Podcasts about books2read

How can you redesign your author business for the publishing environment that actually exists, rather than the one you wish you had? And how do you decide which marketing efforts will still bring readers to your books in ten years' time? Tracy Cooper-Posey shares her solar sail theory after more than 25 years as an author. In the intro, reviving your backlist [The Indy Author]; AI as a medium [Tim O'Reilly]; How to Write, Publish, and Market Short Stories – Joanna Penn. ProWritingAid Storyteller sale: Thursday, 3rd September until September 13th 2026 — 25% off all annual licenses as well as Story Critique credits. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Tracy Cooper-Posey is the multi-award-winning author of over 200 novels and works of nonfiction, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and historical fiction under three pen names. Her books for authors include The Indie Author Survival Guide and The Productive Indie Fiction Writer. 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 Learning to write again after chemo, one sentence at a time What enshittification means, and why it is the environment rather than you The hallmarks of an indie author business that persists over time The solar sail theory of long-term discoverability Why social media and paid ads have such a short half-life How to find and reduce the operational drag on your business You can find Tracy at ProductiveIndieFictionWriter.com or StoriesRulePress.com. Transcript of the interview with Tracy Cooper-Posey Jo: Tracy Cooper-Posey is the multi-award-winning author of over 200 novels and works of nonfiction, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and historical fiction under three pen names. Her books for authors include The Indie Author Survival Guide and The Productive Indie Fiction Writer. So welcome back to the show, Tracy. Tracy: Hi, Jo. It's great to be back. Jo: Yes. So you were last on the show in October 2023 talking about The Productive Indie Fiction Writer, and we went into depth then. So give us a bit of an update on your author business and also your life. Because it has been a bit of an up and down. Tracy: Yes, it's been a very interesting three years, because I had just gone into remission with cancer when we were talking last. Now I'm out of remission again and facing treatment in the next few weeks. My husband got cancer and went through treatment, and he's cured. So life has been pretty interesting. All that has made me do a lot of deep thinking about the indie author business and my own business and writing in general. So I'm still here. I'm still publishing, 200 plus books now. I had to learn how to write again. But the writing has shifted a lot towards science fiction and fantasy, including cosy science fiction now, which is the new genre that's just creeping in. All three pen names have been Aurealis Award finalists, which is nice. I'm still continuing the nonfiction work, which is something that you said the last time that we spoke. You said, “Now that you've written one, it's likely you'll write more nonfiction.” And I did. Jo: You did. They're excellent books. Just on that, you mentioned cosy sci-fi. For anyone who might not know, where is that genre? What's in that genre of cosy sci-fi? Tracy: It's not really officially a genre yet. It started off with cosy fantasy, which was where the cosy started. Actually, technically it started with cosy mystery, and everyone understands cosy mystery. The body and the murder are off stage. There's a lot of tea drinking. There's lots of friends, and it's all very polite and mannered. You're focusing more on the emotions and the feel, and they've picked up that cosy aspect of mystery and put it on fantasy. So you get books like, I think the primary one is Legends and Lattes. It's about an orc that's running a coffee shop because they got sick of fighting, and the adventures that they have trying to run their coffee shop. So if you pick up that same cosy sensation and put it on science fiction, that's cosy science fiction. But it's so new that it doesn't have a category on Amazon or anything like that. Cosy fantasy does now. Amazon just created a cosy fantasy category a while ago. But cosy science fiction is so new that people are still arguing over which books are cosy science fiction and which are not. Jo: Oh, that's interesting. You're incredibly prolific. You always have been. You mentioned there that you had to learn how to write again after cancer. What do you think happened, and how did you relearn? Because there are people listening who go through these similar things. Tracy: I think a lot of what happened was, well, life just became incredibly complex and challenging, and just getting through a day of pain took a lot of the energy, what they call the spoons. I didn't have the spoons to write anymore. Also you get chemo brain, which is the really interesting one. When I was going through chemo, I would look at a spreadsheet and just couldn't figure out how it worked. It just didn't make sense to me, so I had to hand over the finances and everything to Mark, which was rather interesting. The way I got myself back into writing again was, it was such an alien idea that writing wasn't even on my radar from day to day. I just didn't have the energy or the concentration to do it. So I started off really, really small. The first thing I did was read a lot of favourite books from other authors just to remember why I loved reading. Then I started reading my own books that I had written, just to remind myself of what I used to love about my own work. Then I just cracked the manuscript one day and read as far as I had written and thought, “Okay, what's the next sentence?” And that's the only thing that I would let myself do, was just write the next sentence. That's it. So I wrote the next sentence, and sat there and thought, “Do I want to write the next sentence?” On that particular day, no, I didn't. But I just kept opening the manuscript and looking and thinking about the next sentence, and eventually I wrote a few more. I think it was that coming back to the manuscript over and over with no pressure, just look at it, can you get the next sentence written? Very slowly I started building up, and now I'm pretty much back to the speed that I was at before the diagnosis. Jo: So I guess we could think about it in the same way that your body is physically recovering, your mind is also recovering. It almost feels like people want to disconnect the two. If you get a physical injury, that shouldn't affect your brain. But as you mentioned, having chemo, that in itself is difficult and has impacts on your brain. So if people think about it more as an injury you have to come back from, rather than day one you're back in, I guess. Tracy: Yes. It's really a rehabilitation-style process, and I think the key is you've got to take all pressure off yourself. I know that, for me in particular, because I was such a workhorse, I could feel this stress because I just wasn't getting things done. Once I gave myself permission to just take as long as it takes and just keep coming back to it, that helped enormously. It still took time for that rehabilitation process to actually work. There's a lot of forgiving yourself, and it has to be a gentle process, I think, because situations like cancer and chemo and whatever the situation is that's pulled you away from your manuscript, they're big life events, and there is a lot of stress involved with them both physically and mentally. So you have to give yourself time. Jo: Yes, it's so important. Okay, well, also in these last three years, as you said, you've got back to writing, and one of the books you have also written is The Anti-Enshittification Field Manual for Indie Authors. You also use Cory Doctorow's enshittification concept around the mature indie author industry. So just talk about what that term [enshittification] means? We think it is now established in the industry, in terms of what is going on there. How do we recognise it and adjust? Tracy: It's a very interesting term. The first time I heard it I raised my brows a bit. I was thinking, “Well, that's a bit cheeky.” The more you think about it, the more appropriate the name is. Basically, Cory Doctorow's idea is that any platform, so for the sake of this discussion, let's say Amazon, starts out serving its users extremely well because it needs them. When everyone first got into indie publishing, Amazon was open doors and you could just publish a book and it would sell, because they would push the book and they would do everything they could to make sure that readers saw your book. Then slowly and increasingly, the platform extracts value from those users for somebody else's benefit, usually shareholders, and ultimately for itself. You can track this process where it starts off really great for the users and then slowly shifts so that it becomes a less than stellar experience for the users. For indie authors, we're particularly exposed because our business sits on top of these platforms. So recognising that a lot of the platforms that we use now have enshittified, excuse me, or are in the process of doing that, that really helps. Because I think for years we were treating everything as a separate problem. We were worrying about organic reach, we were worrying about advertising becoming more expensive. There's subscription creep, there's deteriorating customer service, algorithm changes. Visibility was increasingly pay to play, and it's so much more than that now. The platforms keep removing features or changing the terms. Individually it just looks like a mess, but as soon as you put them together and say, “Oh, I understand now. The platform is enshittifying,” you can see the structural pattern. It actually applies to so many platforms and services. Once you see it, well, for me in particular, that was an enormously positive realisation, because until I saw the pattern, I thought I was failing, and nothing I was doing seemed to work anymore. Once I understood the environment itself had changed, I could stop trying to fix myself and start redesigning the business for the environment that actually exists. Jo: Yes, and that is the point. Redesigning your business for the environment that exists. Because what you mentioned there, I feel like some people still think that organic reach exists. I guess some people will say, “Oh, well, at the moment you can still put a video on, say, TikTok, and it might find an audience there.” Are people still building an audience in these newer platforms? But I think that's the point, isn't it? I guess Substack would be another one. Although we already see that heading in the same direction, with various things. As soon as you go in there thinking, “Yes, I'm going to get organic reach,” even if there is any, it follows this way, doesn't it? Tracy: It does. And this is what's so great about it, is once you recognise this pattern, you see it everywhere, and you can actually track a new platform through that process, and you can anticipate that, okay, maybe we're going to get organic discovery right now, but that's going to diminish. That way you're not disappointed, and you're all set up for when that happens. That means that you can reduce your dependency on these platforms and not expect them to behave like they did in 2011. Jo: It's interesting, though, with Amazon, for example, we've definitely seen that as authors. But on the other side, as a customer, as a reader particularly, I used to find a lot of books on Amazon directly. I'm almost entirely now finding books elsewhere, often through AI, actually, often through Claude. Tracy: Yes, exactly. Jo: And then going on Amazon to maybe get the book. It feels like for readers it's changed too, right? Tracy: Exactly. I mean, indie authors are particularly vulnerable because their entire business is built on these platforms, but this applies to everyone. It's not just indie authors. As you say, it's readers. They're noticing too that the decay of these platforms is starting to impact them as users. I'm exactly like you. I tend to buy my books from Kobo, but I will buy my books from anywhere, and I learn about those books from a dozen different places. I don't rely on just one platform anymore. It's really great once you understand this because then you can build an independent mindset that lets you flex around issues. Jo: Yes, and obviously we like to dwell on the positives here. So given that this is just a reality of the market and various platforms— What are the hallmarks of an indie author business that is more likely to persist over time given the reality of this? Tracy: Okay. Well, I think that the biggest part of it is, as I mentioned before, it's the mindset. Recognising these patterns is really a big one, recognising where a platform is in the process. Also developing a very independent mindset. I mean, we've been saying we're indie authors since 2011, but we were still really relying on those platforms to provide most of our business. I think these days the new indie author is much more independently minded. Even though you're using the platforms, and we're all using them, you develop a flexibility. You understand the industry, and you're making plans ahead of it, so you've got the flexibility there, and the business thinking, which really helps. You deal with any problems that come up. Every time there's an algorithm change, you're not going to wake up in the morning and just go through mourning because half your income has disappeared. You're ready with alternatives, and you've got different things that you can try. So that mindset, that thinking about and recognising patterns and how the industry is going, is critical. Once you've got that in place, then there's a huge number of strategies that you might want to incorporate. This is the thing, every indie author's business is different. We're all in different situations. I have health challenges, someone else may have a day job. I write a lot of books. Someone may be only able to produce a couple of books a year. We're writing in different genres. If you're writing literature, that's different from the sort of science fiction that I write. So the business and how it responds to the conditions out there is going to be different as well. So what you do as an author and for your business will be different. There's a lot of strategies that you can try and see which are most effective for you. One of the biggest, for instance, is something that you say a lot too, diversify your income. Have a durable backlist. Work to get your backlist built up. Direct sales is another strategy that I would say is almost mandatory for every indie author these days. I know a lot of indie authors are going, “Oh, but I've only got two books.” Doesn't matter. If you can sell from your site using just a PayPal link, that's direct sales, and that works. That gives you a lot more independence and agency. Owning your reader relationships, making sure that you keep the readers close, I think that's another critical one. Making sure that you're resilient for the platform so you can adjust when there's changes. And on and on. There's a lot of things that you can do to adapt. Jo: Yes. I think it's interesting just thinking about when you said, for example, direct sales is good for every indie author. I would say every indie author who wants to have a long-term business—and I think that's a really key thing. Because I feel like it's still important to have a difference between people who are writing primarily as a hobby or are not looking for the financial income that you and I think about. So I think that's one thing. I totally agree with you that just having a PayPal button or even selling some physical copies at a local fair or something, that all counts. I think it almost proves something and gives you that more independent mindset. It's like, “Yes, I can actually do this.” That is such a powerful reframe rather than, “I cannot do anything except upload my book on Amazon.” Tracy: Yes. And actually, funny you should mention the live markets, because we experimented over the last year with attending a few live markets and selling books, and there is a genuine power, a little thrill that you get when you sell a book, and you can sign it on the spot for them, and the reader is right there and you're face to face. That process is suddenly not this anonymous process, where you find that you've sold a book overnight and you've got no idea who it is that bought it. That person's right there in front of you, so you can sign the book for them and you have a little exchange. It's really empowering to build that independence into your business. Jo: Yes, and then you also mentioned the durable backlist. Do you think that having books in multiple genres, including nonfiction, is part of how you can make a living? As in, I think people often think, “Oh, maybe if I just write 20 books in one series.” I mean, maybe that works in some genres. I guess thrillers, actually, that can sometimes work, but you do so many things. Is it the 80/20 rule, that 20% of your books make 80% of the income, or does it literally vary from year to year? Tracy: Well, it does swing from year to year. But yes, generally the 80/20 rule holds. It's different from year to year, which 20% is making the 80% of the money. As I mentioned, I'm moving into science fiction and fantasy more, because that's actually more successful for me right now than the romance is. The other thing is, I think it really comes down to the individual author too. Some authors do very well just doing the one genre or even just the one series, and for them it's great. I always worry that that's putting all your eggs in one basket. I think, though, to counter that vulnerability, if you're just doing one series or one genre, go wide. Sell as wide as you can, and that gives you a bit of a hedge against vulnerability. It's a different situation for every author, and it's very hard for me to say, “Well, here's a 15-step list that'll give you all the answers,” because that 15-step list doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did. Just because everyone's business is so different. You need to do a lot of experimenting, I think, and find what works for you. That sounds like I'm waving off the answer, but I'm really not. You really do have to figure it out for yourself. If you do adopt that experimental mindset and say, “Okay, I'm going to do this for six months and track my statistics and see if there's any results there worth pursuing.” Jo: See what happens. Yes, and it's interesting you've also moved more into the nonfiction. Let's get into your solar sail theory, because I've followed you on and off since we met, like a decade ago. Tracy: It was 10 years ago. Jo: I know. It's crazy. It's really crazy. For those listening, we met in Oregon, at the Oregon Workshops with Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I've been reading your blog pretty avidly around this solar sail theory, which I love, and now you're talking about writing science fiction, I can appreciate it more. What is your solar sail theory and some of the ways to build it? Tracy: Okay, so solar sail theory is a theory in science. Well, I was going to say science fiction, but there's solid science behind it. Solar sails are a way, they think, because it's never been proven yet, of propelling a spacecraft. You have this huge sail, like kilometres wide, and what it does is it captures photons. Photons are basically light. So when the light hits the solar sail, it gives it a minuscule amount of push, but there's no friction in space, so that push just keeps the ship going and going. So when you've got kilometres of sail, all the photons hitting that can bring a ship up to enormous speeds, like a fraction of light speed, which sounds small if you're not used to science, but a fraction of light speed is enormously fast, and these solar sails can bring a ship up to those sorts of speeds. So you can cross to the next star without needing faster-than-light travel or warp speed or something like that. Put that theory over the top of the indie publishing industry and you suddenly get a very interesting way of thinking about the industry, and it helps you make decisions. So it's not a prescription. Again, it's not a 15-step, here's how to conquer the universe. It's a decision matrix. It helps you figure out what's going to work for you. Whatever strategy or tactic it is that you're thinking about doing, you can ask the question, does this extend my sail? So does it leave something behind that can continue to make me discoverable? So for instance, a 30-second radio advertisement probably is not going to leave anything behind that'll let readers discover you, because once it's aired, it's gone. On the other hand, a podcast interview like this. The podcast interview that I did with you three years ago, I'm still getting people finding me and finding The Productive Indie Fiction Writer three years later because of that. So that's extending the sail, and it's just a little tiny push, like a photon. Blog posts also, they surface indefinitely, so readers can find them 10 years later. And because you're the host of your own podcast, all your podcast interviews and the website, they're also creating surface area, so people keep finding you years later. Also guest articles, and a book in a library. Your entire back catalogue is all part of the solar sail. Jo: I know people listening are going, “But what about social media?” Tracy: Yes. Social media is a tricky one because it's such a short half-life. I think on Facebook, if anyone sees your post at all, after two hours it's basically gone. They never see it unless they actually go to your account, and they need to have heard of you in order to go to your account and see the post. So that makes social media not really a good solar sail builder. It has other uses, and as long as you understand that it does have this very short half-life, then you can use it for the things that it's good at. Jo: Yes, the same with paid ads, for example. Paid ads are the same as social media. Perhaps a quicker push, but as you say, the half-life is quicker. Tracy: Yes. Exactly. Paid ads come and go. There's nothing out there that'll let the reader find you in a couple of years' time. So they're very short term. A lot of people can build their business on these short-term things. They spend thousands of dollars on paid ads each month, and that works for them, but if they stop doing it, then their business halts. It comes to a grinding halt. Whereas if you're building your solar sail, it's a long-term way of setting up your business, so it just keeps ticking on. Jo: Your series of posts on the solar sail, which are also in The Indie Author Survival Guide, they are nonfiction, useful things. So what about for the fiction side? What do you suggest people do around content marketing? Tracy: Well, it all applies to both fiction and nonfiction. I usually write, because The Productive Indie Fiction Writer is addressing fiction authors, this does all apply to fiction as well. As I was saying, your book catalogue, because you're on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, and Apple, and maybe Google as well, all of those pages are part of your sail. Your own site, all the book pages on your own site are part of the sail. There's different ways to do it, but the common one is you have this standard sail out there that helps readers find you. You coax them to come to your site, and there you try to capture them as readers. So that usually means your email list. Some people use Substack now. There are other alternatives I'm sure I haven't thought of, but email seems to be the principal one. Then you can build that relationship with the readers over the long term. The solar sail just brings all those readers to you so that you can develop that relationship and keep the readers close. For fiction authors, I think this is critical. This helps you build independence from the retail platforms. Jo: Yes, it is interesting. I would put podcasting and YouTube in particular. So I had someone, they were in my Patreon, and they said, “I'm no longer subscribed to your email list because I hear from you in Patreon and on the podcast.” I was thinking about my own behaviour, and for the podcast that I am a hardcore fan of, I'm not on their email list. I was thinking it is because my relationship with those people is more auditory, I guess. The same with YouTubers. People end up subscribing to your YouTube channel. Then the problem still is, if I stop podcasting today, then I can't contact those people again. Except that I know lots of podcasters who stop podcasting and then maybe two years later they just pop on with an update episode. And people are like, “Oh, I never unsubscribed from you on my feed.” So that can appear years later. I definitely still agree that the email list is primary. But if you're somebody listening and you're a more audio or video person, I think we can probably think about the relationship with people on these different dimensions. Tracy: Yes, and some people definitely prefer the audio. I'm utterly text-based myself. I prefer to read. But yes, podcasting, apart from anything else, is a way of keeping contact with the readers, and they can email you in return. So it is a two-way process, so you can develop that relationship. So if that works for you, that is a good alternative. The other thing is too, of course, every episode that you've recorded and put on a webpage is also building your sail. So more and more people are finding you. So podcasting is interesting. If you're guest posting on someone else's blog, that's a somewhat time-consuming way, but it does build up your sail as well. Jo: The only problem with that, I would say, as someone who used to have guest posts, is it's still my website. When it came to auditing my website, about five years ago—and the thing is, because my website's been around since 2008, I had some people guest posting in the early days—and I was like, “This should not be here anymore.” So I am able to get rid of people's things when they're on my site, in the same way that Amazon can take down your book or whatever. Tracy: Yes, and that's where the anti-enshittification process comes in. That's where developing that independent mindset comes in. One of the questions that you need to ask is, how permanent is this? What happens if it goes away? Tat's why blogging on your own site is probably a stronger and better decision than guest blogging on other people's sites, because they have control of that. Jo: Yes, absolutely. So there's so much in these books. These are all excellent books. I feel like you know so much after decades in the trenches, and I love that you're putting out everything in these books. I did want to ask you one specific thing, because obviously we're increasing the size of our sail. But if we have massive amounts of drag, so we have sea anchors or whatever we want to call it in our metaphor, we have to sort that out too. So in The Indie Author Survival Guide, you have a section on protecting the margins. So I wondered if you would talk about the specific ways to think about what is operational drag and how can we reduce it? Tracy: Well, we just actually hit the perfect example. Guest blogging has more drag than blogging on your own site does, because you don't have control over it, so it can disappear. It requires maintenance. It takes your time. So drag is basically anything that is going to slow you down once you've built up speed, coming back to the solar sail theory. The sail will keep you moving, but because we're not working in a vacuum anymore, we're not in space, there are things that can slow you down. Particularly for mature author businesses, we accumulate all this cruft. For instance, Barnes & Noble recently changed their website so that all the URLs for a book changed, and that doesn't sound like a big deal, but I've got 200 books. So suddenly the links didn't work pointing to Barnes & Noble for every book. So the Books2Read universal book links had to be changed for all 200 books. Jo: Oh, I did know that and I haven't done it. Tracy: This is the thing, is when you've only got five books, it's like 10 minutes' worth of work, no problems, and you just move on. When you've got 200 books, that's suddenly a big deal. I only found out accidentally that they had changed them, and once I had confirmed that every single link no longer worked, it was suddenly a massive project. There's also the money drag. Everything these days is software as a subscription. Even Microsoft Office, you've got to pay the fee every year. It works well in theory, because you're getting updated software all the time, but you have a dozen of those or two dozen, suddenly you're spending a lot of money every year for software that once upon a time we used to pay a flat fee for and that was it. So it pays to go through and figure out what expenses you can get rid of or diminish, or can you find a cheaper version. There's advertising. Some advertising just isn't worth spending the money on. If you're doing pay-per-click advertising, you need to monitor it all the time, so that's a time sink that you're blowing money on, technically, because your time is money. There's also, you may not be managing it quite as well as you could, so you're actually burning more money because the ads are not working as effectively as they could. More drag. You need to go through every aspect. There's time drag, repetitive tasks. For instance, Mark and I have, for about, I think we're coming up on 11 years now, we track our sales. Every morning we sit down and go through every platform and record the sales for that day in a spreadsheet so that we can do analysis. It's a good way to spend time because it's got extreme uses. There's a lot of little tasks that you might do, especially if you've been working in the business as long as I have. All these little tasks will build up, and suddenly you forget why you're doing them. Or the conditions have changed and it's not worth doing them anymore. They may not be providing the value that they once used to. So you have to go through and make sure that you're reducing the drag on your business as much as possible so that you can keep moving. Jo: Yes. I had two more extra ones there. You mentioned the things that we do that perhaps we don't need to do anymore. If people are outsourcing, if you have virtual assistants, if you are paying for some kind of service outside your own time, sometimes you can have that going and then when you think, do I need that anymore? So I know some people still do pay for turning posts into social media or making book trailers. That's a good one. Or there's things that people are paying for, and then you might realise that you don't need that service anymore, or you don't need everything that that social media manager is doing anymore. So realistically looking at the benefits of what you're getting. Tracy: Yes, constant review. Jo: Yes. Constant review. Then the other thing I was thinking is a mindset drag. So right now, as we're recording this, in the author community, there's this witch hunting going on around AI usage. Tracy: Yes. Jo: It's the latest thing that's causing massive drama. I feel like it's almost mindset drag to get dragged into some of this drama, and it saps the energy. That can really pull on your boat, on your solar boat. Tracy: Well, actually, I've found that, and this is all part of the indie author mindset, and it's also part of the anti-enshittification process too. I did a lot of research on AI. I did a lot of reading. I listened to a lot of different discussions about it, and then I formed my own policy. What's my policy for AI? What's my policy around AI and its use and so forth? I find that once I had developed that policy for myself, suddenly there's not as much mental drag with all the AI discussions and the witch hunts and all the drama that's going on around it, because I know where I'm sitting and I'm quite comfortable with my position. So I think for a lot of people, it can become very emotional and draining if you still haven't figured out where you sit on the spectrum of AI use. But that's actually how I tackled it, because I was getting very tired of all the dramas. It is draining, and it worries you. So I deliberately went out and did a lot of research and reading, and figured out where I stood, and that made a huge difference for me. Jo: Yes. And again, that's something to look at on your schedule. So maybe in a year's time you re-look at things again and change your decision. I think the same thing with the traditional versus self-publishing versus wide versus KU, and you could just go on. There are pros and cons in every single direction, right? At the end of the day, it's almost the decision fatigue that's stopping you. Or you could say, again, our solar boat has to go in a particular direction. You can't go in every direction at the same time. You just have to make a decision, right? Tracy: Yes. I think being as informed as possible about the industry is one of the big ones. I've spent a lot of time doing a lot of reading, not just about indie publishing over the last few years, but everything to do with publishing and also everything to do with business, because we are in business. That's a bit of a cliché, that a lot of indie authors, their eyes just glaze over when they hear that you're in business. There are aspects of running a business that we just don't get taught as indie authors or as creatives that I think we should be teaching each other or getting each other to learn, because it's basic business survival. Things like pricing, that is an enormously complex business topic, pricing. Most of us are, “Well, what's everyone else doing? Okay, I'll do that.” That's how they make their decisions. There's a lot more to it than that, and it's very complex. We don't have to get a PhD in business management, but I think a little bit more awareness about basic business principles would serve all of us much better. Jo: Yes, there's always so much to learn, but I actually think you've done a really good job with your books. I mean, The Indie Author Survival Guide is a great place to start. They're super, super useful. I do want to talk about—as we come to an end—you've been doing this a long time, as have I, and we've both got some battle scars along the way. You do end your books with hopeful realism, which I like. Now, I'm definitely more of an optimist than you, but I feel like hopeful realism is a good place. So how can people cultivate that feeling of hopeful realism around the business? Tracy: I don't know. Are you more of an optimist than me? Anyway. Well, let's see, because for me, all the book writing and all the research and all the reading that I've been doing over the last few years have given me back a lot of optimism that I didn't have. As I was saying, it was feeling as though I couldn't do anything right. So learning that it wasn't just me that's the problem gave me back my confidence. So that's where the hopeful realism and the optimism came in. So hopeful realism, okay, it comes from understanding, from agency, and from choice. If you understand the industry as it actually exists, not the way you wish it did, and you understand the forces acting on your business and where you sit within them, that helps enormously. Just having that knowledge there, you can see what's going on, you understand what's going on. It's not all a mystery, and you're not scratching your head wondering what to do next. Because of that understanding, you get agency. You're not helpless. When circumstances change, you can respond. You can make decisions instead of simply having things happen to you, and all of that gives you choice. You can go out and research and find out what your options are, and you can choose the best option for you. If that doesn't work, you can go and try something else. So you've got a lot of choices, and you've got things that you can do. You're not helpless. So hopeful realism, I think, is pretty optimistic. Jo: Brilliant. So where can people find you and your books online? Tracy: If you're interested in my nonfiction, the best place to find me is at The Productive Indie Fiction Writer. If you want to find out more about my fiction, the best place to find that is to go to StoriesRulePress.com. My three pen names are there, and also Mark, my husband, who is a writer as well. And shortly, I think, another member of the family's going to be joining us as well. So it's a very family affair on Stories Rule Press. Jo: Well, thanks so much for your time, Tracy. That was great. Tracy: Thank you very much. I'm thrilled I was able to come back and talk again. Thanks, Joanna. The post How To Redesign Your Author Business For The Environment That Actually Exists, With Tracy Cooper-Posey first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Corrections officers, police, firefighters, dispatchers, and veterans often carry stress that stacks up quietly over years: shift work, chronic hypervigilance, moral injury, and the constant exposure to trauma. In this conversation, Mike Marotta explains why so many first responders feel safest with coworkers yet struggle to let their guard down at home, even with the people who love them most. That gap can fuel isolation, relationship strain, and unhealthy coping strategies. For anyone searching for first responder mental health resources, PTSD support, or addiction treatment options, the key theme is simple: you do not leave these professions unscathed, and pretending you are fine usually makes the bill come due later.Mike Marotta is a former U.S. Air Force C-5 loadmaster and San Antonio police officer who helped build a department-wide wellness initiative before moving into behavioral health leadership at Warriors Heart. His story is honest about the slow drift many first responders recognize: shift work, accumulating trauma, family distance, and coping habits that quietly turn into a problem.We dig into what makes Warriors Heart a true fit for the first responder, corrections, and military communities, including correctional officers. It is a 42-day inpatient residential treatment program built for veterans, active duty, and public safety professionals, with no need to explain the culture. Mike explains the interrelated model that treats substance use disorder and co-occurring issues like PTSD and trauma at the same time, and why peer community is not a bonus feature; it is the backbone. “Connection is protection” is not a tagline here; it is a plan.You will also hear practical guidance you can use immediately: the warning signs that stress is turning dangerous (sleep, weight gain, anger, isolation, increased drinking, risky behavior), how to start a compassionate but direct conversation with a coworker, and what treatment really looks like day to day. We walk through structure, routines, the powerful Lifeline process, and how families and careers can change when someone comes back healthier and sober.If this hits close to home, share it with a partner, a squad mate, or a supervisor who needs better language for tough conversations, then subscribe and leave a review so more first responders can find real help.Contact Mike: mike.marotta@warriorsheart.com If you need help now - call (855) 610-1003Mike on LinkedIN - www.linkedin.com/in/mike-marotta-96607754Mike on FoxNews - https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/heroes-need-help-four-signs-first-responder-strugglingSend us Fan Mail Command PresenceBringing prisons and jails the training they deserve!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showNEW RELEASE — The Weight of Justice: Leadership Lessons from Inside America's Toughest Prisons: A Correctional Officer's JourneyBuy on Amazon or Kindle: https://amzn.to/3PLr5tRAvailable worldwide through Books2Read: https://books2read.com/WeightofJusticePOWER SKILLS: Emotional Intelligence and Soft Skills for Correctional Officers, First Responders, and BeyondAvailable on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4mBeog5See Michael's books and author updates at: www.CantrellWrites.com

Tara from Author Support joins the D2D Team to answer author questions and bust common myths about publishing with Draft2Digital. //Draft2Digital is where you grow your Indie Author Career// Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

In this episode, we delve into new data from Edison Research that found U.S. fiction audiobook listeners prefer Spoken's multi-cast AI narration to that of human narrators. The study surveyed over 1,000 fiction audiobook listeners who blind-tested human narration against Spoken's Multi-Cast™ AI narration. To help us understand the data, we're joined by Phil Marshall, founder of Spoken, and Megan Lazovick, vice president at Edison Research.  In this episode we discuss:  • The methodology behind the research  • The key results — favorability, engagement, and listener sentiment before and after  • Whether listener willingness to try AI narration was measurably impacted  • When to consider human narration vs. AI narration  • What this means for authors and publishers considering AI narration //Draft2Digital is where you grow your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

You can be “in shape” and still be useless in a real response. That gap is what we dig into with Letha Cowan, a former Washington State correctional officer and the owner of Watchline Fitness and Watchline Supply Co. She combines lived experience behind the walls with NASM personal training and nutrition coaching to build functional fitness for correctional officers who work overtime, sit posts for hours, then suddenly have to sprint, grapple, and control chaos without warning.We talk honestly about what the job does to the body: mandatory doubles, short sleep, stress, and the food reality of vending machines and microwave meals. Letha shares her own wake-up call, including gaining 50 pounds during her time in corrections, and why bodybuilding style training didn't prepare her for the moment she had to run to a fight and arrived winded. From there we connect the dots between officer wellness, morale, and a safety culture that too often feels upside down.You'll get practical ideas you can use right away: simple strength training built around squats and deadlifts, grip and core work for control, short conditioning that mimics the “go time” surge, and meal prep tactics that keep you from living on Red Bulls and desperation. If you care about correctional officer fitness, prison officer wellness, shift work nutrition, and getting home healthy when the uniform comes off, this one is for you.Subscribe for more real conversations about corrections, share this with a partner who needs it, and leave a review so more officers can find the show.Letha's Email - watchlinefitness@gmail.comWatchLine Supply Company - https://watchlinesupply.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/watchline_fitness/Send us Fan Mail PepperBallFrom crowd control to cell extractions, the PepperBall system is the safe, non-lethal option.Command PresenceBringing prisons and jails the training they deserve!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showNEW RELEASE — The Weight of Justice: Leadership Lessons from Inside America's Toughest Prisons: A Correctional Officer's JourneyBuy on Amazon or Kindle: https://amzn.to/3PLr5tRAvailable worldwide through Books2Read: https://books2read.com/WeightofJusticePOWER SKILLS: Emotional Intelligence and Soft Skills for Correctional Officers, First Responders, and BeyondAvailable on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4mBeog5See Michael's books and author updates at: www.CantrellWrites.com

Sometimes discovery writing leads to dead ends, character inconsistency, or stories that wander off track. USA TODAY Bestselling Author Paul Austin Ardoin joins us with tips to help pantsers looking for practical tools to strengthen their stories without losing what makes them discovery writers. //Draft2Digital is where you grow your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Author Nation is the world's largest indie author conference, built around a simple belief: successful authors are built through community, strategy, and consistent action.  But Author Nation is more than a four-day Vegas Convention; it's a community meant to help authors build sustainable, prosperous creative careers in the golden age of content creation.  In this episode, you'll learn:  • The mission and philosophy behind Author Nation  • The importance in community building for authors  • What makes Author Nation stand out from other author conventions //Draft2Digital is where you grow your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

The fastest way a jail gets dangerous isn't a single riot or headline event, it's the quiet drift: missed checks, inconsistent rules, sloppy units, and leaders who stop sweating the small stuff. We sit down with Major Sean Klucznik, Jail Administrator at the Hernando County Sheriff's Office and immediate past president of the American Jail Association, to talk about what actually stabilizes a facility when staffing is tight, budgets are political, and public trust is fragile.We get into what he saw while traveling during his AJA presidency, including the funding battles agencies face nationwide, the importance of professional networking in corrections, and how relationships can turn into real outcomes like regional training partnerships. Sean shares how connecting with NYC corrections led to the launch of the Northeast Regional Correctional Training Center and why “back to basics” direct supervision still matters when everything feels like it's changing.Then we go deep on his book, Broken Windows Behind Bars: Transforming Jail Operations Through Order and Accountability. The core idea is simple and hard at the same time: consistent standards prevent bigger problems. We talk mentorship, first-line supervision, ethics as a slow creep, micro training that supervisors can run every shift, and why line staff can shape culture by “setting the tone” with professionalism, presence, and follow-through.Subscribe for more real-world corrections leadership conversations, share this with a partner who cares about doing the job right, and leave a review so more officers can find it. What's one small standard you'd enforce tomorrow to make your facility 1% better?You can reach Shaun - Email - shaunk@aja.orgLinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/shaunklucznikWebsite - https://www.keeperofthekeysleadership.com/Send us Fan Mail PepperBallFrom crowd control to cell extractions, the PepperBall system is the safe, non-lethal option.Command PresenceBringing prisons and jails the training they deserve!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showNEW RELEASE — The Weight of Justice: Leadership Lessons from Inside America's Toughest Prisons: A Correctional Officer's JourneyBuy on Amazon or Kindle: https://amzn.to/3PLr5tRAvailable worldwide through Books2Read: https://books2read.com/WeightofJusticePOWER SKILLS: Emotional Intelligence and Soft Skills for Correctional Officers, First Responders, and BeyondAvailable on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4mBeog5See Michael's books and author updates at: www.CantrellWrites.com

Substack for indie authors: where to start, what to post, and how to grow. Sinem Günel of Write • Build • Scale joins the D2D Self Publishing Insiders podcast to give you the playbook — from setting up your publication to landing your first subscribers and building a readership that follows you from book to book. //Draft2Digital is where you grow your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

The Draft2Digital team discusses the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale and how authors can get the most out of our Smashwords Sales as marketing opportunities.  //Draft2Digital is where you grow your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Tikiri Herath is the award-winning author who went from working in federal intelligence to writing her own worlds of suspenseful thrillers. Changing careers can be an intimidating prospect, but Tikiri took a new path and built a thriving author business along the way. This week, we'll discuss: • Pivoting mid-career from corporate work to full time novelist. • Running indie author-dom as a business. • Writing thrillers with strong female leads. //Draft2Digital is where you grow your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Amy Award is a spicy romance author who believes that all bodies are beautiful and deserve their own love stories with Happy Ever Afters. This week, she joins us for a deep dive on building connections with fans. You'll learn:  • Why direct author-reader connection is indie authors' secret superpower • Proven strategies for turning casual readers into lifelong superfans • How Amy built a devoted community — and what you can steal from her playbook //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

After nearly three decades in corrections, I returned to the prison where my career began.Walking those old cellblocks brought back memories I hadn't thought about in years—the lessons, the mistakes, the friendships, the fear, and the moments that shaped the leader I eventually became.In this deeply personal episode of The Prison Officer Podcast, I take you behind the walls of the institution that started it all. You'll hear stories from those early days, reflections on how corrections has changed, and why some lessons never leave you, no matter how many years pass.This visit also became the perfect opportunity to introduce my new book, The Weight of Justice: Leadership Lessons from Inside America's Toughest Prisons. Many of the experiences that began behind these walls ultimately found their way onto its pages.If you've ever wondered what it's really like to spend a career in corrections—or how those experiences shape a person long after they leave the institution—this episode is for you.Tour the Missouri State Penitentiary: https://missouripentours.com/Buy The Weight of Justice: Buy on Amazon or Kindle: https://amzn.to/3PLr5tRBuy on Books2Read: https://books2read.com/WeightofJusticeSend us Fan Mail Support the showNEW RELEASE — The Weight of Justice: Leadership Lessons from Inside America's Toughest Prisons: A Correctional Officer's JourneyBuy on Amazon or Kindle: https://amzn.to/3PLr5tRAvailable worldwide through Books2Read: https://books2read.com/WeightofJusticePOWER SKILLS: Emotional Intelligence and Soft Skills for Correctional Officers, First Responders, and BeyondAvailable on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4mBeog5See Michael's books and author updates at: www.CantrellWrites.com

Romance Writers of America® (RWA) has a long history of advancing the common interests of career-focused romance writers through networking and advocacy and by increasing public awareness of the romance genre.  In this conversation you'll learn about:  • The RWA's historic mission of uplifting the romance genre  • The many ways RWA helps career-minded romance authors advance their careers  • What's in store for next month's RWA Annual Conference //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

NYT Bestselling Author Alessandra Torre and co-founder of Inkers Con joins us to discuss opportunities authors should be considering in 2026. In this episode, we'll learn: • 3 areas where authors should focus their efforts from 7x NYT bestsellling author Alessandra Torre • What's in store at Inkers Con 2026, a premier online author conference and one of the only conferences to offer a money-back guarantee  • Challenges and Opportunities for authors in 2026 //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

As authors, we strive for success, but without the right mindset, it can be impossible to build a sustainable author career. Russell Nohelty of Hapitalist joins us to discuss how authors can find career success without sacrificing joy.  In this week's episode, you'll learn:  • The importance of balancing passion and business.  • The Philosophy behind Hapitalist.  • How to build a serious author career without taking yourself too seriously. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Lexi, Nick, and Mark from the Draft2Digital Team is here to answer author questions about publishing, best practices, and distributing your books with Draft2Digital. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Every corrections leader eventually faces the moment when the order coming down the chain doesn't sit right — when policy, pressure, or politics puts your people at risk. Leading up isn't insubordination. It's one of the highest forms of leadership. In this episode, we're talking about how to manage your boss, influence decisions above your pay grade, and still protect the men and women counting on you to have their backs.We also dig into what actually builds influence in a prison or jail setting: checking your ego, choosing results over credit, and making yourself valuable through skills and outside training. If you want a seat at the table, you earn it by becoming the person leadership trusts for expertise.Send us Fan Mail North Idaho ExperienceIdaho life, real talk. Community, outdoors, and the freedom to live your way.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifyPepperBallFrom crowd control to cell extractions, the PepperBall system is the safe, non-lethal option.Command PresenceBringing prisons and jails the training they deserve!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showNEW RELEASE — The Weight of Justice: Leadership Lessons from Inside America's Toughest Prisons: A Correctional Officer's JourneyBuy on Amazon or Kindle: https://amzn.to/3PLr5tRAvailable worldwide through Books2Read: https://books2read.com/WeightofJusticePOWER SKILLS: Emotional Intelligence and Soft Skills for Correctional Officers, First Responders, and BeyondAvailable on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4mBeog5See Michael's books and author updates at: www.CantrellWrites.com

Scams targeting authors are nothing new. Yet scammers using AI tools are driving a level of volume, and sophistication, never seen. In this episode, Dale Roberts joins us to explain how the game has changed, what to watch out for, and what to do if you fall victim to an author scam. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Emily Goodwin is the VP of Public Affairs for Author Services, Inc and runs Galaxy Press. For the past 40 years, their Writers of the Future program has championed the writing community, allowing seasoned authors to guide newer authors under their wing to help them grow. In this episode, we discuss:  ● The value of short stories and sci-fi in storytelling.  ● The importance of contributing to the greater author community.  ● How Writers of the Future builds up authors and creates connection. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and best-selling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other resources for writers. Becca joins us to share how understanding the psychology of fear can help you write vulnerable, complex characters.  In this episode, you'll learn:  • How fear impacts your character's personal journey  • How to identify the fear holding a character back  • How to create connectivity with relatable characters and your readers //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

The Blasters & Blades PodcastSan Antonio has a secret, and it's older than the Alamo. This episode, we're joined by JT Evans, author of the Modern Mythology series, to talk about his immortal protagonist, Marcus Barber. We dive into the grit of writing a Roman Centurion in the 21st century, the challenge of balancing ancient magic with modern-day bounty hunting, and why the old gods are just as petty and dangerous as they were two millennia ago. This was a fun interview, so go check it out! Lend us your eyes and ears, you won't be sorry!! Co-Hosts: JR Handley (Author) (Grunt)Nick Garber (Comic Book Artist) (Super Grunt)Madam Stabby Stab (Uber Fan) (Horror Nerd)Jana S Brown (Author) (Chief Shenanigator)We work for free, so if you wanna throw a few pennies our way there is a linked Buy Me A Coffee site where you can do so. Just mention the podcast in the comments when you donate, and I'll keep the sacred bean water boiling!Support the Show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AuthorJRHandleyOur LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/blastersandbladespodcastToday's SponsorMy Luck (Twisted Luck Book 1) by Mel Todd: https://a.co/d/02RNIAHGCoffee Brand Coffee Affiliate Support the Show: https://coffeebrandcoffee.com/?ref=y4GWASiVorJZDb 10% Discount Code: PodcastGrunts The Modern Mythology Series by J.T. Evans: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLVW451HFollow J.T. Evans on social mediaJ.T.'s Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00AG3TR6O J.T.'s Website: https://jtevans.net/ J.T.'s BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jtevans.bsky.social J.T.'s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jtevans.author/ J.T.'s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jtevans.author/ J.T.'s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/jtevanswriter J.T.'s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jtevans J.T.'s Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jtevansauthor/ J.T.'s Books2Read: https://books2read.com/jtevans J.T.'s BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/j-t-evans J.T.'s GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3519020.J_T_Evans Follow Jana S Brown on social mediaJana's Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jana-S.-Brown/author/B015VJV7JWJana's Website: www.opalkingdompress.comJana's Twitter: https://twitter.com/janastocksJana's Facebook: www.facebook.com/janasbrownwritesJana's LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/opalkingdompressFollow Jena Rey on social mediaJena's Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jena-Rey/author/B08XSCHXYXFollow JR Handley on social mediaJR's Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/J.-R.-Handley/author/B01N0SEX3AJR's Website: https://jrhandley.com/JR's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sgt.jr.handleyJR's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jr_handley/JR's Substack: https://jrhandley.substack.com/#scifishenanigans #scifishenaniganspodcast #bbp #blastersandblades #blastersandbladespodcast #podcast #scifipodcast #fantasypodcast #scifi #fantasy #books #rpg #comics #fandom #literature #comedy #veteran #army #armyranger #ranger #scififan #redshirts #scifiworld #sciencefiction #scifidaily #scificoncept #podcastersofinstagram #scificons #podcastlife #podcastsofinstagram #scifibooks #awardwinningscifi #newepisode #podcastersofinstagram #podcastaddict #podcast #scifigeek #scifibook #sfv #scifivisionaries #firesidechat #chat #panel #fireside #religionquestion #coffee #tea #coffeeortea #CoffeeBrandCoffee #JRHandley #NickGarber #MadamStabby #JenaRey #JanaSBrown #OpalKingdomPress #JTEvans #starwars #jedi #georgelucas #lucasfilms #startrek #trekkie #firefly #serenity #browncoat #wheeloftime #wot #robertjordan #brandonsanderson #gameofthrones #got #grrm #georgerrmartin #ChroniclesofNarnia #CSLewis #TerryBrooks #Stegosaurus #TheSwordOfShannara #LarryNiven #JerryPournelle #JohnnyMnemonic #WilliamGibson #CountZero #CyberPunk #BruceSterling #Immortal #TheHighlander #Mithra #Mitra #Zoroastrianism #Vedic #GodOfLight #Ancient #Mithraism #Roman #Gladius #mythology #greekoroman #ModernMythologySeries

Jo Wildsmith helps authors turn their manuscripts into something truly exceptional - polished, professional, and ready to make an impact - using print on demand to its fullest potential. In this week's episode, we'll discuss: ● The benefits of print on-demand publishing. ● Tips and Tricks to Successfully Publishing in Print. ● Marketing Your Print On-Demand Books. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Matilda Swift and Sam Cummings of the Pen to Paycheck podcast work together as mastermind partners to achieve the "how to quit my day job" dream. You'll hear advice including: ● The benefits of partnering with fellow authors.  ● What makes a good partnership.  ● Steps to take in the journey from part-time to full-time author. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Indie Bookstore Day was April 25th. In this episode we sit down with Ami Greko of Bookshop.org to understand how authors help celebrate the day by encouraging readers to visit their favorite indie bookstores, either in person or online. If you're publishing with D2D, your ebooks and print-on-demand books are purchasable at 3,400+ indie bookstores in the US and UK. And every Bookshop.org purchase benefits local bookstores! .//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Kate Tilton has been helping authors since 2010 as a business manager and publishing consultant. She has worked with bestsellers and new authors, supporting and optimizing their publishing careers.  In this week's episode, you'll learn:  ● What you need to succeed in the author business  ● The benefits of working with a business manager  ● What your support needs are as an author .//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Skye B. MacKinnon has lived in various countries before settling in Scotland, so she has a unique international perspective on publishing. In this episode Skye shares best practices for how to translate indie books into different languages.  In this week's episode, you'll learn: ● How to produce market-ready translations  ● Marketing your book translations  ● Tips and tricks from her 'Self-Publishing in German' guide .//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Tara has led the Draft2Digital Support Team since the early days of D2D. This week, she joins the Self Publishing Insiders team to answer author questions. In this episode, you'll learn: • Customer Support's commonly asked questions  • Best Practices for Publishing with Draft2Digital  • Tips & Tricks to get the most out of Self-Publishing  .//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

In this week's episode we discuss how to structure a series before you start writing. Our guide on this journey is Kristina Stanley, bestselling author and CEO of the Fictionary School for Writers and Editors.  If you want to write a series but aren't sure how to begin, this episode is for you. We'll reveal how to structure: • Plot arcs • Character development  • Thematic consistency  • A plan to carry your story, and your readers, across multiple books .//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Kevin J. Anderson is a #1 international bestselling author best known for his traditional publishing in the Dune and Star Wars universes, and he has also been a successful indie author for 15 years as publisher of WordFire Press. He runs the graduate program in Publishing for Western Colorado University, one of the only MA programs focused on indie publishing, and is joining us to share his publishing knowledge and experience .//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way. • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Marvin brings over 10 years of experience in book publishing and growth marketing. Now, with his new company AuthorScale, he and his team are developing cutting-edge tools to help indie authors leverage technology to revolutionize their book marketing.  //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.   We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.   • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Aaron Renfroe is an author and the owner and operator of Pivot Press. Pivot Press is an organization built to optimize publishing books and audio in the LitRPG genre with as much quality, and as quickly, as possible. As an author who went from indie author to indie publisher, Aaron joins us to talk about publishing as a LitRPG author, and putting together a team of collaborators to work with, including co-authors, editors, and beta readers at Pivot Press. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.   We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.   • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Former publicist to the stars, Isabelle Knight is the founder of Build Your Author Brand, an online consultancy helping fiction and non-fiction authors.  Isabelle joins us to share how you can build your author brand, grow your readership, raise your profile and give your books the best chance of success. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.   We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.   • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career in the book publishing industry, with a focus on author education and trend reporting. She is the editor of The Bottom Line, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World in 2023.  Jane joins us again to share her expertise, reflecting on 2025 and looking ahead at what 2026 might have in store for the publishing industry. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//   Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.   We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.   • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/ • Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog   • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com   Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

D2D's CEO Kris Austin joins the D2D team to reflect on our 2025 and another year in publishing, and to look ahead to what is on the horizon in 2026. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

It's official! Draft2Digital and Bookshop.org have announced our partnership to bring indie ebooks to Bookshop.org! Join us as we talk to Bookshop.org. CEO Andy Hunter and D2D CEO Kris Austin about this exciting new partnership. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Orna Ross is co-founder and director of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) and a passionate advocate for self-publishing and author empowerment. Her motto is: “When in doubt, be braver.” Orna joins us to discuss the results of the ALLi Indie Author Income Survey and what we can learn about our industry.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Lee Wind joins us to talk about the IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) Boot Camp for Author Publishers, and how to bring all the pieces together when publishing to find your success.Lee Wind is the Chief Content Officer for the IBPA. He is also an author, who writes the books that would have changed his life as a young Gay Jewish kid. Lee was recently awarded BISG's Industry Champion Award for co-founding We Are Stronger Than Censorship, a program that buys and donates two books to offset every one book challenge.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Welcome to 2026! Each new year brings the opportunity to begin anew, yet that can be daunting. Rather than start the new writing year feeling overwhelmed out of the gate, Mark Leslie Lefebvre provides encouragement on how to set realistic goals to keep you and your book publishing aspirations on track in 2026.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Autumn A. Arnett joins us to talk about the EFA and what you should keep in mind when looking for the right editor for your book.The Editorial Freelancers Association is a nonprofit organization that advances excellence among a dynamic community of freelance editorial professionals by providing opportunities for business development, learning, and networking. EFA members are editors, writers, indexers, proofreaders, researchers, desktop publishers, translators, and others who offer a broad range of skills and specialties.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Thomas Dean Donnelly has been a professional screenwriter for over 30 years. In that time he has written on major projects, from Voltron to Uncharted, and from Marvel's Doctor Strange to The Walking Dead. During the Hollywood writers strike he wrote his first novel: YEAR OF THE RABBIT and just release its sequel YEAR OF THE HORSE, both spy thrillers. T.D. Donnelly joins us to share practices he has used in his writing to build memorable characters and stories for the screen.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Books2read.com For Raymonds' Books----->"Rayah and the day the city went quiet""Shadow the Haitian Revolution""Shadow The Hard Road""Shadow No Mas""Shadow Reap What You Sow"To Sign up for our Patreon go to-> Patreon.com/cultofconspiracypodcastMeta Mysteries Podcast---> https://open.spotify.com/show/6IshwF6qc2iuqz3WTPz9Wv?si=3a32c8f730b34e79Cajun Knight Youtube Channel---> https://www.youtube.com/@CajunknightTo Sign up for our Rokfin go to --> Rokfin.com/cultofconspiracyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cult-of-conspiracy--5700337/support.

This special Christmas Day 2025 episode is a pre-recorded one with Mark Leslie Lefebvre who introduces a series of clips that highlight just 14 of the amazing episodes that have been brought to you every week in this past year.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

The way readers search for their next book is changing dramatically. With Google's generative search and Amazon's upcoming AI-driven recommendation engine, authors face a completely new landscape for book discovery. But how exactly will these changes affect your books' visibility? Reedsy's Ricardo Fayet joins us to share practical steps to make sure your books remain discoverable and compelling to readers in this rapidly shifting landscape.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Cameron Sutter is a sci-fi/fantasy author and the inventor of Plottr – the popular visual story planning software. As a friend of the show, he joins us again to talk about new Plottr features, their Virtual Beta Readers, and the charity work they are supporting with their Plot for Good campaign. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Becca Syme, founder of the Better-Faster Academy and Host of The Quitcast, joins us to talk about what habits and practices we need to focus on in this brand new day of publishing, and which don't serve us anymore. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Bekah Brinkmeier is a USA Today bestselling author and ghostwriter of more than 90 novels. She works with AutoCrit as an instructor and author coach, leading Team Plantser in the Novel 90 Writing Challenge. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Hannah Jacobson is the founder of Book Award Pro, the industry-trusted platform for getting reviews and awards. The company operates the world's largest database of legitimate book accolades, serving thousands of authors globally. Hannah is the recognized authority on literary accolades and prestigious book recognition. She joins us to talk about book awards and how authors can benefit from them.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Nicole Bross is a certified book coach, editor, and the author of A Novel Approach: Strategies for ADHD Writers, a writing guide for neurodiverse authors whose ADHD is getting in the way of finishing their books. As a neurodiverse writer herself, Nicole is excited to share the strategies and tools she's developed with others. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Award-winning Detroit Author & Founder of Motown Writers, Sylvia Hubbard has independently published over 65 romance suspense books over 25 years. Sylvia joins us to talk about the opportunities authors could be missing out on if they aren't making the most of library distribution. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.