Walt Mussell joins us to talk about the ways authors can use social media to their advantage, even if they haven't gone mega-viral.
Walt Mussell is an award-winning historical fiction author who has used his love of history to build his author career, his social media presence, and his Substack, The Chrysanthemum and The Cross. He joins us to talk about the ways authors can use social media to their advantage, even if they haven't gone mega-viral.
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Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:02]:
You just tuned into the hippest way to start and grow your indie author career. Learn the ins, the outs and all the all arounds of self publishing. With the team from D2D and their industry influencing guests. You're listening to Self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital.
Jim Azevedo [00:00:24]:
We're live, Walt. Hi everybody. Welcome to another edition of Self Publishing Insiders. I am Jim Azevedo. I lead corporate communications here and marketing at Draft2Digital. And today my guest is Walt Mussell. Welcome to the show, Walt.
Walt Mussell [00:00:41]:
Thank you, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Jim Azevedo [00:00:44]:
It's my pleasure. This has got such an interesting and I think valuable subject that we're going to cover today. But let me just very quickly read your bio so everybody out there in the audience can know who it is that I'm talking to. So for those of you who don't know, Walt, Walt is an award winning author who writes historical fiction with Christian elements set during Japan's Christian century, an interest he gained in the four years he lived there. His books are available on most platforms and his next novel, the Samurai Sword Soul will be released in February 2026. He does Japanese history posts in social media. You can connect with Walt through Instagram, YouTube and tick tock and we're going to provide some of those links a little bit later on today. His newsletter, the Chrysanthemum and the Cross is on substack.
Jim Azevedo [00:01:39]:
So Walt, again, welcome to the show. It's our privilege to have you here.
Walt Mussell [00:01:45]:
Thank you. One more thing I also do, primarily for local churches and the civic groups in the area, I'll do lectures on things related to Japan's Christian century. I do a history of Japan's Christian century and I also did, I recently did a presentation on St. Paul. Mickey, Japan's most famous martyr.
Jim Azevedo [00:02:04]:
Interesting. So I was watching a YouTube video of Japan's last priest that I thought was super interesting. Oh yeah, yeah. So I mean folks, I'll, I'll put some links up a little bit later on, but it will send you down the rabble, down the rabbit hole. If you're interested in history, it's super interesting. But today we're here to talk about social media and how to build a social media following without necessarily, you know, going viral. We've all seen the news stories of influencers who, you know, hit a million likes for this or hit a million likes for that. And that's not really quite necessary, is it Walt? You know, so today we're going to talk about how to build a successful social media following without necessarily going viral.
Jim Azevedo [00:03:01]:
So Walt, can you tell us a little bit more about what that growth journey might have looked like for you and how you started first using social media?
Walt Mussell [00:03:11]:
The growth stream looked. It was, it. It was in fits and start, a lot of plateaus and it actually ended up being rather odd. I was trying to do everything and I could not do it. It was too much. So I decided to focus on a couple of things. I focused on TikTok and I focused on YouTube. The reason being TikTok was the easiest to create content in.
Walt Mussell [00:03:36]:
It's the only one I. It's the. It was the only one I don't need a manual to figure out how to use. Not that the other ones don't have good content creation, but it takes some time to learn and I was just too busy to go through and find on the other processes. And so I started posting, keeping into TikToks and YouTube time constraints and the way they do short and long videos. At the time I was doing Instagram when I started this, which is where my most of my fo. Maybe about over 40% of my following is. Is on Instagram.
Jim Azevedo [00:04:11]:
Instagram, okay.
Walt Mussell [00:04:14]:
At the time, I only had 250 people following me on Instagram. My closest friends. Okay, so that's pretty good.
Jim Azevedo [00:04:20]:
You've got 250 close friends.
Walt Mussell [00:04:23]:
Okay, yeah, closest friends, fellow writers, every right. But I started posting the shortest videos because Instagram had a really short time constraint.
Jim Azevedo [00:04:33]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:04:34]:
And so I started posting the ones that I would do for like YouTube shorts onto Instagram because that matched their time limits.
Jim Azevedo [00:04:41]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:04:42]:
And after a while, the content I was creating on TikTok and you for TikTok and YouTube started finding a home on Instagram. And so I went from thinking of Instagram as an afterthought to realizing I'm actually seeing a growth. And so I said, I can still create the content where I am, but I create it with Instagram primarily in mind.
Jim Azevedo [00:05:13]:
Okay, what was that timeframe, roughly, where you sort of realized that this is the better path for you because you said something that's really interesting right up top was that you. You wanted to do everything at first, but then you realize, no, this TikTok and YouTube seems to work better. Or I was growing there.
Walt Mussell [00:05:34]:
I was growing there and just growing slowly. That was about a little over two years ago where it all started. And I've been doing this for years. And I wanted to, because of my kids being in college and just being a dad, I was trying to do everything, but I was also ignoring actually writing. So I Figured create a social. Create social media so that when they finally get that next book. My. The summer I saw, which I rewrote, I rewrote like seven times before I got it to work.
Walt Mussell [00:06:06]:
And I said create a social media that I can actually present this to since I most likely will be self pubbing it. And from there I started creating it and then I realized some of what I was doing which seemed to have. I had a lot of, I had a lot of contemporaries on TikTok and YouTube, but I had less contemporaries on Instagram. And so the, the content seem to resonate a little bit better there. It doesn't mean there weren't Japanese history creators on Instagram.
Jim Azevedo [00:06:41]:
Yep.
Walt Mussell [00:06:42]:
It's just because of the time constraints that Instagram was using at the time. The more you've got two things you want to do when you create a video. You want to get the, you want to get the reader to the first three seconds. Because if you can get them through the first three seconds, then the algorithms all kick in almost regardless of where you are. And there's a little bit more liking a little bit more draw. And then you want. The real thing you want to do is you want them to watch to the end. So easier than, easier said than done.
Walt Mussell [00:07:20]:
I, I looked over some of my history in YouTube and my most successful video, my second most successful video has a 90% watch rate where they watch the whole thing.
Jim Azevedo [00:07:34]:
Okay, what's the length? What, what, what length of videos are we talking here?
Walt Mussell [00:07:40]:
In that case, that was a short for 30 seconds, but they watched 90% of people watch the entire 30 seconds.
Jim Azevedo [00:07:45]:
Okay, this is valuable. Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:07:47]:
Basically a lot of people don't go. Most videos, you don't get through half if you're lucky to get half. I know with Instagram they're looking for that first three seconds, particularly out of non followers. And so I see what's going on and seeing. Did this work? If it goes, you get a hook and they'll start sending to non followers. If it doesn't, then you've got to, then it's going to, it's going to die slowly on the vine.
Jim Azevedo [00:08:17]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:08:18]:
But one of the things you're looking for is not so much followers. You want followers. And one of the things that I've realized I haven't done as well and I need to do better is you want them to at least look at your profile. I get a lot of profile views, just people checking them out. Who am I?
Jim Azevedo [00:08:37]:
Yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:08:38]:
And I've tried changing it several times and I Just changed it again like yesterday on Instagram putting. Putting the samurai soul at the top and then the samurai's honor and the samurai's heart and saying, okay, buy this one now. Buy this one now. This was coming out February, and that's a simple thing. But it says historical fiction author. There's the books. It's. I can say in previous things I've said historical fiction author, Japan content creator, links to books below.
Jim Azevedo [00:09:12]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:09:13]:
And you've got a pointing to a link tree or something that's still making people click and click through and go here and you got to click through again so you maybe the title of the book. They know exactly what I'm doing when they see it.
Jim Azevedo [00:09:26]:
Right.
Walt Mussell [00:09:27]:
So that's. I'm trying something new and hoping it works. So I've changed this. Like I said on Instagram, I'll be changing this on my other profiles to just basically have the books front and center. And if I get the pro, I'm.
Jim Azevedo [00:09:43]:
Smiling because I kind of. I hoped you you were going to say that. Like, I tried this and I tried that. In other words, you're giving yourself permission to experiment and change things up.
Walt Mussell [00:09:53]:
Oh, yes. I my started this. I made friends with a creator that's over in Japan. And I was in Japan on what's called the JET program, which we teach English in the public school system.
Jim Azevedo [00:10:06]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:10:06]:
And so I made friends with a creator currently living in Japan who is also a former jet, but did it 30 years after I did. And so she was a lot more successful. And she sent me said, here's what you might want to try because she had. She had had some success. And here's some things. Sent me a list of things I said and I've changed those, changed that profile more than once to kind of match what she does. And it hasn't worked for me. She's not.
Walt Mussell [00:10:35]:
But she's not an author.
Jim Azevedo [00:10:38]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:10:38]:
And I am. So I started looking around who among a member. I'm a member of Georgia Romance Writers. That's my right.
Jim Azevedo [00:10:47]:
Fantastic, fantastic writing club.
Walt Mussell [00:10:49]:
Yeah.
Jim Azevedo [00:10:50]:
Big fans.
Walt Mussell [00:10:51]:
And they. I look at what they do and we've got some people who do this who do social media better than I do. And so what are they doing on their social media? And that's what I ended up doing. And this was a recent change in the last, like I said, did an Instagram last couple of days and I'll be applying it. But this is another author who's got like 14,000. Who's got 14,000 followers on Instagram. And was the Georgia author of the year last year. So she knows what she's doing.
Walt Mussell [00:11:21]:
I'll take her word for it.
Jim Azevedo [00:11:23]:
When you discover the three seconds. When you discover that, yeah, three seconds is kind of the key as far as when it comes to hooking viewers. Did you discover that on your own or is that something you read in a book or was that advice you were given from other authors?
Walt Mussell [00:11:42]:
That's in the analytics.
Jim Azevedo [00:11:44]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:11:44]:
They basically, if you go into the analytics of your own post, they'll tell you how many people watch past three seconds. So if that's what they're. If that's what said. If that's what they're focusing on, then that's what their algorithm is focusing on. And so that's why I've used that three second rule. Maybe people say you've got to have a good hook.
Jim Azevedo [00:12:04]:
Yes.
Walt Mussell [00:12:05]:
And I was looking at my most successful. My, my least successful of the, of the big three. Of the three that I've mentioned, my least successful a number ofviews is YouTube, as in getting videos watched in Instagram. I have one video that went to 230,000, but that's not 230,000 over three days. That's 230,000 over months. Okay, just bas. It took a long time to get that.
Jim Azevedo [00:12:37]:
Okay, let, let me ask you this. I'm sorry, I just, if you, if you had another thought there.
Walt Mussell [00:12:42]:
Well, no, I was gonna say I looked at my analytics and YouTube. I was gonna say as I realized what seemed to be working for me on YouTube, because every time I said, this is the first XYZ, like the first eruption ever, a recorded eruption of Mount Fuji.
Jim Azevedo [00:12:57]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:12:58]:
And so I'm looking at, okay, if I want to look at what's going to work on YouTube, I know that's going to work at least for my stuff. So that's the kind of thing I'm looking for in those analytics. But go ahead. Sorry.
Jim Azevedo [00:13:11]:
No, that's all right. I was just going to ask you, and you've kind of defined it already, but I want to make sure I get the answer. I'm curious what success means for you in terms of. Let's say you put out a new social media post today. What does success mean for you now and how has that changed, that definition changed for you since you first started?
Walt Mussell [00:13:33]:
Well, success in. Let's, let's start with. Let's start by defining success by the number of views.
Jim Azevedo [00:13:39]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:13:40]:
Let's start with this. Start with that as a, as a. Because that's a numerical thing. Last. Last week, I dropped a video. The Japanese government in Japan, if you're going, you can write Japanese using the Latin Alphabet. It's called romaji. And basically, see, basically, if you go, if you're a foreign tourist, you'll see the Japanese written that way, and that's how you read it.
Walt Mussell [00:14:01]:
But there are several versions of. There are several versions of this romaji, and one's the official version of the Japanese government, but there's a second one developed by a. An American missionary from the 19th century. And the first one's like a logical literary order to the Japanese syllabary. The missionary did something that was related to the actual phonetics, phonetic pronunciation. And so the phonetic pronunciation is coming through, and the Japanese government may change to adopt more phonetic soundings for their letters. So when I dropped this video, I thought it would do really well. I got 3,500 views on.
Walt Mussell [00:14:44]:
On Instagram, which is a decent view. Anything for me, that's less than a thousand. I did something wrong.
Jim Azevedo [00:14:51]:
Really?
Walt Mussell [00:14:51]:
That's on Instagram. I got over a thousand on TikTok, which is good for me on TikTok, because traditionally my TikTok views are 400. However, I got only a thousand on YouTube and I expected a lot more. That surprised me. And that's one of the things you have to realize is they're not going to always do well on all three. If you have something that does well on all three, that's content. But what. And so that's one way of getting your word out.
Walt Mussell [00:15:20]:
But what really comes through is how is someone commenting on what you're saying? And are you talking with them?
Jim Azevedo [00:15:28]:
Gotcha.
Walt Mussell [00:15:29]:
And if basically that. Because that post created comments on, oh, I remember this system, or I've used this system. Why does this system come into play? And that was really good. But at the same time, on Sunday, I gave blood at my church. And so I posted a picture of me giving blood with. With the needle syringe coming out of my arm and everything. And of course, the canteen. Nothing to do with.
Walt Mussell [00:15:59]:
Basically, this is just a personal thing. I've been giving blood for years, too. But the great thing about that was it inspired my post. I got over. I got like 1200 views on that post, which is really good for a post of mine. They usually are less. And what happened was one of the people following me and I followed them was telling the story of how they were saved by transfusions. They needed blood transfusions when they were born.
Walt Mussell [00:16:29]:
And so giving blood to them was very important. And That's a story they're working on, story to tell. But that type of connection, I'd never talked. I'd only followed this person recently, they followed recently. I didn't really know them. But that type of connection is. That's her story, the woman commented, is fascinating.
Jim Azevedo [00:16:51]:
Yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:16:52]:
And she is trying to tell it.
Jim Azevedo [00:16:54]:
Let's, let's, let's stop right there for a second because I think this is really important to underscore some of these points that you just made, if I'm hearing you correctly. Well, views are great, views are important. But views aren't everything. And we've heard several times from authors that we've had on the show, just authors that we know from over the years here who had this opportunity, as you well know now, indie authors had this fantastic opportunity to interact with their fan base. It seems like so much more than traditionally based authors. But another thing that we've heard time and time and time again when it comes to social media is it seems like some posts take off more because you're not talking about your book. You're not trying to sell the next book or a pre order or whatever. Authors just did some random personal posts, could be about their dog or a new baby or something else and then it just takes off.
Jim Azevedo [00:18:02]:
And yours, you were giving blood and it resonated, it sounds like with your audience and you made it, you're able to make some of those personal connections.
Walt Mussell [00:18:11]:
What I did regret at the end is I had a book on my lap which I could read in the canteen and the book was upside down so you can't see the title. So the next time I give blood, because you can get blood every eight weeks. The next time I get blood, I'm gonna grab a friend's book that I've yet to read that's on my TBR pile and I'm gonna have it face up because I get 1200, if I can get 1200 people to just to see the post. It's like average help helping a friend with their book. Because writers are readers first.
Jim Azevedo [00:18:37]:
Yes.
Walt Mussell [00:18:39]:
And you want to read, you want to read good stuff. And I've, I've got a lot of my friends, wonderful, wonderful authors and I'm doing everything I can to get to all get to their books. I've got a huge, like we all do. You have one, I've got one. We've all got a huge TBR pile.
Jim Azevedo [00:18:55]:
Yep. And that's another thing that we try to encourage authors to do is that collaboration with your fellow authors, especially authors who are in your genre because the whole two heads are better than one. Where. Especially when it comes to promotions, if you could promote each other's books because your authors, your readers aren't just looking to you regarding your books. They trust you, they know you, they like you. And if you are recommending another book for them to read, they're going to be all over it.
Walt Mussell [00:19:24]:
And views are still important in the fact that the more views you get, the more likely someone's going to look at your profile. But in the end result is to have them look at your profile as an author. These are the books I have. And does that draw them interest into checking it out? And that's where I haven't. And converting. That is where I haven't done a great job. And so I'm trying to revamp things the way I do with the book that comes out next year.
Jim Azevedo [00:19:51]:
Perfect. I want to bring up a quick comment here, Walt, from one of our viewers from Layla Rose. Hi, Layla says. Leila says, honestly, a lot of readers do want to connect with creators and authors these days. So I think personal posts can really connect with audiences.
Walt Mussell [00:20:09]:
I would agree if like I said, that blood drive, that blood drive story, I'd love to see it when she finally let. When the authority finally, I think her name is Bethany Wilson, when she finally releases it.
Jim Azevedo [00:20:20]:
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with comment here too. We've seen it so many times now, Walt, with you and your books, you've got like such rich visual and historical context to your books. How do you translate that into what you post out there on social media? Like, how do you choose what exactly you're going to post.
Walt Mussell [00:20:49]:
With the books? My primary focus is I like doing things set during Japan's Christian century, of course.
Jim Azevedo [00:20:58]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:21:00]:
And if I may talk a little bit about religious history.
Jim Azevedo [00:21:04]:
Sure.
Walt Mussell [00:21:04]:
Francis Xavier, who was the first Catholic, first Christian, first Catholic missionary to come to Japan. He's tried. When he first came to Japan, he started trying. He tried to preach the faith and it went almost nowhere. He got a few converts, not much. And so but what he ended up doing is he changed his style. He realized the Japanese populace was very educated and he had, he had, he was knowledgeable of surveying, mathematics, astronomy. And so he would teach those subjects to groups of people who were interested in learning about that.
Walt Mussell [00:21:37]:
And then they would learn about the. And then they would be willing to listen to his story of his faith. And so you can't just say, buy my book, buy my book. Buy my book.
Jim Azevedo [00:21:48]:
Right. Yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:21:49]:
You've Got to present something that's of value. No advertisement, no nothing. And this is stuff that's important to me. The religion. Japan's Christian century is. Is important to me. But there are also other areas as well. One area that I find that does really well is ancient Japan.
Walt Mussell [00:22:10]:
Granted has nothing to do with what I write, but it's a fascinating topic. My most successful. My most successful. And I mean ancient and really prehistoric. My most successful video on TikTok I did two years ago. It got maybe 50000 views out of the gate and then it just went nowhere. I said, hey, it's a phenomenal video. And then the.
Walt Mussell [00:22:36]:
And then the. The algorithm rediscovered it. It's picked up another 130000 wow. In the last 12 months. It was on the. It was on a dinosaur discovery. So it's a two year old video. It did really well when it came out and then it stopped.
Walt Mussell [00:22:50]:
And then you've got. Two years later suddenly got rediscovered. And so people are looking at my profile, they are following me, they're learning about the books. Has nothing to do with what I write. But that that topic, Japanese mythology also works ancient. An ancient sword discovery worked really well. So that those topics which are out of my. Which are out of my.
Walt Mussell [00:23:19]:
Not that I have.
Jim Azevedo [00:23:19]:
Out of your wheelhouse.
Walt Mussell [00:23:20]:
It's out of my wheelhouse. I'm saying out of my realm of expertise.
Jim Azevedo [00:23:23]:
Yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:23:24]:
Seem to do really well. And then I always get surprised by what doesn't do really well. I posted a video last year about a geisha telling off Babe Ruth and that one did not do well at all.
Jim Azevedo [00:23:36]:
Yeah. And you would think that it would. I want to bring up a few comments here from. From Nigel because it's kind of right along the lines of what you're talking about. Hey, Nigel. Nigel says I have doubts about the value of posting on TikTok. Does it really convert to sales? Unless you are already mega famous. And a point that you just made, Walt, was about the value of the post itself, not necessarily sales.
Jim Azevedo [00:23:59]:
But I don't want to speak for you. What do you think?
Walt Mussell [00:24:04]:
I won't disagree with him, but there are people who do take. There are TikTok authors and there are people who take off on that. But what you're doing is can I get them to look at my profile? I've got hundreds of profile views and they see what I'm doing. But I. It's like that change in where I'm saying, okay, here's my books, here's a list of my books. Do I can do these people go forward beyond that? I mean, I get checked my most famous comment on Tick Tock, I have a comment that I made on somebody else's post has like 8000 likes because. And it actually draws a lot of profile views, as far as I can tell. And where it's.
Walt Mussell [00:24:45]:
It's where Autocorrect did something that I didn't expect. And so it was a missing. I made a mistake because of Autocorrect. And so people laughed because I got something wrong and I laughed and said. I said, yeah. And I wrote down. I said, yeah, you're right. I said Autocorrect in the first.
Walt Mussell [00:25:02]:
And still my first cup of coffee. Guilty. But my willingness to say, yeah, I screwed up and. But that type of people, that type of personal image makes you more. More read, I guess, reachable to people.
Jim Azevedo [00:25:22]:
Yeah. So like a shared humanity that it's a shared humanity.
Walt Mussell [00:25:25]:
But you also just have the fact that people making friends online is different from making friends in your everyday life. And so you wonder. There are new lines being. New lines being drawn, new things being drawn and how you get along with people. I've got a good friend who I met, who I good on, amount of Tick Tock who does Mesoamerican history. Nothing to do with what I do. But his poster, his posts are phenomenal. And so I always love.
Walt Mussell [00:25:59]:
He's always posting these artifacts. It's great stuff. And so you get to know people that way. That's what he likes. I like Japanese history. He likes that. So we've had a few exchanges.
Jim Azevedo [00:26:13]:
I can imagine the connection between you two. Yeah, yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:26:17]:
And there's, there's the one big connection is his state. His screen name is a famous Aztec historian who was the first. Who was the person who recorded Japan's first visit to Mexico. So it's all, it's all written in. And I cannot remember the name of it. I cannot remember how. What. What the Aztec language is called.
Walt Mussell [00:26:38]:
So somebody can somebody in the comments. I think it's called Nahuatl and I probably pronounce it the wrong accent, but yes. So that's famous for that reason because of Japanese experiences going into. Going into Mexico or what they called New Spain at the time.
Jim Azevedo [00:26:54]:
Okay, now, Walt, when it comes to your posts, is this something that you just kind of do organically and intuitively, or do you have a calendar where you just sort of. Where you kind of plan everything out, especially when you have a new book release coming up?
Walt Mussell [00:27:10]:
No calendar. I got away from calendars. I Tried did you try Mentioned a friend who helped me and send me. She. She got. She sent me a schedule she used and she eventually got burnout. She and her husband also have a. Have a.
Walt Mussell [00:27:26]:
Have a little girl and so she wanted to concentrate on being but she got totally burnt out on this Y and just now she just post pictures of her. She just post pictures of her daughter with an emoji covering the face so no one can see it. What I got burnout too. Trying to keep a schedule. I mean I've got my. I've got my job which is the primary thing. I've got me many writers. We all have full time jobs.
Walt Mussell [00:27:50]:
And so I've got to. It comes. It becomes an issue of time and so what I focus on is I read a lot of Japanese Japanese history. If I find something interesting I will post about it. When I get to the next book I'm going to be posting about things history history related items that are in the book and I've done that in previous books as well. But I will basically. And there goes my dog. Hold on.
Jim Azevedo [00:28:22]:
Not so bad. Not so bad. We were talking about our dogs everybody before we went live and we both have big dogs. I'm just telling everybody Walt. That we were talking backstage that we both have big dogs who are. May possibly erupt right in the middle of this.
Walt Mussell [00:28:41]:
I knew mine wouldn't.
Jim Azevedo [00:28:42]:
He did live broadcast. You gotta love it.
Walt Mussell [00:28:46]:
I know he'll be back in a few minutes. As long as he doesn't knock over the lights.
Jim Azevedo [00:28:51]:
That's okay. We've. We've seen it all.
Walt Mussell [00:28:54]:
Yep.
Jim Azevedo [00:28:56]:
I wanted to ask you too. So we're talking a little bit about. I'm so curious about just your strategy because so authors, so many authors are chasing virality and your. Your following seems your followers seem to have grown just more steadily over time. Can you pinpoint any strategies that you've employed to kind of help you with this consistent growth over time?
Walt Mussell [00:29:25]:
My dog is back already. That's okay. The strategy is scripts. I have to go with this basically. I mean you have several things that can get you going but for me it's a content. It's a content driven and it's a script driven. So I'll write a script. Doesn't take long but it's the biggest part of what I do.
Walt Mussell [00:29:49]:
And then it's also a modular script in that because certain. Certain it's less so Instagram has expanded to try to match. Instagram has expanded. YouTube has changed its shorts to all match Tick tock And so it's less important than it used to be. But there are pieces that I can drop out that I can make a video, film it. And then I know this is, for lack of a better word, I know this is a little bit of backstory, I think it's interesting. But I also know I can drop it and cut it. And getting the video under a minute, under 30 seconds, so I could post it more than once.
Walt Mussell [00:30:33]:
I can also post it with different. If you look at my TikTok, you'll see things with different titles, short version, long version. And that's what I try to do.
Jim Azevedo [00:30:45]:
Okay, that's really good advice.
Walt Mussell [00:30:47]:
And so basically you have the script and then once, as long as it's good content, as long as it starts with a good hook that gets you past those three seconds, that's the best thing. I mean, I dropped, I dropped a video about this, about this meeting on my. On, off on instagram and on TikTok last night. And I woke up this morning, says, you know, I could have done that better. I knew how.
Jim Azevedo [00:31:14]:
Every, every single one of these broadcasts that I've done, I mean, is not the way it goes. Every single one of them. Oh, I could have done that better every single time. But with your scripts, you're not talking about pages and pages and pages of scripts. You're talking about. Because you're talking about like for a 30 second video or less.
Walt Mussell [00:31:31]:
30 seconds. 30 seconds to half. 30 seconds to 30 seconds to a minute. Yes. Yeah, that isn't long. And I will go over the video I did. The video I did on the Japanese language change went to a minute and a half. I have had videos that went longer.
Walt Mussell [00:31:49]:
I did one. If you. Are you familiar with the. The famous 47 masterless samurai?
Jim Azevedo [00:31:54]:
No.
Walt Mussell [00:31:55]:
Okay. Japan's most famous revenge story is story of the 47 Ronin, or masterless samurai who their lord was required. Their lord drew on another. On another person who had been insulting him at. At the helm of the shogun. And they were required. He had to. They were.
Walt Mussell [00:32:18]:
The. The lord was required to take his own life because of what he did. And revenge was. Had been. Was forbidden. So these 47 guys basically went into hiding for 18 months and made themselves look slovenly, dissolute, everything they could to make themselves look like they'd given up. And 18 months later, they celebrated December 14th, because that was the actual date. It was the 12th month, 14th day of the 12th month on the, on the lunar calendar, but it was actually in January.
Walt Mussell [00:32:53]:
And they basically attacked. They Warned the people around them. It says, we're not at you. It's our beef is with him, which is amazing. They. And they found the guy. Yeah. And they fought it and they, they took care of it.
Walt Mussell [00:33:13]:
And then they were allowed to. They became so famous that they were allowed to take their own lives as to honor their lord. And so they are buried near their lord at a temple called Sengakuji. And that's like this Japan. It's a famous revenge story. And so I did a. I did a video on that. It's like six, seven minutes long.
Walt Mussell [00:33:39]:
I originally brought. That's why. That's right, my point here. And so I made it into. I made three, two and a half minute videos because YouTube meant TikTok. You only used let me go three minutes and I'll go 10. And then I put them all together and released it on YouTube. That's a very popular video for me.
Walt Mussell [00:33:57]:
Has nothing to do with my books, but it's a story everyone loves.
Jim Azevedo [00:34:01]:
It's fascinating. It truly is. I want to ask you, actually, I'll bring up a question here from one of our viewers. I think it's perfect. Tom. Hi, Tom. Tom asked, what if you don't feel very sociable to make social media posts that. What a universal question.
Jim Azevedo [00:34:20]:
I mean, a lot of us are sitting back here, total introverts. Don't. Can't even imagine filming videos of ourselves and posting it somewhere publicly.
Walt Mussell [00:34:30]:
Well, find something that you're okay with. I mean, that's what I would think. Like the blood drive, the phlebotomist, the guy who took. The guy who took my blood. Very happy, very happy to take a picture of me and take a picture of my arm and they know that I'm publicizing. That has nothing to do with books. That has nothing to do with anything. But there is a huge need.
Walt Mussell [00:34:55]:
I think I put in. I think I put in the caption, by the way, there's a huge need for negative blood. A minor, A negative, B negative, O negative, a B negative. Those are all in heavy demand. And there's these new things where they are doing red blood, red blood concentrations that they can put on ambulances for people who need it. And so that's fascinating stuff to learn about. And so if you've got something like that that you just find interesting. Like I said, that has nothing to do with my books.
Walt Mussell [00:35:23]:
Though I did mention, like I said, next time I'm taking a friend's book and having it face up so people can just see it, see what I'M reading. But I would say find something that you are fascinated with, even if it's a picture of your dog. Even just. I mean I used to, when I started, I would, I would post pictures of my dog fetching in the backyard. Not a, not really big, but everybody likes it. But a lot of people like dogs. So that worked. It got me started.
Jim Azevedo [00:35:54]:
Right.
Walt Mussell [00:35:55]:
And then everything you post on there and then a second thing you're going to. Nothing's a lot of. It's not going to be professional. There's a push toward being professional. There's a push toward AI, there's a push toward these, all these high quality things. And it depends how much time you want to put into it. I'd rather get back to writing. Yes, I waste, I waste.
Walt Mussell [00:36:23]:
I don't say wasted. I spent, I spent too much time on social media when I should have been spending more time on writing and I should have released this book two years ago. Let's be honest.
Jim Azevedo [00:36:33]:
That's a great, that's a fantastic comment. And it goes back to how we started the conversation in the first place where you. In the beginning you said essentially I was trying to do everything. Then I limited it down to TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and I've.
Walt Mussell [00:36:50]:
And it's not me. I don't do anything in others. I. What I do as a social media post like a PO versus the real. The videos just to post a picture on Instagram I will also do on maybe Twitter.
Jim Azevedo [00:37:03]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:37:04]:
And also I've recently started doing threads. The Instagram version of. Or Twitter X whatever you want to call it. To me Twitter is. I still call it Twitter. To me Twitter is a sports bar.
Jim Azevedo [00:37:18]:
Good way of describing it.
Walt Mussell [00:37:20]:
I don't, I go there.
Jim Azevedo [00:37:23]:
And everything.
Walt Mussell [00:37:24]:
Yeah. I don't go there to have a, A real. I don't go to there to have a book discussion though I will post about friends, books and post about things. But it's me more following other people. My, my interaction on Twitter isn't that much, but I go there, I've got friends out there and I watch what they do and it's fun. And then you've got threads, which I've just started and I can post the same things and I refer to threads. If you remember the, if you remember George Bush, Bush 41 is famous about kinder. A kinder.
Walt Mussell [00:37:57]:
A kinder nation in a gentler world, which got basically morphed into a pre meme type meme. Everything is kinder, gentler. And they're making fun of It. And so basically, Threads is a kinder, gentler Twitter. That's all it is.
Jim Azevedo [00:38:11]:
Yeah. What are, what are some myths about social media that you've sort of learned to ignore over time? I'm not, not myths about social media, but maybe myths, specifically myths about social media growth that you've learned to ignore.
Walt Mussell [00:38:27]:
I'm not me, I'm not going to spend. I'm not going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars chasing the next thing.
Jim Azevedo [00:38:34]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:38:35]:
It's not, it's not important to me now. I'm not. There are people who do this and that's important to their business. But when I'm not, when I am not, if I'm not producing enough books, if I'm not writing enough, then I'm sabotaging myself. When I look at what I do for writing, one of the things I point if. One of the things I think about is I'll turn 60 this year. Now I love my job, very happy doing my job and I'll be doing it for a few more. A few more years, hopefully.
Walt Mussell [00:39:11]:
But eventually when I retire, I'd still like to be writing and still like to be going, using social and selling. So basically I need to create more books. I. I've got. Still got stories in me that I want to tell and I can't do that chasing the next big trend on social media. I've got to write and I've got to. I'm still upset with myself for how long I took to finally get to the book to come out next year and I'm halfway through another. I'm halfway through the book that's coming after it.
Jim Azevedo [00:39:45]:
I'm laughing because like every other guest we have on here, he's feeling guilty about not getting that book out quickly enough to satisfy the readers. Because you love your readers.
Walt Mussell [00:39:55]:
Yeah, I love what I do. It's. But that's what I like to do. So whenever I do retire, I've got this. I could. I'll probably do more trying to get more out there on doing the presentations that I do on Japan's Christian century. So because those group. A priest I knew once referred to Japanese Christians as the great unknown martyrs.
Walt Mussell [00:40:22]:
And so there's a story there, but there's also a story in the Europeans that came into Japan and found it to be so different and the mistakes they made in me learning about the Japanese culture and what. Eventually Christianity was banned for 250 years roughly in Japan under penalty of death. So what, what happened? How did we get there? And then the stories of all those people who did their best to preserve the, to preserve their faith through those, through those centuries.
Jim Azevedo [00:41:02]:
It's fascinating stuff. I'm going to bring up another comment here and this comment's going to lead me into another question that I've got for you. So the comment is from. If I pronounce this correctly, for is it not sure if I got that right. Anyway, let me see. The comment is creating micro communities of loyal readers on online platform through consistent, authentic engagement. It's about building true fans who genuinely care about our work.
Walt Mussell [00:41:34]:
I would agree. That's what we're doing.
Jim Azevedo [00:41:37]:
Absolutely.
Walt Mussell [00:41:39]:
I would say a lot of what we do. What gets me the most. But social, social media is like streaming services on television. I mean, we've got Net, we've got Netflix, we've got prime, we've got Disney, we've got hbo. I'm a tr. I'm a Trekkie, and I really hate that. I don't want to, I don't want to buy Paramount. I've got enough streaming services.
Walt Mussell [00:42:03]:
I don't need another one.
Jim Azevedo [00:42:05]:
Sure you do. Sure you do.
Walt Mussell [00:42:08]:
And at some point it's. Where do you feel comfortable? I see something. I've started substack and substack's probably the most for me, probably the. All of what I do I think is important. But building a network on, building a newsletter on substack. Because as an author, you controlled. I've heard, I've heard it said by other people. So I'm repeating, you control the newsletter.
Walt Mussell [00:42:39]:
I've got, yes, 40. I've got 4, 400 followers on YouTube. I mean, see me on Tick Tock. And those, and those could be gone through. Just an act, just a government act.
Jim Azevedo [00:42:54]:
Yep.
Walt Mussell [00:42:56]:
And so I could make a mistake that offends people on Instagram and a group of people could basically choose to try to get me kicked out.
Jim Azevedo [00:43:09]:
It's such an important point. We've talked about newsletters on this podcast several times and how important they are for the reasons you just stated. Well, anything could happen. It could be. It happened. It could be an issue with the algorithms, could be an issue with the platform itself. Then poof, all those followers are gone. And with your newsletter, you hold that no matter what happens, you have access to those readers, whatever through whatever happens.
Jim Azevedo [00:43:35]:
And those readers. And that readership is going to grow with you as you grow your career.
Walt Mussell [00:43:40]:
And for those listening like I, if you follow my newsletter, you can get, you can download a free book. You get added to my newsletter.
Jim Azevedo [00:43:49]:
I'll put that link up here in just one second. But I wanted to kind of tag on to this comment here and ask you, Walt, do you make it a point to reply to every comment and every direct message, or do you set boundaries to avoid burnout?
Walt Mussell [00:44:05]:
A bit of both.
Jim Azevedo [00:44:07]:
Okay.
Walt Mussell [00:44:07]:
When you first make a post, you need to reply to every. You need to reply to everything as much as possible. And you want to reply with thoughtful. You want to reply. Someone has taken the time to post a review. You have to treat it like. Almost like a review that you're getting on a book. You want someone you want.
Walt Mussell [00:44:27]:
They've taken the time to comment on your page, and they've got thoughtful questions. You want to ask a thoughtful question back. And for the. For the algorithm, if you ask if there's something that the person mentions that stands out, is there. Think of it. A conversation at a party. You don't say, oh, you did this. Oh, thank you.
Walt Mussell [00:44:47]:
You don't go to the next person. That's. Yeah, that's. It's rude. And so. And so you talk to people. You want to find out. Like, one guy I've gotten to know on Instagram runs.
Walt Mussell [00:45:03]:
Runs a sushi restaurant in Rio. So nothing to his. His stuff. He's always posting plates of food. So, yes, that's one of my favorite. One of my favorite creators. But. But you've got.
Walt Mussell [00:45:19]:
But it all started with him reaching out to me and me going back to. Well, he's basically on his stuff. And you want to have that conversation with people. And so if you. It will drive the algorithm if you ask the questions and even to a certain extent. And I don't want to get too much into this trolls, because you trolls will drive. You don't want to feed the trolls, and you will get them. And I've had to deal with anti Catholicism and racial and sexual derogatory comments for various reasons.
Walt Mussell [00:46:01]:
And of course, the favorite of all is people correcting my history. Do I make mistakes? Yes. But do people have wrong. Do people have wrong ideas? Yes.
Jim Azevedo [00:46:14]:
I love historical fiction writers, I would imagine.
Walt Mussell [00:46:18]:
Oh, yes. I love it when people correct me on things I never said. I think the first time it happened, I said, thank you for telling me something I didn't discuss. Good luck in your future career in politics. And it really ticked the guy off.
Jim Azevedo [00:46:33]:
Now, Walt, let me ask you this, though, because we're almost out of time. I want to ask you, when you make a social post and you do engage in the comments, answering a question or responding to a direct message, is there a specific timeline like within, is it 24 hours? Is it 48 hours? Is it a week or two? Or do you always make it a point to look back and respond? I mean, is there, is there some, I don't know, mythical line that you're just like, okay, that's enough of that one. I need to move on now.
Walt Mussell [00:47:05]:
It depends. A lot of times I miss it.
Jim Azevedo [00:47:08]:
Ah.
Walt Mussell [00:47:09]:
And that's, and, and not that I have that many comments, but things don't pop up, particularly on YouTube. The comments don't pop up and, and I don't see them because if they're responding to something that's already been said, YouTube just sort of cut you out. Unless I think there was a setting, I've never done that. Or I might get several comments and I just miss one and I'll find it later and I, and I'll apologize. I found within Instagram a series of messages. Very thoughtful. That Instagram had been hiding for me some as much as two years ago.
Jim Azevedo [00:47:42]:
Yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:47:43]:
And one was from. One was from a Japanese student who loved my history. Oh, wow, that's gonna hurt. I said, and I, but I finally, I saw the note and I said, I said, I'm so sorry. I just found this. And the response, they sent me a very heartfelt message. Thank you very much, Sensei. I always enjoy what you do.
Walt Mussell [00:48:07]:
So that's out there. If you can respond, then you want to respond. And especially if somebody took the time to write something that's got a little bit of, of meat with it, even if it's old you, it does work out where you do want to say something. And I try to, I do get burnout on it and I stop miss, I start missing things. But.
Jim Azevedo [00:48:38]:
You'Re human with lots of things going on. You're writing novels, you've got your full time day job and your family and.
Walt Mussell [00:48:46]:
Social media is a huge time waster, let's be honest. And part of what you do in being real is going on other people's stuff. Not just The Friend Part 1. The friends you know or the friends you, the friends you have, you develop friends. That makes sense. Friends. The friends you developed and you're seeing what they do and promoting them. But also there are things that just.
Walt Mussell [00:49:12]:
You want to follow.
Jim Azevedo [00:49:13]:
Yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:49:15]:
Larger creators who you just like what they do and they, they've hit it. You can comment. There's never. But it's just interesting. Like one of my favorites is this woman who does Tolkien related posts. And I've commented on her stuff several times, but she gets hundreds. She's only once ever commented back to me. And that was actually in the last.
Walt Mussell [00:49:44]:
That was actually in the last week. And that was because I made a Tolkien reference to what she said.
Jim Azevedo [00:49:49]:
I can imagine she can get lost going down the rabbit hole of. Yeah, yeah. I want to let people know where to find you. So is this the best place to send our viewers, Walt?
Walt Mussell [00:50:02]:
If you go to the website and then click on the newsletter tab, it'll show you a way to sign up my newsletter and download a free book.
Jim Azevedo [00:50:09]:
Okay. Oh, excellent. Let me just read this back very quickly for those who aren't watching who are listening to the podcast that we're going to post later. That's WaltMussell.com that's W A L T M U S s e l l.com newsletter. And if you go there, they could download a free book.
Walt Mussell [00:50:30]:
They can download a free book. You will join my newsletter. The pronouncement across. Love to have you. I post roughly about once a month because I don't want to inundate people with what's going on. I don't want to people. We get. People get newsletters all the time.
Walt Mussell [00:50:46]:
But one of the things you can do and one of the things you. One of the things that may be going forward is I may start posting videos more often in substack. The reason being you can link substack to YouTube and so it have a hap. Basically it transfers automatically and that's a time saver.
Jim Azevedo [00:51:09]:
Nice.
Walt Mussell [00:51:11]:
I have. One thing people don't realize is you can link Pinterest. I don't do. I have. I have a Pinterest. I don't have many followers, but I get. I get. I get a few thousand views every month.
Walt Mussell [00:51:22]:
And so what I'm doing is having my Instagram videos automatically upload to Pinterest.
Jim Azevedo [00:51:29]:
And so we are fans of automation automate where you can.
Walt Mussell [00:51:35]:
And so that's some of the things you're doing. So doesn't. Doesn't take any more time. I did one thing and I occasionally have to make sure that I have to reauthorize the link. But that's about it. I don't spend a lot of time in Pinterest. I don't. I take.
Walt Mussell [00:51:49]:
I took a. At my last writing convention, I took a class on how to make Pinterest better work for you. I'm still.
Jim Azevedo [00:51:55]:
You're still working through it.
Walt Mussell [00:51:57]:
Still working through it. Yeah.
Jim Azevedo [00:51:58]:
Yeah. Aren't we all though with everything. We're at time and so I don't want to cut you off. I think I maybe got through half of the questions I had for you, but I thought that this was was really valuable if you're watching or listening and if you thought that this was valuable for you too. If you could do us a favor and share this episode with your and subscribe to our channel if you haven't yet, we would really appreciate that because it helps us get the word out and attract experts and guests just like Walt to come and visit us and give us their expertise. If you want to know about future episodes of Self Publishing Insiders, Simply go to dddlive.com and bookmark that page because every week you will be able to see who the next guest and what the next topic is going to be. And finally, if you're out there in the world and you are investigating self publishing, perhaps for the first time you can sign up for a free Draft2Digital account simply by going to draft2digital.com I want to thank all of our viewers out there. I see some of you guys out there who are returning week in and week out.
Jim Azevedo [00:53:04]:
I want to thank you for trusting us with your time week in and week out. And this week, because Walt is our guest, I've noticed several new names out there who are watching perhaps for the first time. So welcome and thank you for joining us. And then of course to our guest, Walt. Thanks so much for spending some time with me today. I enjoyed every second of it. I thought it was a lot of fun.
Walt Mussell [00:53:28]:
I did too. Thank you for having me. Also, if you could check out my sites, either author Walt Mussell or just Walt Author Walt Mussell, Instagram, Tik Tok, walt muscle on YouTube and of course check out my books on all sites.
Jim Azevedo [00:53:42]:
Yeah, you're gonna. I mean just the covers alone are gorgeous. So they just, they're gonna pull you in.
Walt Mussell [00:53:48]:
I'm waiting for the next one. I ordered. I've. I spoke with my cover designer two days ago so I don't know when she's gonna get it to me. But next, hopefully by next few days. Awesome.
Jim Azevedo [00:53:57]:
You have it. Is it up as a pre order? Do you have it up as a pre order?
Walt Mussell [00:54:00]:
Not yet. Because I can't show it yet. I am still working on. I'm still waiting for the. I'm still waiting for these. The last copy edit, I did two. I had two copy edits. The first one's done and the same person's doing a second one.
Walt Mussell [00:54:13]:
And I've got one little piece of history that I've been holding on to before. I asked the one expert. I know that can't answer the question.
Jim Azevedo [00:54:22]:
Yeah.
Walt Mussell [00:54:23]:
And so I want to make sure I've. I want to make sure I've exhausted everything else before I reach out to this Ivy League professor and ask him the question.
Jim Azevedo [00:54:33]:
Makes. That makes sense. All right, Walt, hang out for a minute. I'm going to play a quick video here to end this podcast. But for everybody else, thank you so much. We'll see you next week. Thanks again, Walt.
Walt Mussell [00:54:45]:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Jim Azevedo [00:54:47]:
You bet.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:54:49]:
Ebooks are great, but there's just something about having your words in print. Something you can hold in your hands, put on a shelf, sign for a reader. That's why we created D2D Print, a print on demand service that was built for you. We have free, beautiful templates to give your book a pro look and we can even convert your ebook cover into a full wraparound cover for print. So many options for you and your books. And you can get started right now at draft2digital.com that's it for this one week's self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital. Be sure to subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts and share the show with your will be author friends and start build and grow your own self publishing career right now at Draft2Digital.com