SPA Girls Podcast – EP353 – Book Launch Strategy
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SPA Girl Wendy Vella has been self-publishing successfully since 2013 in Historical Romance and Contemporary Romance. Her romances are loved by a huge global audience who appreciate her trademark wit, strong family depiction, unique settings, and swoon-worthy heroes.
Today, Wendy is a USA Today Bestseller and consistent Amazon bestseller, with 50 books published, and close to 3 million copies sold worldwide. Wendy has seen it all, and tried it all, self-publishing wise!
We grill her on how she launched her most recent book, Defending Danger, and what strategies and tactics she uses to build buzz around her launch, reach existing and new readers and stay sane in the process!
Topics covered include running pre-orders, why publishing print books before ebooks makes sense, wrangling an ARC team, paid and free advertising and promotion and harnessing Bookbub and Goodreads exposure.
Whether you’re launching your first or your thirty-first book, this episode has something for you!
About Wendy Vella:
Wendy Vella is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary and historical romances that have sold more than two million copies worldwide.
Known for compelling and uplifting stories laced with witty humor, sensuality and intrigue, Wendy has hit the bestseller ranks many times with reader favorites, the Langley Sister series, Sinclair & Raven series and The Deville Brothers series.
An incurable romantic, Wendy found writing romance a natural fit. When her children were small, she would find writing time in the early hours of the morning, sitting quietly with her grandfather’s old typewriter while the family slept. These works, however, she says, will never see the light of day! Wendy joined Romance Writers of New Zealand and started honing her craft, and after years of contests and conferences, she was finally ready to publish her first book in 2013.
Born and raised in a rural area in the North Island of New Zealand, she shares her life with one adorable husband, two delightful adult children and their partners, four delicious grandchildren, and too many cantankerous farm animals.
Wendy also writes small town contemporary romances under the name Lani Blake.
Find her at: wendyvella.com and laniblake.com
SPA Girls Podcast – EP315 – Interview with Theodora Taylor
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After logging time as a music journalist, playwright, and radio writer, Theodora Taylor fell in love with penning hot books with heart. Since deciding to become an author, she’s published 54 books in a range of genres—but with one thing in common—universal fantasies.
When not thinking of ways to write and sell even more hot books with heart, she enjoys spending time with her amazing family, going on date nights with her wonderful husband, learning German, watching ALL the Shonda Rhimes shows ever, and attending parties thrown by others.
She’s here to talk about universal fantasies with us today—what they are, and how you can use them to get your books on the bestseller lists!
Some examples of universal fantasies
• Banging the beast
• Hot guy likes the geeky girl
• Makeover scene
• Love triangles
• Not just any gift – the right gift
• Wounded main character in need of love
• Fixer upper
Listen to What makes Universal Fantasies so powerful for authors and why readers love them so much.
Find Theodora at: https://theodorataylor.com/ email at tt @ 7figurefiction.com
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SPA Girls Podcast – EP307 – Step Up Your Marketing Strategy with Roseanne Cheng (Pt 2)
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We’re delighted to welcome back Roseanne Cheng of Evergreen Authors to the SPA for this special two-part interview. In this episode we follow on from Roseanne’s approach outlined in EP306 (go listen if you haven’t already!)
This is another power-packed show with tips that blew our minds!
We cover:
Pinterest marketing secrets for authors
Why doing Less is better
How to create your own marketing plan around what brings you joy
The “bumper sticker test”
Tough truths: Every bestselling author is marketing their books and why
Making conscious decisions about social media and what you can let go
Your author platform and the two vital ingredients every author needs: a website (basic is fine) and a newsletter/email list
How amazon ads work with your marketing strategy – and it’s not just about building your sales
Why data is your secret weapon
And finally, we also discuss how everything, including your book, has a sales cycle.
About Roseanne
Roseanne Cheng is the author of five books including The Evergreen Author: Master the Art of Book Marketing. She worked in publishing as a marketing director in Minneapolis for four years before founding Evergreen Authors, the first of its kind school teaching authors how to create a career as writers.
You can find Roseanne at: https://www.evergreenauthors.com/
SPA Girls Podcast – EP272 – How To Believe In Yourself
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Ever wondered why on earth you’re spending all this time writing? Ever think to yourself that maybe your writing isn’t that great? Ever think this self publishing lark is just too hard?
Yeah, so have we.
But this episode is all about how to throw away those dumb old negative thoughts, and learn how to believe in yourself and your writing! We talk through some of the most common misbeliefs that authors have, and give you some awesome ways to change your thinking, and learn to believe in yourself and most of all, keep going!
Resources mentioned:
Brooke Castillo https://thelifecoachschool.com/podcasts/
SPA Girls Podcast – EP234 – How To Write When Your Schedule Is Disrupted
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Disruption – the entire world is feeling it at the moment, so how can we, as writers, keep our creativity bubbling and stay focussed? It’s hard – we’re not going to deny that – but looking at your schedule and productivity in a different way can help you stay a bit calmer, get some work done and prepare for when you’re on a more even keel.
For the Spa Girls, we’ve pivoted a wee bit to bring you Lockdown Sessions – a daily video of around 10 minutes where we just hang out, sometimes discuss self-publishing, but mostly just lift each other up with our usual cheek and bad jokes. Please join us – either on our facebook page or our new You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCckftViKM301hH_MYlFUxXA
This was a scary move for us all. We’re used to talking on our podcast now, but didn’t have the some confidence about “putting ourselves out there” on camera. Every day we do it though, we’re a little bit more relaxed, so it’s been a good thing that’s come from this disrupted New Normal, I believe (Shar). The best thing for us has been hearing from our community members and we so appreciate your comments (and Subscribes to our channel!). As an experiment, we also recorded the video of this podcast episode, so if you’d like to check that out too, please head over to our channel.
Ways to help deal with a disrupted schedule:
-Ease pressure on yourself by pushing your own deadlines (communicate them early to service providers if you can’t meet them).
-Acknowledging and accepting something has changed, and that it’s ok to be off-balance.
-Create a new schedule by looking at your circumstances and adjusting.
-Don’t beat yourself up because you are not doing the amount of work you were before things changed.
-Find a space to work among the chaos and away from other members of your household
-Life gets disrupted regularly and the tools / skills you figure out now will help in the future when the “usual” disruptions happen – eg holidays, school breaks, illness, travelling etc.
-Don’t overthink things. Change is happening, and roll with it, make the best of it. People will be reading more than ever, so remember that positive!
-If your allotted work/writing time is small, then hit the ground running and be productive while you can. Ten minutes a day can still be productive.
-If the words don’t come, then accept that for now and pivot to doing something else for your author career – e.g. watching a craft tutorial, learning a new skill or tool like canva, reading business / writing books
-As much as possible, focus on positive news and people. Set boundaries on news intake / social media scrolling. Try hard to stay in touch with people that lift you up and in turn be of service to others.
-Romance writers (and other writers) are fulfilling a very real need as a way for people to escape via books – be proud of what you’re doing!
Visit our website for all our podcast episodes and show notes at:
You tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCckftViKM301hH_MYlFUxXA
Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/SPAGirlsPodcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP182 – Facebook Ads with Maria Luis (Part One)
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Not sure about how Facebook Ads work? Need to learn the basics?
Join the SPA Girls as bestselling author Maria Luis breaks down Facebook Ads for us, from the beginning steps, to how to choose the best images; plus what to do, and what not to do, and everything in between!
This is the first part of a two-part series on Facebook Ads from an author who has been successfully running her own ads for the last two years. It features loads of tips and advice for running ads, how to tell if it’s a good ad, and how to scale up once you’ve got an ad that’s working for you.
If you’ve been thinking about trying out Facebook ads, or have previously tried them only to be disappointed, then this is the episode for you!
P.S. to see what ads an author’s page (or brand’s) is running, just go to facebook, click on Page Transparency (right hand column on desktop) and click SEE MORE – then scroll down to “Ads From This Page” and you’ll be able to view the ads they’re running.
Example of Maria’s facebook ad:
