NaNoWriMo – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 106: Writing a Novel in Five Days with Scott King

November 8, 2016 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Since it’s NaNoWriMo month, we invited Scott King to talk about how he wrote a novel in five days (and then wrote a book about how he did it, also in five days). In addition to holding down a day job as a board game photographer, Scott is the author of several middle grade fantasy novels, a thriller, and a couple of non-fiction titles, including this newest one. We asked him what his process was for writing the novel in five days and tried to milk some tips out of him too.

Some details of what we covered:

What’s the state of the middle grade fiction market when it comes to self-publishing and ebooks?
Why Scott shifted to adult epic fantasy and thrillers.
Whether outlining is important when writing a novel quickly.
Staying excited when you’re struggling to get past the middle point of the novel.
Getting in the habit of finishing projects.
How you optimize your workflow to be more efficient.
Whether mindset matters when it comes to writing and finishing novels.
How much of Scott’s five days go to prep and revision.
How long it takes to refill the creative tank after writing a novel so quickly.
How to keep novels shorter and simpler to make them easier to finish (and why you might want to, even you epic fantasy folks).
Dealing with distractions and writers’ block.
Some of the challenges of genre hopping.

You can visit Scott King on his website and grab The 5 Day Novel on Amazon. You can also check out the novel he wrote in five days, Ameriguns.

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NaNoWriMo, productivity, scott king, write a novel fast, writer's block, writing a novel

SFFMP 27: Running Newsletters (how, why, and tips), Entering Contests, and StoryBundle’s NaNoWriMo Opportunity

April 21, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Hey, everyone! Tonight Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay devoted most of the show to discussing newsletters. What host do they use (or in Jeff’s case, how he does it himself with a WordPress plug-in), how often do they send out letters, what do they write about, how they use affiliate links to monitor sales (and make some extra money), and how to get readers to sign up in the first place.

Here are some more highlights, as well as the links that were mentioned in the show:

A new release from Jeffrey Poole.
Jo is experimenting with long-term pre-orders and will update us on how it went later.
Our FREE epic fantasy bundle (all three of us are in it, along with five other authors). Check it out if you haven’t already.
Mailing list hosts that Jo and Lindsay use: MailChimp and Aweber.
The WordPress plug-in that Jeffrey uses to host his own list.
How we get readers to sign up (links in afterwords, forms on website, etc.)
Joanna Penn’s great article on how she tripled the size of her mailing list.
How Mark Dawson uses Facebook ads to grow his list effectively and profitably. (This is a podcast interview with the Self Publishing Podcast guys and well worth listening to; Mark comes on about 30 minutes into the show.)
How often we send out newsletters and what we say.
Using autoresponders to do more than thank the reader for signing up.
The NaNoWriMo StoryBundle contest (for more on how SB works, check out our early episode with StoryBundle’s founder, Jason Chen). Email submissions to nanosubmissions@storybundle.com (but make sure you check the site for the details and guidelines first).
Are contests ever worth entering? Some links below on what to look for before sending anyone any money for a contest:
Finding active contests, as well as links to pro, semi-pro, and paying markets at Ralan.com.

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contests, marketing, NaNoWriMo, newsletters, self publishing, storybundle

Increasing Word Count, Productivity Tips for Authors, and Beating Writer’s Block

November 4, 2014 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

For our fifth episode, we didn’t interview anyone. Instead we talked amongst ourselves about our experiences with improving our productivity. Since it’s the beginning of NaNoWriMo, we thought it might be useful for some listeners. We all have several novels out, and Jo and Jeff have written most of theirs while working a full-time job. I (Lindsay speaking) have been full time for longer, but I’ve definitely improved my own productivity over the years, going from 1-3k a day to 5-10k words a day.

We referenced (awkwardly) Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, a book you should definitely check out since I kind of mangled the tips from it in the show (I know, you’re dying to watch/listen now, aren’t you?).