Overview

We catch up with KS Barton as she talks about her Norse Family Saga. Since we last talked, she has released several books, including starting a new series.

And she still gets time to read and recommends Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles.

Her Book

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Transcript

I wanna welcome Kim Barton back to discovered wordsmiths. Kim, it's been a while since we've talked whether on the podcast or in a group or something.

So how have you been,

K.S.: I've been good. It has been a long time. I think. I think it was actually before the pandemic. probably, yeah. So it's been a hundred years.

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. We we've sent messages back and forth in Jay's group a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Refresh everybody. Last we talked, it's been a while.

Tell us about what books you were working on and how those have gone since we talked to you.

K.S.: Yeah. I've done a lot since we talked last, I had just released my first book. And then in 2021, I released the second two books in that trilogy, so that Trilogy's all done and out. And then in this past April of 2022, I released my fourth book, which is the first book in a two book little series.

Stephen: Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah. So you've gotten quite a few out. You haven't been rest. No,

K.S.: no. Yeah. I had the first three the trilogy was done. It was all written when I released the first book. So I was able to I had stockpiled them and then released them. Okay. Pretty

Stephen: quickly. So how was that series doing?

What's the feedback? What are you doing to keep it alive and marketing that what are you doing with that whole series considering you're working on other stuff now?

K.S.: Yeah the series is called the Norse family saga series and it's actually going really well. I've gotten some nice feedback for it and it's.

A lot of people say about indie publishing. It's a marathon, not a sprint. It's not tearing out of the gate, but 'em slowly but surely building up an audience and getting some sales and reviews and yeah, I've gotten some nice reviews, some nice feedback about it.

So that's gone really well. Yeah, mostly what we're focusing on is I say we, because my partner, my, my husband is also my business partner. So he helps me with a lot of that kind of stuff is we do those those email promotions, like fussy librarian, e-reader news we put out those to find some readers that way.

Stephen: Okay. So you released the three books a little bit apart not years or anything. Did you find that the sales of book one kept jumping, growing as you released books? Two and three? You

K.S.: know, I'm not really sure because I think I only waited about three months in between each book. Okay.

And so it was and and since I was an unknown writer anyway, , I think those those nine months or whatever I didn't really see it, but I do see an uptick every time I release. Every time we do one of those promotions, it does better. And when I release the book, April.

I did see like some of some must be people going back and reading the original trilogy,

Stephen: Okay. So the new book, you they're feeding each other a bit. It sounds like which is what I always hear happens.

K.S.: Yeah, they're connected because the book I published in April, which is called Raven marked, it is about a secondary character in my original trilogy.

I just really liked this character and I wanted to know more about him. And so I wrote a short story and then that short story became more than that. nice. Nice. Yeah, they're connected there. There's not one's not a prequel or comes after. They're just they're just connected by that world.

And by that family,

Stephen: okay. And when you were working on the original trilogy, did you have plans to do this secondary character or did that just come about as you were writing the first trilogy? He just popped up in the middle of the second book in the trilogy. I forget who it was.