SPA Girls Podcast

Getting edits and critiques is part of every author’s career, but sometimes it can feel worse than getting stung by a wasp on your eyeball.

Like directly in the middle of your eyeball. By a really big wasp. Where it would really, really hurt. 

So that’s what we’re talking about this week in the SPA – how our thoughts on critiques have changed over the years, how we deal with the pangs when someone says something mean about our book babies, and why we think you can’t afford to go without critiques and edits. 

SHOW NOTES:

Reedsy – platform to find an editor
https://www.reedsy.com

Hot Tree Edits – Podcast #60 Interview with Editor Olivia Ventura
http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep60-interview-with-an-editor/

Spa Girls Podcast #209 Interview with editor Anne Victory
http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep209-editing-with-anne-victory/

Writing bestselling romance with incredible character chemistry is something that NYT Bestseller Annika Martin excels in, and today she joins us in the SPA to give ALL THE TIPS!

Annika, who also publishes romantic suspense as Carolyn Crane, has seen incredible success writing two books a year (on average) and publishing wide. This episode, she reveals her plotting and writing process, getting the most “comedy” in her writing, editing tips for deepening characterization, what point of view to choose for best results, cover trends and how she approaches her newsletter and advertising. This is a wonderful discussion, deserving of a long episode, where Annika reveals some absolute nuggets of GOLD that we hadn’t heard before. You’ll love this one, even if you’re not a “funny” writer – trust us!

About Annika: Annika Martin is a NYT bestselling author who loves reading and writing fun, sexy books, taking pictures of her cats, rocking out, saving animals, taking long baths, and consuming boatloads of chocolate suckers. She can be found hanging out in Minneapolis coffee shops with her awesome writer husband and tending her very wild, bee-friendly garden.
Find her at www.annikamartinbooks.com

Resources mentioned:

Romancing The Beat by Gwen Hayes

🌸 SpaGirlsPodcast.com

✔️ Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter with tips and resources for self-publishing authors http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/join/
✔️ You’ll find all the show notes and SPA Girls podcast episodes at: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/
✔️ Subscribe and Watch episode recordings on YouTube @ How To Self-Publish with the SPA Girls
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We have a terrible confession to make.

The SPA Girls have no idea what we’re doing when it comes to Instagram (well, Shar does, but the rest of us have no idea) and TikTok. It’s true. Shocking, I know.

So we got in an expert. Someone who could tell us everything we ever wanted to know about how to post on social media to engage with readers and develop a deeper connection. (Because that’s what it’s about!) 

Anne Malcom is an awesome Kiwi author, kicking butt and taking names in the Dark Romance genre. She’s also genuine, savvy, and smart, and knows all about connecting with readers in an authentic way.

Which is why you need to listen to this episode! 

To learn more about Anne Malcom check out her social media links here:

https://linktr.ee/anne.malcomauthor

Or go to her website here: https://www.AnneMalcomAuthor.com

🌸 SpaGirlsPodcast.com

✔️ Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter with tips and resources for self-publishing authors http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/join/
✔️ You’ll find all the show notes and SPA Girls podcast episodes at: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/
✔️ Subscribe and Watch episode recordings on YouTube @ http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast
✔️ Join us on Facebook and Twitter @SPAGirlsPodcast

Are you one or the other, or something in between?

While Trudi is an outright plotter, Cheryl considers herself a hybrid and Wendy is a confirmed pantser. Shar isn’t with us today but we know she’s tried it all!

But is this a hard and fast thing?

You’ll find out when and how we plot and the struggles involved with pantsing. The differences intrigue us and we think you’ll agree there is a wide scope to fit in either camp or somewhere in between. 

If you’re starting out, plotting is a great way to begin your journey. In the time it takes you to write one book you might get another couple out if you plot.

That said, if you’re like Wendy, no amount of plotting is going to work as you’ll end up somewhere else anyway, making the plotting a waste of time.

What about research? Is that part of plotting?

As we often say, writing is a journey, and your experience will never be exactly the same as anothers. Don’t let anyone tell you there is only one way or that theirs is the best way.

Whatever type of writer you are, remember that no one writes like you and how you write affects your voice and your process. Before you decide what that is is, try all the ways we’ve suggested – you may be surprised!

Mentioned in the podcast: 

Story Grid – https://storygrid.com

Michael Hauge – https://www.storymastery.com

Lisa Cron – http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep-249-interview-with-story-coach-lisa-cron/

Romancing the Beat – http://gwenhayes.com/free-stuff/

Snowflake Method – https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

Resistance. Fear. Procrastination. Avoidance. Most of us writers struggle with these challenges at some point in their career (or day!). This episode we cover everything from the struggle to finish a manuscript through to fear of publishing, and everything in between.

This blogpost inspired today’s episode : http://positivewriter.com/scared-writer/ Blog post by Harrison Demchick

excerpt: Two Kinds of Scared Writers
During my weekly writing group, I’ve been working on a screenplay that begins, oddly enough, with a weekly writing group. My main characters are a pair of best friends named Mindy and Lane, and what I’ve realized during the development of this story is that Mindy and Lane represent two particular kinds of scared writers. They’re the kinds we all see in our writing groups and workshops.

There’s a very good chance we’re one of them.

1) Mindy is the writer who doesn’t finish.

She has ideas, but she never really pursues them, because she sees every obstacle as a sign that she isn’t good enough. And if she did push on and did finish a draft of something, it would be bad, and then she’d know she could never be good enough. So she comes up with ideas, abandons them, and struggles with the next one.

2) Lane is the writer who doesn’t fight.

He has a finished manuscript, but he doesn’t want to do anything with it. It’s the creative accomplishment that matters. But really, he fears what comes next—agents and publishers and rejection. Or he fears the marketing battle any author, traditionally published or self-published, must face. Maybe, at heart, he too doesn’t think he’s good enough, so he hides behind the pretense of contentment and never works for his real dreams.”

++ SPA Girls’ additions

Along with Mindy and Lane, we’ve added:

Mandy – Mindy’s sister, Shane – Lane’s twin brother, and Xanthe

Listen up for their fears and how we can so relate (let’s not even get into Shar’s weighted hula hoop disaster) and tools for overcoming fears we’ve found that work.

Recommend reading and resources:

Steven Pressfield’s book War on Art and his blog

SPA Girls Podcast with Amira Alvarez on Imposter Syndrome

Brene Brown https://brenebrown.com/

Developing A Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck
Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck

Get ready to be inspired! Our guest today, USA Bestseller, Janie Crouch, writes passionate romantic suspense (both traditionally published and self-published) and she’s recently launched her indie Linear Tactical series to six-figure success.

Janie is a winner and/or finalist of multiple romance literary awards including the Golden Quill Award for Best Romantic Suspense, the National Reader’s Choice Award, and the coveted RITA© Award by the Romance Writers of America.
When she’s not listening to the voices in her head—and even when she is—she enjoys engaging in all sorts of crazy adventures (200-mile relay races; Ironman Triathlons, treks to Mt. Everest Base Camp) traveling, and movies of all kinds.
Her doctoral dissertation focused on how people formed and maintained relationships with sci-fi/fantasy characters. In her academic writing she was often told she needed to “dial down the drama”. She’s glad to finally be writing something where no tells her that anymore.

Her favorite quote: “Life is a daring adventure or nothing.” ~ Helen Keller.

In keeping with that quote, Janie’s approach to launching her romantic suspense series was GO BIG and ALL IN.
She discusses her release strategy, approach to advertising – what has worked for her and what HASN’T, as well being very upfront about her income and how much she’s spending on advertising to grow her sales.

Janie also discusses how she launched wide initially, then took her books into Amazon exclusively – and the pros and cons of doing that. Connecting with her readers has been a key component to her success via her readergroup and newsletter. Janie shares tips and advice on how she built her readership, and how she approaches the Business of Authoring and separates it from the creative side of writing.

This is a fascinating episode and we’re sure you’ll want to listen or watch it more than once!

If you’ve ever considered starting up a Facebook reader group, then you need to listen to this episode. Lucy Score’s group is an example of a well run group that is positive, supportive and fun – everything you want in a reader group. She talks to us about how she set it up, and what makes it so great, as well as why she loves her readers so much.

Lucy also gives us insight into her most recent book launch, how she connects to readers and why relationships are such an important part of her very successful Indie career.

The best thing about Lucy? She’s awesome, genuine, and super smart. We love having her on the show, and we know you’ll get a whole bucket load of useful information for your author career in this podcast. Enjoy!

Lucy’s official Bio:

Lucy Score is a Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon bestselling author. Small town contemporary rom-coms are her lady jam and she enjoys delivering the feels with a huge side of happily ever after.

Her books have been translated into several languages, making readers around the world snort laugh, swoon, and sob. Lucy lives in Pennsylvania with the devastatingly handsome Mr. Lucy and their horrible cat.

In her spare time she enjoys sleeping, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and reading all the romance novels in the universe.

Links mentioned:

Previous SPA Girls Podcast episode with Lucy: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep232-interview-with-lucy-score/

SPA Girls Podcast episdoe with Becca Syme: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep146-interview-with-becca-syme-on-writing-better-faster/

Write Better Faster by Becca Syme
https://betterfasteracademy.com/wbf101/

SPA Girls Links:

✔️ Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter with tips and resources for self-publishing authors http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/join/

✔️ You’ll find all the show notes and SPA Girls podcast episodes at: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/

✔️ Watch episode recordings on YouTube @ http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast

✔️ Join us on Facebook and Twitter @SPAGirlsPodcast

Success – Lucky or hard work?

This episode we’re talking with Kaye Kennedy who had the successful experience we all hope for when we start out. Using her business acumen and spending years studying how to do it right, Kaye managed a million page reads in 6 months and she’s going to tell you how she did it.

A CEO by day and a contemporary romance author by night, in her novels, you can always expect a happily ever after that kisses and tells. She’s had a love affair with reading and writing for as far back as she can remember, which led her to earning her degrees in English Literature. Kaye taught college composition & literature classes before switching gears entirely and becoming an entrepreneur, starting multiple businesses. 

Originally from New York, Kaye now lives on the Florida coast with her husband, who often inspires her characters (she’s a sucker for an alpha with a soft side).  When she isn’t busy writing or running one of her companies, Kaye spends as much time as she can cuddling with her rescue mutt, Zeus, paddling on the water, or relaxing on the beach with a good book.

Kaye’s Timeline:

Kaye’s website:  kayekennedy.com

SPA Girls Links:

✔️ Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter with tips and resources for self-publishing authors http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/join/

✔️ You’ll find all the show notes and SPA Girls podcast episodes at: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/

✔️ Watch episode recordings on YouTube @ http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast

✔️ Join us on Facebook and Twitter @SPAGirlsPodcast

Making six figures a year while publishing one book a year, isn’t the usual career path for most indies, but for our guest today, it absolutely is! We are thrilled to welcome Aus-Kiwi, Helen Scheuerer, to the SPA today.
Helen is a talented YA Fantasy author who’s taken her traditional publishing education and transferred that to a highly successful indie career over the past four years.

We discuss how Helen got into writing, her education and specifically what led her to self-publishing. Then we cover in detail her launch strategies and approach to successful publishing with an “outside the norm” annual release schedule.

This is a great episode full of tips and inspiration from Helen, especially for listeners who cannot release multiple books in a year. Enjoy!

About Helen Scheuerer
Helen Scheuerer is the author of the bestselling YA fantasy trilogy, The Oremere Chronicles: Heart of Mist (2017), Reign of Mist (2018) and War of Mist (2019), as well as the prequel short story collection, Dawn of Mist (2020). The series has been highly praised for its strong, flawed female characters and its action-packed plots. It has often been likened to Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass series, and the epic #girlpower film, Wonderwoman.

Helen’s love of writing and books led her to pursue a Bachelor of Creative Arts, majoring in Creative Writing at the University of Wollongong. Helen also completed a Masters of Publishing at the University of Sydney.

Download Helen’s free prequels and learn more at: www.HelenScheuerer.com

SPA Girls Links:

✔️ Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter with tips and resources for self-publishing authors http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/join/

✔️ You’ll find all the show notes and SPA Girls podcast episodes at: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/

✔️ Watch episode recordings on YouTube @ http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast

✔️ Join us on Facebook and Twitter @SPAGirlsPodcast

This episode we’re thrilled to welcome Nat Connors, founder of Kindletrends (and fellow New Zealander #gokiwis) to the SPA!

Nat has been a self-published fiction author since 2016, and is also a research academic and data scientist.  Kindletrends is a weekly data newsletter that tells you all about what’s happening across 12 different genres in the Kindle Store. 

Nat started using the information in Kindletrends to help outline, write and launch books, and then started sharing it with friends. Now just recently (launched November 2020), Kindletrends is available to the self-publishing community as a whole.

We’ll go over contact info at the end of the podcast, but if you can’t wait, check out kindletrends.com.  Subscribe for USD15/month (the first month is free) and every week you’ll get a data-rich newsletter on major categories in the Kindle Store, helping you plan every aspect of your publishing with confidence.

*** BONUS FOR SPA GIRLS PODCAST LISTENERS – listen up for a fantastic discount code that’ll save you $5/month on your subscription – ends April 2021, so don’t delay!

Nat goes into fascinating detail about:

We’re really excited about Kindletrends (and not just because it’s another case of Kiwi ingenuity 😉 This is going to be super helpful to all of us in different ways.

As promised, here are some helpful visuals and video explanations that will help you use Kindletrends to help you write and market your books better!

Here’s an example of a Kindletrends newsletter.

Here’s an introductory video (2 minutes) which explains how to read a newsletter, and what you can do with it.

Here’s how to do research on covers, titles and blurbs. 

A Data Visualization of Romance Trends in 2020

How To Start Researching A Genre

SPA Girls Links:

✔️ Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter with tips and resources for self-publishing authors http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/join/

✔️ You’ll find all the show notes and SPA Girls podcast episodes at: http://selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/

✔️ Watch episode recordings on YouTube @ http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast

✔️ Join us on Facebook and Twitter @SPAGirlsPodcast