Self-Publishing LaunchPad With James Blatch

What are some of the fundamentals behind self-publishing success? James Blatch shares tips and insights.

James Blatch is a historical military thriller author. He’s also the co-founder of Self-Publishing Formula, Fuse Books, Hello Books, and the co-host of The Self-Publishing Show. 

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

* Lessons learned from writing a second book in the series — and why ‘show, don't tell' is so difficult for new authors. You can also find James's interview about his first book here.

* How marketing a second book differs and why free books still work for finding readers

* Different measurements of success when you're starting out, and writing for love vs commercial success

* Why the ‘language' of self-publishing is important to learn — and it might take a little time, but you will get there!

* How to navigate the choices as a self-publishing author

* Some fundamentals of marketing — using email lists, and free books in KU or permafree

* Tips for rebooting an older series, or when you've got your rights back on older books

You can find James at www.JamesBlatch.com and on Twitter @jamesblatch and also @selfpubform

You can listen to the Self Publishing Show on your favorite podcast app and find the backlist here.

Header image generated by Joanna Penn with DALL-E 2

Transcript of the interview with James Blatch

Joanna Penn: James Blatch is a historical military thriller author. He's also the co-founder of Self-Publishing Formula, Fuse Books, Hello Books and the co-host of the Self-Publishing Show. So welcome back to the podcast, James.

James Blatch: Hello Jo. Thank you so much for having me back on. I'm, excited to be here as always.

Joanna Penn: Well, it's good to talk to you again now. You were on the show last year, May, 2021, which I guess is almost 18 months now, talking about the launch of your first novel, the Final Flight, and now you have a second book out in the series, Dark Flight.

And I wanted to talk to you a bit about this because many authors obviously put out their first book and they do all the stuff, and then they put out a second book in the series and it's quite different.

What did you do differently with your second book in terms of the creative writing side, since you must have learned a lot?

James Blatch: Yeah, I did. I mean, writing the first one was a ramshackle, ridiculously long-winded process of me having no idea what I was doing and gradually over four years, probably of the intense part of it, learning parts about the trade and what I should be doing and being directed and finding it hard to learn.