When you become an author, you don’t get a handbook to guide you through the intricacies of how to do this job well. There’s not even a comprehensive job description! Many first-time authors feel totally mystified at what to expect and stumble their way through the process. Courtney Maum has written the book that should be your handbook, though: Before and After the Book Deal. In this conversation, we chat about what authors don’t know about publishing and how to think about your career as a writer. Courtney shares about her unique background and experience in publishing, from her career as a luxury product namer, copywriter, and author across multiple genres!

Courtney is the author of five books, including the groundbreaking publishing guide that Vanity Fair recently named one of the ten best books for writers, BEFORE AND AFTER THE BOOK DEAL and the memoir THE YEAR OF THE HORSES, chosen by The Today Show as the best read for mental health awareness. A writing coach, executive director of the Turning Points writing retreat, and educator, Courtney’s mission is to help people hold on to the joy of art-making in a culture obsessed with turning artists into brands. You can sign up for her publishing tips newsletter and online masterclasses at CourtneyMaum.com.

Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment of the publishing industry – meaning there’s more attention now than ever before on what the audio experience of a book is like. So what should authors know about this important medium? This episode with award-winning audiobook narrator Julia Whelan takes you behind the scenes of audiobook production, so you can understand just what goes into it. We talk through questions like, should authors narrate their own audiobooks? Do authors always get to narrate their own books if they want to? How do you integrate audio elements like music? What are the physical demands on your voice, and how do you prepare for studio time? Plus, we’ll hear from Julia about how writing audiobooks impacts her writing process and the launch of her new audio platform, Audiobrary!

Dubbed “The Adele of Audiobooks” by The New Yorker, Julia Whelan is a writer, lifelong actor, and audiobook narrator of over 500 titles. She has won numerous awards, including Audible’s Narrator of the Year and the Best Female Narrator Audie. AudioFile Magazine has given her its lifetime achievement award, a “Golden Voice”, and her performance of her own debut novel, the international bestseller, My Oxford Year, garnered a Society of Voice Arts award. Her latest novel Thank You For Listening was a Best of 2022 pick at Amazon, Audible, and NPR as well as a Goodreads Choice Award nominee. She has just launched a new audio publishing company and app called Audiobrary, which aims to elevate human storytellers and disrupt standard compensation models for authors and narrators alike; her new book, the 8-part audio series, Casanova LLC, will debut on Audiobrary Valentine’s Day, 2024. She has most recently been invited to participate in the 10th annual Rancho Mirage Writer’s Festival. She is also a Grammy-nominated audiobook director, a former writing tutor, a half-decent amateur baker, and a certified tea sommelier.

Learn more about Audiobrary and listen to Casanova, LLC at audiobrary.com.

Connect with Julia @justjuliawhelan on Instagram.

If building a platform is something you feel you “have” to do – this episode will help you find the hidden joys available to you! In this conversation, Ann Kroeker helps Ariel & Liz reframe their thinking around platform and bring a greater sense of curiosity to the process. Building a platform is just one more way to share your message and your story with the world – and who knows, you might love it if you find the right outlet!

Ann Kroeker is a writing coach leveraging over three decades of experience in the writing and publishing world to support writers looking for input and the confidence they need to advance their careers. Her clients have achieved personal goals, landed contracts, hit bestseller lists, and won awards. Ann is also an author, speaker, and host of the Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach podcast. She works with clients one-on-one and through her comprehensive book proposal program, her signature craft course The Art & Craft of Writing, and her platform membership program called Your Platform Matters (YPM). Ann’s website offers loads of writing-related content, landing her on The Write Life’s annual 100 Best Websites for Writers list six years in a row. She’s presented at conferences, retreats, and summits; been a guest on writing-related podcasts; co-authored On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life that Lasts; and authored Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families and The Contemplative Mom.

Connect with Ann on Instagram @annkroeker.

Next, listen to our episode on getting media-ready with Paula Rizzo.

This week brings another literary agent conversation, this time with Lluvia Agustin! Just as publishers themselves have areas of expertise, so do agents. Lluvia specializes in representing Hispanic authors who write in Spanish. We talk about the unique challenges about publishing in the US market for Spanish-language authors, as well as the opportunities for translations that abound. Lluvia also recently returned from the 2023 Guadalajara Book Fair, and we chat all about what happens at book fairs, what it’s like to have your book represented there, and how you can use book fairs to network with publishing industry professionals.

Lluvia Agustin is the founder of The Agustin Agency, a literary agency in Nashville that specializes in Hispanic authors who write in Spanish. The agency’s books have been published by HarperCollins, Lifeway B&H, Planeta and other publishers in Spanish, English and Portuguese. In May 2022, one of the agency’s books received The Harold Kregel Award by the SEPA organization. Lluvia Agustin has held various senior level roles in the publishing industry over the years, which include being the senior sales director for HarperCollins publishers for their Spanish division until 2018. Lluvia has held other sales and marketing roles at other publishing companies. Lluvia enjoys reading a variety of genres, taking long walks and cooking. Lluvia lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her two grown children, John and Esteban Lopez.

Learn more about the Agustin Agency and connect with Lluvia at https://www.theagustinagency.com/.

Is 2024 the year you want to sign a book deal? Literary agent Lucinda Halpern, founder of Lucinda Literary, has the best advice for hooking an agent and publisher. In this episode, we chat about the importance of the pitch and how to attract attention by answering the who, what. where, when, why about your book in your query letter. Lucinda also tells us the three keys to getting signed (although… you really just need two of them!). These and more insights are the basis of her new book, Get Signed: Find an Agent, Land a Book Deal, and Become a Published Author.

Lucinda is also offering Hungry Authors listeners a free gift! Claim it right here:

https://www.getsignedbook.com/gift/

Lucinda Halpern is a literary agent with over 15 years experience, and the founder of Lucinda Literary, based in New York. Prior to founding her agency, she worked in the Publicity division of HarperCollins, where she assisted on the media campaign for Freakonomics among other New York Times bestsellers. She later worked as a marketing consultant for Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project), before launching her career as an agent. She has worked with all major publishers, including Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette, and Scholastic, and currently represents New York Times and internationally best-selling authors in the categories of business, health, lifestyle, popular science, narrative nonfiction, memoir, and upmarket fiction. Her classes and coaching programs have been taught to hundreds of writers worldwide, and became the inspiration for Get Signed: Find an Agent, Land a Book Deal, and Become a Published Author (Hay House; Penguin Random House; February 6th, 2024).

Learn more at getsignedbook.com or lucindaliterary.com and follow Lucinda Halpern @lucindaliterary on Instagram and Twitter.

Dr. Camden Morgante is looking forward to publishing her first book later this year! In this episode, Camden and Ariel chat about her experience traditional publishing, how her book map helped her to build confidence, and the topic of her forthcoming book: purity culture.

Dr. Camden Morgante is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 13 years of experience as a therapist, college professor, and supervisor. She owns a private therapy practice focusing on women’s issues, relationships, sexuality, trauma, and spirituality. She is a writer, speaker, and coach on purity culture recovery, egalitarianism, and faith reconstruction. Her first book, Recovering from Purity Culture, will be published in October 2024 by Baker Books. Dr. Camden lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with her husband and their daughter and son.

Website: www.drcamden.com, Social media: @drcamden

Sometimes we dream of writing a book before we even know which book idea to start with! There are so many possibilities. Do you start with the poetry collection you’ve always dreamed of, or the novel that’s been sitting in a folder on your desktop, or the practical how-to book that you feel you could write in your sleep?

That was the dilemma for Claire Williams, an executive coach who took the Hungry Authors Map Your Book cohort last summer. In this episode, she talks about how mapping out her ideas helped her decide which one would be the best step forward toward her dreams. Now she’s writing a proposal, launching a Substack, and guesting on pods!

Learn more about Claire’s GAANT chart and suscribe to her Substack right here.

Claire Williams is an Executive Coach, Team Coach, Leadership Development Writer, and the founder of In Depth Coaching & Development. Claire has trained and coached hundreds of leaders, from managers to the C-Suite, in dozens of organizations across five continents, including Target, Boeing, McDonalds, GE, United HealthCare, Hershey, and Post Consumer Brands. Leaders and organizations seek Claire out for her expertise in transformational development in the workplace, particularly her specialized approaches in Vertical Development, the Enneagram, and the Leadership Circle Profile. Claire publishes The Diving Board, a Substack newsletter “for humans in the deep end – a jumping-off point to pursue meaningful work in a swirly world”. She’s currently working on publishing her first book. As a writer, Claire engages both the mind and the heart of her readers, inviting them into soulful explorations and experiments rooted in time-tested leadership research. She challenges leaders to do the hard work of inner work and equips them with the most powerful tools for the job. Claire refuses to choose between the language of business and the language of the human spirit, because both exist in the real world, and both will shape the world of the future. Claire lives in St. Paul, MN, with her husband Rob and 2 kids: Amos (9) and Mabel (6). She loves books, early mornings, ice cream shops, and avoiding household chores.

How does book mapping build your confidence as a writer? And how do you shift your plans throughout the writing process? This week, we’re talking with educational consultant, speaker, and first-time author Mitch Weathers, whose book, Executive Functions for Every Classroom, just published. Mitch didn’t feel like a writer – and he never really felt the “flow” – but creating a book map made all the difference, enabling him to create a book proposal, sign a book deal, and finish his first draft.

We also talk about how book maps can and should be flexible throughout the writing process. Book maps shouldn’t restrict your ideas; they should empower you to create an engaging narrative.

Mitch became a gifted teacher because he was a mediocre student. He rarely felt comfortable in the classroom. In fact, it took him 7 years for him to graduate from college. As a teacher, Mitch was fortunate to experience school as if it happened around him – unsure how to engage in learning with confidence. There is a loneliness to experiencing school as a passive object and not an active subject. When he entered the classroom Mitch relied on his personal experiences as a learner. He recognized that what we teach, the content, is secondary. We must first lay the foundation for learning before we can get to teaching. Mitch designed Organized Binder to empower teachers with a simple but research-backed strategy to teach students executive functioning skills while protecting instructional time in class. The secret is found in establishing a predictable learning routine that serves to foster safer learning spaces.

Order his new book, Executive Functions for Every Classroom, Grades 4-12, now!

It’s 2024! In our first episode of Season 3, Liz & Ariel share their word(s) of the year and talk about a better way to plan your resolutions for 2024. What problem do you want to solve this year? And what options do you have for solving that problem? Share your ideas with us on Instagram.

We also share information about our new Map Your Book cohort which starts in February. Head to mapyourbook.com to learn more and register!

Season 2 Finale!! We are finishing the season with one of the most fundamental questions in publishing: Should you – should everyone – should anyone – publish a book?

Really, embedded in this question are a few questions: Should you write a book? And does that automatically mean you should also publish it? Does everyone have a story worth telling? Does everyone’s idea add value to the world?

The answers are nuanced, and in this final episode of season 2, Ariel & Liz explore them at length.

Follow us for more @hungryauthors on Instagram, or check out our website hungryauthors.com.