SPA Girls Podcast – EP57 – Dealing With Distractions At Christmas
Nov25

SPA Girls Podcast – EP57 – Dealing With Distractions At Christmas

towelThis week Wendy, Cher and Trudi talk about dealing with unavoidable distractions, and how to maintain a writing schedule even when things get busy.

With Christmas coming up we thought we’d talk about how we personally keep going when it seems that everything in the world is out to stop you writing the next book.

It’s a great reminder that we’re all different and we all deal with distractions and problems in our lives differently. However you deal with them, as long as you’re still progressing forward, it’s okay. 🙂

Staying Motivated In The Silly Season

How can you stay focus with the distractions this time of year will throw at you? Here are a few tips from the SPA Girls to help you through.

-Don’t take negative feedback personally. You are your own boss, so cut yourself a break!

-Negative feeling can spiral out of control, so haul them in if you feel them creeping up on them.

-Do what is right for you! Don’t do what others tell you too.

-Try and put aside some time to focus on your writing when your life gets busy. Just a small amount that will keep you on track, otherwise, it will seem an even bigger hurdle when you do find the time again to sit down at your computer

-Find your rhythm. Maybe it’s not writing every day, or maybe it is. Do what works for you. But you’ll feel better if you do something!

-Don’t fall into comparisonitis!! Remember your goals are different to other peoples.

-Write it down! The silly season is crazy, and we can forget to do things. If you write the words down, like TODAY I’M WRITING 500 WORDS, then when you open your diary and see it, that will help you to do it.

-This is a great time to get your processes in place for the following year too.

-Outline books for the following year, even if you can’t find the time to write.

-Try and manage your stress levels, and being organized will help this. Remember your writing is important to you, as are your friends, family and the rest of your life!

IF LIFE GETS IN THE WAY, THAT’S OKAY TOO!

-Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t reach your daily goals, just readjust, refocus.

-If you struggle to focus, find the pattern, triggers, that work for you. Things that get you motivated and into the zone.

-Look after yourself. Find time to stretch, exercise, or whatever makes you feel better. LOOK AFTER YOU!

-Get motivated by writing with a friend. Skype, café, or by tweet. It’s sometimes fun to have a companion.

-Write notes at the end of your writing session, for what you want to cover the following day, then when you get back to it, you’ll know what’s happening.

BE EXCITED BY YOUR WRITING!! Chances are if you’re bored, then someone else is going to be.

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SPA Girls Podcast – EP56 – Top Ten Mistakes Self Publishers Make
Nov17

SPA Girls Podcast – EP56 – Top Ten Mistakes Self Publishers Make

SPA GirlsI don’t actually know how many mistakes we covered in this episode, but I thought that title sounded great. 🙂 But we definitely do go in-depth on all the terrible, dastardly, embarrassing mistakes that we’ve made in the process of self publishing our books.

From not getting our books properly edited and rushing through the process of publishing and putting our books up before we should have, to not being organized enough, to not knowing and understanding our genres – we’ve done it all!

Don’t make the same mistakes that we have – listen to this episode and find out how to avoid them all!

For your first book, it’s allowable to make mistakes. You will learn as you go – everyone does. Hopefully we can highlight some pitfalls so even if you do make a mistake it might not be one of these!

1           Make sure your book is well edited. Reviewers will put a stop on your sales. Pay for a good editor, whatever your budget is. Get sample edits, usually the first thousand words, to see if your editor gets your voice. Ask around – get recommendations.

In the market where there are so many books, do this well. Get as many eyes on your work as you can. You can’t see mistakes in your own work, especially the more you read it.

 2          Don’t rush to get your book published without doing your homework. Where does your book fit in? What genre should it slot in to? What do the books in your genre look like – covers – are they dark or light. Do they have people or scenes? What tag words and categories fit your book? Does your Title need a tweak? What sub genres will give you better visualization. 

3          Covers are your window to your book. Don’t be set on what your cover looks like unless it is the correct look is for the genre. Understand the visual short hand for designing a cover that will translate into sales.

 4          Shar rushed to put a series up and is in the process of taking them down and rebranding them to follow the knowledge that she has gained. You can change/fix anything – so do it if you need to.

 5          Trudi spent a lot on her first book in advertising and, although she did okay at the time, realizes it wasn’t the best way to proceed. You need another book to get traction. It’s only natural to want the book of your heart to be out as soon as possible – avoid it if you can. If not, then accept that you may not do fantastically after the first push, and don’t spend thousands

First, ask yourself – Why are you doing this advertising?

Is this a hobby or a career?

What do you want to achieve, and how will you test this? (Brand awareness, Sales, etc.)

Remember, different genres and lengths of books will dictate the price you ask, until you are famous. 😉

 6          Allow yourself to feel the joy and satisfaction of publishing and of actually finishing your book. Reward and self-praise is not a guilty secret – you deserve it!

 7          Time management is your friend. Write everything down re deadlines, advertising – be organized!

 8          Procrastination will be a deal breaker if you don’t nip it in the bud. Don’t be caught up in the process of being a writer, and not producing the words. 80 percent writing and 20 percent on the business. Prioritize and goal set –  be focused. Get your processes in place early on in your career.

 9          Don’t be envious of seemingly easily famous writers. Understand that this might not be that authors first book. It may be the first published but, trust us, they will have others sitting in a draw somewhere. They learnt as they wrote and they may even publish their earlier work, but it will have the benefit of experience, and will be reworked heavily.

Use them as role models. Read their books to understand their popularity.

 10        Don’t forget about your backlist. Use them as tools to advertise by adding links to new works, adding excerpts or blurbs and updating these regularly.

We hope this helps!

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SPA Girls Podcast – EP55 – Launching a Non-Fiction Book
Nov09

SPA Girls Podcast – EP55 – Launching a Non-Fiction Book

facemaskThis week we talk about the launch of a project dear to our hearts – our new non-fiction book about author overwhelm.

We’ve been working on this project for a while, and we’re really excited about bringing it to you. It’s something we’ve all experienced, and we don’t think people talk about it enough, so we’ve decided to put it out there in book form!

This episode we talk about the book, what it involves, and what we’re going to do over the next three months before the launch to try and make it a success.

One of the big aspects to this launch process is the expansion of our mailing list. We made a goal of getting 1,000 people onto our mailing list by end of February 2017, and we brainstorm some of the techniques we’re planning to use to get our numbers up.

Join us on the journey, and go sign up to our mailing list!

The SPA girls have written a book on Author Overwhelm. No really…we did it together and there was actually no blood shed!

It’s about understanding the struggles and pressure that authors face. The different ways we feel overwhelmed. Everyone has issues, even if you are just starting out in his industry or you have 3 million books published.

The SPA Girls each face different struggles, just as you do, and we hope that in this book we can address some of the issues you are facing.

We’d really appreciate it if you would contact us with your author overwhelm issues. Let us know if you dealt with them, if the issues are still there for you. Tell us your stories, so we can understand more about the challenges you are facing.

Things like-

-Peer pressure

-Finding the time to write

-Holding down a day job and establishing your writing career

We are planning to publish the book in February 2017, and in the months between we are focusing on building up our email newsletter. We are brainstorming with you in this podcast, to work out how we are going to achieve 1,000 sign ups before then.

Breaking down the goal is 1,000 subscribers. 83 sign ups per week.

Because Trudi HAS to have a to do list, the rest of us do also (sigh) She needs a goal to aim for (an end point). So we will have a combined calendar so we know what each other are doing.

How to get those names on your list-

-Get the first 100 people on your newsletter sign up from friends and family. These are your cheer leaders! You will ask for their email and personally subscribe them to the list. (ask permission first)

-Upside down home page. (first fold of website, is devoted solely to signups for the newsletter-subscbribe now. You have no other information there; it will be below.

-Poster boy technique. If you have signed up for a course or read something, and enjoyed. You email them and say thanks. You then ask them to come on to your podcast to talk. (cross promo). Each of the SPA Girls will be contacting someone who has influenced them, and telling them thanks, and see what reply they get back.

-Content upgrades on blog posts. Write an informative blog post, and then add on the end that you give us your email address, you can have a check list to down load.

-The SPA Girls will be blogging. More work, but hey, we like to waffle on, with the occasional pearl of wisdom in there.

-We will set up an alert on Google Alerts, so anyone is discussing Author Overwhelm we will know, and can participate in the discussion.

We want to engage people with out book, blog, podcasts etc. Our email newsletters will be the same. We don’t want you to delete us when you see us in your in box!!

Please comment on our FB page if you have anything to ad to our Author Overwhelm book, or this podcast, as we would love to hear from you.

Links

Brian Harris – video fruit (email newsletter signups) http://videofruit.com/blog/marketing-giveaway/

https://www.google.com/alerts

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SPA Girls Podcast – EP54 – Writing Advice From the Trenches
Nov01

SPA Girls Podcast – EP54 – Writing Advice From the Trenches

Self Publishing Authors PodcastThis week the SPA Girls chat to three experienced authors – two Indie authors, and one traditionally published author – about their writing tips, their favourite technology as a writer, and why they all say you need to find your writing tribe to succeed.

Join us as we get the inside story from contemporary romance author Talia Hunter, pacific billionaire romance author Toni Kenyon, and author of 35 Harlequin romances Yvonne Lindsay in this hilarious, informative, and insightful episode into the life of an author. If you don’t come away from listening to this episode with a grin on your face, I’ll eat my hat.

Yvonne Lindsay (USA today bestselling author) – http://yvonnelindsay.com/

Talia Hunter – http://www.taliahunter.com/

Toni Kenyon – http://www.tonikenyon.com/

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