The Complete Creative

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

How to find your right mindset

How to achieve focused execution

Why it’s important to let your audience into your business

Why asking for feedback is so important

How to feel good about selling

Listen:

Itunes

Stitcher

Podbean

Tara Massan and I have been friends for a couple years now. She is one of the first people ever to take me up on my free coaching calls, and a 30-minute call ended up lasting 2 hours as we gabbed forever. Recently, I checked out her site and was thrilled to see not only did she listen to my advice but she IMPLEMENTED it! Her site is awesome now. When I met her it was all sorts of lame and now it’s amazing! Check it out at: www.foreverbemoved.com.

Here’s her bio:

Tara Massan is a life coach and a writer who has been featured in The Huffington Post, Elite Daily, Tiny Buddha and The Wall Street Journal.  She is the founder of Be Moved - a lifestyle company dedicated to helping others live their best life.  Her primary focus is to help others create a healthier and happier life on their own terms.  

If you like this episode, head over to Twitter and find Tara @taramassan

If like free things, you can get the first chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build your Creative Career for free at www.gosellyoursoul.com.

Don’t forget to join our Facebook group at www.writingandsellingcommunity.com

If you are feeling generous, leave us a review on iTunes at www.thebusinessofart.us/iTunes

Thanks so much. Until next time.

 

Recommended Episodes:

Jasmine Sandler

Dave Lukas

Angela Lauria

James Haick

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

Why publishers are still important to the book process

How Inkshares works

What a hybrid publisher can do for you

How to get excited for sales

Why writing is like dating

Listen:

Itunes

Stitcher

Podbean

 

Matt Harry and I have been friends since almost the time I moved to Los Angeles. He wrote movies and I wanted to write TV. I watched his career as a writer turn into a career as a professor, and he watched me struggle to make a living as an author.

Then one day I got a message from him that he wanted to publish a book, and I won’t lie I squealed a little. Finally, after years, I could help Matt with something. We sat down and chatted. A few months later he had a publishing deal with Inkshares, which is an alternative to Kickstarter for books.

I wanted to have him on to talk about his experience, publishing, and just shoot the shit. I don’t get to talk with Matt enough, and it was good to catch up. Here’s his bio, straight from Matt.

Matt Harry has been writing since he was 10 years old. He spent his early years writing newspaper articles for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, one-act plays, and some very serious short stories before finally discovering filmmaking at Ohio University. He graduated cum laude and was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in Television Production. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he attended the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and received an MFA in Film Production. Since graduating from USC, Matt has worked as a reality TV writer, editor, director, and feature film producer. Projects include The Bachelor, Design on a Dime, Seriously Funny Kids, Rock the Reception, and Red Serpent.

As a writer, Matt’s screenplays have been recognized by the Austin Film Festival, the FOX/NYTVF Comedy Script Contest, the PAGE Awards, Script Pipeline, the Launchpad Manuscript Contest, and the Nicholl Fellowships. In 2006, Matt was awarded a screenwriting fellowship by the Writer’s Arc, a non-profit organization that searches for emerging talent. His first produced feature screenplay, Fugue, landed on several top-ten lists, won Best Horror Film at the Mississippi Film Festival, and was picked up for distribution by GoDigital. Matt has written also screenplays for the Flynn Picture Co., Primary Wave, Fishbowl Films, Co-op Entertainment, and director Todd Bellanca. His short film Super Kids, which he wrote and co-directed, has over 3.2 million views on YouTube. Recently, his animated TV pilot Monster Cops was awarded Grand Prize in the Second City Original Sitcom Contest, and is currently in development.

His debut novel Sorcery for Beginners has been described as “J.K. Rowling meets V.E. Schwab,” “an immersive and interactive adventure,” “amazing,” and “innovative in its telling.” It’s available for purchase on October 10 from Inkshares and wherever books are sold. The link to the Amazon page is here: https://tinyurl.com/y9apvs7y

If you like this episode, head over to Twitter and find Matt @mattharrymh.

If you like free things, you can get the first chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build your Creative Career on Bookfunnel now at www.gosellyoursoul.com

Don’t forget to join our Facebook group at www.writingandsellingcommunity.com

If you are feeling generous, leave us a review on iTunes at www.thebusinessofart.us/iTunes

Thanks so much. Until next time.

 

Recommended Episodes:

Pat Shand

Tim Powers

Colleen Dunn Bates

Amanda Meadows and Geoffrey Golden

Desireé Duffy is a force to be reckoned with in the publishing world. Aside from being an author herself, she has 20+ years of experience as a publicist. I know most of us have no experience with publicity and PR, so I wanted to bring her on to clear up some of the most common misconceptions about building relationships with the press. Here’s her bio for you. You can find out more at www.blackchateauenterprises.com. 

As the founder of Black Château Enterprises, Desireé Duffy has created a new way of promoting books and authors. Known as the Author Network, it offers the main components that independent and small press authors need—media interviews, articles about their books, book reviews, and social media buzz.

Focused on helping authors and creative individuals elevate their work, Black Château’s goal is simple: to give talented individuals and exceptional brands the exposure they deserve with flexible, creative strategies that deliver results.

Duffy is the chair for the Alliance of Women in Media’s Advisory Board and also writes for Equites.com as a contributor on marketing, digital media, technology and entrepreneurship. She lives in Southern California with her husband and two puggles—Spike and Teddy Bear.

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

How to compete in an overcrowded holiday season

How to make SEO, SEM, and Google Adwords work for you

How to package your product like a best seller

How to drive traffic to your website

How to put together a press kit

Why buying a press list doesn’t work

And much more.

If you like this episode, head over to www.blackchateauenterprises.com to learn more. She's also on Twitter @Desiree_Duffy.

If you like free things, you can get the first chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build your Creative Career on Bookfunnel now at www.gosellyoursoul.com

Don’t forget to join our Facebook group at www.writingandsellingcommunity.com

If you are feeling generous, leave us a review on iTunes at www.thebusinessofart.us/iTunes

Thanks so much. Until next time.

 

Recommended episodes:

Eva Hartmann

Monica Leonelle

Cory Huff

Jeff Goins

Eva Hartmann (aka Jewel Quinlan) is a fiction editor and author with 15 romance books to her name. Romance authors are the most ruthless marketers in the game, and I wanted to have her on to talk about developing the proper mindset, building her brand, and developing her marketing chops.

I saw Eva speak at a LARA (Los Angeles Romance Authors) event a couple weeks ago, and she nailed it, talking about the advantage of using Instafreebie, Mailchimp, and Facebook ads together. She has two courses coming out next month through www.yourfictioneditor.com, but I couldn’t find a bio on that site, so here is one I found from her romance author site www.jewelquinlan.com:

Jewel Quinlan had an abundant imagination and strong desire to write novels since she was very young. She has a passion for writing paranormal and fantasy romance but often finds herself straying into new areas like contemporary and suspense because her imagination just won’t let up.

An avid traveler, she has visited fifteen countries so far (which she enjoys using as setting in her novels) and has plans to see more of the world. She has a particular fondness for Bavaria and studies the German language as one of her hobbies.

During the day, she work as a pharmaceutical sales representative and, at night, she writes romance. She currently lives in Orange County, California with her dog Penny. Jewel is kept in shape by Penny’s frequent demands for walks and squeak toy time.

 

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

How to get your CPC down for Facebook ads

How to set goals and achieve them

How to get your mindset right for success

How to avoid overwhelm

How to use Mailchimp, Instafreebie, and Facebook ads together seamlessly

Why you should always celebrate your accomplishments

And much more.

If you like this episode, head over to www.yourfictioneditor.com or www.jewelquinlan.com to check how her work

If you like free things, you can get the first chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build your Creative Career on Bookfunnel now at www.gosellyoursoul.com

Don’t forget to join our Facebook group at www.writingandsellingcommunity.com

If you are feeling generous, leave us a review on iTunes at www.thebusinessofart.us/itunes

Thanks so much. Until next time.

Resources:

Amy Porterfield

Rick Mulready

Los Angeles Romance Authors (LARA)

Episode suggestions:

Monica Leonelle

AG Billig

Colleen Dunn Bates

Alex Echols

Jasmine Sandler

Andreea (A.G.) Billig is the founder of www.selfpublishingmastery.com, an author, and motivational speaker. I am part of her upcoming Self Publishing Mastery virtual summit and wanted to have her on the show to talk about it, her career, and how authors can master self-publishing.

Here is her writing bio, straight from www.agbillig.com.

She began writing short stories at the age of 8. Imagining plots and characters became her favorite pastime, leaving little time for playing with toys and dolls. Soon after, she started taking part in national literary contests and children magazines featured her creations. The grown-ups acknowledged her gifts, speaking on radio, TV and in print about the 13-year-old writer. They also awarded her with several first prizes in the most important national writing contest for young people in short story, reportage and drama categories.

At fifteen, A.G. finished her first novel, a book she may decide to publish someday. She also discovered  that she could express her creativity as a journalist. She wrote articles and interviews for several newspapers and magazines, she was a TV host and a radio presenter. In addition, after gradutaing from University, she developed a career in communication, as a PR Consultant.

G. Billig’s first collection of short stories is called Four Doors and Other Stories. It’s been launched as en eBook in November 2012 by  MP Publishing (U.K.). A  revised Romanian version was released in paperback and digital by Datagrouppublishing house in June 2013. She chose to self – publish her first non-fiction book. “I Choose Love!” was realeased on the 20th of March, 2016,  and became a best seller on Amazon in four different categories.

As the daughter of a French father and an Eastern European mother, A.G. is a natural born traveler.  Her trips took her across Europe, to the Americas. It was during a spiritual journey to Brazil to the magical land of Abadiania, at the end of 2010, that she found out that writing is her life purpose.

When she is not imagining things, she enjoys dancing, doing sports (skiing, skating and kick box aerobics), taking long walks, reading, listening to the music and being outdoors. She shares her flat with the lovely Oona The Yorkie.

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

What authors can do to get more visibility on their work

How to find your ideal readers

Why it’s important to know your readers

How librarians can be your best friend

Why word of mouth is the best marketing

Why crafting a 360-degree experience for your readers is important

If you liked this episode, make sure to check out A.G. Billig on Instagram @ag_billig. Also, make sure to check out her site at www.selfpublishingmastery.com.

If you want a free chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build a Creative Career, just click here.

If you haven’t joined our Facebook group to help you make more money selling books, click here.

And don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes if you liked this episode at www.thebusinessofart.us/itunes.

Suggested listening: 

Sheri Fink

Maytal Gilboa

Sebastian Jones

Angela Lauria

Monica Leonelle is a force of nature. I heard about her before I ever booked her on the show, and then I kept hearing about her well after I booked her. She’s an author and speaker. She writes fiction and non-fiction books but is probably best known for her Growth Hacking for Storytellers series, one that I was told to buy over and over again in the past couple of months.

Here’s a bio, straight from her site, www.proseonfire.com:

Monica Leonelle was born in Germany and spent her childhood jet-setting around the world with her American parents. Her travels include most of the United States and Europe, as well as Guam, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines.

She started publishing independently in 2009 and has since published over half a million words of fiction spread across four series, Socialpunk, Waters Dark and Deep, Emma + Elsie, and Stars and Shadows. In 2014, she published 8 books and one short story.

She writes about indie publishing at ProseOnFire.com. Her most recent non-fiction book, Write Better, Faster, has earned raving reviews from the independent publishing community for going deeper than anyone else into the topic of writing speed. She currently averages around 3,000 words per hour and writes 25,000+ words per week (most weeks).

Before becoming an independent author, Monica led digital marketing efforts at Inc. 100 companies like Hansen’s Natural and Braintree.

Monica is a lifetime member of Sigma Pi Sigma honor fraternity and was a 2007 Chicago Business Fellow, graduating with an MBA from the Chicago Booth School of Business at 25 years old. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a minor in Physics from Truman State University.

She’s been an avid blogger of marketing and business trends since 2007. Her ideas have been featured in AdAge, The Huffington Post, the AMEX OpenForum, GigaOm, Mashable, Social Media Today, and the Christian Science Monitor. In 2009, she was named one of the top 25 Tweeters in the city of Chicago by ChicagoNow, a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune.

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

How to get in alignment with your audience

How to win the CPC game

How to protect yourself from rising ad costs

How to build a value ladder

Why writing is marketing

And so much more.

If you liked this episode, please check out Monica’s new site www.theworldneedsyourbook.com. I’m so excited for the next chapter in Monica’s journey. You can also find her on all the usual platforms @monicaleonelle.

If you like this show, please rate, review, and subscribe to it on iTunes by clicking here.

And if you want to learn all about making more money as an artist, you can get the first chapter of my new book for free at www.gosellyoursoul.com.

Other episodes you will like if you like this:

Angela Lauria

Jasmine Sandler

Alex Echols

Dave Lukas

Jeff Goins

Cory Huff

BEN BISHOP is a comic creator from Maine. We’ve been friends online for a while but met for the first time in person at Emerald City Comic Con, where we did a signing together at this shop in Seattle.

I brought him on the show because his Kickstarter for Drawing Blood, with is written by David Avallone and Kevin Eastman (yes, that one) is blowing up Kickstarter as we speak (www.drawingbloodcomic.com) and I wanted to talk with him about that, his book The Aggregate, and how he’s made a living making comics. Here is his bio, straight from www.bishart.net.

Ben has wanted to make comics since he was four years old and wrote to Marvel, at age eleven, asking for a job. Finding out it was not only illegal to hire an eleven-year-old, but that his skills weren’t QUITE there yet, Ben went back to the drawing board and to Mr. Morley’s 5th-grade classroom.

Ben later moved to Portland, Maine, to attend the Maine College of Art. After one great year and some loans that didn't go through, he was forced to leave. Ben then realized that if he really wanted to MAKE COMICS, maybe he should just MAKE COMICS.

For the next four years, Ben worked at coffee shops and lobster shacks while writing and drawing his first graphic novel. In 2008 he released the 300 page, NATHAN THE CAVEMAN, which was soon followed by several other smaller works.

In 2011, Ben illustrated the award-winning LOST TRAIL, NINE DAYS ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS, the graphic novel retelling of Donn Fendler’s famous true story “LOST ON A MOUNTAIN IN MAINE.” LOST TRAIL led to illustration work for larger companies like Archaia, IDW, Darby Pop, Action Lab, Nickelodeon, and Hasbro. Ben also jumped at the opportunity to create comic cover art for some of his favorite characters like Batman, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, and G.I.Joe.

After 7 straight years of commissions, work for hire, and freelance work, Ben was determined to get back to creating stories of his own. In 2015, he put together a KICKSTARTER campaign for his next big project, THE AGGREGATE. The book would be the first of a new kind of comic he’s calling, SPLIT DECISION COMICS. In this innovative new format, the reader makes decisions for the characters and ultimately dictates the direction of the narrative. With a goal of $10,000 which was hit in the first 24 hours, THE AGGREGATE book went on to raise 3 times that thanks to the demand and excitement of his friends, family, and fans.

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

How to augment your Kickstarter to make sure you don’t run out of money.

How to start a fan club.

Why you don’t need a publisher.

How to go it alone and make comics even when every publisher tells you no.

How to finish projects

And much more.

If you liked this episode, make sure to check out Ben on Twitter and Instagram @bishart. Also, make sure to order his new comic on Kickstarter at www.drawingbloodcomic.com.

If you want a free chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build a Creative Career, just click here.

If you haven’t joined our Facebook group to help you make more money selling books, click here.

And don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes if you liked this episode.

Cory Huff is a marketing expert that specifically works with burgeoning artists and creative entrepreneurs through his association The Abundant Artist. I wanted to have him on the show to talk specifically about how to approach art from a mindset and marketing perspective.

I have found in my career that mindset trumps everything, and it’s the thing that artists have the hardest time overcoming. If they can overcome their mindset issues and become comfortable with money, then they can create a thriving company and dispel the idea of the starving artist.

Cory is great at that. Here a bio, straight from his site www.coryhuff.com:

In 2009 I started The Abundant Artist (TAA for short) as a way of teaching internet marketing to my artist friends who were asking me for help. Since then, I’ve helped dozens of artists go from never sold anything to now selling pieces monthly or weekly. Some of my artist friends and clients have gone on to sell their work for $20,000 or more.

I teach artists to dispel the starving artist myth by using the Web to sell art directly to your fans. If you want to get into a gallery or museum, the marketing skills I teach can help you do that. Building your own business online can be complementary to a gallery business for the right artists and galleries.

 Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

-What is holding artists up from having a successful career.

-How Picasso became successful during his life while Van Gogh struggled

-How to get out of your own way and achieve success

-What you can do to prove yourself wrong every day

-How to have a better relationship with money

And much more.

If you liked this episode, make sure to check out Cory on Twitter @agoodhusband. Also, make sure to visit all his projects at www.coryhuff.com.

If you want a free chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build a Creative Career, just click here.

If you haven’t joined our Facebook group to help you make more money selling books, click here.

And don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes if you liked this episode.

Vito Delsante is a workhorse creator. He’s somebody I’ve known about for a while, but only known a short time, but people were always talking about him. We had Sean Izaakse on the show last year, for instance (listen to the show by clicking here), to talk about Thunderbolts and Stray, and Vito is the writer of that book. There’ve been a lot of that moments for me over the years, and I’m excited to have him on the show to talk about his career.

Here’s his bio, straight from his wiki page:

Delsante worked for the Canadian comics company Speakeasy Comics in a public relations capacity prior to their closing doors in the Spring of 2006 and was seen by some as the only public face in the company's final days. He was also a creator at Speakeasy, with part one of the six part series Fallout with Dean Haspiel printed as a back-up to Beowulf #7 before the series was canceled as a result of the publisher's closing. With the closing of the publisher, the future for Fallout is uncertain.

His first major creator-owned title, The Mercury Chronicles with artist Mike Lilly, was rumored for publication in 2007.

In March 2006, Delsante began a weekly column called Random Shuffle on Comicon.com's comics news website The Pulse. He is a store manager at one of New York's largest comic book retailers, Jim Hanley's Universe.

In August 2006 The Chemistry Set, a webcomics collective of which Delsante is a member, launched. He produces the comic Stuck with Thomas Williams and is currently writing FCHS, a "semi-autobiographical look" at his high school days, with artist Rachel Freire.[1]

In 2007, Delsante was slated to write a three-issue JSA Classified arc with artist Eric Wight.[2] He has written a graphic novel for Simon & Schuster based on the childhood of Albert Einstein. The book, Before They Were Famous, was due out in July 2008.[3] It never was published, but in February 2009, Aladdin published Delsante's biography of Babe Ruth, illustrated by Andrés Vera Martínez, part of the same Before They Were Famous series.

This to this episode if you want to learn:

-how music influences Vito’s process

-the value of deep work

-why you should focus on people who like your work

-how to tune out the naysayers

-how to make a superhero that feels mainstream but still sells to an indie market

And much more.

If you liked this episode, make sure to check out Vito on Twitter @incogvito. Also, make sure to order his new Stray series as it enters the Action Lab Actionverse.

If you want a free chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build a Creative Career, which is sort of the companion book to this one, just click here.

If you haven’t joined our Facebook group to help you make more money selling books, click here.

And don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes if you liked this episode.

My guest this week is Ben Templesmith. He is a comic book writer and artist most recognized as the artist on the 30 Days of Night comic which was adapted into a motion picture with the same name. Here is his bio, straight from his Wikipedia page.

Templesmith produced his first commercial American comics work in 2002, providing the art for Todd McFarlane Productions' Hellspawn, which was published by Image Comics. He has gone on to create his own original works as well as contribute to many licensed properties at various publishers, most notably IDW Publishing, with which he had an exclusive agreement through most of 2008 and part of 2009 before returning to being a freelancer.

Other licensed properties that Templesmith has worked on include illustrating "Dark Journey", a story in issue #17 of the Dark Horse Comics anthology series Star Wars Talesin 2003, and the covers to Devil's Due Publishing's Army of Darkness: Ashes to Ashes #1 in 2004 and IDW's G.I. Joe #0 in 2008.

Original works Templesmith has produced include the miniseries Welcome to Hoxford, the New York Times best-selling Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse [3] Tommyrot: The Art of Ben Templesmith, Conluvio and Choker at Image Comics with writer Ben McCool. He also provided a number of covers for the Oni Press series Wasteland.

In April 2012 DC Entertainment announced that Templesmith will be one of the artists illustrating a new digital Batman series whose stories will be set outside of the regular DC continuity.[4]

Starting in November 2014, Templesmith launched Gotham by Midnight from DC Comics with writer Ray Fawkes

Listen to this episode if you want to learn:

-Ben’s method of utilizing Patreon, Kickstarter, and the direct market to create a profitable business model for his art

-The trick to having a successful Patreon

-What to watch out for in a publishing contract

-Why he keeps coming back to comics even though other forms of art pay better

And much more.

If you liked this episode, go thank Ben online. He’s @templesmith almost everywhere, including Twitter and Instagram.

Don’t forget to join our Facebook group @ www.writingandsellingcommunity.com

Also, please rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes by clicking here.

Finally, go pick up the first chapter of my new book Sell Your Soul: How to Build Your Creative Career, by clicking here.

Thanks!

Russell