Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.

Mindy: Today's guest is Lori M. Lee, author of the Fantasy YA title Forest of Souls. Lori joined me today to talk about launching a book during the pandemic, marketing and promo online, and how to handle depression and anxiety during COVID.

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Mindy: We're here with Lori M. Lee, who is a YA author. Her most recent release was Forest of Souls, which is a fantasy that came out this June. Now, unfortunately, I think, A lot of us have had To really kind of refocus and pivot and find new ways to promote anything that released in 2020. My book in 2020 came out on March 3rd, and I got a week of touring in, and then everything shut down and we were done. I was supposed to mostly be on the road pretty much the entire month of March and then the first half of April. And that, of course, all ended quite abruptly. So if you want to talk about promo in the time of covert, how are you reaching your readers? 

Lori: I can't even imagine actually having to begin my tour and then just like shutting it down. So I guess on the one hand, it's a good thing that I never was able to go out. Um, but I had, like, a year to plan all the promo for this book, you know, And I had so many things planned, I was gonna go on a book tour through the Midwest with, like, a lot of author friends. I was gonna be attending my first major conference as a guest, which I was so psyched about then, like you said, COVID happened and the tour was canceled, switched to being virtual. That actually didn't happen either. But that's for a different reason. The book conference, which was ALA in June, which was ALA, was literally the weekend that my book released. It just like lined up perfectly, but alas, it did not happen. 

Yeah, so, luckily, A  lot of the things I had planned, like aside from that, were virtual, though, because I always think about the international fans. It always makes me feel bad when I do like, you know, US only promotions. So, um, specifically my pre order campaign, I have to caveat this with like, Only do a pre order campaign if that's something that is fun for you because it is a lot of work, a lot of work and a lot of money too. So you have to really make that decision for yourself about whether you want to do that. 

So it was important to me to figure something out that would be flat enough. That would be a really cool gift, but also flat so I could mail it international with just like a stamp. So I just came up with an enamel bookmark and it's really pretty. I thought it was really cool. I was planning this really big cover photo challenge with Shveta Thakrar who is the author of Star Daughter. We were planning this really big cover photo challenge in June, like leading up to my book release and then I post about it. And then I had a weird mental break and I just completely lost focus. And I didn't do anything for, like, the three weeks leading up to release. In a way, the virtual events work better specifically just for me, because I can't really travel anyway. And I was like, going to focus all of my budget on that tour, but it didn't happen. So then I was able to distribute it elsewhere. 

Mindy: It sounds like you were able to kind of redirect and pivot pretty well. I want to bring up something you mentioned that has not come up on the podcast before, interestingly enough, and it is something that I also think about often. International readers very often, like if I do a giveaway on the Blog, a book or whatever. People reach out to me like, Well, is it international? And unfortunately, the answer is no, because it is expensive to ship a book overseas. 

Callous Side of the answer is you know, I'm doing giveaways in order to promote myself, and usually the entries are to gain social media followers stuff like that. I don't get a monetary benefit from this. I get a benefit of likes and follows and things like that. And if I made every single giveaway international, I would be losing a significant amount of money. That's the business side of it. The emotional side of it is that my international readers matter to me just as much as my domestic readers. 

I also I think you have a wonderful idea there. I also have bookmarks made and I have basically used, like, a very precise scale and weighed my bookmarks so that I know exactly how much they weigh. And I can mail them internationally, just using an international stamp, which still, I mean, it's not that cheap. I'm actually gonna look it up. 

Lori: It's $1.25. 

Mindy: That's what I thought. I got a lot of international stamps. They’re very pretty. Do you have the one with the succulent? 

Lori: Yes. Yes. And they just came out with, like a really pretty, um, sunflower one as well. 

Mindy: Yes. I've seen that one. I like it a lot. I think those international stamps are $1.25 That's not cheap, but it is—

Lori: Sorry, they’re $1.15

Mindy: Okay, it's $1.15 and that's not cheap, but it's still a nod to your international readers. It's something that you can do for them, and they're spending money on your book. And I don't think it's going to break the bank for you to spend $1.15 to send them some bookmarks. So what I do is particular length, width and stock of the bookmarks that I use. I can ship seven bookmarks in a single envelope. The international stamp will cover it. You know, the hope is that $1.15  that I spent, they'll keep one bookmark for themselves and maybe, like give the six others to friends. And I could possibly generate sales by spending $1.15.. And that's not bad. So I love your point. I think it's interesting. I think, too, that we as authors have had to really rethink how we do our digital marketing and our digital appearances. Have you done many Skype phone calls or presentations or zoom talks? 

Lori: I've done so many zoom presentations, not Skype so far, But Zoom has been a big thing like with all the book festivals turning virtual. I've done several of those and it's again. It's been like long enough now that I can't even recall specifically, I don't know, at least a half dozen.

Mindy: And what did you find in terms of attendance? Were you able to get numbers then and data from the organizers? 

Lori: I did not get any numbers of data, but the nice thing was that a lot of them were available, like to stream on YouTube. So, like literally, I would just go to YouTube and, like, check out like the views and the comments and stuff and if they all seem to be really well attended. So I'm not too fussed about like the numbers and stuff because at the same time, I got to chat with, like, other authors and that’s cool.

Mindy: That's cool. But you also have a piece of static promo right there that you can use on your own social media, and you can use it. It's you talking about your book, and you can reference people to it. I found it useful myself. I've done a couple of instagram chats and on Instagram live, and I've never on instagram live. It's just not a thing that I do for the most part I'm comfortable with tech. But as I said, I had never done an Instagram live. I've never done an online presentation where I'm sharing my screen or like walking like teaching and walking people through slides. And I've had to like Open up and be like Yes, I will do that And I will. I will go learn some new things so that I can still be effective in promoting my book. 

Lori: Yes, I also had to learn Instagram live. It wasn't hard, fortunately because actually, I had no idea how to use it until I was watching someone else do Instagram live and they were sort of fumbling through it. And then they figured out how To invite another person into their instagram live like, Oh, so that's how you do it. 

And then for my release day event, I had to figure out how to stream a video like, panel between me and two other authors. So I had to figure all that out, like, literally the day before my release. Okay, To be fair, I had like, weeks to do it, but I was going through like, a really tough mental time then and I wasn't sure if I was even going to do it. And then, like, you know, release date was approaching. I was just like, I have to do this. Otherwise, you know, I'll probably regret it.

I Figured out the technology literally the day before and then the day of like, we had some technical difficulties again because, you know, it was new technology to all of us. And then fortunately, we worked through it. That was a lot of fun. And then, unfortunately, I did not know how to record. So like once it was done, it was done. I don't have it anymore. 

Mindy: Yeah, this is a fear now of mine that I just live in fear of accidentally turning on Facebook live or turning on instagram live or streaming when I'm sitting on the toilet or getting into the bathtub because I am just like, I'm constantly working. I'm constantly in conversation with different people about different things, usually with book related stuff. And so I'll have my phone with me even in the bathroom, because I'm working and I live in constant fear of like, instagramming my shit or something. I don't know. 

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Mindy: So you have mentioned a couple times already having some mental health struggles with the COVID epidemic, also like tied to publishing in some ways. So that is, right now, for many of the authors that I know - It's kind of a universal story, so if you'd like to talk about that, that would be great. 

Lori: When quarantine happened when, like everything shut down, I didn't feel stressed out, but like my skin completely went crazy, right? Like I just started breaking out in a way that I haven't done since I was a teenager. So I knew something was up, but at the same time I didn’t feel any different. But I felt like I was probably now, like in hindsight, I was probably just doing a really good job like compartmentalizing. 

I was on the promo train and I was on social media like a ton. I was posting a ton and I was doing all like the virtual book festivals and the panels. And then I was, I had just posted all the stuff for our cover challenge, and then I just had, I don't know. I feel like maybe everything came to a head because at the same time there was a lot of stuff happening in terms of like, Black Lives Matter and a lot of the protests happening. And then with COVID and then with my book release coming up and I feel like I just collapsed, I just I couldn't do it anymore. And I had, like, this major bout of anxiety that just like, I've had episodes in the past that don't last for more like a day so I can handle it. Whereas this one, it just persisted and persisted and it grew. 

And then I became mildly depressed, and I got to the point where I couldn't imagine even writing another book anymore. Like and to the point where I just want it all to go away. Like I didn't even want my book release to happen. I didn't want anything to happen. I just wanted everything to just go away. 

So I went to go see my doctor. She prescribed me some antidepressants and anti anxiety medicine, which I didn't take, because - I wanna like caveat as well, like, you have to make the best choice for yourself. And if that's the best choice, please take medicine. But for me, it's just, I just read a lot of the side effects and stuff and, like, I wasn't sure if this was something that I would have to do for the rest of my life or if this was just an episode like in the past, so I sort of stuck it out for bit. I took herbal supplements and I don't know if it was the supplement or just my body self regulating, but gradually, day by day it started to lift. I feel like I'm 95% myself again, but it did take time. It was just the weirdest episode in my life, so far.

Mindy: Did you as well, in addition to the supplements, did you pull back from social media? 

Lori: Oh, yes, I just left. I left completely. I should have been posting. I will, I say should, but like you don't have To promote, you know, but me personally, I feel like I should have been posting, um, much more leading up to their release. But I didn't like, I had so many things planned that I would post which I didn't post. I just left a message saying, You know, I was having a tough time. 

And like all the things that I have to mail out, I had so many pre orders still to mail out and like gifts and stuff to mail out that I only actually Only just got to, like, a month ago because I finally had, like, the physical mental motivation to go to the post office and do it. But I still feel terrible about. But also I was waiting for stamps, so that's like my excuse, Well, because of the whole post office situation, I was waiting a very long time for stamps. 

But then, like my virtual tour I feel, I felt so bad about that because I had put a lot of planning, and my agent had put a lot of planning into, like what we would do, reaching out to like my friends, like author friends and other authors to like, Do it with me. And then this thing happened and I was just like, I don't think I could do it anymore. At the time we pushed it back, we were just like, we'll postpone it. But I mean, it's been like three months and it's it's just not gonna happen. So that was disappointing. So the only thing I really did on book release week Was my release day event. Everything else that I had planned was just out the door. 

Mindy: You're not alone in this. A fellow author that I did not necessarily know well and had only met once. But we had interacted on social media, a fellow YA Author, I saw posted some months ago, you know, I'm pulling away out entirely from social media. I did have this person's phone number and I sent them a text, and I was just like, Hey, I'm just reaching out and making sure you're okay. And she texted me back and she was like, Thank you. I will be. I just can't do a lot right now. I simply, I'm not functioning. I was like, Okay. I mean, that's fine. And don't feel bad about feeling bad. That's what I've been telling people - do not feel bad for feeling bad. This is a shit storm. This other YA author and I are now in the habit, even though we were not close before, we just check in on each other like, pretty much every week with a text like, how are you doing? You're not alone in this, And to have it hit with release. I'm so sorry. And I can't imagine. 

And I want to say this in support of your choice - Which I would support regardless - But I had an interesting experience as an author last in the summer beginning of fall. So about a year ago, I went through a break up. It was a relationship that had lasted for 12 years. I was done. Nothing matters. This is stupid. Laid in bed and cried for three days. Then my dog died. So it was not a good and I was like, Fuck you 2019. I had no idea. But anyway, I was just in such a bad place, and I just didn't care. I was like, I don't care about tweeting about my book. Like where I was emotionally right then. I was like, That's dumb. I'm not doing that. And in the past, I have been very active on social media, and I was just like, You know what? This doesn't matter to me right now. I basically cold turkey dropped, like, didn't even make an announcement that I was backing away for probably two or three months and I saw zero effect on my sales. 

I have always been a proponent of using the tools that we have to promote ourselves. I no longer believe that it is as effective as I used to. Um, you're in a slightly different situation because, like you were saying this was release week for you. I did not have anything to actively promo at the time. So, like, it is slightly different. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't do social media because I think it does bring awareness of a release or of you as an author, and I have found people and their art through a particularly interesting tweet that went out, or a Facebook post that was shared. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm just saying it is not worth throwing yourself against that brick wall over and over If your heart is not in it. 

Lori: And the thing is my heart was in it until, like anxiety and depression happened. I could say confidently that that wasn't me. What I mean, like, that's not how I normally am. I know that a lot of authors give advice to not tie so much of your identity into your writing. For most of my adult life, that's that's sort of been my identity, you know, like I wanted to write. I wanted to be a writer, and so when that happened and I just didn't care anymore, I had a bit of an existential crisis because this is the thing I've always loved. I've always wanted, like, desperately to do, and if I don't care anymore, then what do I do? Who am I? Like I said, I was having all these questions. What do I do if that passion for writing doesn't come back? I mean, fortunately, it did. And like the fog lifted, it was a weird time.

Mindy: It is. And the phrase you just used “the fog lifted” is so accurate. I mean, it truly is just like a mental fog and a funk, and nothing matters. I mean, that's the thing I have a difficult time expressing about depression. Um, I suffered from depression like my whole life. Anxiety was a new experience for me. Can't say I enjoyed it. Depression is that, I mean, that's what gets me every time. I think it's very difficult for people that don't suffer from it to understand this like - No, it doesn't matter, like nothing matters right now, all I feel is nothing. You can't motivate yourself when nothing matters. 

However, I'm 41 now. I've been managing it for a long time. I have discovered that you know I'll have a string, two, three, usually not too bad, But like one really bad day, right? I’m like, you feel like this today. Tomorrow you might not. And then I have days that are awesome, where it's like I'm awesome and the world's awesome and people are awesome and everything's gonna be okay. Like I have those days too. Not in a manic depressive style way like it's a pretty even fluctuation. But I have good days too. 

And so when I'm in a bad day, it's like, Okay, live this. You're in your bad day. And I'm lucky enough that I do write full time. So it's like, You know what? Go take a nap. It's cool. Like you don't, you don't have to do this. You don't have to feel like this right now. If you want to take a nap, you can. I highly realize and acknowledge that that is a luxury. There is that guilt then that is associated with it, too. I'm not doing anything. I'm not working hard enough. I didn't do my hair today. I look sloppy. I didn't put on makeup. It's okay. It's okay. It is okay to feel bad. You don't need to feel bad about the fact that you feel bad.,

Lori: The guilt of letting everybody down around you, not really being able to do anything about it, like wanting to do something about it, but also not wanting.

Mindy: The incapability. When I'm just in bed and I'm not gonna be able to get out like it's just that's not gonna happen right now. And if it's the middle of the day that makes you feel like shit, it's just the way it is. 

I'd like to talk on the flip side of that about anxiety. What was your experience of that? You said you had these existential questions. If I'm not writing and if I'm not a writer, I think it's really interesting, and I know we're kind of veering away from the topic of writing and publishing. But I think it's worth talking about because your experience was COVID and publishing related, and for me, when I was going through my break up, I kind of had the opposite experience where it was like the only thing I'm good at is writing. That's everything I am. That's the only thing I am, is a writer, and that felt very empty to me. My personal life on the romantic scale was, you know, it had been vacuumed, sucked out of my life, so I had the opposite where I was just like oh, the only thing I am and the only thing I'll ever be is a writer. 

Lori: That's a really interesting contrast. I'm married, and I have kids, so I have to get up. They take up a lot of time and emotional energy. 

Mindy: I Will say, having had that feeling, it was also followed by I'm so empty right now that I can't imagine writing. 

Lori: I do also want to say that even though I am, I have a husband and kids. I also felt very alone during that time, like, no matter who was around you, like even if you don't have a partner or even if you are having a house full of people. When you're going through that, you always feel very alone. 

Mindy: It's very true. You do. No one can quite reach you. My mom came, my mom, my mom is a wonderful woman and she came over and just sat on my bed and talked to me. And I'm 41 years old and I was just laying in my bed, crying and talking to my mom, you know? And it was just like I was 16 again and going through a break up with my mom just sat there and listened to me. It was like, You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be OK. And I am. I'm fine. I'm OK now. 

I ended up with a group of people because I was forcing myself to go out, forcing myself to be with friends, forcing myself to find those things. And I was out with a group of people and I was in a canoe. We were canoeing. It was a beautiful, like fall day, and everybody was having fun and splashing. And I was just canoeing and everything was... nature was beautiful and the people around me were wonderful. And I was just like, I don't care. Don't care about any of this right now. And I was just canoeing, like, very mechanically. I remember thinking like I'm marking this day like mentally. I'm marking this day in my head and a year from now, I don't want to feel like this anymore. A year later, I'm, you know, seeing a new person, and I got a puppy. Dude, a year ago you were floating in a canoe and hating everything, and that now seems so far removed from who I am now.

Lori: I like the hopeful tone of that. 

Mindy: I wanna talk a little bit about looking back on the real down, those deep lows. Did you gain from that? What did you learn about yourself for this experience?  

Lori: I feel like that time in June was like the lowest I've ever been, which was, like, weird for me. Just because I was, I thought I had a pretty good handle on my mental health. For the longest time, I was just like I feel like I'm pretty, pretty mentally stable person. And The universe is just like -  joke’s on you. It was always very publishing related, as well like I'd be on submission or like, way back when I was querying. And, you know, all the rejections were coming in, and I had another moment, just like is this what I want to do, because it's just a lot of rejection and a lot of pain. And I'm like, whatever. But again, I had to ask myself, if I'm not writing then, what am I? What am I doing? Like obviously I'm into, like, TV series and I have hobbies and all that stuff, you know? But like career wise, there's nothing I'm really passionate about. Aside from writing, I don't wanna do anything else with my life except for write. So I guess I'm gonna have to stick with it. But what happened in June was just like the new bar, set the bar for how low I could be. And I came up from it. It's hopeful, I guess it gives me hope that if it happens again, you know that it's not forever. 

Mindy: When you were in that place, when you were in the super low, were you able Because this was your first experience being that low. Were you able to look forward and be like this will get better, I know it. Or was it because it was your first experience where you're just, like, completely gobsmacked? 

Lori: I feel like I was Gobsmacked at first. I will say, though, that like it was really, really bad in the mornings. I have no idea why it was. I would wake up, and it would just feel awful. I would just have that, like twisty turny feeling in my gut, and I would just like a whole sense of dread. And I knew that I just had to make it through the day because by the time I went to bed and I almost felt normal again, it's so weird. t

Mindy: So like, it's bizarre that you say that because I have similar experiences when I wake up in the morning and I have a lot to do, like I have a lot of work, I can feel overwhelmed like I can't do this. I can't get to all this today. Then I also have the experience of if I wake up and I have nothing to do, like I have no chores or jobs or writing like if I don't have anything to Do, I actually find it very difficult to get out of bed. I could lay in bed until three PM and no one would know. And that in itself is a little depressing. 

So that's the kind of thing that I kind of deal with. But I agree with you completely, and I actually freely share that. I find it odd and I have some guilt over it that it's like when the evening rolls around and I've always been a night owl, and I've always enjoyed nighttime and evening, so maybe that's part of it. But it's like when the evening rolls around, I almost start looking forward to the day. Like what I mean by that is I start looking forward to the evening and to the night is like, What am I going to do tonight? But daytime kind of depresses me, which is the opposite of how you're supposed to feel.

Lori: I have my son and he's seven, so I had to get out of bed regardless. But I would get up and I would do stuff with him. I don't know if it's the same for you, but I just had absolutely zero appetite. I didn't want to eat anything. I was hungry, but I didn't want to eat. So, like I would just eat for the sake of eating. And then, you know, I would wait and I would go outside and just lay out in the sun, because that I don't know, just being outside seemed to help marginally at least to distract me. Yeah, then, like you said, I would just wait until, like, it got darker, because throughout the day it would slowly ease, um, to the point where I could function. 

Mindy: I had a similar experience, and I think that maybe other people have to. I don't know why. I don't know. Um, I would love to know if anybody listening has an idea about that. Or if that's an example of some kind of particular symptom. I want to know about it because I do. I am very similar. 

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Mindy: Let's let's talk about something a little cheerier. Why don't you tell? I mean it's super important, super important, and I'm really glad we talked about it, but I definitely rather end on a higher note for the episode. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your new book Forest of Souls? 

Lori: Forest of Souls is a YA fantasy about a girl who is in spy training, and she discovers that she has this rare ability to shepherd souls. So she gets tasked with controlling what's called the Deadwood, which is an ancient forest that's possessed by eventual spirits because it is slowly devouring the kingdoms. 

Mindy: That sounds awesome. So any particular inspiration for this?

Lori: The Deadwood itself was inspired by the Deadmarsh in the Lord of the Rings. But thematically, it's about her and her best friend. And it was just really important to me to portray a friendship between girls that was unconditional, and that was all about trust and choosing each other and sticking with each other no matter what, Like plot obstacles get thrown in their way because I've just read so many books where the relationships fall apart or there's there's petty reasons that they stopped talking to each other or for whatever reason, you know. So I'm just like, I really just want a friendship portrayed between girls, specifically, where that's not even an issue, you know, like no matter what happens and like their friendship is definitely tested, you know, in the book. But the important thing is that they still choose each other. 

Mindy: I think it is important that young readers and females, especially get to see those relationships portrayed in a way that isn't catty or that just has true trust and love baked in. Because I mean one of the things that society and our culture in general has done, I think the most heinous thing that has been done… well, it's not the most heinous. But one of the less obvious things is that we've been trained to look at each other as competition for the prize of man. That's something that I have just become more and more aware of and enacted in my own life. Like when I was younger and not realizing that this was, that we’re all in this together, the female experience of moving through the world instead of looking at each other, as you know, competition. We're all having similar, if not the same experiences and bonding over them instead of tear each other down.

Lori: I definitely, um, perpetuated that sort of mindset as a teenager, as a kid, where I would be like I'm not like those girls like we're actually probably are all quite alike and That's not a bad thing. 

Mindy: I was a teenager in the nineties and it was definitely, you're right. It was perpetuated. I certainly participated in it and was in situations where I was on the flip side of it, where I was the villain, and that's fine. We're all a villain at some point, even in our own narrative, even if we don't want to admit it, Um and I do, because I substitute in schools and I'm in the schools fairly often when... I'm in a school right now, I have hope, because I don't see it as prevalent as it used to be. 

Lori: Oh, yeah, my daughter is just turned 18 And she is. She's so much smarter than I was at her age. She's so much more open minded and more the way that she thinks and the way that she views the world and how, how fair and how open minded she is. It kind of gives me hope, I guess.

Mindy: Last thing, why don't you let our listeners know where they can find you online? 

Lori: I’m mostly on Twitter, which is at Lori M. Lee and on Instagram, which is Lori M. Lee 82. 

Mindy: Awesome, and the book is called Forest of Souls. It is available now, and also I should mention you have another book coming out in 2021 called Broken Web. Is that a sequel? 

Lori: Yes, that is the sequel, and I'm super duper excited to share it and like it was, I was working on it actually through, like, the whole fog in June. So hopefully, um, it'll be OK. It's not too terrible. 

Mindy: I really understand. I have a very good friend that is also an Ohio author. And she has a book that she wrote right in the wake of dealing with her father's death. And she has said so many times I don't know what's in that book. I have no idea. I hope it doesn't suck. 

Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.