Tag: networking

SFFMP 194: Selling Books and Networking at Conventions and Finding the Balance Between Writing and Marketing with Kevin J. Anderson

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, Kevin J. Anderson joined us from a remote cabin in Colorado where he’s sequestered to do some work (and talk to us, naturally). The internet connection wasn’t the best for the first few minutes, and we had some lag, but things get steadier about ten minutes in. Kevin talked to us about his experience as a new professor directing the Certificate in Publishing program at Western State Colorado University, about the 22 conventions he went to last year, and about why he’s taking more time just to write this year. We also discussed the marketing he does for his books and the other authors he publishes through Wordfire Press.

Here are some of the specifics of what we covered:

  • Teaching students about publishing in today’s quickly changing environment.
  • The challenges of working with the slower schedule of traditional publishing.
  • The challenges of all you have to learn to be successful as an indie author.
  • Tips for successfully selling at conventions.
  • Using conventions to meet other authors in your peer group.
  • Advice for first-time authors interested in going to conventions.
  • The challenges of keeping backlist titles selling while working on publishing new titles.
  • What kind of advertising Kevin is regularly doing and finding effective.
  • Advice to new indie authors on branding and how to find fans.
  • Books Kevin recommends for speculative fiction writers: Writing the Blockbuster Novel, David Farland’s Million Dollar Outlines, and his own World Building: From Small Towns to Entire Universes.

You can find Kevin on his website, on Facebook, and on Twitter, among other places. If you want to check out some of Kevin’s work, he just published a collection of his short stories called Selected Stories: Science Fiction. He also has a new novel out with Sarah A. Hoyt: Uncharted.

 

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SFFMP 124: Collaborating and Networking with Other Authors to Reach Larger Audiences

Author Interview, Podcast

We had a full house tonight with Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay talking to J Thorn, J.F. Penn, and Zach Bohannon, three authors Lindsay is currently collaborating with for a dark fantasy project. Not unexpectedly, our show topic is collaboration, something we’ve talked about before but not for a while. We also discussed networking with other authors and even store merchandizers and how you can get more eyeballs on your work by doing some of these group projects or participating in group promotions.

Here are a few of the details of what we discussed:

  • Some of the benefits of collaboration, both from a writing perspective and from a marketing perspective.
  • Growing your audience through exposure to other authors’ audiences.
  • Leaning more about your craft through working closely with other authors.
  • Approaching people you might be interested in working with.
  • How accounting works when you’re splitting the earnings and expenses among two or more authors.
  • Handling differences that might come up during the project.
  • Marketing the finished project and what to do when some of the authors usually write in different genres and have different kinds of lists.
  • Networking with other authors for marketing opportunities that don’t involve actual writing collaboration.
  • Going to conventions, book expos, etc. to meet other authors and also store merchandizers to get on their radar.

You can check out more on the collaborative project (American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice) right here.

Interested in more interviews? J Thorn was also on the show back with Episode 52: Collaborating and Organizing Multi-Author Boxed Sets. Zach Bohannon talked with us on Episode 49: Productivity and First Book Success.

J.F. Penn (AKA Joanna Penn) also runs the informative Creative Penn podcast for author-prenuers.

 

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SFFMP 16: Marketing and Promotion for Traditionally Published Authors with Beth Cato

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we had Beth Cato on the show. Her steampunk novel, The Clockwork Dagger, is published with Harper Voyager, and she’s had numerous short stories published in semi-pro and pro magazines, including Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. She’s also sold numerous non-fiction tales to the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. We chatted with her about what her publisher brought to the table, in terms of marketing and selling books, and also what she’s done on her own to help promote her stories and her world.

Here are a few of the topics we touched on:

  • How and why Beth got started with short stories and how writing and selling them helped her improve her craft, gain confidence as a writer, and eventually find an agent and a publisher.
  • Selling stories to popular fiction podcasts as well as magazines and anthologies.
  • How her publisher helped get her books off on the right foot (she has awesome covers, so take a look).
  • What promotional expectations publishers have from an author when it’s time to release a new book.
  • Book signings, yay or nay? (Here’s the link I promised to Parnell Hall’s musical rendition of his book signing experiences)
  • Whether publishers ever lower prices for sales/promotions and if authors have any say in that.
  • The pros and cons of having a new book included in Amazon’s Vine Program (where it receives pre-release reviews).
  • The Holy Taco Church and networking Beth has done with other authors.
  • Beth’s stance on social media and how much marketing she does there.
  • Tips for new authors.

Click to download the mp3.

 

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For more about Beth’s books, you can visit her website. You can also download some of her shorter works for free. Red Dust and Dancing Horses is a story delivered in podcast format, and Stitched Wings is a free steampunk story up at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

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