Episode 55: [GUEST] Writing Process with Award-Winning Political Thriller Author Michael Fedor

This week on the podcast, Elizabeth chats with award-winning political thriller author ​Michael Fedor.​

During their discussion, they touch upon the following and more:

• writing a political thriller
• using your own story to inspire what you're writing
• creating a prequel to hook your readers
• building your writer identity

There's so much inspiration for writers packed into this episode.

Michael shares what inspired him to start writing and how he draws from his own experience working in Washington D.C. to develop his characters and stories.

You'll find useful tips for setting yourself up for success to market yourself and your books.

If you'd like to connect with Michael online, here are some places you'll find him:

​Website​ for Michael Fedor: use code inspired (good for 2 weeks from 1/20/2025) for a discount on his books

Search @michaelfedorbooks on social media

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We hope you've found guidance and inspiration for your own writing.

Here are two resources for you:

Get your list of 4 Essential Reads for Memoir Writers

Get your Character Coffee Chat Guide for Character Development

Transcript

Elizabeth: 0:00

Welcome back listeners to the Inspired Writer Collective Podcast. I'm your host Elizabeth and today I have Michael Fetter joining me as our guest. He is a political thriller author and he comes to this with 20 years of political organizing. So in his writing he's combining tales of power, ambition, and the human condition paired with the inner workings, the behind the scenes of Washington D. C. And his, his thrillers have a futuristic element, which is super fun and very engaging. got two full books out as part of the Bull Moose series, but he also has a free prequel download called The Senate Deception, which provides a great teaser for any potential reader to get to know his writing, his characters, and it was this genius marketing aspect that really, um, got me excited about talking to you, Michael, because that was not something I've really seen authors do. And having read it, it is so captivating and such a good way to be like, here's my voice, here are my characters, you're gonna want to know more about these people and more about their story. So have a number of questions, but my initial one is, what? Why did you make that transition from living this life to kind of writing about it? Um, and what made you do the prequel as uh an attention getter?

Michael Fedor: 1:39

Well Elizabeth, thanks for having me on and you can, you could do my intros anytime. That was fantastic. I'm so excited. I want to know who this guy is.

Elizabeth: 1:50

Right?

Michael Fedor: 1:50

Right. So, um, you know, I made the change because um, politics has changed quite a bit in 20 years that I was involved in it and some of the people who I used to work with and for have since left. Left the industry, um, have, you know, left office and I think things have generally become more polarized, more divided, um, a little more vitriolic, a lot more vitriolic, actually, to be honest, and, um, I no longer, no longer felt the sense of personal, um, Reward that I was doing something good by by putting the time and energy into that Um, I felt like it was perhaps the fight for someone else now to step up and into those shoes um, and and for even my own sanity, it just made sense for me to take a step back from Campaign trail work and to you know, do something else But I still had all this experience and I had this itch to write. Um, the itch to write actually began in my career when I was teaching 20 years ago in a classroom in central Pennsylvania, where I taught English to high school students. And that's when I began writing my first book was 20 years ago. And it was terrible. Because I didn't know what I was doing, so I'll admit that, but, um, so that's where I, you know, I kind of began there as a teacher and a writer, and now I find myself going full circle, returning to that writing, and it's so satisfying to, um, To get something as, um, completely, um, horrendous and challenging and exciting and terrible as a book out into the world, uh, which we can talk about that process. Um, and so now to be able to share my stories and listen, I was never a sea captain, so my books do not. Take place on a ship. I was never an astronaut. So my books are not about space travel, but I worked a lot around people who are pursuing and holding power. And so that is why it's a theme I chose to write about. And it's something that really, for me, um, there's a lot of really creative directions that those types of stories can go, and they can be about big things like the presidency, which is what the Bull Moose series is about, but they can also be about the very. Simple dynamics between a husband and wife, which is the book also explores as well from people are trying to pursue these these positions of power. What are the implications and the impacts on their everyday lives? So why did I decide to write a prequel? As a reader magnet and to use it as a way to introduce the characters to my readers And so I would go back to the idea came from thomas umstadt jr. Who runs the novel marketing? um and author media and You know, he talked to me about you know, think about the avengers you see the first second third avengers movies They're all talking about budapest and like oh, this is not this might be bad But it's not as bad as budapest and you never saw what happened in budapest, but everyone referred to it all the time And he said, so that can be a really exciting way to go write your Budapest story. And it's not something that your reader has to know about, but you can entice them to want to learn about it by dropping these mentions. So throughout Bull Moose book one, what it takes to kill a Bull Moose, there's all this talk about the Senate fight, the filibuster fight. Why piper lost his reelection, why he's retired to the woods and changing his career because he suffered this humiliating defeat after, um, that really costly filibuster fight. And so that's what the Senate deception is about is what is that filibuster fight that they talk so much about. And for me, it's exciting. And I sometimes call it book zero, sometimes call it book point five.

Elizabeth: 5:38

That

Michael Fedor: 5:39

a prequel. It's not essential to read it in order to understand what's happening. And a lot of things are referred to in book one about the relationships and the dynamics between Piper and, um, you know, his allies, chief ally, Ron Bender, um, and the president, Russell Warner, and those dynamics are much different. Five years prior in the setting of the Senate deception. So to me, it was really just a cool way to introduce people to the story and also give them an on ramp to the series, but also making it clear that they don't have to read that book in order to jump into book one, because while I'm writing a sequential series for now, I do hope that after I get through book three, the series is going to become more episodic. And so you'll simply be able to jump in and out of the. Book one or book, book 10 or book five, because it'll just be following the events of this world I've created where books one, two, and three are, are very sequential right now. And like what you really have to understand what's happened in book one to read book two and so forth. So that, yeah, that's the, where the idea came from. And I, I ran with it and I felt like it really worked and I was originally started to be a short story. And as you can already tell my answer to this question, um, short story turned into a novella of 30, 000 words. And so.

Elizabeth: 6:58

I love that. How, how hard was that to kind of roll back those characters, those relationships? Was that something that you already knew as an author because of all the backstory that we know as the author writing a book? And so you just simply had to put words to the backstory and the character development that you had already created in your head? Or how much of that was like you having to really sit there and wrestle with? Okay, what did get this character to this point, or what did this relationship look like before, you know, book one? And I know, um, you had told me that you actually ended up adding a character that you then had to write into book one because of this process of the prequel.

Michael Fedor: 7:36

Yeah, that's a really interesting thing because this book was just simply a political thriller. Um, and it's what it was like draft one was sitting there is actually probably draft three at that point when I took it. Decided to take that step back and write the the prequel the novella And in writing that it just was i'm a pantser. So i'm riding by the seat of my pants. I have a basic outline It's a fight over reforming the senate filibuster And it takes place in the future And so when I started going down that path Um, I suddenly discovered. Oh, I was writing this this character this digital assistant Um because it's 2038 2039 in the book You Digital assistants way more advanced than chat GPT or Siri or anything we have today. And suddenly this assistant became this character and the moment where it clicked for me was in the story, uh, Jackson Piper and Ron Bender are cramming late night, trying to get this filibuster fight to work for their benefit. And they need to stay awake and it needs some food to fuel their, their, their energy and their assistant Ziggy. Asks them, um, well, what can I get you? What can I order you? And they say, well, I can go for some Chinese food. Ziggy calls the local Chinese takeout place and she orders in Mandarin. And I was like, that's it. That's when I suddenly understood the power of putting this book into the future. Putting this futuristic science fiction edge into the story because it could be a lot more fun for the reader to have these kind of things happen. And then this character Ziggy had so many more dimensions, it became a much more integral part of how Piper and Bender were going to succeed in reforming the Senate filibuster. And then when it came to. Bringing her forward into what it takes to kill a bull moose. She then became like Ron Bender's confidant. She then became his instrument for action. And after some of the events unfold, she becomes this common thread that pulls the book forward. And so this is a, as a writer, you have to be open to these aha moments, these light bulb moments where. If you plan at all, you're going to miss that moment of creativity that just kind of lands on you and then embrace it is my advice because that's what happened to me. And so suddenly it made sense. I was writing about a future presidency. So why wouldn't I make this futuristic in terms of the story? Because how our lives are transforming so quickly now because of technology, have some fun with it, make that into a character and really see how it could take off. And I was a little afraid because I'm not a heavy science fiction reader. I'm more of a political thriller reader, historical fiction reader. So, that for me was a little bit of a, a risk, um, in, in trying to take this futuristic edge into my political thriller. And like, you know, science fiction does not need one more sub genre, yet here I am writing one. Which i'm calling poli fi, which is you know political thriller science fiction and i'm having some fun doing it and Finding out that there are other authors out there who who are also exploring it, uh as well And this kind of takes threads from like ray bradbury um, you know pulling forward a little bit michael crichton, so I think that um, there's some basis for this and I feel like um, You know when you're a writer and you just open yourself up to those opportunities some really exciting things can take place If your eyes are open for them,

Elizabeth: 11:06

I think there's so much genius to Ziggy's character. For one, she provides so much lightheartedness and comedic relief in what is already like a very tense like storyline, um, because of the like skins or personality that she's, you know, been assigned and she does all this like cheeky stuff or whatever, like wears these outfits and, and just provides like a moment of levity in a really tense scene, which really I think helps as a reader. Um, and also she just adds that little bit of like, realistic magic, you know, and like you need to make two things line up and you've got this condensed timeline and you need a miracle, she gets to be like the realistic miracle that we as the reader can buy into of like, oh yeah, of course, you know, she would have that power to do this, you know, unhumanly, you know, seemingly impossible thing in just the nick of time and have exactly the right resource, you know, to, to keep this moving forward. Um, like, like the way she, I loved when she extrapolated. You know, where the two key people would be that they needed, that Ron Bender needed to have a conversation with, uh, head of the, you know, Senate meeting. And, um, she was like, Oh, at this time, usually he's this, or this just clicked. And, and he always buys this muffin here, whatever it was

michael-fedor_1_12-06-2024_120417: 12:21

yep

Elizabeth: 12:22

her, like AI capabilities gave away in a normally sort of unreasonable far fetched situation to be like. Oh yeah, of course, that they would be able to directly find the person they need to talk to in this five minute window and make that happen and it's all gonna be okay.

Michael Fedor: 12:41

Yeah. That's was the cool aspect. She became like a, uh, a storytelling technique and I love your reference to of like the comic relief because like, you know, she, you know, they're doing something in an office setting so that she appears on screen dressed in professional attire. She's a digital image. It doesn't matter what she's wearing. She could be wearing a chicken costume, but she, she's taking upon herself as the sentient AI to dress for the moment and in what it takes to kill a bull moose. They go visit Jackson Piper in Colorado. Um, in October at the, in the second chapter of the book and she comes on screen dressed for the slopes of, uh, a veil. So it's like, no, Ziggy's having fun with her wardrobe and she's also kind of like a wink and a nod to the audience. Like, you know, I'm playing along with this. And so I did have to like problem solve with her and, and I'm trying to find a way to, to have the right balance in my writing between plausible reality. Terrifyingly plausible plot lines, but also some fantastic things that have to happen to make it, you know, interesting and good It was alfred hitchcock who said like great stories are real life with the boring parts taken out So take the boring parts out, you know If they had to search around the capital three hours to find this right senator, they would not work in a novel So yes ziggy said, you know looked at his social media. He just took a picture on the capital steps That's where you'll find him and senator so and so he buys a muffin and has a meeting like In 98 percent of the time, he's at his desk by this time each day. So you have a very high probability you'd find him there. That's also really powerful when you think about how our lives can be data sets going forward

Elizabeth: 14:21

hmm.

Michael Fedor: 14:21

and how that suddenly could become predictors of behavior and ways for AI to interact and anticipate not only our needs, but our locations. And there's some really interesting stuff there. Ziggy is also a little bit of a peek into Ron Bender's, um, psyche at times there gets into the next story, like why she's named Ziggy. Some of that starts to become revealed. You don't really know where she came from in book one and book two. You start to get maybe a couple more hints about her origin, and I'm thinking that maybe her origin story is a great. Uh, a future reader cookie, or it's a future kind of a 2. 5 or a 3. 5. Again, you don't have to read it, but if you're interested in knowing where Ziggy came from, you know, jump in and read that story.

Elizabeth: 15:05

She's my favorite character. I mean, I love a number of your characters, but she's my favorite for sure. Um, maybe because as a female, there's not a lot of other female characters, you know, to relate to, but I love her. I love, I love her personality. I love her sense of humor. Um, I just really enjoyed,

Michael Fedor: 15:23

Yeah. And this is still a very male dominated world. Um, it is the U S Senate is today. It will, I think, still be in 20 years, unfortunately. And so Ziggy is this, she's been given a gender by Ron. Um, and you can explore that why, as you explore, uh, Ron's character. Um, he's somewhat of a. Hopeless, lonely, romantic type of guy, um, with some, some, maybe some tawdry history, um, in his closet, you know, but, um, but you know, so she, so she then gave way to help me find the courage to write female characters. I was having a hard time writing. Um. Believable, effective female characters. And I was working with Thea Newell, my editor for book one. And she's like, just, just write what you know, and write those relationships and make the women strong and make them, you know, let them drive scenes, let them drive beats. And you will find comfort that you as a male writer can write female characters, just as strongly as you can write male ones. And so I had to let go of that fear, which a lot of writing. It's letting go of fear and, um, I think it was, it was successful. I found suddenly I could write these very different female characters in Bull Moose book one, which I was not quite, you know, really ready to write when I was writing the Senate deception, but it was different story too, but

Elizabeth: 16:51

I love that. Yeah, I don't think that's something we talk about enough about the difficulty of writing it. From a different perspective like that, you know I hear about it a little bit when you talk about the like the romance genre where it's a lot of female writers and they write these kind of in the eyes of the female gaze, idyllic male characters who are very forthcoming with their feelings and affectionate and know exactly when to, you know, offer a solution to a problem and exactly when to just like push you against the wall, you know, and it's like, it's not reality, but the, the readership loves it because it's really catered to them.

Michael Fedor: 17:27

Mm hmm.

Elizabeth: 17:27

real, you know, challenge to be able to write from that perspective. So kudos to you for exploring that, you know, and finding that. Um, I have one more question about the writing, like the, the books and the content, but then I want to jump into a little bit more like behind the scenes of the process and gathering readership and stuff. So my last question is because you referenced earlier about the, transition and changes and shifts to the political landscape in our reality and how it has become so much more polarized and vitriolic. Do you think that will be reflected in future books in the series? Or is this your way to kind of provide an escape for readers from that reality?

Michael Fedor: 18:16

Well, that's a great great question elizabeth, and I think that's part of the challenge i've run into at this moment is i'm writing Chilling political thriller at a time when reality is just as chilling for many people And so i've found some readers are just not emotionally Available at this moment in time to read political thriller And that's okay. I've told them it's okay to set my stuff aside come back to it when you when you need That escape When maybe things are not feeling so like the world is crashing down on you um I when I first wrote what it takes to kill a bull moose 20 years ago It was just called bull moose and it was more of a polemic. So it was more like, um, Ray bradbury like social commentary on the situation at hand and it felt too much like a Uh a list of grievances like a festivus list of grievances and so I decided to That wasn't making the story fun to read when I transformed it 20 years later to be more of a Let's take current threads of where we are in the political landscape in america and then draw them out where they're going to go That's where I think bull moose book one really becomes a bit of a like a warning sign if you think political violence is bad now imagine 20 years when You know a citizen in the crowd can pull a gun on a candidate And what does that look like? And how does the candidate react to that situation? Um,

Elizabeth: 19:46

we saw that in the election cycle,

Michael Fedor: 19:48

Right, right. Um, or like, you know, when there is, you know, there's not only talk of political assassination, but it actually, it actually happens between these opposing forces. And, um, how does that, how does the public react to that? And how does that push sentiment for or against candidates? I didn't intend to predict. The future with this, this writing, unfortunately, much of it is because coming true in real time. And so that also is a little scary as a political thriller author. You don't want your, your work to be To come true come true to life, but it is unfortunately Um, that's my real challenge though is how to write political thriller with threads of hope and I have to lean back on jackson and valerie his running mate in bull moose book one for those threads of hope because they are very classic hero and heroine who Don't have faults and don't have skeletons and everyone keeps wondering like what is the secret that they have they don't have these dark Backgrounds. They are good people. They are the light fighting the darkness 20 years into the future and I'm I feel like especially in book two more of that hope comes through even though things get even more perilous and get any even more dangerous. I think there is a greater focus in on here are political leaders who are going to risk everything and fight and And you would want you would want to believe in them. They're not going to let you down because you suddenly discover that They're a cheater. They're a liar that none of it's true So I think that's that's what i'm hoping um My readers can can get into these books and get excited about the world i've built And see yes, it's taking place with some very bad actors, but there are some very good People who you want to cheer for and get excited about You And they do find success. It's not always the success they thought, but they do, they do find victories along the way that makes you feel good. It doesn't make you feel like. Oh, crap, you know, the world is just as this fictional world is just as terrible as the world I'm living in. Boy, what kind of escape is that? Um, I really want people to feel like, you know, they want to go read the book because boy, in that world, policy does drive the day or look, reform is possible or the good women and the good people. Guys can win, um, even when the odds are stacked against them. And so those are the things that I'm hoping my political, thriller fiction can really attract people to want to read. And I think I originally was writing the series hoping to like write a. And released during an election year when I thought everyone would want to read political thriller it's turned out that no one really wants to read that at the moment because of how Exciting the real world has been things have started to calm down now, and I think that in some regards That would be in the next opportunity As people want to escape

Elizabeth: 22:50

Yeah, absolutely. All right, so now I want to jump into, you've referenced a little bit that you, you started this writing process ten years ago, right? And then ended up, you know, not feeling like it was a very good story. You've talked a little bit about the ways that you've changed it through your editing process. Um, I'd love to hear and have you share a little bit of your insights with the audience about some of those key that you used as a writer. Um, I know when you and I spoke individually, we talked about like a writer's group you were a part of, about how important the developmental edit you went through was in, you know, tweaking your story or even just getting validation that what you had was a strong, um, framework. Um, so will you share some of those kind of key elements that you feel helped you along in the writing process?

Michael Fedor: 23:43

absolutely. So when I started writing 20 years ago is when I was teaching In my mind, I thought boy, it would be exciting to be an author And I knew I was a strong writer You When I shared this creative work of fiction with a colleague at work who I also believed to be a very strong writer and new quality fiction She was not as impressed as I hoped she would have been um So that took my ego down a notch on, you know, am I ready yet for publication? and I kind of set it aside and came back to it at various times for various reasons over the the following 10 years You But it really wasn't until the election of 2016 where things in the book were coming true again. And I was like, Oh crap, I'm on to something with these, this plot about a world in which people feel dissatisfied with all their choices. And they start to retreat and pull away from politics all together. And then the bad people kind of come in and fill in the void. And, you know, I went back to her a second with a second draft and it still was not, you know, up to what I felt I could do and what I felt, you know, could land me a publishing deal. And so, um, I put it on, put it aside again, but I discovered some really incredible people by joining some online writing communities. Um, and shout out to the order of the Oxford comma, which is a writing group that I'm part of. And that gave me an opportunity to, um, maybe not always share my writing for critique, but to admit my fear of why I was stuck. To other writers who had a similar experience and could say to me Lean into that fear you feel right now Lean into that that feeling of dread like you don't know where the next page is going to go And then having them say hey read this book plot and structure or read this book the first five pages or read, you know giving me um resources on craft that became really really important for me finding my way out of Out of the, the mediocre writing that I felt like I was doing and to write something that I would describe as more commercially viable because ultimately that's my goal to, to be a successful writer whose work sells. And so to do that, and that means that certain conventions and certain structures and certain characters really need to exist within the genre I'm writing so that people will recognize it as political thriller and want to read it and read it from the beginning to the middle and to the end. Um, and so when I was Completely rewriting bull moose for the fourth fifth. I don't know what time I suddenly understood the importance of having an editor who's going to you know work through Chapter by chapter and give feedback And how important that was I did not know until I got into this and committed to Professional writing the role of a developmental editor is so critical in those in that First, second, third draft and being able to sit you down and saying this works. This doesn't work. I don't see where this is going. This character doesn't seem to have a role. You should just eliminate them. So that's where then you can take 180, 000 word work and get it down to 100, 000 words and be publishable. It's because you've got a smart developmental editor who's taking a look at How the story can work and not work and thea's feedback was was spot on a couple of things that that she gave early on that was important and some others in my writing group gave me was first. The stakes were not clear at the beginning of the Senate deception or

Elizabeth: 27:32

Hmm.

Michael Fedor: 27:33

in Bull Moose one. What were the stakes for Jackson Piper if he failed? So that's where I had to really sit down and bring the stakes right front and center into the first, second, or third chapter, so it was clear to the reader, if he doesn't go on this journey, what would be the cost for him? And what would be the cost for the world in which he's operating? And then there was also some feedback on the relationships, the dynamics between characters, that the reader had to get a little bit more invested in Jackson earlier on, and as a politician, I wasn't doing enough to show what he's like when he's not giving a speech or not contemplating the next political move, so I had him making breakfast with his kids. And I, you know, that was a suggestion by Thea to show the human side of this individual by showing how it interacts with these two children and lets them kind of build waffle towers out of whipped cream and, and fruit. And it's just a playful thing that shows he is a human that you would really want to know and be part of. And so I think those are the things that like, when you're a writer and you're just trying to tell your story. Yeah. I think you can get stuck on is it moving fast enough those types of things um Do I have the plots all lines all lined up? Have I got the facts straight? Um, it's when you have a second person involved in your writing who can give you that feedback about what's working What's not that really can unlock its potential? And I I got to tell you that when I decided to do this to get back on the path to publishing I was terrified that it still wasn't good enough. And when I gave my first draft to my, my developmental editor, there was this long silence of like a week where I didn't hear a word. In my head, I was convinced she thought it was horrible. She'd read the first chapter and was just spending the next six days trying to figure out how to tell me to quit. So

Elizabeth: 29:30

heh

Michael Fedor: 29:31

that ended up not being the case, but I think that every writer has that experience, especially in writing their first work, even their second work. It's, um, how, how you can. The talk track in your own head can undermine you and can pull you away from from really reaching for something you love and want to do by convincing you you're not good enough. And this also is not just in writing. People do this every day in their lives and their marriages and their work. And it's like if you can silence the voices of insecurity and doubt in your head and Turn up the volume on the voices of of surety and confidence and belief and hope then for every voice in your head that says you can't and you're not good enough. There's a voice in there that can also say this is good. This is great. You can do this and thankfully when she came back with her edits, she said, look. You are a talented writer and you have what it takes I believe to be commercially viable in this genre And you have what it takes to to push the story forward thriller has to do it has to catapult chapter to chapter So they want to keep reading and the next cliffhanger emerges as the chapters end. She's like that's all there. Let's just talk about These little elements we need to see to bring these characters into clearer focus for the reader. And, uh, that was just so powerful for me and I'm so grateful for that feedback.

Elizabeth: 30:53

I love that you highlighted to like that piece of personal development that yes, we may use our writing as the way to confront those like the imposter syndrome or that doubt or whatever, but it does have an impact on. all the other areas of our life, right? When we are willing to put ourselves out there and be more vulnerable by whether we're putting out a fictional character that, you know, we feel some connection to or just are writing open for critique or whether you're writing a memoir or anything even more personal writing that's more non fiction based, like as you face those fears and push through those fears, like that personal development doesn't just serve you. In your writing it serves so many other areas of your life and I'm so glad that you You highlighted that because I know that's something that stephanie and I talk about a lot on this podcast is you know Just the impact that even going through the process of writing has had on us, you know as individuals um of publication regardless if anyone reads it regardless of you know a particular outcome just to having Pushed yourself through that process that You know required diligence and discipline of sitting down to write those pages Knowing that it might all be garbage that gets cut in the end anyways, but you're still going to show up for yourself um Yeah, I think that's that's been a huge piece and something that I continue to preach to everyone about you know regardless of what the outcome is whether you eventually publish it or not even just going through the process is You gain so many gems throughout that it's, it's worth the endeavor. It's worth the struggle. wonder if you'll share just a little bit, um, before we wrap up this episode about your relationship with social media and how you have navigated that as an author, because I think you have, at least for me, an interesting perspective that I haven't heard from other people yet.

Michael Fedor: 32:58

Yeah, boy, so, and I come at this from the political world of, and I think this is also something that impacted my writing early on till I could let go of it. I operated in a world where everything I said and did had to have an image to it. It was selling an image. Um, it was selling an image of, of perfection or of likability because, um, voters don't vote for candidates they don't like or can't relate to. So you don't When you're a politician or working in politics, you don't post your Saturday morning. Just crawled out of bed in your pajamas photos Because that's the imperfection you're right like and the people judging you like oh look he wears spongebob squarepants pajamas or something so so I so when I Came at this as an author. It was first letting go of the The fear of of only presenting the perfect image, and I think I'm still working through that. Um, and I think I also found that. My intention to use social media became more, a more humanistic, more, more real version. And I think it's a healthier version for all of us, um, than to just feel compelled to post the perfect all the time. But as an author, I've not found much success in using social media to, to find my readers. Um, With the exception of maybe instagram to some extent, but I think it's still An inch deep there and certainly meta has not been very successful for me organically um On a paid perspective. Yes, you know Going down the path of, of paying for ads to present my works to folks who then can click the ads and then come to my shop and potentially buy, it absolutely is essential and remains essential for independent authors to use Amazon advertising and, and Facebook meta advertising to reach folks. Um, but I found that more successfully for me in converting folks, um, to become readers has been. Capturing email addresses and working to find folks through giveaways and promotions, um, on a lot of really great sites that are out there, like book sweeps and book funnel and story origin app and story graph and some others and good reads, um, going to where, you know, readers are. And sharing the opportunity, um, for a free or discounted work, uh, with those folks with an invitation to say, if you take a risk by giving me your email address, I'll give you the risk of giving you something for free and that you may or may not read ever, um, or maybe you will and don't like, but I'm going to give it to you. And if you love it, then the hook is that I want you to come back. I want you to stay on my list and I want you to be excited to read the next thing. And to look for the next opportunity,

Elizabeth: 36:08

Are you giving them your prequel, or are you giving them book one, or does it just depend?

Michael Fedor: 36:13

it does depend. Um, I think that if you, if what I found is if you commit to only giving them one thing forever, then you start to kind of, it's not the shiny new thing anymore, even if there are 40, 000 people or 100, 000 people in that universe, you know, that 10 percent or 1 percent that's actually going to click through and look at your stuff. If they see the same Senate deception all the time, And I think it does get boring and I I've worked on so many of these giveaways now I see Some of the same reader magnets being given away and I I can kind of if I see a promotion come up I can anticipate which author's reading magnets. I'm potentially gonna see so I also Created I think it's very a smart strategy as a writer is to do some preview work of your works So I you know the first five chapters of Bull Moose book one. I created a promo book of that Tree of Liberty my new work that just came out in November It also created a preview of that. Uh, the first, I think, uh, nine chapters. It's like part one of the book and Sure, i'm giving away a lot of content, but i'm giving it in good faith I'm giving it away in a sense that like No one wants to read a tenth of a book so if you read that tenth of the book and you love it, i'm hoping that you will take the risk of the The 8. 99 or whatever and and buy the whole book. Um and and finish the story And so some giveaways require only full content So you have to be aware of that if you're going to be in these promotions You have to have a short story or you have to have a novella They don't want excerpts others will encourage excerpts And others will encourage, you know, sales pages, landing pages, um, that'd be part of the promotion. So when you're going down this path as a writer, you have to have all these tools in your tool belt. And, and be ready for them. That means putting in the work behind the scenes to, to have good links for various reader cookies, whether they're a full work like my novella or an excerpt work like my, my segments of book one and book two, uh, as well as yourselves landing pages. But at the end of the day, if I'm confronted with, I've got five minutes to spend. What am I going to do? I'm probably going to email my list. I'm going to write a cute email to my list for Hey, here's what I'm up to. And my quote of the week. I'd spend 5 minutes on that before I'd spend my 5 minutes on my Instagram story or my Facebook post because I just do not see that it results in as much engagement as as landing in someone's inbox and you know, as long as you don't, as long as you're doing email in authentic way, that's not a real like, Salesy way that I do think you can find much more success building your readership that way then Figuring out like what's the next photo i'm going to post on instagram Um, because it just is not and I think it's also my genre political thriller is a little harder than romance to to land And get this huge following on instagram. And so, um, I think it's also genre specific

Elizabeth: 39:26

Absolutely, and you've got a special offer for our listeners Today, so will you share a little bit about that?

Michael Fedor: 39:34

Yeah

Elizabeth: 39:35

us?

Michael Fedor: 39:35

Yeah, so, um, we're going to use the code inspired Inspired Um, for this great show, uh, if you go into my shop, michaelfedorabooks. com, and that code is going to get you 60 percent off. Um, and I'm going to give you either 60 percent off what it takes to kill a bull moose or 60 percent off tree of Liberty or 60 percent off both. So it's up to you, but I really want to encourage folks who've made it to this point in the show and love what you're doing, Elizabeth, um, to continue to support you and, and, and Steph and, and make this a great show and, and support re writers like me. And so the, the easiest thing I can do is just to. Give back, give you, give you a discount. So 60 percent off michaelfedorabooks. com use the code inspired and at checkout. Um, and you will, you'll get a great discount and get some great books. And I'm going to put that across, um, audio book, ebook, as well as print.

Elizabeth: 40:31

That's so generous. And I, I know we're going to have listeners that are going to be excited to take advantage of that. Um, I think you said this will run for about two weeks from the post, uh, initial post of this episode. So, um, Don't delay, take advantage. Um, also you can get access to Michael's prequel by going to his website and giving him your email address, um, so that you can get that Senate deception backstory that we've been talking about throughout this episode. I am so excited to have had you here on the podcast today. I'm so grateful for your insights and the ways that you've processed your writing journey and encouraging others to do the same with these little nuggets of wisdom. Um, just thank you so much for being here. We're so lucky to have these insights and inspiration to travel into our weeks as we sit back at the computer following the holiday break, um, and start to work on our, our works in progress again.

Michael Fedor: 41:35

Absolutely, Elizabeth. Well, thank you for this show. And what you're doing is so important with the website and this podcast for writers like us. And I think building community among writers is so essential for what can be a very lonely, um, profession. And so to help people find one another, right? Plumbers drive around with signs on their vans. So you know how to find them, but writers don't drive around with signs on their cars that say writer. It's harder to find one another. So shows like this help, help us find one another. And I really encourage folks to reach out to me and to other writers and to come together because we need one another. And we're all doing incredible stuff. And it's, and it's just so rewarding to have folks like you who will help us lift up our voices and share our stories. So thank you.

Elizabeth: 42:21

We're happy to be that place. Um, happy listening everyone!