The Indy Author Podcast

Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the fifth of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the topic is marketing. We talk about the difference between marketing, which is your welcoming handshake to a potential reader, and promotion, which we’ll address in the next episode. We talk about the “post-natal mania” that authors suffer after their first book, and how this “buy my book!” approach is understandable but not effective marketing. We discuss the importance of having marketing be a two-way conversation with readers. Orna offers a host of ideas for how to achieve these goals, while emphasizing that this is not a checklist to be marched through blindly, but a menu of options from which you can pick to match your strategic goals, with an eye to what will work well for you personally. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). Orna Ross is the founder and head of The Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.

Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the fourth of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the topic is distribution. As with the previous episodes in this series, we discuss ebook, print, and audio, including how to reach the most outlets in a way that is aligned with your business goals and that takes into account every indy author’s most limited resource: time. We discuss the importance of not assuming that your own reading or listening habits are necessarily the habits of the readers and listeners you want to reach. And we discuss how making your print book available on a non-Amazon distributor is necessary but not sufficient for getting your book on the shelves of brick-and-mortar bookstores. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). Orna Ross is the founder and head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.

Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the third of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing: Production. We talk about the production process for ebooks, print books, and audiobooks, including how the requirements for text-centric books is becoming increasingly easy for indy authors to meet; the expanding options for print, including easy-to-produce hardcover editions; and the opportunities that audio opens to indy authors. And we discuss what I have always thought of as the thorny question of ISBNs—those identifiers attached to each iteration of each of your works—and I discover that the answer is actually quite straightforward. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information: https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html  Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor or Buy Me a Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple  Orna Ross is the founder and head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.

Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the second of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the focus is on Design. We talk about cover design, and how it needs to be not a work of art but a billboard that will appeal to your target readers. We discuss the importance of a professional cover designer who will understand the tropes of your genre and options for making that path affordable. And we talk about book formatting, including the tools that are available to indy authors to effortlessly create the various file types needed by the online platforms. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). Orna Ross is the founder and head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.

Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors joins me for the first of a series of seven episodes devoted to the Seven Processes of Publishing. This week the focus is on Editorial. We talk about the different stages of editing, and the importance of distinguishing the deepening and development process from the correction and clarification process. We discuss how you can gain distance from your work by experiencing it in a different time, place, or format. We discuss the different types of professional editing, and how to balance your opinion of your work with the opinions of others. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). Orna Ross is the founder and head of the Alliance of Independent Authors, a non-profit professional business membership organization for self-publishing authors. ALLi provides trusted advice, supportive guidance, and a range of resources, within a welcoming community of authors and advisors.

Mark Lefebvre talks about the importance of being a relaxed author, a topic he and co-author Joanna Penn explore in depth in their book THE RELAXED AUTHOR. We discuss relaxed writing (including writing at your own pace and fitting your writing process to your lifestyle); relaxed publishing (including the advice to publish wide … or not : ) and how to deal with cancel culture and bad reviews); relaxed marketing (including deciding if and where to engage on social media and the option of outsourcing); and relaxed business (including the importance of saying “no” and the benefit of finding trusted voices and tuning out the rest). For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). Mark Leslie Lefebvre is the author of more than twenty books that include fiction and thrillers, and paranormal non-fiction explorations. He has also edited numerous anthologies. With three decades of experience in bookselling and publishing, Mark is a seasoned and trusted book industry professional who embraces both traditional and indie publishing options.

A.L. (Amy) Jackson discusses CONNECTING WITH FANS THROUGH MERCHANDISING. She talks about considerations for using merch to strengthen ties with existing fans and to connect with new fans; what merch has worked best for her (including her fabulous book launch boxes); the logistics of design, sales, and distribution; and the factors that impact whether merch can be an income-earning as well as reader connection effort. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). A.L. Jackson is the New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance. She writes emotional, sexy, heart-filled stories about boys who usually like to be a little bit bad. If she’s not writing, you can find her hanging out by the pool with her family, sipping cocktails with her friends, or of course with her nose buried in a book.

Ran Walker discusses what made him move from long-form fiction to short fiction, and specifically to drabbles, short stories of exactly 100 words; what platforms he uses to get his short fiction into readers’ hands; the benefits he has gained by building relationships with libraries; and his accidental success in France. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple). Ran Walker is the author of twenty-four books. His short stories, flash fiction, microfiction, and poetry have appeared in a variety of anthologies and journals. Before becoming a writer and educator, he worked in magazine publishing and practiced law in Mississippi. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Indie Author Project's 2019 National Indie Author of the Year Award, the 2019 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Best Fiction Ebook Award, the 2018 Virginia Indie Author Project Award for Adult Fiction, and the 2021 Blind Corner Afrofuturism Microfiction Contest. Ran is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Hampton University, is a contributor to Writer’s Digest, and teaches with Writer's Digest University. He lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.

Author JK Ellem shares why he chose to start indy and go exclusive on Amazon, and his strategy for pursuing traditional publishing deals and wider distribution. He discusses how he found the sweet spot in his release schedule and his pricing model. And he emphasizes why it should be your readers who should be driving the direction of your writing, including whether or not a standalone novel becomes a series.   For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html.   Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple).   JK Ellem is an Amazon Charts US and UK #1 Bestselling thriller author. In 2020, his independently published crime thriller, MILL POINT ROAD, climbed to #1 globally in the Amazon Kindle Store in the categories of Crime Fiction, Thriller Fiction, Financial Thrillers, Heist Crime, Kidnapping Crime Fiction, and Noir. This was achieved with no agent, no publicist, and no publishing company behind him. Just him and his wife Jennifer, who looks after his marketing and social media.Jack splits his time between the US, the UK and Australia.

Michael La Ronn discusses how to maximize the value of the author tools that are already on your computer; what writing apps of the future will (and should) look like; how artificial intelligence will impact authors; and the importance of thinking of our books as data, the currency of the future.   For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html.   Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting my work at The Indy Author via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor) or Buy Me a Coffee (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple).   Michael La Ronn is the author of over forty science fiction & fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He also runs the popular YouTube channel Author Level Up, where he publishes weekly advice videos for writers. Michael also serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a US Ambassador, and he co-hosts the AskAlli Member Q&A Podcast where he answers new writers’ most burning questions about self-publishing.