 Hello and welcome to Mechanics Institute's Writers' Lunch. We hold our Writers' Lunches every third Friday of the month, and we are glad that you are joining us for our August Writers' Lunch on balancing, authorship, and publishing with our two fabulous speakers, Ginny Grossenbacher and Osiris, with our fabulous moderator Cheryl Bise Boutet. My name is Alyssa Stone. I'm the Senior Director of Programs and Community Engagement here at Mechanics Institute, and I'm very happy to welcome you all on this lovely Friday. I hope everyone's doing well from wherever you are joining us from. For those who are less familiar with Mechanics Institute, we were founded in 1854. Mechanics Institute is a historical landmark, cultural center, gorgeous library, world-renowned chess program, and events center. We do anywhere from five to 15 events per week with our writers and reading community, our chess community, Cinema Lit. We have all sorts of fabulous events, both online and on-site at Mechanics Institute, so we hope that you'll check out more programming with us at milibrary.org and we hope to see you again at another Mechanics Institute event. We also offer free tours every Wednesday at noon. If you are new to Mechanics Institute or it's been a while since you've come by, join us on a Wednesday tour. It's a fabulous way of seeing the entire building, all of its fabulous nooks and crannies, and learning about our history and our contemporary offerings. Of course, please mark your calendars for the Writers' Lunch next month on Friday, September 15th for the topic, The Art of the Anthology, moderated by Cheryl B. Zé Boute. This session will feature EA Provost from New Alexandria Creative Group, Jennifer Bacier-Sander from Big City Books Group, and Sarah Beale from Colossus Press, and I will add that link to the chat shortly as well, so you can all get yourself registered for the next Writers' Lunch that we offer. I am pleased to do some brief introductions for our featured guests today. We have, of course, the Woman of the Hour, our award-winning author and push cart nominee, Cheryl J. Boute, who is an Oakland multidisciplinary writer, whose autobiographical and fictional short story collections, along with her lyrical and stunning poetry, artfully succeed in getting across deeper meanings about the politics of race and economics, without breaking out of the narrative. An inaugural Oakland Poet Laureate runner-up, she is also a popular teacher, literary reader, presenter, storyteller, curator, and emcee host for literary and poetry events. We are always pleased to have Cheryl as our moderator for the Writers' Lunch. We have our two guests today, Ginny Grossenbacher, Masters of Education, novelist, poet, certified editor, educator, and publisher, who founded Elk Grove Writers and Artists in 2012, and J. G. K. S. Press in 2017. Ginny brings 36 years of experience teaching English language, arts to adolescents and adults, and Ginny is an award-winning indie poet, historical novelist, and forensic historian, and a certified copy editor. She is an experienced conference presenter and a favorite speaker at book clubs, fairs, and festivals. And we have award-winning author, Osiris, who has written and published books such as his award-winning poetry book, Sacred, and his children's book, Goodbye, John, via his imprint, Osiris, Inc. Publishing. Osiris is a storyteller who primarily focuses his books on poetry and children's stories. However, he has written a romantic novel, graphic novel, and a psychological thriller to be published in the future. We are very grateful to have Ginny and Osiris joining our conversation with Cheryl today, and with that, I will pass it to Cheryl. Welcome, everyone. Thank you, Alyssa, so much, and thank you, McCavings Institute. And also thank you, Ginny and Osiris, for being with us today. I hope to have a really wonderful, in-depth, and informative conversation with you both. As you know, it's often very difficult for writers to get published by large mainstream publishers. And as one of those writers, who's an indie writer, self-published, I am very, very thankful for the small independent presses like yours and for the work you do as writers in the community and publishers to support authors like me. And I guess my first question for you is if I were envisioning going out on that limb of the publishing limb and not just the writing limb, which came first for you, writing or publishing? And then how did you put them together? Osiris, can you take that on first? Osiris? There we go. Am I good? Yeah, you're good. Okay, I'm talking to myself over here. Oh, I'm having a good conversation, huh? Yes, ma'am, yep. So I started off with writing first. The idea of publishing a book, are you talking about just publishing a book or becoming a publisher itself? I'm talking about how did you put together writing and being an author and then being a publisher? How did you meld them together and which came first for you? Oh, okay, thank you for clarifying that. Yes, so I did writing first. Decided to just, you know, create some stories. I don't have multiple ideas of wanting to do some sort of poetry since I've been writing for many years prior to that. The idea to even do it as a publisher didn't really resonate until I was doing a lot of research on if I wanted to go on a traditional publishing route or the self-publishing route. In that research, I was learning that there's not really a big difference in terms of being the author and being the marketer for it. I had learned that even if you're a traditional publisher, even if you're a traditionally published author, you're still responsible for a lot of the marketing aspects. You might have a marketing team with a traditional publishing, but it's still you as the author that's going out. So I guess I intertwined both me doing the writing and just doing some research on, hey, what can I actually, how can I blend the two together? And I suppose that's how I did it. Wow, that's really interesting. How about you, Jenny? Well, I've always written, right? Probably just like Osiris. I mean, when I was a little girl, I used to write up little scripts for us to dress up in my sister's big sister's clothes and clump around in their high heels and all the kids in the neighborhood would come over for the plays. And I always wrote little stories, poems and all that. And I was an English major. And so, it was always in my bones to write. And so as an English teacher, I wrote with my students, then I got an agent when I retired from teaching and I decided I wanted to go traditional. Well, we were read by 10 publishing houses. This was my first novel. And each one said, well, you're more of a mid-list author and we're only publishing really sort of what's cutting edge right now and you are going to be competing against. And then they gave me all the big names and they said, you're not quite at that place. And my agent suggested to me after a year of trying to get published that I might consider founding my own press. And he gave me some counsel on that and then he gave me a bunch of websites to look up. And this was in 2017. So writing clubs were still at that place where traditional publishing was cachet. Self-publishing was still a little bit tainted by vanity presses. And, but I had enough encouragement from people who had done the step before and they kind of guided me. And so I published Madam of My Heart, my first one and found it to be really interesting, an interesting journey. I had to get out there. I know Osiris gets out there too because that's where we met was the Berkeley Book Fest. But that whole idea of meeting your readers, meeting the public, talking to people about your books. And I find that to be very satisfying. It's scary at times. You're on the edge of your seat wondering when's the next marketing opportunity coming along? But things have opened up now and the taint is off the whole idea of self-publishing now. And founding your own press and working with other authors, it's really joyful. So Jen, just as a follow-on and I'll ask you this also Osiris, how important or what is the difference between self-publishing and having an imprint as a writer? You hear those terms all the time. So, what's the difference? Well, when I examined the difference for myself, I had to have in mind my future. What was it that I wanted? And I wanted to found an imprint so that I could publish other people as well. And I was in a place, which I'm sure Osiris is too, where we have a community, that we work with, whether or not it's colleagues that we write with, we have some kind of writing community that is around us. And so many of them wanted help editing, they wanted help critiquing, they wanted help publishing. And so I said, well, gee, if I found a small boutique press, then maybe I can publish their work as well and help them on their journey. So I sort of expanded my vision from just myself to then being able to help my writing community, which is what I did. And Osiris, what's the difference between self-publishing with your name on the book that you're writing and an imprint? For me, it's actually pretty similar as well to Jenny's, but for my reason, I wanted to have ownership entirely of my work. From the copyright to the trademark of my logo and to being able to go out and do things without the worry of them, like bookstore owners or store managers asking, hey, well, we actually got to run this through the publishing company in order to get permission to put this particular book into our bookstore. Well, I'm actually the person in charge of it is my imprint and being able to have the freedom to do things like that as well. And also giving other people opportunities like my sister-in-law who had always wanted to be a writer, her name is Erica Reyes, she had always wanted to be a writer, but never really had the means to go about trying to publish a book. And so I told her, hey, I can help you. I can get, and I'm not gonna ask for any money or anything like that. I'll help you the entire process and just being able to provide a platform for others to share their story. And like you had mentioned, like no poetry, no peace writing, poetry, there's power behind it. And she had a story that she wanted to tell, and I'm not sure if she would have gotten that same opportunity, has she gone the self-publishing route without actually having knowledge of how to market it, having knowledge on how to promote herself or even having knowledge on how to write and where to go. And so for me, just having my own imprint gets the biggest difference is if it's just me, Osiris, as the author, it doesn't really differentiate me from anybody else. That's also an author. And not to discredit that because I think that's awesome as well. I kind of look at Tyler Perry as a source of motivation of he said to build your own table. And so that's what I did as well. Built my own imprint, aka my own tape, my own table and put all my things in it and helping out others as well. Oh, it's wonderful information, both of you. Thank you. You're both prolific authors as well. So, and Osiris, I'll ask you first. What techniques do you use or employ to achieve balance between your writing life and your publishing life? Oh, man. It's actually really tricky because I also have to incorporate my military lifestyle into it as well. Right, right. And then my children. And your daddy, in your daddy lifestyle. Yes, daddy lifestyle, hubby lifestyle. So a lot of the times I do my writing in the morning, like roughly between like 3 to 3.30 up until about 6.30 to 7 o'clock and I'll get my exercise things going. But in between that window is where I'm focusing primarily on my writing. And it took a lot of time to even get that discipline down and the routine to follow. And then later in the day, like during the day is where I try to focus on, of course I'm trying to balance the military now with the publishing side where the marketing and where we go from there. But most of the time the marketing is after work, after my workday. So let's say like five o'clock, maybe until around eight is where I'm trying to like sneak in a little bit of publishing or things in that regards where I can focus more as a publisher than a writer. The idea of writing and editing and any of that stuff for my particular work I have to shove it to the side. I always heard just one of these publishers on one of these authors I had met. She had mentioned that writing or the book industry is pretty much 50% writing and 50% everything else as a marketer. Right, exactly. And Jenny, how about you? What techniques do you use to achieve balance? I mean, you have so many books out there, so many wonderful books. Well, what I found over the years and I think it's a matter of developing, right? Because life presents challenges to us and we're not the same people we were three years ago. I mean, pandemic proves that. So I think what the deal is for me to achieve balance is I have to be disciplined. And if I do not write my own work in the morning as Osiris does, I don't feel good the rest of the day. It doesn't matter how many people I've helped publish or how many classes I've taught, it's all about my writing. I had to realize that after going through a burnout and a depression that if I don't feed my soul, nothing else will matter. And I also have a husband who has health issues. I have a brand new puppy because I lost my Murphy who was my riding dog. And so now we have a brand new puppy chewing up my house. And of course I have three grandchildren and one on the way. And so I have to be disciplined. And what I found is, and I know I'm pitching this, okay, for him, but Cal Newport has this organizer out that it's called the Time Block Planner. And I just, you know, everybody finds what they want to help them, but this is just great because it's bigger than my calendar and it gives you room for tasks and ideas and room to jot down whatever it is you're having to work on. And I found that it's much better than these lists that I was keeping, which go on for pages, right? And then by the time I finished, they're all mixed up. Like I might have called Cheryl in the first segment and then, but then there's something having to do with Cheryl like 12 things down. And I thought, I can't be doing this listing thing, it's just not working. So the Time Block Planner is helpful because if you have these projects, like let's say I'm working on a poetry book for someone or I'm working on producing a novel for someone and all those related tasks, I can keep them in one time block. And then I can just move that over to whatever date I'm working on it. And you need an organizer like that because otherwise, well, I don't even wanna show you my desk, everybody, but my desk is a mess and I have to have someplace I can go that is not my desk. Understood. So what have been some of the pitfalls that you have encountered in doing the publishing and the writing? I don't know who you wanna open up to that. Like, I suppose I'll, I can go first. I know Jenny has far more experience. So she, I'm interested in hearing her story as well. For me, the pitfall, a lot of the pitfalls just came from pure exhaustion with everything, trying to find a balance with so much. Like I have to get up so early in order to even, in order to feed my spirit with things that I wanna do. It's the only time where I have peace and quiet is in the morning. And that can be exhausting because a lot of times my children and in work and in the hustle of the military's lifestyle will keep you drained. I work in a mental health clinic and I do substance abuse counseling. So a lot of that, it's draining, it's emotionally draining and then trying to come home and then take care of your family, which is also us fulfilling. But the pitfalls for me is just, I think it came from one, exhaustion, two, not seeing things materialize like you would hope you wait weeks, sometimes months and sometimes even some years before you even see any sort of results and it can be really debilitating. You can lose a lot of motivation. I'm intrinsically motivated, but even then, I oftentimes will question, is this even going to be something that people will gravitate to? Is what I'm trying to put out this message of what I'm trying to put out to the world, will it even materialize it? Then when I have it out, will there be people that comes and then there's that whole other aspect of trying to advertise and continuously market yourself and when it begins to begin, it can be so much like, I remember when I actually met both yourself and Jenny and we were at Berkeley in that Bay Area Book Festival and I remember I didn't even get to stay the whole time because I had to go back home and take care of my children. I think one of them was sick at the time and then I had to get prepared for work the following day. So I would say my pitfalls just come from exhaustion of trying to really try to find balance between writing, husband, father, military, which is like this and then myself. So what would you say has been your greatest reward? Oh, as an author or just in general? Just as an author and a publisher. What would you put at the top of the list as your greatest reward? People actually, I say one of them is Barnes and Noble. Being able to get my book and to like get it myself, I always heard that was one of the hardest things to do with traditional publishers. I had to actually reach out and see and they were going to traditionally publisher or they needed traditional publishers to get their books into their bookstores. So that was one of the biggest rewards was being able to get myself and all my hard work and sleep was nice and research of trying to fight to get my stuff into that bookstore just so I know the message can spread across the world a lot more, that was one of the biggest rewards I would say that I have as an author. I wanna come back to that story, by the way. But let me get Jenny in here and then I wanna come back to that. I want you to tell that story briefly of how you got into Barnes and Noble because I see there's a question that has popped up that people, someone wants to know a little bit more about the business aspects. And I think that story gets a little bit more into that particular question. So Jenny, what have been some of your pitfalls and your most wonderful reward? So the positives of course are being able to to take someone who has never been published and put them into print. And I'm also a copy editor. So, and I got my copy editing certificate from UC San Diego. And I found that that was very important because copy editing isn't just about grammar correction. It's a lot about style and it's a lot about helping an author provide you with a manuscript and then helping them prepare it so that the general public as Cyrus is saying in Barnes and Noble will pick our books up and not compare it to a traditionally published book to have a book with our imprint and all of the contents that mimic, if you will, a traditionally published book. And that is definitely possible through us. And that's what we aim to guarantee. So I think that is my greatest reward is having achieved this for people. But the pitfalls for me always lie in getting information out, in advertising. That seems to be not just the hardest thing for me but also the lowest priority. And it actually is the most important thing is to keep your message going, not only about yourself as the author but also about your publishing. And so what's happened for me is the writing community that I'm involved with, the people that I teach through my writers and artists classes, they have become the community that essentially provide me with the task of publication. So that, because I'm not sure even at this time, if I could handle more than three contracts a year, you know, either for copy editing or for publication because there's a lot of work involved. And I'm a boutique press, meaning I want my standards to be extremely high and I want the things that we all want, that our books look so professional. Yeah, very, very true. That professionalism is important. And that kind of segues right into the story I want Osiris to tell. If you could tell us briefly Osiris, you know, we're talking about the marketing and the business of doing all of this. A piece of, the biggest piece of the business, as you're saying, Jenny, is making sure that people know what you're doing and that your work is out there to be seen. And one of the places that it's seen, of course, is still in the bookstores. So Osiris, how did you get your book into Barnes and Noble? Oh man, so this one, this was hard. This was, I mean, like nothing comes easy. And I think the easier it is, the more, I guess, the less attracted I am to it. I like difficulties, but with Barnes and Noble, I had to, one, have all the materials you need that traditionally published book has. That includes the barcode on the back, the ISBN, that includes the copyright page, that includes making sure the format was correctly. The only thing I did differently with my book was in my poetry book, Sacred, I don't have it page numbered. And that was actually done intentionally. My idea behind it was I didn't want it to be, anyone's ripping through, reading through, and say, hey, I'm on page 20. How many more pages do I have left into page 40? Or anything like that. I just wanted it to be kind of like a picture book where you open it, you read it, and you can close it, bookmark it, and boom. But I had to go one, find a store, find the Barnes and Noble that I was interested in, which was the one in Roseville, California. That's the one that's closest to where I live at. So I reached out to Roseville via phone, talked to them over the phone. They said, hey, they gave me an email and they say just talk to the store manager through the email, see what you want to do. So I sent the email to that store manager like roughly in January or February. Didn't hear anything back. Then I was such a frequent shopper there that when I went there, I just said, hey, I'm going to go look for this person. People are more prone to actually like give you a response face to face. And I'm a really friendly person. And so I just walked in, I was asking, hey, can we seek to the store manager? Want to talk to he or she about potentially getting my book into your bookstore. So they went and got the store manager. I spoke with her. She said, hey, right now we aren't accepting. Right now we aren't accepting any sort of books. So reach back to the window. They said, right now we're not accepting any sort of authors in their books. So please reach out to us in March time frame. So they were going through a different phase. I think the way that they were getting books in from independently published companies and on indie authors, it ceased at least nationwide. And so in March, I came there in March, talked to them again. They asked for my ISBN. They asked for the book. They needed at least three copies of the book because I think they wanted to review it. Then they needed the ISBN and that whole package. So I know it's kind of a little bit long-winded, but I guess to kind of shorten the story, I had to pretty much sell myself and tell them this. And I came there with everything. So like the book, so this right here for those who are watching this bar code so on this website called balker.com is where most publishing companies, they go through and they purchase ISBNs there in bulk and they also purchase bar codes. It's important to have your own bar code, especially if you're independently published or at least self-published because you can just bring it to the bookstore because they need something to scan it in and you need to have your own ISBN that's recognized across the country. Otherwise many people go through like Amazon and they go through different things and it gives you their own ISBN and it's multiple attached. So yeah, so after that conversation with them, they gave me a shot and it worked out. It worked being long-winded. It sure did. Yeah, so now I'm in three bars of Nobles as of yesterday. Oh, that is so cool, congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Jenny, do you have a business-related story? Anything to add? Well, you know, I, let's see, business-related story. Anything to add? Oh, okay. Well, what I like to do is I like to stack my work so that, you know, I'm already through the end of 2024. With my calendaring because I've had people approach me to publish or to copy edit. And so I, I mean, you know how people will just come up to you. Oh, you know, would you publish my flash fiction collection and you're like, oh, sure, because, you know, you love this person. Well, you can't really do that. I mean, you can't just promise your friends the world because the calendar rules. So, so I have learned that I have to segment out. I have just as, as regular editors do, you have to have a queue and people have to make a deposit for whatever work that they want you to do, whether it is copy editing or if they want you to publish the book. And it takes time. You also have to remind the authors that this is not an overnight thing because some authors, they're not, they just wanna flip the switch and they're gonna be on Amazon and forget it. So I, you know, I always remind them if you want the quality and you want to have a copy editing done and you wanna have this really beautiful book to present then it is going to take more time. So there's a whole conversation that has to take place between the publisher and the author. That's really important also to tell people that the average self-published author in America sells a hundred books or fewer. And that's a cruel reality but there are so many books published every year. I don't even know what the number is anymore. I used to know it used to be 500,000 but I, you know, I would have to check to see how many books are published on Amazon every year but it's something like that. And so, you know, who are you or me in comparison to all these fish in the sea? So you have to really have that quality book ready. So that's the other thing publishing related that I wanted to add. Also in terms of Barnes and Noble and so forth, now if you publish on IngramSpark they will IngramSpark as well as Amazon, you will be able to cover your regular bookstores like Barnes and Noble and also your small independent bookstores. And they will be able to order from the Ingram catalog. So that is something also to know. And I agree with Osiris that you go into the ocean of Barnes and Noble and ask for them to carry your book. I've done that myself and it is, you know, let's put it this way. I had to have my big girl boots on, you know, because you have to really show them the quality of what it is you do. Yeah, so true, so true. So, Alyssa, do we have any questions in the chat? I see a couple that popped up. We are popping off in the chat. We have lots of juicy questions today for this fabulous conversation. I've used the word fabulous too many times. I have to stop, but it's a great combo and a really interesting topic. And so we have a lot of participants with questions. Some that the topics have been touched on a little bit but I'll just go in order that they've arrived and we can cover as much as possible. Our first question in the chat comes from Bettina. How far away do Ginny and Osiris travel to promote their books? Do they only go to local events such as the Berkeley Book Festival? So whichever one of you would like to do that one first? Farthest I've gone, oops. The farthest I've gone is Colorado. I went to the Historical Novel Society Conference and had my books at a table there and I was on a panel. I have also gone to Texas and Santa Fe. But I think it's not even a matter of how far you go but what it is you want to achieve. For example, I love the Bay Area audiences because for historical fiction, they tend to love the history and I do write about San Francisco. So I have a purpose in doing Bay Area events because I know that so many of the readers are familiar with the places I write about in the history. So I think you kind of have to decide where it is you want to be. My friend, Nara Gard, who is a well-known author and has won many awards, she has a connection with Chicago because that is where she grew up, went to college and her books take place in Chicago, you see? So I think it's determining where your audience is. And Osiris, how far have you gone? Physically, it was actually it was Berkeley where I met you both. I did do like a virtual event that went, that was based out of New York. It was poetry based, but yeah, actually physically going and promoting, I mean, I did promote it there too, but physically going and promoting it with people it was Berkeley, which for me is about three hours from where I live at right now. Yeah. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. I had a good time. I can't remember if it was how many hours it was. Cause again, like I mentioned early, I didn't get to stay for the entire thing, but yes. And it was worth it too. Oh, yes it was. Yes it was. Did we have any more questions to listen in the chat? Lots of questions. Okay. This was touched on a smidge, but maybe it could be expanded upon. Our question comes from Gabrielle. I would like to know more on the business of publishing and marketing. Can the author speak on how to do this side of the equation? As writers, we all know how to write. It's the other part we need help from experienced people. Yeah, okay. So for me, that actually was another piece that I had struggled with for a long time and I'm just now getting better at it. But for me, I'd say one, you gotta know your audience. I once heard a phrase that if you're doing it for, if you're doing it for everyone, you're really doing it for no one. So you gotta be specific as to who you're targeting. So like for my children's book, we just wait, never say my poetry books. There's an audience and what age range. So for me, I knew that this particular children's book was from zero to eight. Okay, cool. So this demographic is I can hit children that's in school. Well, sorry. Let me rephrase that, not hit children, but I can like speak with children that is in an elementary school. That's my demographic right there for that book. Okay. Now I know who to market to. Now I know how do I need to make the promotional work. Okay, cool. This is gonna come maybe using big bold letters, colorful letters, things that grabs children's attention. For poetry, what type of poetry am I doing? My stuff really focuses more on motivation and also mental health issues. Okay, so now we gotta get out of window of what age range really does this applicable to? And then you just kind of go from there. And then also knowing where you wanna go. Do you excel better with social media promotions? Do you do better with actually face-to-face promotions? Kind of like going out to festivals and having those marketing opportunities. And do you have business partners or do you know people in the business who may know other people that, hey, do you mind helping me out? I can help you out vice versa. So I don't know if that necessarily answers the question, but it's really what matters most is one, knowing your audience. Two, knowing where the audience actually lies at. So I would say, I would encourage people to do, maybe go to YouTube, look on social media and then see what those authors are doing and see how they're doing it. And then maybe emulate what they're doing until you find your own style and then kind of just grow from there. That's what I did. Good advice. How about you, Jenny? Well, I like Facebook. To me, and I think that's the one thing, you have to find what fits your personality. I'm just not a Twitter girl. I've tried Twitter, I've tried Twitter ads. And I like interaction. I like a little more comments. I like to carry on just like today. I like a conversation. So Facebook fits me and I really like Facebook groups. And I have found, for example, the Tattered Pages author group. And on Wednesdays, they do allow you to post something about yourself, something about your writing. And that's not the only Facebook group. I mean, you could look up historical fiction group, whatever your genre is in particular. For, and Cyrus has touched on this with, whether you're writing children's books or whether you're writing literary fiction, you have to know where your readers are and also where the writers are. So I really try to narrow that down with Facebook groups. And I just did a lot of experimental searches until I could find these groups and then abide by their rules, join them and make myself a positive member. So you do that by not abandoning these people. You have to be there a lot. And for example, Tattered Pages runs these special events where you actually can make up fun advertisements for your work or for the work of whoever you're publishing, if you're a publisher. And that garners attention. You can actually offer freebies and run little contests. If somebody asks so many questions in the comment, then they get a free book. And of course, so many of them, you can run these specials so that it also garners readership. And then these people will friend you and so forth. And the same people are on Instagram. And I now have heard that, and I'm woefully behind on this, but I know Facebook is now also running a form of Twitter so that it could carry over to that. But everybody has their different ways. Some people love YouTube. I have a group, I mean, I have a writing group member who absolutely loves YouTube and she has all sorts of videos on YouTube. So it sort of depends on, as Osiris was saying, it depends on your audience and it depends on your purpose. And then it also depends on the subject matter you're covering in your book. And whether or not your voice finds an affinity out there with other groups of people. And you have to be really razor sharp focused on that affinity because you can waste a lot of time trying to market to places that will never have an interest in what you're saying. And everyone has something interesting to say. Just find the, just you need to work to find the places where it resonates more on the chat, Alyssa. Absolutely. And just because of time and there's so many juicy questions I'm going to be a little judicious and try to combine a couple of topics if that's okay. Sure. A little bit of a combo question from our participants, Laurel and Jen about how to anticipate your work both as a writer, as an author and a publisher and what are you asking aspiring authors in order to ascertain at what point their manuscript is at? So I thought that might be an interesting combo. Oh, wow. That's a good one. Okay. So how to anticipate? Are they asking like how to anticipate if it's going to be good or anticipating like when it's going to release? Not exactly sure the intention. The original question was, this is fabulous. So also using that word of the day. Thank you. Can you share how you anticipate your work as an author and publisher will be affected by the upcoming AI effects? And then, Ginny, what do you ask aspiring authors in order to ascertain at what point their manuscript is at? I ask you as a copy editor what does that line of questioning look like? So, okay. So I'll take that one, Osiris, and then maybe you can handle the other part. Okay. As a copy editor, I need to have a manuscript to look at that is as good as the author can make it. That is professionally done. That is formatted in 12 font times, New Roman, 0.5 margins on all sides is paginated, and is the author's best work up to that point. So that work should have gone through a critique group, have gone through at least a first and second draft if we're lucky. And, you know, have really been vetted before hitting the eyes of a copy editor, because the copy editor will take the first 30 pages and will make a decision as to whether or not they accept the work based on that first 30 pages. And the copy editor, very much like an acquisitions editor at a publishing house, makes a decision as to whether or not they'll accept the work based on that. So a lot of people are not aware of that, and they just think, oh, I'll just submit this to a copy editor, they'll take it and whatever, it's not that way. Copy editors have been, generally, especially the quality copy editor has had a lot of training and has been trained to do this work, this very close work. And, you know, in order to get that, you're gonna have to, not you, but, you know, the aspiring author needs to be aware that it has to be a pretty tight manuscript. That's really good. Okay, thank you for having on that part. The first answer and the first half of the question as far as like how to anticipate, unlike I guess the future of this AI, I'd say that I guess the biggest challenge that might come with the world of AI is the production rate for which the books would be produced. So like, I don't know, I've never actually used one of those AI programs before, but from what I've heard, you can spit in some sort of a subject matter in a specific program that's AI-based and it can just generate whatever you need it to generate. And I don't think there's purity in that in comparison to the actual human behind the work. Now, maybe the person who's, I guess where the AI work is going into, maybe there could be some apprehension as to how can I compete with an AI, but the AI can't go out there and promote itself. The AI can't go out there and touch people and it can't meet readers. The AI can't do that stuff. Yeah, it can produce the work, but AI's voices may or may not sound a little similar as long as you as the author know that you can produce, you have your own voice, your own unique voice and you also get out there, put a face to the name, get behind the camera, get out there and be in person. That is what would separate you as the author from the AI. So I guess in short, anticipating AI's work, just know it's coming, but just know it can't compete with actual people and the author behind the work. Hope that answers that. And I would echo that. I think that we know it's coming, it's gonna be used for a lot of different reasons, purposes. Some people use it as a tool, some people use it as a substitute, but as Osiris has just said, it can never substitute for the human purpose, the human person, the voice inside the soul and it will never have your individual voice, which is what you as a writer bring to the art. I would also like to say about AI that, that AI has a recognizable, it's interesting, it's a recognizable lack of tone. So for example, because I have experimented with it, I mean, I have to, I'm a copy editor, I have to know what's going on in the world of editing and publishing and I have to know what's happening with AI. So I've been really experimenting. And let's say you put in to AI, write a scene between John and Mary as they discuss the renovation of their garage. What's going to happen is it's going to spin out something that at face value looks pretty good, but when you break it down, as Osiris was pointing out, it doesn't have voice, it doesn't have a tone, it doesn't really have a purpose. And in essence, it doesn't have a spirit. And so the only reason to look at that would be if, for example, you need ideas. You know, I want to write a scene and I wonder what another person might come up with in terms of this. And then perhaps think, I wonder if that's really how it would be in their dialogue and conversation setting or would I like to do it slightly differently? But there is a danger in copy pasting AI and putting it into your novel in progress because several contests that I have just scanned different book contests are now stating you are immediately disqualified if it is found you used AI in preparation or in the writing of this manuscript. And so you will, I mean, and they will find you because it's not that difficult to do a search even using AI. That's exactly right. Was this paragraph done using AI? Oh, yes. That the voice of the spirit are missing. That you are, that's the correct. Do we have time for one more question, Alyssa? Yeah, I was hoping to just do one more. We've gotten a couple of questions or inquiries about social media. How much social media you're utilizing, what's necessary, when do you know it's enough that it's working? How are you balancing how much promotion you're doing with your publishing and your authorship? And maybe that will be our last audience Q&A and then we can begin to wind down. Okay, so for me, this question won't necessarily pertain to me as I don't use social media other than my own website, which I don't know if we're allowed to make mentions of like our websites or the team like that on here. Will I be able to share a link actually so people can go there? Put it in the chat, put it in the chat. Okay, I'll put my stuff in the chat. So I mean, I guess that's a form of social media. Maybe Jenny will probably have more experience with more experience with this. But we can also add, we'll add your websites back in the chat. We did it towards the beginning, but we will definitely do it again before we're finished. So you can focus and we'll pop things in the chat. Thank you so much. It's gonna be a little newsletter thing that pops up there. Feel free to subscribe, put your email there, and then I can always talk to you all separate. But as far as I go, different authors who I've met that actually use social media, they said that it helps them keep a real close connection with their reader. The one thing I will recommend is if you are going to do social media, accompany that with an actual website that you own the domain to. Because if anything happens to those social media platforms, and it can happen, they can snatch away or they can do something can go wrong. And then all of a sudden, the audience that you have with your social media will go and go bye-bye. And if you don't have your own website where you can actually direct your readers to, there's no way that they can keep up with you. You'll end up just falling off into the abyss, if you will. So I would say that social media has been helpful for people who also have a website. And I will say, just whatever website you feel is good or whatever social media platform. For me, I'm actually starting to do it with YouTube. I used to do YouTube a year ago. And it's kind of like what Jay said, that interaction, I like to be able to talk and I feel like people can see me. Go with where you know it can be effective. I know TikTok is a pretty big thing right now too. But go with where you're comfortable and where you feel is the most effective. But again, I can't necessarily speak from actual experience with social media. I can't speak, however, from having my own website and telling, and I can tell you that having your own website, having a dedicated email list that people go to your website and sign up for. And you keep in contact with them. I generally try to send out weekly to bi-weekly emails just to keep people abreast of what's going on and let them know this is what's coming, this is what I've got work going on. This is my family. And these are the different things that's happening. So yeah, I'll say that. Just if you have social media, accompany that with a website. Great. I like that. Yeah. I also really would echo how do you know it's working is when you see the bumps in your sales. Amazon provides you with that information readily. So once your book is up on Amazon, you're going to see immediately. So let's say you do a Facebook advertisement or Amazon also has opportunities for you to run specials on your book with various price points. In addition, you can do Amazon ads. And Amazon is very helpful with telling you how to do that. And so in addition to those, because you're going to see bumps in your sales, depending on the effort that you do online with your marketing. And also I would echo Osiris. The email list is absolutely crucial. And so I use MailChimp because it allows you to have 500 email followers. But you might want to check because they're very competitive. Actually, had I known this, I would have started my email newsletter before I ever published. Yeah. I really would have. Yeah. I would have started garnering followers, just sending it out to friends and saying, please share this newsletter with, and just tell them about your journey as an aspiring author. And that way, when you first publish your book, your platform is already laid and people will already know you. That's the most important thing. I would also suggest that when you do your website and you do your lists and your YouTube and whatever, make sure that you link every link to the link, to the link, to the link. Link it all up so that you have a flow that no matter where people go, they can connect to another link that shows another aspect of you and your work. I wanted to add to that too, Cheryl, is there's this website called books2read.com. On there, you can actually put, you go straight to that website, you can have all the links pretty much compiled into one. It'll be separate by per icon as well. So that's also an option. The other thing I wanted to say as well is if you are gonna just do your, I know we're pretty short, so I'm sorry, I wanted to say it real quick. If you are pretty short on time with, not short on time, if you are looking to do your own email list, I would say try not, I wouldn't get in the rhythm of sending out every week if you don't necessarily have something to say. It can also become spam in a sense. And so this is just in my opinion that if you are gonna say, I would say at least bi-weekly and at least have some sort of content to produce and make sure that the people that's like reading your material, you kind of give them some sort of incentive with it, like, hey, if you sign up for my thing, I'll give you all free copies. Maybe you can all review my book, which also, once your book is published, you wanna continuously promote that. I saw Stephen King, not in person, recently, he still promotes his book carry. He still promotes a lot of his old books. That's right. So you always wanna continuously promote your books every step of the way. And you also, the lifeline of your books will be the reviews. And I'm not saying Barnes & Noble's website will be the spot. Many people buy their books from Barnes & Noble, a great deal of others. A lot of them buy them from Amazon. You might hear a lot of authors say, hey, can I get a review from you on my Amazon account? Meanwhile, you look on Barnes & Noble's website and you don't have any reviews. But in person, your books are actually selling well there. So I would say just keep promoting yourself at all times and sell yourself and take a chance on yourself. And then that's all I got. Oh, thank you so much. So any closing thoughts from either of you? I just wanna say, give my thanks to Alyssa, to Niko for helping make this possible to the Mechanics Institute, who are so important in such a long history in San Francisco, to Osiris for all of his wisdom. And I wanna thank Cheryl B. Sputay, my good associate friend and fellow author for such a warm environment. And thanks to all of you who came in and provided those wonderful questions today. And thank you. Yes, and yes, Deep, I wanna just, I also wanna echo that it was great meeting you both, Jenny and Cheryl, back in Berkeley. Hopefully we can do more things together. Thank you as well, Alyssa, for just contacting us and getting this whole thing put together. And those who are attending in the chat, thank you all as well. Me, I'm really grateful to be able to have platforms to just talk to people and spread the word. The reason why I write, the reason why I like to do poetry is I feel like I have a message to say. A lot of things that I talk about is on the verge of mental health issues. In fact, I have another book coming out next month called Dear Sick Mental Virus. And I'll make sure I let everybody know it's a poetry book. And that was specifically about emotional abuse, domestic violence and that whole shebang. And in my children's books, I wanna just tell stories that help children get lost in the world and just have a good time in it. So I just love the space of being around other authors and other people in this medium. And then we always unite. I've never ever since any ill will always feel like it's supportive. And I would say if anybody has a dream, keep pushing. Don't quit and really take a chance on yourself. If you wanna go to those big bookstores, you go up to them in person and tell them why they should have you and don't have them doubt you at all. And yeah. Thank you both, Jenny and Osiris, for all you do for the writer and the reader. You got it covered. Thank you so much. And thank you, Alyssa. Did the best wrap up we possibly could have imagined. So with that, we'll say a big thank you to Cheryl, our amazing moderator who month after month curates these beautiful conversations with writers from across the community and our two featured guests today, Osiris and Jenny Grossenbacher for joining us. Thank you so much. We hope to see you again at a Mechanics Institute event, either online or in person. Please check out miLibrary.org for more information. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Keep pushing, keep hustling, keep writing and keep connecting with one another. That's what community is all about. Thank you and have a great day. Thank you. Night. Thank you everyone. Thank you all. Bye. Bye Osiris.