Wish I'd Known Then . . . For Writers Using Ads to Sell Books, Working with Co-Authors, and Creating a Literary Universe with Mal Cooper
Episode 025 / Science fiction author Malorie Cooper joins Jami and Sara this week to talk about advertising as well as the pros and cons of co-authoring books. They also dive into how Mal created a massive literary universe and Mal’s non-fiction books for authors. You can find show notes and links at wishidknownforwriters.com.
In the intro, Jami talks about her launch, which is happening today! (Congrats!) Jami also shared the title of a book Sara saw mentioned on The Creative Penn’s Twitter feed: 1000 character Reactions from Head to Toe by Valerie Howard.
Sara can see the end in sight for the first draft of what she thought would be a “short 40,000” Christmas mystery. (Current word count is 45,000 and climbing!)
Both Jami and Sara recommend the Six Figure Author podcast with David Gaughran, who has a new update out for Let’s Get Digital.
In this podcast episode, you’ll discover:
- Why using tropes in ads can be game-changing
- How reading helped Mal learn how to write and meet reader expectations
- Challenges around using action tags
- Inexpensive ways to gain readers
- How Mal went against type with a cover style and how it paid off
- Testing Mal’s done around pricing
- Calculating read-through and using it to assess the best price points for books
- What Mal wishes she’d known about also-boughts as well as the importance of the quality of the traffic you send to your sales page
- Mal’s experiment of going wide
- Tips for working with co-authors
- How Mal created a sprawling literary universe
Genres discussed include science fiction, space opera, military science fiction, and hard science fiction.
Links:
🚀 Jami’s Launch Plan https://www.jamialbright.com/authorservices
❤️ Jami’s books https://amzn.to/3wSraA5
🔎 Sara’s books https://www.sararosett.com/bibliography/
📚 Sara’s How to Write a Series book and audiobook: https://www.sararosett.com/how-to-write-a-series/
The Big List of Craft and marketing books mentioned on WIKT podcast episodes https://bookshop.org/lists/recommenced-resources-for-writers-from-the-wish-i-d-known-then-podcast
Resources from the Author and Reader Community to Help Ukrainians https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E9QQhmcpa_dlxQY-GEqBiIbIZk-_J1MgQX_BxLI3F84/edit?usp=sharing