On today’s episode of the podcast, I’m thrilled to welcome back one of my favorite returning guests, author Sandy Day. The last time Sandy was on the show, we talked about her novel Odd Mom Out and the re‑release of Head on Backwards, Chest Full of Sand. This time, she’s here to dive deep into her brand‑new book, Where the Night Winds Wail—a haunting Ontario noir inspired by the classic song “The Long Black Veil.”
In our conversation, Sandy pulls back the curtain on the long and winding road this novel took to completion: from an early 30,000‑word NaNoWriMo draft to a fully realized 93,000‑word book rich with interiority, atmosphere, and character development. We talk about the dangers of writing a book in endless layers over many years, the painful process of killing your darlings, and how adding a single major character reshaped the entire story.
We also explore how music, obsession, and old wounds fuel Sandy’s fiction. Sandy shares how the moody storytelling of “The Long Black Veil,” her lifelong love of The Band, and films like Silver Linings Playbook influence her approach to love stories that are anything but neat “happily ever afters.” From Jake, her musician protagonist struggling with buried talent and unresolved grief, to the storm at the heart of the book’s setting, this is a conversation about art, pain, and learning how to live with the things that never fully heal.
Finally, Sandy and I dig into the business side of being an indie literary author—branding, cover design, Amazon categories, and the power of consistent, heartfelt communication through her weekly Substack newsletter. If you care about writing emotionally honest fiction, building a sustainable indie career, or simply love hearing a thoughtful author talk about her craft, you’re going to get a lot out of this episode.
Check it out now:
Audio:
Video:
The Writing Coach Episode #226 Show Notes
Listen to Sandy’s past appearances on The Writing Coach podcast:
Ep. 211. Sandy Day on Re-Releasing Books
Ep. 188. Sandy Day on Community and Accountability
Visit Sandy’s website: https://sandyday.ca/
Get Sandy’s new book: Where the Night Winds Wail
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Grab your FREE copy of The Busy Author Method here.
Buy a copy of Kevin’s new book: The Frustrated Writer’s Colouring Book.
The Writing Coach Episode #226 Transcript
Welcome back to the podcast, author Sandy Day. It’s great to have you back on the show.
Thank you, Kevin. Thank you for having me back.
The last time you were on the show, you were talking about your book Odd Mom Out, which had recently been released. You’ve got a new book out last week, Where the Night Winds Wail. How did the process of creating the new book differ from the creation process for your last book, Odd Mom Out?
Okay, this is a two-part question, because I have a two-part answer. The last time we talked was when I re-released my book Head on Backwards, Chest Full of Sand, and that was a whole different process from Odd Mom Out and Where the Night Winds Wail because I was revising a book that was already written.
But with Odd Mom Out, when I first started working with you as a writing coach, I came into the program with both books. Well, I had done your Story Plan program, so I had planned Odd Mom Out in Story Plan because I just thought, “Oh, you know, I wouldn’t mind trying this out. I’ve already got this other novel written, and I don’t want to use that as my Story Plan project, so I’ll just do Story Plan on some new idea I had.”
This was right as we were coming out of the pandemic lockdown, and I wanted to write something lighter, because Where the Night Winds Wail is a much more serious book. Then I was having so much fun with Odd Mom Out after Story Plan that, at first, I talked you into letting me join both First Draft and Final Draft at the same time and tried to work on the two projects at once. That didn’t pan out. It’s impossible. I mean, maybe some people can do it, but I certainly can’t.
Although I do try working on more than one book at a time, I’ve found it much better to concentrate on one book at a time, even if I have multiple projects going.
I had started Where the Night Winds Wail in 2018, I think. I did NaNoWriMo, and then the pandemic hit. So I guess it was 2019 that happened. I had what I thought was a final draft, and it was probably 30,000 or 40,000 words long, which is what I used to write. Now, on publication day, it was 93,000 words long—so 30,000 words longer than Odd Mom Out as well.
And so what changes when you go from a 30,000-word first draft to a 90,000-word final draft?
Interiority. Better descriptions. Character development.
I think I created a whole new character in Charlotte. I added Charlotte, and she was in about a quarter of the book. That added a lot of words. If we’re talking about a 100,000-word book, she’s in about 25,000 of those words. So that added a lot.
And also dialogue. When I first started working with you as a coach, I didn’t write dialogue. I hardly ever wrote dialogue. I remember, back in the beginning, you saying that readers love when they get to a page that’s dialogue. The page just eases up, and they think, “Oh good, dialogue. I can read a few more pages because it’s just dialogue.” So I started adding dialogue, and that adds a lot to a book as well.
So you had drafted Where the Night Winds Wail, then you planned Odd Mom Out and wrote Odd Mom Out. What was it like returning to Where the Night Winds Wail after having done an entire other project? Was that challenging, or was it refreshing to come back to it with new eyes and more experience?
No, I was like, “I don’t ever want to write a book like that again.” All those iterations and layers and stuff—it’s a ridiculous way to write a book. I don’t advise it at all, because you’re unteasing stuff, and then there are lines and things that you really like, that you wrote before, that you don’t want to let go of.
It’s like that “kill your darlings” thing. It’s much harder to kill your darlings when they’re five or six years old.
I am right there with you. My book that’s going to come out at some point—it’s done, I just need to get organized to launch it—I don’t want to even admit when I last published a novel. But one of the reasons why is because I was working from a 15- or 20-year-old draft, basically.
And I agree with you. It’s kind of a nightmare. You’d think it would be easier to have something to start with, but looking back, I probably should have just started fresh and rewritten the whole thing.
I don’t even know if I could start from scratch and rewrite the whole thing. I don’t even think I was in that place anymore.
You know when you first get the idea and you think, “This is what I want to write. This is what I want to write about”? I kept having to remind myself what I was trying to write, because you get further and further and further from the germ of the project, and it’s harder to sustain your real enthusiasm for it.
A lot of the time, I just thought, “I just want to finish this book.”
Let’s talk about the germ of the project, because I’m going to guess it was the song “Long Black Veil.” Would that be correct?
Yeah. And I got thrilled again yesterday when I posted on my Facebook page. It dawned on me, “Oh yeah, I have a Facebook page. I should tell these people what I’ve been doing for the last three years.”
So I posted it on Facebook, and somebody who I’m Facebook friends with, but haven’t seen in a million years, wrote as a comment, “I’m buying it just from the ‘Long Black Veil’ reference.” The book is called Where the Night Winds Wail, which is a line in “Long Black Veil,” although I think the line might be “when the night winds wail.” I’m not sure.
Then somebody else said, “I love the shout-out to The Band,” and it was like, “Oh man, these people get it.” I was just so happy to have people get it, and not just get it, but be like, “Okay, now I have to read it because I love that song too.” So that was really good.
I’ve heard you reference this song for years now, and I finally went and listened to it the other day. I listened to the Johnny Cash version, and what surprised me was how minimal and stark the story is in the song. I thought there was going to be so much there that you were pulling from, but really, it seems like it was almost more the spirit, or the idea, or the feel of the song that launched you onto this storytelling journey.
Yeah, definitely. The secrets, the hidden loyalties, the betrayal all over the place in that song—it really intrigued me.
And you listened to the Johnny Cash version. You have to listen to The Band.
Well, you know, I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan, so I must have heard The Band version at some point, but it didn’t really click at the time. I try to familiarize myself with everything Dylan-related, so I feel a little ashamed that I can’t immediately bring to mind The Band version.
It’s from the album Music from Big Pink, their first one, and there are lots of YouTube videos of them performing it live too. It’s just so haunting.
I pictured the guy who hangs. He won’t provide an alibi for himself because he’s waiting for a signal from the woman he’s having an affair with. She doesn’t give the signal, and now she’s haunting his grave.
And I think, “What is going on with her?” I just talked to them. It was like, there doesn’t seem to be any care for the best friend’s wife, or the best friend. Neither of them cared about that. The whole thing just intrigues me.
So if this is originating in The Band, and I think of The Band as roots rock, as this Americana style of music, you’re obviously a Canadian author. How does this kind of American-influenced song translate into a Canadian piece of literature?
Well, Robbie Robertson was Canadian. Garth Hudson was Canadian. I don’t think Richard Manuel was, but they were more Canadian than they were American. Levon Helm really Americanized them.
So I think of them as Canada’s contribution to that whole rock thing. I was nine years old when that album came out, and my sister would have brought home the record. My sister has been a huge influence on the music that’s like the soundtrack of my life.
She loved blues. She liked The Beatles and stuff, but she had a different thing from the mainstream Rolling Stones kind of music. I don’t think we even owned a Rolling Stones album. My sister was that age, the hippie age, so my musical influences definitely came from her, and I’m really grateful to her for that.
That music was just a big part of my life, especially in the ’70s. Music was everything back then.
Does the fact that the book was inspired by a song play into the fact that your main character, Jake, is a musician?
Yeah. Of course. Yeah.
So tell me about that a bit. What role does song itself, or music itself, play in the narrative of the book?
I was thinking that Jake was going to have this talent, sort of an innate talent for songwriting, that he had suppressed by living in a world that doesn’t recognize that when you have that kind of artistic talent, you have something really viable to contribute to the world.
And yet we spend billions of dollars on entertainment constantly. Everybody has every form of entertainment they can get, and they love music and stuff, but God forbid you would pay a musician.
I’ve had several relationships in my life with musicians, and that whole thing where they have this musical talent—I know you have it too, Kevin. I mean, I haven’t heard you play or anything, but I imagine you were able to learn how to play guitar and get up on stage and do it. Not everybody can do that. I tried to learn how to play violin. My neighbor could play violin. I couldn’t do it.
I would say, on my part, it’s not so much talent as it was passion. As a punk rocker, you don’t need too much talent. You just need some attitude and some passion, and that’ll go a long way.
So, as with my coaching and my podcasting, I ride that energy-over-talent thing a lot.
Well, I think how it related to me was that I knew I was a writer when I was really young. It wasn’t like I was discouraged from writing, but there’s always a thing like, “Oh, you think you’re going to be a writer? Well, maybe you could become a teacher,” and all that kind of stuff.
I can relate to a musician who suppresses their talent because they’re just trying to get a day job, a real job, get paid by somebody, all that kind of stuff.
I was thinking too about when my sister graduated from Guelph University. Margaret Atwood was the keynote speaker at her graduation, and she talked about this idea that, in the old days, there were patrons of the arts. People valued art, and so they would be your patron or your angel or whatever and help you stay alive while you did your art and hoped to make money.
That really stuck with me. I thought, “Yeah, that seems right.” Instead of, “I have to have a day job so that I can write.” I never had that attitude.
When I started really working full-time, it was for myself in a business, and my writing just went right out the window. Then I had children, and I didn’t write anything. I didn’t even read anything for about seven or ten years.
So I was really grateful when my writing came back. It just kind of exploded out of me, and it was like, “Oh, thank God, it’s still there.”
I was hoping to get that in Jake too. I wanted him to have that experience of, “Maybe what I’ve been concentrating on all these years is not true to my real self.”
You recently said that you’re drawn to “uh-oh love stories.” What does that mean to you, and how does that describe this book?
Yeah, that was in my newsletter and Substack post this morning. The idea is that even “Long Black Veil”—I mean, most songs are love songs, and the songs that really get people are those songs, like “Love Hurts” and stuff like that.
Love does hurt, but if you only read romance, it’s always tied up in a bow at the end. In genre writing parlance, you put right in the description: guaranteed HEA, happily ever after. And if you violate that as a writer, romance readers are not happy. They are not happy with that.
So I’m not happy with happily ever after. I never have been. I think I’m too much of a realist. I have a real hard time with cognitive dissonance. Sometimes I just can’t even watch a rom-com on TV. It’s like, “No.”
Although I like humour, and I like the comic side of things. There have been lots of rom-coms that I’ve really enjoyed and really liked. But usually when somebody is really messed up. One of my favourite movies is Silver Linings Playbook. It’s a little funny. It’s got a happily ever after. But those two characters are so messed up. I love that. When characters are really messed up and then they fall in love, it’s explosive. I like that.
Well, that was a perfect segue, Sandy, because in my notes for things I wanted to talk to you about today was Silver Linings Playbook. Have you and I ever discussed that film before, or the book?
I don’t think so.
Okay, because it’s one of my favourite films of all time. I also really enjoyed the book. I think the film made a smart decision where it basically cut Act Four of the book. It made the dance competition the climax, whereas in the book, there’s one more act.
I saw the film before I read the book, and it felt so real and so raw and so identifiable and so painful. It just resonated with me beyond belief. Do you recall when you first saw it, or what your takeaways were?
I used to go to all the movies all the time, and I never wanted to talk about what they were about or who was in them. I was like, “No, no. I just want to go in. I don’t want to know anything about it.”
So Silver Linings Playbook was one of those movies. I just walked into the theatre with my friends, sat down, and was absolutely blown away. I loved it.
I’ve watched the ending, the dance sequence, probably about a thousand times on YouTube. If I need a pick-me-up, I just put that on.
I don’t know what the book is like, but they turned the movie into a performance story, and I like performance stories. There are tons of them. Billy Elliot, that kind of thing. I love those kinds of performance stories that have to do with music and dance. I just loved it.
Something I teach in Story Plan Intensive is this idea of our characters starting the story with a wound. They’ve had some formative event already in the past.
I think Silver Linings Playbook is such a fantastic example of that. From what I recall, when the film starts, and in the book too, the reader doesn’t necessarily know exactly what happened. I don’t know if we ever know exactly what happened with his brain injury, and we eventually find out what happened with her. But we just start with these broken people in so much pain.
It very much resonated with what you said there, when you said you can’t watch a rom-com. I see those two characters and I’m like, “That, I know. That, I get. That is life to me.” It’s that amazing moment when actors and scripts and everything just come together, and you have this perfect little piece of art.
Yeah. What I liked about Bradley Cooper in the beginning of it, and what was a huge hook for me—and it’s a hook for me in all these kinds of love stories—is that he’s obsessed. He’s obsessed with his ex. He can’t get past it. He’s completely delusional, thinking, “Oh, she’s going to like me now. I’m all fixed. She’ll like me now. Why would she be afraid of me?”
Oh yeah, I love that.
Shawn Coyne talks about the three kinds of love stories. There’s courtship, which is the romance story, and then marriage stories. I’m interested in marriage stories too. And then there’s obsession. I love obsession stories. I just find them fascinating. I totally relate. I get completely obsessed with people. It’s terrible. Keep me away from people.
Well, for people who have maybe been listening for a few minutes now and are interested in the book, how would you summarize the plot? What’s the blurb you’re using to let people know what the book is about? Because certainly, obsession is part of it.
It takes place in 1998 Ontario, and I could describe it really as Ontario noir. It’s got a noir feel to it, but it’s definitely a relationship story focused on Jake’s relationships.
Basically, there are three narrators, and Jake is the main protagonist. It’s about his relationship with pretty much everybody he comes in contact with, and he’s not very good at relationships. He’s trying to navigate through pain and wounds from his past and not drag them into the present. Sometimes he fails, and sometimes he doesn’t.
He has to go home. He has to go to his hometown for something, and then he has a hard time getting back to where he was.
Something I really love about the book is that we have this idea that, “Oh, a loved one got sick and passed away, and now it’s scarred over, and I’ve moved on.” But I’ve never felt like that’s how it is. I feel like you have another wound in you that you just carry with you.
So this idea that Jake goes back to his hometown and all the wounds from when he left are still there—these things don’t necessarily scar over. They’re just a part of you. And if you’re pushed into a situation, like Jake is, where you have to confront them, it can get pretty messy, because they can feel as fresh as the day they arrived.
I think so too. I’m intrigued by that character who has never dealt with the old wound. They just thought, “Oh, I’ll cover it up and carry on with my existence and pretend it never happened.”
By covering it up, you don’t learn any skills for how to navigate the pain, or the surprises, or the triggers, because you’ve always just covered it up and run away. Whenever things get tough, Jake runs away. He has to learn. That’s his whole thing: what he learns.
One of the early readers said to me that she loved watching him learn stuff. He had to learn all the skills for life.
I work with commercial authors more so than I work with literary authors like yourself. I mean, I think you’re riding that line. You’re probably going to upmarket a little bit, right? This book is arguably literary fiction. But there’s a crime plot to it. There are genre aspects to it. It is Ontario noir.
That’s actually an interesting thing. In an early version of the book, I ran it by my friend, who’s a Crown Attorney, and I had a murder in it. She was like, “Yeah, that’s not how that works,” with the whole police procedural and all that kind of stuff.
And I was like, “Oh, well, should I change the whole story, or should I just make his crime a little less crimey?” So I did. I was already starting to stray from the plot of the song “Long Black Veil,” so that was a true thing that happened.
One of the centerpieces in the book is a storm that comes. Obviously, the book’s called Where the Night Winds Wail. Is the storm part of the song?
I think it is. Yeah.
What was it like having such a central part of the story based around environment, as opposed to, say, dialogue or emotion? The characters are struggling with their relationships with each other, but they’re also boxed in, or struggling with the natural world around them, via this storm.
That actually was just part of the whole original thing.
I’m going to be working on another book that I wrote. I’m going to revise it, update it, and come out with a new edition of it called Birds Don’t Cry. I think that’s my strength: the environmental, atmospheric stuff.
I wrote poetry before I wrote anything else, and that just comes naturally, where you’re talking about the setting, or the environment, or the atmosphere, and you’re using language to get that idea across. My mom would say to me, “It’s nice. I like it, but I have no idea what it means.”
It’s cryptic. I’m trying to tell you how I feel without telling you how I feel.
So then, when I started writing prose, it’s like, as Kevin T. Johns says, “You’ve got to tell us how you feel. You have to put that part on the page, Sandy.”
You put that in such an interesting way. In some ways, poetry has a rawness to it, but there’s also almost a defense mechanism, where you can use pure metaphor or get pretty vague with it while pouring your heart onto the page.
And I think you’re right. As you quote my own advice back to me, I do believe that, in a novel, you do kind of have to lay the emotions bare. You can’t really hide behind metaphor. You need to put on the page how that character feels, and quite often, those feelings are drawn from our own memories and recollections.
That’s one of the reasons why novel prose can be so challenging. Obviously poetry is challenging in its own ways, but I think one of the big things writers struggle with is the nakedness of putting emotions on the page in that manner.
Yeah. And you can’t just write, “She felt afraid.” You have to describe how she feels inside. How do we know she’s afraid? Her voice is shaking. She’s breaking out in a cold sweat. Whatever it is.
And then you’re trying to say that in a unique way, without it sounding like every single other person who has ever said something like that.
I like reading old literature and finding things that are just so different in the way they’re said that I highlight them in the book, thinking, “I’m going to rip that off. That’s a really good way of saying it.”
I’ve noticed your willingness to revisit old material and improve it. Last time you were on the show, you were re-releasing Head on Backwards, Chest Full of Sand. Now you’re redoing the covers of your books so there’s a consistent visual element to all of them.
What’s with this effort to have a more consistent brand? That’s probably our marketing term here. Tell us about that.
Well, I come from a marketing family. My dad was a marketing manager. My sister, who I went into business with in the ’80s, was also a marketing manager with a degree in marketing.
We were in a retail store, so marketing was a top priority. What are we doing here? How are we marketing?
The idea of brand marketing, how to make something seem really unique in the market, or just in the world—that’s a challenge that I really embrace. And I know there are all kinds of ways you can do it without having to do advertising. There are so many different ways of doing it.
There’s sort of a belief that you can’t be an indie author and write literary fiction. You can’t. That’s just not how you do it. And I’ve always thought, “Well, that’s how it is for me.”
I’m not seeking a publisher for all that. The more I hear about other people having experiences with publishers, the more I’m glad I’m an indie author. I have control over my own product. If they’re not putting enough marketing effort into it, that doesn’t matter because I’m putting the marketing effort into it.
So there were a few things I decided to do. I thought, “Why don’t I make all my covers consistent?”
Actually, the guy I work for, Jeff Affleck, talks about that with authors who come to us and have a series of books, but their first three were done by this cover artist, and then the next one was done by this one, and then they did the next one themselves. He’s like, “You might want to get some consistency going here so people know which is the next book.”
It was him talking about how, even if your books aren’t in a series, if they’re in the same universe, or they have the same theme, or whatever, you can brand them so people know, “This is a book.”
Somebody is doing it right now with the Barbara Pym books. She stopped being published, I think. She died in the ’70s, and maybe some of her books now are public domain, so anybody can publish them. There’s lots of stuff happening with her books. Somebody’s branding them beautifully right now. It’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s a Barbara Pym book.” They’re modern-looking covers, but they’re her novels, and it’s a really good way of doing it.
So I thought, “Well, I’m really happy with the cover on Where the Night Winds Wail. I’m just going to redo all my covers and make them all look the same.” Not the same-same, because books have different moods and tones.
But I think about somebody like Margaret Atwood, who has written everything. She writes science fiction, women’s fiction, short stories, poetry, essays, novels—everything. Her covers are all over the place. She doesn’t need to worry about her marketing, but I do.
So I’m just trying to get those kinds of things consistent now and work on that kind of thing.
Speaking of Margaret Atwood, your book came out and is doing extremely well off the launch here. It broke the top 10 in your category, where the number-one-seeded book currently is a Margaret Atwood book. How did it feel to see yourself in a top 10 chart with someone like Margaret Atwood?
Well, I work with Amazon. I know what that algorithm is doing and why. You know, you will rank in a category one day and then fall to book number 150 the next day. I know why that happens.
Because my book has just come out, it’s had a big surge of sales there. It’s basically how many books you’ve sold in the last 24 hours that pushes you to the top of those categories. Some categories are pretty uncompetitive, and you’ll only have to sell 10 books in a day and you’re number one. Other categories are harder to rank in.
But I was pretty pleased to rank in psychological literary fiction. That was pretty awesome.
So when you talk about working with Amazon and working with Jeff Affleck, do you want to tell folks a bit about what that work involves, or how it’s influenced how you approach your own writing and marketing?
I’ll just say that Jeff’s company, AuthorPreneur, is a publisher, and a big aspect of his job is helping authors on the Amazon platform in all respects.
What I’m doing for him right now is Amazon advertising. But I’m aware of everything. I do coaching in there, marketing coaching, and I’m aware of all the different aspects there are to book selling for indie authors.
Even some small publishers use our services because they don’t have the marketing know-how or time, so they’ll hire us, or they’ll tell their authors to come to us.
Jeff has taught me a lot about cover design, book descriptions and blurbs, networking, marketing, and everything from A to Z. All the ways you can incrementally get better results for your book.
I think this is key: it’s not just launch and then pray for the best. It’s continuing to market. Keep going. Market and market.
That’s one thing: you have to believe in the product you’re selling. That’s why I want to update Birds Don’t Cry, because I know Birds Don’t Cry is a good story. It’s a real story, that’s for sure. It’s along the same lines as Where the Night Winds Wail. If somebody likes the mood of Where the Night Winds Wail, Birds Don’t Cry would be a really good book to read.
But I’m not happy with it the way it is, so I now know, “Well, I can just republish it.”
And so when we look at what you have coming up next, is that your big next project, or do you have other things on the horizon?
That’s one of them, for sure. I also have in mind writing some Christmas stories. They’re not happy-go-lucky. I mean, you can’t write a Christmas story without it being heartfelt, but they’re not romances. There’s a whole genre of Christmas stories that are moving and funny at the same time.
So I want to write those. I have ideas for those, and they’re percolating in the background while I get my list right, my covers right, and all the books I’m marketing right in my mind. Then I’ll bring that one out.
Also, I write a Substack newsletter every week, and I have been for a couple of years. A lot of people have mentioned this to me, and you have too, Kevin: I should collect some of those stories and put them together in a little book. So that’s also one of my upcoming projects, to get that together in my spare time.
Something I have never been good at is regularity and consistency. This podcast does not come out on any regular schedule. I email my mailing list when I feel like it or when I have something to tell them, and this is not the best way to build trust and predictability with your audience, right?
Whereas you said you have been unimaginably consistent with your newsletter, sending out new material every Sunday for years now. Do you have any insights to share about that experience and how you’ve managed to be so consistent?
Well, I know that because I set it up as the pattern. I don’t know if anybody would notice if I didn’t send one, but I’ve never tested that theory.
I’ve felt like it lots of times. When I went to Africa for my daughter’s wedding in the fall, I had to set up four or five weeks in a row to publish when I wasn’t around. I thought it was funny because I was posting into the future, getting ready, and I had no idea what was going to happen at this wedding, how I was going to feel, what I was going to want to write about, or anything like that.
So I had to choose things that were going to come out and that people who had just met me, or my daughter even, wouldn’t be like, “Mom, why did you write this? Why did you post this?” So that was interesting, being prepared in advance.
But usually, as I’ve told you, I just write them on the fly, last minute, and the pressure helps. Sometimes I think, “Oh, I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” And then I think, “It’s nothing. Just write it.”
I never seem to run out of anything to talk about. Everybody who knows me knows it’s hard to shut me up, so I just put it on paper.
Well, if folks want to get onto that mailing list, how do they do that? It’s your Substack, right? Where do they sign up for your Substack?
You can just go to my website, sandyday.ca. There’s one on the free book, I think, and there’s a pop-up that pops up. Yeah, that’s how you get on it.
And there’s a paid upgrade too, if people want, isn’t there?
Yeah, but that’s something I haven’t been able to be consistent about: coming up with what’s going to be paid content. It’s just adding another layer of pressure.
Lots of people pay for my newsletter because they’re kind and generous, and they’re supporting me. I appreciate that so much, and I don’t feel like they think they’re ripped off because I’m not putting out any extra content.
That’s what I’ve been doing for now. A lot of people I follow on Substack don’t charge anything for their content, but they are supported by readers and listeners. They might have podcasts or something. I know I support quite a few monetarily, so that’s how I do it.
Well, I think the fact that people want to pay for your writing speaks to the quality of it. I support a couple of podcasts through Patreon and other things, and all of them are because I watched their content forever and got so much enjoyment and pleasure out of it. They reached a point where it’s like, “Oh my god, I have to give these people some money.”
So the fact that people are choosing to pay to hear from you speaks to what great work you’ve been doing via your newsletter, but obviously with your novels and books as well.
Thank you.
Where the Night Winds Wail ebook is out right now. When can folks expect the paperback?
I’m sure by the time this has aired, the paperback will be out. I’m just waiting for a proof to come. I don’t think it’s going to come today. It might come tomorrow.
And I’m looking into other alternate printing sources in the U.S. I’ve ordered a proof from them, but it’s going to take a while to get here. So the paperback’s coming.
I don’t know if you have a copy of my Frustrated Writer’s Colouring Book. Do you have that, Sandy?
No. Oh, I think maybe I do, but I haven’t—
You should flip to the page. One of them is, you know, “The author waits for their proof,” and there’s a calendar, and they’re sweating, and they’re just twiddling their thumbs.
I mean, isn’t that the worst feeling in the world, just waiting for that proof to arrive?
You know, it’s my own fault because I had the preorder date up, and I hadn’t finished writing the book. Then the pressure was on to finish the book. And you can’t create your book cover until you know how many pages you’re putting in your book.
Yeah.
The spine has to be right down to the page, because that spine on the back of the book has to be just right.
My book designer was all ready. She was like, “When are you going to get us the page count?”
“Don’t rush me!”
I got it done and got it to her. She got it back to me, and I thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to have this in time.” Then there was something wrong with the file, so I had to go back and forth with her a few more times. Then she got the file to me, and I ordered the proof, but I wasn’t quite in time for publication day.
But I’m going to launch again as soon as the paperback comes.
I worked with you on this book, and I’m really excited to see it go out into the world. I know how much heart and soul and hard work and tears and everything you put into it for a long time now. I’m just so proud of you and so happy to see it out in the world.
Well, I really couldn’t have done it without you and all the other members of our group. It’s just such an amazing support and resource. The feedback from everybody—getting honest feedback from people who actually know how hard it is, what we’re trying to do. Where do you get that in this world?
Well, and I think folks like you are becoming these senior members now who are serving as great examples to everyone else in the program.
There was a time, when I first started coaching, I remember maybe 10 years ago being like, “Oh my God, are my clients going to publish one of these days?” And I’m at this point now where I can barely keep up.
I interviewed Linda last week. I’m interviewing you this week. Jenna Wilde, I’ll probably get on the podcast as soon as her book is out. There are so many of you now who are just absolutely killing it. And not just writing great books, but launching good campaigns, doing the right stuff on the marketing side, and really building professional author careers.
Like I said, it’s just an honour to get to see you folks go on that journey. It makes me so proud when you get the accolades and the success that I know you deserve.
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you for joining me today on the podcast, and I’m sure I’ll get you back on again when the next book comes out.
Whatever that might be.
—
Kevin T. Johns is a writing coach, editor, and author who helps writers strengthen their craft, find their voice, and build stories that truly connect with readers. Through coaching, courses, and The Writing Coach Podcast, he shares practical, encouraging guidance for writers at every stage of the journey. Need help finding more time to write? Grab his free guide: THE BUSY AUTHOR METHOD.
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