OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna PennLet's face it, it's easy enough these days to publish an ebook or a print book and distribute it on Amazon and other online bookstores.

So the next frontier in indie publishing has got to be audio, followed by translation/foreign rights.

In today's show, I interview Veronica Giguere, voice talent and my narrator for Pentecost and the other ARKANE books coming soon. You can listen to the show above or on the podcast feed, or you can watch the video on YouTube.

In the intro, I talk about where my various creative projects are right now as well as the exciting reports coming out of the US about the ‘sea change in publishing‘ attitudes. Plus, Prophecy, ARKANE Book 2 is now available on Audible here.

Veronica Giguere is an award winning voice artist as well as an author of science fiction and fantasy. She narrates professional audiobooks as well as podcast stories and has recently narrated my own ARKANE books, Pentecost and Prophecy, available on Audible and iTunes.

* How Veronica started narrating professionally in 2007, and also started writing more seriously in 2009. As a gamer, involved in role play, she found her group were more interested in writing and dialoging stories rather than ‘playing'. This has turned into the Secret World Chronicle series. When the stories weren't turned into audio fast enough, Veronica started narrating them herself. We talk about gaming actually benefits people – if you're not convinced, check out this TED talk by Jane McGonigal.

* Veronica used to be very self-conscious and did theatre, pretending to be other people and often type-cast. She did listen to a lot of radio plays. Now the different voices are more about playing. Veronica talks about how she learns accents by listening and asking people where they are from. The town and suburb, not just the country. She also watches people speak and figuring out where the sound comes from in the mouth. She also watches cartoons and listens to the range of voice actors. With series characters, she does keep a little snippet of sound file so she can refresh the sound memory.

* If you want to do it yourself,you need to keep a few things in mind. Your sound going in is the most important thing. That's your voice, the room and the mic etc. The basic pro setup isn't very cheap and then you have to remember the time aspect. For every hour of finished audio, it is 3-4 hours of work in terms of prepping, recording, listening again, corrections, mastering and publishing. Not a lot of authors want to go through the book AGAIN after all the writing and editing.

* You can sell audiobooks at Audible so the quality has to be very high.

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna PennThere are some people who challenge us with the way they look at creativity, and Dan Holloway certainly challenges me through his championship of experimental literature, performance poetry and eschewing commercialism for creative expression.

Dan Holloway is a poet and author of fiction, as well as running 79 rat press which publishes conceptual work, He performs his poetry and hosts The New Libertines, a spoken word show.

The audio quality is a little fuzzy in this interview as Dan lives out in the sticks, but it's still a brilliant discussion, so give it a go!

In today's interview we discuss:

* How conceptual art started Dan down the path of investigating creativity. He started with poetry and then moved into writing literary fiction. How we see ourselves and our identity is a recurring theme. He used the internet to write a book interactively and now focuses on alternative forms, as well as poetry and performance. We discuss the contrast of commercialism vs playing with creativity without worrying about the outcome of the creative process.

* We discuss Evie & Guy, which is a book written entirely in numbers, a list of acts of self-pleasure a couple have over their relationship. Dan talks about how this leaves the interpretation of the relationship to the reader and removes the author from the text, as an alternative way to write. You can download Evie & Guy for free here.

Experimental fiction is not meant to be difficult, just to look at things in a different way.

* We talk about the reasons why we write, and I talk about permission to write, people's expectations and how that shapes our expression, as well as self-censorship and why sometimes, that is a good thing.

* Why self-publishing is fostering much more in terms of creative expression, because publishers generally want books that will be commercial, so they can't take a chance on the more alternative books. Dan also thinks small presses are fostering exciting literature, as self-publishing becomes increasingly commercial. It shouldn't be about just how many books you sell, it's about the creativity.

* Dan mentions a few places you can find experimental and alt-lit on Tumblr. How we construct ourselves in a digital age. Check out Alt-lit library, and also zine-fairs, which are not even online. Sabotage – reviews of the ephemeral. 3am magazine.

* Performance poetry. How Dan got started by performing short stories but then discovered performance poetry and really engaging audiences. You can read his great guest post all about his top tips for performance here.

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna PennYour book can be so much more than just a book!

The publishing industry has been ‘exploiting' (their word!) the rights of authors for many years, but as indies we can now start to exploit our own and make the most of our intellectual property. In today's interview, Orna Ross explains the different rights related to your work.

In the intro, I mention the launch of my new book, How To Market a Book.

Orna Ross is the bestselling author of literary fiction, as well as writing non-fiction books on creativity and author guides to the industry. Orna is also the Director and Founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors.

* Why Orna knows so much about this stuff! She has worked on every side of publishing for nearly 20 years. She started as a journalist and then moved into book publishing with a small press non-fiction book. She had fiction traditionally published and then opened a writing school, which then led to represent authors as a literary agent. Then she started to self-publish and champion indie authors.

On copyright and piracy

* Copyright belongs to the writer and is granted as a protection for writers. It remains with the producer of the work and it is in the expression, not the idea. You can't copyright an idea or a book title. What we license is the right to get some money for this work for a particular term (how long), and for a particular amount of return (how much). Copyright is yours on creation of the work, and you don't need to register the work or mail your manuscript to yourself. It is a passive right and the power lies in the fact it exists. It's unlikely you will take people to court over piracy, and in fact, we talk about authors like Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow and Paulo Coelho who have used piracy as a marketing mechanism, as well as Tim Ferriss launching on BitTorrent. Piracy is not the issue, obscurity is.

On exploiting rights yourself as the author

* In traditional publishing, it is the publisher's job to get as many rights as possible, but they don't always exploit them. It's the agent's job to sell as many rights, and get them exploited, as this brings in more income for the author. Limiting the terms is also critical so you can get your rights back eventually. But now, in a fast-changing world, indie authors can sell rights themselves. The book is just a starting point.

* Both Orna and I favour a hybrid model, where an author sells rights if appropriate and weighs up each decision per book. It's always important to put a time limit on it though. The reversion clause is critical with trade deals. Make sure you have your exit worked out, so that if it doesn't go so well, you can self-publish later. Many authors currently doing really well have a backlist of books they have the rights back to.

Short Story Rights

* Short stories are magical. Serial rights can go to the publication e.g.

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna PennPublishing is changing all the time, but so is marketing.

And just as Amazon changes their algorithms, so Google changes theirs. Discoverability is a function of many things, and in today's interview, I discuss these aspects with Penny Sansevieri, from Author Marketing Experts.

Penny Sansevieri is the author of 10 books, a professional speaker and book publicist at Author Marketing Experts. She has just rewritten and re-released Red Hot Internet Publicity – an insider's guide to promoting your book on the internet.

You can listen to the interview above or on the podcast feed on iTunes. You can also watch the video on YouTube here.

In the interview, we discuss:

* How Penny got started 13 years ago helping self-published authors with marketing. Back then, self-publishing wasn't the trendy thing and now it's the new black. Everyone is interested. The internet and ebooks have dramatically changed the way authors can reach readers. The good news is that everyone can publish a book. The bad news is – everyone can publish a book.

What has changed in marketing in the last few years?

* Penny has just rewritten and rereleased Red Hot Internet Publicity and we talk about what has changed in the last 6 years.  Social media is not a fad. It has become part of our culture and is a new way of discoverability and is now mainstream way of connecting, as well as marketing. We mention Second Life, which was a fad a few years ago. But what hasn't changed is the connection with the consumer. “Normal” people are now on social media, your customers, your readers and it's more of a channel that's in the fabric of your life.

* We discuss the changes in content marketing, Google Search with Panda and Penguin and Search Engine Optimization. How Google's algorithms are now more like a person and can't be tricked with keyword stuffing and ‘back hat' SEO techniques. You can't buy SEO ranking anymore, you have to earn it with great content and becoming an authority.

Content Marketing

* This is certainly important for non-fiction authors who can use content marketing to get traffic and potentially sales. It does require consistent work over time to produce quality content and earn attention. Yes, it's hard work! [But personally, this approach has changed my life!]

* Content doesn't just have to be text articles you write. It can be interviews with experts, a curated list of discussions on a topic, a report from an event, a video on YouTube. Create content that your target market are interested in. Consistency is critical. Video and multimedia is essential to stand-out and make sure they are shareable. Penny talks about Klout, a scoring system for influence.

* If you're feeling overwhelmed, master one thing at a time.

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna PennBack in 2007, I read ‘From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur‘ by Stephanie Chandler and it helped me decide to focus on building a business online. Today I am thrilled to bring you an interview with Stephanie which I was so excited about since her book really did help change my life!

This is podcast episode #157 and you can listen to the audio on blog post or check out the podcast on iTunes.

In the intro I mention Bristol Crimefest as well as my new release, Pentecost, an ARKANE Thriller now available on Audible.com.

Stephanie Chandler is an author, professional speaker and publisher, named as one of the Top 100 small business influencers in 2012. As well as being the author of 5 non-fiction books, Stephanie also helps people write, publish and market their books at Authority Publishing. Her latest book is ‘ The Non-Fiction Book Marketing Plan‘, out this month, June 2013 and she also has the Non Fiction Author's Association which has just launched.

* Stephanie escaped corporate America 10 years ago and opened a bookstore, but discovered that she didn't want to have a physical business pretty quickly. In the process of doing that she learned about online marketing, websites and how to sell online which was a game-changer for the business. She wrote her first non-fiction book and started being asked to speak, and started to blog before it was ‘cool' and in 2007 she moved into full-time author-entrepreneur-speaker-publisher. This is very similar to my own journey from corporate business consultant into a physical business with scuba dive charters and then eventually into writing/speaking.

* How neither Stephanie or I have a degree in marketing but we have both learned along the way. It's about learning from other people and modelled what works, as well as wanting to be successful and playing with what's fun. But it is also about doing the work and putting in the time. Many people don't want to do this.

* You can still stand out in this crowded market as most people still don't know what they're doing. A good blog and social media directed at your target market, help your audience and produce great content. Certainly this works for non-fiction niches, as people are looking for information. For fiction, you have to look at the themes that run through your work and also you as the author and create interesting content based on that to draw people in.

* Mistakes people make: they get frustrated way too quickly and give up too soon. Blogging for example is a long-term commitment to consist...

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna […]

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna […]

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna […]

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna […]

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna […]