The Kobo Writing Life team invites you to join us on May 30th from 12:00 PM-1:00 PM EST for an exciting live Q&A event with Ember Leigh, Erin Mallon, Karen Grey, Lainey Davis and Liz Alden. They will have a chance to chat with our author engagement manager Laura to break down the collaboration process, what they’ve learned through their secret writing sessions, and more about the wonderful world they’ve all built together.
MY TRANSCRIPT
4:00
What is the largest collaborative work you know of, in terms of number of collaborators? also in terms of size of final project?
farm 2 forking
https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/series/farm-2-forking-2
5:00
Kim, Liz, Lainey are all rom com writers and did kickstarters together. Karen says it was various ideas it started to be. Karen brought in erin and then the four brought in ember and then they said it will be about a family farm and the siblings will star in the books.
00:7:00
Laura, how do you decide which book and who comes first
00:8:00
Ember, personal schedules, she knew she wanted to go last.
00:9:00
Laura to Ember, did you write a food truck story?
Ember, yes, it was therapeutic
Laura to Erin, where did the idea for this setting come from and how did you expand the universe?
Eric, all the ideas have melded into one thing. it is hard to pinpoint. She remember she was in a place like "dirty dancing" near the catskills. They started sending each other emails and craft around that area. It was good it was near a big city.
Karen, we decided ona farm cause a family on a farm would be the easiest structure to go from book to book.
Liz, a group of best friends have a certain dynamic where a family where they have a more complex dynamic. Made it easier to explore sibling experiences.
Lainey, from the get go we wanted it to be a shared world. I think each can stand alone but it is easier if they are together. They were doing online calls every week for a year.
Ember, the series arc plays into every single book and they have to make sure it is getting resolved.
00:16:00
Laura to Liz, how did you keep the organization
Liz, each role is a scene, she uses google docs, we have notes on each. what date in the year is it. Karen's got a scene and we have rows that keeps us organized. We create places like this and keep them consistent. In her book it is a dive or from her book to Karen's is the bar changing. It is a process to keep organized.
Ember, liz is the one who tells us where to go. The keeper of the bible.
Karen, she has a business background.
Lis, early on we have a series brainstorming document. , what is over view of the series and where will we take it. . I know we talk about in our discord server, but having a place.
KAren, we started in facebook messenger, and it was terrible, then google docs and then we went to discord and we enjoyed discord .
Liz, We have a channel for each book, off topic for chit chat and a place for marketing.
KAren, go straight there, go to discord for communication.
Lainey, this has improved her process for her own books.
00:22:00
Laura to all, what did you find most challenging
Lainey, we realized a plot hole, the challenge and benefit, is you can not write off the challenge or ignore it.
Karen, the starting was so much easier because lainey started it. The reading of the will the grandfather. She was able to get the tone. Cause in her own personal writing she starts slowly. I wrote this faster than any book cause it was started for me already. But it had challenge and we have a grandmother character. She was meant to be noisy but then steal scenes. In a lot of little changes.
Ember, at the start , it made me nervous having to stay in bounds. It freaked her out. I have to read all of their books. It felt like ebing a bigger pressure being the last book. But reading all the books has been compounding inspiration, it is limiting me but is making decisions for my creative process that I didn't see coming.
Erin, She tends to write and edit as she goes, but because she had parameters, the establishment of things made no second guessing it didn't lessen her. We didn't have an upset. We have four other authors with different skills. It feels nice.
Ember, when she was talking about the plot hole of the rock star, the collaborative process defined something about her book that would not had happened alone.
Lainey, it truly feel collaborative in that I am in all, all of us are involved in all. Her readers were like, other writers I don't know, but she assured tem.
KAren, their is dialog written by each of us in each other's book.
Liz, Laine was so easy about me coming into her book.
KAren, collaboratively, we were able to set up the other person's book easier. I wanted to start the incident that starts erin's book without giving it away.
00:31:00
Laura, like an expert level beta reader
Karen, she has a beta reader who read all the books and found something
00:32:00
Laura, Liz how did you decide which tropes you decided ?
Liz, she has a character who is the only kid from a single dad. I knew i wanted them early on. It is easy to see them being who they were at the end. She loves the first proximity dynamic, building each other as employers.
Lainey, her book is a second chance romance and she hates writing it, but readers love it, and she wanted to start it off the series with a strong trope. That journey made her figure out something , her heroine has chron's disease. Once i determined the trope , it determined the plot.
Erin, surprise baby, which she never written before. I have the female siblings. Her decision to make surprise baby came later. If you are truly the girl who grew up with hot brothers, what is your life truly like. What would be the best thing to bring the most conflict? one night stand/surprise baby/they can't handle it? Figuring out how her real life will be with these guys, and having fun, that is really fun.
00:37:00
Laura, it seems everyone is branching out trying things they wouldn't, are they steamy?
Ember, I think we are being pretty consistent. I think I am reeling it in slightly. It makes the most sense for reader expectation to maintain the spice level.
LAiney, I Think this is the steamiest of all your books.
KAren, I am 3.5 Liz and Ember are much higher steam and Lainey is closer to them. My books is a midnight stand, they tend to be steamier. I think the sex positive. We are all celebrating intimacy as part of the relationship story. The steam level shifts with the need of the particular characters in the book. I think what I love, when we hit something hard emotionally. Somebody going through something serious but goofy is in the background. All different kinds of humour. The best romance to read is multiverse.
Liz, She want to share an ancecdote, when Karen was starting we said we wanted acharacter to be dir ty talker.
00:41:00
Laura, Karen you talked about humour, how did you go about that?
Karen, hard question, we come from a theater background. My experience before was creating collaborative shows. We wrote three shows together, and other fun stuff. It is on your feet trying it out. I don't think I can teach somebody to write humour. To me, this is what I know. People who are funny, n my performing career, i was around the ffunniest people, mostly women, and to me you look at reality and tip it a little. you have to have that kind of brain to write comedy. This is one ti [ I n give, if i am caught, get them into trouble. Comedy is getting somebody in trouble and then getting them out of it is the comedy. Lainey is really good at punts
Ember, I feel the presence of the sheep.
Lainey, spoke the name the sheep:)
00:44:00
LAura, are all the punny titles from you
Lainey, I think this was my funniest book, but I had this community. It was iz who suggested the series name.
KAren, I think a google doc is just a list of puns and food titles
00:45:00
Laura, I was enjoying the puns . How do you market as a group different as one author?
Ember, one thing I liked about this project is we all have different avenues. Our network exploded with the avenues we have been abe to tap into. I am in awe everyday of the different opportunites. I think most of us approached the project this in mind. I think we thought to tie in books to already existing projects. It will lead into an existing series that follows it. I am excited to lead into. I don't know, working with these lovely people , when it comes time to promoteI can get a little lax so they have been propping me up.
Karen, ember made have forgotten to design our covers. It is hard enough to find one way to talk to a covr artist but now with five of us. We will have these extensive calls and we tortured the poor girl. Trying to fit all of our brains through the eyes of a needle.
Ember, do we want illustrated, do we want man chest. That was all hard to do together. Figuring out what made the most sense for this project, it was a good challenge.
Erin, part of this was stopping your ego. She said I don't have man chest. But I am going to stop that so if people are thinking about getting into a collaborative. I need the experience to learn from other authors so let me now know.
00:50:00
LAura, i think a common theme is
What are your plans for the future with this universe?
Lainey, up next is putting this up for Audio. everyone is aware audio is a big investment. We are planning on doing kickstarter. But it is an undertaking.
Liz, I don't have any audiobooks.
00:52:00
Laura everyone predicts my questions. KAren and Erin, was it important to you to have audiobook versions
Erin, this is the first time I have released anything written first. I always prioritized my audiobook audience. I am getting more audiobook readers. She had to talk to her supporters. I am going to give an audioversion but please support the text first. And without the audio most of her readers will not.
KAren, Erin, will be narrating all the books from the female points of view and we are casting the male. Its comng but we don't know when.. Right now kickstarter and then audiobook,a nd then spinoff, but maybe we will add writers later.
00:54:00
LAura, what do you have coming up next.
Erin, bringing home the bacon, august 8th and a christmas book in early november. erinmallon.com , she has a facebook group
Liz, june 13th , a book . her next book is christmas novella, ghost of xmas past. A cover for her april release. A last book in ha series. My spinoff from this series will be abuut Kit. Alex's big romance bff. Readers cant' wait for him to get his own story.
Ember, a baby ina few weeks. a spin off in september. beyond that i will be doing a continuation of her series the bad boys of wall street. I got to take it easy once this new baby comes. emberleighstore.com
Lainey, my book came out a couple weeks ago. July I am releasing the next book. I can do two romcoms in a row then i need to do something else. laineydavis.com I have a newsletter on my website.
Karen, her book coeso out 7/11 my spin off will be next. She is setting it in a town called climax. Weapon to climax, small town folks who work at a rep department and the disruption that happens whn a silicon fvalley firm comes. Karengrey.com karengreybooks.com hew newsletter. all her books are on kobo plus like LAiney.
01:01:00
Laura, thanks everyone
Erin's Website! https://www.erinmallon.com/home
Liz's Website! https://www.lizalden.com/
Ember's Website: https://emberleighromance.com/
Lainey's Website: https://www.laineydavis.com/
Karen's Website: https://www.karengrey.com/