We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Crystal Caudill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Crystal thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
The first thing to do is define what success looks like to you. Is it a monetary goal? Recognition from a certain group or person? A certain experience? Everyone has different values and ways they define it. I have friends who won’t consider themselves successful until they have a farmhouse with tons of acreage, a six-figure income, and all the toys they want. I have other friends who consider themselves a success if they sell one book to someone they don’t know. Still, for others, success is a moving target. They never know what will make them happy. Defining your goals and benchmarks is what will help you know when you’ve become successful.
I happened to choose a career where if I’m looking to make it rich to consider myself successful, I would never reach my goal. Except for your mega-stars, authors generally don’t make enough for writing to be their full-time career without the support of a second income earner in the family. I’m blessed to have a husband who makes enough to support our family without my help. For me, my definition of success is that all my books sell through their advances and turn a profit for both me and my publisher and that I receive messages from my readers about how much they enjoyed the books. I can influence the first one through marketing strategies, but that last one is out of my hands. Success is a combination of your effort and God’s blessing upon those efforts. My ultimate success will come at the end of my life when I hear from God, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Crystal, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m Crystal Caudill, the author of “Dangerously Good Historical Romance.” What is “Dangerously Good Historical Romance?” It is clean, romance novels filled with danger, suspense, swoony heroes, and dangerous villains generally set in the Gilded Age. My plots and settings are steeped in historical details that don’t drag the reader down but transports them to another time and place while connecting the universal struggles of days gone to today.
My first series, Hidden Hearts of the Gilded Age, focuses on the Secret Service before they protected the president and spent the majority of their efforts in tracking down counterfeiters. Of course, as a romance, those brave men must also contend with the heroines who tend to get in their way. The stories hold a mixture of action, humor, romance, and universal struggles of grief, self-worth, and purpose in life. So far, the series has been enjoyed by men and women alike. The first book, Counterfeit Love, was a finalist in the Carol Awards–a prestigious award given for exceptional Christian fiction. It’s my hope that those who read any of my stories will find excitement, romance, and thought-provoking topics.
I’m also a workshop speaker, teaching teens and adults how to become writers or improve their craft. I spent seven years studying writing craft through books, workshops, conferences, studying exceptional writing, and networking. While I continue to learn, I also have a passion for helping writers grow in their craft through speaking to writing groups and classrooms and conducting workshops for conferences. In addition to writing a new series, my current project is to record and upload my current workshop selections and handouts for purchase through my website. The goal is to have that store up and running by this summer. You can check out those topics or inquire about my teaching by visiting crystalcaudill.com/workshoptopics/.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
While still small compared to other bigger-name authors, I do have a few thousand newsletter subscribers and social media followers, with more being added all the time. A couple of strategies have helped with the continuing growing numbers and maintaining their engagement.
First, in growing my audience, the most helpful has been participating in promotions with other authors of a similar genre and target audience. This is where networking comes into play. These promotions can be giveaways, combined online parties, book signings, newsletter swaps, visits to their social media groups, or even interviews with each other. When I get these opportunities, I focus on what benefits the reader has in connecting with me–my second strategy.
One of my big things is to pray for every newsletter subscriber by name before sending out any emails. Each email also includes a personalized prayer. In addition to prayer, readers know they will get an opportunity to participate in trivia and have their name recognized if their answer is correct, be given recommendations for books I think they might like, and they know they will be the ones to get the latest news and details about my writing. Readers, and all customers, want to know what’s in it for them. Your marketing strategies should focus on the customer’s needs and not your need to sell a product. The relationship is what will garner sales, and if readers or customers feel like they don’t matter to you, you aren’t going to matter to them. And be genuine. I genuinely like to pray for people and encourage them. Find something you can be genuine about to connect with and support others.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Even though it’s hard to make an actual living off of writing, I love being creative. I love the joy of getting to take questions and troubles and struggles in the world and explore the answers through stories. I always learn so much when writing a story. Not just about the history of my time period or some specific topic, but also about myself and about God who created this world I live in. And when those stories and lessons resonate with someone else who reaches out to me to let me know how much that story meant to them, that is the greatest reward. Ultimately, art is more about the people receiving and viewing it than about yourself. When something resonates with someone else, there is a great sense of satisfaction, connection, and accomplishment that cannot be attained any other way. Of course, it’s not something you can control, but it is one reason I keep writing despite all the challenges and struggles the business of writing may bring.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://crystalcaudill.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystalcaudillauthor/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crystalcaudillauthor/
- Other: Newsletter with a free e-book download: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/18026/111540482911242003/share
Image Credits
E.A. Creative Crystal Caudill