The Future of Indie Publishing: Real Talk with James Blatch

James Blatch: [00:00:00] You shouldn’t be scared of AI writing books ’cause it’s crap at writing books. But it’s good if you are working really hard with it. Yeah. To help you after book. Interesting. Which is great for us as writers that you need to be a storyteller. Yeah. And a writer.

Ferol Vernon: Hey authors, this is Ferol Vernon from the Written Word Media Pod. Uh, and this week we’ve got something a little different for you. So, uh, this past week I was down with hundreds of authors at the Novelist Inc. Conference. Uh, people call it nnc. So NNC is a member onlys event where authors have to have achieved certain earning requirements.

So they have to have some kind of financial success in order to attend. Um, and this is exciting because. You get to be at a conference with hundreds of authors, all of whom have been successful, and they’re trading tips, sharing themes, figuring out what works. Uh, so it’s a really inspiring event to be at because there’s such a high concentration of successful authors in one place and generally a, a great group of people.

Now, I thought it would be interesting to sit down with my friend James Blatch, to [00:01:00] talk about this. So, uh, James is a NNC author himself, the owner of a self-publishing formula. Hosted the Indie Writers Podcast, former reporter at the BBC, and just all around great person. And James and I grabbed a few minutes, uh, in the lobby of nnc, uh, right behind the woman that’s selling us timeshares.

And we talked through the takeaways from nnc, the, the themes that we are hearing so that all you listeners could get a sense of what was happening at Nick without actually traveling to Florida. We talked about ai, we talked about translation, we talked about all kinds of other hot button issues related to audiobooks, eBooks, everything.

So, uh, I really hope you enjoy this conversation I had with, uh, James Blatch. Um, take a listen. Hello and welcome to the written Word Media podcast. Today I am here at n the Novelist Incorporated Conference with my good friend James Blatch. How you doing James? 

James Blatch: I’m really good. Ferrell, thank you so much for.

Having me on the podcast, I’m excited. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, it’s fun. We are actually here in the [00:02:00] lobby, you can hear there’s, uh, hundreds of authors here talking about all kinds of things. And today, James, I just wanted to talk through what are some of the conversations that are happening at NNC and what are the topics so that the listeners to the pod get a sense of like, what’s happening at these conferences and what’s going on?

Yeah, so, so curious from your standpoint, you know, what have you been hearing? What’s been like the hot topic here at Nick? 

James Blatch: I think for people watching, the first thing we should point out is there is a timeshare advert vibe. Makes it look like we’re about to sell timeshares in this company. We’re not, but uh, she’s very aggressive though.

If you do come to this hotel, you’ve gotta walk past her quickly. Yeah, she’s really aggressive. I come from the uk, it doesn’t matter. Come back. I’m not gonna bet. Ever buy your timeshare, come back. Um, yes. Now I think, you know, you always come to these conferences. Normally one or two buzz things that everyone’s talking about, so I’m trying to tune into that.

I’ve been here since Saturday with some of the authors coming here early, and so far it’s been a lot of talk about Facebook ads, which is a subject that’s always around. But we’ve had this big dip like a year ago. I remember November last year. [00:03:00] I think we had our worst month ever. Yeah. Uh, it was just tanking and no one seemed to know why.

We knew there was some changes under the bonnets. We knew that Facebook was rolling out Advantage. Plus they’re kind of AI targeting rather than the old fashioned targeting. I actually went to a session with Facebook in the summer. They very rarely talk to anyone. I dunno if you know people at Mess, but I know.

Yeah. I like, no. No one suddenly outta the blue got invited. They were saying, yeah, targeting, we’re moving away from that AI’s amazing. And you should talk, you should pixel your web page, your landing page so that the campaign’s talking to itself and getting all this information, well, you know, we send our traffic to Amazon, so that would mean putting a landing page in between our advert and Amazon, which you can do, but.

Traditionally, we know that costs a few clicks. And I think in between the lines of what we heard from them was the fact that their targeting no longer works because they simply, all the privacy rules changed after Cambridge Analytic and all those scandals, and they just simply don’t have that data anymore.

They can’t collect it anymore. iOS turned it off, turned off their stream [00:04:00] of information, whereas in the bad old days, the Wild West Good days. Yeah. Yeah. Every, every what hair color you had, children you had was all there. So that’s why you have to use Advantage Plus, it didn’t for us at least. I think for most authors it was a horrible summer.

Yeah. Last summer and going into the winter and we were Blatchming in November, we were Blatchming, um, you know, in America Blatchck Friday and yeah. And the last stuff, and it’s competitive, but it was worse than ever. And then coming into this conference, the conversation is, oh, cost per clicks suddenly going down.

I mean, I’ve, I’m getting four pence cost per clicks. There’s about 6 cents, uh, on my current campaign in the uk I’m getting about nine or 10 pence in Germany. They’re the best figures I’ve had for a long time. I think other people have feeding that as well, so I’ve no clue what’s happened except for whether they’ve just refined things or whether.

Potentially what’s happening, Claire, my podcast co-host pointed this out. She’s starting to see organically [00:05:00] people’s adverts on her timeline. So we’re wondering whether meta realizing they’re not doing a good job for their customers and advertising is starting to give some organic push to your campaigns on top of the impressions they send out to your spend to give you a little bit of a help.

And so they’ll take a hit on that ’cause that’s resources and you know, real estate on the page. But if it’s delivering more, um, uh, benefit to us. They don’t wanna lose their their spend people. Yeah. So maybe that’s happening. That’s one of the conversations having around here. Yeah. And the other one is AI and I dunno where to start or finish on that one.

Yeah. 

Ferol Vernon: Well that’s a really interesting conversation for sure. You mentioned something about Germany that I wanted to dig into a little bit. So we had a conversation earlier where you said some of your translation stuff is starting to hit. Maybe tell, tell us a little bit about that. How’s that going? 

James Blatch: So I only have really two novels and a novella, and I give the novella away.

It’s not in ku. So I basically have two books and for me, I talk about publishing all the time, and I started a publishing company, which I’ve sold and I still work for. So I publish and sell books, but just not my own to any great volume. But I’ve always been proud of the [00:06:00] fact that I’ve made a profit from my one or two books, even if it was like a $1,200.

First year, but that pays a utility bill in my house. Yeah. For me, that’s a big win and that’s exciting when I’m teaching other authors and they get to that point where suddenly Amazon’s paying them some money every month instead of them buying Yeah. Toothbrushes and everything. It’s great. So I’ve always been worked really hard on my books.

One of the big things that happens to me was, yeah, German translation. So I used a human translator for my two books, my two main novels. Launched them into Germany and they were immediately more profitable than they were ever in the US or the uk. That’s fascinating. Yeah, and I’m military thriller and I think maybe Germany, it was on the front wall of the cold Frontline of the Cold War, so, and the Cold War base.

So maybe that’s a reason, but. Facebook advertising is where it was nine years ago. You know, there’s not that many people advertising. There’s still millions, but nothing like the saturation we have in the US and uk. So bang for buck was more, reach was more. Um, and that was [00:07:00] exciting for me. So I got to this point when I was looking at coming to Link this year.

Yeah, I think it all, well probably won’t come as an industry guest for various reasons this year. I wonder if I qualify. And I did. You know, I looked at the figures and my books are making 5,000, you know, two books making 5,000, whatever the, the figures were. So I’ve qualified as a profitable author here.

Um, and that is down to German Translations. Now since then, I’ve been using Scribe Shadow. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, I spoke with Scribe Shadow earlier. Tell me about that surface. ’cause it seems like a really cool. 

James Blatch: It’s amazing. Yeah, it really is. And we’re hearing examples of people putting stuff in, putting it to a German speaker saying, this one’s human, this one’s scribe.

Shadow. Which one’s which they’re, they’re struggling. 

Ferol Vernon: Wow. 

James Blatch: To tell the difference. So it’s really come on very quickly. That’s the thing about ai. You wait a few weeks and everything changes. So a year ago probably wasn’t, you know, you’d get too many bad reviews. It’s not a hundred percent, that’s for sure.

And probably I’d still use a human, but I’m pretty certain the vast majority of human translations are now done. As a copy edit of an AI translation. Yeah. I think if you are [00:08:00] a human translator, you’re probably not gonna start from scratch anymore. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah. And, and for those listeners who don’t know, scribe Shadow is, uh, an AI generated translation service where you can upload your book in English and get a variety of languages out, right?

James Blatch: Yeah, yeah. So German, Spanish, common Spanish, which is the U European, Spanish, Italian, Dutch. French. Yeah. And I’ve got my books at all of those. Yeah. Now, 

Ferol Vernon: so in your conversations, and you’re, you’re involved with the author community a lot. What’s the take on like translations and ai? Like are people saying, oh, that’s cool, it’s a low cost solution.

Are people, uh, a little hesitant? Like what’s your sense? 

James Blatch: I think for most people I’m speaking to, it’s a no brainer because the cost of a human translation is in my books, cost me. 3000. Yeah. 2000 plus 1000. 2000 for translation. Plus 1000. That’s pounds. Yeah. That’s best part of $5,000. Yeah. It’s expensive.

Not that long ago. It was $10,000 by the way, to do per cycle. So, and if you’ve got 10 books, 

Ferol Vernon: yeah. It’s very expensive. 

James Blatch: Yeah. Proposition. [00:09:00] So this is a no brainer. Even if it’s not as good as humans for, I mean, a subscription you can start at about, you know, I think $99 a month is enough to get most of your books done.

It’s a very low cost way of doing it. Yeah. Um, so the conversations I’ve been having, we have a little mastermind group from our Indie Writers Club podcast. We do a little once a month. The discussions there have been about how you implement it. You know, do you translate the title? Do you leave the title in English?

There’s been a debate about that. Um, so yeah, it’s taking off. There is still, of course, some people who, who just say, and rightly they worry about their brand reputation if they’re using an AI and it’s getting some negative reviews that potentially damages the brand if they’ve got other books. 

Ferol Vernon: Yep. 

James Blatch: But for me, and for most people, it’s been liberating.

It’s a bit like the whole indie revolution from 2009 democratizing, you know, so getting into the German markets within the reach of everyone in here. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, it’s really amazing. And I’m curious to me how you picked Germany, because obviously for the content of your books, [00:10:00] maybe it’s a little bit more relevant, but as you being a UK author, there’s a lot of other options for you.

How’d you come to Germany? 

James Blatch: Yeah, it wasn’t, I think it was a natural choice because of the books, because of my books, military thrillers, and um. We’re a strange bunch. Men of my age interested in military aviation have a lot in common with the Dutch and the Germans. So if you go to an air show, there’s a lot of Germans and Dutch and British there.

Interesting. Once you get, once you get to Greece and Spain, not so much, you know, it’s not so much a thing. So that’s my reason. I understand from friends that. Romance is doing really well in both, uh, France and Germany. My books have not really worked in France to the same way. Interesting. So maybe I haven’t got the marketing right yet, or it’s just not the market for it.

Romance in Germany is going really well. Um, and there’s a growing market there people coming onto and to ku Yes. In Germany. So interesting. 

Ferol Vernon: And so when you translate into German, do you have to translate the ads as well? Like do you have to write the ad copy and how do you get that done? 

James Blatch: Again, it’s ai, [00:11:00] so I use Claude nearly all the time.

But you know, people, other people have their preferences and it is incredible, isn’t it? You think about the fact that you’ve got your book. You translated manuscripts and then you sit there and had I got that from a human five years ago, I’d think, well, I need someone in German. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah. To 

James Blatch: tell me about the title and the copyright notice and about the author and all this stuff.

Now you have Claude. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah, 

James Blatch: and my big thing about ai, my one thing I wanna say about AI is that AI is as good as you put into it. Like everything else in life, it’s not a OneTouch solution, you know, press button. So you are doing the, about the author, you are doing the blurb. You don’t just put, paste it in your UK blurb and expect the results to be right.

You ask it what it thinks of that UK blurb. You ask it what it thinks about that in the German market. Ask it to make suggestions about language and it won’t tell you unless you ask these questions. Once you’ve asked all those questions, particularly aviation, there’s particular words that don’t translate easily unless you sell the ai.

This is about airplanes. [00:12:00] We use the same words in different contexts. So you took all that work in, you’ll get a good blurb out. And again, the same with the advertising copy. It’s not necessarily gonna be a direct translation, but I sit there with Claude and you go backwards and forwards. I mean, it’s like my friend now, Claude.

I’ve got a friend too, who’s in Claude. Really? Yeah. Claude. Yeah. Sounds German as well, isn’t it? Fuck. I’ve got a friend here, Cece Mecca. Cecilia Mecca writes as a historical romance. Bella Michael’s, uh, romance. She has a AI built into chat, GPT, an AI assistant called Pedro that she’s created. She programmed it, told her what she wanted.

Pedro tells her every day of the week what she should be doing, giving her some marketing structure as she talks to Pedro all the time. I think she’s having an affair with Pedro, but um, it’s tell her wife at some point that, yeah. Yeah. 

Ferol Vernon: Um, okay. So that’s really interesting about the translations. Another place that there’s a lot of buzz about, at least that I’ve heard.

With, uh, AI is, uh, around audio narration. Yep. And there’s a, there’s a few companies that are doing that, and we were, we were just [00:13:00] talking to some folks right before this. Um, what, what are your thoughts there and what have you seen and, and then heard here at the conference? 

James Blatch: Yeah, so different levels. So first of all, KDB have the, press the button and it’ll be done.

That’s right. Service. Not heard good things about that. Yeah. So, um, I’ve heard people saying they’d rather not have the audio book than have it done in that way. So that’s seems to be the very basic way which people will do at home if they, you know, if they have, uh, a disability, a hearing, disability of site disability, for instance.

They can use text to speech and there’s yeah, quite a few programs, speechify and stuff like that. And I think even words does it right. You can certain words. So that’s the very basic, the KDP one seems to be a little bit up from that, but not massively. Then you have a jump to organizations like 11 labs.com.

There’s Hume, who we haven’t used before, but I was talking today and that’s service, which is called Jeff Focus Spoken. Yes. You and I are both having conversations about, about Spoken, which seems to be like a frontend package. I would say about 11 labs. Incredibly clever, and we’re speaking to those guys.

They’re gonna be in London, I think [00:14:00] in June. But I’m not sure it’s as user-friendly as it could be. And I, you know, I’m quite technical, but I still have struggled and I’ve given up a few times. But talking over there to these guys, I think spoken will be the interface we’re looking for. And it uses 11 labs in the background as its engine.

So, yeah, I’m excited. I need to hear it. I mean, I heard his sample, which sounds great. Yep. The samples I’ve put in of my book have not been great, even in 11 labs. So you kind of feel, you know, after you put. Two pages in, and you have to go in and phonetically spell some words because it’s just not pronouncing me correctly.

Yeah. If you’ve got a 70,000 word novel. 

Ferol Vernon: Yeah. Especially like if you’re a fantasy author or something and you’ve got crazy names and stuff like that, I can see that being very, very difficult. 

James Blatch: Yeah. Although, who knows how they pronounce those words. Yeah. And fantasy novel. So there’s probably no right or wrong way.

Ferol Vernon: Yeah. So it’s interesting. I had a lunch, uh, earlier and there was a conversation around it with a, a narrator. Um, she was saying she would never license her voice. Right. I thought that was a very interesting, uh, opinion. Do you think [00:15:00] that we’re gonna see that, ’cause there’s a lot of audiobook, narration companies here.

Do you think that we’re gonna see people doing voice licensing or do you think there’s always gonna be a spot for the, the actual human actor doing the audiobooks? I’m being attacked by Mazy. Yeah. 

James Blatch: At at the, we are in a blip at the moment where AI is a new technology. It’s a little bit witchcraft for some people and I think people saying, I will never do this with ai.

Yeah. 18 months time that’ll be gone. Her, she will be licensing her voice. Yeah. That’s my prediction on this. Okay. So I spoke to a woman in London in June at our conference who at that point was the number one rated licensed voice on 11 labs. I won’t name her, but I’ll tell you the figures she was making 4,000 pounds a month.

Wow. Just on her voice. Her voice. She had this crystal cut, crystal glass English accent. Yeah. She described herself as an English flower or something like that. And if you are looking to get a book, audio erased, that’s a very tempting thing. This sort of perfect receipt pronunciation. English access to work perfectly.

She put [00:16:00] in eight, 10 hours. I’m not sure how many hours she put in of her voice to get it right. Yeah. Did a lot of the marketing within 11 labs around that and making four grand a month. So you tell me whether that narrator should be licensing their voice or not. Yeah. Right. Because you can. She can go to bed at night and be earning money and wake up in the morning, and surely that’s what we all wanna be doing.

Yeah. 

Ferol Vernon: That’s interesting. Yeah. So what, uh, what other trends? I mean, AI has been certainly a hot button topic, and I feel like I’ve talked to a bunch of folks with opinions that are all over the map around, um, but it does feel to me like that AI is the devil. AI is going to take everything away, that that voice has been softened a little bit.

James Blatch: Yeah, I mean, I, my view is I, I’m very pro ai. First of all, I like new technologies. I’m quite excited about it and using that, but just like I see it, I see it simply as the next revolution of technology. In the same way that we have this discussion. You know, when the electric typewriter came along, apparently authors didn’t like it because it, it sort of reduced the bar to entry of writing and they’re worried about their club being disruptive.

Um, so that happened with the electric site writer. I can [00:17:00] definitely remember. Designs being very snobby about Photoshop. When Photoshop came in in the nineties, they would say, oh, that’s Photoshops. Uh, I never use Photoshop. I can guarantee that type thing. And of course, that’s exactly the language being used that area.

By some designers, that’s an AI design. I will never use it. Um, of course it’s nonsense, isn’t it? ’cause it’s just the next technology. It’s making their life easier. It’s making it, uh, quicker, more productive. So I think. Certainly in five years time, probably less than that, they’ll all be using ai. Yeah, this will no longer be a discussion.

The one area, the dark area of this, which I do get a bit annoyed about, is some romance authors. Now I give you a new example, a romance author, ’cause there’s a, there’s a bit of a witch hunt within romance. In particular, people using ai. They’ll be taken down by other authors and readers in some cases. So I know a romance author.

Who recently put in three covers in a series for her fourth book to teach Midjourney what sort of cover she wanted. And the Midjourney produced this most amazing book for cover. Yeah. She can’t [00:18:00] use it ’cause she’s terrified that she’ll have people pointing at her saying she’s a witch. You know, she’s used ai.

Ferol Vernon: You’re saying like the social Uh, yes. 

James Blatch: Yeah, it’s an AI cover. Don’t ever buy a book from this woman like that is happening and it’s disgusting. Yeah. So she’s had to give that cover to have a cover designer say, can you make a. Analog version of this piece and Yeah. And pay 700 pounds to do that. 

Ferol Vernon: Wow. 

James Blatch: And that’s, that’s wrong in my view.

I think cover designs just need to embrace the new technology. Sure. And change the way they work and yeah, that’s how it is. Now, of course, there’s question marks over how they were taught, and I understand that, but, and 

Ferol Vernon: licensing and ownership, I think those are thorny questions. 

James Blatch: Yes, they are. But they’ll be resolved.

And um, you know, we always use Google Rights, first of all, if you’re using Google using AI now anyway. We all use Google. Elizabeth Am Wests is a great thought leader in this subject. Um, in our community. She pointed out that Google swept the entire internet, stole everything and indexed it all, and built its search engine and nobody blink An eyelid.

Yeah, yeah. No bat of an eyelid. Right. And [00:19:00] we all use it and it’s been a tool that’s benefited humanity. Yeah. Every day in the newspapers, there’s a story about AI benefiting humanity. Yeah. Particularly in the health sector, discovering cancers and, um, you know, so. I’m a fan. I hope this is a blip. And if you are the sort of person who points the finger and says, and, and publicly Shane using ai, have a word with yourself.

Yeah. 

Ferol Vernon: Okay. 

James Blatch: Wow. 

Ferol Vernon: Great opinion there James. I like it. What’s opinion? Yeah. Um, what else have you been hearing? Like, uh, like, you know, we kind of talked a little bit about translations and AI and that’s been certainly hot topics. Is there any other trends that you’ve picked up while you’ve been here? 

James Blatch: I 

Ferol Vernon: haven’t 

James Blatch: not, so there’s been a little touch on it.

We’ve only been to a couple of sessions so far. Um, a little bit tra orientated. The first couple of sessions I went n has often been that, um, although there is a crossover ’cause a lot of the trad publishing. Publishers are now doing indie style straight edges and you know, special editions and stuff. So I think that that area actually straight edges spreads as I believe they’re called now.

Um, and special [00:20:00] editions and direct marketing and kickstart. So that scenario I think is going to be on the rise. Is all rise. Yeah, sure. So understanding it’s another ecosystem for us to learn and so market and to manage. Um, but that’s something I’m looking forward to learning more about while I’m here.

Ferol Vernon: Nice. Okay, cool. Well, James, thank you so much for sitting here and talking to me in our lobby, and hopefully we didn’t buy a timeshare in the middle of our conversation. You know, she’s 

James Blatch: gonna be, she’ll spot us in a minute. We’re seated down, so she thinks she’ll pull her, he, she’ll pull her chair up here.

Ferol Vernon: Uh, 

James Blatch: you are a very professional podcaster. 

Ferol Vernon: Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah. Alright, good. Yeah, James, uh. What, uh, what do you need to plug? Tell us about the conference. Uh, what can you tell our audience about what you got going on? 

James Blatch: Yeah, so, uh, the big thing is our conference. So every year in London we have self-publishing show live.

A lot of people who are here will come to London. Yeah. We have the same weather by the way. And you were there, weren’t you? So we, we always have the same weather they have in Florida. It’s beautifully, amazingly it’s sunny always for our conference. So guarantee, yeah. Um, yeah, two days. First day and more of a plenary [00:21:00] day, so everyone’s in the same room.

We’ll have some big talkers, uh, on some motivational stuff, but also craft. We’ve got a good talk on craft with TD Donley, a Hollywood screenwriter’s Gonna talk about type, structure and character. Day two workshops, you’ll pick and choose what you’re gonna do. We’re definitely gonna have Amazon ads and Facebook ads.

Level one and level two. So if you’re beginning, you’ll have a workshop to go to. If you’re already using it, you wanna go to the next level, you have a different one to go to. Um, we’re gonna have lots of AI stuff. So I’m talking to some of the guys to, to do some workshops for us on how to use, that’s pseudo write for instance.

That’s a bit of a, you know, uh, oh. You know, using it to write, but it. It’s a partner and a bit like how I started this conversation. Yeah. You shouldn’t be scared of AI writing books ’cause it’s crap at writing books. But it’s good if you are working really hard with it Yeah. To help you craft a book.

Interesting. Which is great for us as writers. You need to be a storyteller. Yeah. And a writer. So yeah, we’re gonna have that focus. So yeah. Um, you can probably put the link under the show. Yeah. Thank to be the 

Ferol Vernon: show notes. Yeah, sure. 

James Blatch: We’d love to see people there and, um, yeah. 

Ferol Vernon: Alright. [00:22:00] Amazing. Well thank you so much James.

And uh, thank you all for listening.