SPA Girls Podcast

We’re delighted to welcome Kevin Tumlinson, bestselling thriller author, and Director of Marketing for Draft2Digital into the SPA today! Kevin talks us through using Draft2Digital to format and publish your books on line, the best practices for keywords and a host of other tips for indie authors.  For many of us living outside the US, Draft2Digital is the way to access online retailers who don’t allow us to upload directly, and all the SPA Girls are D2D fans.  As a company D2D are continually innovating and bringing out new tools for authors (listen out for Cher’s suggestion mid-podcast!).

This episode we are thrilled to talk with USA Today bestseller, Sara Rosett, about the wonderful, (sometimes) wacky and hugely popular sub-genre of Cozy Mysteries. Cozies have a rabid audience, but writers need to be sure that they’re meeting reader expectations and delivering a great puzzle, compelling characters and intriguing setting.

Sara has not only been writing a number of successful cozy-mystery series since 2006, but she also teaches an online How To Outline A Cozy Mystery course -  so she’s the perfect person to talk through crafting cozies.

This episode we are thrilled to talk with USA Today bestseller, Sara Rosett, about the wonderful, (sometimes) wacky and hugely popular sub-genre of Cozy Mysteries. Cozies have a rabid audience, but writers need to be sure that they’re meeting reader expectations and delivering a great puzzle, compelling characters and intriguing setting.

Sara has not only been writing a number of successful cozy-mystery series since 2006, but she also teaches an online How To Outline A Cozy Mystery course -  so she’s the perfect person to talk through crafting cozies.

How do you wrangle your research as a writer? Is keeping track of all your characters, setting details and story events driving you to reach for the chocolate (or vino)?  In this episode we share our processes and tips for getting organized, and tools for staying on top of those myriad of details you need to remember. Side note: this is your free pass to hit the stationery store people, so bring on the colored flags, groovy folders and sparkly stickers.

How do you wrangle your research as a writer? Is keeping track of all your characters, setting details and story events driving you to reach for the chocolate (or vino)?  In this episode we share our processes and tips for getting organized, and tools for staying on top of those myriad of details you need to remember. Side note: this is your free pass to hit the stationery store people, so bring on the colored flags, groovy folders and sparkly stickers.

This week we talk to Ricardo Fayet, one of the founders of Reedsy, a curated site for matching authors and publishers to industry professionals like editors, designers, marketing professionals, or website designers.

He explains to us how the site works, what kind of services indie authors can find on Reedsy, and how to find the best person to work with you. Reedsy is highly curated - they only accept around 3% of the industry professionals who apply to be listed - so they're confident in the quality of the service providers on their site. And that's nice to know when you're planning to spend your hard-earned money on getting your baby (ie your book) published. :)

It's a fascinating interview - as well as demystifying Reedsy for us, Ricardo also gives some tips for authors that he's picked up from the many indie conferences he's attended, and talks about some of the changes he's seen since Reedsy first started in 2014.

This week we talk to Ricardo Fayet, one of the founders of Reedsy, a curated site for matching authors and publishers to industry professionals like editors, designers, marketing professionals, or website designers.

He explains to us how the site works, what kind of services indie authors can find on Reedsy, and how to find the best person to work with you. Reedsy is highly curated - they only accept around 3% of the industry professionals who apply to be listed - so they're confident in the quality of the service providers on their site. And that's nice to know when you're planning to spend your hard-earned money on getting your baby (ie your book) published. :)

It's a fascinating interview - as well as demystifying Reedsy for us, Ricardo also gives some tips for authors that he's picked up from the many indie conferences he's attended, and talks about some of the changes he's seen since Reedsy first started in 2014.

The sting of even well-meant criticism can leave us reeling and it's very hard not to take it personally. This week we discuss how to cope with criticism - from all sides: friends, other writers, readers and editors - and then figure out what to discard, and how to use the Good Stuff to improve our writing success.

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” ~ Neil Gaiman

Just like learning to write well, learning to take criticism well is a journey. Join us for some brutally honest insights into how the SPA Girls cope!

The sting of even well-meant criticism can leave us reeling and it's very hard not to take it personally. This week we discuss how to cope with criticism - from all sides: friends, other writers, readers and editors - and then figure out what to discard, and how to use the Good Stuff to improve our writing success.

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” ~ Neil Gaiman

Just like learning to write well, learning to take criticism well is a journey. Join us for some brutally honest insights into how the SPA Girls cope!

This week we're talking about Author Branding, using the example of four different indie authors who we think are doing a fabulous job of branding themselves and their series.

From Penny Reid's romantic comedy tag line (Smart Romance) and aptly named Facebook group (Sharks of Awesome) to Michael Anderle's extensive author's notes and Melissa Storm's personal connections in her newsletters, we give a range of ideas and tips that are being used by these authors that you can use to improve your branding and find the right readers for your books.

We even managed to give you a list of five simple action points that you can do right now to amp up your Author Branding and sell more books. (Phew. We worked hard on that. So you should totally listen and use those tips, because they're gold.)