Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

EP 361 - The Author Wheel with Greta Boris and Megan Haskell

May 23, 2024

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Mark interviews Greta Boris and Megan Haskell of The Author Wheel.

Prior to the interview Mark shares a brief personal update and a word from this episode's sponsor.

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

This episode is sponsored by ScribeCount (affiliate link). Spend less time logging in to multiple platforms and crunching numbers, and more time writing and marketing your books thanks to ScribeCount’s handy all-in-one interface.

In the interview Mark, Greta, and Megan talk about:

How Megan started writing as a creative outlet when she was working for a major accounting firm
The writing done on the train on the way in to work in Los Angeles and the blogs she had written
Continuing writing after having her daughter in 2012 and then publishing her first book before her second child was born
Greta's magazine background (her father was an editor and publisher of some major magazines back in the day)
The writing she did for a number of magazines over the years and the various genres and topics she took on
Being inspired by interviewing a bunch of fiction authors, including Joanna Penn
How Greta got her first publisher doing a Twitter pitch
Twitter pitches being really good for writing log lines
Megan and Greta's "meet cute" at the Southern California Writer's Conference in 2014
Pitching a course to that conference at a later date so they could attend it again without having to pay which got turned into a book (Publish: Take Charge of Your Author Career)
How they started The Author Wheel courses, podcast, and other resources
The metaphors for The Author Wheel
The way they try to break topics down into the smallest bits possible to simplify people
Why it's helpful to recognize that authors are all at different places and there are so many different paths and choices an author can make
Their course Trope Stacking and Other Genre Magic which is a companion to a quick-guide Understanding Your Genre
Greta's pioneering with writing a book she felt was a "Cozy Horror" novel
Strategies for mixing and layering in genres that are complimentary to one another while creating something unique
How writing to an outline made Megan feel like her creativity was being stifled
The way that Megan and Greta collaborate in their writing, the podcast, the social media, and the courses
And more . . .

After the interview Mark reflects on the idea of the "Twitter pitch" and the benefit of having to craft writing that has tight restrictions as well as the importance of understanding that there's no one-size-fits-all solution, and that there's no single right way for authors to do things.

Links of Interest:

Greta Boris is a USA Today Bestselling mystery and thriller author. Megan Haskell is an award-winning fantasy adventure author. Together, they founded The Author Wheel, publishers of books, courses, and a podcast to help writers overcome roadblocks and keep their stories rolling.

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