What are the tropes and reader expectations for action adventure thrillers? Why publish into KU and what are some of the ways to market there? How can travel enrich your writing? Luke Richardson gives his tips.

In the intro, ProWritingAid launches their Manuscript Analysis tool;
Navigating legal risk in memoir [The Indy Author]; Social media for authors in 2025 [BookBub]; Amazon relaunches Alexa, now Alexa+ which is now powered by Claude AI; Scribe, the world’s most accurate transcription model [ElevenLabs];
ElevenReader Publishing to the Reader app; Death Valley, A Thriller by J.F. Penn.

Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Luke Richardson is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective thriller series.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• 
  
• Taking the leap into full-time indie authorship
  
  
• Reasons for unpublishing books and maintaining your author brand
  
  
• Researching the tropes and market of your genre
  
  
• The purpose of a prologue and when to include one
  
  
• Tips for writing characters that are unlike yourself
  
  
• Turning travels into stories
  
  
• Why publish in KU instead of wide?
  
  
• Selling non-book items or experiences
  

You can find Luke at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com and his new podcast at AdventureStoryPodcast.com.

Transcript of Interview with Luke Richardson

Joanna: Luke Richardson is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archeological Thrillers and the International Detective thriller series. So welcome to the show, Luke.

Luke: Hi, Jo. Thank you for having me. This is wonderful to be able to talk to you.

Joanna: I'm excited about it. First up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing.

Luke: It's been one of those sort of roundabout ways that a lot of people talk about, but I often cite—this is something I've written on my profiles and written emails about. I often cite my first arriving in India in 2011 as the reason I wanted to write.

It was just this transformational moment of being totally culture shocked in a completely different place in a way that I couldn't describe and couldn't really explain. We'd come out of the airport, we're into this taxi going past the slum villages on the edges of this freeway that's sort of 16 lanes wide. There's donkeys, and sports cars, and tractors, and all of this going on. It was just so overwhelming.

Although I didn't write for several years after that, it was that excitement about stuff, and the world, and discovery, and adventure that lodged in me. Then when I started to write, those things started to come out of me. Do you know what I mean? They started to come out in my writing.

Joanna: That's so funny. We're going to get into travel because you and I are travel geeks. I also remember arriving in India, would have been about five years before that, in the middle of the night in an airport in—it wasn't Delhi—but it was one of the biggest cities. It was like crazy, crazy. So that culture shock is really interesting.

How did you then get into indie publishing, as opposed to maybe going traditional?

Luke: I was an English teacher in a high school for several years, under the illusions that it would be a creative thing to do because I've always been very creative. I've always loved that. For the first couple of years, it actually was quite creative. Then, I think as I'd done the same classes four or five or six times, over and over again, it became less so.

Then I started writing. I came up with this idea for a book, and I was like, great. It was actually set in Kathmandu, and it's the first book in my International Detective series.

Someone who's like me in 2011, in the back of that taxi, totally overwhelmed, tasked with finding a missing person in this city that they've never been to. They don't speak the language, they don't know the culture, and they've got to go and find this person.

I came up with that idea based on my travels, based on the things that I've done.

It was really just a creative outlet. It was a passion. It was something I wanted to do outside of work.

Then I finished the book, and I did that thing which we've all done, I think, and you fold your arms, and you go, huh? Half of us is really impressed that you finished this thing, and the other half's like, what do I do now? What do I do with it?

I gave my mum a copy and a couple of other friends, and then I went down the rabbit hole of learning about publishing and how to get it out in the world. Your podcast, and other podcasts, and online courses, and YouTube videos, and all this sort of thing.

I never tried the traditional route. I was far too impetuous. I wanted to get on with the next book.

So I learned about indie publishing and published it in 2019.

Joanna: Are you still a teacher?

Luke: No, no. I left just before the pandemic. So I quit then. I needed a change, which was great, actually, because it meant I had the whole time of those few years to really focus on my writing.

It built up slowly, as these things do. So the first year was quite tough. I had to do some freelance work on the side and do some other writing, sort of freelance writing and things.

Then, when was it? I think it was two years ago that it became the job, and now we've surpassed the teaching. It's become more successful than the teaching was, so I'm really excited about.

Joanna: I think this is a really good point.

You left your job in 2019, and it was 2024 when your income surpassed your old job?

Luke: Yes, income from books.

I mean, we couldn't travel anyway because travel was off the table at that time, so it was a good time to not spend much money anyway. So I've lived quite a frugal life whilst I was doing that and did some freelance work on the side.

I really just started again, I suppose you'd say, in a professional capacity. Built up the mailing list, built up the socials, learned about all these things.

What I decided, I think, is that I needed to give it a proper chance. I think if I wanted to do it as a hobby, writing in the evenings and the weekends was fine.

If I wanted to do it as a job, and I wanted this to be my life, I needed to give it space.

So that was the decision.

I didn't love teaching at that point. I was ready for a change. So, yes, I think that was a good decision. It's worked out well in the end, obviously, too.

Joanna: So you mentioned the word job there. I feel like this is so important, and I've talked about this before. Having a hobby is amazing, and for most people, writing as a hobby is brilliant and probably what most people should do. As you mentioned, the word job, and that is how we make our living with books or word-adjacent things. So what does that job entail for you?

That perhaps when you wrote that first book, when you were a teacher, you didn't even think about?

I feel like a lot of people coming in don't understand what the job of an author is, or let alone the job of an indie author.

Luke: That's true. There's so much to it. There's the production side, which is obviously the writing, the researching, the actual making the book. I don't just mean research in terms of what's in the book, I mean research of what does the market need.

Now, I'm not saying you need to write to market necessarily, but you need to—I think not need, that's the wrong way to say it. It's not prescriptive, but it helps if you have an understanding of what the market likes, if that makes sense. You don't necessarily have to follow tropes.

This is an issue, isn't it, I think with indie publishing. You can do whatever you want, but with that comes great challenges as well because whatever you want is massive. No one wants to read a book that's everything, right?

It needs to be something. It needs to pin its colors to the mast.

Some colors to one mast or another. It can't be everything to everyone. So you need to decide at some point where that is, and who your reader is, and what they like and those sorts of things.

It's easier if you're writing in a genre that is popular, that is easy to communicate, that is easy for people to understand. I suppose that helps as well. So, yes, that's production.

There's also sort of the business side of it. We're at the end of January now. I've had a really boring week of tax returns and these sorts of things.

There's the marketing side. There's running the newsletter and the social media and all of this sort of stuff, which needs to be done and should be enjoyed, if possible.

Joanna: I love that you said earlier that it took almost five years, I guess, for the money to get back up to where it was. It was the same for me.

When I left my original consulting job in 2011, I took a massive pay cut. It took until 2015 before I started making more than I used to make, and have done ever since, by the way. So hopefully that encourages you.

Luke: Thank you. Yes, I hope so.

Joanna: So how many books do you have now? Like when you talk about the job and the production—

What's your schedule for putting books out?

Because you are writing genre fiction, basically.

Luke: I have written around 20 now. A couple of out of print because they didn't really match the brand that I was going for, so I've taken them out for now, and perhaps we'll republish them later.

So I've got six in my International Detective series, six in the Eden Black series, and then there's obviously novellas and other such things. So it's probably less than 20, actually. It's always a hard question, and I wonder if you feel the same, in that you don't know. You don't know exactly. Almost 20, I'll say that.

Joanna: Well, what's funny, I've got on my wall here, “50 books by 50,” and as we record this, I'm 50 in six weeks.

Luke: Oh, congratulations.

Joanna: Well, the achievement of living to 50, I guess, is one of them. I've actually started a blog post—I can't remember when this goes out—but I will be doing a blog post on my 50th birthday, which is calculating how many books I've actually written, including all the different editions.

Well, you said you've unpublished some of those and may republish them. So my first three novels I rewrote, so they're in second edition. Some of them are in third edition. A lot of my nonfiction is in multiple editions.

So those ones you unpublished, so people know, when you wrote them originally and published them, you must have thought they were fine, and then you decided to take them down. So why did you decide to do that?

Is that something people can prepare for in advance so that they don't have to unpublish things?

Luke: I would like to put them out again, and it's probably just me being too perfectionist, actually, because I know people have read them and enjoyed them. They're a good series. I wrote them with Steven Moore, who I know you know as well, and it was a collaboration project we had.

My books now are very family friendly. They're very clean.

They're sort of in the vein of Indiana Jones style. Whereas those books I wrote with Steve are a bit darker, they are a bit more nefarious.

Unless I do a rewrite, which I would like to do when time allows, because I think they could be changed to bring them into the same sort of world as the books that I have.

People ask me why I write the books in the way that I do. I want someone to have my book and put it on their coffee table proudly with the bookmark in it, and if their 12 year old daughter or niece comes up and picks it up and flicks through and takes an interest in it, they are happy for that person to go and read it.

Or their grandma comes in and picks it up and flicks through it, they are happy for that person to read it. I don't want them to have any sort of, “Oh, that's a bit this for you,” or, “That's a bit that for you.” Do you know what I mean by that?

I felt that those books, because of the way they were, I wasn't quite happy for them to be in that situation. I didn't want someone to recommend me and then go, “Oh, read Luke's books, but don't read those.”

Joanna: I do feel like that is very much a personal decision, though. As in, I remember the stuff I was reading at age 12. I mean, I do think that different people like different things, but I get exactly what you mean. So you've decided on family friendly action adventure, basically.

Luke: Yes, that's right.

Joanna: I love that. Okay, so let's come back to action adventure thrillers then. You and I both write around, we use the word thriller, I think, quite loosely, and it is a very big genre.

As a sub-genre, what are the hallmarks of your books and the action adventure thriller genre that you (and I) write in?

Also, how do you vary them in the books in the series? I feel like this can be a challenge for people.

Luke: Yes, it's a good question, and something I only started to understand when I wrote my second series. It has become much more successful than the first, and I think it's because I took time to understand this, actually.

It's what I was saying a minute ago about it can help if you do a bit of research in the market before actually sitting down to write. So there's certain ingredients that my books need.

They're all based on an ancient legend.

So I've done one set in the Pyramids of Giza, one about Atlantis, one about a mummy on the Titanic. That's a proper rumor, I'll have you know. Whether it had anything to do with the sinking or not, they're not sure. One about the Templars.

The one I'm working on at the moment is going to be set in the Sahara, and all to do with a hidden city under the Sahara and this sort of thing. So those sorts of interesting settings, locations.

Obviously there needs to be a race against time before something happens. The classic one is “this thing can only happen on the summer solstice or when the planets are aligned.” Or, I know this is one of your favorites, “because there's a storm.”

Joanna: I love a good storm.

Luke: Or, “The storm is coming in six hours, and we need to solve this thing before the storm.”

Joanna: Right now, writing Death Valley, I am actually editing the big storm scene.

Luke: I love it. Yes, so they're generally set in the present day as well, but the present day can be quite loose because Clive Cussler wrote his in the present day, although that was the 80s. So it can be quite loose as to when the present day is, but they sort of track the events of pre-history.

One of the tropes is you have this prologue that takes place in like 5000 BC, and then what happened there relates to the present day when that relic is uncovered.

There are other strands too that sort of happen, sometimes a romantic element.

A relatable villain is another one, which I think is more of a modern trope, actually. I like this in my books, a pinch of the supernatural. Think like the Ark of the Covenant in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Indiana Jones films. It's just there.

We don't know quite what it is, or why it had that strange effect on the people at the end, but it did it, and it could be true. There's a tiny element that it could be true that I like to put in mine as well.

Joanna: Yes, and we overlap in so many ways. I think I definitely have slightly more supernatural than you and more religious elements because I'm obsessed with religion, religious relics and stuff like that. You and I both kind of cover similar areas.

This is what's interesting, isn't it, in terms of what you love as a kid and then what you enjoy writing.

I do want to come back on the prologue, especially because you were an English teacher. Now, I love a prologue. I write prologues in my action adventures as well, but a lot of people have issues with prologues. You explained a bit what a prologue was there, but—

What purpose does a prologue serve in a book?

When should people use one? When is it not a good idea, do you think?

Luke: I had this conversation with a writer who I'm working with at the moment, and they had put it as chapter one. I said, this is not chapter one. This is a prologue because a prologue is clearly delineated from the book itself, in my mind. I'm not asking Google this, this is just what I think.

It's clearly delineated from the book itself. It isn't part of the story. So the story can be read without the prologue, should you want to. It just add some context.

It puts some root in the history of the book that tells you a little bit about where that book is going to go based on sort of what happened before the event, if that makes sense.

Joanna: I think it's like a foreshadowing. Often in my one, the ancient relic is there or discovered by someone thousands of years earlier, and something very bad happens. This then kind of foreshadows the present day, where obviously something very bad is about to happen, and then they have to stop it.

A prologue can be foreshadowing.

Luke: Yes, and I think it helps the reader know the passage of time as well, because they're clearly not at the same period. That's one thing that I like that I find useful with it as a writing technique.

Joanna: Yes. I've definitely written some that are only a couple of weeks earlier, but sometimes a thousand years ago or whatever.

Luke: Yes, but that's the convention, isn't it? The thousand years ago one. I'm not saying that can't be a prologue, but I'm saying the convention, in my mind, and I could be completely wrong, is that it's sort of someone putting the capstone on the Great Pyramid, and then it cuts to black.

Then we see someone, in the present day, driving through the pyramids on a Jeep or whatever.

Joanna: That's cool. I personally do like a prologue. Actually, just coming back to your English teacher side, many authors have to fight the sort of snobbery that some English teachers instilled in them, including myself.

I certainly look back and was told by my English teacher that I couldn't write such things, that I should write something acceptable for a young woman. That definitely stopped me writing for a long time.

So if people do feel sort of hamstrung by this, by the comments from their English teachers in the past—

Is there anything that you say to people to help them get over comments from a teacher about their writing?

Luke: It's a hard one, isn't it? That teacher, certainly in your experience, did the wrong thing. That's not an encouraging attitude to have, and I wouldn't have had that attitude with one of my students.

It's a challenge because, and without getting too political, the school system is very sort of dictating in what you can teach and what you can't teach.

I didn't want to teach certain students 19th century literature. That's a very difficult thing to teach to students who would be better off with something more modern, with something more relatable to them. that's a struggle for all English teachers, and a lot of teachers generally, actually.

So I think that gives a perception to young people about what books should be, that you're in this place, and it is just books that are important and that have sort of stood the test of time. There's no fun in it, or there's certainly less fun in it, which was one of the reasons I ended up getting fed up of it and moving on at the end.

Joanna: Well, I love that you, as an English teacher, are writing genre fiction. I think that you must have had to put aside some of that snobbery yourself, I guess.

Luke: I don't think I ever had that snobbery, to be honest.

I think writing should be fun. I've always thought it should be fun. There's no reason for it not to be. That's why people open a book.

That's why they get involved in this imaginary world for an escapist adventure. it's our job to make that fun.

Sometimes we put a bit of history and a bit of social commentary, perhaps, or one of our opinions, we slip that in there as well. That's fine because we've honored the contract with the reader to make them enjoy themselves as well.

Joanna: Well, that's great. Then just coming to your books, like one of your bestselling series is this Eden Black Archeological Thrillers. Eden Black is a woman, a female protagonist. So some people will say, I don't, but some people say you shouldn't write a character that is not like yourself.

People have said this to me writing male characters or people of different persuasions in whichever direction. So how do you deal with this? Like, did it even come up in your mind that you shouldn't write a main female character?

Luke: No. Of course, it didn't.

Joanna: No, exactly.

What are your tips for authors who might be concerned about writing characters different to them?

Luke: I know. I had some people comment—not people—I had a comment about this on a Facebook ad saying, “Who are you to write?” It was actually from a bloke. I was surprised that it was from a man. I don't know why I was surprised it was from a man.

He said, “Who are you to write strong female characters?” And I said, “I'm married to one. I was brought up by one. I have many friends who are them.”

Joanna: And do you think the rest of it is true? I say to people, I'm like, seriously, do you think I'm all my characters? Like the villain and the murderer and, you know, whoever? It's crazy. So I'm so glad you did that. So it didn't come up in your mind before you started?

Luke: No, not at all. One thing to say is that —

Every character in your book is you in a weird sort of way, even the villain. They're all parts of you that you're projecting into the page in some way.

Also, you're inventing in some sort of way.

Actually, I feel that we as humans, without getting too meta about it, are more similar than we are different. Regardless of whatever. Race, gender, age, anything, we're more similar than we are different.

We feel the same things. Of course, there are differences, but my books are about things—like we've talked about getting the relic and all of this—but beyond that, they're about fitting in, and loss, and grief, and understanding each other, and belief, and hope, and all these feelings.

It's quite generic to being human, regardless of whether you're female, male, whatever. So I believe that by writing them in that way, that it really doesn't make a difference.

Joanna: No, and I love it because when I started writing my ARKANE Series with Morgan Sierra, I mean, there really weren't many action adventure books with female main characters.

ARKANE action adventure thriller series by J.F. Penn

That is why I was got excited about the Lara Croft movies and stuff like that because that was kind of the only option. Now, what's great with indie is there's so many. It's brilliant.

Luke: Wasn't there an article saying that they're a dying trend or something recently?

Joanna: Oh, everyone always says action adventure is dying. The thing is, there's always a group of people who still like that, including us.

Well, let's also talk about your travels. You will be coming on my re-booted Books and Travel Podcast, and if people want to geek out with us on travel, come on over there. So let's just talk about it as a writer. How do you turn your real life travels into the stories?

What are your tips for authors on turning real experiences into story?

Luke: That's true, isn't it? Generally, the way I do it is I go to a place without a preconceived idea. I just get immersed in the place, and I walk around the place. I don't worry about creating content particularly, or anything about taking photos or taking notes. I just sort of fall into it.

I'm going to let you into the secret behind my book that I haven't written yet, actually. I'll do that because I think this is really exciting.

So in the 70s, they created this pattern called quasi crystalline tessellation, and it was created by scientists in the UK and in America. Now, they realized that this pattern exists in two places in the world.

It exists in meteors, the molecular structure of meteors that come from out of space, and it exists in the sand upon which a nuclear blast has happened. The heat has been so intense that it has formed the sand into a rock that has this molecular structure.

Then they discovered it existed in a third place. It's on the walls of 13th century mosques in Morocco and Iran and other countries in the Middle East. I was walking around Marrakesh, where we were traveling about a month ago, and I read that, and was like, this is amazing.

It's nuts, isn't it, to think that these cutting edge scientists were doing this thing in the 70s, and yet it was there already in this mosque in Marrakesh, and there's one in Iran and somewhere else. There's these places with this pattern on the wall of the thing.

Of course, because I'm a writer, that gets me going. I'm like, whoa, maybe the Islamic scholars of the 13th century were trying to communicate something to us in the modern era.

Joanna: Before you go on, let's stop there because that exact point, I call this ‘the seed,' because people are always like, where do your ideas come from? I'm like — 

These seeds of story are everywhere. You just have to notice them.

Luke: That's right.

Joanna: I feel like you and I, because we travel, that we find our seeds while we are traveling. You may never have stumbled—you might have stumbled across that on a YouTube video somehow—

But because you were in that place, I think it evoked story in your mind.

Luke: Yes, exactly right.

Joanna: So how do you then—I know that this is a book you're going to write—but how do you get from there? People are like, okay, sure, but that's not a book, is it?

Luke: Yes. So now this is the stage I'm at with this book. So I'm just sitting on the idea, really. I'm not putting too much pressure on it. I've got a few ideas now about how it will fit into what will happen, and also fit it into the series as well.

I know the characters that are coming into this. I obviously don't know the villain and some of the other villains, sort of henchmen, that are going to come in, but I know my characters. So I'm sort of jiggling it together.

I want part of it to take place in the United States, as well, because my characters haven't been there for a while, for a few books. So that's important. It's a case of picking it together, but I've got a couple of scenes, and for me, that's how it starts.

Stephen King writes about writing like discovering a dinosaur skeleton. I love that idea. I've discovered a bit, and I'm now there with my brush, brushing off this part. I don't know whether it's the face or the back or the leg or the tail, you know.

I've just got this one bit, and slowly I'll work in one direction, and maybe that will lead me to another part. Or I'll go, nope, it's not over there. Then I'll come back and go over to the other section, and the story will emerge in that way.

Joanna: Do you write in order or out of order?

Luke: I've got better at writing in order, but it's still not totally chronologically.

Joanna: I feel like this is also because we use multiple places. Like for Spear of Destiny, I've been in Washington DC like a couple of years before, and I was like, I have to use it because I expense that trip. Then I was like, I need to put it in a book. How on earth am I going to tie it to Vienna and Nuremberg and all of this?

So I knew I had those scenes somewhere, but I didn't know what was going to happen. It's almost like when you know you want to set things different places—like you said, I need some scenes in America—you almost can write different things and then figure out what on earth links them.

Luke: What I tend to do is —

I write the hero's part first, and then put the villain in afterwards.

I don't know if you do the same? I think your books are similar, where you have two or three scenes from the hero, and then like a cut scene from the villain where they're scheming in a dark lair somewhere.

Joanna: Or doing bad things.

Luke: Yes, whatever. They sort of offset each other, and so I'll quite often come back and put those in afterwards.

Joanna: Well, that's good. I think it's important for people to know that you don't have to write everything in order, and you can just figure it out. Also, some authors are worried about using real places in their books.

Where is your line between using real places and then fictionalizing things?

Luke: The place is almost completely real in my books. I tend to be as real as I possibly can. Not down to like the building, though, because I think you'll understand this as well. It winds people up if you say, “They walked for five minutes down the street and then they were outside the coffee shop.”

I won't say that because someone will email and say, “There's not a coffee shop on the street. That closed in in 2004.” So I don't get that specific.

In terms of the place, I try to get things specific, like what sort of public transport it is. I wrote a book in Riga, and in Riga, they've got these wonderful old school, Soviet-esque trams that clang and rumble around the city. So they had to feature in the book there.

There's sort of what the air is like. Is it a sea sort of air? Is it cold? Is it warm? Is it sandy? Desert-y? What's the sensation you'll get?

To set that book apart, I want the reader to know, if they're interested, that I've been there.

They see something more than I could have gleamed from a cookie cutter explanation of this place.

I suppose that's going to become ever more important, isn't it, that we've been to this place. You write great authors’ notes as well, and that's something that's really important to me, is delving behind the story.

Joanna: I think that's important because, actually, I do think ChatGPT and some of these other models can write very good descriptions of places. The Author's Note, as you say, and our connection with our readers when we're kind of, “Look, here's me,” which is why selfies are important, “Here's me with the pyramids of Egypt.”

Luke: Exactly right.

Joanna: So this was me.

Okay, well, talking of audiences, let's get into the publishing and marketing side. So on publishing, so I'm really interested in this because you are in KU for your ebooks, and this is something I still find difficult after all these years. So why make that decision? How does that work for you?

What is your main marketing in KU?

Luke: So why make that decision? It's an 80-20 decision for me. I have got X number of hours a day, not very many, same as everyone else, I suppose. I want to do other things too with my time.

So actually, the best use of my time is to write the best book possible, and let Amazon do what they are really good at, which is distributing the book to people. They do a great job at that. They've proven it for years and years and years, with thousands of data sets and all this sort of stuff.

I would love to not be exclusive, of course, and that would be fun to go on the other platforms. Yes, it does bother me that my book isn't available in every single country and these sorts of things.

I believe that in terms of getting my book into as many hands as possible, and as such, sustaining this as a career, etc, for now, that's the best way, if that makes sense.

Joanna: I will tell people that your books have a lot of reviews. This is something I say to people —

If you want a lot of reviews on Amazon, then being in KU is one of the ways to do that.

I see, obviously, that on all the books that are action adventure that are in KU, which is most of them, have a ton of reviews. So there are pros and cons.

You do have print books, you have audio, and you do have your own store for these other formats. So tell us about that.

Luke: So I sell print books on the store. I don't sell particularly many. I sell most of them in the UK, I think because when people outside of the UK see the delivery cost, it puts them off.

I like the idea of having a store, more than actually make any money from it or make anything from it at the moment. I don't feel like I've completely cracked it yet. Actually, that's probably the reason.

There are frustrations from it, which I'm sure you have as well. Customer service is one. People are like, “How do I get my book? Why haven't I got this?” Sales duty is another. My friend bought a book in Spain.

Joanna: Oh, Europe is the worst.

Luke: Oh, this book has cost him 70 euros in total, including the duty. He says he hope it's a really good one. Sorry, mate, you bought it now.

Joanna: It is, and that's actually something for people to keep in mind. For example, I had someone in Canada and there was a problem with something, and their duty they paid was ridiculous. So in the end, I paid that back from them.

It's exactly what you said. There are problems—well, let's say challenges—with it, but clearly you wanted to do something.

Is it that you're not doing any marketing to your store, which means it's not getting much traction?

Luke: I'm not doing any paid marketing to my store. I do paid marketing to the first in series on Amazon, and I try and keep that as simple as possible, so that I can see what the return on investment is very clearly.

I still sell a fair number of audiobooks. I sell the other series, which I do know my International Detective series has no direct marketing to it.

I sell quite a lot through Ingram Spark as well. I can only think that is because people see the advert on Facebook, they don't want to shop on Amazon, so they take it into Waterstones, or they look on Barnes and Noble or whatever, and they buy it there. That is great. It is a good way to do it, really.

With regard to the store, I'm looking at people outside the author space and trying stuff. I want to see what YouTubers, podcasters, and influencers are selling on their stores.

I'm thinking it's not books, if that makes sense. Like bespoke, unique experiences, stuff, things, I don't know. A few ideas, nothing yet. I'm going to test a few things this year and see what comes out.

Joanna: That's great. I also have had this on my list for a while, instead of trying to sell books. The crazy thing is, like I just bought a necklace, they got me on Instagram. It's a really nice necklace, and it wasn't expensive, but it was still more than the price of a book. I just bought it.

It was a one click purchase from a store. I didn't know them. They had good reviews. So I was like, okay, I'll buy that. It came and everything.

I was like, what makes people buy something that costs you 50 pounds from somebody they don't know, and then resist paying 20 pounds for a book from an author they like? Like, it's crazy.

Is it easier to sell non-books to people, and then upsell them on a book?

Luke: That is what I'm thinking. I'm trying to look at it in the way that a YouTuber would. Now, a YouTuber puts all their content on YouTube, and they don't bemoan the fact that they're exclusive to YouTube. They just put their content on there, and they get their payment from their ad clicks, or whatever it is, every month, and that's fine.

What they do have is, underneath the video, they have this bar. I'm following various people, and they're selling coffee, tin openers, hats, all sorts of things. Then I'm like, this is cool. This is great. I like this. I like this coffee.

Joanna: I do like the idea of selling coffee because I drink a lot of coffee!

Luke: Yes. So at the moment, I've got this idea of potentially some of the sort of stuff you might find in one of the markets. The cool, bespoke jewelry and funky textiles. There are small things that you can post, or whatever. A few things like that I'm going to try, and see how it goes, really. That's the testing phase.

Joanna: I like that, and I think we do need to think differently. One of the basic things, I mean, with KU for example, and in fact, page reads and sales. So with sales, Amazon hasn't changed the $9.99 cap ever.

We've had a $9.99 cap on ebooks since the beginning. So even with inflation, we can't charge more for a book.

Then the page reads, obviously generally trend downwards.

Then you think, well, look, with inflation, just the cost of living, we should be able to put prices up. But because of all the reasons, books remain the price they are. So therefore, as you're looking at it, it is about, well—

What else can we offer people that's interesting, where the price isn't so fixed?

Luke: That's exactly right. You might only get 0.1% of people want that thing, and that's fine. That's great because they're the person who's really interested in whatever that thing happens to be.

It could be, I don't know, an event, an online event, or something. There's a few ideas. I haven't pinned them down yet, but there's many ideas.

Joanna: I get that. Well, talking about marketing as well. So obviously, as I mentioned, you're coming on my Books and Travel Podcast, but you also have a new podcast. So tell us about that.

Why did you start the podcast, and what are you hoping to achieve?

Luke: Yes, it's called The Adventure Story Podcast. It's basically, if you like that idea that I told you about, the crystalline tiles in Morocco and how they preempted the breaking of the atom—or whatever you think it might be, the splitting of the atom—then this is the podcast that you will like. It's all about the stories behind my stories.

So episodes in series one, which will start in March, are on things like—and this is a true story Jo—the cursed Egyptian ghost on the London Underground. That's one. The truth behind the legend of the crystal skulls.

There's an episode on Cambodia from a guy who grew up there. In fact, he's really excited about that. There's one about lava tubes. The truth behind lava tubes. Oh, there's a few I've planned this week. A couple on the Templars as well.

It's all this sort of history. It's like an extended author's note in podcast form. That's what I'm going for.

Joanna: So why are you doing that? You said you do paid marketing to your first in series on Amazon. You have a business. You're doing well.

Why a podcast?

Luke: I think trying to be more authentic is important to me. I want people to know me as the person behind the stories.

It's important to for me to tell people, and I do this in my emails quite a lot, that by buying my book, by reviewing my book, by sharing my book, you're not just having the story, you're supporting me and my family and this house I'm standing in now.

That still blows my mind, that the mortgage is paid by people buying books. It's wonderful. It's an incredible thing. I want the people who read my books to be able to see that and see the real human me behind the story, and share on the adventures.

This podcast will share some of the travels my wife and I go on. We'll share some of the adventures we've had. We'll share the inspirations behind the books. We'll have other authors on as well to talk about the inspirations behind their books, too.

Joanna: Fantastic.

Where can people find you, and your books, and the podcast online?

Luke: By the time this goes out, The Adventure Story Podcast will be live as well. It will be on wherever you listen to podcasts, but also AdventureStoryPodcast.com. My website is LukeRichardsonAuthor.com.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Luke. That was great.

Luke: Thank you.

The post Writing Action Adventure And Traveling For Book Research With Luke Richardson first appeared on The Creative Penn.