SPA Girls Podcast – EP144 – Looking After Your Creative Health
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This week we talk about our own creative health, where we are at, and how we are attempting to ensure our creativity wells don’t try up.
We use examples from our own writing lives, and give a whole bunch of suggestions for how you, too, can plan and execute your own creative health plans to ensure that you can keep writing, despite the other stresses in your lives.
As Shar says, it’s about keeping your muse massaged and your creative health tank topped up, and of course, the writing flowing…
Episodes 100 – 200 List
200 What we’ve learned so far…
199 Interview with Adam Croft – Mindset and Marketing
198 Find Your Sparkle – with Julie Schooler
197 Hack Your Muse – with Kelly McClymer
196 Public Speaking For Authors – with Alena Van Arendonk
195 The Magic Pill – with Laura Van Arendonk-Baugh
194 A Day In The Life Of A Writer
193 Keep It Simple
192 Interview with Skye Warren: Money Mindset and Facebook Ads
For Authors (Part Two)
191 Interview with Skye Warren: Time Management & Advertising
For Authors (Part One)
190 Dragon Wrangling with Scott Baker: secrets for
Successful dictation
189 Interview with Patricia McLinn: Writing by the seat of
Your pants
188 Interview with Morgana Best: Writing & Marketing
Cozy Mysteries
187 Interview with Geoff Symon: Wounds & Crime Scenes
186 Interview with Natasha Bajema, WMD for Authors
185 The Writer’s Detective with Adam Richardson
183 Facebook Advertising with Maria Luis ~ Part Two
182 Facebook Advertising with Maria Luis ~ Part One
181 Learn dictation with Kilby Blades
180 Interview with Brian Meeks, Mastering Book Descriptions
179 Interview with Tara Cremin, Kobo Writing Life
178 Interview with Larissa Reynolds – Newsletters Part Two
177 Interview with Larissa Reynolds – Newsletters Part One
175 Wrangling Facebook: How To Make It Work For You
174 How To Write A Regency Romance
173 How Do You Identify Your Writing Weaknesses?
172 Interview With Dan Wood, D2D
171 Interview With Serenity Woods
169 5 Goals You Need To Make In 2019
168 Jumpstart Your 2019 Marketing with 31 Quick To Dos for Jan.
167 Scheduling For Writing Success
166 Our 2018 Roundup
165 He Said, She Said: Creating Dazzling Dialogue
164 Interview with Steffanie Holmes: Reverse Harem
163 Interview with YA author Kelly St Clare
160 Amazon Excl v Wide – things to consider and how to market
159 Interview With Kathryn LeVeque
158 Some Like It Hot – Or Not. Heat Levels In Romance
157 Interview With Louisa George
156 The Kindness Factor: Helping You Achieve More and Stress Less
155 Editing
153 Characters: From Cookie Cutter to Kapow
152 Interview with Tina Dietz: Audiobooks
151 Interview with Grace Burrowes
150 Should You Prune Your Mailing List?
149 RWNZ18 Interview with Damon Suede & Geoff Symon
148 Interview with indie superstar, Bella Andre
147 Top Ten Traits for Success
146 Write Better Faster with Becca Syme
145 Newsletter Ninja Tammi LaBrecque
144 Looking After Your Creative Health
143 Interview with Carlyn Robertson from Bookbub
142 Personal Branding For Authors with Lauren Clemett
141 Ten Free Online Tools For Authors
140 Tempting Taglines & Heartstopping Hooks
139 Findaway Voices with Kelly Lytle
138 Get Your Writing Mojo Back
137 Interview with Toni Kenyon: facebook live & serials
136 Dealing with misinformation and change in Sp-ing
134 Interview with Kevin Tumlinson, Draft2Digital
133 Interview with Sara Rosett
132 Organization For Authors – how to keep track of your
research and book details without losing your mind
131 Interview with Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy
130 Critical Care: Leveraging feedback for success
129 Brand You
128 SAS Special: Interview with Johnny B. Truant & Sean Platt
127 Industry Insiders with Damon J. Courtney of Bookfunnel
& Christine Monroe of Kobo
126 SAS Debrief with Jami Albright
125 SAS Special: Interview with Michelle Spiva
124 SAS Special : Interview With Michael Anderle
123 Sports Psychology for Authors – Interview With Nate Vella
122 Using Sub Plots To Amp Up Your Writing
121 Interview with Scott King: Outlining Your Novel
120 Pen-names Pros, Cons and Possibilities
119 Reader Engagement with Nalini Singh
118 Writing the Small Town Setting
117 Handling Negativity and Naysayers
116 Tough Mindset Questions For 2018
115 Interview With Nicola Davidson: Sex and Sensibility
114 Tropealicious
112 Interview With Honoree Corder & Ben Hale: Write Like A Boss
111 Ten Health Hacks For Writers
110 Interview with Kathryn Burnett: Your Writing Audit For Future Success
109 Interview with Melissa Storm: What Readers Want
108 Interview With Zoe Dawson: Writing Across Genres
107 Interview With Dave Chesson, The Keyword King
106 Pros and Cons of Kindle Unlimited
105 Why YOU should do Nanowrimo
104 Ten Truths For New Self Publishers
103 Find 30 Minutes A Day EXTRA!
102 Your Christmas Presence: Maximizing the Holiday Season for Authors
101 The Writing Life: Interview with Katie Cross
100 100 Episodes! Retrospective with funny moments; changing AO title
SPA Girls Podcast – EP334 – Amazon Ads with Deb Potter
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We’re thrilled to welcome fellow Kiwi author, Deb Potter, to the SPA today to give us the breakdown on how to create, optimize and manage Amazon ads.
Many of us have tried different methods to get AMS Ads to work: from creating hundred of ad variations to wrangling spreadsheets with thousands of keywords to try. And then there’s the whole bid price – how do we know what to bid? Can we trust auto ads?
As a statistician by trade, and also a self-published author, Deb is fantastic at clearing the confusion and giving you clear guidance on how to get your Amazon ads humming.
CLICK HERE to download Deb’s handout for SPA Girls Podcast listeners!
About Deb:
Deb Potter is an Amazon ads enthusiast. Deb wrote Amazon Ads for Authors to give new authors easy steps into advertising and more experienced authrs advanced tools and tips that other courses don’t cover.
She updates Amazon Ads for Authors regularly – most recently January 2022. She says that keeps her on her toes
Deb is a statistician by trade, she jokes she’s the most widely read author in New Zealand because she wrote a number of questions that come out every five years in the national Census. In her work with big data sets she’s written the specifications for algorithms many times – and that’s helped her think about how Amazon works.
Deb comes from a theatrical family and started off writing plays. She started off publising interactive fiction on Amazon, after seeing that a Kindle meant stories could make good use of hyperlinks. Her You Say Which Way brand attracted more writers and before she knew it she was a publisher.
Her advertising insights come from marketing multiple genres herself, and then coaching authors in many more genres.
She admins the Facebook page: Authors Optimizing Amazon and Facebook Ads with four other experts.
Deb is based in New Zealand and has a background in data and analytics, and public policy. She has a Masters in Creative Writing, a BA in Education and Social Policy and Certificates in Children’s Literature and Journalism. She has a quarter acre with four chickens AND a vege garden and keeping them both alive might be the topic for her next non-fiction book.
Resources mentioned:
Authors Optimizing Amazon and Facebook Ads – Support Group
💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us Patreon.
Your support allows us to create the weekly show for self-publishers, as well as for us to take time away from our own writing to produce it. Thank you so much! If you’d like to join our supporters community, click here to be a patron of SPA Girls.
All SPA Girls Podcast Episodes, Resource Links and free Self-Publishing Info at www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com
SPA Girls Podcast – EP296 – Developing Character Wounds
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In this episode of the SPA Girls Podcast we talk about emotional wounds, and why they’re so important in developing your characters, and creating an awesome story!
From possible wounds that you could give your characters, to how those wounds will develop the story, and how you can use them to amp up the tension, and create a story that your readers will love – we talk about it all!
SHOW NOTES:
Emotional Wound Thesaurus – Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
Website – Writers Helping Writers
Want more of the SPA Girls?
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SPA Girls Podcast – EP286 – Writers’ Fears
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Resistance. Fear. Procrastination. Avoidance. Most of us writers struggle with these challenges at some point in their career (or day!). This episode we cover everything from the struggle to finish a manuscript through to fear of publishing, and everything in between.
This blogpost inspired today’s episode : http://positivewriter.com/scared-writer/ Blog post by Harrison Demchick
excerpt: Two Kinds of Scared Writers
During my weekly writing group, I’ve been working on a screenplay that begins, oddly enough, with a weekly writing group. My main characters are a pair of best friends named Mindy and Lane, and what I’ve realized during the development of this story is that Mindy and Lane represent two particular kinds of scared writers. They’re the kinds we all see in our writing groups and workshops.
There’s a very good chance we’re one of them.
1) Mindy is the writer who doesn’t finish.
She has ideas, but she never really pursues them, because she sees every obstacle as a sign that she isn’t good enough. And if she did push on and did finish a draft of something, it would be bad, and then she’d know she could never be good enough. So she comes up with ideas, abandons them, and struggles with the next one.
2) Lane is the writer who doesn’t fight.
He has a finished manuscript, but he doesn’t want to do anything with it. It’s the creative accomplishment that matters. But really, he fears what comes next—agents and publishers and rejection. Or he fears the marketing battle any author, traditionally published or self-published, must face. Maybe, at heart, he too doesn’t think he’s good enough, so he hides behind the pretense of contentment and never works for his real dreams.”
++ SPA Girls’ additions
Along with Mindy and Lane, we’ve added:
Mandy – Mindy’s sister, Shane – Lane’s twin brother, and Xanthe
Listen up for their fears and how we can so relate (let’s not even get into Shar’s weighted hula hoop disaster) and tools for overcoming fears we’ve found that work.
Recommend reading and resources:
Steven Pressfield’s book War on Art and his blog
SPA Girls Podcast with Amira Alvarez on Imposter Syndrome
Brene Brown https://brenebrown.com/
Developing A Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck
Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck
