The Publishing Performance Show

Suzy K Quinn - Writing Romantic Comedy and Building a Group of Superfans

• Teddy Smith • Episode 14

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Suzy K Quinn is a bestselling author with over 20 books across romantic comedy and thriller genres. Her self-published works include the successful Bad Mother's Diary series and The Ivy Lessons series, which have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Currently heading the London office of Kevin Anderson Associates' ghostwriting company, Suzy combines her writing expertise with helping other authors develop their manuscripts.

In this episode:

  • Suzy's journey from aspiring writer to bestselling author
  • The differences between self-publishing and traditional publishing
  • Her experience with viral book success on Amazon
  • Insights into writing bestselling fiction
  • The importance of focusing on craft over marketing
  • Her work with Kevin Anderson Associates
  • Tips for aspiring authors in different genres
  • The value of understanding your readership


Resources mentioned:


Book recommendations:


Connect with Suzy K Quinn:


Connect with Teddy Smith:


Join our Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/publishingperformance/



Teddy Smith: Hi everyone and welcome to the Publishing Formant show. Today I'm really excited to be joined by Suzy K Quinn who is one of the most prolific writers in the self-publishing world. Now it's fascinating to speak to her today all about romantic comedy, how she writes her books, her writing process, what she does for marketing her books. Now this is all going to be really, really valuable to you because she's one of the biggest writers in the self-publishing world so it was really exciting to have her on the show and I think you're going to learn a lot of tips, a lot of tricks, a bit about romantic comedy, a bit about writing processes, a bit about marketing and even if you're doing fiction or non-fiction Suzy K Quinn is one of the best people to learn all about that from as she's one of the most successful. 

So I think you're going to find it really interesting. Check out her books and the show notes as well afterwards and we will put a link to those and I hope you enjoy the show. Hi everyone and welcome to Publishing Formant Show. I'm here with Suzy Quinn who's the writer of over 20 books in the romance, comedy romance and the thriller categories and she's also the founder of the How to Write Best Seller Course. Thanks for joining us Suzy, hey Quinn. 

Suzy K Quinn: Very welcome, nice to be here Teddy. 

Teddy Smith: Thank you. So thanks for joining the show so I just thought I'd like you to tell us a bit about your background and how you got started as a writer. 

Suzy K Quinn: Sure so I think like most writers I was writing from a really young age so I started writing when I was about five or six in terms of writing stories. I think it's probably true of most writers that you start you realize that you love writing stories really young and then when I was about I think eight or nine I found my dad had a word processing computer if you can imagine such a thing that I could write on you know and I was a really slow type but I write out my stories which my dad then read which I was really annoyed about but yeah so and then you know I always loved whenever there was a story that you had to write in English or something that I absolutely loved it and I loved reading and English came very easily to me lucky me and then yeah when I was about I went traveling when I was in my early 20s and it sort of just hit me one day okay so I think I want to write novels and it was a really upsetting realization because it's such a you know competitive career looked at through a certain lens it can become feel competitive and also there's no kind of standard inroads so if you decide you want to be a doctor or something like that you know it maybe it's difficult maybe it's five years and you're not too short how you're going to fund it and all the rest of it but at least you know at the end of it you will work as a doctor whereas with writing it's not like that so it was yeah it was a difficult realization I could have done with going for something a bit easier 

Teddy Smith: there's a lot of crap advice out there isn't there like just keep writing and see what happens you know it's like you know you've got to practice 

Suzy K Quinn: yeah I mean it's I suppose that's like I know what you mean about that advice but in some it does have a truth to it in that you just have to the more you write the better you get and sometimes you're not having the success because you're not as good as you were supposed to be yet you know and so you've just got to keep writing the next book every every book gets better and better 

Teddy Smith: yeah brilliant so when you're traveling was there a particular book you think you read which was like your spark moment that wanted to get you into writing 

Suzy K Quinn: I don't think it was about I was sort of trying to work out okay what am I going to do for the world what's my job here what how can I be of service to people and I I suppose I just worked out it was that sort of combination creativity and language that was just what I just really enjoyed doing and the things you enjoy the thing obviously the things that you'll usually end up being best at you know but what I did do when I decided I was going to be a writer was I did read lots of books you know lots and lots of all sorts of books and then lots of books on writing and one of those was Stephen King's book on writing which is really fun and brilliant and I love his trajectory into writing he's he's got a really interesting story about how he was you know had some horrible day job and then he just got this mega advance and it was wonderful 

Teddy Smith: yeah brilliant and so with your genres you mostly in romantic comedy and thrillers but were these the sort of were these books you enjoyed writing about reading sorry or was like how did you settle on that category that you wanted to write about 

Suzy K Quinn: I think with I read all sorts of different genres in fact I would say I'm probably not a genre person as much as a sort of book club person if you know what I mean so I like sort of big vision books you know what ones that have really big stories I don't necessarily read in a certain genre but what leads me to write a certain book is will be the story that comes to me and unfortunately for me it always seems to come in different genres 

Teddy Smith: it was the same genre all the time. Works for a lot of writers doesn't it you know like J.K Rowling's got her books that are in like you know the crime books with the strike and also Harry Potter fancy books they're completely different really. 

Suzy K Quinn: Yeah exactly true yeah that's true. 

Teddy Smith: So when you're approaching your writing like you've got your you know best-selling series The Bad Mothers Diary how do you approach writing those do you have a particular methodology to your writing? 

Suzy K Quinn: It's a change with every top story I write because the methodology for writing a thriller is really different from writing a romantic comedy or generally it is because it's a different way in so with The Bad Mothers series it started off as a sort of character piece I just started writing this kind of funny or what I thought was funny stuff about a mom who's having problems and it just sort of all the other characters just kind of came in and developed and then various sort of drama pieces just sort of came out of it and it was written in a diary style but it didn't start out as a diary so it sort of evolved that one. Yeah and then the ivy lessons that was another book that just evolved from my idea so that was a romance between a teacher and a student and that just kind of evolved from that idea of what would that look like and I guess they'd have to be it you know it has to be a university teacher obviously and she has to be a university student and what would the university be like and all that kind of stuff but then with thrillers I tend to know the ending so I plan it a bit more so and that's harder because the characters it's never a good idea to bend the character into a story you know just to make the plot work but it's really hard with thrillers because obviously you do have certain things that you want to happen and you know there's a lot of it's like a big rubik's cube you know it's really hard to get that puzzle sometimes in the middle it looks important at the beginning and then you start sort of twisting it around and in the middle you're kind of oh my god I don't know how I'm going to make this neat and tidy you know but you get them in the end. 

Teddy Smith: I was chatting to James Blatch a week or so ago and he was talking about a book he read called Save the Cat and it's like a book about it yeah and that basically talks about those things you were just saying about when you're plotting it especially with thrillers there's kind of points you need to make within the book was that like a structure you followed do you think or was it did you have your own way of working it? 

Suzy K Quinn: So I do I think it's Save the Cat is more for screenwriters and it's sort of but it's a great book I mean it's really good and I'm really on behind kind of like being aware of certain plot points in your story and also novelists being working more like screenwriters because screenwriters often make great novelists and have loads of success so I would say that I have a sort of pardown is it pardown paredown? I never remember that word. 

Teddy Smith: Yeah so I have a sort of a more kind of six kind of part structure that I sort of follow kind of and it just keeps it simpler like that and then yeah you can move scenes around and yeah that's yeah but I do Save the Cat is a great book. Yeah brilliant all your books that are they're published under traditional authors have you had have you ever thought about considering going down the self-publishing versus publishing route or why you made a particular decision on that? 

Suzy K Quinn: So my lots of my books are self-published so my Ben Mothers Diary series they were all best sellers so 100,000 copies plus and they were self-published and my IBSN series that was self-published that sold over half million and my traditionally published books are all thrillers basically so my teacher and not my daughter and last gations which is the first book I wrote. 

Teddy Smith: Yeah was there a reason why you picked like self-publishing or publishing for either of them or was it just how it fell in place? 

Suzy K Quinn: With the Ivy Lessons my publisher wouldn't take or they were going to take it and then they weren't and then they were and I felt really sort of disrespected by the process and it felt quite sort of I'm sure they didn't mean it like this and I think probably people in publishing actually really nice people but I think what they don't realise that being on the other end of it as an author is it's a huge power imbalance and actually what you're doing is you're holding someone's career in a five seconds decision on oh should we do this should we not you know and publishers have to kind of make you know they do have to make difficult decisions and they have to cut authors loose if they're not selling but I don't think they really understand and then sometimes publishers can be really loyal and they can be great I mean I've definitely heard that but I think you know sometimes I don't think they quite understand the courage it takes on the other end to be an author and what it means not to move forward with a book you know so I just felt quite incensed by it so I self-published it and I really didn't expect it to be successful right and and it went on and was really successful and I really didn't advertise it or anything it just sort of happened really so yeah so it's great you know James I would I hope James will call me a friend I will call him a 

Teddy Smith: friend so he wasn't talking badly about you don't worry 

Suzy K Quinn: I know it's okay it's okay but yeah I think James and all those guys that their self-publishing formula which I know is evolving at the moment into something really new and exciting they've been great friends along the journey and it's such a nice community to be part of the self-publishing community 

Teddy Smith: yeah that is all the people I speak to in these sessions I do not coaching sessions with aspiring authors and things and it's always great with your when you self-published the books did you just they did you self-publish them through Amazon or did you use a different way of marketing them 

Suzy K Quinn: I self-publish them through Amazon yeah 

Teddy Smith: yeah so it all do like uploading and everything yourself 

Suzy K Quinn: yeah yeah so it's not difficult 

Teddy Smith: no I know but what what I mean is what I mean is like what so you did all the upload the publishing and the marketing yourself like so what marketing did you do for your own books like compared to what you did as the for the published books 

Suzy K Quinn: for the published books so for and you're going to be surprised by this answer but for the published book so the public my published book was the first novel I ever wrote actually and have published and I created a website I created a Facebook page I did two book launches and did loads and loads of PR about it I made YouTube videos I made lots of searchable things and yes lots of sort of web content that was searchable so lots of photographs stuff like that that was all related to the book and for my and that book sold about 10 000 copies probably more by now and then for my self-publishing I didn't do any marketing whatsoever I didn't write the book in my own name I didn't do any Facebook pages I didn't advertise absolutely nothing at all I just put it on Amazon and it sold 

Teddy Smith: they literally just put it up and just it just started moving 

Suzy K Quinn: yeah the first month I came back and it sold about 50 copies and I was really surprised and delighted and thought and didn't really expect much more to happen I thought oh well it's going to sell 50 copies a month that's great that's a nice you know nice 50 pounds and then the next month it was like you know thousands and a hundred and ten thousands and yeah it just went up like that within three four months 

Teddy Smith: yeah and have you done any marketing since that's gone like it exploded 

Suzy K Quinn: so for that series no I didn't I really didn't do anything maybe I did do some avatars really but not I mean not really it was many years after that I also got around to doing any advertising for it that was pretty much after the series it kind of peaked really so yeah I mean I think I do see indie authors be really successful with marketing so with advertising 

Teddy Smith: yes because that's what I was once talked about next so because obviously you've got your course which is about how to write the best seller now that I guess that is mostly about the actual writing of the book it doesn't touch too much on the marketing but could you tell us a bit more about like that course and how well it includes 

Suzy K Quinn: well so my theory is that if you write a really good book and you get it right the marketing although these days you know you have to market more and you have because there's a lot there's a lot more competition on on Amazon KDP now like good competition yeah so I do think it looks like you do have to market and advertise and stuff now but you know if you get the right book and you hit the right fan base and you get the book right that's like 80 percent of the work and so that's basically what the course is about so the course is about creating a book that engages readers and is you know is effective in doing what readers are expecting 

Teddy Smith: so for your current website now like do you have any marketing tactics which you use such like newsletters or anything that's actually been successful 

Suzy K Quinn: it's very hard to measure I would say I do I mean I have a website I have a newsletter stuff like that I can't honestly say that it leads to book sales I've never really noticed that very much for me it's all about just writing the right book and you know and then finding the readers is easier you know yeah I don't know about newsletters really I know some people are really behind them but I've it doesn't seem I don't know they're I'm not that sold on them is what I would say about newsletters 

Teddy Smith: fine but I do want because yeah they're quite good for getting speaking a bit more to your audience I think you know a lot of the books I write the newsletters most of my books are about non-fiction so the newsletters are a bit easy to write but the it's a lot easier for me to speak to my audience about some of the things like that within the book so maybe you can go a bit deeper into a particular topic or you can talk about some other things you've written that found interesting right it's actually book sales they it can lead to book sales but also it can be a kind of income generator in itself you know if you're if you're right if you've got an audience of people that really like your stuff other people who might have either adjacent products or other books which are in a similar sort of niche might want to also speak to your audience and sometimes they can pay for that sort 

Suzy K Quinn: of but would that be more for non-fiction would you say? 

Teddy Smith: Well I don't I think probably mostly but not necessarily only for non-fiction I think you know if people are interested in sort of romance books for example and you've got another author who you think might want to speak to your list then maybe that could be something that someone who might want to advertise on your list for example I know some fiction authors who are doing just that 

Suzy K Quinn: I mean I wouldn't imagine it would be a big revenue spinner or be my guess I mean you I don't know but I mean that's this is just my feeling on it I mean my list is how much should my list now 30 000 something like that and I wouldn't I'm not sure I would advertise I'm not sure I mean it would have to be a very close match for you know I definitely I'd celebrate my friends on it I guess but anyway. 

Teddy Smith: So you talk a lot about the writing the good book and especially in the writing the best seller so what are the things that people would learn from that course in order to get that best seller written is it is there a particular writing techniques they should follow or is it like a particular structure that you recommend them following? 

Suzy K Quinn: So there's sort of various things to it a lot of it is about finding your readers and kind of really honing down on who your readers are and stuff like that there are a few things in terms of a lot of it centers around the idea itself as well a lot of the advice but then there is also a bit about writing it's quite simple but well it seems quite simple to follow anyway that gets people turning pages and a lot of my book sales come from Kindle page turns so I'm in the Kindle lending library and I would say probably 70% of my self publishing sales come from read through rates so meaning people have to be reading the books to be for you to get paid so it's really important obviously I mean I know this sounds kind of obvious but you know creating a really readable book that people don't get tired of there isn't a part where they just kind of slow down I think oh you know I'm finished with that one I'll just pick up another one it's really important and there are some techniques that you can do writing techniques rather than plot techniques that helps people sort of keep turning pages 

Teddy Smith: yeah could you have any examples of those sort of things? 

Suzy K Quinn: I do in the course we'll keep it closed but we can find more information about the course by there's a link to it in the show notes for this but where's the best place to get the information for that? 

Suzy K Quinn: So the course is with self-publishing forum which is sort of in transit at the moment but as of I'm sure as of this recording and within a few months of this recording it will still be there. 

So if you look for Susie K Quinn how to write a bestseller you'll find it on the self-publishing forum SPF university. So basically it's a self-publishing university full of really useful courses and it's got Mark Dawson's advertising course on there which is where I first found it. He has a Facebook advertising course which is great. He does stuff on Amazon ads as well and then there's loads of other stuff. There's like things about TikTok and not from me, from other people who've had great results on TikTok or you know I'm trying to think of the other and there's I think there's a cover designer lecture on there as well and yeah it's a great collection of resources for self-publish authors. Brilliant. 

Teddy Smith: Yeah no it is really good. I've used the Facebook marketing course on there and I really enjoyed it. Oh yeah it's here isn't it? Really good yeah especially the advertising because Facebook advertising is the it's quite scary platform to use I think like especially compared to Amazon which is relatively straightforward and even that I think is quite complicated. The Facebook advertising platform I think is a nightmare so that course really step by step through so yeah. 

Just before you mentioned about talking to James and him being a friend and I'm guessing you've met through like different networking events before so have you what have you found networking to be important part of like building your author brands and your author business? 

Suzy K Quinn: Not at all. Okay I haven't done it at all. That doesn't mean that it doesn't that people don't get a benefit from it but I do I mean I absolutely love meeting other authors and I really I just find authors such fun people to be around they're all so intelligent and interesting and you know I really love it and I love self-publish authors and yeah for me personally yeah because I'm sort of somewhere in the middle I'm not quite a traditional self-published author I write in one genre and then write 20 books or 50 books or whatever and I'm not you know and with publishing I suppose I haven't again I haven't stuck to one one type in publishing it's yeah I'd say it's kind of less benefit for me. Does that answer the question? I'm not sure it has but I never really thought about having a networking which horrible term isn't it but you know I never really thought about kind of asking people to help me to do it I just felt like it was my thing to do and I yeah I hate asking people help. 

Teddy Smith: Yeah that's not something I've used. I guess I get more different people get different things out of networking I think like some people do it as you mentioned like just for to meet friends and you know make acquaintances in their industry you know especially if you're doing something a bit weird like being an author like maybe your normal friends might have normal jobs and it's hard to speak to them they might not understand what you're up to. When I speak to my friends about Star City podcast they're usually a bit confused about why they're going to their office jobs so it's hard to network to you know find an affinity with your friends sometimes when talking about your work but I think I quite like things like self-publishing show for example stuff like that is great because the learnings from them are really good especially if you can hear people talking about you know like this week I spoke to Isabel Knight about public relations for book writers I mean that's awesome like who'd have thought about even doing that if you hadn't been to a talk like that yeah so I love that side of it and again meeting other people is really good too. 

Yeah for sure. So with your books your your projects that you're working on at the moment what have you are you working on your current series or have you got new things that you've got coming out? 

Suzy K Quinn: Well at the moment this year I'm actually setting up there's a ghost writing company in the US so called Kevin Anderson Associates and I'm setting up their London office so I've kind of taken a bit of a break from book writing this year but I guess at some point I don't know I mean I kind of I have ideas all the time for things so I'm always making notes somewhere or I've got like a big ideas folder I'm sure you do as well that you know you're kind of adding notes to so yeah I've got a few ideas sort of going around but I think nothing is quite sort of landed as yet. 

Teddy Smith: Yeah I'm chatting to Kevin Anderson next week Oh you're coming? Yes yeah I'm really excited about that because I had to do some convincing to get them to speak to him but I'm really excited. 

Suzy K Quinn: Oh okay oh you could have asked me I would have made well maybe you've done a better job asking direct I don't know. 

Teddy Smith: So what's this project then you're setting up ghost writing is that for fiction writers or for? 

Suzy K Quinn: Setting up Kevin's UK office so I'm setting up the London office for his ghost writing editorial company and so we offer basically editorial services and one of the we have a sort of connection to self-publish authors as well because we offer what you don't get as a self-publish author which is editorial support for a publishing company. 

Right so we hire the model is we basically hire publishing editors from the industry who've got really good track records so New York Times number ones we've got fantasy authors who've worked with really big names who've had like New York Times number ones and then we use them to help authors edit books so I'm basically setting up or finishing setting up the London office and yeah so and then Kevin's the obviously he's the guy that set up the whole thing and it's his model so he'll be a really interesting person to talk to. Yeah tell him I said hello. I will do. Yeah he should remember me I hope. 

Teddy Smith: Well if he's paying you to set up his London office you'd hope he'd remember you wouldn't you? 

Suzy K Quinn: Yeah yeah he will. 

Teddy Smith: So with that ghost writing is that mostly for people who have got like the structure of an idea but need just help with it or like how are those like what are the services there is it like especially fiction writers? 

Suzy K Quinn: So for authors we generally authors don't need the ghost writing what they want is someone to help creatively sort of developmentally edit their manuscript so it's the best it can be so it's a really professional successful second pair of eyes who can look over the manuscript and help them get it in shape for the market readers and then you know that kind of thing ghost writing is generally for people who haven't you know obviously haven't written and we would create the manuscript for them again based on that kind of using publishing kind of insider knowledge to help structure their book and to think about readership and the market and the bookshop and how we're going to attract a publisher but that's more sort of geared around finding a traditional publisher really that service and in fact as is the editorial really but the ghost writing is very much geared around that so sorry I kind of feel like I might have sent everyone to sleep with that but it's interesting to me because you know it's a lively fun thing for me. 

Teddy Smith: Yeah no this is the stuff people want to hear about definitely because you know it's people want to know about different ways they can get their business up and running because a lot of people sort of see their self-publishing authorship as a business not just as 

Suzy K Quinn: a writing service to have I mean to me it's like the missing part of the puzzle for self-publishing authors because you can get everything else you can get everything else you could have you can hire an editor but you can't hire an editor who's worked in publishing who's worked with big names who's worked with like Tana French or you know we've yeah there's very I can't necessarily say all the names at the moment actually because we're looking at hiring someone but there's yeah who's worked with sort of big name best-selling mega authors you can't hire those people you know at the moment but you can now but also for authors who are looking to get traditionally published it's also a really good step up towards you know traditional publishing because you're working with someone who's worked in the business so you can ask them during your consultations with them okay so what's the you know what's the best next step what do I you know how do I kind of go about you know putting this forward to publishers and then of course they're going to give you feedback on the management so yeah it's a useful service I kind of I think like a lot of people after COVID or maybe during COVID I'm not too sure but so there's I think some sort of creative burnout happened during COVID I think because we weren't kind of living a life I don't know what it was but I felt like you know there needed to be some kind of exciting sort of I need to do something a bit more exciting so I feel very blessed to have this project to do it's a lot of fun 

Teddy Smith: yeah good nice that's I mean that sounds exciting are you going to be doing any like networking shows or like to sort of promote this I know obviously you did a self-publishing show but are there any others you're going to go to so like Orthonation or anything like that 

Suzy K Quinn: so say that again Teddy sorry I missed that one 

Teddy Smith: um like any conferences or like like Orthonation or 

Suzy K Quinn: anything like that where you're going to yeah so we did the London book fair last year and we also did the self-publishing formula and we did a conference in you want to say Barcelona but it wasn't where was it was it Madrid it was somewhere in Spain Seville that was it was it Seville yeah oh it was yes it was it was it was 20 books Seville and it was great it was a really upsurge for getting the city it really was a great conference yeah so we've kind of we're kind of slowly making people aware of us in the UK I think and KAA which is the name for Kevin Anderson so they're huge in the States they've got like big yeah they've got like 20 people on staff 20 editors on staff and then more staff besides and yeah they're really huge so we're hoping to grow something it's seemingly exciting in the UK 

Teddy Smith: great I mean that sounds very exciting I'm looking forward to hearing more about it soon so for people that are just starting out writing especially if they're especially if they're self-publishing so that what would the tips you'd have for them on both their writing crafts and also think about how they'd get their sort of their first sales and how they'd really grow that book 

Suzy K Quinn: well I suppose it would be different advice for fiction and non-fiction so should I start with fiction and give some fiction yeah so I think with fiction a lot of it is kind of I suppose fine it's a very good idea to write the same sort of or write in the same genre or the very least write to the same readership base because that makes things a lot easier for Amazon so if you're self-publishing you want to make sure Amazon is sort of repeatedly kind of moving the same readers to you over and over again you don't want to confuse it as I've done many times with kind of doing different sort of offshoots and different sort types of books so that's I think that's a good tip for fiction writers for non-fiction I mean it's there's so many exciting ways you can mark it with non-fiction isn't there I mean you know you're sure you're a great person to give advice on this but I think beings you can be so creative with a non-fiction book you can be so creative in making videos on YouTube sort of how-to videos and then directing people to the book and stuff like that and I think it kind of with fiction I think is trickier actually to do that because people would go on YouTube and they might look at how to you whatever your area of expertise is and then they see you've written a book and they'll go and buy the book but with fiction people don't tend to go on YouTube from what I've seen to kind of look for you know they might look for maybe recommendations but you can't force them to recommend your fiction book so I don't think they're looking for book trailers or I've never seen those be particularly effective even though they're quite cool to have so yeah is that I don't know if that was useful or not but 

Teddy Smith: yeah yeah you're right with non-fiction it is a bit easier because some of the books kind of lend themselves to adverts and things like that and you know creating like extra pdf downloads or something or something that you can use as a way to get people to sign up for a main list but fiction it can be a bit difficult I think some of the tips I've heard that people have been quite creative are things like extra stories that you could be added on you can use them as great ways to get people to join your main list or even like extra parts of information I know James I think uses like flight logs James actually uses flight logs for his like Cold War rf stories really interesting way of like trying to get readers so I guess you can be creative but yeah getting people onto your main list is a great way to build a rapport with your audience I think 

Suzy K Quinn: yeah that's true but it's a bit cheeky and angry that though because you couldn't somewhat it seems someone has to read the book before they then but I know what you're saying you're right I mean that's a really great thing to do once someone's read the book but in terms of getting someone to read the book you know how do you kind of it's a bit more it's a bit more of a space for the thing useful there because I don't know I just focus on the books more than you know on the other side 

Teddy Smith: I mean that's probably quite good advice in itself just focusing on the writing and the rest to take care of itself you know 

Suzy K Quinn: I really do believe in I would never say to someone I don't market don't bother I think you've got to take responsibility for it and when people say to me oh I just you know one people say oh I could never self publish what that says to me is then you know like you're going to have trouble with publishing as well because the expectation is well publishers may or may not expect it but you should be responsible for your own career and getting your book in front of people and that doesn't mean going on Facebook and being a pain and saying buy my book not at all people hate that but it does mean uploading your book everywhere you can you know making sure it's just visible in all the places it can be visible having a book launch having you know do just doing everything you can that you can think of without being irritating to you know to put your book the initial book cover in front of people so it gets seen a lot you know is your job your responsibility you know I was lucky but I always believe I was lucky with my first self published books but I always believe that I would and my first published book you know I really did so much running around I mean you could say for all good it did me but and that was always my attitude of you don't expect someone to do this for you you've got to do this yourself yeah 

Teddy Smith: yeah I think it was like I think I saw Ricky Jovey's said once he said you'll you've got to go out and get all your own work and then you give your agent 10% it's like exactly the same thing isn't it you just got to even though you've got someone representing you've still got to go out and take responsibility for yourself 

Suzy K Quinn: yeah well I don't know about I don't know about this like my agent hates how interfere I am actually I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure you're just gonna send him the odd thing about you know and he's I can do this job myself thank you but yeah but I know what you're saying that you have to and for publishers I think a lot of authors expect publishers to do marketing and that kind of thing they expect if they're published if they're traditionally published all of that side of things will take care of and that's really not the case it's really not the case even with a big major publisher they will only have a limited kind of marketing reach for you and their expectation probably is you will be going out a lot and doing your own thing as much as possible you know 

Teddy Smith: yeah brilliant well thanks so much to me I think it's been a great conversation so far I think everyone's going to have learned lots about your books and you and like some of the techniques you use and the advice of just get better at writing I think it's probably quite good for a lot of people you know concentrate on your craft if people want to get in touch with you where's the best place for them to contact you or follow you 

Suzy K Quinn: so I'm kind of I'm a bit slow on social media but I am there so I'm on Instagram so I'm Susie K Quinn on Instagram and Twitter and I am looking at threads at the moment as I feel like I should be on it and I have a Facebook page and yeah I love people coming and talking to me on social media so yeah there's also yeah I'm trying to think I feel like there's another oh I was on TikTok for a while but I haven't really done that for ages like years 

Teddy Smith: yeah oh great well thanks very much so just final question just before we go what's the book that you recommend that you're reading or you've read that but you think everyone else should be reading 

Suzy K Quinn: well you know it'll be wrong to recommend one of my books isn't it but I am rereading one of my books at the moment but so there's a reason it's not just like complete arrogance there's some film people have asked about it so I'm kind of you know I'm looking at like oh how would it look as a script but so oh do I have to pick just one or can I pick more than one do you can pick more than one if you want okay so so TM Logan lies which I'm rereading I've read it ages ago and then I met him at Harrogate and he signed a copy for me and yeah so that was that was great so I reread it and it's just such a great example of tension and just moving the reader through and you can't stop for a minute you're so intrigued and you want to find out what happens and then also Ruth where it go again I got a signed copy from her one of her book signings probably over a year ago when the book was launched in fact so it definitely was over a year ago and so I got a signed hardback wonderful and I've had it on my my shelf as it's even present to read for ages and I've just got around to reading it and it's just so good it's so well researched it's amazing I thought she must have like gone to Oxford University but turns out she hasn't so she's just done this amazing research into being a student at that university and it's just a great book 

Teddy Smith: brilliant those are some good recommendations I haven't heard those ones so I have to go pick them out yeah but yeah thank you thank you Susie K Quinn it's been great chatting to you we'll speak again soon very welcome thanks ever so much