The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

From Writing to Marketing: A Bestselling Author's Guide

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 20

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In this episode of 'The Social Media Takeaway,' I had the pleasure of speaking with 5-time bestselling romance author Lyndsey Gallagher about her incredible journey into writing fiction novels and her amazing marketing strategy. In this episode, she gives valuable advice to aspiring authors and stresses the importance of just getting started. We explore her effective marketing strategies, different writing styles and how she uses social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for book promotion. For anyone starting to write, Lyndsey's advice is invaluable. 

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Louise McDonnell:

Hi everyone and welcome to the social media takeaway. I'm your host Louise McDonnell and today I'm speaking to Lyndsey Gallagher about writing and marketing fiction books. If you like the show please make sure you subscribe and tell all your friends and if you're posting any feedback on your socials be sure to tag me and Lyndsey So Lyndsey is a five times bestselling author. She writes a steamy contemporary romance featuring swoon worthy heroes and relatable heroine. Her debut novel, The Seven Year Itch, was inspired by the weekend she met her husband. She currently lives in the West of Ireland, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and she enjoys long walks, deep talks, and the occasional G&T. You're very welcome to the show, Lyndsey

Lyndsey Gallagher:

thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh, not at all. Not at all. So do you want to tell me, how did you get into writing books? Do you want to tell us your journey?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

When I just wrote the first one for The Crack, to be honest, I am a huge reader and I always wanted to write a book. I just had it in me, you know, it was just there the whole time. And I just, I suppose I never felt good enough, you know, that imposter syndrome, it's so real. And then when I had my two children, I thought if I can do that, I can do anything. So I just got a laptop and I started writing. And I said to my husband you're going to laugh at me, but I'm going to write a book. And he said, why would I laugh at you? And it just went from there really. And then when the first book sold and it started to do well, I said, I could actually make a go of this and do something that I love. So yeah, I went on from there and I did a few courses and I just read a lot of books on writing books, you know, there's actually a formula for writing. So I, and I could see it anyway, I could see it, you know, chapter one, you meet her chapter two, you meet him chapter three, they meet each other. Like when you're writing romance, it really is a formula and you see it when you're watching rom coms. It's exactly the same. So Yeah, it just went from there, really.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh, very good. And so you wrote the first book without having it done any courses or programs. You just came straight from the heart, I suppose.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

I just wrote it straight from the heart. I actually couldn't sleep for thinking about this book. Like I was awake at night thinking, that would make a brilliant book, that would make a brilliant book. And then because there was no drama, like it was inspired by the weekend, I met my husband, but because we didn't really have any drama, I was really struggling to, when I got to kind of, Towards the end of writing the book, I was like, there's something missing here. There's something missing here. And it instinctively kicked in. We need a third act breakup, even though real life, there isn't like that. It's like, I've read enough romances just to know that there had to be some sort of a drama. And then I was like, Oh yeah, of course. You know? So it just, it just instinctively came to me.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. Very good. And so for somebody like who's listening in, who's thinking about writing a book, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, what advice would you give them?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

I think just write it like lots of people would say, you know, you need to plan it and you need to outline it. There are two different types of writers out there, and they're the planners, the plotters, and we call the others, the pantsers. I'm a pantser, as in winging it by the seat of my pants, like I just sit down and write, and that's how it works for me, but then I've author friends who They can't work like that. You know, they need to know what they're going to write in each chapter and they have bullet points for each chapter and whatever else, whichever way works for you, but we are saying you can't edit a blank page, you have to start somewhere. So, whether it means planning the chapter and then writing the chapter or whether it means just writing it and seeing where it takes you, you can always fix it afterwards, you know.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay, yeah. Tell us about that first moment when your, whichever book it was, probably your first book, when all of a sudden you started getting sales that weren't your friends, family, relations, like it was gone beyond that. Can you remember that?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Well, it happened right away with that book, to be honest because, like, I think it was quite controversial and the fact that I had openly said I had based this on, you know, real events on how I met my husband. So, I think and I managed to get into the newspaper here with it before release. And into the magazines around here. And so from that point, like I didn't realize how, how well it was because it was my first book, but you know, I was at like 3000 in the Kindle store, you know, on the release week, which, you know, it was a big deal because even the books that I wrote after that, that I hadn't put so much time into marketing, you know, I might've on release day only been at 4, even though I was more experienced than I had followers at that stage. So yeah, that's what I'm saying. It was a shock really. And I wrote it for the crack and then I said, Oh, maybe I could make it a business out of this.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. Very good. And how many books have you written to date?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

14. My 14th book comes out this day, next week.

Louise McDonnell:

My goodness. Do you run out of ideas or how do the ideas keep coming to you?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

No. So when you're writing romance, there's a whole list of tropes. tropes are what people look for. Like it used to be a thing where it's like, Oh, it's so full of tropes. It's a bad thing. Whereas now, like with the way that social media is taking off, people look for certain tropes. so it's like a military romance or a boy next door or a royal prince or that's like a different type of romance. Like, so my favorite trope is fake dating. If I see a book that's about fake dating I'd be like, that's a one click for me. I'd be like, Oh yeah, I like that. Throw in a bit of false proximity, which is another trope, you know? So it's there's literally a whole, list of tropes. It's like baking a cake. So you're going to say, I'm going to write a book and it's going to have the brother's best friend. It's going to have a tortured hero. It's going to have this, that, and the other. So that, that's what the tropes are. Marriage of convenience, mafia romance is huge right now. It's crazy that you could literally write a book about anything at the minute, so yeah, so I just kind of, I pick my tropes and I say, I'd like to, I've done a few fake dating ones because it's my favorite myself. I love it when they're fake dating, but then there's always that moment where, you know, they have to kiss or they realize that it's not that fake. You know, that, that for me is, that's my favorite. So yeah, no, I don't run out of ideas. I just decide which trope I'm going to tackle next and I want to do as many of them as I can.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. Very good. And then tell us then, I know you're very strong on the marketing of your book. I know Lyndsey so I'd be hearing her chatting about doing what she's doing and I always find it extremely interesting. So, so tell us when a book is finished, tell us that the process that happens. So once you fit, you type the end, what happens then?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

So I typed the end and then I sent it to my editor, who is really mean to me, and he's a man. He's not actually an editor, he's actually a best selling thriller author, but I asked him would he take me on because he would proofread for me and he'd say, this mistake's here, and I find it really, really hard to get a really good editor, because there's a lot of people that say I'm an editor. You know, you're paying them a lot of money and they're not brilliant. So when I found him, like I said, he's really hard on me. And because he's a man and he doesn't read romance, he takes it from a different perspective. You know, he's like, you can't say that with this or that, and that's not believable. So I have to take him with a bit of a pinch of salt, but he usually takes four weeks to turn around my book and then so he sent it back to me with my line edits and all the tracking changes. I'll go through it usually with a glass of wine because I would be wincing and thinking you know, he'd pull me up. I don't like this and I don't like that. And fair enough. That's really hard to take, but in the same sense. If you don't get it from your editor, you're going to get it down the line from your reviewers, people that have bought the book that don't like it. So your result is to get on with it. So get the edits done. I do my bit, then I send it back to him or to somebody else for a proofread. So that could take another two, three weeks. And then when you get that back, then what I do is I format it myself for Amazon. So I do it all myself. I do my own covers. I upload it to the KDP website, and then they take maybe three to four days to approve it and check that it meets their quality standards. And then the book goes live, but I usually set up a pre order. So people can pre order my book, say three or four or five months in advance. So if you do that with Amazon, your pre order has to be up like the week before. Otherwise if, if I were just going to publish a book today, I just set it live today and then probably by tomorrow or the next day, it would go live.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay. Okay. Okay. So the pre order, that means that people can pre order it and then do they get access to it a week before it's actually live? Is that it? Or how does it work?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

No, it means that on release day, instead of having to go and search for it, it will be delivered to their Kindle that day, usually at midnight. Yeah, and the pre orders are really important for authors because that's how you get your rank on Amazon. So you basically need, well you used to need about 3, 000 pre orders to hit number one on release day, but now it's so much more because there's so much more competition. But that's where the pre orders, as they all go through on the same day, then your book rank goes up and up and up on Amazon. So you can click on to Amazon and you can see the top 100 free books today, or you can see the top 100 paid books a day, and then you have like bestsellers in your category as well. So but the pre orders really help with that.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. And then I know you also send out the book to, did you, you mentioned about sending out the book to 50 people beforehand, is that before it's live or what, what's, how does that work?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Oh yes. So what I do is, is that when I get my book back before I upload it, I make sure that I've got kind of a month usually. I caught myself type this time, but I usually have a month where I have the book and it's ready to go up and it's ready to go live. And then I will send it out to, I have an ARC team, which is my advanced reader. So they get an arc copy, an advanced reader copy of the book which I send to them myself via a website called Book Funnel and they can download it. So they get the book, they don't pay for it. I give it to them in exchange for an honest review, and they will review my book on Amazon before. release day and on Goodreads social media site. And it's nice. They usually do social media for me as well. They tag me in their Instagrams and I might send them graphics to use as well. And TikToks and things like that. So that all really helps kind of create a buzz around the release time because, they're reading it and they're saying this is really good and you have to read it. So then, you know, that helps with the pre orders as well.

Louise McDonnell:

And I do know those people are just that are they selected through the website?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

I have a Facebook reader group, which I get a lot of my ARC team through them. So they're readers that have read my previous books that have enjoyed them, that know that they like my writing style. And I put a call out on my Facebook reader group and I say, I have so many spots available. Would you like to join my ARC team? And I do it that way. And that's a good way of doing it because they're, they're tried and tested. They already like my work. But I also use another website called Book Sirens. I don't know if you've heard of them, but they're in the US. so I upload the manuscript to them as well. And people that I don't know, or that have never read my work before will get the opportunity to say, I would like to download that book. So you can set how many spaces you want. So I usually set 50, sometimes a hundred, and they will download the book and then they have maybe seven to 10 days to leave a review as well.

Louise McDonnell:

Well, that's brilliant. How exciting.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

It's a good way to find new readers, that way.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so how do you use social media then, Lyndsey?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

So I use Facebook for community building, to be honest. That's where I have my reader group. I check in with my readers every day. How are you? What are you reading? And I try and keep that quite personal. So I give them a bit of myself and, you know, it is community building. I formed friendships on there. It's lovely. Then I use Instagram more for maybe the branding. I put my reels on there with snippets of the book and hooks and taglines and then TikTok again, I use really differently. Not as my author name, but as like, say steamy romance lover or book lover one on one. And then so that I make them like fan accounts basically. And I use some videos and. hooks from the book, so like the tagline of the book, I might put on there with a picture of the book and kind of make a really eye catching video. And then I'll share that on the six different TikTok accounts with different sounds to see which one goes further. And you usually find that there's a whole thing on TikTok called BookTok. And that's how a lot of independently published authors like me have made it really big. You just, it's hard work, but it's luck as well. You need a video that does really well. You know, it's, it's a bit of everything and it's more than anything, it's consistency. You know, you need to be consistent on all the socials and you know yourself, it's so time consuming. You can spend all day on Facebook, on Instagram on TikTok. And you know, then you still have to write the 2000 words for the day and do everything else that goes with it as well.

Louise McDonnell:

So from creating your TikToks, what advice, so if somebody's here tuning in and they're just starting off, like if they're creating TikToks or reels, what advice would you give them? What, what works? What, what hooks people? What's the first thing that you need to hit them with?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Well, first of all, you need a really good image. It's so either a really clear quality video you know, I use a ring light if it's me, or I make sure that I'm in my sitting room where I have the biggest window. And also I bought a new phone. Just because the camera quality is so much better. I think TikTok prioritize the quality of your video. They'll just give it more views if, if the quality is good. But the hooks, you need to find something that readers need to know the end of. They need to know the end. So, like, not necessarily mine, but you kind of dangle the carat you know, say, So she works in a gentleman's club and the most eligible billionaire walks in and he says to her dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And then it's like, well, what does he say? You know, you need to leave it. You need to leave it on a hook. And then what you can actually do on TikTok, you know, yourself is you can give them a three or four second flash of the book cover and take it away again so that then they have to go search for it. So you need to leave them wanting a bit more.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh, brilliant. And, and again, like in terms of your audience, are they U. S. UK, how does it break down?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Up until this Christmas, last Christmas, just gone, actually. You can see on Kindle Unlimited. who is reading your books. It gives you a breakdown every day of which country, who's downloading your books, who's having the pages read where. And so up until Christmas, it was 70 percent UK and 30 percent US. But then at Christmas, I flipped from 70 percent UK to US. So now it's predominantly in the US, which is brilliant because it's a much bigger market. And that's exactly where I want to be. But I think a lot of that was I, I got lucky and well I mean it's hard work as well but I engage with other reader groups so I make sure that I under my author name Lyndsey Gallagher author of that page, I am on other authors groups, and I was invited to do this thing called, Tell me a story where I had 24 hours to write 10, 000 words of a short story. And it was on a huge platform. And I think that that was what flipped it for me, to be honest, you know, I got, I got a lot of read throughs from, from those books. So I was so grateful to that was Lucy scores group, the binge readers, anonymous. So yeah, I mean, she is a huge promoter of other authors. Like she's wonderful. I think you need to make connections like that as well. And, and, you know, and be present and. you know, I have a lot of author friends who will say authors supporting authors, you know, because a book costs, whatever it costs, 3. 99 or whatever, it's not, it's not a competition between me and my friend Margaret or me and my friend whoever. It's if they like my book, they're going to like your book, let's all work together here, you know, and you need a good network like that sort of people that you can work with and, and also, they're the same people that I can say, I've written this book and I'm not sure about it, would you read it before I send it to my editor, you know?

Louise McDonnell:

Oh, very good. Yeah, that's wonderful. And so I know sometimes you find a difference between the creatives, which appeal to the US audience versus the UK dash Ireland audiences. So that, that is something actually that I, that I find a bit intriguing as well, because anyone, anyone who's ever run any paid promotions on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and you do your different ad sets, you can have like one ad set targeting Ireland, one ad set targeting UK, another ad set, let's say targeting the U S and you get to see the difference between the results, the cost per results on each ad set. So you have noticed this and you've put it down to a lot. So tell a little bit about what you've learned about that and what you advise.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

I was finding that the UK audience, my readers in the UK I think it could be a British thing. I'm British, so I can say that, but like, they don't want to be seen to be reading romance novels with men on the front. They like the discreet covers. And like I said, I can get away with saying that because I'm English. it's like a, it's nearly like a thing. Like they just will not buy a romance with a man with a torso or a man with a suit in front. It's like, no, that's not for me. It's nearly like it's too smutty, but a lot of their cute covers, they're exactly the same content on the inside, but just, the cute covers sell so much better. In the UK, it's unbelievable for me. That's what I found anyway. And I was finding that my Facebook ads with the cute covers in the UK were doing so much better than they were in the States. I was running the same ad campaign. in the UK and the US. And in the US, the cute covers just weren't converting for me. So I think you've seen on my social media there lately, I've been invited to Charm City to this it's like an author signing. So as a signing author, I've been invited. So I've decided to put my eggs in the US basket. And I'm in the process of changing my covers from all cutesy ones to, you know, the suited men or the, you know, the men on the front anyway, basically. And I found that. Marketing those, I was just having a look at my Facebook ads there. I set them yesterday and the cost per click, I think today with the, with the man on the front, it was like 18 cents per click, which was way better for me than it had been lately. That's, that's not too bad. I mean, don't get me wrong in an ideal world. I do aim for it to be around 10 or 11 cents per click, but I can tweak that and I will tweak it. But you know, I was finding with acute covers, it could be 35 cent a click, you know?

Louise McDonnell:

for anyone who's not so familiar with ads, or even if you are like, if you're using the same wording on the ad, and the only difference is the image, and then you can change the image and just see what the difference in the cost per click is. So the cost per click is how much you're paying. How, how much it costs to get somebody to click on your ad. So you might, your ad might be shown to a few thousand people how many people click on that ad as a result of it coming up in their newsfeed. So I find that fascinating that at just a different creative, same words, but a different creative can have a different, totally different cost per results in just by location.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

And I'll tell you something else that I found, and I found this the hard way, was that I was changing up my ads. This was last summer because I knew that, you know, it wasn't converting well for me. So what I did was for my ad creative, for my Facebook ads for the US, I used the men on the adverse. So my image, On the Facebook ad was a man leaning against a building and the tagline of the book. And I always put a quote on there and a five star review. So you can see the five shiny stars. It looks great. And it says GoodReads review quotes. So people looking at the ad, they know it's a book because it says Goodreads, even though there's no book on the image. So I found that those ads were unbelievable, like 13 cent per click, 10 cent per click. But when they clicked through to the Amazon page and they seen the cute cover, they didn't convert for me. Yeah. So I said, I have to do something here. I need to just change it up and I need to put the men on the front. That's amazing. The difference between the UK and the U S it really is.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, I say that all the time to people. People sometimes say to me, my ad didn't work. I'm like, well, what was the click through rate? And they say, well, the click through rate is 6%. I'm like, your ad worked. It was what happened when they clicked away. That's what the product. Because sometimes I notice as well when you're buying books, do you know when you're buying a book yourself and you're like, you know, somebody might be, let's say from a book club and everybody's buying the same book and you know what the cover looks like. And then when you go to buy it, this cover is slightly different. Is that because it could be just a different cover for different countries or can you do that?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Well, I can't, but people can do that. So what you can do is, is you can have an ebook cover as say the man on the front, and you could have your paperback version as the cute. And so then you could market the paperback version in the UK and you could market the ebook in the US. But I find that if you're still marketing cute cover, In the UK but the UK reader wants to buy the ebook, they're still going to get taken to the ebook page so it doesn't really work. but you find like say like the big authors now like say Lucy score she started off as, you know, independent herself. And, you know, she'll say herself she sold like 38 copies of her first book you know and now she's selling millions like she's unbelievable. But what you find now is is that she's been picked up by. I think it's Bloomsbury and all of these big publishing houses so as far as I'm aware. I think she still has the ebooks herself, but they're basically buying the rights to sale the paperbacks, so they can market those paperback books whatever way works best for them. And I think someone was saying that along the way that I think these big publishing houses will test. different covers on a Facebook ad before they even cover the book. They'll just do trials to see which ones that they're clicking on, and then I think the ones that are most successful, that's the cover that they go for when they go to print.

Louise McDonnell:

And you know, the fact even that Kindle, I know from having my own books on Amazon, like there are different markets, you know, you have the Amazon US versus the Amazon UK and so could, you can't like just put up different copies.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

It would be amazing if you were allowed to do that, but you can't.

Louise McDonnell:

Dear Amazon, if you are listening to this podcast, there is some feedback because that's a problem. That's a real problem for authors that different covers appeal to different audiences and you know, you should be able to target every audience. Yeah. Tell me, have you any ambitions to get picked up by a movie or?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Oh I'm sure it's everybody's dream, every author's dream, I'd say you know, and it does happen like Amy Dawes, her book got picked up and made into a passion flicks movie. You must've heard of Colleen Hoover, maybe hadn't, but she's massive in romance. And she wrote this book called It Ends With Us. She writes like contemporary romance, but they're quite angsty. They really get you in the heart. But she wrote this book called, it Ends With Us and it's common to cinemas now in August. And I cannot wait to see it 'cause I love that book. But yeah, I mean like, I think it's the dream, but. Yeah, I mean, hopefully one day, you never know, just keep trying, keep trying.

Louise McDonnell:

I think that's where, I think that's where social media as well is like, you never know who's watching. You just never know who's picking up what you do, you know do you use LinkedIn at all?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

No, not really. To be honest, maybe I should, I probably should actually.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, just if, if that was ever an ambition, I suppose it's, you'd nearly have to sit down and think, how do I get there? But I suppose speaking at all these events is going to help you as well, Lyndsey

Lyndsey Gallagher:

yeah. Let's hope so.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, exactly. Tell me, what do you think about AI? Is it going to change your industry? Do you see it as a threat or do you see it as something that will help you?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

I see it as a tune and I use it myself every day of my life. It's unbelievable, actually. I use it for editing. I have it open the whole time. So I might put a sentence in that doesn't quite sound right, or I would double check the grammar on it. Or even like I use it like a dictionary a lot of the time. Is that the right word? Does that make sense? Actually though I have used it for other things like so I could be stuck at a chapter in my book and say, well, this needs to happen, or this needs to happen. I know say like, I know I need them to have a third act breakup and I'm stuck for an idea. So I could put it into the chat GPT and say this is my characters, this is how far they've come, can you give me ten ideas of ten, ten bullet points and it will give it to me within about three seconds.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, it's brilliant

Lyndsey Gallagher:

I usually just pick one that I like and say, can we talk about this? And you know what? My husband is so grateful for AI. Because before that I used to say to him, I'm at this point in my book and I just don't know, and, and, you know, can you help me? Like, can we talk about this? And he'd be like, oh my goodness. No, in fairness, he was a brilliant help. He came up with a really good one of my, for one of my Christmas books. And people will say to me, I never seen that coming. I'm like, I actually never seen that coming, but my husband did. You know, but I use it kind of like as, as a prompt, I use AI as a prompt. And the other thing that I use AI for is for the social medias, for the TikTok videos. I find Midjourney unbelievable for creating images. So they're so realistic. And they're huge on TikTok right now. I say, I put into Midjourney, you know, the forward slash imagine. And I'd say, give me a story. Stunning sitting room overlooking a sunset or whatever, or a poolside. Really something really glamorous, something that you couldn't even find a picture of because it's just so glamorous and you know, within seconds, it would give me four options. I upscale the version that I like, I can zoom in, zoom out, whatever. And I take that and I download it. And I find that the TikToks that I use with those AI images always perform so much better than even a picture that I've bought from deposit photos. You know, whatever it is about, it's the clarity you see, it's the clarity, it's unbelievable.

Louise McDonnell:

Ah, I know. And you know, that's something I wouldn't have thought of. It's only recently that was it, I was trying to boost something, I don't know if it was a TikTok or Instagram and they said, no, the quality wasn't, wasn't clear enough. And it's just cause I had zoomed in. I was like, Oh, sugar, I won't zoom in again, if it's going to impact the quality of what we do. So tell me now. What's been the highlight so far, Lyndsey?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

I think holding your own book in your hand, there's nothing like it. You know, when you see it and you go, oh my goodness, like I wrote that, like, you know, and like I said, it was always my dream. I'd love to write romance books. I'd love to, but can I, can't I? Will I ever be good enough? And, you know, when you hold it in your hand and you just say, oh, wow. It's like a proud moment. It's like having, holding your baby, you know, your book baby in your hand. So that is definitely. I'd say the highlight, but then when readers reach out to you and they say, oh my goodness, I loved your book, you know, and you think, gosh, like you, I've never met you before. You live in the States, you know, and then they go on to buy your backlist. They go and read every book you've ever written because they really, they seem to get you, you know, and I know it's a, it's a fictional story, but. There's always a part of us in it, you know, it's come from inside me. So, you know, when the reviews aren't great, oh, I didn't like that. I couldn't relate to the character. I'm like, Oh, I nearly take it less. Like they don't like me. I have to have had to say to myself, it's a story, Lyndsey, you are not the story, you know, but what I said is when you flip it on its head and you get somebody that just loves it, it's just, it's so heartwarming. You know, it's a heartwarming feeling.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay. And give us an idea now. I know you probably don't know this figure off the top of your head, but. How many pages have been read of all your books of all time?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Oh, millions and millions. In December alone, last year, I had 1. 2 million pages read in December. So, yeah, and you know yourself, when you're with Kindle Unlimited, you get paid for every page read. So, you know, it's a great scheme to be in the Kindle Unlimited. But yeah, I mean, I, I don't actually, I try not to check it. Every day can become obsessive, you know? And in December, I knew I was going really well, so I was checking every day. I was getting to the stage where even my husband would wake up and say, how many pages did you have read last night? You know, , . But yeah, I mean, I find that I get more pages read than I do actual downloads, but I still get the downloads as well. But definitely eBooks will move better for me than paperbacks. But like that with the hardcore fans, the ones that really do relate to the books. You really find that they read the ebook and then they'll buy the paperback as well because they want to finish up.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh my goodness. Well, congratulations. That's amazing. Millions of pages. Good for you. And you like, you started off wondering, could you do it? Yes. Yes, you could.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Yeah. And learning on the job, you know, I've learned so much on the job, even the formatting and the social media and the ads and everything. You know, you kind of, and the cover design, you know, I make my covers, and it's a fiddly thing to get the spines the right size, you know, it depends how many pages you've got in the book, if you're using white paper or cream paper, it's all the sort of fiddly things, and when I sit and I think about it, I've never met a woman that says, I'm, I'm doing brilliantly here, I'm killing this, and we're all the same, we will say, And I could be doing this more and I could be doing that. And you have to sit down sometimes and say to yourself, when you look back, this is how far I've come. You know, we're all learning. It's all a work in progress all the time. But you have to say, geez, like in four or five years, you know, big changes. Like, thank goodness.

Louise McDonnell:

That's brilliant. And tell me, what advice would you give to yourself when you were starting off, like what do you know now that you didn't know then?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Well, there's so much to be honest, but I think the main thing is, is that it's probably, it's not just about books, but it's like life advice. Not everyone is going to like you. They're not going to like your book. There are books that other people have raved about that I haven't liked. And there are books that I have absolutely raved about. And I've seen one star reviews on them. And I think the thing that I wish I'd known is to, to more like to incorporate that and take it on the chin. Like there are going to be people that love your book and there are going to be people that not like it. And not to take it personally, like we all have different preferences and that's what makes the world go round. But because it is great when the reviews are coming in well and everything. You know, it only takes the one and you say, Oh, but now I laugh, you know, now I read my one star reviews and I laugh and, and I do read them because I think, is there something I can learn out of here? Have I missed a point somewhere or, you know, what did they not like, you know? So I suppose, yeah, kind of a thick skin is probably, that's what you need.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. And that comes with experience as well though, doesn't it?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Yeah. And age as well.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, I think the older you get, the less you care about what other people think, you know.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

That's exactly it.

Louise McDonnell:

Okay. Last question. So anyone that is listening in here today, that's starting to write or thinking to starting to write, what should they do next?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Well, write the book first, just write it because everything else can be fixed. So write it and find somebody you trust. to read it or maybe just go straight for the jugular and find an editor because they will be brutal. But usually I think to test the waters first, you know, is is the story flowing rather than spending a lot of money and getting a horrific amount of edits back maybe to find somebody or even to, Reach out to the reader community, like even on Instagram, there's the whole bookstagram community. There are lots of readers who will happily read a book that's not been edited and just give you feedback. We call them beta readers. So if you can find somebody that'll do that for you before you want to start paying somebody, that's kind of a good way to go. But basically I'd say to everybody that's going to release a book, you need a professional editor. You know, there are people that don't use them, but if you want to be taken seriously, you need to find a professional to help you.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. Very good. Well, congratulations on your success so far. I think you're an inspiration with fair play to you. That is amazing to start off, you know, just writing something from the heart and then to have millions of people have read your pages of all your books, your 14 books and your five times bestselling books as well. So congratulations. Where can people find you, Lyndsey?

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Well, they can find my books on Amazon and can find me on Instagram, Lyndsey Gallagher, author TikTok la Gallagher. That's my pen name and yeah, Facebook. And I have a Facebook reader group called Lyndsey's Book Lashes. A lot of it is about books, but a lot of it is just, like I said, it's community building. It's heaven. A friend is having somebody say, how's your day? And I think that that's the really nice thing about the romance community is, is there are a lovely bunch of women, you know, half of it's only books and the other half is just friendship. And I always think you never meet a miserable romance reader because everybody's reading romance. Everybody's happy. We're all about the happy ever after. So, you know, it's a nice place to hang out.

Louise McDonnell:

Very good. Well, thanks for coming on the show and thanks for sharing all your advice with everyone.

Lyndsey Gallagher:

Great. And thank you so much for having me.