Coffee & Real Talk for Writers Podcast
Ep 13: My Book Publishing Timeline
In this episode, I talk about working under duress, ways Iβve been using dictation, and the approximate schedule I use in my indie publishing process.
In this episode, I talk about working under duress, ways Iβve been using dictation, and the approximate schedule I use in my indie publishing process.
Note: I am an affiliate of some of the platforms you can access through the universal book links below, which means if you make a purchase, I get a few cents at no additional cost to you.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Indie Publishing Process Part 1: From the End to the Finish
The Indie Publishing Process Part 2: Publishing and Distribution
The Indie Publishing Process Part 3: Finding Your Readers (a.k.a Marketing)
Wide for the Win Facebook Group
Wide for the Win by Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Successful Self-Publishing by Joanna Penn
Draft2Digital (affiliate link)
Mug Quote of the Week:
"Excuse my mess. My comfort zone is being renovated." - Talena Winters
Inspired by:
βItβs only after youβve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.β - Roy T. Bennett
Question of the Week:
What's one thing you wish you had known before you started publishing?
Tweet me: https://twitter.com/talenawinters
Original music by Josh Rickard, www.joshrickardmusic.com.
S1E10: Change is the only Certainty
In this episode, I talk about tools for writing emotion and developing characters, a recent family situation that means a major adjustment, and my tools for coping with change and challenges.
In this episode, I talk about tools for writing emotion and developing characters, a recent family situation that means a major adjustment, and my tools for coping with change and challenges.
Note: I am an affiliate of some of the platforms you can access through the universal book links below, which means if you make a purchase, I get a few cents at no additional cost to you.
Mentioned in this episode:
Brenna Davies's article about me on the Boomarten Editorial blog:
2022-02-25: Author Spotlight: Talena Winters
The Writer's Thesaurus series by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi:
Mug Quote of the Week:
"Let reality be reality."
From the following longer quote:
βLife is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.β Lao Tzu
Bonus quote:
βWe must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.β Joseph Campbell
Question of the Week:
If you've been affected by the stresses of the world or just the natural stresses of life, what are useful practices to help you adapt, in your business or in life?
Original music by Josh Rickard, www.joshrickardmusic.com.
S1E5: Excellence is a habit
In this episode, I talk about doing writing math, the one-step-back stage of recovery burnout, and whether it's worth it to revise and republish older work.
In this episode, I talk about doing writing math, the one-step-back stage of recovery burnout, and whether it's worth it to revise and republish older work.
Mentioned in this episode:
Roundtable Reflective on the Stark Publishing podcast with me as one of the guests
MUG QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
βExcellence is a habit.β
S1E4: Life happens. Write anyway.
In this episode, I talk about being inspired to do better at direct sales, the results of my experiment with AI Narration, and the struggle with setting book prices, as well as a shift I'm thinking of making to increase writing productivity.
Welcome to Episode Four of Coffee & Real Talk for Writers, which I'm recording on Thursday, January 20, 2022.
I've got intermittent internet and I'm not feeling great, so going to keep this short. Ha!
Note: The following are the notes I took before recording the podcast, not a transcription. Content will be similar, but not exact, to the recording.
Writing & Marketing Weekly Update:
After last week's high, things went wonky. I've been asking myself if it's a weird way of self-sabotaging I have, or if I really am not allowing my brain access to the full range of types of projects it would like.
I did less writing than I'd like, but I still wrote almost 4,000 words so far this week. I will try to make that 7k by the end of tomorrow.
I'm also going to have to revamp my schedule on this a bit, I think. Stop planning for 12,000-word weeks and accept that it's just not happening right now, and that's okay.
That being said, I've been pushing extra hard on this editing project with the plan of finishing early so I could then focus more on the writing, which I like to do. I often find I'm just getting into it and ready to sprint ahead, but then my writing time for the day is up. I'd love to plan for six-hour writing days, but I rarely do that. Hmm, maybe I need to try just putting some of those in the schedule and see if I'm more productive.
My problem is, I like to stay doing whatever I'm already doing. I don't like task switching. But I also know that I get anxious if I'm not making steady, consistent progress toward completion of projects with a deadline. So these two feelings conflict.
Maybe I need to start looking at progress more on a weekly level than a daily level, which might allow my brain to schedule βfocus daysβ instead of simply βfocus time blocksβ before switching. This podcast might help, because I've never had a consistent habit of looking back at my weekly progress before I started doing this. I'm going to think about this for a bit, and maybe experiment with it next week.
Anyway, when I am doing the actual writing (on Every Star that Shines), it's going smoothly. I've had fun βredesigningβ parts of my town to work for my story, such as the local coffee shop, while painting pictures of iconic landmarks and beautiful scenery unique to this area. And I adore my characters and storyline, so it's all still so fun.
Back to how things went sideways:
They did so productively, just not in the writing.
My brain felt pretty mushy last Friday morning, so I opted to do accounting for the day instead of write in the morning. I usually do a little accounting on Friday afternoons, but I'm trying to catch everything up so I can submit taxes on time this year.
Anyway, at lunch, I listened to a fantastic interview on the 6-Figure Authors podcast about selling books direct from your website with author Katie Cross (SFA 115 - Making More Money Selling Your Books Direct with Katie Cross), and my brain exploded with new ideas. I'd already been reworking the knitting sections of my website to promote better direct sales, and I'd been tweaking the books section too, but this just put it into overdrive. I sat down and did some quick planning, and quickly realized there were some pain points in my current setup that I could easily address by reworking things with my current plan⦠and there are some that I can't because they are actual limitations of Squarespace's platform.
I'm on the legacy plan, but I would consider upgrading to their current commerce plan if it would solve some of these pain points, like no way for customers to leave reviews, among other issues. But those features simply don't exist on Squarespace yet.
They've come a long way since I signed up with them in 2014, and this is the first time I've really felt like I am ready to grow my platform faster than they are growing theirs. I looked into third-party plugins to solve some of these solutions, but I'm currently trying to decide if the price tag is worth it. In the long run? Yes, it would be. But I might have to wait for a bit to implement some of those changes.
However, I made what changes I could, making it easier for people to decide to purchase directly through my website.
As part of this, I tweaked my Intellection Property tracking formulas in Excel to help me determine my prices for both eBooks and print books. One of the frustrations of selling direct as a Canadian, or even of drop-shipping from an American Print On Demand (POD) printer (I use IngramSpark for all my books), is the high cost of Canadian shipping. For one of my books that I priced out on Canada Post to ship out from my house, I could ship the exact same book to the United States, France, the UK, or Australia for around the $10 mark. To ship that same book to BC, my neighbouring province, was $20, and to Nova Scotia, it was $25.
I was so frustrated, I almost ranted on social media. Instead, I ranted at Google, they reminded me of what I already knew, and then I grumbled some more and kept tweaking my formulas in my spreadsheet.
This does make it tricky to set prices, give deals, etc.
And POD books, if you plan to make any profit, just have to be priced pretty high. But I still regularly sell some. One of my author friends who writes middle grade sells most of her copies in print, which makes sense. But learning to price books as an indie author is one of the things that feels most like throwing darts in the dark, even with all my fancy formulas.
Especially eBooks. I actually raised the price of several of my eBooks this week, too. It was only two days ago, so I don't yet know how it's affected anything. However, my steady seller still seems to be selling steadily, so I'm hoping it means a slightly higher profit margin and no drop in sales for me. I'll have more information next week.
News:
Impromptu Writing Panel discussion on Stark Reflections:
Last night, participated in a round table meet-up for the patrons of Mark Leslie Lefebvre's Stark Reflections podcast, and had a great discussion. Will repost the link when he puts that up publicly.
Theme Music Coming Soon:
I also heard from the musician that I commissioned to write a theme song for the podcast, Josh Rickard. He was busy finishing up the score for a fan-made Spiderman film called Spiderman: Miles Behind. I was stunned by how good it wasβthe whole production.
Anyway, I hope to have actual theme music soon, and I'm thrilled I got to hire one of my college classmates to write it.
AI Narration:
A couple weeks ago, included the draft of Chapter 1 of my AI-narrated audiobook All I Want for Christmas. If you listened to the whole thing, you may have noticed how much the technology struggled with recreating verbal tic or other non-standard sounds, such as βmm-hmm,β which it pronounced βum-hum.β I'd also used βuh-huhβ several times in later chapters, which it butchered every time.
To resolve this in the final cut, I simply replaced those sounds with the word βyep.β It's not ideal, but it was better than what was there. Overall, I have mixed feelings about the results of this experiment. In some ways, the results were better than I expected them to be from an AI-generated voice. In other ways, especially in reference to how it intonated certain parts of the dialogue, I was disappointed.
However, the results are not unpleasant. I'll still be offering this book for sale on my website, clearly marked as βDigitally Narratedβ. But I'm not going to rush out and get any of my other books digitally narrated anytime soon.
In the future, I may consider it for non-fiction books, which I think it would do a very good job of.
"Write for the Win" Storybundle:
Curated by Melissa Snark and Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Available for the next two weeks (ends February 3, I think?)
For minimum of $20 USD (but you can give more), you can get ten amazing craft, business, and writer's mindset books:
Author Smarter Boot Camp by Michelle Fox
Playwriting: The Merciless Craft by Carol Wolf
Super Structure by James Scott Bell (one I recommend)
Taking the Short Tack by Matty Dalrymple and Mark Leslie Lefebvre
Wide for the Win by Mark Leslie Lefebvre (another one I recommend)
It's All Just a Draft by Tobias S. Buckell
Prosperity for Writers by HonorΓ©e Corder
Dear Writer, Are You in Burnout? By Becca Syme (looking forward to this one!)
Three Story Method by J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon (and this one)
The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger (and this one!)
Coupon code for your pick of one of three "Empower your Writing" writing courses with Margie Lawson
MUG QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
βLife happens. Write anyway.β
Professionals show up. So keep showing up, friend, and so will I.
Talk to you next week.
S1E2: Begin as you Mean to Carry On
In this episode, I talk about how I spent my so-called holidays, the current state of my writing projects, what Iβve been trying for marketing lately and what Iβve learned from it, and some of my favourite writing tools. I also discuss some movies I watched over the holidays and my business plans for 2022.
In this episode, I talk about how I spent my so-called holidays, the current state of my writing projects, what Iβve been trying for marketing lately and what Iβve learned from it, and some of my favourite writing tools. I also discuss some movies I watched over the holidays and my business plans for 2022.
Here are some resources mentioned in this episode:
Tool of the Week:
Scrivener: https://www.talenawinters.com/scrivener (affiliate link)
Podcast mentions:
6-figure Authors: SFA 112: How to Smartly Invest back into Your Book Business
Life Lessons - Episode 57: Intermittent Fasting for LIFE
The Creative Penn - #596: Improve Your Sleep And Creativity With Dr. Anne D. Bartolucci
The Creative Penn - #589: Digital Narration with AI Voices with Taylan Kamis from DeepZen
Interview with Geoff Woods on Afford Anything with Paula Pant: #293: THE ONE QUESTION THAT MAKES EVERYTHING EASIER, WITH GEOFF WOODS (Replay of January 1, 2021 episode)
The One Thing podcast - 332: Why this year's success comes down to One Thing
Other Resources:
Alana Terryβs resources for authors: https://successfulwriter.podia.com/
5 Point Plot Structure Freebie: https://www.talenawinters.com/plot-structure/freebie
Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes (affiliate links for some platforms)
Delay, Donβt Deny and Clean(ish) by Gin Stephens (affiliate links for some platforms)
All I Want for Christmas excerpt:
The postscript on this episode is an excerpt from AI-Narrated audiobook of All I Want for Christmas, using the licensed voice of Edward Herrmann. The company I used to create the audiobook was DeepZen, https://deepzen.io.
Mug quote of the week:
βItβs only cold if youβre standing still.β
Happy writing!
Talena Winters smiles at the camera. Image text: Season 1, Episode 1: Begin as you mean to carry on. January 6, 2022. Coffee & Real Talk for Writers with Talena Winters