Episode 188

Contemporary romance author Cadence Keys has only been publishing for a few years. She describes how she’s found success publishing wide and selling directly to readers. We also delve into the topic of setting back from social media, something Cadence has chosen to do. Instead of using the social platforms, she’s investing in her newsletter and in her Ream subscribers.

Author Website:

CadenceKeysAuthor.com

Links mentioned:

HeartBreathings.Teachable.Com Ream

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

Time Stamps:

0:28 Introduction
9:26 Cadence’s Bio
12:19 Definition of Success
13:14 Integration of timelines & rewriting
16:16 Opting out of Social Media
18:36 False assumptions
22:41 Cadence on the Comparison Game
24:38 Connecting to readers through Direct Sales
26:05 Various Direct Sales platforms
30:53 Pivoting & Direct Sales Bundles
33:08 Klavio and Sequences
38:43 Time Management
41:48 Ream
47:08 Set up for Success

Transcript:

Jami Albright [00:00:28]: And I’m Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have Cadence Keys. Yes we do. And it was so good, y’all, it’s really good. And she’s kind of a new author and she’s doing a bunch of cool things. Sara Rosett [00:00:42]: Yes, and we talked to her about so many things. We covered direct sales and ream and social media. She’s not real interested in social media and she doesn’t really use it that much. Jami Albright [00:00:52]: No. Sara Rosett [00:00:53]: So yeah, lots of good stuff in this interview that’s coming up with her. So what’s been going on with you this week? Jami Albright [00:01:01]: Well, this started last week and it’s been going on now a week. On the day of my sister’s birthday, I came to my mom’s house and I was here with my sisters and my mom and my dad, and we went to lunch and I was a little distracted and I got a message. I checked my messages in my Jamie Albright author, because I hardly ever check those, so I just happened to check them and it said that I had been hacked or whatever and my Facebook had been hacked and needed me to confirm my email address. Well, I did it, and I knew I mean, the minute I did it, I knew I shouldn’t have done it. It was a phishing thing, and I was immediately locked out of my account. They changed the email on the account now, thankfully, I immediately called my bank. I haven’t had any charges on anything, but I could not get in I could not get in to talk to anybody. I mean, there was nobody to talk to, so I didn’t know what to do. But I had just hired someone to do my ads about a month ago and she has a rep and so I messaged her and I was like, hey, this has happened. I just totally screwed up. I’m not thinking straight. Anyway, like 12 hours she worked, she sent me a message and she said, we’ve got your account back. This is what you need to do. Sara Rosett [00:03:02]: Wow. Jami Albright [00:03:03]: So I had to send an email with the because then what happened was Facebook realized it and they shut my account down. So it’s not just that I was locked out. Now the account shut down, and I had the emails that now that if you go into my account and want to well, before they shut it down, it said, send a link to this email. Well, that was not my email. So anyway, I had to send them that message and everything, and they had said I would get it back within 24 to 48 hours. It’s been a week. She’s still working. Sara Rosett [00:03:45]: You’re still out? Jami Albright [00:03:46]: I’m still out. I still can’t post on. I can’t do anything, can’t run ads, can’t do anything. My ad account was closed down. I mean, everything was closed down. I’m working on that, so let’s just let that be a lesson to you kids. Don’t give your email to people. I just knew it. I’ve seen those before. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them, but I’ve seen them before. Sara Rosett [00:04:19]: We all make mistakes, we all do wrong. You’re out of your normal mindset thing. Jami Albright [00:04:28]: Anyway, send good thoughts because I really need that account back. Yeah, but in all honesty, I haven’t stressed just a ton about it because I do think I will get it back, only because Abel, the girl that’s running my ads, because she has someone. Sara Rosett [00:04:54]: She is actually she knows an actual person. Jami Albright [00:04:58]: But I haven’t really worried a ton about it today. I’m probably more worried about it than I have been because it’s been a week. But yeah. Sara Rosett [00:05:10]: This is one of those things that it will probably all work out, but it’s very stressful in the middle of it. Jami Albright [00:05:14]: And I can’t really do anything about it. Jami Albright [00:05:17]: I’ve done everything I can. I mean, every day I’m just sending the email again because I want them to see it, because I feel like if they see it, they’ll take care of it, but anyway, we’ll see what happens. But yeah, so that’s what I’ve been dealing with all this week. Sara Rosett [00:05:35]: Taking all your time. Yeah. Jami Albright [00:05:39]: I’m still at my mom’s. I’m actually going home this afternoon, but and so but, I mean, you know, you can deal with this from anywhere. Sara Rosett [00:05:50]: Yeah, well, I too have had tech issues this week. Jami Albright [00:05:55]: Oh, no. Sara Rosett [00:05:56]: Well, I sent out the survey and we’re not quite sure what happened. I got a notice that my shopify store had been updated to the one page checkout, and that may have impacted things, but everybody was supposed to get a link to go complete the survey with a gift card, and some of the gift card amounts were not being applied and people weren’t noticing and they were checking out. And so I’ve been doing some refunds and letting people know, no, you’ve already paid for this. You don’t have to pay more. The shopify is more to help me keep track of the inventory and to know where to send things, because Kickstarter doesn’t collect that information or they collect it, but they don’t pass it on to like, I have to find out where you live. Where should I send your books? That’s been a little more time consuming than I thought. It was stressful, but I have to say my readers are very nice. They’re very nice and they’re all like, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see that wasn’t applied in a way in this episode, we talked with Cadence about building deeper connections with the readers. Jami Albright [00:07:05]: Yes. Sara Rosett [00:07:05]: And as I was replying to all those emails and figuring everything out, I was like, this is a way that, even though I wouldn’t want to do it this way, this is a way that you’re getting to know people. I had one reader send me a message with the subject line said, failed to follow instructions because I told them step by step how to do it. Right. So it’s just, like, interactions with your readers that you don’t normally have if you just sell direct sales on the retailers. Anyway. So that’s what I’ve been doing, hopefully getting to the end of this. We’re getting all everything sorted out, and soon I will be ordering all the stuff. I feel like that will be the fun part. I’ll get to order the books and the puzzles, and I added color to the interior pages of the book. Jami Albright [00:07:55]: Oh, how beautiful. Sara Rosett [00:07:57]: I’ll post a picture of this in the group, so, like, every chapter head has what looks like the Cover the background of the Cover So I’m really pleased with all that. That’s going really well, and yeah. So that is, like, all I’ve been doing. Yeah, that’s it, like, the whole update. Jami Albright [00:08:17]: Yeah. There you go. Awesome. Well, we have a new supporter, don’t we? Sara Rosett [00:08:22]: Yes, we do. We have Tammy with she picked the crown, so thank you, Tammy, for supporting us. And if you’re interested in supporting, you can go to Wishadnownforwriters.com Support and sign up there, and we just thank everyone who is supporting us. Jami Albright [00:08:38]: Right. And we have a supporter meet up zoom call on the 15 October, and we’re going to post today. Well, Sara is. Sara Rosett [00:08:47]: Yes, I will post in the group. Jami Albright [00:08:51]: Sara’s going to post in the group of what you want to talk about? Sara Rosett [00:08:55]: Yes. Now, I have an idea. I thought if we don’t have any other suggestions, we might just pick a trope and talk about a trope. Do you like that? Yeah. Okay. Jami Albright [00:09:05]: That sounds good. Sara Rosett [00:09:06]: Yeah. And we could talk about how it works. Well, good examples of where you’ve seen it, why we like it, stuff like that. Jami Albright [00:09:14]: All right, we should probably get on with the interview, because it’s awesome. Sara Rosett [00:09:18]: Yes. All right, here is Cadence. Today we are really happy to talk with Cadence Keys. Hi, Cadence. How are you? Cadence Keys [00:09:26]: Hi. I’m good. Thank you so much for having me. Jami Albright [00:09:28]: Oh, we’re happy you’re here. Good to see you again. We met you at Inkerscon, so that is a great conference, and you meet great people when you go to conferences. You’re living proof of that. Sara Rosett [00:09:44]: Here, let me read your bio, and then we’ll get into the questions. Cadence Keys writes steamy, heartfelt contemporary romances with relatable characters. When she’s not writing, she’s an average frazzled mom chasing her two toddlers around or curled up on the couch watching movies with her husband. So that’s great. I love that. Very, very relatable. Yes. Jami Albright [00:10:04]: Most of our listeners can relate to that, I think.

Well, tell us how you got into writing, Cadence.

Cadence Keys [00:10:13]: So I’ve been writing off and on kind of my whole life, but I never could finish a book, I can tell you. I’ve got endless manuscripts on computers, old computers, files that have transferred over that were just never finished. And then I had started a story in 2017, I think, and again, didn’t finish it, put it on the back burner. And then I had my son in 2020. He was born a month after lockdown, and as you know, there was nothing to do. And I’m dealing with a newborn. I’m on crazy hours. And he was a miracle baby. So there was also some of that, like, oh, anything is possible kind of thing. And those characters from that first book just kept talking to me and saying, hey, finish the story. Finish the story. So I did, and I haven’t stopped since. Jami Albright [00:11:03]: Oh, that’s amazing. Sara Rosett [00:11:05]: So that’s so funny because same thing happened with me. I had two kids. My second child was born, and I was like it just hit me. I was like, man, life is only going to get busier from here on out. And I’ve always wanted to finish a book because I had plenty of starts. I’m curious, what are your strengths? Do you do the strengths? Cadence Keys [00:11:27]: Yeah. So I had them, I saved them, and now I can never remember them. Sara Rosett [00:11:31]: Just a couple of your top ones. Cadence Keys [00:11:33]: I know that it’s futuristic. Harmony. What was the other ones? Empathy. Sara Rosett [00:11:42]: Yeah. Cadence Keys [00:11:43]: I’m like four of my top five. Becca Sime did a post that if you’re not good at social media, this is why you’re like these strengths. And four of my top five were those strengths, and I was like, okay. Sara Rosett [00:11:55]: It all makes sense. Jami Albright [00:11:58]: Light bulb moment. Cadence Keys [00:11:59]: Yeah. Jami Albright [00:12:00]: That’s so funny. My daughter had her baby the day before we went into lockdown. So I always tell people, don’t have a baby during a pandemic if you can help it. But for you, it kind of worked out. Sara Rosett [00:12:19]: Well, we always like to ask everybody,

What is your definition of success?

Cadence Keys [00:12:25]: So my definition of success has definitely changed. If I’m looking at generic success, it’s just I want to be happy. If I’m happy in life and I feel like I can be a good mom and a good wife and a good person, then that in general is like success for me. In regards to the business that has changed since from when I started my success was, I just want to publish this book, and now success for me is continuing to provide for my family. Jami Albright [00:12:55]: Yeah, I love that. And you seem like a happy person. Cadence Keys [00:13:01]: I try. Jami Albright [00:13:02]: Yeah, you really do. Cadence Keys [00:13:04]: That’s a big deal. Jami Albright [00:13:06]: Yeah, you have a happy countenance. So I love that. Well,

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

Cadence Keys [00:13:14]: So my first book was A Second Chance, and I wish that I had known better how to incorporate the past and flashbacks into the present. Yes, because I did reedit it after it was out for about a year, and it was out for six months when I started the revision process because I found really great editors and so I wanted them to help me and I combined it with the prequel novella I had, and the prequel novella was their whole backstory. And I just wish that I had known how to do that better. And if I redid that book again now, I would still do it differently because I still don’t love exactly how it came out. So that’s definitely one piece of how do we incorporate the past in a way that feels more organic? Jami Albright [00:13:57]: Yeah, that’s true. But you wouldn’t go back and rewrite it, would you? Cadence Keys [00:14:02]: No, not now, because I already rewrote it once and that was a lot. Jami Albright [00:14:05]: Of, no, let’s not do that again. Just move forward, move on. Cadence Keys [00:14:09]: It’s like the next second chance I do, I’ll know how to do it then. Jami Albright [00:14:12]: Yeah, I always say, if you can fix it easily, go back and fix, you can do that. But if not, just move on. If it’s so bad that people stop reading you after that book, then take it down. I mean, don’t try to rewrite it. It’s just too much. Other people may have other advice. Sara Rosett [00:14:35]: Yeah, rewriting a book is a lot of work. Jami Albright [00:14:38]: Well, because when I’m done with a book, I’m done with a book. Like I’m done with those people, they’re dead to me. So having to go back and just. Sara Rosett [00:14:46]: Don’T tell your readers that. Jami Albright [00:14:48]: No, well, they’re not dead to me, but yeah, they are. Sara Rosett [00:14:55]: It’s like author amnesia. That story is done and it’s gone. And then you go back later and you’re like, whoa, okay, I totally forgot that whole novel, whole subplot, or whatever. Jami Albright [00:15:07]: Yeah, well, and it’s also like when you’re watching a show or reading a book series and you’ve got the love interest and you got all this tension, and then in book four, they get together and then nothing. It’s like, well, it’s kind of how I feel when I go back to a book. It’s like even writing, like, second epilogues and stuff, I’m like, wow, it’s hard to ramp up that tension because, you know, they’re together. It’s hard. Cadence Keys [00:15:36]: Yeah. Bonus epilogues. I’m trying to train myself to do it while I’m writing the book the first time. That’s a good idea. Going back, it’s like pulling teeth to get that. Jami Albright [00:15:46]: Very good idea. Sara Rosett [00:15:48]: Yeah. This makes me feel better because I have a hard time. Readers love Easter eggs and things in the like, if you write a series and if you can incorporate little things from other books into it, they love that. But that’s really hard for me to do because I’m like, I’m done with that, and it’s gone. And it’s like, what were their names even? I don’t even remember. Well, what about marketing?

What do you wish you’d known about marketing?

Cadence Keys [00:16:16]: For marketing, there’s so much because there’s so many different ways to market. But I wish that I’d known or that I’d believed enough at the beginning that it’s okay not to do everything that everyone else is doing. Yeah. Picking something that you so, for me, social media is the thing that everyone’s doing, and it doesn’t work for me. Not because it’s not effective. To say TikTok doesn’t work would be really naive, because it does. Right. We’ve seen it work for a lot of people. It led me to the worst burnout I’ve ever experienced. It totally zapped my energy. Now that I know about my top strengths, I get why and I understand why social media has always been a struggle. So I take that energy and I put it towards my newsletter, which I love, and I get more sales, right. Because I enjoy doing it, and I think that comes through. And so I’m a big proponent of it’s. Okay. Not to follow what everyone else is doing. If that’s not working for you, find the marketing that works for you. That doesn’t mean don’t market, because you have to market your books. Jami Albright [00:17:19]: Right. Cadence Keys [00:17:20]: Find where your strength is, because readers will pick up on that. They’ll see that you’re excited about that, that you’re being real and genuine in that marketing, and then they’ll buy. Sara Rosett [00:17:33]: I know people will be curious about this. So are you still on different social media platforms, like your profiles? Cadence Keys [00:17:42]: Yeah, so I have profiles on everywhere, but I don’t post anywhere, except occasionally I’ll post on Instagram. Sara Rosett [00:17:51]: Okay. Do you get any questions or pushbacks from. Do you get any questions from readers about, like, where are you? Why aren’t you why can’t I find you on blah, blah, blah, social media site? Cadence Keys [00:18:07]: No. And I’m very open with them in my newsletter that I don’t love social media. I just started a ream this summer, so I now have that, and that’s where I’m putting, like, posts. So I’ve made it really clear for readers, if they want to follow me and find more information, going to my ream page and following, which is free, or joining my newsletter, which is free, are two ways where they can be kept up to date on what’s happening. Sara Rosett [00:18:30]: Okay. Jami Albright [00:18:36]:

What assumptions did you make at the beginning of your writing career?

And looking back, did they turn out to be right or wrong? Cadence Keys [00:18:45]: So I think I had two kind of big assumptions. One was that I would just figure out marketing as I went, which I kind of did, but I wish I’d had more of a plan. And so I think assuming that you can just figure out as you go is kind of right. But it’s going to make it a lot harder for you than if you set out a plan, even if you just do, like quarter by quarter plan and see, okay, what worked in this quarter and find the data for that, and then going from there and making your decisions based on data. And then the other big assumption I had was that it would take a long time for me to find readers who are willing to take a chance on me. This was a super secret pen name. I was an educator. I taught high school. So I was not about to put my face out there. I didn’t tell anybody. I can count on one hand the number of people in my real life who knew, and one was by accident. And so it was very secret and hush hush. And I was like, oh my gosh, I’m a nobody. And we have all these amazing authors out there who’s going to take a chance on me. On top of that, I was wide from the beginning just because Ku didn’t really fit my business plan right. The idea of being exclusive gave me an, like, it just made me really stressed out. And there’s a lot of advice out there that you have to be in Ku to get readers to take a chance on you. So that also was feeding in this nervousness that nobody’s going to try. And that wasn’t true at all. I had plenty of people willing to take a chance from the very beginning. I had readers find me with my awful prequel novella, which was all telling. It was horribly written. And I still have people on my newsletter who now read everything I write because they fell in love with that and paid for that. They paid for that. I can’t even believe it. And so I think it really came down to I was very fortunate to find an amazing cover designer who designed that first series for me. She designed a couple of series for me, and that was spot on. And people bought because that cover probably more than anything else. Yeah. And so I think that kind of goes back to marketing because even your cover and blur feeds into marketing choices. So the assumption that readers wouldn’t take a chance on me because I was a nobody and I was wide, that wasn’t true. It’s really how you market and the product you put out there. Jami Albright [00:21:02]: Your branding and stuff. Cadence Keys [00:21:03]: Yeah. Sara Rosett [00:21:04]: So when did your first book come out? Cadence Keys [00:21:07]: So I very quietly released the prequel novella in September of 2020 because I just wanted to kind of see what it was like releasing on all the different retailers. And then my debut novel came out December 2020. And I released every three months from there on out until I got pregnant again with my daughter. And then I got super sick and that was a whole hellacious ordeal. And so I had five books out at that point and then took a huge gap where I didn’t release for seven months. And then I was releasing. I rapid released the rest of that Rock Star series. Sara Rosett [00:21:42]: Well, that’s encouraging though, because a lot of people feel like, oh, there’s no way to make it now because it’s so flooded. 2020 is not that long ago, and it doesn’t sound like you had a humongous strategy of ad spend and let’s do all these massive things. Cadence Keys [00:22:03]: Yeah, I didn’t spend until 2021 at some point. Like late 2021. Yeah. So I really just did paid newsletter. In fact, I don’t even know that I really marketed all that much very well until I started putting my first as a freebie and I put it in paid newsletters and that became free after book four, and that series came out nice, and then that’s when everything really exploded nice. Sara Rosett [00:22:31]: Well, that’s encouraging. Jami Albright [00:22:32]: Yeah. Sara Rosett [00:22:34]: Well, we always want to ask too,

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned?

Cadence Keys [00:22:41]: I think the most important lesson I’ve learned is that it’s important to be authentic to yourself and not compare your journey to others. And I think that’s really hard to do, especially when we’re in author groups and we’re seeing all these different success stories and you’re like, oh man, I want to be there, or you see authors getting publishing deals for their paperbacks or whatever. And I think we have to remind ourselves, our journey, we’re at a different spot. We’re comparing step two in our journey to step 20 of theirs. And so being really authentic to you and what works for you, and then not comparing your journey to others, your journey is going to be your journey. And just focusing on what the end goal is. Sara Rosett [00:23:25]: And I would think not being on social media as much would help with that. Not seeing as much. That’s part of the issue with social media, I think, is that it’s hard not to compare ourselves when we see stuff constantly about like, oh, so and so doing so great. Cadence Keys [00:23:43]: Yeah, well, and it’s hard too, because I’m still on Facebook, right, because there’s so much good information about the industry that you can find in some of those author groups. That’s important to know. But yeah, it’s about finding that balance of, okay, what’s informative that I can then take and help build my business? And what’s just going to diminish the respect I have for myself or my success? Because I feel like I’m not a success. Even though publishing is hard, if you’ve published a book, you’re successful because this is a lot of work. Sara Rosett [00:24:15]: Yes, very true. Cadence Keys [00:24:16]: I think that we need to start celebrating those small wins as much as those big ones. Jami Albright [00:24:23]: Very good. Well, this may be the same answer, so if it is, we can move on to the next question, but it might not be.

So what’s the biggest change you’ve had to make in your thinking?

Cadence Keys [00:24:38]: Yeah, the selling Direct has probably been the biggest change in my thinking and how I connect with readers because I found so one, I don’t like social media. Right. But I also don’t feel like it helped me make authentic connections. Probably because I don’t like social media, so it’s not authentic for me. But even my newsletter, I was making some connections and I was getting responses back and people would reply to my emails, but it still felt not as deep as it could go. So that’s been something I’ve been working on is how to deepen those connections. And that takes a bit of a shift of how do we connect with readers in a way that’s real and then selling Direct because you’re in control of literally every step of the buyer process and the buyer journey and it’s completely different than being reliant on retailers. And so that’s been a really big mindset shift for me, especially in the last few months because of switching to shopify and really taking it to the next level. And so yeah, that’s a lot. Sara Rosett [00:25:44]: Let’s talk about of one reason we wanted to have you on is because you’ve used WooCommerce and Payhip and now you moved to shopify. So can you kind of talk us through what mindset changes you had to make to get into this and then how you worked it out in your business? Cadence Keys [00:26:05]: Yeah, so I knew I wanted to sell Direct and I already had a WordPress.org site, so I got WooCommerce because it just made sense at that time. And that was summer of 2022 and I had that for about three months. And for me, WooCommerce was clunky and I hated it for a lot of people. There’s a lot of people who love and rave about WooCommerce. It just was not the right fit for me because I just found it really clunky. I didn’t love my website anyway. There were all kinds of weird settings I couldn’t figure out. And I was having help, like I had help from somebody at Woo and I was still having a ton of issues. And so what prompted me to switch to Payhip was Amazon erroneously shut down my account last December for about a week and that was about 40% of my income. And so I was like, I can’t rely on Amazon, I don’t trust them now anymore. Like that bridge has been burnt. And I wanted to really dive into Direct, but I knew WooCommerce, I wasn’t feeling confident with WooCommerce. I felt like there was too many issues that I’d come up against that I just wanted to try something else and start fresh. So I switched to payhip. And Payhip was great because it makes it really simple. It’s got a really simplistic design. They have crosssells and upgrades kind of built in to their system. So you can set it up under the marketing tab pretty easily. They have some analytics and they’ll sync with Google Analytics so you can analyze kind of who’s coming in and whatnot. But I still was in that retailer mindset and I didn’t even know it because I was running my Facebook ads the way I’d always run them. I just switched from Amazon to my Direct store, but they were still traffic ads and they were still to my free first and series. And I did that for the whole time I was on Payhip, and I would get people downloading and I had my backmatter all formatted so that there would be a discount code to the next book. They’d get cross sell offers to buy the next book if they bought this one at a discount, all those things. And I wasn’t getting a lot of sales on my store. I wasn’t losing sales because the retailers were thriving based on those ads and the sell through. But they weren’t buying from me, which is what I wanted. I wanted them to come buy from me. Cadence Keys [00:28:17]: I wasn’t losing sales because the retailers were thriving based on those ads and the sell through. But they weren’t buying from me, which is what I wanted. I wanted them to come buy from me. Jami Albright [00:28:28]: Yeah. Cadence Keys [00:28:29]: And so I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. We were planning this big move. I was still working at that point. I was part time teaching because last year I went down to part time. And so I was like, okay, I don’t really know what to do. I don’t have a ton of time to figure this out while we’re dealing with this move. So I’m just going to leave it, but make a plan for what I need to do. And then right before Inkers, I was in a Facebook group and they were like, don’t run traffic ads to your Direct store. You’re throwing money down the drain. And I was like, well, I wish somebody would have told me this back in January. And so that was when I learned about sales ads. And of course that was right before Inkers. So literally we’re at the height of our move and so I don’t have any time to do it. So when I got back from Inkers, I was like, I don’t want to start sales ads to Pay hip when I know that I’m planning to move to shopify. So instead I shut everything off, gave myself a brand new baseline and set up my shopify store. And so there was about a two week window where everything was just dead in the water and traffic was just whatever organic traffic I was driving from my newsletter. And then once I started my shopify store, I built a bundle because I’d tried the free thing and I didn’t really like how that worked. So I tried a bundle and started sales ads. And right away gangbusters like I made two times more money in essentially two weeks because it was about mid August by the time I did finally get things going on my shopify store. So at that point, it had. Been a month since I’d had my ads off. And so in those two weeks, I made twice as much money as I made in all seven months on payHip. Jami Albright [00:30:14]: Wow. Cadence Keys [00:30:15]: Yeah. And so that was really eye opener for me. And I was like, okay, all right. Sara Rosett [00:30:22]: This is going to work. Right? Cadence Keys [00:30:24]: So then my goal became because shopify has that deal where it’s three months for a dollar and then you can either do monthly or the yearly, but if you do the yearly, you get $10 off each month. So I was like, okay, my goal now is to make enough in these three months to pay for the yearly. And I did. And so I was really excited about that. And my Direct sales ended up being 40% of my sales last month. Jami Albright [00:30:48]: Nice. Cadence Keys [00:30:49]: And I had my fourth best month of the year. Sara Rosett [00:30:53]: I was just going to say, I think you’re amazing to do something and go, oh, this could be better. And you’re willing to leave something behind to go to something else because a lot of us were so invested in but I’ve already created this, blah, blah, blah. And why would I you may know that it might be better to switch, but it’s hard. So I’m impressed that you’ve done that twice. Cadence Keys [00:31:15]: Yeah, it’s a little scary, but I think a mindset is really important. Right. And it’s like, you don’t know if you don’t try. And I didn’t have much to lose because I wasn’t making much to begin with. On my Direct store. I mean, I was still making sales on the retailers because those ads were still effective. People were still they’d see the ad and they’d go buy on the retailer. But I want people to buy from me. My whole goal right now is I want to focus on my direct sales so much that the retailers don’t matter. That’s all extra the money that I can bring home, the money that I can pay my bills with, I want it to be generated from my store. That’s like my end goal right now. Jami Albright [00:32:00]: Wow. Sara Rosett [00:32:02]: So are you using that bundle? Is that what you’re using to drive traffic? And so you’re just focusing on that? Cadence Keys [00:32:08]: Yeah, and right now, I’m also extra it’s a football bundle and football season, fall in winter because football season and the next book in that series releases around the Super Bowl. So I’m expecting a surge then, too. So I’m releasing that bundle. And that bundle includes the five books that are out on retailers and then a website exclusive novella. And that novella is different than a reader magnet. It’s not a reader magnet. It was part of a charity anthology earlier in the year. And when I got it back, I was like, well, I don’t want to put this on the retailers because I can control on my store where that shows up right. Versus Amazon. It gets buried or gets tied to something, even when you say it’s related, it doesn’t necessarily show up with the yeah, and then I have a graphic on the front of my when you first go to my website because my website and my store are one and the same. And when you first go the front page, there’s a graphic that shows all the books that I have out and how they’re interconnected. Sara Rosett [00:33:08]:

And then do you have follow up sequences with people after they buy?

Do you paste them into your catalog? Cadence Keys [00:33:18]: Yeah. So as soon as they buy the bundle, I have a pop up for my Rock star series, which the first book is the female main character is the sister of the male main character in the second book of my sports series. And so the people have met her before. So there’s some tie in there, and I offer that at a 30% discount. And then I have clavio. I can never pronounce it. But I have those flows set up. I know, right? Clavio. I don’t know. I have several flows set up and then that’s my goal for Q Four is to fine tune those more, add more flows, because I found those to be really great so far. So I want to really invest some time and energy into building those out more so that those can work even harder for me. Yeah, so that’s Klavio, is it? Clavio there you go. Jami Albright [00:34:18]: So tell us about Klavio. Tell us what it does, tell us how you use it. Because I know that that’s something we’ve heard because we’ve had other people on here talking about direct sales, but I want to know how you’re using it. Cadence Keys [00:34:32]: So I’m not an expert by any means. That’s okay. Like I said, it’s my Q Four goal to make it even more fine tuned. So I have a handful of flows set up for post purchase flows and whatnot that have different sequences and welcome emails or hey, if you liked this, buy this, or if you want a discount, there’s a discount set up. And so I want to do though, more. And the whole reason I actually switched to shopify because I think shopify integrates better with things like clavio. Thank you. Jami Albright [00:35:07]: However you say it. I don’t know. I’m saying it like I’m from Texas. Cadence Keys [00:35:11]: Yeah, because like, Payhip, I think that’s where it falters a little bit and can’t quite compete, is because it doesn’t have enough integrations to automate some of that workload. You still have to manually do those follow ups, and I don’t have the time or energy to do those follow ups. I’ve got two little kids. I’m trying to write ahead now, so I have other things I need to do. So what I like about Clavio is that I can set up those automations and then it does that work for me, and it will bring in more sales that way. Jami Albright [00:35:44]: So they’re emails that go out or they? Cadence Keys [00:35:46]: Yeah, it’s essentially like a campaign. Jami Albright [00:35:51]: like an automated campaign. Yeah. Cadence Keys [00:35:52]: So, like, if you buy a product online for something, like, I just bought kitsch shampoo for my hair, and then you start getting those emails generated, that’s essentially what it is. And what’s been interesting, and that’s part of this mindset shift, is that I’ve started watching those emails that come into my Gmail account now, and I’ll be like, okay, what are they doing? I purchased this now. What are they trying to pitch me? How are they doing that? How are they getting me to open these emails? That’s been really interesting. And I try to watch those and how they work and how often they’re sending them out to see how I can incorporate some of those strategies into my own flows. Sara Rosett [00:36:35]: So you have a separate email for your readers. Like, purchasers are different from just newsletter signups, right? Cadence Keys [00:36:42]: Yeah. So I have an e commerce, which is through Clavio, and then I have my mailing list which is through I use email octopus, and I keep them separate because those aren’t buyers necessarily, not of my direct. Um, they are readers who found me somewhere else. They’ve gotten on from around Robin I did, or a bonus epilogue. And so I want to keep them separate. So that one because Clavio is really expensive when you get to the paid plans. And so I want to make sure it’s paying for itself with the people that are on there. And it can’t do that if the people are just there for freebies or whatnot. Sara Rosett [00:37:20]: Yeah, right. So do you move people? Do you send offers to your newsletter list and if they click, do you move them? Or are you just focused on new people? Cadence Keys [00:37:31]: I’m focused on new people right now. And then if I sent them new offers, I would still want them to sign up through the link on my website. Like, when they go to Pay, a pop up will come up for like 10% off. And if they sign up on that, then they’ll get pushed into the ecommerce side. Because right now I’m not sending as many emails and I’m considering it my marketing, right? It’s my ecommerce marketing. I’m not sending as much consistent emails. And that’s one of those areas I need to tighten up and do more of versus I send weekly through my newsletter subscribers, and sometimes that’s just about my writing process or things like that or teaser scenes. And I’m not necessarily going to send that same information to e commerce, but e commerce, like, my new book comes out on my store. It comes out tomorrow. So I might go in today and send out an email of like, hey, there’s a new release from Cadence Keys. Like, you bought this? Have you tried? Um, because one of the characters is related to one of the characters from my La Wolves novella, which is part of the bundle that they bought so I can tie those two together and see if I can get some sales that way. But I’m not going to send that same email to my newsletter list. Right. I keep those separate. Sara Rosett [00:38:43]: Yeah. Very smart. That is smart. So my next question is like,

How do you do all this?

Because you’ve got little kids. Tell us how you write and do all the marketing and the direct sales and stuff because it can be just overwhelming without little kids. Cadence Keys [00:39:01]: Yeah, it’s actually funny. A friend of mine, she asks me all the time, she has one kid and she’s like, how on earth are you doing all of like, I can’t even clean my house. What are you doing? I was like, well, the dishes are the sink is full of dishes. Jami Albright [00:39:15]: You got to let some things go. Cadence Keys [00:39:17]: Yeah. I work a lot during nap time, so my son’s in preschool right now and so he’s there for 4 hours, four days a week. And my daughter tends to nap during a big chunk of that time. So while she’s napping, she’s napping right now. So while she’s napping is when I usually do my writing. And I try to write first because I always want to get my words in first and then I can do all the other stuff later. And then often before we moved and before I was doing this full time, I would do a lot of work at night. I was burning the candle at both ends, pretty much. Jami Albright [00:39:51]: Yeah. Cadence Keys [00:39:51]: I would wake up, get the kids all ready, I’d go to work and come home and then they go to bed and I would write until like 10:00. And I’m not a nighttime writer. My peak time of productivity is like between nine and noon. Jami Albright [00:40:07]: Yeah. Cadence Keys [00:40:07]: And so weekends were always my favorite time. But there was a lot of time I sacrificed with my husband. Well, I mean, he was like all for it. He’s my biggest supporter and that man tells literally everyone he meets, and I do mean everyone, that his wife is a romance writer. He told his doctor and the nurses as they’re putting him out for his colonoscopy and I’m like, what are you doing? I told them all you’re a romance writer and that they should read your book. Sara Rosett [00:40:34]: This is your secret Pen name. That’s not so secret anymore. Cadence Keys [00:40:38]: Well, now it’s not because I quit my job and I’m doing this full time, so I’m a lot more open about my face and who I am and stuff. Sara Rosett [00:40:46]: But it’s funny. Cadence Keys [00:40:47]: So it’s about finding that time. Something that helped a lot was I did the HB 90 Sarah Cannon’s HB 90 system. And I found that setting quarterly goals and being really realistic about what those goals were and what I could feasibly accomplish was the most helpful thing for me because it would help me just ignore all the excess, which is hard to do because I have ADHD too, so I can go off on a tangent in no time. But that helped me really narrow down my focus and what was the priority. And anytime I’d find myself shifting from that, I’d be like, no, this is the goal. This is what we’re focused on right now, and then I can put that next quarter. And I think that’s what’s helped get so much accomplished in just the short. I mean, I’ve only been publishing like, three and a half years or something like that, or three years. Three years. Really? Yeah, I think that’s really what it is. And just being really dedicated and persistent. Jami Albright [00:41:48]: I love that. Well, tell us about Ream.

Why did you decide to use ream?

What are the benefits of ream? Yeah, all the good ream stuff. Cadence Keys [00:41:59]: Because we love so I started Ream this summer. That was part of my Q Three goal, was getting my ream launched. And ream is Michael Evans and Amelia Rose. They put this together. They’re amazing. Michael is probably one of the nicest people I’ve ever interacted with online. He’s in the subscriptions for authors group, and he’s just so positive. Like, talk about a positive person, that’s a positive person. Cadence Keys [00:42:24]: And I loved that. I loved that they felt real about the purpose behind Ream and why they built it. I’d been looking for a different way to connect that wasn’t social media and wasn’t my newsletter. Something where I could put posts and it would be there and different ways to connect with people. And so I decided to launch it. Right after I launched it, they started the follower tier, which is a free tier. And I loved that idea because then I could get people to see what it was like because it’s hard to get people to try a new platform. Jami Albright [00:43:00]: Yeah, it is. Cadence Keys [00:43:02]: Especially because it’s not as popular as Patreon yet, because I think it will be for authors. And so it’s this whole new thing. So what I did was I started a book club where I promised to go through and read and annotate three to five chapters of one of my free books that I have posted that’s available for everybody. It’s one of my free books on the retailers. And we would go through and read that together and they could leave comments or questions, and I would answer it. And so we did that and I sent it out to my newsletter. And it’s not like a ton. I have 19 followers, but I’ve gotten two subscribers, which I’m excited about, one of which just found me. Like, they’re not on my mailing list. Yeah, so it’s just different ways to connect with people. And one of them has been super engaged. And so we’ve been talking a lot through the comments as I go through and annotate and she’ll ask questions or I’ll ask questions and she’ll respond. And so that’s been really great to connect on a deeper level and get to know readers better. I like the platform because I can put posts, I can put polls, I can do different things and they can comment and interact and I’m still learning how to connect with readers in a deeper, more authentic way. Right. And so I think that that’s going to be the best place to do it. Sara Rosett [00:44:37]: So are you annotating the book in ream so it’s like they can read it on ream and then your notes and stuff are in there? Cadence Keys [00:44:46]: So how ream is set up on each paragraph there’s like a little plus sign on the side and if you click on that, you can leave a comment for that section. And so I’ll go through and comment on what I was thinking at this time that I wrote that character, or if it was based on something real or a unique info about the scene, like if a character name got changed or whatever. Right. Or if I didn’t know a character was going to do something and then they ended up being a really important part in the end. I’ll share all those little tidbits with them throughout the story. Sara Rosett [00:45:18]: Right, nice. That’s really yeah, yeah. Cadence Keys [00:45:21]: And three to five is doable for me. Right. Like I can annotate a couple chapters a week no problem and still get all my other work done. Any more than that and it would be kind of challenging. Jami Albright [00:45:33]: Well, I think that’s amazing. And you’re right about Michael, I was just at Ninc, he was there and I’m going to tell you right now, if there had been a Ninc parade, Michael would have been on the float because everyone loved him. They were talking about him in every group I was know, like at lunch or just sitting around talking, everybody was talking about how great Michael was and how smart he was and how young he is and just how brilliant he is. Yeah. So they loved him. Cadence Keys [00:46:05]: He’s fantastic and I love what he’s championing. I can’t even talk today for our community. Like for the Indian world. He’s such a big positive proponent and we need more of that. There’s a lot of drama industry, really. It’s nice to have someone who’s so upbeat and so uplifting and encouraging. Sara Rosett [00:46:32]: I think it’s really great that they’re involved in the community. Like they’re authors themselves. So it gives a totally different perspective than a company that’s just like, hey, this is a need, let’s fill it. If it grows out of an author seeing something that needs to be done and working towards a solution, it resonates more with me as a writer. Cadence Keys [00:46:56]: Yeah, agreed. Jami Albright [00:46:57]: Exactly. Well, this has been so do you have another question about ream? Sara Rosett [00:47:02]: No, I was going to do the what’s the best thing you’ve done to set yourself up? Jami Albright [00:47:06]: I was going to do that one. Too, so you go ahead. Sara Rosett [00:47:08]: Okay, well,

What’s the best thing you’ve done to set yourself up for success.

Cadence Keys [00:47:15]: Investing in editing and covers. Yes. I think that is like the single strongest thing I did from the very beginning because those covers can work wonders, especially if they’re two genre, which can be hard these days because we’ve got all discreet and everything. But those covers sold a lot of books without me having to do a lot of lifting. Jami Albright [00:47:37]: That’s great. Awesome. I love that answer. I love that answer. Well, where can people find out more about you and your books? Cadence Keys [00:47:45]: So, my website is the best place to go, which is CadenceKeysauthors.com and on there they can also find the link to my Rain page if they want to follow me and see what I’m up to. And that’s the best place to get updates. Jami Albright [00:47:59]: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. We’ve loved this. Sara Rosett [00:48:05]: Yeah, it’s been great to talk to you and catch up a little bit. And we’ll have those links in the show notes and those will be at Wish I’d Knownforwriters.com. And if you want to support the podcast, you can go there to that website. Support. And thanks to Alexa Larberg for editing and producing the podcast and to Adriel Wiggins for doing the admin. See everybody next week.

Selling Wide, Selling Direct, and Disengaging from Social Media with Cadence Keys