Episode82
Q&A Episode – May 2021
In this monthly q & a session, the guys answer listener questions.
Whether you’re traditionally published or indie, writing a good book is only the first step in becoming a successful author. The days of just turning a manuscript into your editor and walking away are gone. If you want to succeed in today’s publishing world, you need to understand every aspect of the business – editing, formatting, marketing, contracts. It all starts with a good book, then the real work begins.
Join international bestselling author J.D. Barker and indie powerhouses, J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon, as they gain unique insight and valuable advice from the most prolific and accomplished authors in the business.
Join us on Patreon and ask your question LIVE on the podcast!
https://www.patreon.com/writersinkpodcast
Questions asked:
- Can you take us through your process of choosing a title for your books and/or series?
- If you had the opportunity to start your writing career again, maybe go back in time, what would you differently?
- How do you decide what marketing opportunities to say yes to and what to decline? I’m at the beginning of my publishing career and feel like I should say “yes” to most offers, and then be more discerning as things progress. I’m asking because I agreed to do something, and it’s taking up a lot more of my time than I had anticipated and that I would like!
- J, it’s been almost six months, how is the short story project going?
- How do you approach authors who are farther ahead in their careers than you? Like if you see them at a conference or if you want to reach out to them for something? How do you prefer people approaching you?
- What qualities are you looking for in collaborators? (writing partners, editors, cover designers, etc…) What qualities are you looking for in clients? (when you are offering an author service)
- I know J is writing short stories, but what other projects are each of you working on at the moment that you’re willing to share?
- What kind of class would you pay for at this point in your career?
- Should I get some kind of liability protection, like from forming an S-Corp or LLC?
Links:
J. D. Barker – http://jdbarker.com/
J. Thorn – https://theauthorlife.com/
Zach Bohannon – https://zachbohannon.com/
Story Rubric – http://storyrubric.com
Nonfic Rubric – http://nonficrubric.com
The Career Author Summit 2021 – https://thecareerauthor.com/summit2021/
Proudly sponsored by Kobo Writing Life – https://kobowritinglife.com/
Music by Nicorus – https://cctrax.com/nicorus/dust-to-dust-ep
Voice Over by Rick Ganley – http://www.nhpr.com and recorded at Mill Pond Studio – http://www.millpondstudio.com
Contact – https://writersinkpodcast.com/dev/contact/
*Full disclosure: Some of the links are affiliate links.
Christopher Wills
3 years ago
Hi guys, great show today, with some interesting questions. It’s always good to hear points of view.
Interesting question about approaching authors for possible collaboration, but in my experience it doesn’t work; I have yet to get a reply from Patterson, King or Brown 🙂 I expect requests will come my way thick and fast when my bestselling effort, a Dracula origin story, is published. I have a solution to the requests as I am collecting my methods together as a book on how to write a bestselling book, I will refer all requests to that. I won’t be publishing that book until after I have sold 100K copies of a book – my definition of a bestselling book – my target…
Another idea J, for your short stories. Have you thought of writing a load of them based on a defined criteria, like a setting, a group of people like a school year group, a journey using different characters for different stories but all on the same journey, etc. That way afterwards you could collect them together in one book as a kind of novel by editing them to make many of them overlap like the film version of Sin City.
Great show today.