SPA Girls Podcast – EP419 – The Best Mindset for Organisation and Productivity with Sarra Cannon
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Self-publishing since 2010, Amazon top 100 best-selling Amazon author with 1 million books sold, Sarra writes magical contemporary fantasy novels with both teen and college aged characters (and lots of twists you’ll never see coming).
Do you feel like a hamster on a wheel?
Sarra talks to us about her solution to planning without all the heartache and leading us to be more joyful. “When we sit down to plan we see the perfect scenario. Then Life gets in the way.”
About Sarra Cannon:
Sarra Cannon writes magical contemporary fantasy novels with both teen and college aged characters (and lots of twists you’ll never see coming). Her novels often stem from her own experiences growing up in the small town of Hawkinsville, Georgia, where she learned that being popular always comes at a price and relationships are rarely as simple as they seem.
With over a million books sold, Sarra loves writing witchy books and connecting with fans.
You can connect with her on her author website here at SarraCannon.com
Click to visit Sarra’s Heartbreathings YouTube channel for authors, and Heartbreathings website with her courses for writers here
SPA Girls Podcast – EP417 – How To Correctly Select Your Amazon Categories – with Alex Newton
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Amazon has moved the furniture again! This episode, Alex Newton, founder of K-Lytics, explains Amazon’s category changes, what they mean for authors, and how best to categorize your books now.
We also discuss other recent Amazon changes dating back to September ’22, the impact on authors’ rankings and specific romance category changes and general trends.
Alex Newton is the creator of K-lytics (www.k-lytics.com) a website where you can get in-depth reports on various genres and sub-genres on Amazon that will help you find your niche, boost sales in your chosen genre, and give you information to help you stand out in this crowded publishing
Links mentioned:
Reedsy’s article on Category Changes
💗 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
SPA Girls Podcast – EP415 – How To Get Unstuck
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There are many ways we get stuck as authors.
Some ways you can get stuck is in the writing, editing, time management and making decisions areas.
Getting unstuck is much harder and yet easier than we think. Letting go of perceptions of our writing or our characters helped Trudi a great deal when she put off writing the last book in a series – for years!
Cheryl had to get past the fear of getting edits back and find a way to embrace the process to get them done.
For Shar, it’s being done with the book and accepting it. No one wants to put up sub-standard work and we all do our very best to make sure that happens, but agonizing over a book doesn’t move you forward.
We discuss how to do these things while facing fears and preconceptions, as well as the overwhelm of too many ideas and choices.
Some tools to help:
Plottr
Watching a program or reading a book that deals with plot holes or backstory that doesn’t feel forced, an info dump, or out of character.
The Last of US – recommended by Cheryl is a series that weaves in the backstory as part of each episode.
SPA Girls Podcast – EP 413- Back Engineering a Bestseller
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Today’s topic was prompted by a commenter on youtube who asked us about reverse engineering bestsellers. What makes a book, be it your second one published or your tenth, sell more than others.
We believe there are many variables to that. Timing, tropes, the first 10% of how a book starts. The cover, blurb, and other popular tv or books that may have similar aspects.
There are many things to consider, and today we take a dive into why a book can launch a career!
SPA Girls’ bestsellers at time of recording:
Wendy Vella, Sensing Danger
Trudi Jaye, Hidden Danger
Cheryl Phipps w/a CA Phipps, Apple Pie & Arsenic
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
SPA Girls Podcast – EP412 – Being Successful as a Hybrid Author with Katlyn Duncan
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This week we talk to fiction and non-fiction author Katlyn Duncan, who wrote the non-fiction books The Successful Hybrid Author (all about being a hybrid author) and Take Back Your Book (all about how to get your rights back after being traditionally published). She shares her path to becoming a hybrid author, but also what you need to know about being hybrid, how it works, the pros and cons of traditional publishing versus indie publishing versus hybrid publishing, and how to get your rights back if you want to take up indie publishing.
Katlyn has also ghostwritten over 40 novels for children and adults, and she talked about how she became a ghostwriter, how it all works, and the benefits to writers who want to get into this area of publishing. Another fabulously informative episode!
💗 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
SPA Girls Podcast – EP410 – What To Do When Your Marketing Isn’t Working
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Marketing but not achieving results? Maybe you need to do a bit of a deep dive into why.
Steady is good and not doing things at warp speed, but I think consistency is the real key. We tend to think if we try something and don’t get instant results, they don’t work. But that’s not always the case. Often what didn’t work first up may the second time around. We in the SPA have tried soooo many things, and what works for one of us doesn’t necessarily for another.
So why is your marketing not working for you? Before you assume it isn’t and you go back to bed and pull the covers over your head in defeat, maybe you need to have a really good look at those in your genre who are doing well. See where they can be found. Sign up for some promotion site emails. Check out places like the FB ads library.
Having a solid marketing plan is key. You need to consider a few factors before you build your plan:
- How many books have you released?
- What marketing budget do you have to spend? (this will form your plan. Do you need to look for more free options? Or have you got the money to spend more?)
- What is your end goal? – Newsletter sign ups? – Pushing a permafree book with an eye to read through for the rest of the series – Target book sales specifically. What do you want to achieve?
- Is your cover, blurb etc tight?
- Do your research on marketing platforms, and what you think will suit your genre.
Someone with one book to market will do so differently from someone with five.
Marketing options
- Promo stacking (ads running one after the other in promo sites)
- Series promo
- FB, Amazon, BB ads
- Book promo sites – 👉️ Best Book Promotion Sites in 2023 • David Gaughran
- FB takeovers, newsletter swaps, etc
