Begin Self-publishing Podcast

I met Alison Morton in person for the first time at the Triskele Literary Festival. While there, former guest Debbie Young put her forward as a potential guest for the show. At the time I didn't have an idea of a potential show topic, but looking at her website I saw how many speaking events she had done. So then I thought that would be a good topic to talk about, especially as I've done exactly zero speaking events myself. The post Author Events with Alison Morton appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

Something we often forget to do is to check things that we already think are working. Sadly with Wordpress, Mail Providers and eBook Retailers things outside our control (usually a change somewhere else) can break things without you doing anything. So you need to check things occasionally to ensure they are still working. The post Check, Check and Check Again appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

Why is Writing a Book Important? There's a reason why you want to write a book...in this episode I examine those reasons. There are good and bad reasons to write a book, but by listening to this podcast you are showing that it is important to you. Understanding why can help you in your writing career. The post Why is Writing a Book Important? appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this episode I talk again to Alex Newton from the firm K-Lytics about the trends he has recently seen in the Amazon eBook market. His company K-Lytics scans the Amazon charts and looks for the number of books, their prices and how they rank relatively. In this way he can work out what areas are the easiest to chart in and which are the areas with the most potential sales and least competition. The post What’s New on Amazon with Alex Newton appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this show I talk to Jay Baer about how to handle reviews. Jay Baer is an international speaker and author of multiple books about marketing and customer service. It is a real honour to have him on the show. I saw him speak about the concepts behind his book Hug Your Haters at Social Media Marketing World 2015 and was blown away. It's been a long process to get him on the show, but his contrarian views on how to handle reviews for books, backed up by research, meant that I hope you will agree it was worth the wait! The post How to Handle Reviews with Jay Baer appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

This week I interview Leslie Samuel about Blogging. Leslie Samuel is a former university professor and the creator of the Become A Blogger - a blog dedicated to the craft of professional blogging. He has a passion for education and has taken on the mission of "Changing The World One Blog At A Time". The post Blogging with Leslie Samuel appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this show I talk to businessman and author Tony Brown about standard procedures and how they have helped him become much more productive. Tony had a situation where he had a new contract that he could not fulfil on his own without dropping an existing contract. He decided to instead look to write down his procedures so he could get someone else to fulfil the new contract. He developed worksheets, templates and checklists allowing him to employ someone else to do the work he used to do. Going on from that he got to the point where he had his business to the level where he could go on an eight week holiday without any effect on his business. The post The Benefits of Standard Procedures with Tony Brown appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In my first full-time job I worked for a small financial software company and had to learn this odd computer programming language that only they used. As a new employee I was given the manual but most people just expected me to do what they did and just pick things up as I went along. But for whatever reason I read the manual. What surprised me was that I learnt an awful lot of things that many of the "old hands" didn't know by just reading Chapter 1 of the manual. The post Always Read the First Chapter of the Manual appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

An often talked about option for marketing books (especially fiction books) is eBook discovery services like Bookbub, where readers sign up to regular e-mails of discounted books and authors pay to have their books listed. But how good value are these services? What do you need to get listed with one? Which are the best for which genres? I talk today to Alli's watchdog John Doppler who has done a comparison of these services about what he found out. The post EBook Discovery Services with John Doppler appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers under the name J.F.Penn. She also writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning creative entrepreneur and international professional speaker. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com is regularly voted one of the top 10 sites for writers and self-publishing and in this episode I talk to her about self-publishing audiobooks. We discuss how to use Amazon's ACX platform to find a narrator and arrange a royalty split, the issues of narrating the book yourself and the issue with Audible having the audiobook market sewn up. The post Audiobooks with Joanna Penn appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

Calvin Wayman has recently written the book Fish Out of Water. One of the central themes of the book is the benefits of having mentors on your progression into the entrepreneurial world. I talk to him about these concepts and the interesting way he promoted the launch of his book. The post The Benefits of Mentors with Calvin Wayman appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this interview I talk with the host of the MyKitaab Podcast and self-published Indian Author Amar Vyas about self-publishing in India. The post Self-Publishing in India with Amar Vyas appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

Despite having a desire to test out the latest marketing techniques all the time I've recently discovered that often simpler techniques help provide the greatest results. This has mainly been in the area of marketing this podcast rather than my books. In the previous episode How do you revive sales in a book that doesn't sell? (Episode 37) I mentioned that I was going to try and do a marketing push for my book Magpies and Magic. It was as much of an opportunity to try out some new marketing avenues as anything else. As is often the case with new things I wasn't expecting success, which was good because I didn't have much. Some the things I tried showed real promise, while others I will probably not repeat. The post In Marketing, Simple Is Often Better appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In my first solo show for a while I use the information I learnt from my interview with Emmanuel Nataf about how much self-publishing costs to create a spreadsheet to work out exactly how many eBooks you'll need to sell to cover these costs, get these costs plus a minimum wage and to a comfortable "average" income from an individual book. The post Author Income : How Many Books Do You Need to Sell to Make Money? appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

I have seen Phil speak at both New Media Europe 2015 and New Media Europe 2016 and he's always been an amazing speaker. He's a globe-trotting brand expert who has worked with a host of celebrities and small business people. I ask him to talk about author branding in this interview. The post Author Branding with Phil Pallen appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this episode I am blessed to have on one half of the duo who make up the core of the EOFire organisation, Kate Erickson. Together with her partner John Lee Dumas they released the Freedom Journal at the start of this year to great success after running one of the best ever book Kickstarter launches (7,063 backers pledged $453,803) and have continued their success after the launch. The post Organising a Mega-Book Launch with Kate Erickson appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this episode I talk to Orna Ross, Director of the Alliance of Independent Authors about selling publishing rights. She has recently co-authored the book How Authors Sell Publishing Rights (ALLi How-to for Authors Guidebook Book 4) with previous guest Helen Sedwick on this topic. The post Selling Publishing Rights with Orna Ross appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

Paul Teague is a successful non-fiction author and host of the Self-Publishing Journeys Podcast. He is now attempting to move solely into writing in fiction, which is where his passion lies. The post Moving from Non-Fiction to Fiction with Paul Teague appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this show I talk to Martin Shervington, who is an author, speaker and marketing consultant at PlusYourBusiness.com. He coaches on marketing, specialising in things to do with Google. The post Using Google for Business with Martin Shervington appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

In this show I talk again to Emmanuel Nataf from Reedsy about a blog post he wrote about how much self-publishing costs, in terms of editing, cover design and interior layout. The post How Much Does Self-Publishing Cost with Emmanuel Nataf appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.