Become a Writer Today

• How Sandy discovered the Law of Attraction and turned her finances around.
• How long it took to write the book
• Tips for promoting your work
• Sandy's experience when she climbed Mount Everest
• Finding time to work on your business
• Dealing with sabotage when building a writing career

• Facebook 
• Facebook Group
• Instagram
• About Sandy
• Website
• How to Be Wildly Wealthy Fast

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If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

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The Final Flight is James Blatch's first book, and during our chat, I asked him how he's planning on selling copies because it's easier to sell books when you have a back catalog.

So what should a new author do when they're about to release their first book? James talks about using advertising to sell copies of his book, so I asked him if advertising could help me sell the parenting memoir that I've written?

James also talks about the different businesses that he runs aside from Self Publishing Formula, in particular, Fuse Books and Hello Books, and how they can help authors find more readers and get more copies of their work into the world.

In this episode, we discuss.

• How Final Flight was originally written for the NaNoWriMo competition 
• Finding the time to write a book while working on a business
• Identifying where your market is
• Learning from your writing process and making changes
• Using advertising to promote your book and build an audience
• Building an email list
• The importance of checking and re-checking for errors

Resources.

• James Blatch
• Hello Books
• Fuse Books
• Self Publishing Formula
• The Final Flight
• NaNoWriMo

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Steph Smith is a growth marketer, writer, and the author of Doing Content Right.

Steph has a fascinating take on how to launch a book. In fact, she has an altogether different approach to most authors.

As her book is about creating content for businesses, she promoted it first on Twitter, where she first validated the idea with her audience. 

In this interview, she talks about how she did that before she launched the book on Product Hunt.

It's the first time I've heard of an author launching their book on Product Hunt, and I was fascinated. 

Steph believes that when you launch a book, you should go where your audience is and build a community around your book. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Using a Twitter following to grow interested in your book
• Why Steph chose Product Hunt to launch her book
• How Steph wrote the book in 49 days
• What to do if your non-fiction book starts to date
• Why there are more opportunities than ever before for content creators
• Steph's favorite keyword tool and is SEO the best way to grow a newsletter?

Resources: 

• Doing Content Right
• Doing Time Right
• Steph Smith on Twitter
• Product Hunt
• The Hustle
• Chatr
• Udemy
• Ahrefs

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Ann Kroeker is a writing coach, published author, and professional speaker.

She works with clients who want to find agents and publish books the traditional way and also helps her clients figure out if self-publishing is the correct route for them. 

In this interview, we talk about some of the merits of self-publishing versus traditional publishing. One of the biggest challenges of self-publishing is you have to market and promote the book yourself. For that, you need a platform, and Ann helps her clients build an online platform. 

She helps them work out what channel is right for them, whether Facebook, Twitter, podcasting, or blogging. She also explains the difference between writing a blog post and writing an article. I asked Ann if it is too late to start a blog or build a platform online by publishing articles, and you may be surprised by her answer. 

We also talk about the merits of podcasting for writers, particularly for non-fiction writers. 

In this episode we discuss:

• How Ann focuses on non-fiction writing
• How podcasting works for non-fiction authors
• Repurposing content
• How to decide whether or not to self-publish
• How to build a platform
• How Ann organizes her typical day

Resources: 

• Ann Kroeker Website
• Ann's Everything Page
• Three Day Challenge

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Alex Strathdee is the founder of Advanced Amazon Ads as well as a best-selling Amazon author. 

I've used Amazon ads since 2016 to sell non-fiction books. Back when I started using Amazon ads, it was straightforward to get them working. Over the years, Amazon ads have become far more competitive. It's impossible to get the same return for the same budget, and the platform has changed. 

I wanted to talk to somebody who could talk me through what type of Amazon ad campaigns are working and how to use them to sell more copies of my back catalog. 

Alex also talks about the platform's future, and if you want to sell more copies of your book, Amazon ads work particularly well for non-fiction.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The number one thing that Amazon Ad novices should do
• Amazon Ads don't have to be expensive. Start with the basics
• How to track your spend and sales
• What kind of budget gets good results
• Are Amazon Ads more profitable for fiction or non-fiction?

Resources:

• Traffic Secrets
• Advanced Amazon Ads
• Free copy of the new book available soon

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Allen Klein. He's spent his career writing spirituality and personal development books.

To date, he's written over 31 books, including The Healing Power of Humor, and his most recent title is The Awe Factor which spiritualityandpractice.com dubbed one of the best spiritual books of 2020.

I wanted to understand what goes into a good spirituality book and how authors can take a simple idea like awe and turn it into a book. Allen explains how he draws on stories from his personal life, stories that people tell him, and those he comes across online.

Allen talks about spending over a week in a library using microfiche film to extract an article from the New York Times, whereas, today, it's just a Google search away, or you can download an app.

He also talks about how he promotes his books using a service called Help a Reporter Out  (HARO). If you write any non-fiction, I recommend checking it out.

In this episode we discuss.

• Why Allen describes himself as a jolly-ologist
• Where Allen got the inspiration for his awe stories
• How looking for awe in your life is similar to meditation
• How humor helps Allen to deal with life
• When to include stories in self-help books versus science-based research
• Capturing stories ready to write down later

Resources.

• Spriritualityandpractice.com
• HARO
• The Awe Factor
• The Healing Power of Humor
• The Joy of Simplicity
• Secrets Kids Know
• You Can't Ruin My Day
• Embracing Life After Loss
• Allen Klein Amazon Page
• Allen Klein Website

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Mark McGuinness is an award-winning poet, author, and creative coach. He also hosts his own podcast, The 21st Century Creative.

In this podcast episode, Mark explains how he worked with Brian Clark of Copyblogger and how the copywriting lessons he learned have stayed with him ever since.

We also talked about how the pandemic has impacted creatives. Mark describes some of the steps he's taking to break out of his self-imposed "introvert's paradise," which he set up during lockdown.

Mark also talks about the importance of looking on your computer for that messy creative project that you've been putting off. That messy creative project could be the one that pays dividends for you over the long term.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Finding a balance between writing with traditional and digital tools
• What happens to a poem after it's been written
• What a creative career looks like
• Deciding which projects to work on
• Finding a rhythm to your creativity

Resources:

• The 21st Century Creative
• Copyblogger
• Lateralaction 
• Mark McGuinness

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

James Morgan-Jones found his love of writing at around 12 years of age.

He's now the author of The Glasswater Quintet, and in this episode he talks about his approach to writing a book series and how the first book in the series came about when he was studying for his MA.

 James is also a poet and a playwright and I was fascinated to hear about how his poetry, screenplays, and his background as an actor have informed how he writes his books. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Tips for writing dialogue
• Do you need an MA to write a book
• Write about what you know
• James explains how he hadn't planned to write a series
• The writing process
• How to approach writing poetry

Resources:

• The Glasswater Quintet
• James Morgan Jones

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Caitlin Berve recently published a collection of modern fairy tales called When Magic Calls. She's also written two other anthologies and has another one in the works. 

While she's not writing, Caitlin runs her own writing business and coaches other writers on how they can improve their books and their craft. In addition to all that, she also edits memoir and fiction.

I recently had the chance to catch up with Caitlin and was fascinated to hear how she balances both her writing business and creative work.

I also found out that Caitlin took an MFA in creative writing. Many new writers wonder if they need to take an MFA before they can write a book, so I put that question to Caitlyn, and I think you'll find her answer says a lot about what it takes to become a successful writer today.

In this episode we discuss:

• How Caitlin manages her time
• Mistakes that memoir writers make
• Types of memoirs
• Finding an editor for your book
• Advice on joining a critique group
• Finding the balance between client work and writing
• How to use a setting as more than a backdrop
• Tips for selling more books

Resources:

• Caitlin Berve
• When Magic Calls
• Write Characters Your Readers Won't Forget
• Bird by Bird

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!

Charlene Wang is a product manager at Google. In other words, she's got a hectic, demanding day job, and yet she found time to write and publish her new book, Model Breakers. Charlene also runs a popular newsletter on Substack called LivingOS. 

Last year, Charlene set herself a goal of writing 200 articles in 200 days, and so far, she's exceeded that goal. It's fantastic to hear about a writer who's built a side hustle while working a day job. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us work from home and no longer commute, which allows us more free time. Charlene eliminated her commute, and she had the extra time during her mornings and evenings to write.

Charlene also discusses how online tools can help with writing and how she got into writing newsletters.

In this episode we discuss:

• The types of topics Charlene covered in her 200 days of writing
• Where the idea for LivingOS came from
• Which articles were most popular with readers
• How to build an email list
• The process for using apps when writing
• How is writing a book different from writing a book
• How to launch and promote a book

Resources:

• Model Breakers
• LivingOS
• LivingOS - Substack
• Notion
• Roam Research
• Otter.ai

Support the show

If you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollins

Thanks for listening!