TAB143: How Being Willing to Tweak Everything has Fueled Sales for Thriller Author David Berens
Today’s guest is David Berens, an author who writes what he calls Tropical Thrillers. David has gone from essentially zero in book sales revenue to over $50,000 in the past 15 months and he shares his story in this week’s episode.
TAB142: How to Become a Successful Indie Author – With Craig Martelle
Today’s guest is Craig Martelle. Craig is a best-selling author and the Godfather of the indie-focused 20books conferences that are held around the world. We discuss Craig’s thoughts on some of what’s changed for authors since his last visit 18 months ago, and some of the tried and true practices that are still critical to indie publishing success today.
TAB141: Going Indie With A Traditionally Published Series, with Jennifer Ashley
In this week’s episode, we discuss the process of self-publishing a series that had previously been traditionally published with NYT, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling author Jennifer Ashley.
Jennifer didn’t just decide to continue her Stormwalker series, she also made the decision to invest in the continuation of audiobooks for her series, hiring the same narrator her publisher had selected to narrate the books originally.
TAB140: Going Wide With Some Of Your Books, with T S Paul
In this week’s episode, we discuss the idea of going wide with a portion of your books. Our guest is best-selling indie author Scott Paul, who writes fantasy and science fiction under the name of T.S. Paul.
Scott’s journey as an indie author is fairly short and definitely spectacular. He goes his own way as an author and is willing to step way outside the box when it comes to his author business.
TAB139: How to Keep a Problem from Becoming a Crisis – With Chris Syme
This week’s show is all about Crisis Management, which is NOT, as you might expect, just managing a crisis when you’re in the middle of one. What it can and should be is a process of training yourself to recognize and to deal with potential threats quickly and without allowing your emotions to become involved.
Our guest is a longtime favorite of the show, author, speaker and teacher, Chris Syme. Many of us know Chris as an author marketing expert, but her early training was in Crisis Management.
TAB138: What Can Authors Learn From Musicians About Audience Building?
Today’s show is about audience building. Most authors listen to and learn from other authors. Maybe through podcasts, or in books written by authors on how they’ve done it, or maybe we just learn by asking questions in social media groups, or at conferences. But there are other creative entrepreneurs out there who deal with the same need to build fan bases. Artists, photographers, filmmakers, musicians and others.
What can we learn from them and how they build their businesses? That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, and so I’m very pleased to have Singer/Songwriter, Author and Creative Entrepreneur Charlotte Eriksson as this week’s guest.
TAB137: Should You Hire a Virtual Assistant to Help with Your Author Biz?
Today’s guest is Chloe Adler. She’s still involved in the work world and she’s a romance author building her own thriving and sustainable author business. In this episode, we discuss her strategy for outsourcing certain aspects of her business to virtual assistants so that she has time to pursue her writing, her passion for learning, and her somewhat unusual exercise hobby.
TAB136: Will you be ready for the GDPR on May 25th?
When speaking with authors about GDPR, I get a variety of responses that range from a thoughtful what are you talking about to a sense of panic. If you’re in the “what are you talking about” category, GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation rule in the EU that will govern data protection and privacy for individuals within the European Union.
Today’s guest is author BL (Barb) Berry, and as you’ll hear in the interview, her job forced her to take a hard look at GDPR, and then to take an even deeper look at how it might impact her career as a romance author. She shares what’s she’s doing for GDPR in this interview.
TAB135: Finding The Publication Schedule That’s Right For You
This week’s guest is author Bobbi Holmes, who joined us on episode 82 almost two years ago when we discussed pre-orders. She shares her thoughts on finding a publication schedule that can work with your life, and what has worked for her in publishing sixteen books over the past four years.
TAB134: Two Books to 43k (2BOOKSto43k) with Romance Author Jami Albright
In today’s episode, we take close look at the process romance author, Jami Albright uses to keep her books tickling the Amazon algorithms, staying near the top of the sales charts, and generating around $5,000 in royalties each month. Jami manages all of this despite the fact that she’s published only two books, both in the last year.
TAB133: Making the Switch – Moving Away From KDP Select, with Kristi Belcamino
One of the great debates in the indie author community is the KDP Select versus selling wide choice that every indie author must consider. It’s easy to find success stories on both sides of the divide, but which direction is right for your author business? Mystery and thriller author Kristi Belcamino did her research when she transitioned from traditionally published to indie and chose KDP Select. But she’s since changed her mind. In this episode, she explains why.
TAB132-5: WOOT! The podcast returns next week
After a lengthy break, The Author Biz returns next week for season 2. I know, I know, how can there be a season two without a season one. But I’m calling the first 132 episodes season one and we’re moving on! Thanks for keeping the show in your podcast app!
TAB132: The Importance of Personal Development to Authors with Honorée Corder
In today’s episode, we delve into the importance of personal development for authors, with one of my favorite guests, Honorée Corder. We recorded this conversation face to face at the 20 books conference in Las Vegas the day after she gave her inspiring keynote address.
TAB131: The Importance of Being Strategic with Tax Planning, with John Pollock
In today’s episode, we delve into the subject of taxes with John Pollock, the Chief Executive Officer of Financial Gravity Companies, and the President of Pollock Advisory Group.
If you have a plan to take your author business to the next level, taxes are something you’ll need to deal with, and as you move through the various levels of success as an author, they’ll become critical to you and your business.
TAB130: Laser Focus as the Path to Becoming a Full Time Author with A.C. Fuller
In today’s episode, we’re learning from thriller author AC Fuller, who set a goal for himself to become a full-time writer in last 2016 and then went out and accomplished that goal.
We get into subjects like being successful landing Bookbub ads, and the value AC has found in running AMS ads for his Alex Vane media thriller series. We cover the launch strategy he’s put together for a new series that’s coming after the first of the year, and the mindset change that allowed him to achieve that goal of becoming a full-time author.
TAB129: Using Research as a Springboard to Mega Success with Shayne Silvers
Have you ever asked yourself, what could happen if you took this author thing seriously? Today’s guest is Shayne Silvers, an author who asked himself that question in early 2016. He spent six months research how to best position his books in front of the right readers and then applied what he’d learned. This interview is a great combination of ‘how to’ and inspiration that I think you’ll really enjoy.
TAB128: A Deep Dive into Using Data as an Author with Michelle Spiva
Our guest is USA Today bestselling author Michelle Spiva. In addition to her work as an author, she’s also a counselor, a writing coach, and an extreme data geek. In this show, we discuss things like avoiding the fear of data, learning from books that are winners, her version of survivor bias, revenue management, push versus pull marketing, and all with lots of examples that will help us to put Michelle’s teaching into action.
TSS127: Draft2Digital Adds Amazon Distribution and Pronoun Ceases Operations
I returned from the marvelous 20booksvegas conference on Monday and woke to some interesting news on Tuesday. The story of the demise of Pronoun and the announcement that Draft2Digital has added Amazon distribution whipped through the indie author community at hyperspeed. We chat with D2D’s Director of Marketing, Kevin Tumlinson to learn more.
TAB126: Transitioning From Indie Author to Indie Publisher, with Michael Anderle
My guest today is Michael Anderle. This is Michael’s fourth visit to the show, and his first visit, Zero to $10k Per Month in 90 days is still the most popular Author Biz episode of all time, not counting the thousands of times the video of that show has been seen on YouTube.
November 3rd, marks the two year point from Michael’s first published book, and in those two years, he’s gone from being an indie author to a successful indie author to a really successful indie author and now he’s a successful indie publisher, whose company, LMBPN publishing is currently publishing over a dozen books and a half dozen audiobooks each month.
TAB125: Creating a Multi-Author Universe from Scratch with guest Martha Carr
Author Martha Carr joins us this week to take a deep dive into the creation of a multi-author universe. We’ll discuss topics like creating the universe name, selecting the core group of authors to write the books, the creation of art, covers, storylines, the social media community, and the website. We’ll even get into things like the technology involved in managing those storylines and how the various authors work together to create their books.
TAB124: Understanding Film and Television Rights, with Valerie Peterson
Our guest today is Valerie Peterson, a widely read commentator on the business of publishing, and our topic today is the sale of Film and Television rights for authors.
In this episode, we’ll get into things like what level of involvement should an author expect after selling those rights, what’s working now in the evolving world of Television rights, some of the crazy things going on with the adaptations of some classic books, what you should look for if you’re approached with an offer from an agent or producer and much, much more.
TAB123: Getting Your Books Into the Local Indie Bookstore
Today we’re exploring how indie authors can get their books into indie bookstores with Suzanne Orchard, the owner of Key West Island Books, a gem of an indie bookstore in Key West, Florida.
TAB122: Juggling Life, Family and Your Author Business, with Jim Heskett
The pressures of life, jobs, family, friends and keeping the ship afloat can make running your author business feel like a juggling act with no end in sight. Author Jim Heskett joins us to discuss his new book, The Juggling Author and to share his tips for successfully juggling everything in your busy life.
TAB121: Making the Most of Your Backlist, with Chris Fox
Building a backlist is a cornerstone to a successful indie author’s career. Chris Fox joins us this week to explain the how, when and why of relaunching a novel, a series or an entire backlist.
TAB120: How to Plan and Execute a Successful Book Event
Author and podcast partner Taylor Stevens joins us this week to share her thoughts on planning and executing your next book event. Taylor is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author who has planned and held book events around the country, and she shares her tips for making your next event a success.
TAB119: Library Distribution and More with Pronoun’s Justin Renard
Pronoun announced that they’re now offing library distribution for indie last week through Overdrive and bibliotheca. We discuss how that works and more with Pronoun’s head of marketing, Justin Renard.
TAB118: The Essentials for Marketing Your Books, with Chris Syme
It’s easy to get lost in the world of book marketing. In this episode, Chris Syme helps us to keep it simple, focusing on what really matters, which is following the marketing plan that is right for you.
TAB117: How to Find the Right Editor at the Right Stage of Your Author Journey
In this week’s episode, developmental editor and writing coach Alida Winternheimer joins us to discuss how to find the right editor for the right stage of your writing process.
TAB116: Developing Your Marketing Mindset
Author’s Honorée Corder and Brian Meeks consider the marketing mindset that they believe is critical to being able to market your books effectively in today’s crowded market as well as their new book, The Prosperous Writer’s Guide to Finding Readers.
How to Make Money with Facebook Ads, with Michael Cooper
In the very first episode of our new Author Biz How-To series, author MD Cooper, aka, Michael Cooper shares his techniques for making money from Facebook ads.
TAB114: Making the Most Your Author Email List with Larissa Reynolds
This week’s show is all about your email list, and we’ll cover it from the basics of why you should have one, to the specifics, of things like how often to send and why.
This week’s guest is Larissa Reynolds, an email marketing guru who enjoys nothing more than helping authors make the most of their relationship with readers through their email lists.
We start with the why question. Why should authors have an email list? Then we delve into things like how to attract subscribers, how often to email those subscribers, the importance of something called your sender reputation. We consider mobile, and why you should assume that most readers will see your email on a mobile device, why you might want to check your formatting several times a year and more.
TAB113: Finding the Time to Build a Successful Writing Career
The idea for this episode came from a listener who wanted to hear from a guest who was more like him. Someone with a spouse, family, kids, responsibilities, not enough time to write and a lack of money for marketing.
The first name that came to mind when I read the request was today’s guest, Justin Sloan. He spent five years as a Marine and has a master degree in creative writing from John Hopkins. He also has a wife, a job, and a young family. Justin joins us this week to discuss the balancing act between writing, work, and family.
TAB112: Cover Design Options for Indie Authors
Andrew Dobell joins us this week to discuss the wide range of cover design options available to indie authors today. Everything from do it yourself covers, to photo manipulation, to custom designed illustrated covers. We’ll even get into the process of hiring photographers and models if you’ve got the budget and a long enough series to support the upfront expense.
TAB111: Staying Persistent on the Path to Self-Publishing Success – with Wayne Stinnett
Wayne Stinnett’s inspirational path to self-publishing success is a lesson in persistence and discernment. In this episode, we discuss both, including the trends he’s chosen to ignore while building a thriving author business for himself over the past four years.
TAB110: Should You Consider Patreon for Your Author Business?
Kameron Hurley joins us this week to discuss the Patreon model as an alternative income stream for authors.
We discuss the reasons she chose Patreon, how to develop the right offerings for supporters, and what you’ll need as an author to best utilize Patreon.
We also discuss her recent Hugo Award nomination, her new book THE STARS ARE LEGION, and since she’s a professional copyrighter, I ask for tips on crafting blog posts in support of new books.
TAB109: Writing Great Book Descriptions, with Bryan Cohen
Author Biz listeners agree that book descriptions are one of the most useful elements in selling their books. So why are we so afraid of writing book blurbs? Author, teacher and podcast host Bryan Cohen joins us to discuss why book descriptions are so important and then we consider the four essential elements of any book description.
TAB108: The Audiobook Production Process with Martha Carr and Jill Smith
We’ve got an interesting combo episode today. The first ⅓ of the show is the wrap-up episode of the Martha Carr Launch Strategy Case Study, where we’ve followed Martha as she went through the process of launching six books in 91 days. In today’s episode, we’ll get the final details on how things went and what she’d do differently if she were to do this again.
Martha sticks around for the second part of the show, where we bring in Jill Smith, the narrator for Martha’s Wallis Jones series. The first of the audiobooks was just released, and the two of them discuss the way they’ve worked together on the series. For those of you who haven’t tried audio yet, you may learn a thing or two about how the process works for both the narrator and the author.
TAB107: Blowing Through the Six Figure Sales Level in Year One as an Indie Author, with Scott Paul
Scott Paul’s first year as an indie published author was a stunning financial success. He explains how being willing to pivot from something that was working to something that might work even better made all the difference.
TAB106: Tracking Data to Maximize Your Income with Brian D. Meeks
Author and data analyst Brian D. Meeks joins the podcast this week to discuss the new book he co-authored with Honoree Corder, The Prosperous Writer’s Guide to Making More Money, and to examine the ways in which data analytics can help you make more money as an author.
TAB105: A Year in the Life of a Blue Collar Author, with Craig Martelle
Author Craig Martelle takes us through his first year as a published author, which has resulted in over a dozen titles, four series and a current author rank of 99.
CS04: Adjustment Time – Martha Carr Launch Strategy Case Study, Episode 4 of 6
Martha Carr is publishing six thrillers over the course of 91 days, and she’s agreed to share sales and marketing details with us after each book is released to discuss how the series is performing. This is episode four of a six episode, nearly real-time case study. (Be sure to subscribe, so you don’t miss an episode of the case study.)
TAB104: Marketing and Promotion for Audiobooks with Karen Commins
Narrator Karen Commins joins us this week to share several no-cost or low-cost ways in which authors can promote their audiobooks. We also get into topics like time involved to create an audiobook and the relationship between author and narrator.
TAB103: Using Dictation to Supercharge Your Writing Output
Scott Baker joins us to discuss how writers can use dictation to supercharge their writing output and protect their health. We take a deep dive into the whys and hows of using Dragon Dictation as an author, including Scott’s recommendations for software and hardware.
CS03: Martha Carr Launch Strategy Case Study, Episode 3 of 6
Martha Carr is publishing six thrillers over the course of 91 days, and she’s agreed to share sales and marketing details with us after each book is released to discuss how the series is performing. This is episode three of a six episode, nearly real-time case study. Michael Anderle joins us again this week to add perspective to the results Martha has seen to date. (Be sure to subscribe, so you don’t miss an episode of the case study.)
TAB102: Using Keywords to Improve Discoverability for Your Book
Using the correct keywords can improve visibility for your book dramatically at Amazon, whether you write fiction or non-fiction. Dave Chesson, the KindlePreneur joins us.
CS02: Martha Carr Launch Strategy Case Study, Episode 2 of 6
Martha Carr is publishing six thrillers over the course of 91 days, and she’s agreed to share sales and marketing details with us after each book is released to discuss how the series is performing. This is episode two of a six episode, nearly real-time case study we’re doing with Martha. In this week’s episode, Martha’s mentor in the process, Michael Anderle joins us to add some perspective to the results Martha has seen to date. (Be sure you’re subscribed, so you don’t miss an episode of the case study.)
TAB101: Is there a Best Way to Format Your Ebooks?
Three indie authors and a professional book designer join the show to discuss the various options available for formatting ebooks. Jake Devlin, C.A. Newsome, S.J Pajonas and The Book Design Guy, John Gibson each format an example ebook using their preferred technology and we compare costs, time involved and the results for each method used.
TAB100: Using Live Video to Connect with Readers and Fans
Luria Petrucci joins the show to discuss the explosion in live online video and to share her thoughts on how authors can use live video to connect with readers. We discuss the reasons why you should consider adding video to your author platform and discuss some inexpensive ways of making your video stand out.
Martha Carr Launch Strategy Case Study – Episode 1 of 6
Martha Carr is publishing six thrillers over the course of 91 days, and she’s agreed to share sales and marketing details with us after each book is released to discuss how the series is performing. This show is episode one of a six episode, nearly real-time case study we’ll be doing with Martha. Be sure you’re subscribed, so you don’t miss an episode.
TAB099: What Should Authors look for When Considering Anthologies?
More authors are participating in anthologies than ever before. Author and anthology editor/producer Patrice Fitzgerald joins us this week to discuss best practices for anthologies, whether you’re a participant or a producer.