The Author Biz

Today’s guest is David Berens, an author who writes what he calls Tropical Thrillers. David has gone from essentially zero in book sales revenue to over $50,000 in the past 15 months and he shares his story in this week's episode. The post TAB143: How Being Willing to Tweak Everything has Fueled Sales for Thriller Author David Berens appeared first on .

Today’s guest is Craig Martelle. Craig is a best-selling author and the Godfather of the indie-focused 20books conferences that are held around the world. We discuss Craig’s thoughts on some of what’s changed for authors since his last visit 18 months ago, and some of the tried and true practices that are still critical to indie publishing success today. The post TAB142: How to Become a Successful Indie Author – With Craig Martelle appeared first on .

In this week’s episode, we discuss the process of self-publishing a series that had previously been traditionally published with NYT, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling author Jennifer Ashley. Jennifer didn’t just decide to continue her Stormwalker series, she also made the decision to invest in the continuation of audiobooks for her series, hiring the same narrator her publisher had selected to narrate the books originally. The post TAB141: Going Indie With A Traditionally Published...

In this week’s episode, we discuss the idea of going wide with a portion of your books. Our guest is best-selling indie author Scott Paul, who writes fantasy and science fiction under the name of T.S. Paul. Scott’s journey as an indie author is fairly short and definitely spectacular. He goes his own way as an author and is willing to step way outside the box when it comes to his author business. The post TAB140: Going Wide With Some Of Your Books, with T S Paul appeared first on .

This week’s show is all about Crisis Management, which is NOT, as you might expect, just managing a crisis when you’re in the middle of one. What it can and should be is a process of training yourself to recognize and to deal with potential threats quickly and without allowing your emotions to become involved. Our guest is a longtime favorite of the show, author, speaker and teacher, Chris Syme. Many of us know Chris as an author marketing expert, but her early training was in Crisis...

Today's show is about audience building. Most authors listen to and learn from other authors. Maybe through podcasts, or in books written by authors on how they’ve done it, or maybe we just learn by asking questions in social media groups, or at conferences. But there are other creative entrepreneurs out there who deal with the same need to build fan bases. Artists, photographers, filmmakers, musicians and others. What can we learn from them and how they build their businesses? That’s...

Today’s guest is Chloe Adler. She’s still involved in the work world and she’s a romance author building her own thriving and sustainable author business. In this episode, we discuss her strategy for outsourcing certain aspects of her business to virtual assistants so that she has time to pursue her writing, her passion for learning, and her somewhat unusual exercise hobby. The post TAB137: Should You Hire a Virtual Assistant to Help with Your Author Biz? appeared first on .

When speaking with authors about GDPR, I get a variety of responses that range from a thoughtful what are you talking about to a sense of panic. If you’re in the “what are you talking about” category, GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation rule in the EU that will govern data protection and privacy for individuals within the European Union. Today’s guest is author BL (Barb) Berry, and as you’ll hear in the interview, her job forced her to take a hard look at GDPR, and then to take...

This week’s guest is author Bobbi Holmes, who joined us on episode 82 almost two years ago when we discussed pre-orders. She shares her thoughts on finding a publication schedule that can work with your life, and what has worked for her in publishing sixteen books over the past four years. The post TAB135: Finding The Publication Schedule That’s Right For You appeared first on .

In today’s episode, we take close look at the process romance author, Jami Albright uses to keep her books tickling the Amazon algorithms, staying near the top of the sales charts, and generating around $5,000 in royalties each month. Jami manages all of this despite the fact that she's published only two books, both in the last year. The post TAB134: Two Books to 43k (2BOOKSto43k) with Romance Author Jami Albright appeared first on .

One of the great debates in the indie author community is the KDP Select versus selling wide choice that every indie author must consider. It's easy to find success stories on both sides of the divide, but which direction is right for your author business? Mystery and thriller author Kristi Belcamino did her research when she transitioned from traditionally published to indie and chose KDP Select. But she's since changed her mind. In this episode, she explains why. The post TAB133: Making...

After a lengthy break, The Author Biz returns next week for season 2. I know, I know, how can there be a season two without a season one. But I'm calling the first 132 episodes season one and we're moving on! Thanks for keeping the show in your podcast app! The post TAB132-5: WOOT! The podcast returns next week appeared first on .

In today’s episode, we delve into the importance of personal development for authors, with one of my favorite guests, Honorée Corder. We recorded this conversation face to face at the 20 books conference in Las Vegas the day after she gave her inspiring keynote address. The post TAB132: The Importance of Personal Development to Authors with Honorée Corder appeared first on .

In today’s episode, we delve into the subject of taxes with John Pollock, the Chief Executive Officer of Financial Gravity Companies, and the President of Pollock Advisory Group. If you have a plan to take your author business to the next level, taxes are something you’ll need to deal with, and as you move through the various levels of success as an author, they’ll become critical to you and your business. The post TAB131: The Importance of Being Strategic with Tax Planning, with John...

In today’s episode, we’re learning from thriller author AC Fuller, who set a goal for himself to become a full-time writer in last 2016 and then went out and accomplished that goal. We get into subjects like being successful landing Bookbub ads, and the value AC has found in running AMS ads for his Alex Vane media thriller series. We cover the launch strategy he’s put together for a new series that’s coming after the first of the year, and the mindset change that allowed him to achieve that...

Have you ever asked yourself, what could happen if you took this author thing seriously? Today’s guest is Shayne Silvers, an author who asked himself that question in early 2016. He spent six months research how to best position his books in front of the right readers and then applied what he'd learned. This interview is a great combination of 'how to' and inspiration that I think you'll really enjoy. The post TAB129: Using Research as a Springboard to Mega Success with Shayne Silvers...

Our guest is USA Today bestselling author Michelle Spiva. In addition to her work as an author, she’s also a counselor, a writing coach, and an extreme data geek. In this show, we discuss things like avoiding the fear of data, learning from books that are winners, her version of survivor bias, revenue management, push versus pull marketing, and all with lots of examples that will help us to put Michelle’s teaching into action. The post TAB128: A Deep Dive into Using Data as an Author with...

I returned from the marvelous 20booksvegas conference on Monday and woke to some interesting news on Tuesday. The story of the demise of Pronoun and the announcement that Draft2Digital has added Amazon distribution whipped through the indie author community at hyperspeed. We chat with D2D's Director of Marketing, Kevin Tumlinson to learn more. The post TSS127: Draft2Digital Adds Amazon Distribution and Pronoun Ceases Operations appeared first on .

My guest today is Michael Anderle. This is Michael's fourth visit to the show, and his first visit, Zero to $10k Per Month in 90 days is still the most popular Author Biz episode of all time, not counting the thousands of times the video of that show has been seen on YouTube. November 3rd, marks the two year point from Michael's first published book, and in those two years, he’s gone from being an indie author to a successful indie author to a really successful indie author and now he’s a...

Author Martha Carr joins us this week to take a deep dive into the creation of a multi-author universe. We'll discuss topics like creating the universe name, selecting the core group of authors to write the books, the creation of art, covers, storylines, the social media community, and the website. We’ll even get into things like the technology involved in managing those storylines and how the various authors work together to create their books. The post TAB125: Creating a Multi-Author...