SPA Girls Podcast – EP432 – What To Do When You’ve Finished The Book
Jan24

SPA Girls Podcast – EP432 – What To Do When You’ve Finished The Book

You are your own publishing house when you self-publish. There’s lots to do, and lots to think about, especially the first few times you publish a book. 

That’s why we’ve created this helpful, back-to-basics SPA Girls Podcast episode – to help you go from rough manuscript to published book, with our notes on what you need to plan for and schedule, and how to figure out what you’re going to need to actually do to get your book published on all the platforms. 

We haven’t given a specific order for these tasks to be done in – we know too many successful authors who get different aspects of the checklist done at different times. There are also tasks that can be done quickly and others that will take time. The important thing is to know what you need to do, to work out a schedule that suits you and your life, and then to actually do the tasks! 

To help out, we’ve also created a handy checklist for you to download; just click the links below!

SHOW NOTES:

I’ve finished the Manuscript, what now?

  1. Take a break – it’s always good to give yourself a bit of time to get perspective on your manuscript.
  2. Edits – once you’ve had a bit of time off, you can dive back into your edits with a fresh eye. We’re talking both self edits and then a professional edit.
  3. Get a friend to read through or get beta readers to check it over. Sometimes it takes someone who is completely removed from the book to spot the little niggling errors.
  4. Identify the genre, and where it sits on Amazon bookshelf, and find comparable books to yours. This will help with your marketing and to figure out what your blurb and cover should look like.
  5. Blurb – look at other blurbs, know what’s right for the genre you’ve chosen, write it, get feedback. The blurb is often the hardest piece of writing for this whole project! Don’t be afraid to get feedback from author friends.
  6. Cover – find a cover designer, or get a pre made cover that fits the genre.
  7. Set up the business side of things – this includes taxes, bank account, postal address, sole trader vs company etc, and your author email.
  8. Author nuts and bolts – this includes choosing a pen name, deciding on wide vs exclusive, setting up your social media, creating your newsletter and website, writing an author bio, and getting a headshot.
  9. Uploading prep – this includes formatting, choosing your categories and keywords, setting up the various platform accounts, Author Central.
  10. Press the go button, Good luck to you all!

PLEASE NOTE: There are a million other things that could be added to this list, but in the interests of avoiding overwhelm, we’ve kept it simple. We’ve also very specifically avoided talking about overt marketing (other than cover and blurb etc), because we have many other podcast episodes that cover marketing off separately.

Free Downloads For Listeners : I’ve Finished My First Manuscript … Now What Do I Do?

A4 Size pdf

Letter Size pdf

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast @spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

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SPA Girls Podcast – EP431 – Graphic Design For Authors – with Book Brush
Jan17

SPA Girls Podcast – EP431 – Graphic Design For Authors – with Book Brush

This episode, we’re joined again by the effervescent Kathleen Sweeney from Bookbrush. Book Brush is a platform where authors can easily create their own professional-looking ads and marketing images for social media.

Kathleen is going to update us on best practices, new additions to Book Brush software and added service options that can save authors time and stress producing graphics.

Kathleen’s kindly given us a coupon code for listeners that gives you 15% off a single author plan. Visit bookbrush.com and use SPA15

Bio: Kathleen Sweeney is the Customer Service Manager & Marketing Lead at Book Brush. She loves creating images. She brings over 20 years of client service experience, business assurance, strategy and problem solving to Book Brush.


💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast @spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Read More
SPA Girls EP – 429 – How To Create Your Author Business Plan
Jan03

SPA Girls EP – 429 – How To Create Your Author Business Plan

Business Planning for authors isn’t too often discussed, but the minute you go from hobbyist writer to publishing-for-profit, congratulations! You’re now a business entrepreneur.

So what is a business plan? It’s the foundation of your business, a road map of your business structure, future projects, markets, earnings and expenses.

It sounds more complicated than it needs to be. With that in mind, we’ve put together a simple SPA Girls Business Plan template you can download for free from https://www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/businessplan/

Completing this as you’re recovering from the holiday season could be just the ticket to kicking off your new year with a clear mind and solid goals.

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your questions. Come on in and join us, we’d love to see you there!

www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch the recording on our YouTube Channel @spagirlspodcast

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SPA Girls – EP428 – 8 Awesome Tips to Kickstart your New Year
Dec27

SPA Girls – EP428 – 8 Awesome Tips to Kickstart your New Year

Want to set yourself up for an awesome 2024? Then this is the SPA Girls podcast episode for you. We go through our top eight tips to help amp up your career and kickstart your year! 

From looking at the data and knowing what you want, to getting your newsletter humming and revamping blurbs, we give you all our best advice for 2024. 

SHOWNOTES: 

Our Top Eight Tips:  

1. Know what you want 

2. Reverse Engineer 

3. Fine Tune Your Processes 

4. Check Look Insides 

5. Get Your Newsletter Humming 

6. Revamp Blurbs 

7. Reassess Your Keywords & Categories 

8 Keep Moving Forward!

Resources mentioned:

SPA Girls Podcast with Laurelin Paige (#221)

Amazon Categories with Alex Newton from K-Lytics

Dave Chesson with the SPA Girls

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast @spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Read More
SPA Girls Podcast – EP427 – Our 12 Christmas Wishes for you!
Dec20

SPA Girls Podcast – EP427 – Our 12 Christmas Wishes for you!

We’re celebrating you, our wonderful listeners, in the SPA today by sharing our 12 Christmas Wishes for you and your self-publishing journey.

We want you to know how special to us. We’re so proud of this journey we’ve all embarked on and with what everyone has achieved. No matter where you are in the publishing process, it really is time to celebrate!

May your holiday be filled with love, joy, good food, fun, books and time to relax and recharge yourself. 🥰

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SPA Girls Podcast – EP424 – BookFunnel Tips for Authors
Nov28

SPA Girls Podcast – EP424 – BookFunnel Tips for Authors

Most authors know what BookFunnel is these days (just in case: it’s a platform that helps you deliver reader magnets, ARC copies, audio files, and so much more to your readers) but do we all know how to use it the best we can? 

I’m pretty sure the answer is no

That’s why we spent this episode with Damon Courtney, creator and CEO of BookFunnel, going over all the functions, from the innovative ways that successful authors are using this platform to deliver ebook files, to using features like the one-on-one author swap tool, the group promo tool, certified mail, and the direct email integrations, to name a few. Because Damon is the creator of the platform, he knows every single thing about it, which means this episode is packed full of all the information you’ll ever need to make BookFunnel work for you!

Grab your pen and paper, and take notes, because this episode is all gold!

Don’t forget our special SPA Girls Listeners link for $50 off an annual plan for your first year! : https://bookfunnel.com/spa-girls-podcast-2023/ but hurry – offer expires Jan 31, 2024

SHOW NOTES:

About Damon Courtney:

Damon Courtney is the creator and CEO of BookFunnel, an ebook and audiobook delivery service for authors and publishers. As a lifelong software engineer, Damon is an expert in just about everything technical and can offer unique insight on publishing as it relates to software and technology. He is also the self-published author of his very own Fantasy trilogy and continues to spin stories in his head that he hopes to some day get around to writing.

Click this link to go to BookFunnel.

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast @spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Read More