Write Hot Podcast

Steve has over twenty years'€™ experience as a Television Executive having championed The X-Files, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Simpsons and Battlestar Galactica. He blogs on All Things Entertainment via www.SurfingHollywood.com. We discussed trends in television and tips for getting your writing career going in the television industry. You can connect with and follow Steve on twitter @SteveLaRue2. You can connect at www.laurapowers.net. You can also find her on facebook via Write Hot and follow her on twitter @thatlaurapowers. Today's podcast is brought to you by audible.com - get a FREE audiobook download and 30 day free trial atwww.audibletrial.com/writehot. Over 180,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.

Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers under J.F.Penn. She also writes inspirational non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning creative entrepreneur and international professional speaker. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com is regularly voted one of the top 10 sites for writers and self-publishers. Joanna has successfully grown her business from a side hustle to making over 100k a year writing full time so we talked about her process. We spoke about planning and making goal in Olympic year cycles (every 4 years) and talked about tips on how to grow your writing business and stay inspired. To connect with Joanna Penn and find out information on her podcast, you can go to www.thecreativepenn.com. You can connect at www.laurapowers.net. You can also find her on facebook via Write Hot and follow her on twitter @thatlaurapowers.

Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers under J.F.Penn. She also writes inspirational non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning creative entrepreneur and international professional speaker. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com is regularly voted one of the top 10 sites for writers and self-publishers. Joanna has successfully grown her business from a side hustle to making over 100k a year writing full time so we talked about her process. We spoke about planning and making goal in Olympic year cycles (every 4 years) and talked about tips on how to grow your writing business and stay inspired. To connect with Joanna Penn and find out information on her podcast, you can go to www.thecreativepenn.com. You can connect at www.laurapowers.net. You can also find her on facebook via Write Hot and follow her on twitter @thatlaurapowers.

In this podcast, Laura speaks with freelance writer Kate Kordsmeier on how to be a successful freelancer. She is an Atlanta-based freelance food and travel writer and recipe developer for more than 100 publications, including USA Today, EatingWell, Travel + Leisure, Cooking Light, The Washington Post, Clean Eating, Conde Nast Traveler, FITNESS, Delta Sky, Women’s Health, American Way, Shape, Wine Enthusiast, Vegetarian Times, The Travel Channel, SELF, Rachael Ray Every Day, Real Simple, Esquire, Modern Luxury and DRAFT. She is also the Atlanta Editor for About.com, the author of the cookbook Atlanta Chef’s Table: Extraordinary Recipes from the Big Peach and the founder of Root + Revel, a food and wellness site devoted to natural living. television writer and producer You can connect with Kate www.katekordsmeier.com, www.rootandrevel.com or on twitter at @kpkords, @rootandrevel. You can connect at www.laurapowers.net. You can also find her on facebook via Write Hot and follow her on twitter @thatlaurapowers.

In this podcast, Laura speaks with television writer and producer Steven Long Mitchell. He was born and raised in New Orleans, by a family so dysfunctional it would have driven Tennessee Williams to drink even more, Steven is best known as the Emmy Award nominated Writer and Executive Producer of Tin Man, the highest rated miniseries in the history of the SyFy Channel and Co-Creator/Executive Producer of the hit cult classic TV show The Pretender and many others. He is currently developing two new - top secret televisions series that he will neither confirm or deny the existence of. Feel free to contact him through his website [email protected] and/or follow him on twitter @pretendersteve. For more information on Laura and her writing and podcasting, you can go to her website www.laurapowers.net. You can also find her on facebook via Write Hot and follow her on twitter @thatlaurapowers.

In this podcast, Laura speaks with television writer and producer Steven Long Mitchell. He was born and raised in New Orleans, by a family so dysfunctional it would have driven Tennessee Williams to drink even more, Steven is best known as the Emmy Award nominated Writer and Executive Producer of Tin Man, the highest rated miniseries in the history of the SyFy Channel and Co-Creator/Executive Producer of the hit cult classic TV show The Pretender and many others. He is currently developing two new - top secret televisions series that he will neither confirm or deny the existence of. Feel free to contact him through his website [email protected] and/or follow him on twitter @pretendersteve. For more information on Laura and her writing and podcasting, you can go to her website www.laurapowers.net. You can also find her on facebook via Write Hot and follow her on twitter @thatlaurapowers.

In this interview, Laura talks with Madeleine Holly-Rosing, writer and creator of the steampunk comic, Boston Metaphysical Society. The comic takes place in the late 1800s Boston. Though people may not think of them that way, comic books are sequential art. There are artists that are great at pinups and do posters but not have the skills to tell a story. Madeleine’s suggestions if you are interested in starting your own comic is to read indie comics. They key is to find the right artist. Art draws you in but the story makes you stay with comics. She suggests going to meetups and connecting others in the industry through friends. Go to comic cons, meet artist, post on comic Facebook groups connecting comic artists and creators. Once you connect with an artist, you should have a contract with a page rate $50 to 300 a page depending on experience. Madeleine met a colorist through a mutual friend and she uses Indonesia Color Labs. She raised the funds through a combination of self-funding and Kickstarter. You will also need an Inker for the cover and she opted not to internally. In terms of where to start, go with a premise first and then start with the characters that work within that premise to create the story with the characters. Build bios and spend a lot of time on them. Then do a page breakdown, take a scene and break it down into pages. 22 pages fits in standard comic length; Boston metaphysical is 132 page graphic novel broken into 6 comic books. A full screenplay, lends itself well into graphic novel. If you are new to comics and graphic novels, Madeleine suggests familiarizing yourself with people and creators, get to know comics out there and go to classes. She started doing reviews for fan-based press and this is a great way to get to know the medium. She noted that good lettering is really important. Bad lettering can really bring you down. Madeleine goes to 10-15 cons a year. She also suggested different cons to go to and how to make your con a successful experience. Interestingly, she pointed out that Kickstarter is one of the main publishers of independent comics. For more information on Boston Metaphysical Society, you can go to http://bostonmetaphysicalsociety.com/. You can also find updates on the podcast by following the Write Hot Podcast on Facebook and follow laura on twitter @thatlaurapowers. For more information on Laura, you can go to www.laurapowers.net to find out information on Laura’s psychic work, you can find her at www.healingpowers.net.

In this interview, Laura talks with Max Timm, Author and Director of Community Outreach with the International Screenwriters Association and author of the new book The Wishkeeper. Laura and Max met at the Nashville Writers Conference when Laura pitched her supernatural screenplay to him. Max also hosts a podcast for writers that is featured on the ISA podcast page called The Craft. ISA is a resource for creators on all sides with a screenwriter angles. It’s a website resource for all aspects of the screenwriting including podcasts, job listings, trainings, and more. We also discussed Laura’s other work as a psychic and how she got her start as well as some of the strange experiences that Laura has as a psychic. If you are curious about her other work then his is a great interview to listen to! You can connect with Max and learn about his new book at www.wishkeeperbook.com. The Wishkeeper won the debut Young Adult at the Los Angeles Festival of Books. To connect with the International Screenwriters Association at www.networkisa.org. If you want more information on Laura Powers, you can go to her website www.laurapowers.net. You can also find updates on the podcast by following the Write Hot Podcast on Facebook and follow laura on twitter @thatlaurapowers too. If you are curious and want to learn more about Laura’s psychic work, you can read her new book Diary of a Psychic on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Laura-Powers/e/B009HW4YRW

In this interview, Laura talks with Danny Manus about pitching, log-lines and the importance of having your script read those knowledgeable in the industry before sending it to people to read. Laura and Danny met at the Nashville Writers’ Conference which is a part of the Nashville Film Festival. Danny Manus is an in-demand script consultant and CEO of No BullScript Consulting, and was ranked in the Top 15 “Cream of the Crop” Script Consultants by Creative Screenwriting Magazine. He is the author of “No BS for Screenwriters: Advice from the Executive Perspective” and was also named one of Screencraft’s “25 People Screenwriters Should Follow on Twitter”. We discussed how one of the biggest mistakes people make is pitching too soon and rushing the process of submitting rather than working the script until its ready. He also talked about the importance of having the 4 Cs and H which are: Concept, Character, Conflict, Context and Hook. We also discussed lots of specifics for pitching in the interview and discussed specifics for handling big pitch events like Nashville Writers’ Conference or the Great American Pitch Fest. If you want to learn more about Danny you can go to his website www.nobullscript.net or follow him on twitter @DannyManus. Danny has several events and classes coming up and he will be at Willamette Writers’ Conference in Portland, Oregon in August. If you want more information on Laura Powers, you can go to her website www.laurapowers.net. You can also find updates on the podcast by following the Write Hot Podcast on Facebook.

Laura with Dave Chesson, author and founder of Kindlepreneur about using key words to market your book and even choose to write on a topic for which there is a market. There are generally two ways to make money as an author. One is to have a large platform and the other is to have a discoverable book for which there is a good market. Two ways you can help ensure success: write about something the customer is looking for and if the books out there are something you can beat. As John Lee Dumas said, “Its’ better to go a mile deep and an inch wide versus a mile wide and an inch deep.” Look into Amazon Best Seller Rank or ABSR. Do some research on what is out there in terms of books on a topic and what their sales rank is. There are about 4.7 million books out there right now. Then look at the books out there, are the covers good, are there poor ratings? Ask yourself if you could write a better book. If their ABSR is good and the quality of what is out there is poor, you have a good chance of selling well. You can also search the Google Key Word Planner and google will tell you how many people a month are using those key words. It will also give you suggestions, synonyms, etc. You might find out there is a huge market or none. Dave has written seven books via pen names and he has chosen to use pen names due to his work for the military. Each book makes between $700 and $2000 a month per book without building an author platform. Good for authors to know that while an author platform is good to build, there are alternatives to this approach. This approach is also good for those who write books that are not part of their public persona like erotica etc. This approach is also similar to what Tim Ferriss did with market testing his book title for “4 Hour Work Week.” Basically doing market research for your book prior to releasing the book or even writing the book can really help you sell well and make more money. Dave is about to launch a service called KDP rocket – it is an amazon book idea validator and it will tell you how many people type a certain term into amazon and it will also tell you how books with those keywords make. The tool will help you figure out if there is a market and if you have a chance in that particular market. It will launch end of June. KDP was designed to provide book marketing tactics for writers and currently has 45,000 subscribers. Dave is also the one who answers the contact page questions himself directly. We also discussed the importance of marketing and writing your book simultaneously. Most authors will wait to market until they are done writing or almost done writing. If you do it simultaneously, not only are you increasing your marketing but you will likely create a better product as well. Dave also is a big advocate of paying it forward so if his works helps you, he asks you to pay it forward for others. You can connect with Dave and Kindlepreneur at www.kindlepreneur.com. If you want more information on Laura Powers, you can go to her website www.laurapowers.net. You can also find updates on the podcast by following the Write Hot Podcast on Facebook.