out what people want. Because I’ll be honest with you, I mean, I think, oh, that will never sell, and that’s the thing that sells. And the thing I thought was so cool. It’s like, we don’t sell any of that. You know? So and even when you ask upfront what people would like, that doesn’t necessarily mean what they buy. No. like, bizarre. Like, the hard covers, I was they’re fifty bucks a pop. I thought nobody was gonna buy those. That is the majority we sell I mean, the audiobooks are the top thing, but the quite frankly, the hard covers are the things that fly off the shelves. I ran ran out of them. And I’m like, I love you guys, but this is like crazy town. Yeah.

Jami Albright [00:49:22]:
Wow. I always think I wouldn’t pay $50 for a book. But I yeah. I mean, probably not true, but I think that.

Raythe Reign [00:49:26]:
Yeah. Well and there’s not just one each one cost, and there’ll be 9 volumes in the Ever Dark series, and people have been buying each and every one. That’s a lot of money to commit. Unfortunately, IngramSpark does not make it cheap to print these with all of it. They really don’t. It has to be printed and that has to be shipped to me, and then I have to sign it and package it and send it all out. So there’s these additional costs. But it’s really been a thrill to be honest with you, to physically hold a book, which I thought I didn’t care about. Sign it and, you know, put the note in and and give this to people. It’s been it’s been very satisfying.

Sara Rosett [00:50:11]:
Yeah. Just like you were saying, you give the readers the choice, and you don’t act out of fear, and you do things like that. And then you’re pleasantly surprised. Sometimes you’re not, but a lot of times you are, and then you’re, like, have a whole new income stream.

Raythe Reign [00:50:24]:
Exactly. Like I said, we are redoing Dragon’s Reign, and we’re also gonna do ebooks and paperbacks and hardcovers of it. We should have done that from the beginning. People were asking, but I just I don’t know. I don’t know if I didn’t believe it or I was like, no. You have to go to the membership site and do it the way I want you to do it. That was dumb.

Jami Albright [00:50:42]:
Live and learn. Yeah. That’s what this podcast is about.

Sara Rosett [00:50:50]:
Oh, well, this has been so great to talk to. It’s been awesome. Get a little insight into your the way you sell books and reach your readers.

So we always like to ask, what’s the best thing you’ve done to set yourself up for success?

Raythe Reign [00:51:04]:
The best thing I’ve done is put my butt in the chair and write. I mean, honestly,

Jami Albright [00:51:11]:
Now I feel attacked.

Raythe Reign [00:51:17]:
It is the fantasy of being an author is sometimes the easier part. But, you know, if you have an idea or story, write it. Don’t worry about if it’s gonna be perfect. It won’t. I’m telling you right now, it won’t. And you just write it and enjoy it. And it is a hard process, but it is worth it. There’s just nothing I feel like I’m the best use of any gift I might have is writing these stories. And it’s been the best part of my life so far. So there we go.

Jami Albright [00:51:50]:
That’s awesome. Well, tell people where they can find out more about you and all the good stuff.

Raythe Reign [00:51:57]:
Alright. So the membership site is raythereign.com, or you can go to YouTube. And if you just put in Raythe Reign, or Ever Dark, it will come up, and you can check out some of the, you know, actors’ work or my work and listen to it for free. So and also Spotify. You can do the same thing. iheartradio, Apple, iTunes, so all that. So you can just check it out, and that’ll lead you to more information about us.

Sara Rosett [00:52:26]:
That’s great. That’s awesome. But yeah. Yeah. Well, we will have all those links at the show notes at wish I’d known for writers.com. And Don’t forget about our sponsor, Vellum, this month, and we will see everybody next week. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye.

Raythe Reign on Serials, Podcasting Audiobooks, and Memberships