Podcasts about Apple Books

We're back with a deep dive on one of our favorite recent romances, Seven Days in June by Tia Williams! We talk about yearning in contemporaries, about books that have a powerful sense of place, about dual timelines, about secondary characters, about lines that stick with us years later, and about how fated mates works as a trope in a contemporary romance.Tia also has a new book out this month, The Missed Connection. Get it wherever you get your books.Listen to our Season 3 episode with Tia Williams about writers in romance and head over to talk about Seven Days in June or any of her other books on the Fated Mates Discord, accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Read Seven Days in June at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, wherever you get your books, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.NotesSorry, we're a Knicks podcast now, everyone. Sarah because of New York and Jen because of Villanova. Sarah did look up that Knickerbocker thing, but we never got back to it. Learn more about how those trousers became a symbol of NYC here. Sports curses are bad, just ask Red Sox fans! Spike Lee has really been through it, Jalen Brunson's interview after the game just shows you a man trying to deal with his feelings.The World Cup, we just don't know anything about that yet, but we're gonna get up to speed on that, just like all the people of the world getting up to speed on America. Also, feels important to romance that we bring you the news that the Tartan Army cleared Boston out of beer.We had Tia Williams on the podcast back in season 3 when Seven Days in June was released. Although there is not a sequel to Seven Days, Shane and Eva are secondary characters in the YA romance with Audre that came out in 2025. Find out more about Tia, and see all her books at her website.Come see Sophia Benoit in conversation with us in NYC (June 23) and Chicago (June 24) to celebrate the release of her first historical romance, The Very Definition of Love.SponsorsFrederick Smith, author of Love is a Contact Sport, available in print, ebook, audiobook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books.Little Brown & Company, publishers of Lu Chekowsky's Don't Buy What I'm Selling: On Breaking Up with Advertising and Finally Learning to Love My Whole, Fat Self, available in print, ebook, audiobook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo or wherever you get your books.The What in the Smut? Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.W by Wattpad Books, publishers of Nicole Alfrine's Brain Games. Available in print and ebook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/2026/6/16/s0838-seven-days-in-june-by-tia-williams If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

The Economic Miracle period witnessed, as its name suggests, tremendous economic growth throughout Japan. However, that growth came at a cost to Japan's organized working class as well as white collar workers whose pursuit of productivity often compromised their health.Support the show My latest novel, "Califia's Crusade," is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and many other online platforms! 

This week, we're visiting with Mary Kay Andrews, a longtime writer and certified badass who we adore for her WTAF Wednesdays and her delightful books. We talk about her writing journey, her decision to get publicly, vocally political, and about her new book Road Trip. We had a great time chatting and talking about writing, about research, and about how we should all just take a road trip through Ireland. Of course, we recommend a few books!Find Mary Kay Andrews (and catch WTAF Wednesdays) on Instagram, Threads, or her website.Listen to our earlier romance road trip episode from Season 1 and head over to tell us all about your favorite road trips and find an endless list of road trip recs on the Fated Mates Discord, accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Next week, our read along is Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, wherever you get your books, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Books DiscussedRoad Trip by Mary Kay AndrewsSummers at the Saint by Mary Kay AndrewsThis Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona AndrewsNevermind the Mistletoe by Louisa DarlingThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainThe Odyssey, Emily Wilson's TranslationThe Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise by Colleen OakleyThis Tender Land by William Kent KruegerThe Road to Tender Hearts by Annie HartnettSponsorsEdward Underhill, author of The House of Now & Then, available in print, ebook, audiobook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books.Kristina Forrest, author of The Summer Girlfriend, available for preorder in print, ebook, audiobook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo or wherever you get your books.Little Brown & Co, publishers of Emily Adrian's Seduction Theory. Available in print, ebook and audiobook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, wherever you get your books, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Lumi Gummies. Go to lumigummies.com and use code FATEDMATES for 30% off your order.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/6/9/s0837-road-trips-with-mary-kay-andrews If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Ikeda Hayato managed to garner the necessary support to become the President of the LDP and the Prime Minister of Japan after Kishi Nobusuke's resignation in 1960. He would prove to be almost the polar opposite of his arch-conservative predecessor, creating much of the social safety net which Japan continues to enjoy today. His successor, Sato Eisaku, lobbied for the return of Okinawa Prefecture and was forced to wrangle with complicated geopolitical challenges and domestic disturbances.Support the show My latest novel, "Califia's Crusade," is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and many other online platforms! 

Ist Dein Gewicht genetisch vorprogrammiert? Die Set-Point-Theorie sagt Ja – und nimmt Dir damit bequem jede Verantwortung ab. Nur: Die aktuelle Forschung sieht das anders. Am Ende der Folge weißt Du, was von der Theorie übrig bleibt. Und welche drei Hebel darüber entscheiden, ob es bei „vorher–nachher–vorher“ bleibt ... oder echte Veränderung daraus wird.____________*WERBUNG: Infos zum Werbepartner dieser Folge und allen weiteren Werbepartnern findest Du hier.

Ist Dein Gewicht genetisch vorprogrammiert? Die Set-Point-Theorie sagt Ja – und nimmt Dir damit bequem jede Verantwortung ab. Nur: Die aktuelle Forschung sieht das anders. Am Ende dieser Folge weißt Du, was von der Theorie übrig bleibt und welche drei Hebel darüber entscheiden, ob es bei „vorher–nachher–vorher“ bleibt oder echte Veränderung daraus wird.____________*WERBUNG: Infos zum Werbepartner dieser Folge und allen weiteren Werbepartnern findest Du hier.

We're celebrating the paperback release of These Summer Storms this week, and that means we're talking about the weather! We talk about rain and snow and wind and tempests and tornadoes and monsoons, and we talk about why we all like weather in books so much (hint, it's because it's dialed up to 11).Tell us all about your favorite weather in romance novels and find an endless list of books that are as wild and stormy as you like over at the Fated Mates Discord, accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, wherever you get your books, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.NotesWe are fans of Mayor Mamdani, texting Sarah about the weather. This lady didn't get the memo, but we hope she's okay. After this episode was recorded, the Knicks were headed to the MNBA finals, and the Mayor repealed bedtimes for all the kids in New York. Could we love him any more?Eric was camping, which Sarah and I imagine is like Ferngully, but it was real rainy.Half agony and half hope is from Persuasion, which just goes to show you that you can never read Jane Austen and still get the basics!Send Help is a movie with Rachel McAdams and it's basically light horror, maybe? Idk, Jen covered her eyes a lot, but it was super fun.It was a dark and stormy night is from Snoopy, and also an 1830 novel called Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was an aristocrat! He was the first Baron Lytton! Paul Clifford is an example of a Newgate novel.Snowed-in is a subset of forced proximity, but the snowed-in is a symbol.You can watch People We Meet on Vacation on Netflix.Speaking of Crash Landing on You and weather.James Joyce was afraid of thunderstorms.Sophia Benoit will be with Sarah at Book Club Bar in Brooklyn on June 23rd, and with Jen at Women & Children First in Chicago on June 24th. Sarah will be with Mary Kay Andrews on Long Island on June 12th.SponsorsRachel Griffiths, author of Just for the Season, available for preorder in print, ebook, audiobook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, signed from the Ripped Bodice, or wherever you get your books.Lulu Morris, author of The Dating Pact, available for preorder in print, ebook, audiobook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo or wherever you get your books.W by Wattpad Books, publishers of Sabrina Blackburry's Half Wylde. Available in print and ebook from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or wherever you get your books.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/6/1/s0836-weather-is-genre-these-summer-storms-paperback If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Мегаполис ушёл под воду после катастрофического потопа. Над поверхностью остался лишь комплекс из четырёх покосившихся небоскрёбов. Выжившие в башнях начинают отчаянную борьбу за ресурсы, власть и пытаются найти способ добраться до ближайшей суши, расположенной в 2000 километрах. Здесь нет героев - каждый за себя.Климат стремительно ухудшается: холодает, приходят грозы и цунами, здания деформируются и могут рухнуть в любой момент. Тайминг, логистика, механика мира и мотивация персонажей проработаны максимально тщательно. Этот аудиосериал развивался с июня 2024 при поддержке подписчиков (ютуба). Контакты автора, новости, текстовые версии, другие рассказы: https://antony.workСпонсоры канала получают ранний доступ к новым эпизодам, а также голосуют за приоритетность сюжетов:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUUgsrG8bT4ViYj-sP1uGOg/joinПоддержать и ускорить выпуск аудиосериалов: https://antony.work/supportЕсли звук вам кажется неудовлетворительным, не стесняйтесь задонатить на привлечение профессионального диктора. Текстовые версии на Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/author/antony-work/id1829467810Я тщательно изучаю каждый вопрос для максимальной правдоподобности. Это касается всего: скорость огибания здания, запас хода вертолёта или АПЛ, последствия термобарической бомбардировки, как чернила из принтера использовать в печатной машинке, технология обнаружения скрытой солнцем планеты, стандартная комплектация бункера и тд. Поэтому в рамки маловероятного явления, пытаюсь встроить реалистичные события. Но, конечно, мог что-то упустить.#зомби #выживальщики #постапокалипсис #истории #приключения #выживание #борьба #antonywork #островсити #первыйэтаж #ходячие #магия #фэнтези #попаданцы #наследники #космос #пришельцы #телепортация #утопия #антиутопия #дтп #полиция #мистертаран

Conservatives and Leftists both experienced party mergers after the 1955 general election. However, it was the Liberal Democratic Party who would emerge as the big winner for the foreseeable future.Support the show My latest novel, "Califia's Crusade," is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and many other online platforms! 

Prolific country music writer Barry Mazor joins Nick to talk about his recent book Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story. The book has been widely praised as the definitive biopgraphy about the iconic musical duo and it's definitely one of the best music history books written in the last few years. Definitely check this one out!You can purchase a copy of Blood Harmony at any major retailer, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books.Support the show

Schon ein halbes Kilo Flüssigkeitsverlust kostet Dich messbar Kraft, Ausdauer und Konzentration. Und die meisten Menschen merken es nicht mal.Du kommst vom Training, trinkst einen Liter Wasser – und eine Stunde später bist Du dreimal auf der Toilette gewesen, aber immer noch durstig. Das ist kein Zufall. Dein Körper scheidet das Wasser aus, das er eigentlich braucht. Und die Ursache ist ein einziger Mineralstoff, der in Deiner Flasche fehlt.Am Ende dieser Folge weißt Du, welches Getränk aus Deinem Kühlschrank laut Forschung besser hydratisiert als die meisten Sportgetränke. Warum letztere im wissenschaftlichen Ranking alle auf Wasser-Niveau landen. Und welcher einfache Kniff dazu führt, dass Dein Körper die Flüssigkeit wirklich aufnimmt.____________*WERBUNG: Infos zum Werbepartner dieser Folge und allen weiteren Werbepartnern findest Du hier.

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/Buy my merch! midgardmusings.dashery.comDonate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Purchase my album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" for $19.99 USD via one of the below digital payment options:PayPal - @MidgardMusingsVenmo - @Jesse-StilwagenCashApp -$MidgardMusingsLearn more about The Living Futhark course here.Check out the Heretical Heathen Podcast on SpotifyFind Robert on Substack: https://substack.com/@robertnox?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=op9zuSome links to books Robert recommends or talked about on this episode:Heathen Golden Dawn: https://a.co/d/07d6ENln "In Search of Seiðr: A Rune-Gild Approach" by Janet Didur: https://www.amazon.com/Search-Sei%C3%B0r-Rune-Gild-Approach-ebook/dp/B0F5YKT6ZF?dplnkId=a83df388-c317-4287-8fee-18e4baac525f

This week, we're joined by one of the greatest, Veronica Roth, whose new book, Seek the Traitor's Son, features one of her most beloved of tropes: Sad Boys Who Punch Things. We were delighted when she suggested we do an episode on this very particular, very delicious romance concept, and of course, we invited her to join us! We talk about how it works, why we love soft boys who are full of rage, and how we stan a hero who is willing to stand back and let his partner be awesome. We also talk about The West Wing & Ladyhawke (makes sense). And of course, we talk about her books!If you'd like to continue the conversation about sad boys who punch things or about Veronica's deep backlist, please join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, wherever you get your books, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.NOTESVeronica Roth's newest release is Seek the Traitor's Son, the first in a dystopian fantasy duology with a strong romance subplot.We love the follow sad boys: Toby Ziegler, Angel, Fox Mulder, Tobias from Animorphs, and Rutger Hauer from Ladyhawke.The Sixth Faction is coming soon! SPONSORSPiper Rayne, author of The Hotshot, available in print, ebook, audiobook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Rose Prendeville, author of A Faire Affair, available in print, ebook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Blue Box Press, publishers of Dylan Allen's beautiful new print editions of The Daredevil, The Mastermind & The Wild Card. Available in print and ebook from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.Lumi Gummies. Go to lumigummies.com and use code FATEDMATES for 30% off your order.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/5/18/s0835-sad-boys-who-punch-things-with-veronica-roth If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Visionary music producer Robert Margouleff shares his stories of pushing the boundaries of musical innovation, art, and technology in the new immersive audiobook, Shaping Sounds: Stevie Wonder, DEVO, the Synth Revolution and My Life Behind the Music. In legendary studios like Electric Lady and the Record Plant, Margouleff became a pioneering producer and engineer for artists like Billy Preston, Jeff Beck, DEVO, The Isley Brothers, and David Sanborn. A true sonic innovator, he was an early adopter of immersive audio and surround sound, developing new mixing techniques for home theaters that brought some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters to life. Travel deep into the world of a music maker who created some of the most significant and influential music of our time. Here's a preview. Find the full audiobook at Pushkin.fm, Spotify, Audible, Apple Books or wherever you get audiobooks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Allied occupation changed Japan's social norms in a variety of ways. When the occupation ended, some of those changes would remain while others would fall by the wayside. In the midst of rebuilding, economic chaos, and privation, the Japanese film industry entered its golden age.Support the show My latest novel, "Califia's Crusade," is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and many other online platforms! 

Hi, everybody. Author, podcaster, yoga instructor extraordinaire Susan Quilty returns to the show to fill in for Rodney. The audiobook version of her novel The Insistence Of Memory is now available on Audible and Apple Books. Check out her website https://susanquilty.com for links to this and all her books, her podcast Freely Written, and her virtual yoga classes.  Susan shares information on all this plus discusses her "Gilded Age Getaway." Also, TV/streaming recommendations, the final week of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and a whole lot more! https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Insistence-of-Memory-Audiobook/B0GXC14CKL?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-506224&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_506224_rh_us Thank you for listening. Connect with Meanwhile At The Podcast on social media. Don't forget to #livetweet (we're still calling it that)! Share the show, subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and rate us on your podcast apps. Those much coveted five stars are always appreciated. Stay safe out there. NOW ON BLUESKY @MeanwhileATP https://x.com/meanwhileatp https://www.meanwhileatthepodcast.libsyn.com Rodney (AKA Art Nerrd): https://x.com/artnerrd https://www.instagram.com/theartnerrd/ https://facebook.com/artnerrd https://shop.spreadshirt.com/artnerrd Kristin: https://www.facebook.com/kristing616 https://www.instagram.com/kristing616 https://www.etsy.com/shop/BabyDragonsBreath?ref=shop_sugg_market Rich: https://x.com/doctorstaypuft

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/Buy my merch! midgardmusings.dashery.comDonate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Purchase my album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" for $19.99 USD via one of the below digital payment options:PayPal - @MidgardMusingsVenmo - @Jesse-StilwagenCashApp -$MidgardMusingsLearn more about The Living Futhark course here.

We are thrilled to have two of our favorite people with us today to discuss one of our favorite genres! Ali Hazelwood and Adriana Herrera, the masterminds behind the AH2 Kickstarter of Historical Trailblazers are here to talk about all the ways historical romance is unmatched! We talk about the new Historical Trailblazer special edition box set that AH2 launched this week, about the power of historicals, and about some of our favorite historical romances, past and present.The Historical Trailblazer Box Set of books, including Indigo by Beverly Jenkins, Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin, The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles, Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, and (of course) Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. The box set includes stunning hardcover editions, gold foil, sprayed edges, original artwork and letters from the authors. Learn more at the AH2 Kickstarter page.If you'd like to continue the conversation about historical romance, please come join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, wherever you get your books, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.SponsorsBlue Box Press, publishers of Larissa Ione's Legacy of Desire, available in print, ebook or audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.Juniper Butterworth, author of The King in the Forest, coming soon in print, ebook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Elle Kennedy, author of The Off Campus series, beginning with The Deal, now a television show on Amazon, available in print, ebook and audiobook, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.Dawn Banks, author of The Spreadsheet Situation, available in print or ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, free with Kobo Plus, or wherever you get your books.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/5/11/historicals-with-ali-hazelwood-and-adriana-herrera If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Japan's economy expanded rapidly during the postwar rebuild - too rapidly. Hyperinflation created unrest and frustration which the labor movement hoped to harness. Meanwhile, the diet passed a sweeping land reform which radically transformed Japan's agrarian sector.Support the show My latest novel, "Califia's Crusade," is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and many other online platforms! 

James Aquilone, accomplished horror writer/editor, returns to the Wayne's Comics Podcast in Episode #744! Wayne has a great conversation this week with James, a favorite here at the podcast! On May 19, Monstrous Books will be releasing the first-ever Creepshow prose collection inspired by the hit Shudder series! It's described this way: "Creepshow: 13 Tales of Terror is a macabre celebration of the series' legacy — twisting morality tales of terror, justice, and cosmic retribution, told through the Creep's ghoulish grin." We discuss how this book is coming to be, who has created the various contributions, and what we can expect from James and Monstrous Books in the months ahead! This story collection will be available as an ebook, paperback, and hardcover on May 19, 2026, wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and local independent retailers. The Creep invites you to turn the page... if you dare. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts Wayne's Comics Podcast Archive Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by becoming a Major Spoilers Patreon member. It will help ensure Wayne's Comics Podcast continues far into the future! At Major Spoilers, we strive to create original content that you find interesting and entertaining. Producing, writing, recording, editing, and researching require significant resources. We pay writers, podcast hosts, and other staff members who work tirelessly to provide you with insights into the comic book, gaming, and pop culture industries. Help us keep Major Spoilers strong. Become a Patron (and our superhero) today.

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/Buy my merch! midgardmusings.dashery.comDonate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Purchase my album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" for $19.99 USD via one of the below digital payment options:PayPal - @MidgardMusingsVenmo - @Jesse-StilwagenCashApp -$MidgardMusingsLearn more about The Living Futhark course here.

We're deep diving into one of our favorite historicals from the 00s today — Jennifer Ashley's The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie. It's a great follow up to our Paris episode last week, but we also talk about how Ashley really wrote the heck out of this book. We talk about widows, about sex in historicals, about autism rep in historicals, romance families, and the way this series electrified us as readers. This book is a straight up banger.If you're interested in learning more about the AH2 Historical Trailblazer Kickstarter, featuring beautiful, hardcover special editions of Lord of Scoundrels, Indigo, The Magpie Lord, Butterfly Swords and Dreaming of You, head over to the Kickstarter page and sign up for updates!If you'd like to continue the conversation about The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie or any of Jennifer Ashley's other books, please come join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, wherever you get your books, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.NotesCheck out the AH2 kickstarter, partnering with Fated Mates and Julia Whelan's Audiobrary. It goes live next week!Dua Lipa met her fiance Callum Turner because they both were reading the same book, Trust by Hernan Diaz. Dua Lipa's book club is called Service 95.You, too, might enjoy reading Dungeon Crawler Carl. Or Reacher. Or Murderbot. Jen is thinking of going to bedazzle a copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but is that too silly?Dorchester Publishing was a house that published mostly mass market paperbacks, and it shuttered shortly after the publishing of The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie. The editor of the book, Leah Hultenschmidt, is now at Forever.There's a new-ish translation of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson that you might like. Xenia is the ancient Greek word for hospitality, and Wilson talks a about how the word comes from the root xenos, meaning both stranger and friend. Maybe if we were all a little more open to those we don't know, things would be different.SponsorsHarperCollins, publishers of Laurie Gilmore's The Daisy Chain Flower Shop, available in print, ebook or audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.Michelle Ruoff, author of A Summer to Stay, available in print, ebook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Jennilynn Wyer, author of All Our Next Times, available in print, ebook and audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/5/4/0833-the-madness-of-lord-ian-mackenzie If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Send us Fan MailToday's guest is someone who beautifully bridges two worlds—science and story, medicine and meaning.Amanda Skenandore is an award-winning author of historical fiction whose novels have been translated into multiple languages and recognized by organizations like the American Library Association, Reader's Digest, Silicon Valley Reads, and Apple Books. In 2024, she was honored with the Nevada Arts Council Literary Fellowship for her contributions to literature and the arts.But what makes Amanda especially fascinating to me is that before she ever became a full-time writer, she spent 16 years as a registered nurse.And you can feel that in her work.Her stories don't just live in the past—they dig into the human experience of medicine, justice, and belonging… often in the overlooked corners of history where voices have been silenced or forgotten.Today, we talk about that journey—from bedside nursing to bestselling author, how her clinical experiences shaped her storytelling, and what it means to care for people… whether through medicine or through words.In the five-minute snippet: they are just so cute. For Amanda's bio, visit my website (link below).Amanda's bookstoreContact The Conversing Nurse podcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconversingnursepodcast/Website: https://theconversingnursepodcast.comYour review is so important to this Indie podcaster! You can leave one here!  https://theconversingnursepodcast.com/leave-me-a-reviewWould you like to be a guest on my podcast? Pitch me! https://theconversingnursepodcast.com/intake-formCheck out my guests' book recommendations! https://bookshop.org/shop/theconversingnursepodcast I've partnered with RNegade.pro! You can earn CE's just by listening to my podcast episodes! Check out my CE library here: https://rnegade.thinkific.com/collections/conversing-nurse-podcastThanks for listening!

How is the German market different to English speaking markets, and why might it be worth looking into translation? What are the best ways to translate, self-publish and market your books in German? With Skye MacKinnon. In the intro, thoughts on feeling empty after a book, and the benefits of SubStack for authors [Stark Reflections; Wish I'd Known Then]; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars 16 and 23 May. This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Skye MacKinnon is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of over 70 books across romance and children's books under multiple pen names, most of which are also available in German, which is her bestselling market. Her latest book for authors is Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why the German-speaking market is much bigger than just Germany, and which genres sell best there Title protection laws, the Impressum, and translator copyright How to find and vet human translators, and what a quality translation actually costs The current state of AI translation for fiction, and why quality assurance passes are essential Distribution decisions: the Tolino Alliance, Skoobe, libraries, and why IngramSpark doesn't work in Germany Marketing in German: BookDeals, LovelyBooks, ads, BookTok, and why pre-orders matter even more You can find Skye SkyeMacKinnon.com and her children's books at IslaWynter.com. Transcript of the interview with Skye MacKinnon Jo: Skye MacKinnon is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of over 70 books across romance and children's books under multiple pen names, most of which are also available in German, which is her bestselling market. Her latest book for authors is Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Publish and Market Your Books. Welcome, Skye. Skye: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Jo: This is such an interesting topic. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Skye: I've always loved writing, but I was always told, “Well, you can't be an author. Get a proper job.” So I became a journalist and did that for a few years, but there was always that love of creative writing. At some point when I was getting more active on social media, I was following some other indie authors and realised they're just like me. They're not special people. I had always pictured authors as these mythical beings high up above the rest of us. That gave me the courage to put out my own book. I self-published from the start, never even looked into trad publishing, and that was in 2017. I was really lucky because my first series totally hit it off. I was able to quit my job a year later and I have been a full-time author ever since. I started with romance and then, by accident, got into children's books. Which has been great fun. I don't even have children myself, but it's just that palette cleanser in between. Writing about cute animals and unicorns and just bringing some fun into everything. Nowadays I have about five or six pen names, depending on how you count, across genres, although most of it is romance, and that's my bread and butter really. Jo: Yes, I'm certainly one of those people who wish I could write romance. It always just seems to be the most profitable market in any language, I guess. Let's get into the book. It's a fantastic book. I've been through it myself. It's really packed full of everything you need, so we can't cover everything. Let's start by considering the German language in general. Why is German a good language market to consider expanding into? And for anyone who might not realise, why is it more than Germany? Skye: Well, Germans love to read, and depending on the statistic that you look at, they're generally seen as the third largest book market in the world after English and Mandarin Chinese. So it's a huge market, even though you think of Germany as a small little country in Europe. As you said, it's much more than Germany. Yes, you've got about 83 million people in Germany, but then you've also got Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, parts of Belgium, Luxembourg, and even Italy. So if you look at the whole footprint on the map, it is much bigger than just the one country. A lot of young people there still read and go to bookshops. There's a huge bookshop culture. You will find, if you go to a high street there, way more bookshops than you do here in the UK, for example. There's demand for quality and for really gorgeous books. They have been way ahead of the curve when it comes to special editions and sprayed edges, and they also like translations. I found one statistic where about two thirds of all newly released titles in German are actual translations. Readers are used to translations, but until a few years ago it was all trad-published translations. So this transition is coming now. It's coming very, very fast, especially with AI. They generally are very open to translations as long as the quality is there. Jo: So what about specific genres then? Obviously we mentioned romance there, and romance is not just one genre anymore. Whatever they're writing— How can somebody tell if it's worth expanding into German? How do we do this? It takes time and effort and money, potentially. Skye: It can take a lot of money, so it is worth doing research. There's one easy way, which is just looking at your current sales and looking at how many books you're selling in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the moment in English. That can give you an indication of which of your books might be already quite popular there. Sometimes it's quite surprising. A lot of my books sell very differently in German than they do in English. I've got one series that did okay in English, and I almost didn't translate it. The German version is, I think, my second bestselling series in German and has completely surprised me. So sometimes it's worth just experimenting a bit. Otherwise, obviously as you said, romance is doing really well. There are a few surprises though. I had a chat with Draft2Digital and they gave me lots of information from their statistics, and they said about 40% of all the western title sales on Draft2Digital are actually in Germany, which is just a huge percentage. Jo: In English? Skye: Across languages. Jo: Mm-hmm. Skye: Germans, to be fair, they love their westerns. My dad in Germany, he has been watching westerns for I don't know how many decades. It is one of those things that is just really popular there. Another thing is anything that is set in other countries and really has the location as almost like a character. There's lots of Cornwall, Scotland, different islands, but also mountains and cities. So if your book is set in, even in New York City, if it has a clear setting—if it's not just that it could be any city—then that's a good one to think about translating. In general, most genres can do well. There's a few where you have to be a bit careful. Second World War books, for example. If you have a book that portrays every single German as a Nazi and as evil, it might not do as well in Germany. So some common sense when it comes to historical books. Otherwise, just look at German retailers, look at what is selling there—and not just Amazon. Places like Thalia, which is part of the Tolino Alliance, and they have about 40% of the market. So it's really important to look at them too, and not just at Amazon. Jo: We'll come back to the distribution in a minute. There are some important differences between the German market and the US/UK market. Obviously we're talking about a different language, but of course there are a few things that are different that some people might not think about. So give us a few of those things that people definitely need to think about. Skye: Okay, so even before you start publishing, you need to be aware that title protection is a thing in Germany. Your book can't have the same title as an already published book. That is a law that is basically there to avoid readers being confused. So if you had five books with the same title, readers might not realise which book is by which author. You have to do your research and check if anyone else is using your title. There are some exceptions—if it's a completely different category, so if there's a children's book with that title but you write spicy romance, then the chance that the reader gets confused is much lower. Quite often you can then contact either the author or the publisher and ask, “Can I get written permission to use that title?” I did that for one of my series and it was totally fine. Just be sure to get it in writing, because if your book suddenly becomes a huge bestseller, they might reconsider. So title protection is an important one. You need to research that before you publish. One thing that people sometimes get confused about is reusing their English title. That's totally fine because it's your own title. So if your English title hasn't been used and you want to keep that same title, that works. It's just about other people's books where you can't use those titles. Another important legal bit is the Impressum. It's the copyright page. To be fair, websites that are targeting German readers or a German audience have to have that Impressum. It's usually on page two of the book, and it has things like your legal name, your address, and then the usual things like the translator's name, cover design, and other things you would usually put on a copyright page. The problem is that technically you need to put your legal name in there unless you have a limited company, in which case you can also put the business name there, and your address. A lot of people obviously don't want to do that for privacy reasons, especially romance authors where it's sometimes a bit sketchy when it comes to some readers who get a bit too obsessed. There are services where you can pay a monthly or yearly fee and then use their address. It's a bit of a legal grey zone, but a lot of German authors are doing it because—especially as indie authors—we don't always want to put our legal address out there. Jo: Just for people listening, I use my accountant's address. That's quite common. I mean, you have to share your address on your email for anti-spam laws and all that kind of thing. As you say, there are ways to use other addresses. That just needs to happen. What else then do we need to think about? Skye: There are things about the translator. A lot of things that people are sometimes scared about is when they hear that there is a copyright issue with translators and they think, “Oh, my translator has the copyright. I can't do anything.” Actually, the translator is seen as an author—almost like a co-author of the translation in German law—because, to be fair, it's not just putting one word into another. Translation is quite a creative job, especially when it's fiction. It is a very creative job where the translator has to put a lot of their own creativity into it. So in German law, they're recognised as the creator of that translation and therefore have certain rights. But you as the author, as soon as you have a contract with your translator—which is why you always, always, always have to have a contract—you get the usage rights. This means it's exactly the same as with your English books. You can do with them what you want. You can get audiobooks, you can do print books, you can do whatever you want in different formats. It just needs to be clear in a contract that the translator is giving you the usage rights of that translation. That's something that people sometimes find a bit scary, but actually it's really simple. Translations have been done for so long. It's a normal thing. It's just called slightly different. It has to be set out in a contract. Jo: Just on that, that's when the translator themselves is in Germany, because if they are based somewhere else, still doing a German translation, that's not necessary. So that's something else for people to consider. Skye: Yes, definitely. To be fair— I would always try to get a translator based in the country. I mean, I'm a native German speaker, but I've been in Scotland for so long now that I am not confident enough to translate my own books anymore because I'm not surrounded by German 24/7 and my grammar is slightly off and I don't have that up-to-date, modern lingo. So if it's a translator who's only just moved somewhere else or a few years, that's fine. But if it's someone who's been in the US or UK or somewhere else for 20 years, I would be a bit more hesitant. That's just a personal perspective on that. One other thing that's different is Sie and du. There are two different kinds of “you” when you talk to someone. There's the formal Sie, which you use basically amongst adults, in business contexts. But even my German grandma—she had a friend and they used the formal Sie for about 10 years as friends because in German etiquette, the older person has to offer the younger person the informal du, and they never did that for some reason. We found it hilarious as kids that they were still using the formal Sie as really good friends. So there's an entire culture there that people who haven't been to Germany or haven't lived there for a while just find a bit difficult, because there are so many different unwritten rules about when you use Sie and when you use the informal du. It's weakened a bit over the years and nowadays even strangers would sometimes use the informal du depending on the context. It really depends. A good translator will usually handle that themselves. They will find a scene where, for example, especially in romance, you meet as strangers in the beginning, so you use the formal Sie, and then at some point that formality turns to informality. The translator will usually choose that moment and add a little extra scene or a sentence where they either offer it to each other or they just naturally switch into it. But then there might be an internal little monologue of, “Oh, he just used the informal du—I guess we're at that stage,” or, “I really appreciate that.” Just to make it more natural, because that's something I quite often see with AI translation where that doesn't happen, and readers get confused. Why did they just switch from Sie to du without any kind of acknowledgement of that? Jo: This is the same in Spanish and other languages, I imagine. Skye: Yes, French as well. Italian too, I think. A lot of European languages have this. Jo: I think that's something that English speakers just don't get. It is a really interesting moment. I guess that might not happen so much in other genres—that really is a thing in romance. I was just thinking about some of my thrillers. They may never have time to get to du. Skye: But then sometimes using du can also be a rude thing. So if you have an antagonist who really doesn't like your protagonist, they might just use du as a rude sort of address. Again, that's something that English speakers just wouldn't understand or even think of because we just have the one “you.” Jo: We just have the one. Jo: It's the tone. Of course, it's the tone. Skye: Exactly, yes. Jo: Okay, well let's get into the actual translation of the books themselves. Over the years I've worked with lots of humans. I've also licensed my rights. I've used different AI tools. I mean, there are tons, but as we record this— What are the options that are available for translations? Give us some tips on working with humans and finding humans. Because it can be super pricey. And of course most of us will never know about the quality until we publish it. Skye: Oh, yes, definitely a note on that. I found that quite often you will already have German people on your newsletter list or on your social media, and most of them will be super happy to give you some feedback on your translation. That's something I've used a lot. Not for German, because I speak the language, but when I did French and Italian translations. My French is—well, it used to be quite okay. It is passable at best now. So I would never feel confident enough to rate a translation. So I asked my newsletter list, “Are there any French people here who would be happy to read the book? I'll send you a free copy at the end, and some swag.” There were a surprising number of people who got back to me. The same applies to German and other languages, because if you don't speak the language, you sometimes lack the confidence of knowing if this is any good. Getting some reader feedback is super helpful. For finding human translators, the easiest of course is word of mouth, and I'm a big fan of that because you get instant feedback on whether someone is good or not and whether it's easy to work with them. Then there are freelancer platforms. Reedsy is one where everyone is vetted, so that's pretty good. But there are tons of other ones like Upwork and Fiverr, though there you have to do all the vetting yourself, so that takes a lot more time and effort. There are also more and more agencies—translator agencies who specialise in doing indie book translations. There's Literary Queens, there's Valentine Translations, there are tons of them. Then there's also, which I think a lot of authors ignore or don't know about, translation databases. There are two databases for German translators, for example, where you can search and you can usually narrow it down to whether you want literary translators, what kind of fiction or nonfiction you want. An important thing is that a literary translator is very different from a standard translator who translates birth certificates or formal documents. You want someone who has experience with fiction if you write fiction. Someone who knows about adding drama through language. Sometimes, for example, when you have an action scene, you might have shorter sentences. If you have someone who doesn't know about stuff like that, they might just think, “Oh, in German it sounds really nice to have this really long sentence.” Those little nuances are where having an experienced literary translator is a big bonus. There are some platforms that do royalty-split translations that have been quite popular in the past. Most of them I wouldn't really recommend because you just don't get those professional translators there. You usually get people who speak the language but don't really have much experience. So you might end up with a pretty bad translation, or people might just be using AI translations without telling you. If you use a human translator, always, always get a sample, because yes, they might have amazing credentials, but until they've actually translated one of your books or a scene from your book, you don't really know how good they are. I like to always use, if I write romance, a slightly sexy scene, because sex seems to show you if someone can translate or not. It's just what I've found, because if it sounds absolutely awkward or more like mechanical rather than an emotional, spicy thing, then that's a clear point for me to say, “No, thank you. I'll look for someone else.” Action scenes, sexy scenes, really emotional ones, dialogue that has a bit of colloquial language or humour—those are good scenes to choose as a sample because that really shows you if a translator can do their job or not. Then, again, have some German people from your list give you feedback on that. Also, if you work with human translators, always try to make sure that they will be available for your entire series. And not even just a series—if you have lots of books, try to grab that translator, lock them in your basement, and never let them go, because you want their style for all your books. Just like you have a style as an author, translators have a style and that will always shine through, as much as they try to be as close to your original. A bit of their style will always come through. It helps to have the same translator for at least the same series, preferably for as many of your books as possible. You really want to tell them in the beginning, “This series has nine books. I want you to do all of these, even if we only do a few of them at the beginning. Are you available to do the rest later?” Because you don't want to end up having to find a new translator in the middle of the series. That gives you a whole lot of extra work with trying to have a world bible that explains which words get translated and which get left as the original, and stuff like that. When it comes to non-human translation, it's very different because of course you don't need to do all that vetting. Tools have different capabilities and abilities, but in the end, if you put your book into a translation tool, you will always get a slightly different output. So it's not quite the same where you need an entire vetting process. Jo: Just on the human translation, I think I'd be right in saying that every single author in the world would love to have the best human translator translating their book, whatever genre it is. That would just be amazing for all of us. But let's face it, that's extremely expensive. So if I've got, let's say, a 70,000-word thriller, how much money are we talking about? An approximate number, so people know what that might be. Skye: Usually it goes by the word, but by the target language word count. Although it depends on the translator, traditional translators usually go by the target language because that's what they actually produce as their output. The average at the moment is anything from about seven to nine euro cents per word as the medium price. You will find cheaper people. You can go up as high as you want really. I have definitely seen translators who charge 15 cents and above per word, but those will usually be the ones who have worked with a lot of trad publishers who are used to being paid like that. Although even in trad publishing, the rates are going down. With more and more authors wanting translations, I think in general rates are going down. Good for us, not so good for the translators. You're definitely looking at thousands, even if you translate novellas. Then it depends—some translators have editing included, sometimes they don't. A lot of them will have arrangements with other translators where they give the translation to another translator for them to edit it. Sometimes that's included in the price, sometimes it's extra. Always make sure it gets edited, because just like when we write a book, it will never be exactly perfect. I say that as someone who writes very clean because I have a journalism background, so I'm used to writing really fast and clean for deadlines, but there will always be a few typos that just wriggle their way in. Typos are evil like that. It's the same with translations. Jo: So we are probably looking at 2,000 to 10,000 pounds, dollars, euros. We are talking about quite a lot, and this is the main reason I think that now, with AI becoming a lot better, people are looking at this. Originally—and I don't even know, probably eight years now since I did my first, might even be a decade or more—I did at some point do a version in DeepL, which was an early AI translation tool. This was nonfiction, and then paid an editor, a German editor, to then edit that in German. Those books still get good reviews. But now people are looking at options like GlobeScribe and ScribeShadow, or even just using Claude or ChatGPT. I'm actually working at the moment on a Claude Code pipeline through lots of different QA passes. That's been really interesting for me, because I can say, “Okay, now you are a reader who likes these kinds of books. Read it for that.” And because we can now put really big books in, I can actually get a lot of really interesting feedback. So I feel like there's a lot of potential with AI—potential for good stuff, potential for bad stuff too. So talk a bit about that and what to watch out for with AI. Skye: Okay, so I'm very much pro-AI and I use AI in lots of different things in my business, just to preface that. However, with translations, I'm still a bit wary, just because I have seen a lot of bad AI translations. To be fair, I've experimented with it myself for one of my other pen names. It was readable. It was definitely readable. It had sometimes beautiful, gorgeous prose. Really. But there were, occasionally—quite often even—bits where I stumbled as a native speaker. It's readable and, if I just need a little quick book in between, I would be mostly happy with that. I would read it. It's the same as some of the early KU days where you found a lot of bad quality writing, but you just wanted to read it because the story was pretty good or because you were reading it in KU and so it didn't really matter that much. There is that spectrum of quality where you have the, “Yes, it's good enough to read,” but, “Is it good enough to be up to your standards?” That's a decision that everyone has to make for themselves. If they want the same quality that they put into their English book, or if they're fine with just offering that book to a new audience because maybe you wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. I totally see that. Translation is so expensive. I don't even know how much I have spent on translations over the past few years. I'm lucky that most of my books make it back within the first weeks or months. I've never had a book that didn't make its money back, but I have heard a lot of people where that's not the case. It is a lot of investment and I would never tell someone to go into debt or anything to do translations. Do it when you're at a time where you can afford it, or where you can also afford the loss if it doesn't work out. Now, AI has changed that slightly because it now opens it up to almost anyone. Some of the AI translation tools are a few hundred pounds, but if you do it in Claude or ChatGPT or something where you already have a subscription, it can actually be quite cheap. You can do it for a few dollars or pounds. I love, by the way, having someone in the UK. I'm so used to automatically saying everything in dollars, but actually I should be using pounds. I think if you know what you're doing—and you clearly do, with your several passes, you know what you're doing with AI—but if someone just puts their book into Claude or ChatGPT or some random tool, it might just not be good enough. Jo: Let's say it won't be good enough if you just do that. We know that. You have to have QA passes—quality assurance. You have to have rules per genre. There are ways of doing it. It's kind of like you have to get to know how translation works. It's a process. It's not just a translation, like you put something in Google Translate or a menu or something, because we do care. I think that's really important. Skye: Yes. I think if you don't know how AI works—that you need detailed prompts, that you need a style guide, that you need all that extra material and not just your book, all those rules—then please don't do it. If you value your German readers—and I think sometimes when I see people just churn out those translations without doing any quality control, using exactly the same cover or even just putting a German flag on it or something—I really feel bad for German readers because they're not being valued as having the same sort of value to us as authors as our English-speaking readers. Maybe I'm a bit biased there because I read in multiple languages. I want to be able to get the same sort of quality in all languages. I want the author to think of me as being special because I'm their reader and I'm their customer. I think we are on the way where AI translation can be almost autonomous. I would personally always have a human look over it. I know what I'm doing, and I'm almost happy with my translation system that I've built now in AI, but it still needs that human touch for a few things. It still needs me to tell the AI, for example, “This is where we switch from Sie to du.” This is where I need to keep certain words in. For example, I write a lot of Scottish books, and so words like “glen” or “loch”—they are words I want to stay the same in my German translation. I don't want to translate it to the German equivalent of “lake” because that just misses that Scottish context. Things like that need instruction. A human translator will usually know that and chat to you about which words you want to keep and which ones you want translated. AI just needs our guidance, our helping hand, and if we don't know enough about the target language, we just miss knowing that. Now, a lot of tools do it all for you basically, and they set up all these rules. I think many of them are at a very advanced stage now. But AI isn't perfect and it likes to hallucinate, it likes to add random things. So I will always still have a human touch at the end, even if it's just a quick edit. A lot of people think that they just need a proofread after an AI translation, but AI doesn't really make typos—or not to an extent that humans do. So proofreading isn't really what's needed for an AI translation. It is actual editing where you go for the style, the phrasing, and sometimes the context. There's one example I always like to give. I have an alien romance where they go on a honeymoon, and because he's an alien and she's human, he misunderstands and thinks she wants to go to an actual moon. So it's a little pun in the book. It doesn't work in German at all because the word “honeymoon” has nothing to do with moons or planets in German. An AI would probably just try to translate that in a way that's quite close to the original. But my German translator, she had to come up with several different ways of fixing that issue, because humour is hard. It's hard even for humans to get the humour translated in a way that is still funny but also culturally appropriate. If you have a book that is full of puns, it gets harder with AI. I am not saying it's impossible, but it needs a lot of handholding. Jo: Yes, I think humour is hard to translate in general, isn't it? Let's move on to the distribution, because again, having done quite a lot of different languages over the years, I do use Amazon KU for my books in German and Italian and Spanish and some French. So I haven't gone wide in terms of ebook and print or audio, in fact, because I have a lot of books and it is hard to go wide in English, let alone in other languages. But you mentioned earlier that Thalia has 40% of the market or something, and that special editions and print books are important. So what are the decisions we have to make around the actual publishing? Skye: In Germany they did a really cool thing, and I wish they'd done that in other countries. When the bookshops saw that Amazon was growing and posing a threat to them—not just with print books but also with ebooks—a lot of the German bookstores got together and they formed the Tolino Alliance. They have big book chains like Thalia, but also I think it was over 1,500 indie bookshops that all got together. They all support this ecosystem for ebooks, which means they all share the same e-readers. They share the same sort of backend for the shops, which made it really easy for them because they didn't all have to develop an ebook system. It saved them a lot of money. It made it really easy to tell readers, “This is the Tolino system. You can get your books at our bookshops, but you can read them on your Tolino e-reader no matter where you get the books from.” The Tolino e-readers are actually the same as Kobo e-readers, just rebranded. They've got that big advantage there—these independent bookshops and book chains all got together. Now it's hard to find numbers because Amazon doesn't really like to share their numbers, but it's about 40% of the German ebook market, which means it rivals Amazon. They have about the same. Then the rest is split by Apple Books, Google Play, and some of the smaller players. So it is a huge chunk of the market. I'm wide with pretty much all my English books. So for me, I looked into KU, but when I saw that I was going to miss out on 60% of the market—even if Amazon has 45%, that's still a big chunk—I decided to go wide. To be fair, I haven't regretted it, because Tolino are amazing to work with. I like to compare them to Kobo because they have a really lovely human team where you can just email them and tell them, “I've got a new release coming up,” and they will put you into different promos and it's all free. Jo: Do you publish direct to Tolino, or do you use Draft2Digital? Skye: Yes, you can publish direct to Tolino and that's actually the best way of doing it. You don't have access to their marketing opportunities if you use a distributor. The Tolino dashboard is annoyingly all in German, but by now every browser has a translating plugin built in. I know lots of authors who don't speak a single word of German who navigate Tolino very successfully. They started with only ebooks in the beginning, and then about two weeks after the first edition of my book on German translations was published, they introduced print books, which meant my book was immediately out of date. I was fuming. But this time they introduced audiobooks a few weeks before my Kickstarter launch for the second edition, so this time the audiobook part is included. I was very happy about that, because it was a pain to just tell everyone, “Well, this book is out now but it's actually missing a big part of how to do print books in Germany.” So Tolino does print, ebooks, and audiobooks. And just because you're in KU with your ebooks doesn't mean you can't publish your print books via Tolino. I highly recommend that, because IngramSpark—which most of us indies use for distribution for print books—doesn't get you into the German bookstores. They used to. Then German stores have fixed price laws where books have to be the same price in all stores, and IngramSpark kept going against that. They kept sending them the wrong prices. So German bookstores at some point just said, “Nope, we've had enough of this. We no longer take books from IngramSpark.” So now Tolino, in my opinion, is the best way of getting your books listed in German online bookstores, but they can also help you get into brick-and-mortar stores. One of my books was featured by them, I think two years ago, and it was in about 300 of their shops all across Germany. It had its own little pedestal and it was amazing. Tolino love working with their indie authors. They also love romance, which is always a bonus because some stores are more prudish than others. It's really easy to work with them. They speak perfect English, so you can do all your communication outside of the dashboard in English. Their audiobooks feature is very new. Until they did that, it was much harder for German audiobook distribution because places like Findaway Voices and other distributors wouldn't get you into the Tolino Alliance stores for audio. That's a big chunk that we were missing out on. I was always looking for ways to get my German audiobooks into those stores, but the German distributors that I found were really difficult to upload to, to be honest. I'm a very technical person, but it challenged even me. I did not like that experience at all. At some point I really just gave up and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. So when Tolino introduced that, I was celebrating internally. The only problem with their distribution at the moment for audio, because it's so new, is that you can't exclude any shops. So it's all or nothing. They will get you into all the different places, including Audible, Spotify—you name it, lots of different streaming services and retailers—but you can't exclude any. So while they don't actually want exclusivity, if you published it yourself at the same time through ACX or Findaway Voices or something else, you would have duplicates, and of course, we try to avoid those. Jo: Is it human narration only, or do they also accept AI narration? Skye: They accept AI narration. The thing with Tolino is that they want everything made very clear. If you publish any books with them that have an AI production aspect, you need to put that into your Impressum. For audiobooks, there's a box to tick to make it clear. Jo: Hmm. Skye: So they are open to it all. You just need to declare it. Jo: Which I think should be true everywhere, to be fair. Skye: Oh, definitely. And a lot of German distributors—while I was researching for this book, one thing I always looked at is, “Do they need you to declare your AI use?” More and more German distributors and retailers now want you to do that. I think that's the way it's going. It's not a judgement thing. I think it's just making it clear to readers. In Germany, it's all about transparency. That's why there are all those laws with GDPR—everyone will have heard about that one by now. But there are lots of other laws where it's all about consumer rights and transparency, and that's one of them. Jo: Is there anything else on the distribution side we need to think about? Skye: One thing I like to highlight is libraries, because that's quite a big thing in Germany too. They love books and bookstores and they love libraries. Some of the ways we get our English books into libraries—like a distributor like Draft2Digital for OverDrive—OverDrive is growing in Germany. There are other systems like Onleihe, just to name one. You can't get into those through, for example, Draft2Digital or PublishDrive or StreetLib. Tolino gets you into those. There are also subscription platforms that are growing. I think it's the same as in the English-speaking market. People love a subscription, and I love them. I just don't like exclusivity. So I very much support any subscription platform that doesn't require me to be exclusive to them. Skoobe is one of them. They used to be an independent platform, and then the Tolino Alliance bought them. So now they're integrated into the Tolino stores. That means it's really prominent. Basically, any time you go to an ebook on, for example, Thalia, it will have a banner there saying, “You can also get this in our subscription.” So it's taken a while to grow, but actually in December I now made more with their subscription programme than I made in book sales. I think three of my books were in their top 10 in December. To be fair, that was a pretty good month. But it definitely shows that it can take a while to grow these subscription platforms, but when you do, it can be really successful and very much worth it. So I highly suggest looking into those sorts of platforms too, not just the standard retailers and the platforms that you're already used to. Jo: Fantastic. So we've now got translations, they're on the various stores, and then just like in English, one of our next challenges is actually marketing the books. Now this becomes another challenge, because one of the reasons I am in KU for foreign languages is because you get the five free days and you can do Amazon ads. I mean, you can do Amazon ads for wide books too, but it's easier to know that there are some options for marketing at all. I don't do email marketing. I don't do social media, so I'm pretty bad at marketing in foreign languages. So what are your suggestions for those who want to do more active marketing in German especially? Or even if we don't speak German, it can't be all the personal stuff. But are there also advertising things like BookBub? What are our options basically? Skye: There are quite a few things. It's not quite as easy as in English, of course, but I think sometimes you have to remember that you already have most of the material for marketing when you've released a book. You will have made graphics in English, you will have written a newsletter, you will have done some social media posts. All that material is already there, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can just translate that, and for that, AI translation is really good because it's very quick. You don't have to bother your translator. You can just get that done. That's what I had to remind myself, because in the beginning I did everything from scratch and it took me forever and I was hating it. Then I realised, well, I could just look at the newsletter I wrote three years ago when that book released in English and translate that. That's done within a minute and I can send that out. So remember that you have a lot of content already. There's no BookBub or nothing as big as BookBub. There is a site called BookDeals, which sends out newsletters for both reduced or free books and also for new releases. I use them for pretty much all my new releases, or at least always the first in series. They're nowhere near as big as BookBub, so don't expect miracles, but I generally always break even or a bit more. It's hard to tell, of course, especially if you do several things for a new release. But my instinctive look on this is that it's worth it. BookDeals is the big one. There are a few other promo sites, but to be honest, I've not really found any of them to give me a positive ROI. I experiment with them occasionally and I listed them all in my book just for completeness, but BookDeals is the big one. Then there is LovelyBooks, which is the German Goodreads. Some Germans also use Goodreads, so always make sure to have all your German books listed there. But LovelyBooks is the big one. I love that place because people are so much kinder than on Goodreads. I avoid Goodreads completely. If I need a review, I send my assistant there to look at reviews. I don't go there. It is scary. LovelyBooks—the name is kind of telling. It is a more lovely place. People are generally more friendly. They are probably a bit more critical when they write reviews than they are on retailers, but I have found it really nice to build a community there. You can do these book clubs where you give away a copy of your book, either as print books—or I always do ebooks because I don't want to send books to Germany. Then people discuss the book as a sort of book club and then they review it at the end. I have had great success with that. I've built up a community of readers who will now buy my books too, even if they don't get them for free. I found some beta readers through that. So I love LovelyBooks. The annoying thing again is it's in German. However, their support all speaks English and you can email them with questions. They're really good. Even if you don't plan to run any book clubs or anything like that because you don't speak the language, I would always advise just setting up an author profile there because it makes it easier for your books to be found. You can track reviews, you can track reads, and that just gives you an extra place to get more visibility for free. Ads—there's not much difference compared to what you do for your English-language books. The one thing is with Facebook ads, now because of EU data protection laws, it's much harder to target because people can opt out of ads and targeting. In general, cost-per-click ads are cheaper than in the US or the UK, so that's a bonus. BookTok is big and only growing there. I don't really do social media for my German books because I just don't have the bandwidth. I wish I could, and I know some people who outsource that. In an ideal world, I would have a social media account for every single language, but it's not an ideal world and I just have limited hours in the day. But even just creating an account so that people can tag you, so that people can find you, can already be a good start. One thing that's not maybe a marketing strategy as such, but something I like to highlight, is pre-orders. If you write in series, always, always make sure that the next books in your series are up for pre-order, because— German readers have been burned so many times by authors or even publishers who just translate book one in a series and then stop. They are quite hesitant sometimes to start a new series when they see it's book one of something and they don't see the next book up for pre-order. To be fair, it's similar in English. I always make sure to have a pre-order up for the next book. Because people would just not read the series until it's complete or until they know it will be complete at some point. So always set up a pre-order if you can. Don't set it up when you don't actually know when your translation is being done, or choose a date far in the future. Just make it very clear to your readers that you are intending to translate the entire series, that you're not going to disappoint them, that they're not just wasting their money on a book one only to never find out what happens next. Jo: Fantastic. Well, this is a big decision for people to make, I think, because there's no point in doing one book in German and then not doing anything else, in the same way as doing one book in English or any language. You have to think about investing in an audience. So lots for people to think about. The book is fantastic. It's called Self-Publishing in German. So where can people find you and your books online? Skye: For my author-facing things, just go to SkyeMacKinnon.com/authors, and there you find the book about German translations. You also find more information on what I do. You can book consultations with me. I love doing those one-to-ones, especially about translations, because you can really dive into someone's catalogue and look at what would be a good strategy for someone, rather than just in general. Otherwise, it's SkyeMacKinnon.com for all my romance. If you want adorable children's books, it's IslaWynter.com. That's Wynter with a Y. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Skye. That was great. Skye: Thank you so much for having me.The post Self-Publishing in German: How to Translate, Distribute, and Market Your Books with Skye MacKinnon first appeared on The Creative Penn.

While the Allied occupation forces had initially supported the restoration of far-left parties to Japan's political arena, the advent of the Cold War led to a reversal of sorts which included de-purging those who had supported imperial-era war crimes and purging some on the left whose loyalty to the US was in doubt.Support the show My latest novel, "Califia's Crusade," is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and many other online platforms! 

Anthony Horowitz: Murder, Mystery, and the Power of a Second Act The Not Old Better Show, Art of Living Interview Series What if your finest work comes later?

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/Buy my merch! midgardmusings.dashery.comDonate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Pre-order my new music album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" here.Learn more about The Living Futhark course here.Follow Patrick on Facebook or TikTok

We Love Paris in the Springtime and we love Paris in The Paris Match by our very favorite, Kate Clayborn. Today, we're talking about the City of Love itself, with Kate! We talk about the magic of the City of Lights, about the weight it has in romance, and about the mythology it carries with it whenever it's included in a book. Yes, of course, we talk about Jessica and Dain, but we also celebrate Kate's new release, The Paris Match! We're also covering sex workers, chocolatiers, cigarette smokers and heroes who gnaw off their own legs, the Champs de Elysee be damned. Thanks, as always, to Kate for joining us and putting up with our shenanigans.If you'd like to continue the conversation about Paris, please come join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesWelcome Kate Clayborn. Her first episodes way back in Season 1 were about Siblings' Best Friends and then Sexclamation Points!, and since then, she's been on about a million other times. Cormac McCarthy has some strong feelings about punctuation and Random House doesn't like the interrobang, but Sarah's a rebel.Green screen technology has come a long way. In this interview, Heated Rivalry cinematographer Jackson Parrell describes how he used the technology in the show, including the scene on the beach in Tampa. Cinematographer Valentina Vee did a really interesting set of videos talking about the use of green screen technology in the show.The Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet about place that Sarah quoted is Time Does Not Bring Relief.Kate wrote a round up for People magazine about great books set in and about Paris.Jen heard about Puppets by Jenna Ryan after being tagged in an Instagram post by WendieReads. But in digging around, Jen discovered the Passages podcast did a deep dive of the book in 2025.You can read more about the puppet theaters of Paris in this New York Times article from 2019.SponsorsElle Kennedy, author of Love Song, available in print, ebook, audiobook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Claire Wilder, author of Nailed, available in print, ebook and with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Blue Box Press, publishers of Donna Grant's The Dragon Chronicles, beautiful new print editions of seven books in the series, including Dragon King, Dragon Fever, Dragon Burn, Dragon Night, Dragon Claimed, and Dragon Lost. Available in print and ebook from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.Lumi Gummies. Go to lumigummies.com and use code FATEDMATES for 30% off your order.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/4/27/0832-the-paris-match-by-kate-clayborn If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

The aftermath of the Pacific War led to an Allied occupation of Japan, during which time Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) Douglas MacArthur and his subordinates attempted to reorganize the Japanese state away from militaristic authoritarianism and transform it into a contemporary liberal democracy.Support the show My latest novel, "Califia's Crusade," is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, Bookshop.org, and many other online platforms! 

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Pre-order my new music album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" here. Join the LIVE album streaming event online at 7pm CDT on May 1st either on Facebook or YouTube!Learn more about The Living Futhark course here.

This season, we're expanding our traditional Trailblazer series to include the modern romance writers who we believe will be considered trailblazers in the future. Our first guest on this branch of the legend tree is Ruby Dixon, author of the Ice Planet Barbarians series. Ruby joins us from her home to talk about how she became Ruby Dixon, what inspired the Ice Planet Barbarians series, how she thinks about writing this ever expanding world, the business of the Barbarians, and what's next. We're very grateful to her for making time with us.If you'd like to continue the conversation about Ruby Dixon, her work and the Ice Planet Barbarians, head over to join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesWelcome Ruby Dixon, bestselling author of the Ice Planet Barbarians series.Authors, Publishing Professionals, and Influencers Mentioned: author Anne McCafferty; author Edgar Rice Burroughs; author Andre Norton; author Bertrice Small; author Julie Garwood; editor Cindy Hwang; Ellora's Cave authors Evangeline Anderson, Laurann Donner, and Jaid Black; author R. Lee Smith; Dani Lacey's Ice Planet Pod; TikTokker and now author Charlotte Swan; agent Holly Root; Ruby's writing group, Alexa Riley, Kati Wilde, & Ella Goode.Books and Movies Mentioned: Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel, Last of Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, Amarna Sunset by Aiden Dodson, Beneath the Sands of Egypt by Donald Ryan, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, Villain Origin Story by Ruby Dixon, Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman.SponsorsLittle Brown & Company, publishers of Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham's The Academy, available in print, ebook and audiobook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or wherever you get your books.Lucy Score, author of Mistakes Were Made, available in print, ebook or audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited. Get it wherever you get your books.Lumi Gummies, Go to lumigummies.com and use code FATEDMATES for 30% off your order.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/4/19/0831-trailblazer-ruby-dixon If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Welcome to another inspiring episode of Late Boomers! We're your hosts, Cathy Worthington and Merry Elkins, and today, we're diving into one of the most universal—and challenging experiences: how to rebuild a meaningful life after loss. Whether it's the loss of a loved one, a career, or a dream, these moments can shake us to our core. But as we discuss with our extraordinary guest, Chanoa Inez, these experiences can also become powerful catalysts for transformation and new purpose.Chanoa is the author of Dream On and the founder of a unique personal branding program. She joins us to share her moving story of sudden loss, the emotional journey that followed, and the tools that helped her not just survive, but thrive.Key TakeawaysGrief affects more than just your emotions; it can impact your health in unexpected ways.Joy and happiness are not the same; joy is an energized, authentic state that can't be faked.Healing starts with self-love: treat yourself with the kindness and compassion you offer to friends.Meditation and spending time in nature are powerful tools for introspection and renewal.Reinvention is possible at any age. Your desires are there for a reason, and it's never too late to pursue them.Baby steps matter. Taking small actions can break through fear and open the door to possibility.Cultivating your personal brand begins with your essence and self-understanding, not with external image alone.Feeling inspired to start your own journey of reinvention? Here's what you can do next:Subscribe to Late Boomers on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube so you never miss an empowering story!Check out Chanoa's website at chanoainez.com and her book Dream On (available on Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, and Kobo).Try Chenoa's exercise: write yourself a love letter and keep it close for those days when confidence feels shaky.Remember you can always reinvent, no matter your age or circumstance. Reinvention truly is your birthright!Thank you for joining us on Late Boomers. If today's episode moved you, share it with someone you care about. We'll see you next time with more stories about thriving and dreaming at every stage of life!— Cathy & Merry

In this episode of The Dark Mind Podcast, Vincent Midgard sits down with author Daniel Grace.They discuss Grace's debut novel, In the Wake of Golgotha, a dark literary thriller that reimagines Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate in modern New York.The conversation explores guilt, reincarnation, capital punishment, faith, betrayal, and the psychological weight of history.Grace also talks about the philosophical core of the novel, the challenge of humanizing figures history has flattened into symbols, and the uneasy line between destiny and choice.The episode also touches on his background in advertising, his work in the wine world, and how those experiences shaped his life as a writer.If you're drawn to dark fiction that wrestles with morality, memory, and the long shadow of spiritual violence, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.DANIEL GRACE — AUTHOR LINKSOfficial Websitehttps://www.danielmarkgrace.comBook — Purchase & StreamAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wake-Golgotha-Daniel-Grace/dp/B0D4P7V7H9Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-the-wake-of-golgotha-daniel-grace/1148623446Koehler Books: https://www.koehlerbooks.com/book/in-the-wake-of-golgotha/Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/in-the-wake-of-golgotha/id1881627596Audible: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0GTRKQ1P6Social MediaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielmarkgrace/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmarkgraceWineryIl Molino di Grace: https://www.ilmolinodigrace.itContactAuthor Email: danielmarkgrace@gmail.comPublisher (John Koehler): john@koehlerbooks.comSUPPORT THE DARK MIND PODCASTPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/c/thedarkmindpodcast

In this week's episode, we discuss the recent changes for new accounts at Draft2Digital, and talk about how there is no magic pill for success for writers. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Malison series at my Payhip store: MALISON2026 The coupon code is valid through April 27th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 299 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is April the 17th, 2026 and today we are discussing Draft2Digital account changes and how writers need to embrace the writing grind. Before we start on that, we will have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up is Coupon of the Week, and this week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Malison series at my Payhip store. That code is MALISON2026. This coupon code is valid through April the 27th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook for this spring, we have got you covered. And now an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report that Blade of Wraiths, the fourth book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, is finally done. You can get Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, bookshop.org, Smashwords, and my own Payhip store. It has been selling strongly, so thank you all for that and I'm glad I was finally able to get it out into the world despite delays. Now that Blade of Wraiths is done, my next main project will be Dragon-Mage, which is the sixth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series, and I'm about 29,000 words into it. I think it will be about 80,000 words, give or take. So I'm hoping to have that out in May, if all goes well. In audiobook news, the fifth book in the Rivah series, Wizard-Assassin, is now out in audiobook. You get it at Audible, Apple, Amazon, Chirp, Google Play, Kobo, and all the other usual audiobook stores. In other audiobook news, Cloak of Illusion is being recorded by Hollis McCarthy right now and Brad Wills will start recording Blade of Wraiths on Monday, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. Good progress all around. So it's nice to have a good progress update there. 00:02:00 Barnes & Noble/ Draft2Digital Changes Now, before we get to our originally planned main topic, we will pause to address a news item. A few people ask what I thought about recent changes that Barnes & Noble and Draft2Digital made for self-publishers. If you're outside of Indie Author World and haven't heard of any of this, the gist is that Barnes & Noble is putting new restrictions on indie author accounts and Draft2Digital is now charging a one-time $20 fee for anyone opening account and an annual $12 fee on any accounts that make less than $100 a year on the platform and if you make more than $100 a year on the platform, the yearly fee is waived. Now, as you can expect, there was a good deal of consternation about this online, especially among indies with only one or two books who might not make $100 a year from their books. So what is my opinion on this? My opinion is threefold. First, it's unfortunate they had to do this. In a more optimum world, they would not have had to do this, but I suspect they were forced into it due to circumstances. And because of that, number two, it is inevitable that something like this was coming along because number three, the reason this happened was the overwhelming flood of AI generated slop from scammers. The ultimate source of the problem, as is the ultimate source of many recent problems in the world, is generative AI. A small number of scammers are generating enormous quantities of AI generated slop books and uploading them to the publishing platforms. We're talking like tens of thousands of books a month or even a week, and the books are absolutely low effort as well: AI generated gibberish text, AI generated cover, and then thrown on the store. Since I wrote this podcast script, James Blatch of Self Publishing Formula put out a Substack stack article on it, and he mentioned that he was talking to someone from Draft2Digital. He mentioned an example of the kind of low quality slop books they're dealing with. Last year when US political activist Charlie Kirk was murdered, within hours, several nonfiction books on the murder appeared on the stores, and these books were essentially either copy and pasted Wikipedia summaries or AI generated books on the topic that, as you might expect since it was a very recent event, contained no useful information whatsoever. The scammers were just hoping that to take advantage of a contentious current event and make a few bucks along the way. Now imagine this multiplying tens of thousands of times over every single day, and that is the scale of the problem. Now, this has always been a problem with self-publishing, especially with Kindle Unlimited, but AI takes it to an industrial scale. With some basic LLM knowledge, you can automate the entire thing. The figures I've heard are that something like 70 to 75% of new submissions to Draft2Digital in the last year have been AI generated scam books of that nature. Now, obviously this is not viable in the long term and is an existential threat to the platform, so something had to be done. Amazon already took some steps in that direction by limiting accounts to only three uploads a day, so it was inevitable that the other platforms would have to follow suit. Now, the best way to reduce scams is to increase friction. That's why it's sensible to lock your front door and your car. If someone really, really wants to break into your house or car, that's not going to stop them, but a locked door will deter lots of casual thieves or junkies who are strolling around looking for low risk things to steal. In the same way, these changes won't stop the problem of AI generated slop books, but it will help [make] the problem more manageable by increasing friction. So it's unfortunate that these changes have to happen, but I suspect something like this was inevitable, and I also strongly suspect that more of this will be coming. I think eventually we're going to end up with a per book publishing fee, like $10 per title, [which] while unfortunate, would severely reduce the financial viability of these scams, but perhaps we'll be fortunate enough that the era of free and low cost generative AI is going to collapse before that happens. The economic signs are increasingly pointing in that direction with the various AI providers hiking prices in the last few months, and scamming with AI becomes a lot less attractive when you're spending thousands of dollars a week on tokens. Ultimately, in my opinion, the villain here is not Draft2Digital and it's not Barnes & Noble, but the villain is the AI companies who have very recklessly and irresponsibly pushed this highly destructive and often useless technology out of a combination of messianic hubris and old-fashioned greed disguised as self-righteous altruism, much like the crypto and NFT advocates before them. I've said before that I think the primary problem with LLM based AI is that it comes with a whole lot of negative results and virtually no positive ones. The changes of Draft2Digital and Barnes & Noble are yet another example of AI creating negative outcomes and no corresponding benefits. But thankfully, it is not all gloom and doom. It's heartening to see how increasingly unpopular AI is becoming with the general public, with shutting down data center construction projects becoming a hot issue in local US politics. I think the best outcome for the entire mess created by AI technology would be for using it to become as socially unacceptable as, for example, smoking in front of small children or placing bets on a dog fighting ring. 00:07:15 Main Topic of the Week: There is No Magic Pill For Writers Now our other main topic of this week, how there is no magic pill for writers and writers should embrace the writing grind. A while back, I was watching a sports documentary and one of the athletes said that when she was asked for advice from those just starting the sport, she would happily share her routines with these competitors because she knew that most people lacked the work ethic necessary to complete them for any length of time. She lamented that all people wanted was a magic pill and that there was no magic pill for success in her sport. And I think the same thing is true of writing and publishing. People want a magic pill to land on top of the bestseller list right away and make lots of money instantly. The truth is for any kind of lasting success, there isn't that magic pill. Most writers make money by persistence instead of trickery. In this episode, I will give you five of the most important things you need as a writer in order to succeed in publishing your work. I can't give you a magic pill, but like that athlete, I can give you my routine. I've mentioned these tactics before in this podcast, but I wanted to collect them all in one place as a starting point of advice for working hard for that magic secret to success. #1: Work hard. You might hear stories of writers only working an hour or two a day, but the reality is that prolific authors are working far more than that. Only a handful of writers can make a full-time living publishing one book every few years. The rest of us are writing as much as possible and getting out books at least a couple of times a year, if not more. Times have changed. In a saturated entertainment industry, people are quick to forget and move on to the next thing. Website algorithms reward authors who put out new content frequently. So to be able to be a full-time writer, I do work typical workday hours, but I also do some work in the morning before I actually start, and then some in the evening as well, though of course that can be modified based on the needs of the day. I also do some work on weekends. I don't work all day on the weekend, but I do try to get at least a thousand words in and any administrative stuff wrapped up on the weekends. And I try to avoid long vacations, partly because I don't want to miss that much work and partly because I don't really enjoy long vacations. I'm not much of a traveler, I have to admit. This is generally more work than in a typical office setting. Especially around tax time, there's also its own share of a boring administrative paperwork that needs to be done. #2: Don't mistake what working hard is or where you should focus your effort. I've talked a lot about the perils of writing adjacent activities on this podcast, meaning things that feel like productive work but aren't. For example, some authors spend hours a day on social media and feel like they're marketing, but really they're just posting an echo chamber of other authors or getting themselves upset by doom scrolling and calling it keeping up with the news or research. They are as mentally drained as if they did hours of productive work, but unlike productive work, they have nothing to show for it. Writing adjacent activities have to be tightly controlled and managed because the majority of your work time should be spent writing and/or editing. Distractions like these writing adjacent activities can take up an entire day if you let them. I keep to a pretty rigid schedule, planning my breaks throughout the day. #3: When possible, do the publishing yourself. Don't rely on sketchy publishing services or vanity presses asking for thousands of dollars to help publish your book. Despite all the outrage over the Draft2Digital's change, $12 a year is still pretty reasonable compared to some of the outrageous fees that these vanity publishers charge. It's worth taking the time to learn how to format and publish books yourself. There's an abundance of free tutorials or low cost ones from reputable sources that can teach you how. It's better to spend time than money and then you have the skill forever. That is one writing adjacent activity that is absolutely worthwhile. Don't wait for the approval of an agent or spend years chasing one down. You can put your book out yourself. By doing it yourself, you have complete creative control, keep all the profits, and get to decide what you publish next. There's a reason that many authors return to self-publishing after accepting a contract with the Big Five publishers in the US. #4: Manage your expectations. The fact is that some genres sell more than others, especially in ebook form. For example, children's picture books are one of the toughest categories for indie publishers, especially as it fills with AI generated slop replacing illustrators. Children's books, technical books, and very specific nonfiction is simply harder to sell than romance, fantasy, or other kinds of fiction. Most authors don't have a massive success with their first book and find that their sales increase gradually over time. Don't expect to become the next indie success mega success story on your first time out. #5: Be willing to change. The beauty of being an indie author is that you have access to a lot of real time data about your books. If you are seeing a lot of clicks on your ads but few purchases, it's best to try changing your book's cover or blurb before giving up on it entirely. If the search results for your book on Amazon don't match your book at all, it's best to tweak the categories and add in some negative targeting to your ads. There's a saying that the best thing you can do to sell your book is to write the next one in the series, and I have found that to be very true myself. If the book isn't an instant success, it might be better to put out the next one instead of endlessly tweaking the first one. #6: Keep going. Most people can work hard for short bursts of time. The real challenge is to work hard over a sustained period of time, especially if there isn't an immediate reward for it. There is something of the same challenge in exercise and eating healthy too in that you don't usually see immediate results. You have to do it consistently for several weeks or months before you start seeing results. The truth is, most writers are not an overnight success or even a success after a year or two of writing. I wrote for years before my first book got published in 2005. Even after my first book was published and didn't sell well (I think my royalties could have bought me a combo from Burger King). It took years of writing and rejection from publishers before indie publishing became viable, and I was finally able to make money from my unsold novels. If I hadn't kept going, I wouldn't have been able to have those books ready when the opportunity of self-publishing began to lead to actual money. So keep going. Even if your first draft is not your liking, even if your first book you put out doesn't sell, even if you feel frustrated, the best thing you can do is just keep going. In short, ignore the influencers who have advice for becoming an instant bestseller, usually by throwing lots of AI produced slop onto bookselling sites. Taking the easy way out is not a long-term strategy. There is no magic pill that leads to selling over two million books over 15 years like I have done (not to toot my own horn about that, so to speak), but I think that shows the results of effort applied consistently over time for a long period of time. So if you want to be a writer, get to work. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. Next week will be our 300th episode. Talk about effort applied over time, right? So be sure to tune in next week for the 300th episode because we're going to have a special giveaway for that. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes of this podcast on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

Draft2Digital just rolled out new fees, Barnes & Noble Press tightened its print book rules, and more self-publishing platforms are making changes that authors need to watch closely. In this Self-Publishing News update, we cover the latest Draft2Digital changes, Barnes & Noble Press policy updates, Bookvault shipping increases, Apple Books updates, and more. If you are a self-published author, this is the kind of industry news that can affect your books, your publishing options, and your business. Stay informed so you can make smarter decisions as the market keeps shifting.  Dibbly Create - https://DaleLinks.com/DibblyCreate Draft2Digital: Understanding D2D's Activation and Maintenance Fees - https://draft2digital.com/blog/understanding-d2ds-activation-and-maintenance-fees/ Draft2Digital: Terms of Service - https://draft2digital.com/terms-of-service/ Barnes & Noble Press: Print Book Pricing and Printing Costs - https://help-press.barnesandnoble.com/hc/en-us/articles/5358788362907-Print-Book-Pricing-and-Printing-Costs  Bookvault - https://bookvault.app ALLi: When Amazon Closes Your Account: Member Q&A with Michael La Ronn and Sacha Black - https://selfpublishingadvice.org/podcast-when-amazon-closes-your-account/ The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) - https://DaleLinks.com/ALLi (affiliate link) Get Authentic Book Reviews - https://GetAuthenticBookReviews.com  Rapid-Fire Newsflash Apple Books for Authors: New BISAC subject headings - https://www.bisg.org/complete-bisac-subject-headings-list Apple Books for Authors: Manage book rights and pricing - https://itunespartner.apple.com/books/support/30-manage-book-rights-pricing  Writer Beware: Anthropic Copyright Settlement: April Update - https://writerbeware.blog/2026/04/10/anthropic-copyright-settlement-april-update/ GetCovers - https://DaleLinks.com/GetCovers (affiliate link) GetCovers: 10 Tips for Designing a Business Book Cover That Sells - https://getcovers.com/blog/business-book-cover-design/ Bradley Charbonneau: How Fiction Authors Make Money on YouTube (Without Selling Books) with Lainey Davis - https://youtu.be/M72H0tZ62Lg?si=vS60HFvkZ_JkCJcv Email Marketing for Authors by Dale L. Roberts - https://DaleLinks.com/EmailBook 2026 American Legacy Book Awards - https://www.americanlegacyawards.com/2026awardannouncement.html Indie Author Training: Replays - https://webinars.indieauthortraining.com/replays/ Side note: The hosts shared my replay will be up by next week.   Subscribe to my email newsletter - https://DaleLinks.com/SignUp Join Channel Memberships - https://DaleLinks.com/Memberships Join Me on Discord - https://DaleLinks.com/Discord Check out my main YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@dalelroberts My Books - https://DaleLinks.com/MyBooks  Wanna tip me? Visit https://dalelroberts.gumroad.com/coffee. T Where noted, some outbound links financially benefit the channel through affiliate programs. I only endorse programs, products, or services I use and can stand confidently behind. These links do not affect your purchase price and greatly helps to building and growing this channel. Thanks in advance for understanding! - Dale L. Roberts

By request, we're talking about the characters who have been exiled from family, from community, and from themselves—the irredeemable characters in romance. This is Morality Chain all over again. We're talking about characters that have done terrible things on and off the page, to the detriment of their reputations in the text and outside, with readers, and somehow, by the end of their own book, are made whole and worthy of love. Here lies St. Vincent, Mr. Vivisection, and more.Tell us about your favorite irredeemable characters in romance on our social media or head over to join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesWe have been so inspired by all the moon joy in the world. Here is the Artemis II path from the Astronomy Picture of the Day; splashdown was awesome; the dark side of the moon isn't like a real thing, exactly; and here's a bunch of other stuff from NASA. Check out our episode from season 1 with astronomer Summer Ash (her interview is at the end of the episode), and learn all about that golden record they sent out to space on Voyager.Michael Corleone was irredeemable! Tommy Shelby? Well, apparently that's open to interpretation!SponsorsNeyha Liu, author of Midnight at Soulfield, available in print or ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Avery Maxwell, author of The Forgotten Billionaire, available in print, ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Little Brown & Company, publishers of Ruth McKell's Honey in Her Veins, available in print, ebook and audiobook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or wherever you get your books.Claire Contreras, author of Isle of Wrath, available in print, ebook, audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Pre-order my new music album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" here. Join the LIVE album streaming event online at 7pm CDT on May 1st either on Facebook or YouTube!Learn more about The Living Futhark course here.

As always when we're together, today we're answering listener questions! In here, we're recommending sex lessons books, motorcycle romance, books set in Toronto, Ohio and more — we're also talking about the evolution of the trade paperback, how Jen edits, when Duchess is coming, and if we have favorite dinosaurs. It's a full service episode for you, our faves.If you have more burning questions for us, you can find us in the Ask Jen & Sarah channel on the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Pre-order my new music album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" here.Learn more about The Living Futhark course here.

It's time to fill those TBR piles again! April means the start of Spring and also another quarterly upcoming romance episode! We're talking about romances hitting shelves and ereaders during April, May & June 2026! Whether historical, paranormal, contemporary or Romantasy, we've got something for everyone in fifty or so recs across every single genre. As a reminder, we haven't read most of these, but we have big plans!If you want more recommendations and more people with whom you can discuss 2026 romance novels, maybe you want to join our Patreon? You get an extra monthly episode from us and access to the incredible readers and brilliant people on the Fated Mates Discord! Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.AUTHORS: Do you have a book coming out in 2026 that you'd like to make sure we know about? Or, are you a debut romance author who'd like to make sure we know about your debut? Fill out the forms here:2026/2027 Upcoming Romance Novels2026 Debut Romance NovelsSponsorsLavinia K. Darcy, author of Return to Kingscote, available in print or ebook. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.Metaltail Press, publishers of SE McPherson's A Villain's Hope, available in print or ebook. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.Neyha Liu, author of Midnight at Soulfield, available in print or ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Support Midgard Musings By Clicking Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/MidgardMusings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to visit Fjallvaettir Workshop: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fjallvaettir.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate to my mother's-in-law GoFundMe for medical equipment upgrades: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://gofund.me/43c134d0Pick up your copy of my book "The Saga Of The Heron That Flies To Hel" on Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or a paperback copy on Lulu.Pre-order my new music album "Till The Final Twilight Dies" here.Connect with Patrick on his Facebook group here.

It never fails to surprise us when we realize we've never talked about a really classic trope even now…eight years in. This week, we're talking about kids in romance—which we've somehow never done before?! We're covering Romance Babies, Romance Kids, and Single Parents in Romance — but so sorry to the Secret Baby lovers out there, that one deserves its own episode (someday). We're talking babies, toddlers and teens, the appeal of the single parent romance novel, and that one Erin St. Claire book that Sarah can't get out of her head.If you want more Fated Mates in your life, or you want to talk more about Romance Babies/Kids, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesThe Silhouette Intimate Moments line eventually turned into Harlequin Romantic Suspense. Erin St. Claire is one of Sandra Brown's many pen names.Wet nurses have been around for a very long time, baby bottles not so much. I say this only because Sarah said “Bottle service” and that's something different.Red ink has been around for a long time, actually. So maybe that's how Sophie had access to it during the Regency?So there's not a whole lot of evidence that birthmarks are hereditary. Shocking, I know.SponsorsThe Romantasy Letters, a new kind of romantic fantasy storytelling, delivered right to your door twice monthly. Use the code FATED to get 20% off your year's subscription. Learn more at RomantasyLetters.com.LJ Andrews, author of Heir of Twisted Lies, available in print or ebook. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or wherever you get your books.Neyha Liu, author of Midnight at Soulfield, available in print or ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.Lucy Score, author of Mistakes Were Made, available in print, ebook or audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited. Get it wherever you get your books.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Show Notes: Learn Directly from Authors on LearningFrontier.ai Fred Brouillet, founder of LearningFrontier.ai, explains how the platform works and how it helps users. Fred describes the current version of Learning Frontier.ai as an AI tool that allows users to interact with AI clones or avatars of famous authors in the Lean space. Users can also access avatars of great thinkers from the past, including Freud, Nietzsche etc. The platform aims to transform static knowledge from books into dynamic, interactive experiences, enhancing coaching and implementation. Fred highlights the scalability advantage of AI avatars over real-life experts, enabling simultaneous interaction with multiple users. The tool enhances changes the coaching space by providing readers access to experts that is cost-effective and immediate.  Build your own book library on LearningFrontier.ai A LearningFrontier.ai Demonstration Fred shares his screen to demonstrate the LearningFrontier.ai platform. The platform features a library where users can buy and read books, similar to Apple Books or Kindle. Users can chat with their books, similar to using ChatGPT, but with LearningFrontier.ai, users can access private knowledge and receive citations for answers, whereas ChatGPT only has access to public knowledge. Fred demonstrates chatting with his own book, Frontier Lean, and explains how the platform provides detailed citations and passages. Currently, there are 100 new and classic authors connected to the platform.  Fred introduces the AI avatar feature, where users can interact with an AI version of the author. Introducing the LearningFrontier.ai Avatar The AI avatar, created from a picture or video recording, can guide users through the implementation of the book's concepts. Fred explains that the AI avatar can ask questions to understand the user's context, similar to a consultant. The AI avatar can also provide ground knowledge beyond the book's content, making it a versatile coaching tool. Fred demonstrates how the avatar works when asked questions and explains how it can deliver information via text or voice, or video call depending on the user's requirements. He explains how easy it is to add questions to a previous query and how LearningFrontier.ai stores information to access and re-engage with a previous discussion. Chat with your books and understand better their concepts Dynamic Coaching with LearningFrontier.ai  Fred demonstrates the coaching mode, where the AI avatar asks clarifying questions to understand the user's problem. The platform includes specific modes for problem-solving, such as the Toyota Kata approach. Users can build a value stream map in real-time during the coaching session, enhancing the learning experience. Fred explains how the platform updates the value stream map as the conversation progresses, providing a dynamic learning tool. Speak with an AI Avatar Digital Twin of the author   Learning Frontier.AI comes with a number of Agentic functionalities to build VSM, A3 and Toyota Kata style coaching, etc...  How Authors List Books on LearningFrontier.ai When asked about the process for authors to list their books on the platform, Fred explains that authors can reach out to him directly on LinkedIn or through the Learning Frontier.ai website. The platform offers a monthly subscription of £20, providing access to close to 100 books, including classic authors and new authors. Users can purchase individual books for a one-time cost, which grants lifetime access to the book and its associated AI avatar. Timestamps: 02:56: Demonstration of Learning Frontier.ai Platform  05:29: Interaction with AI Avatars  12:28: Coaching and Problem-Solving Modes 16:55: Subscription and Book Purchase Details  Links: Website: https://learningfrontier.ai/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederic-brouillet-consulting/   This episode on Umbrex: https://umbrex.com/unleashed/episode-639-fred-brouillet-learningfrontier-ai-turning-books-into-ai-avatar-consultants/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com. *AI generated timestamps and show notes.  

In this video, Pastor Victoria shares a miracle testimony and how you can also receive your miracle.Check our website to learn more about Arise Ministries: https://ariseministries.us Partner with us financially: https://ariseministries.us/give-1#532e4fd5-adcf-4c39-b82c-65615564f7ef CashApp @ariseGIVEVenmo @ariseGIVEFollow us on Instagram!

Someone said something real stupid, and that means we get to hit back in the best way possible — with romance recommendations! Today we're talking about the Opera and the Ballet in Romance! We're talking about historicals and contemporaries, about mafia enforcers and exasperated dukes, about football players and yes, of course, our sweet baby Conrad Wroth. You're going to have a great time. Congratulations to the movie-starrest of movie stars, Michael C. Jordan, on the occasion of his Oscar win.If you want more Fated Mates in your life, or you want to talk more about Opera and Ballet and romance novels, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesTornadoes are scary, but the University of Michigan is keeping track of them for you. Chicagoans think that the city is tornado-proof; it's not.Daylight Savings Time sucks.Cara Dion and Robin Lovett are both Opera Singers — Romancelandia remains the coolest.Thanks Louisa Darling, for giving us this episode about Timothee Chalamet and his boneheaded comments about ballet and opera a few weeks ago, and then he didn't win a single Oscar. Are these things related? Who can say!Magic Mike is the greatest dance movie ever made, or a feminist text. Pick your poison.A ballet book Jen imprinted on as a teenager was called Mariana by Karen Strickler Dean, and for Sarah it was an opera book called Mountain Laurel by Jude Deveraux.Kelly Clarkson and Josh Groban do this version of All I Ask of You from Phantom of the Opera that's very beautiful.Michael B Jordan DID win the Academy Award for best actor, and we couldn't be more happy about it.SponsorsThe Monique Fisher Universe, including The Decadence Series, and the upcoming novella Make Room for Heather, available in print or ebook. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.The Romantasy Letters, a new kind of romantic fantasy storytelling, delivered right to your door twice monthly. Use the code FATED to get 20% off your year's subscription. Learn more at RomantasyLetters.com.Blue Box Press, publishers of Kristin Ashley's After the Climb, a River Rain novel. Available in print, ebook or audiobook from Amazon & Barnes & Noble.Lumi Gummies. Go to lumigummies.com and use code FATEDMATES for 30% off your order.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

Send a textToday's show will be especially helpful for you writers out there, or if you are curious to see what makes a full-time thriller author tick. On the show today, we have award-winning and bestselling author Nick Petrie, who just released his 9th book in the Peter Ash series, The Dark Time.His first novel, The Drifter, won the ITW Thriller and Barry Awards and was nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Hammett Awards. He won the 2016 Literary Award from the Wisconsin Library Association and was named one of Apple's 10 Writers to Read in 2017.  Apple Books named Light It Up the Best Thriller of 2018. Both Light It Up and The Wild One were shortlisted for the Barry Award.Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels, said. “Lots of characters get compared to my own Jack Reacher, but Petrie's Peter Ash is the real deal.”Nick is the quindecennial blue-collar author. He has an impeccable work ethic forged with years of working as a carpenter and other trades, which has paved his way to becoming a full-time, bestselling author. Please enjoy my conversation with one of the nicest guys I know in the business, Nick Petrie. In today's episode, we discuss:·      What has changed in the publishing business in the last two years since he released his last book? Luck finds people who show up for work every day. ·      Artificial Intelligence and the publishing business.·      Best marketing practices for authors.·      How his former professions and life experiences have helped him in his writing career.·      Pros and cons of writing in a series.·      His advice for new or newer authors looking to break through. All of this and more on today's episode of the Cops and Writers podcast.Visit Nick's website to learn more about him and his books.Check out my newest book! Police Stories: The Rookie Years - True Crime, Chaos & Life as a Big City Cop!My first week as a rookie cop, I had to decide whether to pull the trigger on a man running at me with a butcher knife. He'd just killed his brother over the last hot dog.That was my introduction to policing in Milwaukee.From Wall Street Journal-featured author Patrick O'Donnell comes a memoir of rookie years on Milwaukee's streets.Support the show

Calling all Loons! You've heated and reheated the rivalry, and now it's time for us to talk about what you should read between now and Season 2. We're joined by friend and fave of the pod, Christopher Rice, who writes m/m and sometimes m/m/m romance as C. Travis Rice. We talk about our feelings about Heated Rivalry, about the books and their impact, and about the transformational work of the show…and then we fill your to-be-read piles with books we thing deliver the same kind of emotions. We had a great time, and you will, too.If you want more Fated Mates in your life, or you want to talk more about Heated Rivalry & romance novels, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.NotesWelcome back Christopher Rice who writes romance under the name C. Travis Rice. Christopher and his best friend Eric Shaw Quinn host a podcast called The Dinner Party Show. You can listen to their Heated Rivalry episode here, and Eric's tuna melt thoughts start around the 18:30 minute mark. Their episode with Dateline producer Josh Mankiewicz aired on March 1st. You can watch the documentary Anne Rice: An All Saints' Day Celebration for free at her website.Wesley Morris's essay in the New York Times, I'm so Used to Gay Tragedies That I Almost Missed Romance. The Heated Rivalry Crave social media feed highlighted the power of the adaptation by showing the cast reading from the books, juxtaposing scenes from the show with the text, and loving Rachel Reid!Good Will Hunting is 29 years old! Okay, I know that Ryan Coogler has made a couple of Marvel movies, but he's also writing dazzling original films like Sinners!Olympians in Italy ran through 10,000 condoms in 3 days and the Village needed to do some restocking. Here's one athlete's history of condoms at the Olympics.To be fair, adding a pitch clock and changing other MLB baseball rules have shortened the running time of most games.For more information about gay rodeo, follow the instagram of the International Gay Rodeo Association. Pick Up Men is the first book in the Pick Up Men series by LC Chase.SponsorsJayne Ann Krentz, author of The Shop on Hidden Lane, available in print or ebook. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.The Romantasy Letters, a new kind of romantic fantasy storytelling, delivered right to your door twice monthly. Use the code FATED to get 20% off your year's subscription. Learn more at RomantasyLetters.com.Blue Box Press, publishers of Jennifer L. Armentrout's Dream of You, a Wait for You novella. Available in print, ebook or audiobook from Amazon & Barnes & Noble.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.

What happens when the life you imagined suddenly disappears? On Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, hosted by Sayan, Chanoa Inez shares how loss can quietly shrink our world—and how joy can return in a new form. This episode is for anyone grieving a relationship, future, identity, or season of life. It offers a grounded path toward self-trust, emotional honesty, and the courage to dream again without forcing false positivity. About the Guest: Chanoa Inez is the author of Dream On: How to Create the New Life of Your Dreams After Upheaval or Loss. She shares her lived experience of sudden loss, healing, and rebuilding a life with more vitality and meaning. Episode Chapter: 00:04:31 Losing a dream and the grief nobody names 00:06:35 Sudden loss in Montenegro 00:08:07 Joy vs happiness: the deeper difference 00:09:56 Why “moving on” is not the real goal 00:15:29 The long healing journey behind Dream On 00:20:13 Making space for a new dream 00:22:47 What to remember when loss defines you Key Takeaways: Grief can stay, but it does not have to become your identity. Happiness can be mental; joy is something you feel deeply. Unfelt emotions often stay stored in the body and in behavior. New dreams begin when control softens and openness returns. Letting go of what harms you can be an act of self-respect. How to Connect With the Guest: Website: https://www.chanoainez.com/ Instagram: @chanoainez LinkedIn: Chanoa Inez Book: Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, Kobo, Pathy.com   Want to be a guest on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life? DM on PM - Send me a message on PodMatch DM Me Here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/avik Disclaimer: This video is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed are the personal opinions of the guest and do not reflect the views of the host or Healthy Mind By Avik™️. We do not intend to harm, defame, or discredit any person, organization, brand, product, country, or profession mentioned. All third-party media used remain the property of their respective owners and are used under fair use for informational purposes. By watching, you acknowledge and accept this disclaimer. Healthy Mind By Avik™️ is a global platform redefining mental health as a necessity, not a luxury. Born during the pandemic, it's become a sanctuary for healing, growth, and mindful living. Hosted by Avik Chakraborty, storyteller, survivor, and wellness advocate. With over 6000+ episodes and 200K+ global listeners, we unite voices, break stigma, and build a world where every story matters.

Things are looking very wild out here in the real world so you deserve a deep dive on a book by an author with a big backlist and we are here to give you just that! Today's episode is on Sincerely, Your Inconvenient Wife, a modern day marriage of convenience story from Julia Wolf's The Harder They Fall series. We talk about fake husbands down bad, family drama, and the charm of an author building a big universe for all their characters to live in forever.If you want more Fated Mates in your life, or you want to talk more about Julia's books, please join our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.Read Sincerely, Your Inconvenient Wife in ebook or paperback, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.NotesHow the great blizzard of 2026 stacked up with previous blizzards. Seems like Providence was a bad place to be. The winner of this year's Chicago's snowplow naming contest: Abolish ICE.Everyone loves Bad Bunny.Ryan Coogler gave a beautiful speech about love at the BAFTA awards. Watch Jayme Lawson from the NAACP Awards give a brilliant explanation of why BAFTA and BBC are to blame for the events at this year's BAFTA awards.We have both been reading a lot of Julia Wolf books ever since our New Year's Milkin' Eve episode.Wyoming is a very big state with a very small population, so small in fact that there are 117 counties that have a bigger population than the entire state. You can play around with comparing populations using this map tool from Slate.The other books we mentioned this episode by Julia Wolf: a rock star romance, Built to Fall. Saoirse's brother's book is Sweet Like Poison. Luca's sister's book is In the Details.SponsorsMelanie Greene, author of New Flames, available in print or ebook. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.The Romantasy Letters, a new kind of romantic fantasy storytelling, delivered right to your door twice monthly. Use the code FATED to get 20% off your year's subscription. Learn more at RomantasyLetters.com.The What in the Smut? Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.Vedentro, premium leather accessories. Use code FATED at checkout to get an additional 10% off the best offer on the site.The RestFor even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It's so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates. Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough. If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.