Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

EP 360 - Foreign Rights Licensing with Roseanne Cheng of DropCap

May 17, 2024

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Mark interviews Roseanne Cheng, an award-winning author, ghostwriter, and book marketer who is passionate about educating authors and publishers about the power and opportunity of having their books elevated to the international market.

They talk about her writing life, her author mentoring life, and about how DropCap Marketplace is a great bridge between indie authors and the licensing foreign language rights through traditional agencies and book scouts.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update, comments from recent episodes, and a word from this episode's sponsor.

Learn more about this self-publishing/WIDE-publishing focused cruise.

In their interview Mark and Roseanne talk about:

Roseanne's background and passion for helping writers
The first book Roseanne published (The Take Back of Lincoln Junior High) back in 2013 when she was teaching full-time and how it will always have a special place in her heart
Working with Wise Ink Creative Publishing and the great respect that Roseanne has for the women who run that business
The various lessons learned with writing and publishing a book and how you can turn the things that you learned (via various mistakes you've made) into positives by helping others on their own journeys
Taking on the role of Marketing Director at Wise Ink by leveraging her own experiences to help shepherd other writers through the process of releasing a new book
Working with authors to create their own custom marketing plans based on their goals
Meeting and connecting with a dear friend, Josie, and teaching one another things they were each good at
Creating an online school with Josie called Evergreen Authors in about 2019
How the pandemic ended up helping these courses and various other online teaching and Roseanne's ghostwriting business to really take off
The genesis of her first book, The Take Back of Lincoln Junior High
Reading the novel after taking a long break (focusing on the endless work and much sleeplessness of raising small children) and recognizing that it was really good
How Roseanne's role as a teacher helped prepare her for the work she does in helping authors
The co-authored book BUZZ: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BOOK MARKETING
Roseanne's books THE EVERYGREEN AUTHOR: MASTER THE ART OF BOOK MARKETING and PORTABLE MAGIC
The importance of asking your readers: "Where do you buy books?"
The WIDE FOR THE WIN message of being in as many places as possibly and opening as many doors as possible and how it really resonated with Roseanne
Getting involved in the "Rights" side of publishing and the entire distribution network that she had not yet been tapped into
A story about the first time Roseanne received an email from a foreign publisher who reached out because they were interested in the foreign language rights to her work
The creation of DropCap Marketplace as a match-making service between indie authors/small publishers and agents and book scouts
The various other marketing resources available for authors on the DropCap site
How DropCap marries technology with relationship resources within the industry
The special coupon code for Stark Reflections listeners. STARK20 - to get 20% off the listing at DropCap marketplace
And more . . .

After the interview, Mark reflections on Roseanne's passion for helping writers and the importance for indie authors of recognizing where they can DIY and where they might be better off leveraging experts in a particular area of publishing.

Links of Interest:

Roseanne Cheng is an award-winning author, ghostwriter, book marketer, and Director of Business Development DropCap Rights Agency. A lifelong reader and writer, she began her work in book publishing as a Marketing Director for an indie publishing house based in Minneapolis and eventually co-founded Evergreen Authors, an online school teaching authors the business of writing and marketing their creative work. In her current role with DropCap, she has the unique pleasure of matching global rights buyers with titles that have the potential to positively impact their communities. She is passionate about educating authors and publishers about the power and opportunity of having their books elevated to the international market.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0