Category: Interview

Debbie Stier Interview – Building Your Author Platform While Writing Your Book

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Debbie Stier – who gives us a behind the scenes look at her efforts of building her author platform – engaging her audience while she writes her book.

Debbie is the Founder of The Perfect Score Project, and author of book of same title. After two and a half decades working in publishing, she has given it all up to spend all of her time trying to ace the SATs. Our full discussion is below:

You can find Debbie in the following places:

Thank you so much to Debbie for taking the time to chat!
-Dan

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Robin Sullivan Interview – How to Make Six-Figures in Self-Publishing

I had the pleasure to speak with Robin Sullivan – founder, president of Ridan Publishing, publicist for author Michael J. Sullivan (her husband), and commentator on publishing in general. We discuss the following topics:

  • Why now is the best time to be a writer
  • How she is helping writers build stable writing careers, and significant income
  • Specific numbers as to how many books Michael is selling, and why
  • Tactics she has taken to build an audience and book sales for writers she works with

… and many other topics. Please watch the full interview below.

You can find Robin in the following places:

Thank you so much for Robin for such a wonderful chat!
-Dan

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Bethanne Patrick Interview – The Imperative for Authors to Connect With Readers

I had the pleasure of speaking with Bethanne Patrick, who has a longtime presence in the publishing world, is the Founder of the Twitter hashtag #FridayReads, and is the Editor at Shelf Awareness.

We discussed:

  • The origins, growth and evolution of #FridayReads
  • The necessity and challenge of reaching out to readers
  • How she amassed more than 100,000 Twitter followers
  • Why authors need to be entrepreneurs, balancing writing and marketing

… and many other topics. Please watch the video below to hear our conversation.
You can find Bethanne on Twitter at @thebookmaven, and on her website: http://bookmavenmedia.com.

Thanks so much to Bethanne for chatting!
-Dan

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Jenny Blake Interview – Book Marketing 101

I can’t even tell you how much fun it was to chat with Jenny Blake about – of all things (!) – a SPREADSHEET. Before you run away, I have to tell you, that if you are an author, it’s a *magical* spreadsheet.

Jenny created an amazing spreadhsheet titled: Book Marketing 15-Tab Master Spreadsheet

This spreadsheet shares tons of tips for authors to market their books. It’s free, you can grab it via the link above. So in the interview below, we dig into this spreadsheet, and Jenny shares the story of her journey in getting her book published.

Jenny is the author of Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want. She blogs at LifeAfterCollege.org and you can find her on Twitter at @Jenny_Blake.

Here is our chat:

Thanks so much to Jenny for sharing all of this!
-Dan

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Joel Friedlander Interview – How Self-Publishing Has Changed

I had the pleasure of speaking with Joel Friedlander, the proprietor of Marin Bookworks where he helps self-publishers get ready to go to press. He is the author of
A Self Publishers Companion, and you can find Joel on his blog at http://thebookdesigner.com or on Twitter at @JFBookman.

In the video interview below, we discuss:

  • How authors need to take ownership of the entire publishing process: from manuscript to marketing.
  • Why ebooks are “doing violence” to the concept of what a book is.
  • How self-publishing has changed, from something that was “a step above the plague,” to something an author is proud of.
  • How authors sometimes view cover design in the wrong way.
  • That if an author has a limited budget, the first two places they should spend money are: a good editor, and a good cover (in that order.)
  • That many eBooks look bad today because publishers can’t be bothered to make them look better. It is just faster and easier to dump them into that format.
  • That the craft of bookmaking has taken a huge hit from the ebook transition.

Here’s the interview:

Thanks so much to Joel for taking the time to chat!
-Dan

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