Pros Talking Prose

Can writing 50,000 words in 30 days actually make you a better writer? Or are we just getting really good at chasing word counts?

Chapters

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What happens when readers discover that the book they loved was written by AI? Does the story suddenly become less valuable—or does the author lose something far more important: the reader's trust?

00:00 – Fake Rolexes, Luxury Brands, and a Strange Connection to Writing

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Resources Mentioned

Connect With Us

Join us for more candid conversations, publishing guidance, author-business resources, and opportunities to connect with other writers.

Music Credits

About Pros Talking Prose

#ProsTalkingProse #AIWriting #AIWrittenBooks #WritingCommunity #IndieAuthors #SelfPublishing #AuthorBusiness #ArtificialIntelligence

Could thinking about book sales before you finish your manuscript actually keep you from finishing it?

You want to write a great book. You also want someone to buy the thing. But when should target readers, genre expectations, and book marketing enter the conversation?

This week on Pros Talking Prose, Stacey Smekofske and Troy Lambert get a little feisty about where writing craft meets author business. Stacey makes the case for helping authors understand their book’s market potential early. Troy asks whether that same information can interrupt the creative process, create pressure, or send a perfectly good story in the wrong direction.

Naturally, we debate it like reasonable adults. With a house of cards, a few musical detours, and the occasional “just write the damn story.”

From manuscript reviews and developmental editing to author platforms, writing anxiety, and protecting your writing time, we explore a question that matters to new writers and experienced indie authors alike: How do you build a publishing business without getting in the way of the book you’re trying to write?

Tell us what you think: Would knowing your book’s target audience and market potential help you revise—or make you overthink every sentence?

Follow Pros Talking Prose for candid conversations about writing, editing, self-publishing, book marketing, and building a sustainable author career.

CHAPTERS

00:00 A friendly publishing debate gets feisty

LINKS & RESOURCES

• Print to Pro: Editing, manuscript reviews, publishing guidance, and author business resources

• Print to Pro Power Sessions: Class schedule and registration, including the distribution session discussed in this episode

• Troy Lambert / The Plot Dude: Writing courses, manuscript evaluations, and story resources

• The Plot Dude’s Craft Lab: Monthly writing webinars, including October’s Preptober session

• Wayfinder Summit: A virtual working retreat for authors—less distraction, more direction

Be kind. Keep writing. Stay weird.

#WritingCommunity #SelfPublishing #AuthorBusiness

There’s a LOT of writing and publishing advice out there. Follow this formula. Use this tool. Publish this way. Market your book like this, but after 100 episodes of Pros Talking Prose, we keep coming back to two words: It depends.

In our 100th episode, we hand the conversation over to you. We answer questions from our listeners about writing, editing, AI, indie vs. traditional publishing, staying focused long enough to actually write the damn book, series writing, the books every writer should read, and what we’ve learned from 100 episodes of talking about the publishing industry.

We also revisit some of our favorite moments, arguments, guests, questionable conversations, and lessons from the show, including a few things we’ve changed our minds about along the way.

Because whether you’re trying to improve your writing craft, decide how to publish your book, build an author business, use AI responsibly, market your work, or figure out which piece of author advice you should actually listen to, there usually isn’t one universal answer.

Your goals matter.

So come celebrate 100 episodes with us (not with a greatest-hits clip show) with the kind of messy, funny, occasionally inappropriate, real-world conversation that got us here in the first place. And thank you for being the fly on the wall for 100 episodes. We’re not done yet.

Follow us for more at PrintToPro.com

Pros Talking Prose is a couple of working publishing and editing professionals talking about the information that authors really want to know. The real-life stuff.

Chapters

#WritingAdvice #PublishingAdvice #IndiePublishing #SelfPublishing #WritingPodcast #AuthorBusiness #BookMarketing #WritingTips #Authors #ProsTalkingProse

Book marketing has changed, and a lot of the advice authors are still following was built for an internet that doesn’t really exist anymore.

In this episode of Pros Talking Prose, we sit down with marketing strategist Amanda Natividad, founder of Zero Click Marketing, Chief Evangelist at SparkToro, and co-author with Rand Fishkin of the upcoming book Zero Click Marketing: How to Build Brands and Earn Customers on a Traffic-Starved Web.

We talk about what authors should be doing when Google sends fewer clicks, social media platforms want to keep people on-platform, AI tools are changing how people search, and traditional marketing attribution doesn’t always tell us where readers actually discovered us. And no, the answer is NOT “be everywhere.”

Amanda walks us through how authors can figure out where their readers are already spending time, choose the right discovery platform, create content that actually connects to their books and brand, and stop letting algorithms dictate their entire marketing strategy.

We also get into author websites, newsletters, blogs, direct sales, audience research, personal vs. author social media accounts, AI-generated content, going viral without making money, and why sometimes the best marketing goal isn’t an immediate sale.

Oh, and somehow the Black Plague becomes a legitimate book marketing case study. Because apparently that’s where we are now. 

CHAPTERS

Authors spend a lot of time worrying about book sales, reviews, algorithms, trends, AI, bestseller lists, agents, publishers, other authors’ success… and a whole lot of things we can’t control.

All that noise can make it very easy to lose your way.

In this episode of Pros Talking Prose, Troy and Stacey talk about the difference between the things authors can control, the things they can influence, and the things they may need to simply be aware of… and let go.

There is no magic formula for author success.

If you're an indie author, self-published author, traditionally published author, or writer building a sustainable author business, this conversation is for you.

RESOURCES

Wayfinder Summit — A Virtual Working Retreat for Authors

Beyond Author Scams: Protect Yourself & Your Author Business

The Author Platform Operating Plan — Power Session

Plot Dude Craft Lab: Character-Driven vs. Plot-Driven Fiction

Better-Faster Academy — Becca Syme Events

Pros Talking Prose is the place where publishing professionals Stacey Smekofske and Troy Lambert talk shop about writing craft, indie publishing, author business, book marketing, publishing trends, AI for authors, and what it really takes to build a sustainable writing career.

CHAPTERS

#authorbusiness  #IndieAuthor #SelfPublishing #WritingCommunity #BookMarketing #AuthorLife #WritingMotivation #Publishing #WritingTips #ProsTalkingProse

Readers aren’t accepting “good enough” books anymore.

The quality bar in publishing has moved, and whether you publish independently, traditionally, or somewhere in between, readers are paying attention.

In this episode, Stacey and Troy dig into what “professional quality” actually means today. Spoiler: professional means more than editing.

A strong book is not just grammatically clean. The story must work. The cover must communicate the right promise. The formatting needs to disappear into the reading experience. Your genre expectations matter. Your presentation matters. And increasingly, readers can tell when an author has skipped the learning, rushed the process, or relied on technology to make decisions they weren’t equipped to evaluate.

We also talk about how AI is raising the minimum quality floor without necessarily creating better books. AI can help create something passable, but if an author doesn’t understand story craft, cover design, editing, formatting, or reader expectations, “passable” may be exactly where the book stays.

And readers are looking for more than passable.

Ultimately, publishing professionally comes down to respecting the person on the other side of the book. Readers are investing their money, but more importantly, they are investing their time. Your job is to make that investment worthwhile.

In this episode, we discuss:

As Stacey puts it near the end of the conversation: readers are not obligated to support your writing journey. Your responsibility is to give them an experience worth investing in.

RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED

Wayfinder Summit — A Virtual Working Retreat for Authors

P2P Author Business Harbor

Editing Services / Manuscript Evaluations

Russell Nohelty

If you enjoy conversations about the realities of writing, publishing, author business, craft, AI, and the constantly changing publishing industry, subscribe and join us each week for Pros Talking Prose.

Keep writing. Stay weird. Be kind.

#WritingCommunity #IndieAuthors #SelfPublishing #BookPublishing #WritingCraft #AuthorBusiness #BookEditing #PublishingTips #AIWriting

Writing may happen alone, but building an author career doesn’t.

After a whirlwind weekend at Killer Nashville, Stacey and Troy came home thinking about something that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough in publishing: the people you surround yourself with can fundamentally change the direction of your career.

A conversation with a stranger can become a friendship. A friendship can become an introduction. An introduction can lead to an editor, agent, publisher, printer, collaborator, client, or simply another writer who understands exactly what this strange career feels like.

We get into networking without making it feel transactional, building genuine connections at writers’ conferences, maintaining professional boundaries with editors and clients, following up when someone gives you an opportunity, and why knowing someone should never mean ignoring the proper process.

We also talk candidly about the author-editor relationship. Can your editor also be your friend? Absolutely. But friendship can complicate criticism, invoices, boundaries, and those difficult conversations every good editor eventually has to have.

And sometimes, the most important relationship you build has nothing to do with what that person can do for your career.

Go to https://WayfinderSummit.com to join us at our writers' retreat in October. 

Chapters

00:00 – Back from Killer Nashville

Publishing is changing fast. AI is changing faster. Authors are being told to write more, publish more, build bigger platforms, learn new technology, follow every trend—and somehow keep producing better books while doing it all.

No wonder so many writers feel like they’re losing ground.

In this episode, Stacey and Troy talk about the pressure authors are putting on themselves, why imposter syndrome becomes so dangerous when it mixes with comparison and fear, and why the constant race to keep up may be hurting both your writing and your author career.

We also dig into the growing anxiety surrounding AI, including concerns about AI-generated writing, transparency, Claude and AI watermarking, and the fear some authors have of being “found out” for using these tools.

But this conversation isn't really about whether AI is good or bad, instead we think it's about knowing where your line is, being honest about the way you work, and refusing to let someone else's choices (or the latest publishing panic) determine whether you believe you're a legitimate writer. Because there is no race.

Writing faster doesn't automatically make you more successful. Publishing more books doesn't automatically make you a better author. And chasing every new tool, strategy, controversy, or algorithm change can pull your attention away from the one thing that still matters: Writing a damn good story.

We talk about slowing down, developing your craft, using tools intentionally, finding a writing community that supports you, and why patience and focus may become two of the most valuable skills an author can develop in the next few years.

Wayfinder Summit: Our virtual working retreat for authors focused on clarity, community, productivity, and actually making progress on your work.

We'd love to hear from you:

Do you ever feel like you're falling behind as an author? What exactly makes you feel that way? Tell us in the comments.

And if you know another writer who needs to hear this today, send this episode their way.

#WritingCommunity #AuthorLife #WritingAdvice #ImposterSyndrome #WritingMotivation #AIForAuthors #SelfPublishing #WritingCraft #IndieAuthors #authors 

What happens when your entire travel plan falls apart and you suddenly realize you're living through the exact kind of story structure you teach authors to write?

In this episode of Pros Talking Prose, we do something a little different.

After a travel day filled with changing gates, missing pilots, canceled flights, expensive mistakes, unexpected allies, and one very important business conversation, we realized our disastrous trip had accidentally become a near-perfect example of story structure, escalating conflict, try/fail cycles, character change, and the difference between plot and story.

So we broke it down.

Because one of the most common problems we see in manuscripts is that authors are too nice to their characters. Conflict isn't something you sprinkle into a story to make it exciting. Conflict creates stakes. Failure forces characters to react, change, make decisions, and eventually become capable of doing something they couldn't have done at the beginning of the story, and what your character wants from the journey isn't what they actually need to get from it.

We talk about:

Why try/fail cycles make stories stronger

Sometimes the difference between a plot and a story really is only two words, and sometimes failure makes the better story.

If you enjoy conversations about writing craft, publishing, author business, and all the strange things that happen along the way, subscribe to Pros Talking Prose and join us each week.

And tell us in the comments: Are you making things hard enough for your protagonist, or are you still protecting them?

🧭 Wayfinder Summit

The first 250 registered attendees will receive a Wayfinder Welcome Kit. Learn more about the virtual working retreat for authors and reserve your spot above.

Craft Lab: Poisons with Troy Lambert

Power Sessions

Print to Pro

We'll be at Killer Nashville this August, so if you're attending, come find us and say hello.

#WritingCraft #StoryStructure #WritingTips #NovelWriting #ConflictInFiction #CharacterDevelopment #WritersCommunity #WritingAdvice #Authors #ProsTalkingProse