Podcasts about Vellum

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 14, 2026 54:59

In this new 2-part series, I look at the practice of mediumship, its origins and its fraudulence. In Part One, I talk examine the originators of 19th century Spiritualism, the Fox Sisters, from the start to the end of their claims of genuinely contacting the dead. Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the show merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, perfect for gifts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pledge support on Patreon to get an ad-free feed with exclusive episodes!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out my novel, Manuscript Found!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Direct all advertising inquiries to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to find other high-quality podcasts! Some music in this episode was licensed under a Blue Dot Sessions blanket license at the time of publication. Tracks include "Olivia Wraith," "A Pulse of Rain," "Darkened Treeline," "Tarte Tatin," "Kettletopper," "Illa Vallardo," "An Unknown Visitor," "Vellum and Steel," and "Cicle Deserrat." Additional music, including "Remedy for Melancholy," "Homeroad," "Daylight PON II," and "Global Warming," are by Kai Engel, licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

history rain steel pulse remedy pledge global warming melancholy spiritualism ance blue dot sessions rap artists kai engel fox sisters vellum tarte tatin

Bundles, Box Sets and Anthologies With Jamie Ferguson

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2026 59:42

What's the difference between a bundle, a box set, an anthology, and a collection? How can being part of an anthology be creatively interesting and useful for marketing? With Jamie Ferguson In the intro, Amazon Kindle increases the 70% royalty share; audiobook marketing tips (Voices by InAudio); The Builder's Creed [Seth Godin]; Future Vision XPrize; Researching the dark side of travel [Anna Sayburn Lane]; Photos from Bruges @jfpennauthor; Bones of the Deep: A Thriller – J.F. Penn. Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it's delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Jamie Ferguson is a fiction and short story author, editor, and publisher, with over 20 anthologies and multiple ebook bundles through her own press. Her latest book for authors is Bundle Up! A Practical Guide to Anthologies and Box Sets That Sell. 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 The difference between bundles, box sets, anthologies, and collections Why a multi-author project means lots of people promoting the same book, not just you How to find and pitch for anthology opportunities, and what editors look for in a contributor Contracts, rights, and royalty splits explained for short fiction Why Kickstarter and special print editions are changing the anthology game Inkwren, the publishing management tool Jamie built for backlists and anthologies You can find Jamie at JamieFerguson.com. Transcript of the interview ith Jamie Ferguson Jo: Jamie Ferguson is a fiction and short story author, editor, and publisher, with over 20 anthologies and multiple ebook bundles through her own press. Her latest book for authors is Bundle Up! A Practical Guide to Anthologies and Box Sets That Sell. Just for context too, one of my short stories, “The Dark Queen”, is in the Amazing Monster Tales: Into the Briny Deep anthology. So I'm excited to talk about this today. Welcome to the show, Jamie. Jamie: Thanks for having me, Jo. Jo: Lots to talk about. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing. Jamie: Well, I wanted to be a writer since I was at least six, maybe before then. So it was just something I always wanted to do, but I always did it on the side. I had a year, many years ago, where I was really busy with work, and I just felt like I didn't write anything the entire year, and I thought, “I'm going to give it up.” Then the next year—that was 2011—I started seeing more about self-publishing, and that really invigorated me and made me feel like, “No, why am I giving up something I've wanted to do since before I went to school?” So I got back into a novel I had worked on years before. I went to a writing workshop with Dean Wesley Smith up in Oregon, back in the day, and then I had my energy back. I've been writing ever since. Still on the side, unfortunately, but someday. Jo: Hopefully! Tell us a bit more about what kind of genres you write. Because balancing your own books with also doing these anthologies and things is quite difficult. Jamie: Yes, it definitely is. I'd say I primarily write contemporary fantasy, but I'll write anything in any genre if I'm really excited about it. I also have a soft spot for Westerns. They take a little more time because I like to research all the facts, but those are really fun to write. Creating anthologies on your own is actually quite a bit of work. One of the things I also do is work with two other authors, DeAnna Knippling and Tami Veldura, and create more anthologies with them. That's really fun because then we can each take a different piece. There's also always somebody to talk to, as opposed to doing it on your own. Jo: Let's start with the terminology, because I definitely struggled with this, and I think people still do. We've got bundles, we've got box sets, we've got anthologies, we've got collections—and are these in ebook, audiobook, or print? Can you start by explaining what all of these words actually mean? Jamie: Yes. In my book I actually use the term “multi-author collection” or “multi-author project”, because there are so many different permutations and it does get confusing. From my perspective, I think of a bundle as a collection. It could be a collection of ebooks. Technically it could be a collection of print books, although people generally use “box set” for that—but then a box set can also be a box set that's all ebooks. An anthology, I usually use for something that's a collection of short stories where there's an editor who's actually edited all the stories. I have had stories in anthologies where somebody didn't edit them, and they would technically be called a curator. So it is definitely confusing. I have not done anything with audio collections, but that certainly is another area that I actually think is pretty interesting. Jo: I also think that a single author… so I've done a short story collection, but an anthology is multiple authors. Is that right? Jamie: Yes. Jo: I think when I came into the indie space, there were a lot more multi-author… we all called them box sets back in the day, when it was just ebooks, right? And now we can actually do boxed sets with boxes through things like BookVault. So it feels like the term “box set” has also gone out of fashion. So if people listening are thinking of doing any of this, you do have to figure out what is the thing you might be signing up for. So let's talk about the multi-author projects, as that's where you specialise. What are the benefits for an author to be involved in a multi-author anthology project? Jamie: The biggest benefit is that you are one of multiple people promoting the same project, whether it's print or ebook or whatever. If I put out a short story collection on my own, I'm the one promoting it, and maybe I can get a couple of other people to write about it, but it's really just me. If I'm part of an anthology with 15 other authors, that's 15 other people who are promoting the same project. That's more newsletters, more Facebook posts, maybe something on their Patreons, whatever it is. You get more synergy, and you get more touch points with potential readers. Then hopefully that translates into sales as well. So that's definitely the biggest part of it—the promotion. Then I also personally really enjoy these types of collections because it's just fun to work with other people. There's a nice energy when everybody's like, “Oh, I put this in my newsletter, and I put this here, and I put this here,” and you feel like you're part of something bigger than just your own piece. Jo: What about the creative benefits? Especially with short stories, often people will write them for a collection or for an anthology project. Jamie: Yes. I've definitely written some stories that I never would have thought I'd write, because somebody I knew asked if I would be interested in being in their collection—whether it's an ebook bundle or a print anthology. So at least for me, that's been really fun. One of the ones that stands out is that I was asked to be in a dinosaur collection once, and I was like, “I don't write dinosaur stories.” And then I did. I set a dinosaur story in London, and it was really fun to write, and I never would have come up with that in a million years. Jo: Let's say we've got 12 authors. They've all written short stories, and now it's in this anthology. But what is the market for these kinds of things? Have you found that there is a readership for short story anthologies that carries over to the author's longer work? Jamie: There is. I like to think of it as: if I have a story in a collection or an anthology—whether it's one I'm editing or somebody else is editing—that's one more place for people to find me. A lot of times anthologies will take reprints as well, like your story. “The Dark Queen”—that was a reprint. We asked if you'd be interested in participating in the Amazing Monster Tales series. And I actually really like printing stories again that have already been published, because there are a lot of stories out there that can be hard to find. Or if it's an older book. I have one author I've known for, like, 30 years. I reprinted one of her stories that was originally published in, I think, 1999, and the anthology it was in was out of print. You couldn't find it, and it was a fantastic story. So it's fun to be able to give new life to those stories and give them more opportunities, and also just have more ways for people to find you. Jo: Yes, I definitely think it's a long game. I don't think appearing in a short story anthology in one particular month is going to mean that your whole back collection just sells, right? Jamie: No, definitely not. It's more about avenues to be found. I know there have been some anthologies that have made quite a bit of money, but in general you're probably not going to make as much money, but you will have those extra places for people to find you. Jo: I always feel like yes, there is maybe a small amount of money, but it is more about almost a marketing thing in itself. So let's say an author is listening and they're like, “Do you know, this sounds like a great idea.” How can they pitch for things like this? How do they find out about opportunities, or get noticed to be asked? And what are the expectations for them? Jamie: The biggest thing is networking. There used to be a couple of opportunities where you could make people aware that you had stories that you were interested in potentially having picked up for something. I'm not aware of anything like that now. When I create a collection, I have a mailing list that I send out, and it includes authors I've published before. It includes a couple of extra people who somehow found my mailing list. And I'll publish, like, “Here's what I'm doing.” There are also authors I've met at writing workshops. I've been able to read some of their work, I'll approach them and say, “Hey, I really liked such and such a story. Would you be interested in writing for this?” Then there are a couple of other websites, like Duotrope, and places that advertise markets and calls for submissions. Jo: Yes, I've found them also on small presses that do these kinds of projects. They often put up one call for submission a month or something, and you can write for their particular thing. In general, the short story markets are the places to keep an eye on. Jamie: Yes, definitely. Jo: If an author wants to pitch to have their story as part of an anthology, do you want to know things like platform, or is it just the story itself? Jamie: I personally look at the author's platform. I do make exceptions—there are actually two authors I've worked with a couple of times who don't have websites. They are people I know personally and they are very, very good writers, so I'll make an exception for things like that. But otherwise, if somebody submitted a story to me and I didn't know that person, I would check out their website, I would check out their social media, I would see what else they had done. Part of what you're doing when you're creating a collection is thinking not just about how you, as the person organising this, will promote the collection, but how the authors who are participating will help promote it as well. If it's somebody who has a lot of fans, even if they're not very active on social media, that can help a lot too. There are a lot of different factors, though. Jo: So then talk us through the project timeline. How long do things take, and what sort of involvement do the authors have along the way? Because it's a lot to juggle. Jamie: Yes, it is a lot to juggle. I can give you an example with the Monster Tales series. We'll come up with an idea, and we also like to try to get the artwork done early on in the process. We don't need it that soon, but it's really great to have that taken care of. We'll contact authors. I think for this one we used my mailing list, but we've also contacted a number of people individually that we know who write the style of stories we like. Then, as the submissions come in, we usually wait until we have a nice chunk of them to start going through, and then we'll pick some right away. Sometimes it'll be like, “Oh my gosh, of course we want this story,” and we'll wait to fill out the other slots. Then we'll negotiate sometimes. Sometimes it's like, “I want this story.” “Well, I want this other story.” And we have to figure out how the word count works. Once we finalise the stories, then usually what happens with that anthology is that DeAnna—who is a very, very good editor—will make the first editing pass, and then I'll make the second. And now Tami's involved, so Tami will make the third, and then we'll iterate. Once all three of us have gone through the first time, then we'll send the story back to the author for edits. So the most the author has to do for most of the process is just wait for us to edit their story, and then work on their edits and get them back. Then, once we get closer to launch, we'll give them information about what we're going to do. For example, we're going to launch the next issue with a Kickstarter. So our authors know that we have a Kickstarter coming, and we'll give them more information as we get closer to the actual launch date. Jo: So how long might an author expect before their work is out there? Jamie: It really varies. I've had some collections published very quickly—let's say a couple of months. Some have taken longer just because somebody ends up having some life issue and things get delayed. So I'd say ideally it would be more like three to nine months. Jo: Yes, I think… depending on the— Jamie: —collection and the complexity. Jo: Yes, exactly. Jo: And you did mention word count there. Just give us a range of what word count you like to get. Jamie: So these days I'm shooting for between 75,000 and 80,000 for the total word count for a collection. That includes the stories, but it also includes the opening, the introduction. For one we're working on now, we're going to have some interstitials, where we have little bits of things we're going to write in between each story. So that's the overall size of the collection. I'll keep track of the word count as the stories come in, and then as we edit the stories, sometimes they grow, sometimes they shrink. Sometimes that's a big enough difference where we're like, “Okay, we need one more story to fill it in.” But that's the target. Jo: And how much for each individual story? Jamie: That varies. I've done a bunch of different things. These days, what I'm advertising is between 3,000 and 8,000 words. I also always tell people: if you're outside this range on either side, just check with me, and if it's something that's really an excellent fit for the book, I'll make an exception. The one that's coming out, I think we have a 1,500- or 2,000-word story that was just amazingly perfect for what we wanted. There was another story, actually I think it was the issue that you were in, that was at least 12,000 words, but it also was a perfect fit for the theme. So I will make exceptions, but within reason. I wouldn't put a novella inside an anthology, because then you'd have a 22,000-word story next to a 3,000-word story, and I personally feel like that's really jarring for the reader. You don't want to go from something super short to something super long. It just doesn't feel like it flows well to me. Jo: No, absolutely. Jo: We'll come back to the making of it because you mentioned some really interesting things there. But just on the contractual side—a lot of indie authors don't necessarily do any publishing contracts for their work, unless it's signing the terms and conditions when uploading on Amazon or Kobo. So tell us a bit about the contract side. What rights are we talking about here? Any red lines in contracts around this kind of thing? Jamie: For contracts, I would recommend people read Kristine Kathryn Rusch's posts on this. She is way more informed about this than I ever will be, so when I have questions, I'll look at her posts. I've asked her a couple of questions. What we're doing for the Amazing Monster Tales… this is the first time that I've actually had authors sign contracts. Prior to this, I've used PubShare, which handles royalty splits and all of that, and that was really great. We want to do direct sales and Kickstarters and have lots of other options. So we did put together a contract this time. I'd have to pull it up, but I think we asked for first worldwide rights in English—I'm getting the terminology wrong here—but that was basically it. Jo: Or, I guess, reprint rights if the story's already been licensed. Jamie: Correct. We have two contract templates, one for original stories and one for reprints. We made sure to make that distinction, because it is definitely a distinction. In the book by Kristine Kathryn Rusch—it's called Closing the Deal… on Your Terms—I highly recommend that for anybody interested in learning more about contracts. Jo: Yes, that's great. And just for people listening: when you said you didn't have contracts before, you just used PubShare. So in that way, the author still retained the rights and you just split the royalties—it was more of a co-writing thing. Jamie: Correct. When you publish stories through PubShare, the author signs an agreement with PubShare, and then I, as the editor or organiser, would also sign a separate agreement. So each of us has an agreement with PubShare. We don't have agreements with each other, if that makes sense. Jo: Yes, so it's very different to move into Kickstarter. So tell us about what you're now moving into. Jamie: Well, Kickstarters are a new world for me personally. I have many friends who have had Kickstarters. I've supported Kickstarters. I watch them. But it's something where I'm very happy to have two partners who have done Kickstarters before. I'm not sure how many Tami's done—I think Tami's done the most at this point. So this is all new to me. But it's very exciting. At this point we have a backlist, so part of the plan, for the Monster series, is to offer issues one through four as part of the rewards when we launch issue number five. That's really exciting, because I never had a backlist like that before. Jo: Yes, and in fact the money is in the backlist, as ever, and those add-ons or bundles as part of Kickstarter are great. So are you going to do special print editions, or is it digital only? Jamie: We are talking about special print editions. You mentioned BookVault earlier—we've been looking at BookVault. Our other anthology series that hasn't come out yet will also launch with a Kickstarter. It's dragon-themed, and Tami actually did the cover work, which is beautiful. BookVault just gives you so many options that we never had before, so I'm very excited about that. Jo: Yes, I think it's a really good idea. I did gorgeous hardbacks for my solo author collection, so I think it's a great idea. So from the publisher side, let's come back to that. You've mentioned you have to write things like an introduction and interstitials, and you're trying to balance the stories. What are some of the other things that people might think about if they want to organise their own anthologies? Jamie: Oh gosh, where to start? There's the basic setting up of the anthology, so you have to define the table of contents. You might get a bunch of stories that are really awesome, and you might have to tell somebody who has a wonderful story—and maybe even who's a good friend of yours—that you're going to pass on it because their story doesn't fit with all the other stories. Every time I have to do that, I feel kind of bad. But being on this side, it's really interesting to see how you can tell which stories fit together and which don't. There's also the editing process, which can be a lot of work. Part of what I like about working with Tami and DeAnna is that DeAnna really loves editing. I feel like I'm a good editor, and I can do it, but for me it's more of a job. For DeAnna, she loves it, so she does the bulk of the editing, which is great. When I do it on my own, I feel like it's a task I have to do. There's lots of cat-herding. Sometimes people take a while to get their edits back. Sometimes they have life events, and you have to delay things because you're waiting on them. There are all the little tiny pieces of organising things—like, if you're reprinting stories, you need to make sure you get the copyright attribution correct. A lot of times I'll have to go and look up where something was originally published. An author might say, “Oh, it was published in this year,” and I'm like, “Okay, actually it was published in this other year, by this other publication first.” So I'm trying to be organised there. henT one of the things that very infrequently—I think it's only happened to me twice—every once in a while, you're in the middle of editing a story and you have to pass on it, even though you've already accepted it, because the editorial vision and the author vision for the story are not the same, and you can't reconcile that. Jo: I think that's really interesting, because so much of what you're talking about there—you mentioned vision—it's almost taste. You're saying which stories fit. It's not just a case of, I don't know, a pirate anthology and then picking 10 stories about pirates, right? You seem to be thinking about this in a more artistic way. So can you talk a bit more about that? How do you decide on a theme, and then how do you know that a story doesn't fit? Jamie: In the beginning, I was not this selective. In the beginning I'd say, for example, “Hey, I'm putting out a collection about fairies. Give me a fairy story,” and that was it. As I've edited the stories, it's become easier to see how things fit. So, for example, if I have 10 stories in an anthology and I have an 11th story, and they have different tones—let's say the 11th story is really funny and all the other stories are very serious—then that would be a fit thing. That's not necessarily taste; it's just that you don't want one funny story if everything else is really dark and scary or serious. As far as picking a theme, the theme could be very broad. With this dragon anthology we're working on, we decided we wanted it to be called A Hoard of Books. So the theme was: has to have dragons, has to have books, and that's pretty much it. And then we were like, “Let's just see what we get.” We were very surprised at what we got. We thought we'd have more serious stories, and it turned out most of them were very light-hearted and really fun. And we're like, “You know what? That actually changes the way we're looking at the whole series,” because we did not expect that. With the monster series, we'll pick a theme. So, for example, the next issue is Monsters in Love, and for those it's more like, let's just see what happens. Sometimes I'll have a more specific theme. The next anthology I'm publishing on my own is called Fairy Bargains, and I wanted people to obviously have fairies, but I wanted there to be something related to the mythology and lore of having a bargain with a fairy—and there's a lot of stuff about that. So for some things like that, when I put out a call, I'll provide information. I might say, “Here's a link to a Wikipedia article. Here's some mythology that might be helpful for you,” just because I want things to stick a little bit more to the theme itself. Whereas with Monsters in Love, there's a very wide range of stories, and that was very fun to work through. Jo: Oh, yes. There's a lot of monster, on the spicy side as well. But were you doing a clean Monsters in Love, as opposed to in lust? Jamie: Yes, this is a clean one. That's pretty funny. But boy, when you give authors the room for these types of things, you get all kinds of stories, and it is super fun to work with those collections. Jo: As you're talking, I definitely want to do more short stories. It's really interesting, because you can actually generally get paid more for a first print—first print rights on a short story—but I often want to just publish it myself. Then I was really happy to be in yours, because it was a reprint anyway. So I was like, well, there's absolutely nothing to lose if it goes in as a reprint. So these things can be really interesting. Talking of the finance from your side of things: you have a small press and you're doing this publishing yourself, but you're paying all these authors and doing a lot of work. So how does it work as the publisher, in terms of these anthologies, financially? Jamie: With the ones we've published so far, because we've gone through PubShare, it's been a royalty split. As the editors, we would take a percentage, and then we pay for the artwork, and of course all of our time. I think what we were doing there was saying 70% of the royalties would be split equally between all of the authors and the stories. So, for example, if I had a story as well, I would get part of the author split—the same percentage as everybody else in the collection—in addition to the editor split. For what we're doing now, we've changed this a little bit, and I believe we said 60% goes to the authors, and then we're going to keep a share of the proceeds for the business because we want to be able to pay for the artwork out of the business account. We want to pay for advertising, whatever we need to do—like setting up our store, or if we wanted to invest in anything, we want to be able to do that as the business, as opposed to it just being us doing this on our own. We're just trying to treat it a little bit differently. Jo: And I know it's so much work—a crazy amount of work. How many anthologies and books do you have to do in a year to make it worthwhile financially? Jamie: Oh, I don't know. I would say, unless you get an opportunity—like, for example, to have an anthology in a story bundle or something like that—you may not break even. But if you're going to do this, do it more for the marketing, do it more because you enjoy it. Now, going forward, I think that will change, because we are looking at Kickstarters, we are looking at direct sales. We're very motivated to try to make this more of a business thing than a fun side project. So, ask me in a year. Jo: Yes, hopefully more. I do think Kickstarter is great for short stories. I actually buy quite a few collections on Kickstarter. I think they're actually really hard to discover through, say, Amazon—it's a place that is quite hard to identify short stories. Whereas I've found I've bought collections on Kickstarter because there's so much more of a sales page—there's so much more rich media that tells me how I'm going to feel about the stuff. I've bought short story anthologies and collections from people I don't know. So I think it's a really good thing to do. There is an audience there. Jamie: Yes, definitely. And it does feel like the anthologies on Amazon don't sell as well—you don't make as much as you used to. I've been doing this for, well, gosh, 10 years now, and I feel like the sales numbers on Amazon in the past year were noticeably lower than they would have been six or eight years ago. So I am very excited about Kickstarter. Plus, Kickstarter just feels really fun. You're not just throwing your book up; you also have all the extra stuff with the page, you have the rewards, and it just feels really exciting. Jo: No, I agree. I really love it. I didn't do it for a long time, and now I just love it. Jo: So, staying with the publisher side of things— Any practical formatting and production tips? Because in these types of projects, all kinds of people just send you different stuff. Jamie: I have a style guide. So whether it's me or it's the group project, once all the edits are complete, I'll do a formatting pass, and I'll make sure I use curly quotes and the same em dash format and everything, just so everything in the book is formatted the same way. Every once in a while there's an author who has something particular that they want, and I can work around that, and that's fine. I also work with a lot of Canadian authors, and I'll let them keep their Canadian spellings. I don't think everybody does that, but I feel like that's their voice in a way, so I don't correct those. I might check some things there. I think the formatting is important—it makes things look better if everything has the same style. Then I use Vellum, which makes things really easy. I love Vellum. Because I publish so many authors at this point, I have a Vellum file where I store their biographies and their links, so when I publish a new anthology I'll just go grab, say, Jo's “about the author” page from that collection and put it into the new file. Then I also track when the last time was that I checked with the author about their biography. If it's been more than a year, I'll check in with them and say, “Hey, do you have an updated biography you want me to use? Here are your links—do you have any different links now?” So that makes it a lot easier from the formatting standpoint. Jo: And you mentioned Vellum—having done box sets on Vellum, you can just drag a whole book in there if you want to do a three-book box set, or three short stories, whatever. It's much easier to just drag things in, and it makes it easier to format. So I would say to people: you don't need to worry too much about that. There are lots of things that can help you. But even with doing the print stuff for the Kickstarter—people have opinions, don't they? So in terms of authors' opinions and managing—you mentioned herding cats—how do you manage all of that side of things? Jamie: I haven't actually had a lot of trouble with that. The authors I've worked with seem to feel like they gave me their story, and then once the edits are out of the way… I haven't had anybody have any issues with the covers. Usually they love the covers, especially for the Monster series. So, no problems there. Jo: Oh, that's good. Well, I would say a tip would be to make sure you're communicating, if you're somebody who's organising. So talk a bit about communication. Jamie: Communication is very important. What I try to do is send regular updates, especially if I'm in the middle of edits or working on something and I'm not ready to launch. I'll send an update email out to the authors and just say, “Here's what's going on, here's what the plan is.” Or if the plan has to change, if the launch date has to change for some reason, I'll let the authors know about that. Actually, with the upcoming Monsters in Love issue, we were originally not going to do a Kickstarter. That was a late decision, so I contacted all the authors and said, “We've changed our plans. We're going to launch this with a Kickstarter. Please confirm that you're okay with this.” One author was not comfortable with the Kickstarter idea, so he pulled his story, and then we found a replacement story for that. But I just feel like the communication piece is really essential. It's really important for the authors to know what's going on. Jo: Yes, absolutely. So, we've talked about how marketing is a good thing, in terms of there being lots of people marketing. How are you effectively marketing these kinds of books, as the premise is quite different to a single author project? Jamie: Right. There's the usual—write a release post, write posts on social. I do additional things, so I'll publish what I call a story spotlight for each story in the anthology. That's just where I talk a little bit about the story, I provide an excerpt, and then I provide the author's bio and links to find them. Those are really great, because they're very quick to put together. The hardest part is getting a short excerpt that shows enough about the story to be engaging. But that really isn't that much time, either. Then those are also nicely evergreen. I've actually searched for authors before, when I'm trying to research them for an interview, and I've found my own spotlight posts and my own interview posts with authors come up at the top of the list, which is kind of funny. I also do interviews with as many of the authors in a collection as are willing to participate. Sometimes people just don't have the time—I don't make this required—but I usually get 80 to 90% of the authors participating. So, for example, this year I'm in a couple of bundles on StoryBundle, and I'm doing interviews for people there. It's also really fun, and you're not paying for advertising—you're just creating something that the authors are excited about and they want to share. So it promotes the collection, but it also promotes the author, which I find really nice. It's a nice networking thing too, and I'm happy if someone wants to interview me. It's like free publicity for each person, in addition to the collection. Jo: I love that you've used the word “fun” quite a lot, which I find amazing. You're obviously a super collaborative person. I've co-written a number of books— I've been part of some collections, and I really think that there are two personalities. One is like me, where we really love the creation stuff and the publishing stuff, but we're hyper-controlling. And then someone like you—you're very collaborative, and you're doing such a great job. To people listening, I would say: if you're more like me, don't organise an anthology. What you want is Jamie, or somebody who actually finds it fun to organise a big group of authors. Jamie: Yes. It is definitely interesting working with other partners in this, because when I publish an anthology on my own, I make all the decisions. I pick the artwork, I pick the theme, I do everything, I decide the table of contents. But when you're working with other people, you do need to negotiate. So we've had a couple of times where it's like, “I want this story.” “Well, I want this other story, I don't like the story that you want.” And so we have to barter, in a way. Aside from that, it is nice, because you get to split up the tasks. I could focus on things like the organising—I do the Vellum files, I do the final cover and everything. For the Kickstarters, actually, Tami's got more expertise, so Tami's going to be working on the Kickstarters for our collections together. If I had to do all this on my own, it's a ton of work. It's a ton of work. So it is nice to split it up. Jo: And of course, one of the things is managing so many moving parts—and you've actually built a tool to manage all this. So tell us a bit about that tool, and how it might be useful for people with big backlists as well as anthologies. Jamie: I built what I think of as a publishing management application. The original idea is that, for years and years, I wanted a software tool that would do catalogue management, because I was managing my own catalogue, and I was also managing—at this point I've published at least 20 anthologies, so that's a lot of authors. Then last summer, I had an author who I'd published a number of times, who was going to, I think, WorldCon, and she asked if I could give her covers for five anthologies she'd been in, so that she could make some promotional material. I was like, “Oh, sure, I can do that.” And then I was like, “Well, wait a second—is this in Notion?”—because I started trying to use Notion last year—”or is it in a spreadsheet?” It turned out her information was in, like, three different places, and I had to work to pull it together. And then I was like, “You know what? That's it. I'm just going to finally write this application.” So Inkwren manages your stories. As an author, I can manage my stories—I can track which are published, which are drafts, which are just ideas. I can track my publications. From the publisher standpoint, it's really helpful, because I can track each anthology I've published and what I'm working on. I can track the edits, I can track the contracts. I can upload contract templates—so we talked earlier about the original and reprint contract templates that I use. I upload those, and they have placeholders in them. When I generate the actual contract, the author's name will replace the placeholder—I'll have the text “author name” in the contract template, and it'll get replaced by, like, “Joanna Penn” or whatever. So that saves a lot of time. Then I also added in task tracking, because I started to feel like, well, now all my stuff is in one place, but my tasks are somewhere else. So now I can associate tasks with a publication. For example, for the book I'm working on right now, I know which tasks I need to do for the cover, and which for the interior, and everything. I have a template of tasks. Then I can also track tasks related to promotions. For example, the story bundle I'm promoting right now, I have a task for each interview I'm doing with the authors, and I have a calendar view. I can see when I'm going to publish them and know that they're all spread out. It saves me so much time, and it's so much easier. Jo: I do think building tools when you actually need the tool yourself is very useful. Just say the name again, and spell it out for people. Jamie: It's Inkwren. My own personal publishing company is Blackbird Publishing, and I wanted something related to birds and writing. So I came up with Inkwren, which is I-N-K-W-R-E-N, and it's just inkwren.com. Jo: And it is available for other people to potentially buy and use? Jamie: Yes, it is. Jo: Well, I think that's super useful, because it's very hard when people are starting out and they think, “Oh, I've only got one book—why would I need any kind of tool to manage it?” But over the years, your backlist grows, especially with short stories. So I love that you've built this, and there's probably more that you can add over time as you expand the business yourself. So much potential. So we are at the end. Where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Jamie: My author website is JamieFerguson.com. And then, obviously, I mentioned Inkwren earlier. My publishing company is BlackbirdPublishing.com. And then the projects I'm doing with Tami and DeAnna—we have a couple of websites, but the easiest way to find us is our press, which is BorogrovePress.com. Jo: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jamie. That was great. Jamie: Thanks, Joanna.The post Bundles, Box Sets and Anthologies With Jamie Ferguson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

love amazon community books canadian oregon monster voices monsters bones wikipedia kickstarter photos builder penn technically notion researching practical guide westerns amazon kindle bruges bundles hoard kobo anthologies joanna penn worldcon hent vellum bookfunnel box sets creative penn bundle up dark queen inaudio dean wesley smith kristine kathryn rusch jamie ferguson jamie it storybundle duotrope jamie for

Episode 311: File Management For Indie Authors

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2026 18:45

In this week's episode, we share nine tips and tricks to help indie authors manage their files. Since I now have 174 novels, file management has become important! This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store: JULYSKULL The coupon code is valid through July 27, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 311 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 10th, 2026. Today we are discussing file management tips for indie authors. Before we get into that, we'll have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is JULYSKULL. As always, the coupon code and the links to the appropriate pages in my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through July the 27th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As I mentioned last week, Blade of Thieves is now out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, Bookshop.org, and my own Payhip store. It is selling well and people seem to be enjoying it, so thank you all for that. Now that Blade of Thieves is out, my next main project is Cloak of Frost, which will be the 15th book in the Cloak Mage urban fantasy series. As of this recording, I am 52,000 words into it. I'm thinking the rough draft will be about 100,000 words. So if all goes well, I hope to have the book out in August. My secondary project is Blade of Visions, the sequel to Blade of Thieves, and I am 4,000 words into that. Once Cloak of Frost is finished, Blade of Visions will become my new main project. In audiobook news, recording is done for Dragon-Mage, the sixth book in the Rivah series, and that will be excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward. I just have to proof/listen to that and then we can submit it to QA and then it should be showing up on the audiobook stories in a few weeks. Recording has started on Cloak of Worlds, which will be [recorded by] Hollis McCarthy, and Blade of Thieves, which will be [recorded by] Brad Wills. So look for more news and updates about that in the coming weeks. So that is where I'm at with current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:16 Main Topic of the Week: File Organization for Writers So let's move on to our main topic this week, file organization tips for writers. One of the inspirations for this episode was an episode of the sitcom Community, which is quite funny. In the episode, the college is making a movie based on a legal loophole because they have some archival footage of a suddenly popular actor. One of the characters, Jeff, becomes concerned that people aren't treating the movie as seriously as they would deserve. So he steals the laptop with the movie and sets out to edit it himself. However, Jeff doesn't know anything about editing a movie, so he watches a YouTube tutorial about how to edit videos. The first lesson is "Step 1: How to properly organize your files." Jeff rages that no, he just wants to learn how to edit movies. While realizing that proper file organization is vital in the age of digital video editing, maintaining a good file structure isn't quite as rigid for authors and writers as it would be for video editors. However, even though many people consider file structure to be old-fashioned or pointless in the age of Google Docs and AI, in my years working in IT, I found that people wasted many hours trying to find files unnecessarily. For example, I always flinch a little bit when I see someone whose desktop is just a wall of misplaced icons and thousands of documents stacked upon each other. I used to do tech support for someone who had the most amazing gift for the most unhelpful and un-useful file names, often with misspelled words. He would get very frustrated and angry that he couldn't find anything because he hadn't labeled files properly with good file names. Better file structures and file naming conventions would have saved them all that stress and time. It's not wise to have all your files stacked up on your desktop and hope for the best. As you grow as a writer, files suddenly become much more complicated than one single draft in a word processing file. There needs to be organization for audiobook files, cover art, marketing materials, research, and much more. Blade of Thieves was my 174th book. So if you think about it, that means I have 174 separate book files on my computer. Many of them have audiobooks. They all have cover art. The audiobooks have cover art, to say nothing of the hundreds of short stories I've written and all of that needs to be organized properly so I can find it when I need it to. So today we're going to talk about setting up and organizing file structures for your writing work. First of all, what do I mean by file structures? In traditional computing, files like Word documents and Excel spreadsheets are organized in folders. How you navigate through the folder structure on your computer or server to find the files is called a path. Much like with a real path on a hiking trail, you want the path to find a file in a folder to be as clear from junk and confusion as possible. Good file and folder naming is like setting up signs on that hiking trail to help you find the way. Setting up your folders and files correctly makes them easier to use, find, and share with others. So let's go through some tips on how to properly organize your writing files and save yourself much stress and hassle of trying to find things. #1: Make a plan before you begin. Instead of borrowing someone else's file structure, take some time to think about how you use your writing files every day. Do you have a lot of project files for each book like book research, cover ideas, mood boards, and so on? Do you do most of your writing collaboratively? Think about your working style, the amount of files you have, and what kind of files you have that need organizing. It helps to plan for flexibility and growth in the future as the amount of files you have grows. For example, if someone currently runs only ads on Amazon but wants to add other companies like Facebook or BookBub, it'd be messier to add files from those projects if everything in their advertising folder was all Amazon documents with no sub-folder for Amazon. Making an Amazon sub-folder right away in your advertising folder prevents confusion as you start to add other companies into your advertising strategy. What you design should be realistic and as simple to use as possible. Are you someone who makes grand and complicated plans, but then sees them fall by the wayside after a couple of weeks? Many people are. Good organization is something where it's easy to let the perfect be the enemy of the possible. If you design overly complicated file and folder structures and naming conventions that you can't remember without a 20-page guide, you're not very likely to keep up with it. It's better to make something simple that it's easy to remember. Carve out the time to do this with your full attention instead of trying to do it in bits and pieces on the fly. It may take anywhere from an hour to days, depending on how many writing files you have. At the very least, set up the initial folders in one chunk of time so the organization is in place before you start moving files around. #2: Clean up before you start organizing. Get rid of duplicate and obsolete files before starting to organize other files. It will save time and make the process easier. #3: File structure is supported by good naming. Versions and drafts should be numbered to find the most recent one. Be specific. "Second draft" or "Volume one" without a book title isn't helpful if there are multiple books with that name across multiple folders. If you are using dates, be sure to include day, month, and year because in 10 years, "March ads" is not going to make much sense without the context of a year. Be consistent in how you order month, date, and year in a file because being inconsistent with it could make for mixed up dates. #4: Version control. "Rough draft THIS ONE" is not a good name to indicate that this is the latest draft and never use "final" as part of a draft or project name until it's well and truly done. On both Windows, Mac, and Linux, you get 256 characters for file names and it's a good idea to use them to be as descriptive as possible in your file names. #5: Be consistent. Don't make a folder called "Fix These File Names Later" because guess what? That date won't come. In the meantime, you'll probably get annoyed trying to find one of those files that don't have a correct name. If you're struggling with remembering to use your folder and file names, either make yourself a one-page reminder guide or take it as a sign that you might have made your structure and naming conventions too complicated. Remember that simpler is always better. #6: Document it. As with so many areas of life, proper documentation will help you remember something in the future. Write out how your folders are going to be structured, what style and formatting you will use to name the folders and files, and give yourselves some examples to jog your memory. If you're sharing the files and folders with others, make sure to share documentation with them and go over the system with them. That will save much time later since you won't have to spend so much time explaining to people where to find things in your file structure. #7: Decluttering isn't just for your college t-shirts. Schedule a regular time monthly or quarterly to declutter and fix anything in your file structure that isn't working or isn't consistent or correct. Much like organizing a drawer of shirts, things will only stay in order if you keep up with putting in and taking things out using your system. #8: It should fix, not create problems. Your first attempt at file organization may not work once you've added more files or tried it out for a while. Reflect on what is causing problems, what you would like your system to be able to do, and what you dislike about your current system. Train others who will use it. For example, differences in month/[day]/year naming conventions between countries can lead to incorrect dates if it isn't clear what date style is being used. Abbreviations should be standard to prevent confusion. For example, United States state abbreviations could follow the US Postal Service Conventions instead of writing your own abbreviations. MN would be Minnesota instead of M-I-N-N or M-I-N-N-E-S. (Though this can cause a confusion if you're not accustomed to them since, for example, in the postal codes, people often get Missouri and Minnesota mixed up.) Tip #9: Sharing isn't always caring. You can set up password protection on folders and files you don't want to share with others, especially if you're in a shared storage space. Read-only access is a way to share documents with others without worrying about them changing the files. For example, I have read-only access set for my book files so that someone working on my series bibles can download them without editing or changing the files themselves. So instead of having to make extra folders and files that are safe for someone to use without changing, I just set read-only access to those files [for that user]. Now let's take a look at some pros and cons of some typical structures. I'm going to provide examples of three possible folder structures you could use for writing and give you some of the pros and cons for each. #1: Organizing by date. In this system, the year is the first file and more specific files like quarters and months are sub-folders. This system might work best if you write based on challenges or projects such as National Novel Writing Month where each year is its own project. If you're taking writing courses, organizing by date and then by semester or course also would make sense for many people. For many writers, however, this could be a difficult way to organize because then you have to remember what year each book was written and many books are written across several years or months. If you're sharing the files with others, then you have to give them information on the history of each book project so they know which folder dates to look at, which creates extra work and most likely confusion. Like for example, off the top of my head, I could tell you that Ghost in the Forge is the sixth book in the Ghost series. However, I couldn't remember what year or month it was written in. I think it would be 2012, maybe February of 2012, but I would not be able to confirm that without looking it up, which would mean trying to find the file for Ghost in the Forge if I needed it would be a bit of a challenge. #2: Organizing by book. In this system, each book has its own folder and then other aspects like drafts, marketing materials, research, and covers are subfolders. If you don't have a large volume of books and don't have many writing adjacent activity files like research and advertising and don't share files with others, often this is a pretty straightforward way to organize your writing files. #3: Organizing by project type. In this system, the type of project is the main subfolder and sub-folders such as the books, marketing materials, covers, and series bibles would be in folders instead of being organized by individual books. For example, there would be a folder for marketing images. Instagram would be a sub-folder, and then there would be sub-folders in that folder for specific images and ads or individual books. If you have a lot of marketing images, that can be easier than trying to remember what image was for a certain book. This file organization system is more complex than just organizing by book and could be hard to keep up without some dedication. It might be unnecessarily complex for someone who only has a handful of books and only a small amount of files. As your writing adjacent activities like marketing and social media grow, it can be easier to organize this way than just by individual books. It's also much easier to share folders in a granular way using this method. For example, if you hire an assistant to help with social media posts, you can give them access to the social media marketing folders without having to give them access to the folders that have the book files and drafts in them. Now, what do I do for my own file organization system? Now, my system has partly been thought out and partly developed organically over the 15 years I've been doing this. And I found for me, since I've written so many books and series, that the best organizational principle is to run by series. My rough drafts are not super organized because once I am done with the book, I tend not to look back at the rough draft files. So usually my rough drafts are sitting in individual folders for the series like Frostborn, Dragontiarna, Blades of Ruin, and so forth. I am much more organized in the final drafts. Each individual series has its own folder and within the series, each individual book has its own folder as well. To help with keeping things in order, I usually number the folders. So for example, in Blades of Ruin, the first folder within it would be 01 Blade of Flames, then 02 Blade of Shadows, 03 Blade of Storms, and so forth. Within the individual book folders, I have the final files in ePub and PDF form for the books along with the cover images for both ebook, audiobook, and paperback. However, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, I don't have just the book files. I also have audiobook files, advertising files, and a very large photo library from a combination of stock photos, 3D renders, and photographs I have specifically taken over the years for the purpose of using for ebook covers and advertising materials. For advertising images and materials, like I said, I found the best organizing principle for me is by series. So I generally tend to just organize them by series. So Frostborn, Sevenfold Sword, Dragontiarna, and the Andomhaim books generally have just one folder of advertising images since I can use the advertising image for both Frostborn: the Gray Knight and Sevenfold Sword: Champion. For my audiobooks, I keep those on a separate drive because they eat up a lot of space. But then I just have them organized out by book and series, which is pretty easy when I need to find something. For my stock photos, I do have those pretty well organized and again, in a separate drive, which I back up separately. I divide out the images by type. So I have a folder for castles, a folder for medieval or ancient cities, a folder for modern cities, a folder for fireballs and so forth. And so if I'm making a book cover image and I think, hmm, I want a sword, I can go into the swords folder and look at appropriate pictures of swords until I find one that would work for the project. How this [has] changed over time is I've had to become a bit more organized with the files because I started using Vellum, which generates a separate file of its own. So then I had to make sure that those were organized into proper files. I used to keep all my stock photos in just one big folder that quickly became unmanageable. So I once took two days to properly organize these stock photos. Just keeping all the rough drafts in one big folder for the series has worked pretty well for me because once I am done with the rough draft and have turned into the final draft, I just ignore the rough draft file and any changes that need to be made are obviously made to the final draft file. I also used to keep all the cover images in one folder for some reason and that was a bad idea. So then I started keeping the specific cover image in the folder with the specific book and that has worked out well. Would this be something I would recommend to someone just starting out? I think so. You can obviously get more complicated with this and my file structure is pretty simple overall, but it works for me. I can find anything I need to pretty quickly. In fact, my folder structure is deep enough I find sometimes that I get halfway down the folder structure and forget what I am looking for before I find it, which is a separate problem from folder organization. But I've stuck to this pretty consistently over the last 15 years and it's worked well for me. So I think I could recommend this to someone starting out. I'd have a folder for your rough drafts and then a folder with separate folders within it for your final drafts. Conclusion File organization is not glamorous, but as any records manager at a US government agency can tell you, it is extremely important for finding, organizing, and preserving what you create. Searching for files is not a writing adjacent activity that you want to take up your time and you definitely don't want the stress of losing something that you worked on for a long time by naming and storing it incorrectly. Finally, I want to close out with a reminder that however you set up your writing files and organizing them, they absolutely need to be backed up on a regular basis. I would recommend using a combination of cloud and local backups since they reinforce each other. If heaven forbid your house explodes and you lose your local backups, you still have your cloud backups. And if your cloud provider goes down or gets hacked or something, you still have your local backups. So no matter how you organize your files or how well organized they are, you definitely want to back them up on a very regular basis. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all of the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and we'll see you all next week.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3378: Hrotsvitha

Engines of Our Ingenuity

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 2, 2026 3:45

Episode: 3378 Tenth century author, Hrotsvitha, brought back to life in the sixteenth century. Today, meet Hrotsvitha.

women woman feminism tenth engines dark ages codex ingenuity gutenberg printing press vellum abbess roswitha woodcut codices

Substack for Fiction Authors: How Jolie Tunnell Serializes Mysteries and Builds Reader Community

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2026 55:15 Transcription Available

315 / How can authors find their reader community on Substack while balancing life's big changes? Jolie Tunnell shares her transition from years of blogging and waiting for permission to publish to indie success and serializing mysteries.✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishBalancing writing with life changesWaiting for gatekeepers vs. giving yourself permissionUsing Substack for serialized fictionCreative marketing ideas, including membership drives and interactive reader experiencesIncorporating graphics and interactivityBuilding community and engagement on Substack

community write series craft consulting substack mysteries builds reader workshops big list vellum tunnell fiction authors

How Kickstarter and Shopify Changed Tee Harlowe's Author Career Plus Instagram Tips

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2026 59:23 Transcription Available

314 / Tee Harlowe, a fantasy romance author, shares tips for successful Kickstarters as well as how she's adapting to market shifts and why diversification is key to surviving income drops. ✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishRapid release publishing strategiesInstagram tips for authorsFallacies in assumptions about genre size equating to sales Challenges with Kickstarter fulfillmentDiversifying author income streams, including through traditional publishing and direct salesRunning a successful Shopify store

challenges career write series craft consulting kickstarter workshops shopify direct sales crowd control big list vellum draft2digital indy author podcast

Wunderwaffe: The Myths of Nazi Supertechnology - Part One, The Vril Fiction

german myths nazis fiction steel remedy melancholy blue dot sessions kai engel wunderwaffe vril vellum

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2026 44:11

In part 1 of a 2-parter, I explore the myth that Nazis developed supertechnology, like flying saucers, looking at both the reality of German innovation in the war and the fiction that developed. Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the show merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, perfect for gifts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pledge support on Patreon to get an ad-free feed with exclusive episodes!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out my novel, Manuscript Found!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Direct all advertising inquiries to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to find other high-quality podcasts! Some music in this episode was licensed under a Blue Dot Sessions blanket license at the time of publication. Tracks include "Zeriba VIllage," "Cicle Vascule," "The Gran Dias," "Illa Villardo," "Access Road 214," "Vellum and Steel," "Delicates," and "Invernen." Additional music, including the song "Remedy for Melancholy," is by Kai Engel, licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Navigating Writing, Marketing, the Day Job, and TikTok with Finley Daniels (New Author Series)

tiktok marketing navigating writing write series craft consulting daniels workshops day job new authors big list vellum creative penn author series

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2026 51:38 Transcription Available

313 / How do you balance the demands of a full-time job with launching a romance writing career? Finley Daniels shares her lessons learned in writing and marketing.✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishBalancing writing with a full-time jobChallenges in marketing and adsImportance of book titles and tropesBuilding an email newsletterFinding editors and cover designersSuccess with TikTok and BookBub

Building Resilience and Creative Lies Writers Tell Themselves with Katherine Collette

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 8, 2026 43:54 Transcription Available

312 / What are the creative lies writers tell themselves, and how can reframing your mindset lead to a long-lasting, resilient writing career? Katherine Collette shares her insights and lessons from both podcasting and publication.✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishWhy resilience matters more than talent or craftThe pitfalls of tying self-worth to external validationReframing the role of social media and visibilityThe archetypes of post-publication responseFinding joy and sustainability in your writing journey

writing creative lies write authority series craft consulting writers workshops text messages building resilience big list vellum katherine collette

The Truth About Book Marketing: Ads, Social Media, and Discoverability Myths

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 1, 2026 33:43 Transcription Available

311 / Think you need to be on every platform, spend big on ads, or release a book every month to succeed as an indie author? We're busting some of the most common publishing myths. ✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishBut first, we catch up on life after a writing retreat: the post-draft crash, newsletter plate-spinning, and the genuine weirdness of evaluating promos when the market keeps shifting Honest BookBub promo numbers and why results look different nowWhy discoverability matters more than "good enough" writingWhy you don't need every social media platform to succeedNewsletters, Goodreads, and BookFunnel as practical visibility toolsWhy direct sales and Kickstarter can work even with a small audienceWhy rapid release is optional and genre dependentWhy ads don't require huge spend, and how AI is changing targetingGenre zeitgeist: how trends like cozy and romantasy impact your strategy

ai social media write myths series craft consulting kickstarter workshops goodreads book marketing discoverability big list vellum bookfunnel audiencewhy rapid release

Episode 296: Eight Ebook Formatting Errors Readers Hate And How To Fix Them

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2026 18:52

In this week's episode, we take a look at eight common ebook formatting errors and how to correct them. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Ghost Exile: Omnibus One at my Payhip store: EXILE25 The coupon code is valid through April 6, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 296 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is March 27th, 2026 and today we are looking at eight ebook formatting problems that readers hate and how to fix them. Before we get into our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Ghost Exile: Omnibus One at my Payhip store. That coupon code is EXILE25. And as always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the show notes. This coupon code will be valid through April 6th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook as we leave winter and head into spring, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As of this recording, I am currently 97,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, and I'm hoping to get to the 100,000 word mark by the end of today. You will note that if you read the first three books in the series, this will make it longer than the first three by good bit, which is part of the reason why it's taking so long. I was hoping to have it published by now, to be honest, but between the length and the variety of things I've had to do in real life before I can get to writing have slowed me down a bit. I have made progress and I am hoping to finish the rough draft before the 31st, if all goes well. Then it will be time to write a tie-in short story that newsletter subscribers will get for free when Blade of Wraiths is published, and then on to editing. So I'm hoping to have the book out in the second half of April, if all goes well and the creek doesn't rise, so to speak. I'm also 12,000 words into Dragon Mage, which will be the sixth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. I'm hoping that will be out in May because that will become the main project once Blade of Wraiths is finished. In audiobook news, as I mentioned before, recording of Blade of Storms (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is complete. I think as of right now, you can get it at my Payhip store, Google Play, and Kobo. Audible, Amazon, Apple, and a few of the other major stores should hopefully be coming along before too much longer. Recording is done on Wizard Assassin, which you may recall is the fifth book in the Rivah series, and that is narrated by Leanne Woodward. We just have to proof that, and then it'll be time to submit it for processing at the stores. So hopefully you'll be able to get your hands on that before too much longer. I believe next week, Hollis McCarthy will start recording on Cloak of Illusion, the 12th book in the Cloak Mage series. Since a few people have asked about this, I thought I'd mentioned here there will be a Cloak Mage: Omnibus Four in audio that will combine Cloak of Embers, Cloak of Titans, and Cloak of Illusion. I will probably start working on that one month after Cloak of Illusion comes out in audio. So that will probably be along sometime this summer, if all goes well. So that's where I'm at on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. We've got good things coming up for you soon. 00:03:18 Main Topic: ebook Formatting That Readers Hate Now let's move on to our main topic this week, and it's something I have quite a bit of experience with, I have to say, is ebook formatting that readers hate. Today, we're going to talk about issues with ebook formatting, a topic that people have very strong opinions about. I am going to talk about eight issues in particular and then discuss how we can fix or prevent or best of all, avoid them. First of all, what do we mean by ebook formatting? Formatting is the term to describe the layout, text, and images of the book. Back in the print book days, this was a complicated but fairly fixed thing. In the very old days, you would have to lay it out the books manually. A few decades ago, they had programs like QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign where you could use these software applications to prepare finished files for sending to the printer to be printed as books. But nowadays, in an age where books are electronic files read on dozens of possible devices and apps, it's much more difficult to predict every possible thing that can go wrong with formatting. For example, with a print book in the old days, you would set the layout, and that is the way the layout would look. Every single book (ideally) printed would look the same. But in the modern age, if you have an ebook, it could be read on a Kindle, a Kindle Color, the Kindle app on the phone, a Barnes and Noble Nook, a Google tablet, on Apple iBooks on an iPod, on Apple iBooks on an iPhone, on the Kindle app on an iPhone. There are literally dozens of different potential combinations where an ebook file could be read and therefore dozens of different potential complications that can arise for ebook formatting. If there are formatting problems, readers will not be able to understand or even physically be able to read the text at worst, and more likely will be deeply annoyed by the issues that feel like road bumps such as extra line breaks and will express their displeasure in reviews. There are also an abundance of ebooks out there that are hastily converted from PDF or Word docs that make for an extremely difficult reading experience. Many of the problems we're going to talk about today arise from when that happens, including the first several. So with that in mind, here are eight ebook formatting errors to avoid and how to deal with them. #1: Illustrations, charts, and maps. Some of the most common issues are that these aren't legible in grayscale (like an e-ink reader, like the Kindle or the various Kobo devices) or have too small fonts or a poor quality or low resolution. This is a very common problem, and it's kind of a problem across all ebooks. Like for example, think of the map of Middle Earth from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It's a very complicated map with a lot of different names on it. Now imagine trying to read that map on a six inch black and white Kindle screen. You probably aren't going to be able to do it very well. People using dark mode are most likely going to have problems with seeing images in the same way. So if you have an image heavy book, it's a good idea to test that. So how to fix this? What I've done myself, because I write a lot of fantasy novels and fantasy novels traditionally need maps, is I will put the full color maps on my website and then in the author's note at the beginning, say a map of Owyllain or a map of Andomhaim is available at the author's website on this link. I had a few people ask if I could put the maps in the books and the nearest thing I've done is including the maps with some of the direct sales of my Payhip store. I think the system works very well because those map pages are consistently some of the most visited pages on my website. And to be honest, it would be a lot easier to look at the map on, for example, your tablet or your computer instead of on your phone when you're trying to use the e-reader application. And even if you are looking at the map on my website on your phone, you can pinch zoom in the browser in the way you probably can't in the ebook reader. So that is the quick and easy solution for it. For more image intensive books like textbooks, for example, you just have to take great care and make sure they use large, high resolution images that aren't going to get pixelated. It may be a good idea to set up a website that has these images that the readers can refer to. This would be a bit of extra expense and work, obviously, but it would go a long way to making your readers happy, like I have done with the maps on my website. #2: Paragraphs that aren't indented or unneeded spaces between indented paragraphs. This is one of the biggest pet peeves that people have when reading ebooks. Indented paragraphs are important and if they're properly indented, then space isn't needed between the paragraphs and this will look odd to readers. This was in fact a problem I did have the first couple of years of my ebook publishing career because I used Sigil for my primary ebook formatting and that is the default way Sigil renders ebooks. In time, I started to switch to using Vellum for ebook formatting and that solved the problem. So what I did at that point was I just went through all my entire library, reformatted the ebooks in Vellum, and then re-uploaded them to the various ebook store platforms and that took care of the problem. And that's what I've been doing ever since. I've been using Vellum for ebook formatting since at least 2018 at this point, I think. So how to fix? The easiest way to fix this is to spend a little money on a tool like a Vellum or Atticus or a similar program that does ebook formatting for you because that will make sure your paragraphs are indented properly and then you can spot check as well to make sure that the table of contents is working and the chapters are working and that the paragraphs are being indented properly. #3: Our third issue is hard to read fonts. Some people enjoy fonts that are very stylized, but let's be honest, most readers don't. It's also an accessibility issue if the serifs or the flourishes are too elaborate. How to fix? Honestly, the easiest way is to not use custom fonts for your book unless you have a really, really, really and I emphasize really good reason to do so because part of the appeal of ebooks and ereaders is that you can adjust the font size to whatever you want, which is also particularly important as people get older and it becomes harder to read small print. So if you have a font that is inherently difficult to read in your book, that is going to be a serious, serious speed bump to readers enjoying the book. So my advice for custom fonts is avoid if possible, and even if not possible, still try to avoid. #4: Our fourth issue is basically the same as the third issue, except worse. Font sizes that can't be changed/hard coded text size. A bad font choice is made much worse if the ebook is hard coded to a certain font. This can happen if you use certain exporting tools to export your print book layout into an ebook layout, and sometimes the font size carries over with that. People have strong feelings about fonts and some are more accessible than others, so it's very important not to do this. So how to fix this problem? Don't do it to begin with. It's bad and people will be mad at you. Do not hard set the font size in your ebook, and if you do it by accident, fix it if at all possible. That is my advice in this situation. #5: A fifth potential ebook formatting issue is random hyphens in the middle of words that shouldn't be there. Random hyphens in the middle of words can happen if you convert a book from a PDF file to an EPUB file, and this means it's a very preventable formatting issue. The best way to avoid this is not to upload a PDF file or a Word file to Kindle Direct Publishing and the other ebook platforms, because while they do have automated tools for converting a PDF and a Word document to an EPUB, there's often weird formatting glitches that pop up like the random hyphenations. The best way to avoid this is to use a proper tool to format your ebook like Vellum, Atticus, maybe Scrivener, maybe Kindle Create. So that is the best way to do that by preparing your own EPUB file and uploading that directly. #6: A sixth issue is footnotes or bibliography or endnotes that don't link back to the original page. This also really annoys people. Footnotes and other links within books either need to be popups or linked back to the original page otherwise, readers will be deeply annoyed trying to return to their place each time and even fewer people will read them. And the best way to fix this is to make sure you have set up the footnotes, bibliography, or endnotes properly in a formatting program so that the links work. If you try to do this using a PDF or Word document you upload to the ebook platforms, it's probably not going to work. So it's best to, again, to create your own EPUB and upload it directly. #7: A seventh thing that annoys readers is books without chapters or books without numbered chapters. Books without chapters or unnumbered chapters is a very annoying thing for readers, but most formatting software will help to create and number chapters. Now, how to fix? The technical explanation of this is an EPUB file is essentially a zipped version of several XHTML files and each XHTML file in the sort of zipped package should be its own chapter. The way an EPUB generates table of content files is that every chapter heading should have a H1 HTML key, and that it lets the EPUB know which heading should be chapters. Now you can hand code all this in a program like Sigil, but again, it's much easier to use a program like a Vellum, Atticus, or Kindle Create that will automatically create a proper table of contents for you rather than you having to go through with a XHML or EPUB editor like Sigil and then hand code the H1 tag. It's much easier to automate this and there are applications that will do this for you. #8: The eighth formatting problem that annoy readers is quotation marks the wrong way. What do we mean by that? Quotation marks come in two styles, straight and curly. Curly ones look like flipped commas, while straight quotation marks look more like two lines. Most word processing programs like Word will default the curly quotation marks and convert straight ones. Although curly quotations can sometimes create garbled formatting, they're considered to be the standard. How to fix? Honestly, the easiest way to fix this is to, if it's a problem for you, is to do a find and replace or a find and search. Just if you find that usually what happens is that if you hold down the shift key for too long while you're thinking and then you hit the quotation marks. Sometimes in certain operating systems, it'll convert it to straight quotation marks instead of curly ones. So if you are worried about a few of the wrong type of quotation marks showing up in your document, the easiest way to fix it is just a quick search through the document for straight quotation marks and then remove any ones that you see. We've talked a lot about formatting ebooks and tools for formatting ebooks. So I thought I would suggest the three most popular applications for formatting ebooks, and those would be Vellum, Atticus, and Kindle Create. Vellum is most expensive, but I think it has most features, whereas Kindle Create is pretty simple, but it's free. Vellum is Mac only. As I've mentioned before on the show, I started using it for print layout and then liked it enough that I switched over to using it for all my ebook formatting and that's been true for like the last eight years now. It's very easy to learn. It has excellent features and excellent support. I've never had any technical problems with it whatsoever. I'd say the biggest liabilities for it are that it's the most expensive of the options and it's Mac only. So if you don't have access to a Mac, you would need to choose another option. The next option would be Atticus, which the advantage for Atticus is that it's cross platform. It will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux because it is foundationally a web application. It's also very collaborative in that you can invite other users to use it. The creator of the program, the guy who runs Kindlepreneur named Dave Chesson, has said he wants to create an all- in-one ebook creation, writing, and formatting tool with Atticus, and I think he's taken a pretty good stab at it. I'd say the biggest weakness for Atticus is that it does have a bit of a learning curve because there are so many different functions packed into it. The free option would be Kindle Create, which is a program put out by Amazon. Kindle Create is pretty basic, but it does have everything you need and you can use it to create both files optimized for the Kindle platform and generic EPUBs that you can use on other platforms. I'd say its biggest weakness is that it's fairly simple and that it's produced by Amazon, which some people have strong feelings about, but it is free, which is hard to beat. In Episode 251 (about a year ago), I talked about ebook formatting software and offered pros and cons for each. There isn't one perfect option, so it's good to look over the details for each one of them and watch one of the many available reviews or overviews available online to get a feel for how each one works differently. And now the three strategies for finding formatting issues before your readers do. #1: Test your ebook in each file format (PDF/EPUB) and on multiple devices. It's impossible and prohibitively expensive to test on every possible device, but try some of the most common devices and apps. It's important to test on a Kindle, an actual Kindle and not just on the app, for example. #2: Check the page and chapter breaks in particular. These are the spots where odd formatting tends to cluster. Check all of them to make sure there's nothing weird that you need to fix. #3: Check for legacy things from the print version like page numbers, the table of contents, and so forth. And I find that the easiest way to do all three of these at once is in my final phase of editing a book, I will have my computer read it aloud to me with text to speech and I find that's a good way to find any remaining typos. It's also a very good way of spotting formatting issues since you'll be looking over the entire book one more time and if there's like a weird gap or a line break or something of that nature, you're probably going to have a good chance of spotting it. So in conclusion, ebooks can be a bit difficult to format, but there is dedicated software and a slew of tutorials and guides to help you do it. Learning a little bit of HTML and CSS can help, but it's not a requirement at this point. If you're self-publishing, having a well formatted book is important because readers either won't enjoy or won't even start a poorly formatted ebook. I hope these tips help you with knowing where to start with improving your ebook formatting. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to the Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your view on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and we'll see you all next week.

50: Ep. 50 - Taraforming the Past

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2026 89:02

Patreon update about the state of the pod.In anticipation of a Bridge gathering, the SUITS agents have to quell a sobbing Josepha and deal with an unwanted Graham Whittlesby. Spar bottles it all up; Vellum does an enemy a favor; Nat goes back to cub scouts.Ila Alexei is Agent Kaolin VellumEssay Mnktl is Agent Merim FelsparJordan Quiverns is our GMSubscribe to our Patreon for bonus episodes, maps, and short fiction set in the world of our podcast! Talk to the cast and other fans on our Discord!The People, Places, and Things of Three of Hearts!Follow us on Tumblr!Our music was provided by Louie Zong.

talk hearts bridge discord places tumblr suits spar vellum louie zong

Cross Promotion, Newsletters, and Beta Reader Tips with Evan Gow

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2026 52:36

306 / How do you get your first reviews? And what do you do about collating feedback from multiple beta readers? Evan Gow, creator of StoryOrigin, has solutions to these author problems. Plus we explore why building your mailing list is the number-one way to connect with readers and future-proof your business as well as discussing direct sales options and the perennial topic of AI impact on publishing. ✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishImportance of reviews for book salesCross-promotions and newsletter swapsBeta reader management with StoryOriginDirect sales trends and challengesAI's impact on the publishing landscape

ai write series craft consulting workshops newsletters cross promotion big list vellum betareader

Starting Small with Crowdfunding with Ember Mae

write series craft consulting kickstarter workshops crowdfunding starting small big list vellum

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2026 37:54

305 / Ember Mae shares lessons learned about starting small with crowdfunding as well as managing fulfillment. We also talk about marketing without succumbing to the pressure of conventional social media wisdom.✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishTips on setting up your first Kickstarter campaign and keeping it manageableMaking marketing personal and connecting individually with readersWhy ditching social media is freeingIntuitive storytellingIn-person event strategiesNeurodivergence as a writing superpower

How to Format a Book with Vellum

Novel Marketing

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2026 44:01

Many authors assume book formatting is complicated, expensive, or something only professionals can handle.In this week's episode, I talk with Bryan Canter about why that assumption is outdated, and how tools like Vellum have changed what authors can do. If you've ever wondered whether you need to pay a pro or learn to format your book's interior yourself, this conversation will give you clarity.In this episode, you'll discover:When you should format the book or reader magnet and when you should hire a proHow Vellum can prevent common design mistakesHow you can update back matter, fix typos, add reader magnets as neededListen to the episode or read the blog version to see how Vellum can save you money, time, and headache when formatting your next book or reader magnet.Support the show

vellum

Using Grammar as Your Creative Toolbox with Patty McGee

creative write series craft consulting workshops text messages toolbox grammar mcgee joanna penn big list vellum

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2026 45:07

304 / Are you curious how understanding grammar—not just as a set of rules but as a tool for creative expression—can transform your writing and help you find your unique author voice?✨ This week's sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wishWe talked with Patty McGee, a literary consultant and author of Not Your Granny's Grammar to unpack why grammar isn't about memorizing rules, but about developing your unique voice. Patty shared tips on building foundational skills, using grammar to enhance your writing's rhythm, and why it's totally normal to make mistakes. Finding your writing voice through sentence rhythmOvercoming grammar embarrassment as an authorPractical resources for learning grammarEffective strategies for giving and receiving feedback Trends in grammar and punctuation in modern writing

The Great Alignment Lie

WBSRocks: Business Growth with ERP and Digital Transformation

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2026 58:25

In this year's season premiere, I return to my series on the myths and legends of the Indiana Jones franchise, this time examining the ideas underpinning the recent video game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, leading me to all kinds of claims about ancient landmarks aligning and their origin in the concept of ley lines. Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the show merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, perfect for gifts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pledge support on Patreon to get an ad-free feed with exclusive episodes!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out my novel, Manuscript Found!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Direct all advertising inquiries to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to find other high-quality podcasts! Some music in this episode was licensed under a Blue Dot Sessions blanket license at the time of publication. Tracks include "Cicle DR Valga," "JoDon," "Access Road 442," "Game Lands," "Aloscape 2," and "Vellum and Steel." Additional music, including "Remedy for Melancholy," "Smoldering," "Sentinel," "daemones," and "Cold War Echo," by Kai Engel, licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

alignment indiana jones steel remedy pledge sentinel melancholy blue dot sessions great circle kai engel smoldering vellum cold war echo

Podcast: Campervan torched just an ‘arm's length' away from Litmus House in Vellum Drive in Sittingbourne as young family forced to flee

KentOnline

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2026 24:33

A campervan has been torched in a suspected arson attack just an ‘arm's length' away from where a young family was sleeping in Sittingbourne. Firefighters were called to battle the on-fire Volkswagen in the residents' car park outside the Litmus House flat block off Vellum Drive in the early hours of Monday morning. Also in today's podcast, a man accused of repeatedly stabbing a uniformed British Army officer in the street has pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder.Appearing at Maidstone Crown Court via video link from high security psychiatric hospital, he admitted trying to kill Lt Col Mark Teeton near Brompton Barracks on July 23, 2024.A yellow weather warning for wind has been issued as Storm Goretti is set to batter areas of the Kent coast.The Met Office says gusts in exposed areas could reach 70 mph, with the caution covering seaside towns in the south of the county. You can hear from a young mum who says writing about her husband's death made her go back to therapy, but also forced her to face the worst moments of her life.Emma Charlesworthdidn't want her partner to become just “another statistic” and hopes her new book will bring comfort to those who have been widowed young. And a 30th birthday party's being thrown for Ashford International Station - as a campaign to bring it back into use continues.The facility opened on this day in 1996 - the same year Legoland also welcomed visitors for the first time. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

WBSP800: Grow Your Business by Learning from Enterprise Software Stories - Aug 2025, Ep 30, an Objective Panel Discussion

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 23, 2025 62:37

Send us a textA wave of funding announcements, acquisitions, and product launches highlights how quickly AI, data, and customer engagement technologies are converging across the enterprise. Significant financings for PhysicsX, Vultr, and Vellum signal strong investor confidence in platforms that support AI-native workloads, applied intelligence, and modern infrastructure, while Capgemini's acquisition of WNS underscores growing demand for large-scale, technology-enabled business transformation services. On the customer and marketing side, deeper integrations and feature expansions from CallMiner, Hightouch, Insight7, Jasper, Oktopost, and Salesforce reflect a shift toward real-time intelligence, personalization, and content automation embedded directly into core CRM and contact center ecosystems. Collectively, these developments suggest the market is moving beyond point solutions toward tightly integrated platforms that combine data, AI, and execution at enterprise scale.In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry analysts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to analyze current enterprise software stories. We covered many grounds including the direction and roadmaps of each enterprise software vendors. Finally, we analyzed future trends and how they might shape the enterprise software industry.Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKJ7uZQ3sRAQuestions for Panelists?

learning ai stories video crm significant salesforce grow your business panel discussion objective collectively erp panelists smbs capgemini enterprise software wbs vellum wns robert kramer sam gupta oktopost

WBSP798: Grow Your Business by Learning from Enterprise Software Stories - Aug 2025, Ep 29, an Objective Panel Discussion

WBSRocks: Business Growth with ERP and Digital Transformation

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2025 63:27

Send us a textRecent announcements across enterprise software, AI platforms, and services point to an accelerating convergence of intelligence, automation, and scale. Product expansions from Deltek, CallMiner, and Hightouch reflect a push to embed advanced analytics, personalization, and contextual intelligence directly into operational systems, while launches from Intellistack and Kognitos highlight growing demand for no-code and neurosymbolic approaches that reduce dependence on scarce technical talent. Strategic transactions such as IFS acquiring TheLoops and Capgemini acquiring WNS signal a broader shift toward end-to-end, AI-enabled business transformation that blends software, services, and domain expertise. At the same time, substantial funding rounds for PhysicsX, Vellum, and Vultr underscore continued investor confidence in platforms that support AI-native workloads, from applied engineering intelligence to workflow orchestration and cloud infrastructure. Collectively, these moves suggest the market is moving beyond experimentation toward integrated, production-grade AI capabilities embedded across the enterprise stack.In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry analysts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to analyze current enterprise software stories. We covered many grounds including the direction and roadmaps of each enterprise software vendors. Finally, we analyzed future trends and how they might shape the enterprise software industry.Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NufAeaJoPwIQuestions for Panelists?

learning ai stories video product strategic grow your business panel discussion objective collectively erp panelists smbs ifs capgemini enterprise software brian jackson wbs vellum wns deltek donald farmer robert kramer sam gupta michael fauscette

Our Favourite Supplies of 2025

Planner Pals

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2025 63:12

What were your favourite supplies of the year?

journaling favourite stickers supplies vellum

Episode 269: The Personal Curriculum Trend For Writers

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2025 13:36

In this week's episode, we take a look at the "personal curriculum" social media trend and look at how it can be useful for writers. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book #1 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: FALLMAGIC50 The coupon code is valid through September 29, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 269 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September 19th, 2025, and today I am looking at the idea of a personal curriculum for writers. We also have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing projects. So let's start things off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Dragons, Book Number One in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at my Payhip store. And that coupon code is FALLMAGIC50. And as always, the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes of this episode. This coupon code will be valid through September the 29th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook to listen to as we head into fall, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that Blade of Flames is finished and by the time this episode goes live on what should be the 22nd, it should be available at all ebook stores. Initial impressions have been positive so far, so I hope you'll check that out and enjoy it. Now that Blade of Flames is finished and out in the world, my next main project will be Cloak of Worlds. After a year, I am finally getting back to Cloak Mage. I am now 21,000 words into it, and I'm hoping it will be out in October, though it might slip to November because I think this one might be a bit on the longer side. My secondary project is now Blade of Shadows, which is the second book in the Blades of Ruin series and the direct sequel to Blade of Flames. I'm a thousand words into that. In audiobook news, Shield of Power is still in processing and quality assurance at most of the audiobook stores. It is now available at, I think Google Play, Kobo, my own Payhip store, and a few others, but it's still not up on Audible, Apple, or Amazon yet, though hopefully that should be fixed soon. Recording on Ghost in the Siege is finished and we're just waiting on files so we can proof-listen to them. So some new audiobooks will be available before too much longer. So that's where I'm at with my current writing projects. 00:02:18 Personal Curriculum for Writers So let's move on to our main topic this week, the personal curriculum trend for writers. What is a personal curriculum? The trend of creating a personal curriculum has been going around social media for the past month or two. Basically, a personal curriculum uses a structure of an imaginary class to reframe your personal and professional development goals. It can be as simple as creating a set of reading to do in a month or as complex as creating a major project that will take many steps and months to complete. How does this work? Instead of having an undefined goal of wanting to learn how to learn more about how to market your books, you make yourself a course called Marketing Literature with Social Media, with a list of related books, videos, and tasks divided into blocks of time, just like the class would have things that are connected in each session. The key to the personal curriculum trend is having weekly goals and projects just like homework (and of course keeping up with it). Some people create monthly personal curriculum while others keep the more academic framework of quarters, terms, or semesters. Some people create multiple classes, while others focus on one at a time. The amount of detail in the curriculum's development ranges from scrawling a plan on a sheet of notebook paper to creating intricate Notion boards that are essentially a prettier version of an online course system used at universities. The personal curriculum trend is fueled by many things, including nostalgia for the structure of school and its relatively clear paths to success, the desire to spend less time doom scrolling on social media, and the desire to make goal setting more whimsical. Having clear and specific deadlines for completing tasks is one of the most important parts of goal setting, and that is at the center of the trend of creating personal curriculums. Most people spend 14 to 19 years in school (depending on the individual), so it's a structure that's familiar. It also takes an overwhelming and broad goal, such as learning about marketing and gives it focus by defining what is actually being learned and determining how to apply that to real tasks in a manageable way. It transforms the nebulous goal of learning something specific and also gives a clearer path on how to apply the learning into action. By design, it also emphasizes goals that can be done in weeks instead of years, which makes starting much less intimidating. Many people also need some outside accountability in order to work well, and this is a way of creating it for yourself. Being able to give yourself an “A” if you're completing your homework each week is a simple and free motivator for many. Since this is mostly a writing podcast, I want to discuss how the personal curriculum trend can be applied to writing goals and professional development for writers. To that end, I will share five ways that I think the trend can help you grow as a writer and make more specific and actionable goals. #1: Defining your priorities. There are endless things to learn both in life and as a writer, especially in the world of self-publishing. Therefore, it can be tempting to chase after every trend or every new thing that's working for other people. The problem with that is that it's impossible to do that in any meaningful or focused way. It's better to pick a focus for every month or every few months and gain as much proficiency as you can instead of dabbling at things without taking the time to understand them well and then bemoaning that they don't work. A month or a fake semester is still a narrow enough timeframe to pivot if you want to change your goals, instead of being locked into yearly goals. For example, I set specific goals for getting books out, and then each month is pretty well defined into writing, editing, cover design, layout, publishing, and marketing tasks for me based on each book. Other things I want to try, such as creating videos, doesn't fit within those specific goals because they're not the priority. Other things that are lesser priorities (like trying new effects in Photoshop for my book covers and ad images) are things that I know I can work on after finishing the primary goals I've set for myself each week. #2: Trying something new. The structure of a personal curriculum makes trying something new feel less intimidating. For example, “making my own book cover” is something of a massive and undefined goal. You know that's important and you want to do it, but you can never seem to get past watching a TikTok video or two on Photoshop when they come into your feed. By creating a course for yourself on learning how to use Photoshop and the best techniques for creating book covers and giving yourself homework of different things from your readings or viewings to try out, you give the goal a specific plan and tie what you're learning into actual tasks that will help you move forward and then make your learning stick by applying it in the right way. For example, what I did for myself to learn Photoshop well enough to do a book cover was during early COVID in 2020, I bought a couple of courses on it and took the courses. Now, I suppose that's something of more of an actual structured curriculum since someone set up that course, but you could do it for yourself with the same thing by getting The Beginner's Guide to Photoshop or (the some unfortunately titled) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Photoshop from your library, reading that, and then watching a few longer focused YouTube videos on the process of creating a book cover. And then that would give you enough to go on in terms of starting your own personal curriculum and then developing your own book covers. #3: Managing your time. With endless distractions, it's too easy to look at a week or even a month and wonder where the time went with little to show for it. In contrast, the school environment has a rigid time structure, even at the university level. There is never a question of where the time went there. Work must be done at a specific time, and you have to show up multiple times a week to learn more and prove you understand what you've learned already. People often struggle without that structure after graduation, especially people who thrived in the school environment. But there's no harm in recreating it for yourself, especially if you are one of those people who thrived in the academic world. For example, if you want to do research on a specific time period for your next book, creating a course defines what that means. Instead of endless scrolling and watching videos online, you define what the scope of needed research is before you begin, so you're spending your time more efficiently. If you pick out the books, videos, and what you specifically need to research for the plot in advance and give yourself a set amount of time to learn the material, you're spending your time more wisely and freeing up time for other tasks. For example, in my most recent book, Blade of Flames, part of one of the subplots is inspired by a period in English history called The Anarchy, which was the civil war in the early 12th century between Empress Maude and King Stephen for the throne of England. Now, I knew a fair bit about this period already because of other reading I've done, but if I wanted to learn more about it, the best way to do it would be to read a few books and some of the more accessible books by popular historians. Like for example, maybe the best way to learn enough about The Anarchy to base a book on it would be read some of the books by Dan Jones, who has written many excellent popular history books about the medieval and early modern English time period. #4: Professional development. Most professions have professional development where you have to keep your skills updated, whether you're a teacher who has to get re-certified, a doctor who has to learn new procedures, a system admin who has to learn the latest bugs Microsoft has baked into their software, and so forth. Writing is no different (especially if you're a self-published writer) because there's so many side skills like layout and web design and so forth that it's kind of helpful to keep up on. It's hard to carve time out for professional development because as a writer, it's time away from the task that actually gets you paid, which is writing new stuff. Learning or trying new things becomes something that either feels insurmountable or happens in a haphazard way that doesn't actually move things forward for you. A personal curriculum gives you the permission to carve out time to learn new things. It's easy to hyperfocus on writing and feel like anything else is less productive, but there are many parts to being a writer, especially for the self-published, so it's important to give yourself a structured way to explore new software, marketing strategies, and social media channels as they emerge. For example, to use something of a negative example, I rather notoriously have a very low opinion of the AI tools currently flooding the market like ChatGPT and Midjourney. That wasn't an opinion I arrived at haphazardly. I did thoroughly investigate each of these tools. I tried Adobe Firefly, I tried Midjourney, I tried Microsoft's ones, Bing Chat and Bing Image Create. I tried ChatGPT, I tried one other, I can't think of off the top of my head, and I just did not come away impressed with these tools or the capabilities. So I suppose that was a negative example of something I'm talking about, whereas a positive example would be in 2018, I started using a Mac program called Vellum to format my paper books. It was a lot easier and more useful than the method that I'd been using previously, and I was so impressed with that that I eventually switched over into using Vellum for my ebook formatting as well, and learned how to do that as well, and I've been using it ever since. So that'd be a positive example of professional development. #5: Holding Yourself Accountable. One of the most difficult things about writing is that it lacks the structure of a traditional job or school environment. For that reason, many high achievers tend to struggle with starting or completing tasks when they leave school. Creating specific goals and making a clear timeframe for completing them helps with that tendency. For that reason, some personal curriculum devotees will even assign class times on a certain day of the week or a certain time of the night to make sure they're on track with their goals or homework for the week. National Novel Writing Month has kind of crashed and burned from its scandals over the past year, but the principle of accountability in giving yourself a set period of time to do something is helpful there. In the same way, your homework for each day for writing could be a set number of words or a certain percentage of progress in editing. Did you spend that day looking at social media instead of getting words done? There is a grade for that and it's not a good one. “A” students complete their work and turn it in, and that's the core of writing, putting down words consistently and publishing them. Now, I suppose you could think that the personal curriculum thing seems like a silly social media trend, but for some people, especially people who really thrived in and enjoyed the academic environment in school, it might work in a way that average yearly goals do not. Studies show time and time again that the happiest adults are those with defined priorities who make time to learn new things and enjoy hobbies. A personal curriculum provides a way to emphasize those important things in your life in a more whimsical way than say, the various yearly evaluation goals of the corporate world. For writers, it can be a much-needed way to add structure to an unstructured work environment and make sure that they're spending their time in the best way possible. And it all boils down to essentially one of the oldest dictums: know thyself. If this kind of thing would not be helpful for you, then there's no point in pursuing it. But if you know yourself and know that you have the kind of personality and mental inclination that would respond well to structure like this (even if it's structure you're creating for yourself), then a personal curriculum might be a good idea to pursue. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. I reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.

Back Door to War: A History of Undeclared and Unauthorized US Warfare

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2025 62:22

Last month, when the Trump regime allied with Israel in their Twelve-Day War and bombed Iran, there was much scrutiny of presidential war powers. In this episode, I look at the evolution of undeclared wars and military authorizations throughout US history, specifically examining the conspiracy claims about two preludes to war: Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Get 3 months of premium wireless service for $15 bucks a month at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MintMobile.com/Blindness⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the show merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, perfect for gifts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pledge support on Patreon to get an ad-free feed with exclusive episodes!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out my novel, Manuscript Found!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find a transcript of this episode with source citations and related imagery at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.historicalblindness.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Direct all advertising inquiries to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to find other high-quality podcasts! Some music on this episode was licensed under a Blue Dot Sessions blanket license at the time of this episode's publication. Tracks include "Tarte Tatin," "Illa Vallardo," "Delicates," "Cicle Vascule," "Vellum and Steel," "Black Ballots," and "Cicle Deserrat." Additional music, including "Remedy for Melancholy" and "Wake Up" is by Kai Engel, licensed under Creative Commons. Other music: "Leaving Home" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

history donald trump israel iran steel warfare kevin macleod gulf remedy pledge pearl harbor backdoor melancholy unauthorized blue dot sessions mint mobile leaving home kai engel undeclared vellum tarte tatin tonkin incident

Self-Publishing Success: Lessons, Creative Freedom & Midlife Magic with Barb Hopkins & Kelly Garcia

Writers With Wrinkles

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2025 49:14 Transcription Available

Send us a textIn this episode of Writers With Wrinkles, we dive into the world of self-publishing adult fiction. Authors Barb Hopkins and Kelly Garcia share how they turned frustration with traditional publishing into indie success, building their paranormal mystery series Chronicles of a Cursed Midlife from the ground up while navigating the challenges of co-authoring and marketing.Guest Bios:Barb Hopkins – A former marketing director and freelance writer turned hybrid author, Barb writes middle grade fiction and co-authors the adult Chronicles of a Cursed Midlife series. Her dual path of querying middle grade while self-publishing adult fiction demonstrates persistence and versatility.Kelly Garcia – Known for her humorous, feel-good paranormal fiction, Kelly co-authors the Chronicles of a Cursed Midlife series. A veteran of the querying trenches, she now thrives in indie publishing, celebrating magical chaos, found family, and creative freedom.Key Discussion Points:Why Barb and Kelly chose self-publishing for their adult series.The inspiration behind Chronicles of a Cursed Midlife and its themes of midlife empowerment, friendship, and second chances.The biggest challenges in indie publishing: editing, design, distribution, and discoverability.Essential tools and resources: Amazon KDP, Vellum, Canva, Publisher Rocket, Bowker, and 20BooksTo50K.How co-authoring adds both complexity and creative energy.Marketing lessons from Facebook takeovers, in-person events, and building an online community.Barb's dual journey: querying middle grade while finding success in adult self-publishing.Conclusion: Barb and Kelly's story shows that self-publishing isn't just a backup plan—it's a thriving path to creative control and connection with readers. Their success with adult fiction proves that persistence, community, and smart strategy can empower authors to take charge of their careers, even while pursuing traditional goals in other genres.Links/Info Mentioned:From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle-Grade Authors: https://fromthemixedupfiles.comArcane Covers by Karen Dimmick – Cover designPublisher Rocket – Keyword research toolBowker – ISBN providerKindlepreneur – Self-publishing resource20BooksTo50K Facebook Group – Indie author community Support the show Visit the WebsiteWriters with Wrinkles Link Tree for socials and more!

marketing lessons essential chronicles garcia hopkins canva creative freedom amazon kdp bowker vellum mixed up files self publishing success midlife magic publisher rocket 20booksto50k

A New Reassessment: Realism on Israel-Palestine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 12, 2025 60:25

To conclude my series on the Israel-Palestine conflict, I look at Jewish presence in the Levant going all the way back to the Iron Age, the events leading to the founding of the modern State of Israel, its unique economic and military relationship with the US, and its long asymmetrical conflict with Palestinians. Please consider donating to help bring an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It can be confusing and complex to navigate the many charities that claim to offer direct aid in Gaza. Some recommend giving directly to family fundraisers, but investigative reports suggest some GoFundMe donations never reach the citizens they're intended to help. As for charity organizations, some smaller ones have proven to be fronts, and even some major organizations accept donations for Gaza despite not providing direct aid on the ground there. There are even calls by other charities for the Israel and US backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to be shut down because of the numerous massacres occurring at its distribution sites. Among the more trustworthy charities actually working on bringing aid to Palestinians are UNICEF, Oxfam International, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, and Palestinian Children's Relief Fund. Get 3 months of premium wireless service for $15 bucks a month at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MintMobile.com/Blindness⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the show merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, perfect for gifts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pledge support on Patreon to get an ad-free feed with exclusive episodes!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out my novel, Manuscript Found!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find a transcript of this episode with source citations and related imagery at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.historicalblindness.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Direct all advertising inquiries to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to find other high-quality podcasts! Some music on this episode was licensed under a Blue Dot Sessions blanket license at the time of this episode's publication. Tracks include "Cobweb Transit," "Black Ballots," "Cicle Deserrat," "Olivia Wraith," "Vellum and Steel," "Minister Creek," "Invernen," and "Cicle DR Valga." Additional music, including "Remedy for Melancholy," is by Kai Engel, licensed under Creative Commons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

49: Ep. 49 - In a While, Crocadile!

AskAlli: Self-Publishing Advice Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 14, 2025 71:25

On the way to the Gatineau Estate, the SUITS agents face off against magically-empowered guards. Later, they face off against a magically-confused debutante. Vellum digs into his past for a lesson in fashion history; Spar digs into his for a lesson in shared trauma. Ila Alexei is Agent Kaolin Vellum Essay Mnktl is Agent Merim Felspar Jordan Quiverns is our GM Edil May Hampsen is our editor Subscribe to our Patreon for bonus episodes, maps, and short fiction set in the world of our podcast! Talk to the cast and other fans on our Discord! The People, Places, and Things of Three of Hearts! Follow us on Tumblr! Our music was provided by Louie Zong.

talk hearts discord places tumblr suits spar vellum louie zong

Vellum Co-Creator Brad Andalman on Formatting, Efficiency, and What's Next for the Popular Indie Author Tool

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2025 44:21

In this episode of the Production and Distribution stream of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, ALLi nonfiction adviser Anna Featherstone speaks with Brad Andalman, co-founder of Vellum, the popular book formatting software used by thousands of indie authors. They discuss Vellum's origins, its evolution, and how it fits into the book production process—especially for authors looking to maintain control, streamline workflow, and update files efficiently. Brad also shares insights on how authors use Vellum in unexpected ways, recent feature updates, and how the team prioritizes new tools based on author feedback and publishing trends. Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-Publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of nearly 2,000 blog posts and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need. And, if you haven't already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. Sponsors This podcast is proudly sponsored by Bookvault. Sell high-quality, print-on-demand books directly to readers worldwide and earn maximum royalties selling directly. Automate fulfillment and create stunning special editions with BookvaultBespoke. Visit Bookvault.app today for an instant quote. This podcast is also sponsored by Gatekeeper Press, the all-inclusive Gold Standard in Publishing, offering authors 100% rights, royalties, satisfaction and worldwide distribution. Gatekeeper Press, Where Authors are Family. About the Host Anna Featherstone is ALLi's nonfiction adviser and an author advocate and mentor. A judge of The Australian Business Book Awards and Australian Society of Travel Writers awards, she's also the founder of Bold Authors and presents author marketing and self-publishing workshops for organizations, including Byron Writers Festival. Anna has authored books including how-to and memoirs and her book Look-It's Your Book! about writing, publishing, marketing, and leveraging nonfiction is on the Australian Society of Authors recommended reading list. When she's not being bookish, Anna's into bees, beings, and the big issues of our time. About the Guest Brad Andalman is the co-founder of 180g, the company behind Vellum—the Mac-based software that simplifies professional-grade book formatting for indie authors. He launched the company in 2012 alongside Brad West after more than a decade at Pixar Animation Studios, where he helped build next-generation animation and rendering tools.

family tool production mac popular publishing efficiency distribution automate self publishing co creators gold standard print on demand travel writers indie authors formatting pixar animation studios your book australian society vellum lookit brad west australian business book awards gatekeeper press

Vellum

GROGPOD Roguelike Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2025 91:55

The pen is mightier than the sword! This week we crack open that new book smell with a first edition copy of Vellum: the third-person literary hack-and-slash game. We navigate the maze-like stacks, pet some colorful wolf friends, and talk about how many puns is TOO many for understanding a game properly. Don't be quick to judge a book by it's steam store page! There's plenty of spells and quills and swords, but remember: A game a lone a last a loved a long the- Custom RSS Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Music Transcript 1:22 - game stats 2:50 - one sentence description 6:47 - Hub world complexity and literary theming commitment 12:37 - Overly complex terminology and ability descriptions 19:04 - Enemy design and literary theme implementation 25:33 - “One more run” phenomenon and replay motivation 29:17 - Positive aspects including UI and visual effects 33:00 - Inscription system and meta progression mechanics 38:26 - Vignette encounters and their effectiveness debate 42:54 - Tome selection system and special level rules 48:07 - Progression gating and attunement level complaints 55:39 - End game content and endless mode discussion 1:01:29 - Boss strategy discovery and magical lamp exploit 1:14:13 - rankings and final thoughts 1:22:08 - similar games 1:24:50 - listener correspondence: does the GROGPOD need a public discord channel? Next episode: 2025 Summer Music Fest Contact us at grogpodzone@gmail.com! https://grogpod.zone Intro music: My Little Brown Book - Duke Ellington, John Coltrane Outro music: Vellum OST - Boss Battle

positive boss gaming enemy library steam progression ui hub tome james joyce inscriptions roguelike vignette roguelite vellum

Spiritfall

GROGPOD Roguelike Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 20, 2025 103:41

Dat ain't Falco! This week we wavedash into Spiritfall: the platformer beat-em-up with strong influence from the Super Smash Brothers series as well as Hades. The Blight has taken over the lands and your mysterious animal gods have tasked you, the Omenforged, to beat them back. With an array of weapons ranging from an axe-hammer to a scythe that transforms into a baseball bat, join us as we down-smash, L-cancel, and neutral-air our way across deserts, jungles, frozen wastelands, and all the way up to the source of the Blight itself! No Johns in this episode, we promise. Custom RSS Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Music Transcript 2:04 - game stats 3:16 - one sentence description 5:57 Story Overview 8:58 Controls & Tutorial Complexity 12:46 Smash Bros Experience & Wave Dashing 18:10 Combat Mechanics & Arena Types 25:44 Generic Terminology & Art Style 32:38 Comparison to Dead Cells & Boss Fights 39:31 Map Navigation & Decision Making 50:39 Story Completion & Meta Progression 57:28 Hypothetical Smash Bros Crossover 1:22:39 - rankings and final thoughts 1:34:52 - similar games Next episode: Vellum (for real this time) Contact us at grogpodzone@gmail.com! https://grogpod.zone Intro music: Charles Mingus - Mood Indigo Outro music: Spiritfall OST - The Frigid Veil

gaming comparison steam decision making hades controls falco blight dead cells roguelike boss fight super smash brothers art style roguelite vellum

Episode 251: Ebook Formatting Tools

seattle board workplace encouraging fostering connectivity attachments ccb vellum

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2025 24:15

In this week's episode, we take a look at four different ebook formatting tools for indie authors. We also discuss the phenomenon of Star Wars day. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Malison: The Complete Series at my Payhip store: MALISON25 The coupon code is valid through June 3, 2025. So if you need a new book for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 251 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 9, 2025, and today we are looking at ebook formatting tools. Before we get into our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week, a progress update at my current writing and audiobook projects, and then Question of the Week. We'll also close out the show with a preview of my new audiobook Ghost in the Assembly (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy). This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook of Malison: The Complete Series at my Payhip store, and that is MALISON25. As always, we'll have the coupon code and the links in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through June the 3, 2025. So if you need a new ebook for spring, we have got you covered. Now here's where I'm at with my current writing projects. I am 87,000 words into Ghost in the Corruption and I'm hoping to hit 90,000 words by the end of today. So if all goes well, I will finish it up later this week and then begin editing. I am also 9,000 words into what my next project will be, which is Shield of Power, the final book in The Shield War series. I'm also 91,000 words into Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, and that will be my main project after Shield of Power is finished. So my writing goals for the next couple months will be Ghost in the Corruption, Shield of Power, Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest, and then the final book in The Ghost Armor series (the title of which I should really decide since I'm getting close to being finished with the fifth book). In audiobook news, recording of Ghost in the Assembly (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is finished. That should be turning up on all the various audiobook stores before too much longer. Shield of Deception (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is finished and available at all the audio stores: Audible, Apple, Google Play, Spotify, Chirp, and all the others. You can get that right now. Brad should be starting a recording of Shield of Battle sometime in the second half of May, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects. 00:02:09 Question of the Week And now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question: what is your favorite Star Wars? The inspiration for this question is the fact that May the Fourth has become Star Wars Day (in a very tongue in cheek manner). And as you might expect, we had a variety of responses to this question. Justin says: I have not seen any Star Wars TV series, but your other choices are mine as well. I have the Trawn Trilogy in the box set and got a PC joystick just for playing TIE Fighter again. Jonathan D. says: Empire Strikes Back is still the best film. I cannot get into the Disney canon after they destroyed the Expanded Universe. I watched The Force Awakens and that killed any interest in watching Disney Star Wars for me. Books is either Heir to the Empire Trilogy or the Darth Bain trilogy. A well done film adaptation of the Darth Bain books would be the only thing that would make me want to watch any new films. Video games would have to be Knight of the Old Republic 1 or 2, with Jedi Academy coming in third. The original Battlefront games were also great. John Paul says: Loved the Mandalorian and the Book of Boba Fett, especially when they had the characters from each other's show guest starring in them. I saw somewhere they aren't making another series, but [there] was talk about a TV movie to finish it off, but [they are] now showing Series 4 on IBMD with no date. I grew up with the original trilogy though some of the later films are good, especially the special effects, though Jar Jar Binks spoiled the first three movies. Maybe they should reedit the character out since Lucas has spent some money on adding new effects to the trilogy to bring in line with the new movies. Skeleton Crew made me think of the movie Flight of the Navigator with Star Wars added, so I enjoyed that even though it's mainly for kids. I have fond memories of Space Invaders with the sidekick from the original Fall Guy TV show. Again, made for kids though adults can enjoy if they watch tongue in cheek. Andrew says: There are only three Star Wars movies, of which Empire Strikes Back is my favorite. I really enjoyed Mandalorian Season One. Now Star Wars is dead to me, except for lightsaber battle videos. I really like the Princess Bride Battles. I played TIE Fighter, Dark Forces, and Knights of the Old Republic. Tom says: Favorite film, Rogue One. With you on Mandalorian Season Two as favorite TV show. Favorite game, Rogue Squadron. Tracy says: My favorite was Return of the Jedi. Jenny says: Thrawn Trilogy for sure! Dark Forces was my very first computer game, so it's always going to hold a special place in my heart. William says: The unofficial remasters of the original trilogy from preserved reels are a godsend. MG says: Knights of the Old Republic was quite good and Knights of the Old Republic 2. John K. says: I'm a grim dark sort of guy. Really liked Rogue One but it's slightly edged out by the original Episode IV. I absolutely love Andor but honestly, have not hated anything. Enjoyed them all. I was a nut for the original X-Wing game. Got good enough to one shot TIE Fighters with one quad shot and rarely missed and learned how to solo Star Destroyers pretty easily, though it would take forever. Having played the game that John K. is talking about, I can agree with him that you could take down Star Destroyers in your X-Wing if you knew what you were doing, but it really would take forever. Dave says: Book wise, I really enjoyed the Thrawn books by Timothy Zahn, also the X-Wing series by Michael A. Stackpole was a personal favorite. And finally Michael says: I agree on Empire Strikes Back though as a kid, I disliked the lack of upbeat movie. Also really liked the Solo movie. I confess I found the Thrawn books underwhelming, though the original Star Wars novelization is pretty good. And finally, I got to agree on TIE Fighter, such great game. Also, I have a soft spot for Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2. For myself, I would have to break it down into four categories because Star Wars media covers so many different formats now. For favorite movie, I would say Empire Strikes Back, with Return of the Jedi as the runner up. For the favorite TV series, Season 2 of The Mandalorian. For my favorite book, The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn, with Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, Darth Plagueis by James Luceno, and The Darth Bane Trilogy by Drew Karpyshyn coming in as strong runners up. Seriously, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably enjoy reading books, so these five are definitely worth your time. For my favorite video games, I would say TIE Fighter, with Knights of the Old Republic as a very close runner-up. But TIE Fighter was definitely my favorite. In the game, you play as an Imperial pilot, and the designers had the clever idea of making the Empire sympathetic by having the player spend most of the missions hunting ruthless pirates, suppressing alien civil wars, and fighting renegade Imperial warlords who are trying to overthrow the Emperor. In the last two expansion packs for the game, the player is flying as Grand Admiral Thrawn's elite pilot against the renegade Grand Admiral Zaarin, and finally defeating Zaarin after like forty missions was VERY satisfying. So those are my favorite Star Wars media items. As we can see. there is quite a range of opinion in the answer to that question. 00:06:54 Main Topic: Ebook Formatting Tools Now let's move on to our main topic, which is ebook formatting tools. And this is an important thing for indie authors to discuss because if you do want to self-publish your books, it is one of those foundational skills you have to master. You need to know what kind of file format the platforms you're publishing to you take and how to produce it. Now this is something you can hire out but you really, really shouldn't in my opinion, especially because some ebook formatting services charge as much as $2,000 to turn a Word document into files ready to upload for ebook stores. Considering that it is something you can easily do yourself with free tools and a little bit of practice, spending any amount of money on it is probably a waste. I mean, there's a difference between the kind of intricate formatting you would need for say, a full color medical textbook with illustrations and a 60,000 word romance novel. Fortunately, all the major software programs are nowhere near as expensive as $2,000 a book and don't have as much of a learning curve as you might expect. Both video and written tutorials are plentiful for all of these options, making it easy to learn at your own pace. Today we're going to go over four software options for formatting ebooks and discuss their pros, cons, and the best uses for them. Although some of these products have word processing functionality and other features built in, today we'll focus on just the ebook formatting part of the software. #1: The first option we will look at is Atticus. Atticus is from the same company that makes Publisher Rocket, which is a software program I've spoken of very favorably of on the show over the years. The company has made an effort to understand the needs of authors over the years and added new features to Publisher Rocket consistently as time went on. The company Kindlepreneur has also made significant enhancements to Atticus since it launched. As of the time of this recording, it is a one-time purchase option that has free ongoing updates and the current cost is $147 (in United States dollars). Expensive, but the founder of the company Dave Chesson has said frequently he doesn't like software subscriptions. So hopefully this will continue to be a one-time fee and not become a subscription thing. So here are the pros to using Atticus. It is less expensive than Vellum and has the same features. It works on operating systems other than Mac. In theory, since it has a web client, it can work on any platform. Reviewers say it is very pleasant to use and those who want a lot of customization options are generally happy with it and it has a nice tool for creating and reusing the template for things like author bios or link pages. The con is that it does require an Internet connection to use and you have to have a computer connected to the Internet. Some people also prefer not to have their work stored in the cloud like Atticus does. Some users report slowness while opening or closing or when saving a file, especially if it's a book with a high word account. Because of the online requirement, there can be issues related to syncing. It does not support .mobi as a file export option. However, that's not a big deal anymore because Amazon is officially phasing out the .mobi file extension and is requiring people to use .epub. So this is not a major point and it's only for people who have a customer base with very old e-readers that can't handle .epub. And finally, Atticus does not offer a free trial period if you just want to try it out, but does offer a refund within the first 30 days if you try it and decide that you don't like it. So what users would find Atticus the best? It's probably best for PC or Linux users who don't want a Mac and also want to have lots of fine control of your formatting or customizing your layout. Atticus is also heavily built around collaboration, where different people can work on the same file. So if you do work with a team (and many indie authors do) or are co-writing a book, then Atticus might be a good tool for you to use. #2: The second program we're going to look at is called Vellum. Vellum has been seen as the default option for ebook formatting for a lot of writers for a while now. As of the time of recording, there is a one-time purchase option that has free ongoing updates. The current cost is $199 for the ebook only version or $249 for the version that includes paperbacks. Vellum has gone on sale occasionally in the past, usually for Cyber Monday in November. The pros for Vellum are that many reviewers consider it the best option for ebook formatting and say it delivers professional results without too much work and a minimal learning curve. Vellum lets you try out the software for free, but you won't be able to export the files you're publishing until the software is purchased. Like Atticus, it offers a 30 day window for a refund. Vellum is not cloud-based software and it can be used offline. So if you are, for instance, working on a laptop on the road with spotty internet connectivity, this can be a lifesaver. Now for the cons and the biggest con is a big one- that Vellum is Macintosh only. You need to have a Mac to use it and it is not currently available for Windows and Linux. The developers have said that presently they have no plans to port it to either Windows or Linux. It will also not work on iOS, so that means you can't run it on your iPad or your iPhone. You can in theory use it on a PC with a Mac OS virtual machine, but people have reported very mixed success with that. The other con is that it is the most expensive option. So the users this is best for I think would be if you already have a Mac or you are willing to buy a Mac for just one piece of software. #3: The third software program we're going to look at is called Jutoh. Jutoh is a labor of love, mainly created by two people in the UK and has been around for a long, long time. As of the time of this recording, there is a one-time purchase option that costs $45 (US dollars) and a Plus version for $90 that supports some additional features. It currently offers a free trial that you can download and install, but functionality is limited in the trial version. The pros of Jutoh is that it works on Windows, Mac, and most versions of Linux. It is not cloud-based software/is local to your computer. It does not need a constant Internet connection to function. Reviewers frequently praised how responsive their customer support is and of the paid options we are discussing, it will be the least expensive of all of them. The cons are the interface is a bit dated. It does kind of look like something from the early 2000s in terms of the buttons and where they are. Because of that, it can be more difficult for some users to use than Atticus or Vellum. It does not create PDFs or print ready files, so you would not be able to use it to format your files for print books, which is something both Atticus and Vellum offer. I think this is best used for users who want a less expensive option than Atticus or Vellum or a PC user who wants a non-cloud based option. #4: The fourth and final program we're going to look at is called Kindle Create. And as of this recording, it is the only one of these four options that is free. It is a free download. This software is created and maintained by Amazon. The pro? It's free and you can use the .epubs it creates to upload your books onto other platforms. Just because you've made your ebook in Amazon Create, that doesn't mean you can't use the file for Barnes & Noble and Kobo and Apple and so forth. You can go ahead and do that. However, because it is free software, there are quite a few cons to it. The functionality is pretty limited and only a few fonts are available. It is not good with complex layouts and Amazon's own documentation recommends not using it for books with tables, footnotes, or complex text formatting. The program doesn't handle edits well. There are people who write books in Vellum even though the developers don't exactly recommend that. And Atticus is designed to have books written in it. However, Kindle Create definitely cannot handle that very well. Windows and Mac are supported, but you can't install it on Linux. Kindle Create no longer supports .mobi as a file export option since Amazon is moving away from that option and most other vendors haven't used it ever. That is a minor point. I think Kindle Create is best used by users who are just starting out and don't have much in the way of budget and have books that don't require a lot of complex formatting. Kindle Create is actually quite good for novels because novels in general don't have a lot of complex formatting and because it's free, it has a little bit of a steeper learning curve, but that can be advantageous as well. So looking at those four options, what do I use and why? Well, for the first seven or so years I was self-publishing, I didn't use any of these. I used a program called Sigil, which is an .epub editor. And if Kindle Create has a high learning curve, Sigil's is much higher because you're essentially editing the raw guts of the .epub file. I was content using that for a number of years, but what I needed was a program that would make uploading print books and formatting print books much easier because at the time I was using Create Space and Create Space required a specialized Word template that was just an enormous headache to use. And the reason that many of the Frostborn books have exactly 24 chapters is because I had a template that worked really well with 24 chapters for print books and I wasn't going to mess that up by trying to add a chapter or have one fewer chapter. So for some of the Frostborn books, I made sure there were 24 chapters. Obviously this was not a tenable situation for the print books, even though I was happy using Sigil for the eBooks. So I eventually heard good things about Vellum. In 2018 (I believe) I got a used Mac and installed Vellum and started using that for print books. I was much happier with that. Because the books looked so good in print, I eventually switched over to using Vellum for formatting my ebooks as well and I've been using that ever since. So my main ebook format writing program (as of May 9, 2025) is Vellum and I have a Mac specifically for that purpose. However, I also has high praise to say about Jutoh. I got started using Jutoh because for a while, Smashwords required you to upload a book using a specialized Word format. They didn't accept .epubs for the longest time and formatting a book in that proper Word format for Smashwords was a large headache, I have to admit. I never managed to get it automated quite right. And I had frequent problems with Smashwords rejecting the Word document I uploaded and so forth. Eventually, I discovered that Jutoh also had an export option for creating Smashwords-friendly Word documents. So I tried it out and that was just a godsend, I have to admit. It saved me so much time. So for about seven years as well, I used Jutoh for Smashwords formatting. However, in 2024 after Smashwords was acquired by Draft 2 Digital and the two companies became more and more merged, Smashwords changed and now accepts properly formatted .epubs. They don't do that specialized Word document thing anymore, which has made it much easier to upload files to Smashwords, I must say. But that also means that I've used Jutoh less and less in favor of Vellum because I no longer need those specially formatted Word documents. However, I do have nothing but positive things to say about Jutoh; it is a very good program. If you don't want to shell out the $249 for Vellum or if you don't have a Mac, I think Jutoh is an excellent option for you to use. I have never actually used Atticus, but it's popular enough that I wanted to talk about it on this show. I do know a lot of people who have used it to good effect. Just bear in mind the pros and cons we mentioned. And as for Kindle Create, there's nothing wrong with it. I think it's good starting point, especially if you're just starting out and want to format your book without paying a lot of money or having to pay $2,000 to someone on the Internet to do it. I do think it's a good starting point, even though it's very basic and for your first couple of books, it would be good. But as you get more experienced and want to branch into things like print books, you'll probably want a program with greater functionality like Jutoh, Vellum, or Atticus. So myself, I use mostly Vellum (with Jutoh occasionally), and that is what I use for ebook formatting. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week. 00:19:53 Audiobook Excerpt And now we'll close out the show with a short excerpt from Ghost In the Assembly, as narrated by Hollis McCarthy. [Remainder of podcast is audiobook except]

united states tv spotify amazon power uk apple disney internet battle ghosts books star wars digital video solo tools iphone empire draft revenge loved series pc flight mac ios ipads windows knight google play mandalorian ebooks audible corruption deception shield expensive knights emperor assembly heirs boba fett rogue one barnes and noble cyber monday imperial linux andor sith empire strikes back force awakens return of the jedi mg macos stealth pdfs navigator star wars day coupon old republic macintosh battlefront john paul skeleton crew jar jar binks thrawn createspace x wing kobo disney star wars space invaders reviewers remainder star wars tv dark forces chirp formatting sigil rogue squadron expanded universe timothy zahn tie fighter grand admiral thrawn john k smashwords episode iv star destroyer darth plagueis jedi academy dave chesson kindlepreneur vellum james luceno thrawn trilogy drew karpyshyn matthew stover publisher rocket mandalorian season two michael a stackpole darth bane trilogy

S3 | E8 | Engineering Better AI with Anita Kirkovska - GenAI Growth Lead @ Vellum

ThinkData Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2025 33:24

Today, I'm joined by Anita Kirkovska, Head of Growth at Vellum, a platform that helps businesses build and manage AI into production.We'll talk about how Vellum is making AI more accessible, how companies are using it, and Anita's role in driving that growth.In this episode:How Vellum helps businesses build and manage AI applications in productionAnita's role in driving growth and go-to-market strategyThe six levels of agentic AI behavior, and why they matterKey insights from The State of AI 2025 report (25% of companies now run AI in production)What's enabling successful AI adoption, and what's holding others backWhere the AI space is heading, and how Vellum is preparing for it

head ai growth state engineering genai strategythe vellum

Fostering Connectivity: Encouraging Workplace Attachments

ONEder Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2025 31:20

In this episode of the ONEder Podcast, CCB speaks with Lance Hayes and Yi-Chun Lin from Board and Vellum, a Seattle-based design firm, about their research project funded by the ONEder Grant. Their study explores the concept of workplace attachment in a hybrid work environment, investigating how employees form emotional connections to their workplaces in the context of remote and in-person work. Episode link: https://www.oneworkplace.com/podcast/fostering-connectivity-encouraging-workplace-attachments

Episode 241: Escaping The Prestige Trap For Writers, Part II - Traditional Publishing & The New York Times Bestseller List

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2025 21:34

In this week's episode, we continue our discuss about how seeking prestige can be dangerous for writers, specifically in the form of traditional publishing and the New York Times Bestseller list. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Shield of the Knight, Book #2 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store: DRAGONSHIELD50 The coupon code is valid through March 21, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 241 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 28th, 2025. Today we are continuing our discussion of how to escape the trap of prestige for writers, specifically traditional publishing and The New York Times Bestseller List. Before we get to our main topic, we will do Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing and audiobook projects, and then Question of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Shield of the Knight, Book Two in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store. That coupon code is DRAGONSHIELD50. As always, I'll include the coupon code and the link to the store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through March 21st, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook as we start to head into the spring months, we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report I am done with the rough draft of Ghost in the Assembly. I came in at 106,000 words, so it'll definitely be over a hundred thousand words when it's done. I'm about 20% of the way through the first round of edits, so I am confident in saying that if all goes well and nothing unexpected happens, I am on track to have it out in March. I am also 10,000 words into Shield of Battle, which will be the fifth of six books in the Shield War series and I'm hoping to have that out in April, if all goes well. In audiobook news, recording for both Cloak of Dragonfire and Orc-Hoard is done. I'm just waiting for them to get through the processing on the various stores so they're available. There is also an audiobook edition of Half Elven Thief Omnibus One and Cloak Mage Omnibus Three that hopefully should be coming in March. More news with that to come. 00:01:55 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is your favorite subgenre of fantasy, high fantasy, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, historical fantasy, urban fantasy, LitRPG, cultivation, or something else? No wrong answers, obviously. Cindy says: Epic fantasy or those with a good history for that world. The Ghost Series are fantastic at this. Thanks, Cindy. Justin says: I enjoy all those sub-genres, if they are done well. In times past I would've said comic fantasy, but that is because Terry Pratchett at his best was just that good. Mary says: High fantasy. Surabhi says: I'd honestly read anything fantasy that's written well and has characters I'm attached to, given that it's not too gritty. Bonus points if there's humor! Also, I love your books so much and they're the perfect blend of fantasy, adventure, and characters. Your books were what really got me into Sword and Sorcery. Thanks, Surabhi. Matthew says: See, that's difficult. I love my sabers, both light and metal. I would say urban fantasy crosses the boundary the most. If it's a captivating story, it will be read. John F says: I can't choose one- Lord of the Rings or LWW, The Inheritance Cycle, The Dresden Files, Caina, Ridmark, or Nadia. I think what draws me is great characters who grow. The setting/genre is just the device. That's why I keep coming back to your books. You create great characters. Thanks, John F. John K says: I think I'm partial to historical fantasy. I enjoy all genres, but when I think of my favorites, they tend to be derivations of historical settings. Think Guy Gavriel Kay or Miles Cameron. That said, I was weaned on Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, Jack Vance, so a strong sword and sorcery second place. Juana says: High fantasy. Belgariad, Tolkien, dragons, et cetera. Jonathan says: Sword and sorcery in space! Prehistoric sword and sorcery, sword and sorcery always. Quint: says Sword and sorcery! Michael says: Sword and sorcery. For myself, I think I would agree with our last couple of commenters and it would be sword and sorcery. My ideal fantasy novel has a barbarian hero wandering from corrupt city state to corrupt city state messing up the business of some evil wizards. I'm also very fond of what's called generic fantasy (if a fighter, a dwarf, an elf, and a wizard are going into a dungeon and fighting some orcs, I'm happy). 00:04:18 Main Topic of the Week: Escaping the Prestige Trap, Part 2 Now onto our main topic for the week, Escaping the Prestige Trap, Part 2, and we'll focus on traditional publishing and the New York Times Bestseller List this week. As we talked about last week, much of the idea of success, especially in the United States, is based on hitting certain milestones in a specific order. In the writing world, these measures of success have until fairly recently been getting an MFA, finding an agent, getting traditionally published, and hitting The New York Times Bestseller List. Last week we talked about the risks of an MFA and an agent. This week, we are going to talk about two more of those writing markers of prestige, getting traditionally published and having a book land on The New York Times Bestseller List. Why are they no longer as important? What should you devote your energy and focus to instead? So let's start with looking at getting traditionally published. Most writers have dreamed of seeing their book for sale and traditional publishing for a long time has been the only route to this path. Until about 15 years ago, traditional publishing was the way that a majority of authors made their living. Now that big name authors like Hugh Howie, Andy Weir, and Colleen Hoover have had success starting as self-published authors (or in the case of authors Sarah J. Maas and Ali Hazelwood, fan fiction authors) and then are getting traditional publishing deals made for them for their self-published works. It's proof that self-publishing is no longer a sign that the author isn't good enough to be published traditionally. Previous to the rise of the Kindle, that was a common belief that if you were self-published, it was because you were not good enough to get traditionally published. That was sort of this pernicious belief that traditional publishing was a meritocracy, when in fact it tended to be based on who you knew. But that was all 15 years ago and now we are well into the age of self-publishing. Why do authors still want to be traditionally published when in my frank opinion, self-publishing is the better path? Well, I think there are three main reasons for that. One of the main reasons is that the authors say they want to be traditionally published is to have someone else handle the marketing and the advertising. They don't realize how meager marketing budgets and staffing support are, especially for unknown authors. Many traditionally published authors are handling large portions of their own marketing and hiring publicists out of their own pocket because publishers are spending much less on marketing. The new reality is that traditional publishers aren't going to do much for you as a debut author unless you are already a public figure. Even traditionally published authors are not exempt from having to do their own marketing now. James Patterson set up an entire company himself to handle his marketing. Though, to be fair to James Patterson, his background was in advertising before he came into publishing, so he wasn't exactly a neophyte in the field, but you see more and more traditionally published authors who you think would be successful just discontented with the system and starting to dabble in self-publishing or looking at alternative publishers like Aethon Books and different arrangements of publishing because the traditional system is just so bad for writers. The second main reason authors want to be traditionally published is that they want to avoid the financial burden of publishing. This is an outdated way of thinking. The barrier to publishing these days is not so much financial as it is knowledge. In fact, I published a book entirely using free open source software in 2017 just to prove that it could be done. It was Silent Order: Eclipse Hand, the fourth book in my science fiction series. I wrote it on Ubuntu using Libre Office and I edited it in Libre Office and I did the formatting on Ubuntu and I did the cover in the GIMP, which is a free and open source image editing program. This was all using free software and I didn't have to pay for the program. Obviously I had to pay for the computer I was using and the Internet connection, but in the modern era, having an internet connection is in many ways almost a requirement, so that's the cost you would be paying anyway. The idea that you must spend tens of thousands of dollars in formatting, editing, cover, and marketing comes from scammy self-publishing services. Self-publishing, much like traditional publishing, has more than its fair share of scams or from people who aren't willing to take the time to learn these skills and just want to cut someone a check to solve the problem. There are many low cost and effective ways to learn these skills and resources designed specifically for authors. People like Joanna Penn have free videos online explaining how to do this, and as I've said, a lot of the software you can use to self-publish is either free or low cost, and you can get some very good programs like Atticus or Vellum or Jutoh for formatting eBooks for very low cost. The third reason that writers want to be traditionally published is that many believe they will get paid more this way, which is, unless you are in the top 1% of traditionally published authors, very wrong. Every so often, there's a study bemoaning the fact that most publishers will only sell about $600 worth of any individual book, and that is true of a large percentage of traditionally published books. Traditional publishers typically pay a lump sum called advance, and then royalties based on sales. An average advance is about the same as two or three months of salary from an office job and so not a reflection of the amount of time it typically takes most authors to finish a book. Most books do not earn out their advance, which means the advance is likely to be the only money the author receives for the book. Even well-known traditionally published authors are not earning enough to support themselves as full-time authors. So as you can see, all three of these reasons are putting a lot of faith in traditional publishers, faith that seems increasingly unnecessary or downright misplaced. I think it is very healthy to get rid of the idea that good writing comes from traditional publishers and that the prestige of being traditionally published is the only way you'll be accepted as a writer or be able to earn a living as a full-time writer. I strongly recommend that people stop thinking that marketing is beneath you as an author or too difficult to learn. Whether you are indie or tradpub, you are producing a product that you want to sell, thus you are a businessperson. The idea that only indie authors have to sell their work is outdated. The sooner you accept this reality, the more options you will have. Self-publishing and indie publishing are admittedly more work. However, the benefits are significant. Here are five benefits of self-publishing versus traditional publishing. The first advantage of self-publishing is you have complete creative control. You decide what the content of your book will be; you decide what the cover will be. If you don't want to make the covers yourself or you don't want to learn how to do that, you can very affordably hire someone to do it for you and they will make the cover exactly to your specifications. You also have more freedom to experiment with cross-genre books. As I've mentioned before, publishers really aren't a fan of cross genre books until they make a ton of money, like the new romantasy trend. Traditional publishing is very trend driven and cautious. Back in the 2000s before I gave up on traditional publishing and discovered self-publishing, I would submit to agents a lot. Agents all had these guidelines for fantasy saying that they didn't want to see stories with elves and orcs and dwarves and other traditional fantasy creatures because they thought that was passe. Well, when I started self-publishing, I thought I'm going to write a traditional fantasy series with elves and orcs and dwarves and other traditional fantasy creatures just because I can and Frostborn has been my bestselling series of all time in the time I've been self-publishing, so you can see the advantages of having creative control. The second advantage is you can control the marketing. Tradpub authors often sign a contract that they'll get their social media and website content approved by the publisher before posting. They may even be given boilerplate or pre-written things to post. In self-publishing, you have real time data to help you make decisions and adjust ads and overall strategy on the fly to maximize revenue. For example, if one of your books is selling strangely well on Google Play, it's time to adjust BookBub ads to focus on that platform instead of Amazon. You can also easily change your cover, your blurb, and so forth after release. I've changed covers of some of my books many times trying to optimize them for increased sales and that is nearly impossible to do with traditional publishing. And in fact, Brandon Sanderson gave a recent interview where he talked about how the original cover of his Mistborn book was so unrelated to the content of the book that it almost sunk the book and hence his career. You also have the ability to run ad campaigns as you see fit, not just an initial launch like tradpub does. For example, in February 2025, I've been heavily advertising my Demonsouled series even though I finished writing that series back in 2013, but I've been able to increase sales and derive a significant profit from those ads. A third big advantage is that you get a far greater share of the profits. Most of the stores, if you price an ebook between $2.99 (prices are USD) and $9.99, you will get 70% of the sale price, which means if you sell an ebook for $4.99, you're probably going to get about $3.50 per sale (depending on currency fluctuations and so forth). That is vastly more than you would get from any publishing contract. You also don't have to worry about the publisher trying to cheat you out of royalties. We talked about an agency stealing money last episode. Every platform you publish your book on, whether Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Smashwords and Apple will give you a monthly spreadsheet of your sales and then you can look at it for yourself, see exactly how many books you sold and exactly how much money you're going to get. I have only very rarely seen traditional publishing royalty statements that are as clear and have as much data in them as a spreadsheet from Google Play or Amazon. A fourth advantage is you don't have to worry about publishers abandoning you mid-series. In traditional publishing, there is what's called the Publishing Death Spiral where let's say an author is contracted to write a series of five books. The author writes the first book and it sells well. Then the author publishes the second book and it doesn't sell quite as well, but the publisher is annoyed enough by the decrease in sales that they drop the writer entirely and don't finish the series. This happens quite a bit in the traditional publishing world, and you don't have to worry about that in indie publishing because you can just publish as often as you want. If you're not happy with the sales of the first few books in the series, you can change the covers, try ad campaigns, and other strategies. Finally, you can publish as often as you want and when you want. In traditional publishing, there is often a rule of thumb that an author should only publish one book a year under their name. Considering that last year I published 10 books under my name, that seems somewhat ridiculous, but that's a function of the fact that traditional publishing has only so much capacity and the pieces of the machine involved there are slow and not very responsive. Whereas with self-publishing, you have much more freedom and everything involved with it is much more responsive. There's no artificial deadlines, so you can take as long as you want to prepare it and if the book is ready, you don't have to wait a year to put it out because it would mess up the publisher's schedule. So what to do instead of chasing traditional publishing? Learn about self-publishing, especially about scams and bad deals related to it. Publish your own works by a platform such as KDP, Barnes and Noble Press, Kobo Writing Life, Apple Books, Google Play, Smashwords, and possibly your own Payhip and/or Shopify store. Conquer your fear of marketing and advertising. Even traditionally published authors are shouldering more of this work and paying out of their own pocket to hire someone to do it, and if you are paying your own marketing costs, you might as well self-publish and keep a greater share of the profits. The second half of our main topic, another potential risk of prestige, is getting on The New York Times Bestseller List. I should note that I suppose someone could accuse me of sour grapes here saying, oh, Jonathan Moeller, you've never been on The New York Times Bestseller List. You must just be bitter about it. That is not true. I do not want to be on The New York Times Bestseller List. What I would like to be is a number one Amazon bestseller. Admittedly though, that's unlikely, but a number one Amazon bestseller would make a lot more money than a number one New York Times Bestseller List, though because of the way it works, if you are a number one Amazon bestseller, you might be a New York Times Bestseller, but you might not. Let's get into that now. Many writers have the dream of seeing their name on the New York Times Bestseller List. One self-help guru wrote about “manifesting” this milestone for herself by writing out the words “My book is number one on The New York Times Bestseller List” every day until it happened. Such is the mystique of this milestone that many authors crave it as a necessity. However, this list has seen challenges to its prestige in recent years. The one thing that shocks most people when they dig into the topic is that the list is not an objective list based on the raw number of books sold. The list is “editorial content” and The New York Times can exclude, include, or rank the books on the list however they choose. What it does not capture is perennial sellers or classics. For example, the Bible and the Quran are obviously some of the bestselling books of all time, but you won't see editions of the Bible or the Quran on the New York Times Bestseller List. Textbooks and classroom materials, I guarantee there are some textbooks that are standards in their field that would be on the bestseller list every year, but they're not because The New York Times doesn't track them. Ebooks available only from a single vendor such as Kindle Unlimited books, ebook sales from not reporting vendors such as Shopify or Payhip. Reference Works including test prep guides (because I guarantee when test season comes around the ACT and SAT prep guides or the GRE prep guides sell a lot of copies) and coloring books or puzzle books. It would be quite a blow to the authors on the list to realize that if these excluded works were included on the list, they would in all likelihood be consistently below To Kill a Mockingbird, SAT prep books, citation manuals, Bibles/other religious works, and coloring books about The Eras Tour. Publishers, political figures, religious groups, and anyone with enough money can buy their way into the rank by purchasing their books in enormous quantities. In fact, it's widely acknowledged in the United States that this is essentially a legal form of bribery and a bit of money laundering too, where a publisher will give a truly enormous advance to a public figure or politician that they like, and that advance will essentially be a payment to that public figure in the totally legal form of an enormous book advance that isn't going to pay out. Because this is happening with such frequency, The New York Times gave into the pressure to acknowledge titles suspected of this strategy with a special mark next to it on the list. However, these books remain on the list and can still be called a New York Times Bestseller. Since the list is not an objective marker of sales and certainly not some guarantee of quality, why focus on making it there? I think trying to get your book on The New York Times Bestseller List would be an enormous waste of time, since the list is fundamentally an artificial construction that doesn't reflect sales reality very well. So what can you do instead? Focus on raw sales numbers and revenue, not lists. Even Amazon's bestseller category lists have a certain amount of non-quantitative factors. In the indie author community, there's a saying called Bank not Rank, which means you should focus on how much revenue your books are actually generating instead of whatever sales rank they are on whatever platform. I think that's a wiser approach to focus your efforts. You can use lists like those from Publishers Weekly instead if you're interested in what's selling or trends in the industry, although that too can be manipulated and these use only a fairly small subset of data that favors retail booksellers, but it's still more objective in measuring than The New York Times. I suppose in the end, you should try and focus on ebook and writing activities that'll bring you actual revenue or satisfaction rather than chasing the hollow prestige of things like traditional publishing, agents, MFAs, and The New York Times Bestseller List. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

united states amazon apple internet bible battle ghosts new york times focus bank epic trap act traditional lord of the rings sword knight google play ebooks writers shield publishers previous kindle escaping conquer rank usd shopify tolkien mfa assembly bibles barnes and noble prestige publish quran mockingbird ubuntu cloak textbooks new york times bestseller sorcery eras tour coupon terry pratchett publishers weekly andy weir to kill prehistoric james patterson brandon sanderson quint john f kobo colleen hoover gre kindle unlimited apple books sarah j maas gimp robert e howard book two kdp dresden files mistborn ali hazelwood traditional publishing smashwords libreoffice joanna penn bookbub dragonfire new york times bestseller list michael moorcock litrpg best seller list vellum mfas jack vance inheritance cycle kobo writing life belgariad even amazon caina week now fritz lieber

47: Ep. 47 - "The Problem with Goddexes" by Merim "Spar" Felspar

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2025 80:10

Vellum & Spar go undercover on a trip to visit Gladia before going after the remaining stamps. Ila Alexei is Agent Kaolin Vellum and our artist Essay Mnktl is Agent Merim Felspar and our editor Jordan Quiverns is everyone else and our GM Subscribe to our Patreon for bonus episodes, maps, and short fiction set in the world of our podcast! Talk to the cast and other fans on our Discord! The People, Places, and Things of Three of Hearts! Follow us on Tumblr! Our music was provided by Louie Zong.

talk hearts discord places tumblr spar vellum louie zong

Episode 235: 5 Reasons To Buy Direct From Authors

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2025 22:39

In this week's episode, we take a look at five reasons to buy direct from authors through platforms such as Shopify and Payhip. We also take a look at my choice of computing platforms for 2025. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Tombs, Book #3 in the Ghost Armor series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: TOMBS50 The coupon code is valid through February 7, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for next week's cold weather, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 235 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January the 17th, 2025 and today we are discussing the advantages of buying direct from the author. I will also share an update on what I've done for my writing computers this year and we also have Coupon of the Week, Question of the Week, and an update on my current writing projects. So let's get right to it. Let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code is for the audiobook of Ghost in the Tombs, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. That is Book Three of the Ghost Armor series, and this coupon will get you 50% off the audiobook at my Payhip store: TOMBS50. This coupon code will be valid through February 7, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for next week's cold weather, we have got you covered. Now let's share an update on my current writing projects. As of this recording, I am 116,000 words into Shield of Deception, which puts me on chapter 28 of 31. So I'm hoping before too much longer I will be able to be done with the rough draft, which I think I'm hoping I'm going to be able to finish it on Monday the 20th if all goes well, but we'll see how things work out. I think it's going to end up being around 125,000 words, which will make it the longest book in the Shield War series and probably the longest book I've written since the end of my Dragontiarna series back in 2021. I kind of wanted a break from really long, complex epic fantasy, but I had my break. I'm rested and now we're doing it again. I'm also 13,000 words into Ghost in the Tombs, which will be the fourth book in the Ghost Armor series, and I'm hoping to have that out in March and Shield Deception out in February. In audiobook news, Cloak of Masks is entirely done and working its way through processing. As I mentioned last week, it should be up on a couple of the stores like Google Play, Kobo, and Chirp, though it is not up on Audible yet. On Audible, though, is Ghost Armor Omnibus One (again narrated by Hollis McCarthy). That is an omnibus bundle of the first three books in the Ghost Armor series. That is available in audio at Audible, Amazon, and Apple. If you're on Audible, it is 31 hours of listening for just one credit, which in my opinion is a pretty good deal. That is where I'm at with my current writing projects. 00:02:32 Question of the Week Now let's move on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended for enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question: what is your favorite Mexican dish? No wrong answers, including not enjoying Mexican food. A little bit about semantics. I'm aware that Mexican food is a very broad net and like all such definitions is prone to a substantial bit of haziness. Mexican cuisine is not the same as Tex-Mex, which is not the same as Puerto Rican cuisine, which is not the same as Guatemalan cuisine and so on. And the various regions of Mexico itself all have their own distinct culinary traditions. But this is true of all cuisines. By Mexican food, I mean Mexican food as it is generally defined in the United States, which tends to be an assemblage of various foods from the American Southwest, Mexico, and Latin America. And as you might expect, we had numerous responses. Our first response is from Justin who says: We have taco night here once a week or so, but no actual tacos are used. A pan of seasoned crumbled hamburger meat along with standard toppings is available for folks to make what they want. That generally becomes beef and cheese burritos and taco salad (regular bowl, corn chips added as desired). Hollis (who narrates the Ghost and Cloak audiobooks as we as mentioned) says: Quesadillas. Taste decadent but can pack in healthy spinach and peppers and whole wheat tortillas with decadent meat and cheese. Juana says: burritos, loaded! Tracy says: chicken and guacamole with roasted veggies. Becca says: Chile en nogada, basically a meat stuffed grilled chili. I have had it with chicken and beef, usually comes with pomegranate or other fruit containing sauce. John says: Three barbacoa tacos with cilantro, onion and the green salsa and three beef fajita tacos the same way. With large horchata from a sketchy food truck usually found in front of the local tire shop. I have to say some of the best Mexican food I've had has come from somewhat sketchy food trucks in front of local tire shops. Bob says: Any kind of mole. One nearby restaurant had a duck mole that was excellent. A different John says: I'm always searching for a great cheese enchilada. At least three, please. Cheryl says: Never had Mexican, so can't comment. Jenny says: Queso dip, especially when it's got beef and chili seasoning (not like chili peppers, but the southwest chili seasoning and beef). Scott says: Anything Al Pastor (burritos taco, et cetera). Steve says: Fish tacos, any way I can get them. Yet another John says: Brisket quesadillas. I've actually had those and they're very good. Andrew Abbott says: Quesadilla. Gary says: Al pastor. Mandy says: Carnitas. For myself, I think my favorite would be arroz con pollo with mushrooms. Tasty, very filling, and so long as you don't go too heavy on the cheese, it's not too terribly bad for you. I've had a couple of different variations of it, including one that had carrots and I admit I was dubious when it came out with carrots in the arroz con pollo, but it was really good. Steak fajitas would be a close second in my Mexican food preference list. The inspiration for this question was that I made homemade nachos for dinner twice this week and I also made tacos twice for dinner this week because if you make up enough taco mix, you can get a couple of meals out of it. So that's it for Question of the Week. 00:05:37 Work Computers/Writing Computer for 2025 Now I thought I'd talk a little bit about what I'm going to use for a computer in 2025. The reason for this is a couple of weeks ago, I posted a meme about choosing a new computer on Facebook and promptly forgot I had done so, but then I looked back a week and a half later to see it had gone viral and people are still arguing about the best computer in the comments, which is good summary of social media, isn't it? You can carefully consider a 1,500 word post that will get like three likes at the most but toss a meme up and forget about it and you'll come back in a week to see it had thousands of views and almost 300 comments, all of them arguing for or against specific computing platforms. So that is the reason I thought I would share what I actually picked for my computing needs in 2025. Three caveats: One, for your own computing requirements, pick whatever meets your needs and that your budget will allow. Windows, Mac OS, Linux, a tablet, whatever. It doesn't really matter. Honestly, I think 90% of people can do 95% of what they need in a web browser nowadays anyway and maybe use a cheap laser printer to print something out like every other month or so. I recently helped an elderly relative with a computer problem and she does about 95% of her computer needs on her Kindle Fire tablet and only breaks out her laptop when a webpage doesn't render properly on mobile. She can even print from her Kindle Fire. That said, I definitely fall into that 10% that cannot use a web browser for everything. Caveat two, my objective isn't to have the best computer or the most powerful computer, it's to have the computer that will be the most efficient in helping me write and publish books. And finally, caveat three. I worked for a long, long time in IT support and I did in fact write an internationally bestselling book about the Linux command line. I have done tech support for operating systems that no longer exist. Remember Windows CE on phones, Palm OS, Windows Phone, getting Mac OSX to talk to Windows Print Services, getting Mac OSX to talk to Active Directory, and Windows Millennium Edition (ugh)? I remember them and none too fondly. That means whatever objection you may have to Windows, Mac OS, Linux, or any other operating system, I probably know about it already have personally experienced it and have in fact tried to fix it while on the phone with someone having a panic attack about that particular problem. So with all that in mind, this is what I will use for computers in 2025 and hopefully for several years longer than that. For my writing/editing computer, I have picked a Mac mini M4. I've mentioned before that I'm increasingly unhappy with Windows 11 because of Microsoft's turn towards AI. I thought long and hard about either Linux or Mac OS and in the end, I decided on Mac OS because I have several subcontractors who all use Excel. Granted, you can install Excel on a Linux system with an emulation layer, but it never works 100% right. Some of the more advanced Excel stuff, which I do use, freaks out with it. There are a number of excellent spreadsheet programs available for Linux as well, but none of them have 100% compatibility with Excel, which is what I need. Additionally for ebook and paperback formatting, I use Vellum, which is Mac only. I have been very happy with Vellum since 2018, which means I've it to format around 60 different eBooks and paperbacks. So based on all that, I chose the Mac mini M4. I've been reasonably happy with it so far, since I've written about half of Shield of Deception on it. It's quite fast, which shows there are some advantages to the same company producing the CPU and the operating system. Microsoft Word is definitely faster on the M4 and the M Series Macs than it was on the Intel based Macs. I wasn't expecting this, but the overall lack of distraction in Mac OS is nice. It's very unobtrusive. Windows 11 is a very cluttered environment by default with lots of distractions and it is very annoying how Microsoft has been encrusting ads throughout the operating system. You can turn on quiet mode of course, but it's pleasant to have the overall lack of distraction be the default. So the Mac mini M4 will be the computer I use for writing, editing and book layout, but that's not all I do. My everything else computer will be a Windows 11 Intel Core I7 desktop. My previous computer before the Mac mini, a Windows 11 box with Intel Core I7, will also remain in use. The thing about being an indie publisher is that writing and editing isn't all I do. I do my own covers now, which means Photoshop and DAZ3D. Both of those applications are big, fat memory hogs. I definitely did not want to shell out the money for a Mac with that much memory. There's also advertising, which means a lot of spreadsheets and using Photoshop to make those ad images and other miscellaneous tasks like recording expenses, web design, audio proofing, podcast recording, and so forth. In fact, I'm recording this podcast on that computer right now, so my Windows 11 box is now my everything else computer. It doesn't have an NPU chip, which means that Windows 11's more odious features like Recall won't work on it, therefore I plan to nurse it along as long as possible. I have to admit there was an unanticipated pleasant psychological effect to this. When I write, I go to my writing computer and when I need to do something else, I use my everything else computer, so it's easier to avoid getting distracted by something else I need to do while I'm writing. I should mention gaming. I don't really use desktop computers for gaming any longer. They're for work. If there's a PC game I want to play, it needs to be able to run on my laptop while I sit on my couch. Otherwise, it's not going to happen. In the past five years, I spent more time playing games on the Switch and the Xbox than on desktop PC. So that is my computer plan for 2025, write on the Mac, do everything else on the PC. I should mention that the day before I started recording this, Microsoft pushed out an update that added this big ugly Copilot AI button to Word and Excel. So while I'm going to finish Shield of Deception in Microsoft Word, I am probably going to write Ghost in the Assembly in either Libre Office Writer or maybe MobiOffice. I need something that's cross compatible between Windows and Mac, so I'll be investigating other word processor options with all this Copilot stuff they're jamming into Word, but in the end, I'm grateful I'm able to use two different desktop computers and hopefully I will use these computers to produce many good books for you to read in 2025. 00:12:00 Main Topic of the Week: 5 Reasons You Should Buy Direct from Authors Now on to our main topic, five reasons you should buy direct from authors. What do we mean by selling direct? It's when the author has his or her own store hosted on a site like Shopify or Payhip that allows the author to sell eBooks, audiobooks, and sometimes paperbacks direct to readers. I should mention this is not intended in any way to be shaming or bullying. If you are most comfortable buying your eBooks from Amazon or Kobo or Apple Books or Google or any other platform, that is what you should do. This is just to talk about the advantages for both readers and writers for buying direct from authors. Payhip and Shopify are the two most popular platforms for selling direct to readers. I use Payhip since I'm mostly interested in selling eBooks and audiobooks direct and not paperbacks. You can actually look at my Payhip store, which is https://payhip.com/jonathanmoeller. The links are also available on my website and indeed in the show notes for the show for Coupon of the Week. So why even bother with direct sales when most people are now locked into a platform like Amazon or Kobo and their libraries? Why take the time to convince readers to buy directly from the author? What are the advantages to the author and more importantly, what are the advantages to the reader? And there are five of them, which we'll discuss now. #1: Faster access to new releases. The reason Payhip is always the first platform to become available for one of my new books by about a day or so is that when a new title releases, it's because I'm uploading it myself. With Amazon or other sites, my books are essentially put into a line with many, many other titles and I can't control or predict when it will become available for customers. Various stores can take longer to process or be unavailable/down when a new book releases. Kobo glitched quite badly at various points throughout 2024. In 2021, Barnes and Noble suffered a ransomware attack that blocked the ability to upload new books to the platform for about a month, and all the other stores have had various technical glitches throughout time. That's just the nature of running a large website, but having a site like Payhip gives me a place where people can turn to when it happens. Quite a few people bought Cloak of Illusion from Payhip because Kobo was down for a week when I was trying to upload the book to the site. #2: The second reason, which is a big advantage for both readers and writers, is that I can control discounts and permafree so it's easier to get discounts from an author's store. It's easier to provide discounts on Payhip because I'm getting a higher profit margin. Even with the 50% discount on Ghost in the Tombs we mentioned this week, I still would make from that discounted audiobook more than on Audible and pretty close to what I get from some of the more generous sites like Chirp or Google Play or Kobo. Just like with the uploads, I also have complete control over when the discounts happen on Payhip. Otherwise, as I mentioned earlier, I'm at the mercy of when the uploaded book processes on various stores, just like with release dates. It's hard to promote discounts or short-term freebies on those other platforms because the price change move slowly (and often unreliably) there, whereas they're instant on Payhip. Payhip is also my hub for providing free content to my readers beyond my Permafree series starters. Keep an eye on my blog and Facebook page for Coupon of the Week, where as I mentioned earlier in the show, I give out codes with steep discounts for my Payhip store. I also provide free short stories on my Payhip store for a limited time when new books release. Subscribe to my newsletter if you'd like to know when those free short stories become available. I also make a dozen older short stories (both ebook and audiobook) free on my Payhip at the end of each year, an event called 12 Days of Short Story Christmas. If you follow my website and blog, you might remember that from recently. It would take too much time away from writing to do all these things on all the other platforms, and it often isn't technically possible. Using Payhip frees up my time to do more writing instead of trying to work with the tech support of six different vendors when something doesn't switch price in time to run a specific promotion. #3: A third advantage, and that is a big advantage for readers, is I am not interested in your data and I am not spying on you the way that a large e-commerce site might be. Payhip basically just shows me the buyer's email for an individual's data. I can't see any other purchases you make. I can't see any individual demographic data and I can't see anything that would be uncomfortable for me to know. Basically all I see is your email address and your geographic location (your rough geographic location), which obviously the store needs in order to calculate sales tax liability. I intentionally set up the Payhip store so that you don't need a user account to buy books or audiobooks there. We also try and turn off the more annoying site settings like follow up emails that request reviews. Even the aggregate data on the Payhip app dashboard is extremely limited compared to other platforms. I can see a map shaded in with countries of visitors, which isn't accurate or useful in an age where you can use a VPN to switch your location with the click of a button. [We can see] if users are accessing the link directly from a Google search and the raw number of clicks on the page. Compared to the amount of data collected by other sites, [that is very minimal]. For example, other sites can show that men ages 23 to 28 who like Taylor Swift, own a cat, and live in Canada are looking at your page at midnight on Tuesday. That is much less data than Payhip collects, so therefore, if you're concerned about data privacy, Payhip is a stronger choice than most other ebook and audiobook platforms. For details about what Payhip tracks separate from what the individual author does, check out their privacy policy. #4: The fourth advantage is the reader gets a choice of file formats and you can send files to another ebook library. With Amazon or indeed any of the other ebook stores, you get your chosen format for an ebook and can't switch that format without using third party software. At my Payhip store, you get three ebook formats: epub, PDF, and when possible, the ancient .mobi format (which is kinda depreciated and gradually going away). I've noticed that people who like PDFs really like PDFs, and so if you want your ebook in PDF form, you can get them in PDF form from my Payhip store. Having a choice of different file formats allows you to more easily import the books into the platforms you already use like Kindle or Kobo. It's a pretty simple process to send files to your Kindle, Kobo, iPad, or other device so you have access to them in your library there. All my eBooks are integrated with Book Funnel, so if you have a Book Funnel account, they automatically show up in your library. Book Funnel also has directions for sideloading the files onto your various devices. #5: The fifth advantage, and this is a really big one for readers, is all the files you buy from me on Payhip are DRM free files that you can self-archive. Digital rights management limits your ability to transfer books and audiobooks through apps, devices, and so forth. It controls the way that you access things you have purchased. It's often said that you don't buy digital content, you have a conditional lease on it that's controlled by the platform you buy it from. The content that you buy can disappear, especially when a platform is sold or closes. We've all heard horror stories of people whose accounts at various online retailers get closed for some reason, and then they lose their access to the library of any media they have purchased there or a platform can go out of business. There was a minor, well, actually a fairly major scandal a few years ago when a romance themed ebook store went out of business and everyone lost their access to their libraries. And for a while Microsoft was offering eBooks for sale through the Edge browser, but as we know, Microsoft tends to change mind about things a lot, and that went away and eventually people lost their ability to access any eBooks they had purchased through the Microsoft store. And this isn't even the first time Microsoft did this. Way back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, Microsoft was trying to be become a music retailer to compete with Apple's iTunes store, and they used a kind of a DRM called Play For Sure. Eventually they got out of that business and shut down Play For Sure's servers and anyone who had purchased music locked to that DRM could no longer play it. Our Payhip store has DRM free files. These allow you to store and archive the files separate from the ebook and audiobook stores so that doesn't happen. It allows you to actually own the content that you buy and build a library that best suits your needs. So that way, if for some reason (let's say for example, your audiobook store account gets hacked and you get locked out of it), you won't lose all your eBooks that you bought through my Payhip store if you downloaded them and stored them on a local storage device or some other kind of archive system. One final advantage that is more for the author than for the reader, it is a better profit margin for direct sales than is for any of the other stores. The best percentage you can get in the ebook sales on any of the other stores is Amazon, which offers 70% for eBooks between $2.99 and $9.99. Whereas with Payhip, I get about 85% of each sale (minus sales tax and credit card processing fees). The Coupons of the Week we have been doing so far this year are a good example of that. I'm selling the Ghost audiobooks connected with the coupon for 50% off and the standard sales price is $11.99, which means you get them for about $5.99. Even though that's cheap, I still get almost as much money from a $5.99 sale than I would from a purchase on Audible or any of the other major audiobook platforms. Those are five reasons to buy direct from an author. I should note, it's just not good for the author. It offers many advantages for the reader as well. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the backup episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

46: Ep. 46 - Building Bridges and Burning Them

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 26, 2024 83:00

Content Warning: Truly terrible dad. Ila's Links: Beloved Asheville Art Garden - Their Gofundme Donate to Ila Directly - Ila's shop The agents gain a greater understanding of their companions, while reaffirming distaste for someone Spar used to know. Vellum finds his mentor a muffin; Max comes out in more ways than one; Spar talks in his sleep. Ila Alexei is Agent Kaolin Vellum and our artist Essay Mnktl is Agent Merim Felspar and our editor Jordan Quiverns is everyone else and our GM Subscribe to our Patreon for bonus episodes, maps, and short fiction set in the world of our podcast! Talk to the cast and other fans on our Discord! The People, Places, and Things of Three of Hearts! Follow us on Tumblr! Our music was provided by Louie Zong.

talk hearts discord burning places tumblr building bridges spar ila vellum louie zong

#235 Raj Zsuzsanna és Szilvia

MÃ“KA Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2024 36:41

spotify google podcasts tarts zsuzsanna vellum szilvia zenei sziget fesztiv

Julianna Muir, Founder & CEO at Vellum Insurance - PIR Ep. 599

Profiles in Risk

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 29, 2024 35:00

Tony chats with Julianna Muir, Founder & CEO at Vellum Insurance, they are a data and analytics platform purpose-built for the insurance industry, specifically for insurance and reinsurance companies who receive bordereaus. They help ingest, validate, standardize and aggregate that information, and then add a powerful analytics layer on top. This allows their clients to go from a reactive position to more of a proactive portfolio management relationship with their partners. After almost 600 episodes I don't remember a single episode about bordereau related technology so this is very exciting!Julianna Muir: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julmuir/Vellum Insurance: https://www.velluminsurance.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/cJ2Sxj8UE0sRumi.aiAll-in-one meeting tool with real-time transcription & searchable Meeting Memory™

ceo founders insurance muir vellum

45: Ep. 45 - Breaking Ties

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2024 69:05

The agents take shifts watching over their sleeping companions, and have some life-changing conversations while they're at it. Spar gets to know a relentless foe; Vellum gets to know himself. Ila Alexei is Agent Kaolin Vellum and our artist Essay Mnktl is Agent Merim Felspar and our editor Jordan Quiverns is everyone else and our GM Subscribe to our Patreon for bonus episodes, maps, and short fiction set in the world of our podcast! Talk to the cast and other fans on our Discord! The People, Places, and Things of Three of Hearts! Follow us on Tumblr! Our music was provided by Louie Zong.

talk hearts discord places tumblr ties spar vellum louie zong

44: Ep. 44 - Time Out