How Being Co-Authors Works for Us
The journey that Tabi and I have traveled to publish Rossi’s Cottage is not typical. Being co-authors is already pretty rare in the romance genre, unless you are both established writers, like Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger in The Letters, collaborating on a book or series. And being co-authors who have never met in person, I am going to go out on a limb and say, it is the rarest of rare. But the success of Rossi’s Cottage is proof that it’s possible.
Technology allows us to connect so easily across distances, that not being in the same city or country even isn’t that big of a deal. But to trust someone else you’ve never met before with your stories and your writing is a big deal. It was a leap of faith and I am glad I jumped.
This process was not flawless at the start, with our first hurdle that Tabi used third person narrative exclusively and hated first-person. And I was looking for first-person. We figured that out after Tabi wrote and sent me the first chapter. Having just started collaborating, I had nothing to lose, so I asked her what she thought about redoing the chapter in first-person. This style was new to Tabi but she embraced it, and I eventually converted her.
A little insight into my process as the story teller, I plot and take detailed notes for my stories in Microsoft One Note. Why One Note? Well firstly, it’s a program I am comfortable in, having lived for many years in a corporate environment with the Microsoft suite of products. (You should see my excel game, though Tabi’s isn’t bad.) Secondly, One Note allows me to keep my thoughts together, but also sorted into the plot outline, scene notes, and logistics.
What do I mean by logistics? Continuity, plausibility, and consistency are big things I look for when reading books. There is nothing that drags me out of a story faster than questioning the timeline. So with that in mind, I started creating tools to help map continuity in our story-telling. I drew up a map of Osage (which is 100% a fictional town), and a calendar so I knew what day of the week a certain day of the month would fall on and to keep the relative ages of my characters straight. I also compiled some drawings of locations (like Sarah’s cottage property) and gathered reference pictures for the aesthetics of places like Ida’s Ice Cream shop. Basically, a bunch of nerdy things to help me keep the story straight. This is important for any writer, but when you’re sharing a brain with another story teller, in another country, it’s doubly valuable.
Next, I plotted out about twenty-five percent of our first book in point form, broken down into scenes (but not necessarily chapters as some scenes span chapters. Tabi has a lot of influence on narrative pacing.) This point form document was rough and not written for the NYTimes best seller list. Hell, some of it was probably complete garbage, but it got the point across. I sent these notes along with all my background nerdy stuff to Tabi.
Diving into my rough notes, Tabi added in some flair of her own, and then she would send me a chapter for review and editing. I gave my feedback and the process continued. One thing I found helped was using the ‘yes and’ method from improv. Just like working with someone in an improv sketch, co-writers need to be open to each other’s ideas. I found Tabi would send me an idea and if I liked it, I might add a little extra detail and we’d go from there. I said “yes” to her idea then said “and” bringing in more details. Heck, even if I didn’t love her idea (which rarely happened), I found that adding the ‘and’ details sometimes made it work for both of us.
A word on technology. We wrote the entirety of Rossi’s Cottage through Google Docs. Using this free online platform allowed us to work on documents in real time and kept it organized by only having one version of a document floating around that can be updated by either of us. Using Google Docs took a little practice on my end (see above - Microsoft Word girlie), but we haven’t lost a document or mixed up versions. (Knock on wood. Except that one time Tabi wrote two alternative versions of an opening chapter, but we sorted it out pretty quickly.)
In between the swapping of documents online, was an ongoing, never-ending text chain between Tabi and I. I can confidently say, Tabi receives ten times more text messages from me daily than any other person, including my hubby. If my phone dings at any point during the day, even my kids know, ‘it’s probably Tabi’. In these text exchanges, we bounced ideas off each other, suggested plot points, confirmed story details, brainstormed the next books in the series, and shared tidbits of our own personal lives. We are strangely alike for having met randomly on the internet. It wasn’t until we finished book one that we even heard each other talk. Tabi had a lot to say one day and opted for a voice note. That’s when I first heard proof of her southern accent. Along the way a friendship has built and our teamwork is flourishing.
I think it works because we have very complementary skills. Tabi is the writer exordinaire. She has the technical aspects down and actually knows how sentences should be structured with proper punctuation and grammar. She also has a flourish with words and just seems to embody the characters resulting in realistic dialogue. (Tune in later for her take on the voices in her head.) I am more of a jack of all trades, (who is just winging it most of the time). I am an avid reader, and imaginative story teller, but not great at compiling the right words to get my points across. Since self publishing is not just writing but lots of other things as well, I am able to contribute more on the marketing side of things with website updates, newsletters, basic graphic design and social media marketing. I am fortunate to have dabbled in these things at various times of my life - never enough to make a career out of it, but just enough to know what I am doing - sort of.
Are there complications having two writers on a story, especially two writers who don’t live in the same country (and those two countries are a little at odds with one another right now)? Yes, a little I guess. One quagmire we’ve had to navigate is author-signed-copies. How do we get both signatures on our books without spending a fortune on shipping (and paying tariffs)? Well, our solution was to get stamps of our signatures. Tabi has a set and I have a set, allowing us to stamp our names into the book. Additionally, we have complicated finance records in USD and CND currency. I have a small business for the operations on my side of the border, and Tabi has Stone Fruit Press on her side of the border. I’ll let you know if I’ve done well enough for my accountant at the end of the year.
One last annoying dual country thing is where reviews are posted on Amazon. Reviews from the US don’t show up on the Canadian Amazon page and vice versa so we end up having to hustle twice as hard to get reviews for both sites. But these are minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things.
All in all, Tabi and I couldn’t do this if we weren’t both committed to our project. It’s bigger than a hobby, but can’t take away from our real lives, so there is a fine balance. Tabi is currently completing her Masters while doing this, and I have three busy kids. We give each other space and time, landing in a nice place where we work steadily on our writing and marketing, while maintaining our sanity. And there I think is the bonus to working with someone else - there is someone who understands the day to day frustrations we might come upon and you are never on your own to solve a problem. They say two heads are always better, and in this case - they truly are.