Alexa's Book Marketing & Publishing Chat

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Jessica Rhodes started Interview Connections in 2013 because she wanted to stay home with her kids, and her dad, a business coach, became her first client. She and Alexa met in year one, when Jessica was a guest on Lose the Cape, Alexa's first podcast. Thirteen years later Jessica runs the agency as sole owner with a local team of six, and she still calls podcast guesting the number one marketing strategy for authors. The reason is simple: readers remember the person they heard, then go find the book. Jessica walks through how to pitch a host so it reads like a real person wrote it, the six-month booking math behind a launch, and why an author who already published hasn't missed anything. If you want to plan your next launch with other women doing the same, the 10th Women in Publishing Summit runs in March 2027.

Readers remember you before your title. Jessica tried to name a memoir she's recommended to so many people and couldn't, but she remembered the author, Tom Sims, instantly. When a listener hears your story, the book becomes something they tell friends about.

Hosts book your story first. "It's not their expertise or their knowledge that is important, but it is their story," Jessica says. Lead your pitch with the story that makes you you, then connect it to the book.

Don't let AI write your pitch. Jessica talks to podcast hosts every day and hasn't met one who likes getting an AI-written pitch. Treat the first email like the first message to someone you actually want to meet.

Ask before you pitch. Tell the host which episode you listened to, then ask, "Are you open to an idea?" The answers teach you which pitch works before you send fifty of them.

Start booking six months before launch. Two to four weeks to book, one to three months to record, one to three months to air. That's six months minimum from first pitch to an episode going live, so count backward from your pub date.

A slipped launch date is fixable. Build a waitlist and ask the host whether they'd hold the episode and release it closer to the new date.

Already launched? Start now. Hosts care whether the episode is valuable, not when your book came out. Jessica's line: "The best time to plant a tree is yesterday. Just get going."

Jessica Rhodes is the founder and CEO of Interview Connections, the podcast booking agency she started in 2013 so she could work from home with her kids. Her dad, a business coach, was her first client, and she brought her background in door-to-door community organizing and nonprofit fundraising into booking his interviews. Thirteen years later she runs the agency as sole owner with six full-time local employees and a group of part-time contractors, teaches a free podcast guesting masterclass every month, and is the author of The Podcast Guest Formula. Find her at interviewconnections.com.

• Interview Connections, Jessica's done-for-you podcast booking agency: interviewconnections.com
• Free Podcast Guesting Masterclass, three days each month covering positioning, monetization, and repurposing: interviewconnections.com/masterclass

Publishing and book marketing advice.

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Chelsea Bennett is Lulu's Education and Community Manager, nine years into a job she got by taking a holiday temp role after the one she wanted closed. She came back on the show to walk through Lulu's new buy button, which went live in August and lets authors sell direct without building a website: pick a book, generate a link or a QR code, drop it in a newsletter or a social bio, and the reader lands in a cart powered by Lulu and Stripe. Lulu prints, ships, and handles sales tax. The author keeps the margin, the customer data, and the branding on the box. Chelsea also covers what most authors do not realize they can do, which is use Lulu as a straight printer with no ISBN, and Alexa has a realization on air that changes her next launch.

Key Takeaways:

You do not need a website to sell direct anymore. Lulu's buy button generates a link, a button, or a QR code for a book you have published with them. The reader clicks, lands in a Lulu and Stripe cart, and checks out. Chelsea's framing: "if you have thought, direct sales are interesting, but I don't have time to build a website. The buy button is for you."

Direct sales pay better and tell you more. You cut out distribution fees, and for the first time you can see who bought the book. Chelsea calls the customer data "really the most important thing," because it lets you connect a sales spike to the podcast interview or ad that caused it.

The packaging is white labeled. Your branding goes on the box and your logo goes on the invoice, not Amazon's and not Lulu's. Lulu handles the printing, shipping, and sales tax behind the scenes.

You can use Lulu as a printer without publishing there. Free account, two PDFs, no ISBN and no barcode required. Alexa had assumed for years that a book had to live in the Lulu system first, and it does not.

Advance review copies skip the Amazon banner. Amazon stamps proofs with a "not for resale" banner and IngramSpark asks for a credit card before you can upload files. Print on demand gets you 15, 20, or 50 copies with your real cover for promo boxes and review campaigns.

One CSV replaces the post office run. Lulu's order import tool takes a spreadsheet of Kickstarter backers or pre-order buyers, multiple books and multiple addresses, and drop ships every order at once.

Coil binding is the sleeper feature. It is one of Lulu's standout product sets and the reason workbooks, planners, and cookbooks work there. It also makes a wide-margin 8.5 by 11 editing copy you can attack with a red marker.

Chelsea Bennett is the Education and Community Manager at Lulu, where she runs the company's author education, hosts the Lulu YouTube channel, and builds the community side of the business. She joined in 2017 as a holiday customer service temp after the marketing job she had agonized over applying for closed, and was offered a marketing role in the final ten minutes of her last scheduled day. Nine years and thousands of author conversations later, she co-authored Publish for Growth with Lulu colleagues on using a book to grow a business, and wrote Get Published, a short book distilling the patterns that separate authors who finish from authors who stall. Find her at lulu.com.

ITEM 6: Resources and Links Mentioned

• Lulu, print on demand publishing and printing platform, free account and no contracts: lulu.com
• Lulu Direct Buy Button, the new tool for selling direct with no website, launched August 18, 2026: blog.lulu.com/lulus-new-direct-buy-button
• Lulu Buy Button Setup Guide, step by step walkthrough of the four button formats: blog.lulu.com/buy-button-guide
• Lulu Pricing Calculator, enter your book specs for per-unit cost, bulk discount tiers, and cover templates: lulu.com/pricing-calculator
• IngramSpark, distribution and print partner discussed in the episode: ingramspark.com
• Kickstarter, crowdfunding for books, publishing team led by Oriana Leckert, who Alexa met at PubU: kickstarter.com
• Written Word Media 2025 Indie Author Survey, source for the direct sales figures cited in the blog post: writtenwordmedia.com
• Marissa Peer, the mindset coach Chelsea recommends, and the origin of "my mind is like Google": marisapeer.com
• Book Launch in a Box, Alexa's signature course on the full book launch process, including indie ARC and galley strategy: writepublishsell.com
• Stages & Pages 2026, October 15 to 17 in San Antonio, general admission $497 and VIP $1,497: lightbeamers.com/stagesandpages
• 10th Women in Publishing Summit, March 4 to 6 and 8, 2027, virtual, with Chelsea speaking: womeninpublishingsummit.com/2027-women-in-publishing-summit
• Lulu offer for this community, code WINPUB15 for 15% off Lulu print products: womeninpublishingsummit.com/lulu

Publishing and book marketing advice.

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Ruth Schwartz got her start in publishing at the University of California Press, hanging around the production department watching designers build covers and interior layouts, and she never left the industry. Fourteen years ago she founded Wonderlady Books, an assisted self-publishing company built on one belief: a book should look as good as the work that went into it. Alexa and Ruth get into the part of publishing most authors rush past, including why ebooks fall apart when you upload a Word file straight to KDP, what a backlist tells you about the person you are about to hire, and why Ruth loves working with brand new authors who do not know what they do not know yet. Ruth is a sponsor, speaker, and active member inside the Women in Publishing Summit community, where she has a self-publishing guide available to members.
Key Takeaways from This EpisodeCheck the backlist before you write a check. Alexa's rule for hiring anyone in publishing: look at the actual books they have produced, not their sales page. Buy one, open it, and see whether the interior holds up. A bad hire is expensive to undo.

Ebooks are code, not documents. Ruth explains that every ebook is HTML underneath, so all the junk formatting hiding in your Word file shows up in the finished ebook even when the print version looks fine. This is why "just upload it to KDP" so often produces a mess.

Design the print book first, then build the ebook from it. Ruth locks the print interior first so the design is settled, then has her team match the ebook to it as closely as possible. Beautiful ebooks are possible. Most authors just do not know that.

Hire help earlier than feels comfortable. Both Alexa and Ruth spend real time undoing decisions authors made alone. Bringing in a professional early costs less than backtracking through covers, files, and metadata later.

Know your goal before production starts. Ruth's closing advice: be clear about why you are publishing this book. A memoir for your family and a book meant to sell to strangers are two different projects, and the goal drives every decision after it.

Bestseller status is a marketing badge, not a benchmark. Ruth and Alexa both push back on chasing the label. You can hit number one in one category on two sales and need two million in another, and recent algorithm delays have broken the old launch-day tactics anyway.

AI belongs on the business side, not the writing side. Ruth uses AI for KDP categories and keywords, project management in Notion, and strategy work that used to eat hours, then validates category picks in Publisher Rocket.

Ruth Schwartz, known professionally as The Wonderlady, is the founder of Wonderlady Books, the assisted self-publishing company she launched 14 years ago when print on demand first became viable. Her publishing career began at the University of California Press in the promotion and marketing department, followed by 17 years at a graphic design and marketing firm, giving her a combination of editorial, design, and print production experience that most publishing consultants do not have. She is a longtime member of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association and recently became a published author herself with The Best Solution to Hunger in America, co-written with her husband Curt Kinkead about the all-volunteer food rescue nonprofit they have run for 21 years. Find her at thewonderlady.com.

ITEM 6: Resources & Links Mentioned

• Wonderlady Books, Ruth's assisted self-publishing company covering project management, cover design, interior layout, and ebook creation: thewonderlady.com
• Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA), the group where Ruth found her footing in indie publishing: baipa.org
• Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital, the self-publishing platforms Ruth works through for clients
• Stages & Pages 2026, the Women in Publishing Summit event running October 15 to 17, 2026: Details here
• Book Launch in a Box, Alexa's launch program, mentioned when discussing authors whose cover designers disappeared: https://writepublishsell.com/blab

Publishing and book marketing advice.

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This is not an interview episode. This is me, Alexa Bigwarfe, speaking from the heart on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, honoring two women in the Women in Publishing community who took their grief and turned it into books that matter. Ann Van Hine's husband Bruce, an FDNY firefighter, responded to the towers and never came home, leaving her to rebuild a life with two young daughters. Her book, Pieces Falling: Navigating 9/11 with Faith, Family, and the FDNY, is the story of that rebuilding, and it has earned her a platform as a speaker and voice for 9/11 families and first responders' spouses. Holly Little lost her brother on 9/11 and spent 25 years processing that loss before publishing 9/11: Reflections of the Past 25 Years, which releases today. Both authors embody the mission of Women in Publishing: to amplify women's voices and show that grief, when channeled into storytelling, becomes a way to honor the dead and help the living. Alexa also reflects on her own 9/11 story—serving in the Air Force when the towers fell, and how that day redirected the course of her career and her life. This episode is a reminder that the words we write, the stories we share, and the visibility we build around them are how we make sure the most important stories do not get lost.

Key Takeaways from This EpisodeGrief becomes purpose when you decide to do something with it. Both Ann and Holly took the worst days of their lives and built something that serves others. Ann moved into speaking and memorializing; Holly spent 25 years processing before she was ready to write. There is no timeline for grief, but there is power in choosing what to do with it.

First responders' families carry a particular grief. Ann's story is about rebuilding without the man she was supposed to spend her life with, and raising two daughters without their father. Being a first responder's spouse means living with daily risk; losing that person to that risk creates a specific kind of absence. Her book speaks to anyone who has lost someone they love to service.

Humanizing history is an act of resistance. Ann's work at the 9/11 Tribute Center Museum taught her that statistics and images are not enough; people need to see the individual lives changed forever by that day. When you write a memoir about loss, you are insisting that one person's story matters, and that person's absence is felt.

You cannot get invisible and expect your message to land. Alexa holds up Ann as a model for what amplification looks like: she pitches her story, does interviews, appears in media, has earned awards and reviews, and keeps showing up. If you write a book and do nothing with it, the book cannot do its work. Visibility is the price of impact.

25 years is not too late to tell your story. Holly spent a quarter-century processing her brother's death before she was ready to write. That timeline is not a failure; it is the time it took for her to be ready. The book comes out today, on 9/11's 25th anniversary, which means it will reach people who need it now, not years ago.

9/11 changed America, and it changed all of us differently. Alexa served in the Air Force when the towers fell. That day redirected her entire career path. For Anne, it meant becoming a widow and single mother at a specific moment in her daughters' lives. For Holly, it meant losing a sibling whose absence has shaped 25 years. The event is unified; the grief is specific to each person.

Books are how we tell people they are not alone. In a culture that loves stories—underdog wins, brave people, relatable journeys—books are the medium through which we say "I went through this too, and you will survive it." That is the work authors do, regardless of genre. That is why these two books matter on this day.

Remember means continue to lift each other up. Alexa's closing message is not about looking back in sorrow; it is about building community, amplifying voices, and making sure that the women in the publishing community and women everywhere know they are not alone in their grief or their resilience.

Ann Van Hine

Ann Van Hine's husband, Bruce, was an FDNY firefighter who responded to the towers on September 11, 2001, and never came home. Since 2006, she has volunteered as a docent at the 9/11 Tribute Center Museum, where she learned the importance of humanizing history. She is the author of Pieces Falling: Navigating 9/11 with Faith, Family, and the FDNY, which has earned a five-star Chanticleer Book Review award. Ann is a sought-after speaker who has built a visible platform through interviews, media appearances, and continued advocacy for 9/11 families and first responders' families. She continues to raise her two daughters and honor Bruce's memory through her writing and public work. Get the book here.

Holly Little

Holly Little is a lawyer, mother, and Bible teacher whose brother lost his life on September 11, 2001. She spent 25 years processing that loss before writing 9/11: Reflections of the Past 25 Years, published today on the 25th anniversary of the attacks. Her memoir invites readers to look beyond the statistics and images of 9/11 to honor the individual lives forever changed that day. Through her brother Todd's story, she explores how grief becomes purpose, how faith sustains us when answers do not come, and why remembering still matters. Find her book here.

Resources & Links Mentioned (Amazon Aff links)

• Ann Van Hine's Book: Pieces Falling: Navigating 9/11 with Faith, Family, and the FDNY — BUY HERE
• Holly Little's Book: 9/11: Reflections of the Past 25 Years — Buy here. 
• 9/11 Tribute Center Museum, where Ann has volunteered as a docent since 2006: tributecenter.org
• Chanticleer Book Reviews, sponsor and partner of Women in Publishing Summit, awarded Ann's book five stars: chanticleerreviews.com
• Women in Publishing Summit sponsors: womeninpublishingsummit.com/sponsors
• Stages and Pages 2026, Women in Publishing in-person conference in San Antonio, October 15-17, co-hosted with Lightbeamers and April Pertuis: lightbeamers.com/stagesandpages
• Alexa's Previous Grief Work:
  • Sunshine After the Storm by Alexa Bigwarfe, memoir for grieving mothers
  • Permission to Thrive, journal for grieving mothers by Alexa Bigwarfe: email me at [email protected] for info

Publishing and book marketing advice.

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Sasha Simmons started speaking by accident. She mentored her boyfriend's younger brother through the scholarship process, agreed to create a PowerPoint for a church youth event, stepped on the stage, and felt something click. The next day, she started telling everyone she was a speaker. That simple act—claiming it, saying it aloud, making it real—created a path that led to her standing in front of 500 university donors a few months later, shaking and talking fast, making every mistake a first-time speaker makes. Now she runs Speak Life LLC and teaches the framework she calls SLAB (Speak Like a Boss), and she is on the podcast this week to talk about exactly what it means to treat speaking as both an art and a business. If you have written a book, built something worth talking about, or had a message burning to get out, this one is for you, whether you are scared of the stage or just do not know where to start.

Key Takeaways from This EpisodeSpeaking is talent and business, and you have to do both at once. Sasha draws a line between the art of speaking—what you say and how you say it—and the business of speaking, which is the unglamorous work of getting yourself booked. "If you don't know the business of speaking, you will never have a successful career as a speaker."

Begin with the end in mind. Before you write a speech, Sasha has her clients write down every adjective they want the audience to feel. Then she backfills the story from there. "What do I want them to gain? How do I want to challenge them? By doing this, then you are able to backfill your story from there."

You need a sizzle reel, a one-sheet, and an online presence before you book anything. Speak for free at local clubs, churches, or businesses to get video footage. Design a one-pager that lists your topics, bio, contact info, and past clients. Claim every social platform, especially LinkedIn, where event organizers go looking.

Practice your full speech in front of a mirror. This catches the facial tics and nervous habits nobody else will call out. It also lets you work through the moments where you lose your place, so you can find keywords or imagery that help you get unstuck. By the 25th time, you own the flow instead of reciting it.

Make 25 sales calls a day, draft emails to every event you want to be on, and follow up relentlessly. The first response is almost never yes. Sasha's speaking coach preached this: "There are no shortcuts in life. You can't sustain a successful career by looking for shortcuts. You have to just put in the work."

Read 10 articles a day about your subject. Sasha subscribes to newsletters and sources so information gets pushed to her inbox. "If you want to be a real competitor and if you want to be an expert, you have to be on the cutting edge of your industry. You can't afford to not do that."

Vulnerability is the thing that makes people trust you and relate to you. By showing the hard parts of your story, the audience sees themselves in you. Sasha says, "It's all about trust and belief in all these things when you're speaking to an audience. And establishing some level of vulnerability in your speech makes you relatable."

Sasha Simmons, known as "The Witavator™," is a leadership speaker and founder of Witavation, a professional development company that combines wit with transformation. With 13+ years of speaking experience across corporate, nonprofit, education, and leadership organizations including USDA, Nationwide, Chase, and Silicon Valley Bank, Sasha delivers keynotes and coaching programs designed to move organizations from stuck to strategic. She holds a Master of Public Health from the University of North Florida and hosts a podcast with 150K+ downloads. Her approach blends sharp wit, raw authenticity, and practical frameworks that teams implement long after the event ends. Find her at witavation.com.
Find Sasha Simmons at Witavation.comPublishing and book marketing advice.

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Hannah Jacobson founded Book Award Pro with a spreadsheet, strong research skills, and a lifelong obsession with the gold coin on the front of library books. It now runs the world's largest database of legitimate awards and reviews. Alexa brought her on to open a summer of business training, because the questions coming into Write Publish Sell stopped being about book funnels and started being about money, pricing, contracts, and taxes. The two of them talk business owner to business owner: how to fund a book or a publishing business without wrecking your credit, why your price should reflect a skilled person's hours instead of your learning curve, what investor money actually costs you, and why owning your domain matters more than whichever website builder is trending this year. If the business side is the part you keep avoiding, Marketing Bootcamp 2026 picks up exactly where this conversation stops.

Key Takeaways from This EpisodeBootstrapping keeps your rights and your freedom. Hannah funded Book Award Pro out of her own savings, then fed every dollar that came in back into the company. It is slower and it stings when revenue is uneven, but you owe nobody a report and nobody owns a piece of your decisions.

Investor money in publishing comes with strings. "When you take money from an investor, you also owe them results," Hannah says. Book publishing barely registers with formal angel investors, so your investors end up being family and friends, which turns a slow quarter into a relationship problem.

Price for a skilled person's hours, not your own. Alexa charged $100 for a journal that took her roughly 900 hours, because she was teaching herself design as she went. Charge what a professional would charge to do the job well, and treat your learning curve as a separate cost you absorb.

Crowdfunding is a market test before it is a bank. A campaign tells you whether anyone actually wants the thing before you spend money building it. Alexa raised about $1,200 on Kickstarter for her first book and covered editing and cover design with it, and she is candid that big Kickstarter numbers go to authors who already built the audience.

Own your domain and your hosting. Free site builders that live on somebody else's platform can disappear and take your traffic with them. "Don't build your house on a sand foundation," Alexa says. Buy your author name first, then book titles, and point them where you want.

The authors who sell are the ones running the show. Across years of coaching, the ones who succeed keep a deep backlist, stay involved in their own marketing even after they hire help, or already run a business the book feeds. Hiring everything out and touching none of it does not produce sales.

Automate the yucky parts, then keep learning anyway. By the 25th time you type the same answer into an email, it should be a template. Alexa refreshed the Amazon sales descriptions for an entire children's book catalog in one day using AI, work that would have taken months by hand.

Hannah Jacobson is the founder of Book Award Pro, a platform that matches authors with legitimate book awards and editorial reviews and handles the submission process for them. She fell for book awards before she could read, asking her mom at the library for the books with the gold coin on the front, and got her first working look at the industry at a university press in college, back when award submissions went out by fax. Book Award Pro started as Hannah alone with a spreadsheet and strong research skills, and now runs what she calls the world's largest database of legitimate reviews and awards, more than 11,000 accolades and counting. She is the Awards and Story Marketing Advisor for the Alliance of Independent Authors, and she is a Texan by origin. Find her at bookawardpro.com.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Book Award Pro, Hannah's platform for matching books to legitimate awards and reviews: bookawardpro.com
• Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), where Hannah serves as Awards and Story Marketing Advisor: selfpublishingadvice.org
• Stripe Atlas, Hannah's pick if she were starting from day one today, incorporation plus payments plus a site in one place: stripe.com/atlas
• WordPress.org, the self-hosted version Alexa recommends over WordPress.com, because you own the site: wordpress.org
• 17hats, Alexa's client CRM for lead forms, quotes, contracts, invoices, and workflows: 17hats.com
• Dubsado, the alternative client CRM an attendee asked about: dubsado.com
• Tailwind, the scheduler Raewyn Sangari favors: tailwindapp.com
• Upwork, freelance marketplace for finding paid work while you fund your own projects: upwork.com
• Fiverr, same use case: fiverr.com
• Submittable, where writing competitions and calls for submissions get posted: submittable.com
• Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform Alexa used for her first book: kickstarter.com
• Indiegogo: indiegogo.com
• GoFundMe: gofundme.com
• D'Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse, free entrepreneurship training and resources for veterans and military families: ivmf.syracuse.edu
• V-WISE, Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship, the IVMF program Alexa went through, open to women veterans, spouses, and partners: vwise.vets.syr.edu
• Sunshine After the Storm by Alexa Bigwarfe, the grief book she crowdfunded for about $1,200
• MarkeTechs, Katherine Ferris, where Alexa took early freelance work with authors, coaches, and speakers: http://womeninpublishingsummit.com/marketecs
• Book Launch in a Box, Alexa's six month audience growth program: writepublishsell.com/blab
• Kickstarter 2025 year in review, source for the publishing category figures used in the blog post: updates.kickstarter.com
• LendingTree analysis of BLS business survival data, source for the failure rate figures used in the blog post: lendingtree.com

Publishing and book marketing advice.

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Alexa has watched two authors publish the same week, in the same genre, with equally good books, and land in completely different places a year later. The difference is almost never the writing. In this solo episode she works through four business gaps she sees constantly in author and publishing-professional businesses, using the frameworks four of her Business Bootcamp speakers brought to the table: Chelsea Williams on the difference between revenue, profit, income and wealth, Justina "Tia" Hooper on the three legs of legal protection, Alesha R. Brown on why a full calendar is not the same thing as a profitable model, and Isabella Nanni on opening a second market without torching your reputation. She closes with three things any listener can do this week, whether or not they come to the Bootcamp on August 21 and 22.

Key Takeaways

• Filing an LLC does not protect anything on its own. Tia Hooper's point is that the entity, your intellectual property, and your contracts have to actually connect to each other. An LLC sitting in your downloads folder while your copyright and your client agreements live somewhere else is three separate things pretending to be a business.
• Revenue, profit, income and wealth are four different numbers. Chelsea Williams' equation is money made minus money spent equals money kept. Most authors track the first number and guess at the rest, which is why a good sales month can still end with nothing in the bank.
• A full calendar is not proof of a profitable business. Alesha R. Brown calls out the trap of a model that only works when you personally work. If every dollar requires an hour of your time, you did not build a business, you built a job with worse benefits.
• Describing yourself by task invites price shopping. "I edit manuscripts" gets compared on rate. "I get first-time authors to a book that holds up under review" gets compared on outcome. Same work, different conversation.
• Translation is a revenue stream, not a shortcut. Isabella Nanni's Italian editions have hit number one on Kindle in Italy. The version done with a free AI tool gets you a Regency romance retitled, in Italian, as something close to "Saved by a garden tool."
• Authors with an email list earn about twenty times more. Written Word Media's 2025 survey put the median at roughly $300 a month with a list and about $15 without. That is not a marketing fact, it is a business-asset fact.
• The four gaps are one skill. Money, legal, model and markets are all the same muscle: making deliberate decisions about your business instead of inheriting them by default.

Resources and Links Mentioned

• Women in Publishing Business Bootcamp, August 21 to 22, 2026, two days live on Zoom, $97, replays included: womeninpublishingsummit.com/businessbc
• The CEO of Your Life: A Financial Framework for Women Who Create by Chelsea Williams, the foundation, framework and flywheel model: Read the post
• Legal Protection for Authors and Publishing Professionals by Justina "Tia" Hooper of Warranted Works, the three legs of legal protection: Read the post
• Your Publishing Expertise Is Valuable, But Is Your Business Model Profitable? by Alesha R. Brown of Fruition Publishing, on the busy versus profitable trap: Read the post
• How to Expand Your Business Internationally with Translations by Isabella Nanni, award-winning literary translator: Read the post
• 2025 Indie Author Survey, Written Word Media, source of the 44 percent and the email list income comparison: View the results
• The 2025 Impact of Women-Owned Businesses, Wells Fargo, source of the revenue growth comparison: View the report
• Proz, the translator credentialing platform Isabella Nanni recommends for vetting: proz.com

Publishing and book marketing advice.

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In this episode Alexa talks with  Heather Davis, speculative fiction writer coach and founder of the Worldshift Conference. Heather built the Worldshift Conference out of one uncomfortable observation: nearly every client she coached was a woman, BIPOC, neurodivergent, or LGBTQIA, and almost none of the big speculative fiction events on her screen reflected that. She launched Worldshift in 2025 on a whim, and it worked, so year two runs online August 17 to 22 with more than 50 speakers, nightly writing sprints, and an agent Q&A panel. Alexa and Heather get into why niche beats broad when you're choosing where to spend your conference money, why the reader is functionally your co-writer, and how to keep your head when middle grade, YA, or romantic comedy sales fall off a cliff. Alexa is speaking at Worldshift too, on how thinking like a marketer makes you a better storyteller. There's a free daily pass, and the All Access Pass jumps from $67 to $97 the day the conference opens, so grab the link below before August 17. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

• The reader writes half your book, so plan for it. Heather's framing is that a reader builds the other half of the story in their own head as they go. Your job is to write your half so it fits what they already crave, which turns "know your genre" from a marketing chore into a craft skill.
  
  
• Niche conferences teach you things broad ones structurally can't. A general writing conference has to pick six craft sessions for an audience that ranges from "thinking about a book" to "published 65 of them." A genre-specific event can run a whole session on info dumping in speculative fiction because that's a problem the room actually has.
• Marketing knowledge makes the manuscript better, not just the launch. Alexa's argument is that the more you understand your genre's readers and market, the better you can write for them. The caveat: if your only goal right now is pitching an agent, put your energy on the pages first.
• Your genre's slump is probably not about you. Romantic comedy sales dropped hard, and so did middle grade and YA across genres, with fewer debut deals to match. Heather and Alexa both name it out loud: it's cyclical, it comes back, and panicking mid-cycle is what actually costs you.
• A network of four writers in your exact genre beats 400 random ones. Newsletter swaps, cross-promos, and social support only work when the audiences overlap. Build that group while you're still drafting act one, not the week your book goes live.
• Writing to market is not a dirty word. If you already love the genre, you probably already love the tropes doing well in it. Heather reframes it from paint-by-numbers to "I get to write the fun thing everybody wants right now."
• Every writer gets better, and the receipts are public. Compare Stephen King's Carrie to Fairy Tale and the gap is obvious. The only version of you who improves is the one who keeps producing.
  
  

REFERENCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

• Worldshift 2026: The Speculative Fiction Writers' Conference, Heather's online conference, August 17 to 22, 2026. More than 50 speakers, nightly writing sprints, agent Q&A panel. Free daily pass available (24 hour access per day). All Access Pass $67 before Aug 17, $97 during, $127 after. Register here (affiliate link)
• Worldshift speaker lineup includes Jessica Brody, K.M. Weiland, Gabriela Pereira, Janice Hardy, Rachael Herron, and literary agents Amy Collins and Jackie Kruzie
• Many Worlds Writing, Heather's coaching home base, with links to her podcast and group coaching community: manyworldswriting.com
• Heather's speculative fiction podcast, Speculative Fiction Writing Made Simple
• Heather's group coaching community, ongoing coaching for speculative fiction writers, details on her site: manyworldswriting.com
• Alexa's Worldshift session, "The Plot Twist Nobody Tells New Authors: How Thinking Like a Marketer Makes You a Better Storyteller," included with Worldshift registration
• The Women in Publishing Summit, womeninpublishingsummit.com
• The Writing Gals, the romance-writer-specific conference Alexa names as her own example of a niche event worth attending.
• Stephen King, Carrie and Fairy Tale, Heather's side-by-side proof that every writer improves over a career
• Also named in passing: Ray Bradbury, Brandon Sanderson, Suzanne Collins
• Talk topics previewed from the Worldshift lineup: the psychology of world building, how to approach race in speculative fiction, critique partner best practices, transforming your manuscript with three levels of revision, targeting the messy middle, mastering the author newsletter, trauma-informed strategies for writing speculative fiction

Heather Davis is a speculative fiction author and book coach who works with writers across science fiction, fantasy, horror, romantasy, and magical realism. She founded the Worldshift Conference in 2025 after noticing her coaching roster was full of women, BIPOC, neurodivergent, and LGBTQIA writers who rarely saw themselves on a speculative fiction speaker lineup, and year two runs online August 17 to 22, 2026 with more than 50 speakers, nightly writing sprints, and an agent Q&A panel. She also hosts a podcast on speculative fiction and runs a group coaching community for writers who want ongoing support rather than a one-off course. Find her at manyworldswriting.com. Publishing and book marketing advice.

Check out our upcoming events at https://womeninpublishingsummit.com/events

In this episode, Alexa talks with Patricia Marshall—CEO and founder of Luminare Press (self-publishing assist) and Lucent Book Group (hybrid publishing)—about the complex, rapidly evolving world of indie and hybrid publishing. Patricia brings two decades of publishing expertise and a fierce commitment to protecting authors from exploitation. We explore the epidemic of publishing scams (with Patricia's recent workshop breakdowns), the dazzling-but-dangerous promise of AI-generated covers and content, and how generative engine optimization is reshaping book visibility on Amazon and beyond. Patricia shares her no-nonsense philosophy: authors need trusted experts in their corner because the publishing landscape shifts constantly. She also reveals how Luminare Press is reconfiguring service packages to better serve different author needs—from memoir writers to thought leaders—while maintaining transparency on pricing and expectations. This conversation is essential for anyone navigating the author journey right now.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE 

• Publishing scams are targeting vulnerable authors daily via phone, text, DM, and email—often impersonating real publishers, claiming withheld royalties, or demanding payment for "recovery services." Know the red flags and have a trusted publisher vet suspicious contacts for you.
• AI is dazzling but not a substitute for expertise. Authors (and service providers) mistake a flashy first pass for a finished product. AI generates generic, often contradictory content and pulls bad data. It requires heavy human direction, iteration, and actual intelligence to create something valuable.
• Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the new game. Book descriptions, back cover copy, and Amazon listings now need to work for AI search as well as human eyes. This is how readers discover you online. Publishers and authors who ignore this become invisible to new audiences.
• Writers and publishers play different roles—don't blur them. Authors write; publishers navigate edit, design, production, compliance, and market strategy. Expecting an author to know all the publishing/marketing nuances is unrealistic. That's why a trusted partner matters.
• Packages always include things someone doesn't need. Patricia is reconfiguring Luminare's service tiers into customizable blocks so authors pay for what they actually use and understand pricing upfront—no surprises, no confusion.
• Staying current is non-negotiable. Publishing has transformed radically since 2010—and again since 2021. A publisher or service provider who rests on old knowledge is actually harming authors. Continuous learning and adaptation are the job.

REFERENCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
 

• Luminare Press (self-publishing assist): luminarepress.com or contact via womeninpublishingsummit.com/sponsors
• Lucent Book Group (hybrid publishing): luminarepress.com
• Writer Beware (scam prevention resource): writerbeware.org
• Jane Friedman's work on AI and publishing: mentioned for building custom AI prompts trained only on her own published work
• Alexa's GEO presentation (referenced as instrumental in Patricia's shift to generative engine optimization): womeninpublishingsummit.com or via Alexa's podcast archive
• WIP Society membership (year-round education and community): mywipsociety.com
• Women in Publishing Business Bootcamp (August 21–22, 2026): mywipsociety.com
• Stages & Pages Conference (October 2026, San Antonio): stagesandpages.com
• KDP (Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing): kdp.amazon.com
• IngramSpark: ingramspark.com

 
Patricia Marshall is CEO and founder of Luminare Press and Lucent Book Group. With a degree in journalism and a master's degree in nonfiction creative writing, Patricia spent years as the editor of a national magazine before launching Luminare Press from her kitchen table in 2010 in response to her mother's difficult self-publishing experience. Over the past 14 years, Patricia has built a largely women-run publishing company that has brought nearly 1,000 books to market. Luminare Press specializes in fiction and memoir, while Lucent Book Group serves thought leaders and executives using books to expand their platforms. Patricia is known for her commitment to serving authors with integrity, transparency on pricing, and hands-on attention—traits she describes as "over serving and undercharging." She's deeply invested in author protection, publishing industry education, and staying ahead of rapid changes in technology, discoverability, and publishing ethics. Patricia is a sponsor of the Women in Publishing Summit and regularly leads workshops on scam prevention and emerging publishing trends.Publishing and book marketing advice.

See all of our upcoming events!

The audiobook market has gone from $426 million a decade ago to $2.2 billion at the end of 2024 — an eightfold leap — and projections put the U.S. market at $30 billion by 2030. In this episode, Alexa welcomes back Mary Catherine Jones, owner and executive producer of The Audiobook Experience, for a candid, numbers-forward conversation about why audio has shifted from "important" to critical for any professional author. They dig into the question almost every author asks first — can I afford this? — and Mary Catherine offers genuinely useful frameworks for first-time authors, series writers, and nonfiction creators alike. The two also tackle the real per-finished-hour cost ranges, why a great narrator can make or break a listener's experience, the current state of AI narration (and why readers still aren't buying it), and how to use your audiobook as a list-building engine — a sneak peek at Mary Catherine's "Publishing in Stereo" session. It's an honest, friend-to-friend look at one of publishing's fastest-growing opportunities.

Key Takeaways from This Episode

• The market has already shifted. Audiobooks grew from $426M (2015) to $2.2B (end of 2024) and are projected to hit $30B in the U.S. by 2030. They now make up 12–15% of the book market and have already eclipsed ebook sales.
• Don't mortgage your future on an uncertain return. For first-time authors, the optimal time to launch audio is alongside the book — but if the budget isn't there, release the book first, listen for reader demand ("When's the audiobook coming?"), and use fuzzy math (roughly 20% of your projected book sales) to inform your investment.
• Series and established authors should lean in. Audiobook lovers adore series because they can sit back and let it wash over them. If you're several books into a series with proven sales, that's the signal to start.
• Narration is everything — and it's not silo work. Every choice from editing to cover to format is part of one container. A technically skilled but mismatched narrator can sink a listener's experience.
• Hiring a pro narrator costs about the same as self-narrating professionally. Author narration takes more studio time and labor because they haven't done it before, so the "savings" largely evaporate once you're doing it right.
• AI narration still doesn't sell — yet. Alexa's real-world test: a year on the market, zero audiobook sales, despite strong ebook sales and reviews. Readers don't trust AI audio. It may suit textbooks or niche academic work, but human work deserves a human voice.
• Know your real numbers. Expect roughly $350–$500 per finished hour to hire and supervise a narrator directly; full-service producers range from ~$300 up to ~$1,300 per finished hour. Compare providers carefully and understand exactly what's included.
• Audio is a list-building tool. Direct listeners to your website for worksheets, bonus content, character backstories, and references — turning your audiobook into a lead magnet (the heart of "Publishing in Stereo").
• Plan your timeline. Budget a minimum of six weeks from your last recording day to availability, plus up to two weeks of retailer processing after you hit submit. Simultaneous launches don't happen overnight.

References & Links Mentioned

• The Audiobook Experience — Mary Catherine Jones's studio: theaudiobookexperience.com (also findable as audiobookexperience; formerly Voiceover Vermont)
• Audio Publishers Association — source of the cited market data
• Broken Country — the book club read referenced in the narration discussion
• KDP Virtual Voice — Amazon's AI narration beta (referenced re: Alexa's experiment)
• Audible / Apple Books / Apple CarPlay — distribution and listening platforms discussed
• The Women in Publishing Summit — where Mary Catherine's "Publishing in Stereo: How to Grow Your List with Audio" session was featured
• Mary Catherine's previous podcast appearance & webinar on audiobook production/budget (linked in show notes)
• Death Proof Your Business — Alexa's forthcoming book (in progress)

Mary Catherine Jones is the owner and executive producer of The Audiobook Experience, an award-winning boutique audiobook recording and production studio based in Vermont. She works directly with authors — both those self-narrating memoir, thought leadership, and nonfiction, and fiction authors seeking the perfect professional narrator — recording in her Vermont studio and through partnering studios across the country. With a background that includes six years as director of sales and marketing for an independent publishing company, Mary Catherine brings both technical production expertise and a genuine understanding of the author's business to every project. She's a longtime supporter and sponsor of the Women in Publishing community and a beloved repeat guest on the podcast.

Publishing and book marketing advice.