Interview: Tracy Buchanan from Savvy Writers
Hi Tracy! Thanks for agreeing to be featured on my blog. So, first of all, can you tell me a little bit about you and your books?
Hey! I’m the author of six books (soon to be seven), ranging from dark women’s fiction to psychological suspense. I’ve been writing full-time for over three years now (wow, has it really been that long?!) after a career in PR, social media and journalism.
You set up the Savvy Writers’ Snug group on Facebook – how did this come about, and can you explain a bit more about what it is and who it’s for?
During chats with my fellow published authors, I noticed a lot of us felt a bit adrift, like there wasn’t really anywhere online we could feel comfortable enough to talk about the real and specific challenges we faced. Sure, there are plenty of writer groups and events, but these are often dominated by aspiring or indie authors.
So I decided to set up a group just for traditionally published authors, presuming it would be a niche small group with about 50 members. But within a few weeks, hundreds of authors had joined and it’s just gone from strength-to-strength.
What do you find are the biggest issues that traditionally published authors face? Do you have any tips or tricks you’ve learnt in your career to overcome them?
Wow, have you got several hours to sit down and chat about all these? Ha! Look, we published authors are so so blessed. It’s tough to get a deal in this competitive market and we are so very aware of that. There are so many wonderful highs, but these come with lows as well.
I think the biggest issues I come across are to do with marketing: which techniques will work best to actually drive sales and complement your publisher’s publicity plans? Transparency is also an issue. Many authors are completely in the dark about the nitty gritty of numbers: how many books do you need to sell to be considered a success? What makes a book a flop? Am I a low list, mid-list or high list author?
So many questions which we authors are too scared to ask our publishers. But a safe space like the Savvy Writers’ Snug and events like the Savvy Writers’ Fest I’m running allow authors to pull back the veil so we can make informed decisions. I think that’s the key: talking to other authors, learning from them, and pulling that veil back.
You write a really helpful blog on the Savvy Writers site, providing lots of practical information to authors. Could you talk a little about your thoughts on positioning yourself and finding your place in the market?
Publishers will tell you they’re invested in you as a brand and sure, they play their role. But at the end of the day, they only have so many staff and so many hours in the day so what ends up happening is their focus is on your latest release, not your long term author brand. So that falls to you.
This is where finding your place in the market comes in. By knowing this, you can focus your day to day efforts on positioning yourself in the best way possible to readers. How to find your position in the market though? It’s not always as easy as looking at the genre your publisher says you write in.
I recommend looking at reviews. Which authors do your readers compare you to, not your publishers? This might surprise you. And then check out those authors on Amazon. Which sub-categories on Amazon do their books fit in? That sub category can provide some real insight.
By getting a strong handle on where you sit in the market, you can then be more informed on what kind of stuff to share on social media and the kinds of covers and blurbs your publisher should be using. It can also help you write future books.
What do you think authors can do to help themselves develop a long-term career?
Write lots! The more you write, the more chance you have of making money from ‘scalable products’. By scalable products, I mean products (in this case, books) which have the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. So once you’ve written a book, it has the chance to earn you money in multiple ways without you having to write more of it. So this can be from the obvious, such as royalties and advances, to extra deals such as translation deals, audio deals and more. Plus, of course, with each new book that comes out, it drives sales for your other books.
So your focus must always be on writing as much as you can and improving your craft as you do. Once you finish one book, get on with the next one and aim to make that even better than the last.
On top of that, you need to see yourself as a business. After the dreamy experience of writing your novel, get your CEO hat on and make sure you look at marketing, mindset, having professional working relationships and more in the same way a business owner would.
Do you have any tips for mid-list authors on breaking out or moving to the next level?
Take risks. Change genre. Change publisher! Keep up to date with how the industry is evolving. Even explore becoming a hybrid author and publishing your own stuff alongside the trad published books. It’s really easy to carry on ambling along, all safe and super grateful just because you are one of the lucky few to be published. But unless you strive and hope for more, the rug can easily be pulled out from underneath you.
What’s your favourite thing about being a writer?
I get to share the stories that run like a showreel in my mind with other people. It’s just so satisfying to know the characters and the plots I imagine in my mind are turned into something solid. Can I add one more? Other authors. They are honestly the best. So supportive, generous and kind.
And your least favourite?
The lack of power. You can be doing everything right – write a bloody brilliant book, find a great publisher, do all the marketing – and it can tank. But then this has an opposite too: you can feel like you’ve done everything wrong and suddenly, your novel will catch fire (in a good way). It helps to hold onto other authors as you ride the choppy waters!
What’s the one thing you would change about the publishing industry if you could?
The balance of power between publishers and authors. Publishers have so much power, something perfectly summed up with the royalty share most trad published authors get. It’s ridiculous! People say ‘yeah, but you get an advance’. But remember, we have to pay that back in royalties if we make any!
The balance needs to shift and I really like seeing publishers like Bookouture and my own publisher, Amazon Publishing, address this with a much more balanced approach to royalties and more.
And finally, please tell us all about the Savvy Writers’ Fest, coming up in May. It sounds absolutely brilliant and I’m really keen to hear more… what made you think of it, who’s giving talks – and anything else you’d like to share?!
I’m so excited about it! I set it up after trying to figure out how to take my writing career up a level. I looked around, trying to find something where I could get a bunch of advice from industry experts (honest advice, not the usual stuff that’s trotted out for aspiring authors) and also in-depth writing craft workshops aimed specifically at published authors. There was nothing! All the panels and events I found targeted aspiring authors (‘how to get published’, ‘how to write a first draft) or indie authors (‘how to publish with KDP’, ‘how to master Amazon keywords).
So I thought ‘what the hell, I’ll just run an event myself?’ so I dreamed up the Savvy Writers’ Fest.
It’s taking place at a fab venue in London on Saturday 9th May 2020 and will be packed with tips and honest talk from industry experts like Empowered Authors’ Sam Missingham, HarperCollins editorial director Phoebe Morgan, and The Bookseller editor Philip Jones in the morning.
Then in the afternoon, I have two amazing authors, Sophie Hannah and Amandra Prowse, running workshops specifically aimed at helping published authors take their writing craft up a level. Not to mention a yummy buffet lunch where writers will get the chance to chat with each other or find a quiet spot to write, and agent one-on-ones with the fabulous Caroline Hardman.
I can’t wait, mainly because I get the chance to benefit from it all as a published author too!
