Write With Impact with Glenn Leibowitz

[Heads up: adult language ahead! If you've got kids listening to this with you, I suggest you press pause and find another time or place to listen to this episode] I’ve got a fun episode today. The topic? Romance fiction. My guest is Sarah Wendell. Sarah is the founder and editor of the popular romance fiction blog, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. She’s also the author of two books on the topic of romance fiction, including Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels. In our conversation, Sarah talks about: Why the romance genre deserves its rightful place among other popular fiction genres. What romance readers are looking for, and what she likes best in novels that she reads. How she created one of the most widely read blogs on romance fiction, and how she successfully monetizes it through advertising, affiliate marketing, and sponsorships. And she gives us a peek into her own writing process. ...and much, much more Find more info and links to Sarah's popular blog, podcast, and books at writewithimpact.com/episode34 Download a free ebook with writing tips at writewithimpact.com/gift Follow Write With Impact on Twitter Like Write With Impact on Facebook

Find the show notes to this episode and pick-up a free ebook with writing tips over at writewithimpact.com/episode33 This episode is all about using the power of storytelling to have more impact with your communications at work. My guest Paul Smith is the author of a bestselling book about this topic, “Lead With a Story”. Before writing his book and launching his career as a speaker and corporate trainer helping people to develop their storytelling skills, Paul headed up the market research group for a $6 billion division of consumer products giant Procter & Gamble. In his book, and on his popular podcast that goes by the same title, Paul shares stories of how people have used the power of storytelling to make break-through changes in their relationships at work, and how they’ve used storytelling to inspire others to rally around a vision or a cause, and substantially improved their ability to have impact. In addition to sharing some fascinating stories, Paul gets very practical in this episode, and shows you how, for example, you can take the typical, boring corporate email, and transform it into a powerful tool for inspiring change and encouraging the flow of innovative ideas in your organization. If you’re wondering how to have more impact as a leader and communicator - no matter how big or small your company might be - then you’ll want to hear what Paul has to say about the power of storytelling. Paul is a master at telling stories that have impact. Several of the stories he shares in his book and on his podcast are actually quite moving and as a result, truly memorable. I think you can learn a lot about the craft of storytelling and how to apply stories to your communications, whether you’re writing an email to a colleague, or writing a blog post, or preparing a presentation or speech. Find the show notes to this episode and pick-up a free ebook with writing tips over at writewithimpact.com/episode33 Follow Write With Impact on Twitter Like Write With Impact on Facebook Visit WriteWithImpact.com

Libbie Hawker is a novelist who writes historical fiction. Since launching her career, she’s published over 20 novels and novellas. In this episode, I talk to Libbie about her bestselling non-fiction book, Take Off Your Pants!: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing.  In her book, she shares the approach she uses to outline her novels. It’s an approach that has enabled her to drastically improve her writing productivity. In our conversation, we cover a lot of ground: She dives deep into the outlining approach she discusses in her book, which is essentially a method for planning your novel to ensure that it has all the elements in place for a story that your readers won’t want to put down. Libbie also shares her advice for encouraging readers to leave reviews and for dealing with negative reviews. She talks about advertising on Facebook and other sites and when the best time is to invest in advertising your books. And, Libbie talks about what it’s like to pursue a hybrid publishing strategy: while she still publishes independently, she also has a contract with a traditional publisher as well. It’s a fun conversation that’s packed with advice for novelists and non-fiction writers as well. For more information about Libbie and links to her books, check out the show notes to this episode over at writewithimpact.com/episode32. Download a free PDF with 10 writing tips at Write With Impact. Follow Write With Impact on Twitter Like Write With Impact on Facebook

Sean McCabe is a hand lettering artist, writer, podcaster, musician, and successful entrepreneur who has helped thousands of people around the world to discover what they are truly passionate about. Through his popular seanwes podcast, daily Youtube show, hand lettering course, and online community, Sean provides practical advice for creative professionals and digital entrepreneurs seeking to turn their passion into sources of additional income and even stand-alone businesses. In our conversation, Sean explains how writing has completely transformed his business and how today, writing is the source of all forms of content that he produces. Each year, Sean writes about a million words a year, words that become blog posts, podcast outlines and show notes, online course transcripts, Youtube episodes, book chapters, email newsletters, and more. He shares some of the techniques he uses for getting into a daily writing habit and for getting words down on the page quickly that you can then edit later. He also talks about what I believe is one of the most fascinating and radical experiments in work-life balance I’ve ever heard of: week-long sabbaticals that he and his team take every 7 weeks to pursue what he calls “secondary passions.” There’s a lot packed into this episode and I recommend you listen through to the end, when talks about a brand-new online writing workshop he’s preparing to launch soon: Supercharge Your Writing.   Website, Podcasts, Video seanwes website seanwes podcast seanwes tv   Courses Learn Lettering 2.0 Supercharge Your Writing Value-Based Pricing   Conference Seanwes Conference 2016   Social media @seanwes on Twitter seanwes on Instagram  

Hey everyone, This is a short "coffeecast" episode of Write With Impact. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to download and listen to my podcast. I really appreciate all of the positive feedback I've been getting lately about the podcast. Since launching Write With Impact in April, it's been downloaded tens of thousands of times. I'm very grateful for your support and I hope you continue to listen and share episodes you like with your friends. I also have a very special guest today as well... Dig into the growing archive of interviews with great writers and sign-up for my weekly newsletter over at writewithimpact.com Follow Write With Impact on Twitter @impactfulwriter Like Write With Impact on Facebook: facebook.com/WriteWithImpact Keep writing!  

Chris Fox is an indie author who has in just the past few years built a successful career as a novelist. He’s also recently begun to publish books on the craft of writing.  This is impressive enough, but what’s amazing is that he does this all while holding down a full-time job as a mobile app developer in San Francisco. Because of his busy work schedule, Chris has figured out a system for concentrating his writing time into a very short window during his morning commute to work. He only has about an hour and a half to write each day. This means he not only needs to maintain a consistent, daily writing habit, he’s also developed a system for writing really really fast.   He recently codified what he has learned about writing fast in a new book, 5,000 Words Per Hour: A Guide to Writing Faster, Better & Smarter. The book has gone on to sell thousands of copies. Since Chris is a coder, he developed a new iPhone app that accompanies the book. It allows you to track your writing sessions so you can measure your progress. And it gives you some encouragement along the way.  In our conversation, we dive deep into some of the key elements of the system he shares in his book, like timed writing sprints that enable you to put yourself into a state of flow on command. He shares how he plans his book before he starts writing, which includes what he calls “turning on the movie projector in his mind” so he can visualize the scenes that he’s about to write. He talks about the mindset shifts you need to make that will allow you to maximize your writing productivity. Since NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month - is coming up in a few weeks, Chris also shares a few tips for aspiring novelists who plan to take up the challenge. Chris told me he plans to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, but with his own twist on the challenge. What’s that? Well, just listen to the podcast and find out!   If you head over to the show notes to this episode, you’ll find links to Chris’ books on Amazon, as well as a link to his new app over on the App Store. Just head over to writewithimpact.com/episode29.  While you’re there be sure to grab some of my writing tips and sign-up for my e-newsletter so you can be the first to know when I’ve published new episodes, blog posts, and more. Follow Write With Impact on Twitter @impactfulwriter Like Write With Impact on Facebook at facebook.com/WriteWithImpact Keep writing!

Robert Gregory Browne is a novelist who heads his own publishing firm, Braun Haus Media.  Rob has been writing fiction for 30 years and has 19 novels under his belt, many of which were published by some of the biggest names in the business: St. Martin’s Press, Penguin/Dutton, and Harlequin.   Before he started writing novels, Rob worked in the movie industry as a screenwriter. His thriller, Kiss Her Goodbye was produced for television by Sony/CBS. Several years ago he won the Nicholl Fellowship for screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.  The Nicholl Fellowship is a prestigious international screenwriting competition to identify and encourage talented new screenwriters. In our conversation, Rob explains why he decided to make the leap from traditional publishing to indie publishing several years ago, and the blow-out success he had with his first indie title, Trial Junkies.  We then dive deep into one of the chapters in his new book, his first nonfiction title: Casting the Bones: An Indie Author’s Guide to the Craft of Fiction.  The chapter we pick apart: Creating Characters that Jump Off the Page. For Rob, creating great characters is of paramount importance to the success of any novel, and in our conversation he shares the techniques he uses to write characters that feel real and keep the story moving quickly.  He also discusses how he balances showing with telling, his sparse use of dialogue tags, his general aversion to creating detailed outlines, and other approaches he has developed over the course of his career. You can find the show notes to this episode with links to Rob’s website and a link to the Amazon page for Casting the Bones over at writewithimpact.com/episode28.  Like Write With Impact on Facebook Follow Write With Impact on Twitter  

Sonia Simone is Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer of Rainmaker Digital, which until recently was known as Copyblogger Media. If you’re not familiar with what they do by now, Rainmaker Digital is a highly successful digital commerce company that offers an enormous range of free and paid content, as well as platforms and solutions for digital marketers. In addition to running Rainmaker Digital with co-founder Brian Clark, and blogging on a range of topics that content marketers care about, Sonia is also the host of a podcast she launched earlier this year as part of the new Rainmaker.FM podcast network: Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer. In this conversation we cover a lot of ground. Sonia shares her advice on developing your own blogging voice, how to expand your professional network and build your audience by cultivating relationships with other writers, why you should be paying close attention to your email list to see what people are reading and sharing, and so much more.  You can find the show notes to this episode over at writewithimpact.com/episode27. There you’ll find links to Sonia’s podcast and the Copyblogger website.  While you’re there, you can also pick up some writing tips from me and join my newsletter so you can be the first to get updates on new podcast episodes, blog posts, and a number of great offers that I provide from time to time.  Follow Write With Impact on Twitter @impactfulwriter Like Write With Impact on Facebook: facebook.com/WriteWithImpact  

Today I’m really pleased to have Tim Paige on the show. Tim is the Conversion Educator at LeadPages. As he describes it, his job is to help marketers get better results with their business by building and growing their email lists.  He’s also the host of ConversionCast, an excellent podcast all about email marketing.    You’re a writer, so why should you build an email list?    That’s exactly what we cover in the first part of our conversation.  Tim explains why, as a writer, you need to build an audience that you can communicate with whenever you have something to say, share, or sell.   But we don’t stop at the why of building an email list, of course. Tim shares four strategies you can start using now to build your email list. And if you’ve already started to build a list, his strategies can help you substantially speed up the process.    He also shares a few copywriting tips for writing emails that subscribers will actually want to open and read.    Before we dive into the conversation, let me tell you about a free 9-part video course that the experts at LeadPages have put together. And it’s all about building and cultivating an email list.   You can find it by heading over to writewithimpact.com/emailcourse.    That’ll take you to the course on LeadPages’ website.  I’ve gone through it and there’s a ton of value in there, easily worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars.  And it’s entirely free.      You can also find more information about Tim with links to his website over at writewithimpact.com/episode26. There you can pick up a few of my writing tips as well.   Follow Write With Impact on Twitter @impactfulwriter   Like Write With Impact on Facebook

Back in episode 10, I spoke with Monica Leonelle, the author of Write Better, Faster. In that book she broke down the exact methods she uses to write really fast. That episode has proven to be one of the most popular I’ve published so far. I’ve invited Monica back onto the show because she’s got another book coming out this week which I think you’ll really benefit from, especially if you’re struggling to squeeze your writing into a very busy schedule. If you’re like me and you’re trying to carve out time to get your writing done while holding a full-time job or taking care of a family, it can be really tough. Monica has written a book that speaks directly to writers like us who are struggling to get our writing done while balancing our other commitments at work and at home. She calls it The 8 Minute Writing Habit: Create a Consistent Writing Habit that Works With Your Busy Lifestyle. In this book, Monica helps you tackle the mindsets that are blocking you from starting - and finishing - your writing projects. And then she offers practical strategies and tips that can help you develop a consistent writing habit. Read the show notes here Subscribe to Write With Impact on iTunes Subscribe on Stitcher Follow Write With Impact on Twitter Like Write With Impact on Facebook