SPA Girls Podcast – EP422 – Writing Side Characters – with Sacha Black
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Side characters – how do you make them memorable, but not over-take the spotlight? And what purpose do they serve in the story?
This episode, the awesome author and educator, Sacha Black, gives us the scoop on developing incredible side characters that will take your story from blah to bleepin’ amazing. She takes us through three different types of side character and how to create juxtapositions that SELL BOOKS.
Sacha says: “If your book is a body, then your protagonist is the heart, the theme is the soul and your side characters are the arteries feeding your protagonist-heart.
Side characters are the arteries in a protagonist-heart, they are new perspectives and viewpoints, conflict generators, and subplot fulfillers.”
About Sacha Black:
Sacha Black is a best selling and competition winning author, rebel podcaster, and professional speaker.
She has five obsessions; words, expensive shoes, conspiracy theories, self-improvement, and breaking the rules.
Sacha writes educational nonfiction books for writers and sapphic books for Young Adults. She also writes under a super secret pen name.
When she’s not writing, she can be found laughing inappropriately loud, sniffing musty old books, fangirling film and TV soundtracks, or thinking up new ways to break the rules.
She lives in Cambridgeshire, England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son.
Sacha’s podcast, The Rebel Author
The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.
⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.
All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
😊Watch our weekly show on http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast @spagirlspodcast
Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!
SPA Girls Podcast – EP421 – Book Marketing With Carrie Elks
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This week we talk to Carrie Elks about amping up your book marketing. It’s a fantastic and informative interview packed with great tips and advice that you won’t want to miss!
Carrie writes contemporary romance with a sizzling edge. Her first book, Fix You, has been translated into eight languages and made a surprise appearance on Big Brother in Brazil. Luckily for her, it wasn’t voted out. Carrie lives with her husband, two lovely children and a larger-than-life black pug called Plato. When she isn’t writing or reading, she can be found baking, drinking an occasional (!) glass of wine, or chatting on social media.
Find her at: carrieelks.com
Resources mentioned in podcast:
Skye Warren’s Ad course: https://www.authoradsintensive.com/
TikTok Sells Books Course: https://tiktoksellsbooks.com/
Theodora Taylor’s Universal Fantasies https://www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep315-interview-with-theodora-taylor/
Plottr
Becca Syme https://betterfasteracademy.com/
NINC https://ninc.com/
RAM (Romance Author Mastermind) https://romanceauthormastermind.com/
Brighton Walsh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2lueij-iRU
Plottr https://plottr.com/?ref=367
The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your questions. Come on in and join us, we’d love to see you there!
www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
Visit www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
SPA Girls Podcast – EP418 – Publishing Wide, Selling Audiobooks Direct, Working With Your Spouse – Interview with author Sarah Piper
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We’re thrilled to welcome UF/PNR author Sarah Piper to the show today. Sarah has seen great success publishing across a number of genres, and we discuss her strategy moving from Amazon-exclusive to publishing wide, selling her audiobooks direct and working with your spouse!
This episode is packed with incredible information and actionable advice from Sarah, so you’ll want to listen more than once – with a pad and pen nearby!
About Sarah Piper
Sarah Piper is a witchy, Tarot-card-slinging paranormal romance and urban fantasy author. Through her signature brew of dark magic, heart-pounding suspense, and steamy romance, Sarah promises a sexy, supernatural escape into a world where the magic is real, the monsters are sinfully hot, and the witches always get their magically-ever-afters.
Readers have dubbed her work “super sexy,” “imaginative and original,” “off-the-walls good,” and “delightfully wicked in the best ways,” a quote Sarah hopes will appear on her tombstone.
Originally from New York, Sarah now makes her home in northern Colorado with her husband (though that changes frequently) (the location, not the husband), where she spends her days sleeping like a vampire and her nights writing books, casting spells, gazing at the moon, playing with her ever-expanding collection of Tarot cards, binge-watching Supernatural (Team Dean!), and obsessing over the best way to brew a cup of tea.
You can find her online at SarahPiperBooks.com and in her Facebook readers group, Sarah Piper’s Sassy Witches.
💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.
⭐ New! Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.
✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube Channel @spagirlspodcast
Make sure to subscribe to The SPA Girls Podcast on your fav podcast app or our YouTube Channel, so you don’t miss an episode!
SPA Girls Podcast – EP417 – How To Correctly Select Your Amazon Categories – with Alex Newton
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Amazon has moved the furniture again! This episode, Alex Newton, founder of K-Lytics, explains Amazon’s category changes, what they mean for authors, and how best to categorize your books now.
We also discuss other recent Amazon changes dating back to September ’22, the impact on authors’ rankings and specific romance category changes and general trends.
Alex Newton is the creator of K-lytics (www.k-lytics.com) a website where you can get in-depth reports on various genres and sub-genres on Amazon that will help you find your niche, boost sales in your chosen genre, and give you information to help you stand out in this crowded publishing
Links mentioned:
Reedsy’s article on Category Changes
💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your questions. Come on in and join us, we’d love to see you there!
www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
✍️ Visit www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
😊Watch the recording on our YouTube Channel @spagirlspodcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP416 – Emotional Wounds with Angela Ackerman
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This week we chatted with Angela Ackerman, one of the authors of the classic writing book, The Emotion Thesaurus.
If you’ve never picked up one of the amazing thesauruses by Angela Ackerman and her co-writer, Becca Puglisi, you’re missing out! Created especially for writers, the ten different thesauruses will help you add emotion, be more creative, and make your book sing!
In this particular episode (aside from Trudi and the other SPA Girls singing the praises of Angela’s books) we talk to Angela about emotional wounds – what that means, why it’s important for our characters and how we can add emotional wounds into our writing and give our characters more depth.
Check out Angela’s website, Writers helping Writers, by clicking here for more information.
💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your questions. Come on in and join us, we’d love to see you there!
www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
✍️ Visit www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
😊Watch the recording on our YouTube Channel @spagirlspodcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP414 – Publishing Powerhouse, Kathryn Le Veque
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We’re thrilled to welcome back Kathryn Le Veque to the SPA! Kathryn is a Publishing Powerhouse, with years of experience as a bestselling author, and CEO of Dragonblade Publishing. After first interviewing her back in 2018, we wanted to discuss what industry changes she’s seen in those five plus years, and what she predicts for the future in the wider publishing landscape.
Kathryn shares her unique publishing insights and forecast, historical romance trends, why she doesn’t have an author newsletter, and behind the scenes insight of running Dragonblade.
KATHRYN LE VEQUE is a critically acclaimed, USA TODAY Bestselling author (having hit the list over 30 times), an Indie Reader bestseller, a charter Amazon All-Star author, and a #1 bestselling, award-winning, multi-published author in Medieval Historical Romance with over 150 published novels.
In addition to her own published works, Kathryn is the President/CEO of Dragonblade Publishing, Amazon’s #1 ebook publisher of Historical Romance (K-Lytics reporting July 2020). Dragonblade Publishing has become known for its commitment to quality historical romance fiction and has gained a reputation as a trusted source for engaging and well-researched novels. Through her ownership of the publishing house, Kathryn has continued to contribute to the romance genre by nurturing and supporting other authors who share her passion for historical storytelling.
Find Kathryn at: https://kathrynbouseleveque.com/
Dragonblade Publishing: https://www.dragonbladepublishing.com/
Kathryn’s previous appearance on the SPA Girls : https://www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep159-interview-with-kathryn-le-veque/
💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!
⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your questions. Come on in and join us, we’d love to see you there!
www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
✍️ Visit www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info
😊Watch the recording on our YouTube Channel @spagirlspodcast
