Fully Booked: The Hidden Gems Author Podcast

Fully Booked EP24: Is Traditional Publishing Right for You?

In the past, Fully Booked has covered the idea of Going Wide, meaning selling your books on a variety of online storefronts instead of being exclusive to just one. However, another alternative to expanding your reach would be to sign on with a traditional publisher and have your books distributed by them.
Of course, it’s not always as easy as that. Unlike self-publishing, where anyone can publish a book on their own in a very short period of time, the traditional publishing process has many steps and hurdles to overcome. That’s why we asked Tudor Robins and Mara Shatat to speak with us today, as these two authors have experience with both traditional and self-publishing, and even mentor other authors in how to muddle through it all.
Together, Mara and Tudor take us through what goes into trad publishing, the pros and cons, landing an agent and making deals, and even who it’s right for in the first place.
 
Mara Shatat
www.marashatat.com
www.maradabrishus.com
 
Tudor Robins
https://www.tudorrobins.com/
 
Hidden Gems
Need our help publishing or marketing your book?
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All episode details and links:
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/podcast
 

Fully Booked EP23: Living and Writing the Wanderlust Lifestyle

One of the best things about writing is that you can do it from anywhere and on your own schedule. Taken to the extreme, that means you can even do it from a boat in the middle of the ocean while travelling around the world!
But believe it or not, that’s exactly how today’s guest lives her life. For the last few years, romance author Liz Alden and her husband have been sailing the seas, visiting exotic locales that most of us only read about, and using that first-hand experience as the backdrop of her successful series of romance novels.
In this episode, Craig and Roland ask all about how she found herself living this hard-to-believe life, and how she balances her adventures with the practicality of finding time to write, getting a reliable Internet connection, and building her career as an author.
 
Liz Alden
https://www.lizalden.com/
 
Hidden Gems
Need our help publishing or marketing your book?
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All episode details and links:
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Fully Booked EP22: The Importance of Protecting Your Intellectual Property

When it comes to writing, the worlds you spawn from your imagination, the characters you create, and the series you bring to life are all part of your Intellectual Property (IP) and are very important to both your career and your brand. However, just because you were the first one to create or publish your works doesn’t mean they’re automatically protected from copycats (intentional or otherwise). In fact, publishing first didn’t even protect this week’s guest from being the one accused of being a copycat!
Brian Sachetta, a blogger and author/owner of Get Out Of Your Head™, tells a cautionary tale that may sound more like a horror story to many of us authors - but Brian’s story is not an isolated incident, and he’s eager to share with Fully Booked all the things he wished he’d done differently during his ordeal, including registering a trademark, in the hopes that he can help other authors avoid going through what he had to endure by thinking seriously about protecting their IP.
 
Brian Sachetta
https://getoutofyourhead.com/
 
Hidden Gems
Need our help publishing or marketing your book?
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All episode details and links:
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/podcast
 

Fully Booked EP21: Unlocking In-house Promotions When You’re Publishing Wide

Erin Wright is back to continue our previous discussion about the various ways of marketing your books when you publish on storefronts beyond just Amazon. Many of the online bookstores have their own in-house promotions that can be taken advantage of, and some of them can provide a big boost to your book sales. The problem is that most authors don’t even know about them, because many of them are hidden unless you specifically ask for them to be added to your author account! And even then, there may be some hoops you have to jump through…
Luckily, Erin knows all about these promotions, and this episode is chock full of the secrets you need to unlock them on your own accounts. So if you are an author who publishes wide and don’t already know about all of the promotions that sites like Google, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Apple have to offer, this is not an episode you can afford to miss!
 
Erin Wright:
https://erinwright.net/
Wide for the Win Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wideforthewin
 
Hidden Gems
Need our help publishing or marketing your book?
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/
All episode details and links:
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/podcast

Fully Booked EP20: Getting the Big Picture on Book Revisions

Some authors think that in order to publish a book, there are just three simple steps: Write. Edit. Publish. However, there's actually a whole step between writing and editing that sometimes gets forgotten, overlooked, or just not taken seriously enough by a lot of fledgling writers, and that step is revision.
Author and developmental editor Alex Kourvo understands how important the revision process is, and how it shouldn’t be ignored or treated as an afterthought. That’s why she wrote The Big-Picture Revision Checklist, as a way of helping authors keep from being overwhelmed during this sometimes daunting process. Today she sits down with Fully Booked to discuss why it is so important to take a step back and look at your book as a whole when trying to determine what needs to be revised, and the best way to tackle the whole process in general.
 
Alex Kourvo
https://alexkourvo.com/
Hidden Gems
Need our help publishing or marketing your book? 
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/
All episode details and links: 
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Fully Booked EP19: Turning a Passion for Writing into a Family Business

Many self-employed people dream of having a “family business”, but you don’t hear about it quite as often when it comes to authors. In those rare cases that it does happen, it is often a husband and wife co-writing team, but when it comes to Bill and Mia Belew, it’s a father daughter duo. Mia is only 14, but she’s an avid reader and deeply involved in the process of creating the stories and characters for the Upper Middle Grade books that she and her father, Bill, create. Today they’re sitting down with Craig and Roland to discuss how and why they do it, besides the obvious benefit of just getting to spend some quality time together. We get into everything from where they get their ideas, what their goals were in starting this journey, the routes they’ve traveled to find their audiences and gain success, and where they hope it will all end up. Mia & Bill Belews’ Growing Up Aimi series
Website: https://growingupaimi.com/
On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086QZPNF2
Hidden Gems Need our help publishing or marketing your book? https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/
All episode details and links: https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/podcast
 

Fully Booked EP18: Inkers Con and Writers’ Conferences in 2022

After two years of social distancing, one of the things many of us are most excited about is meeting with our peers at events - and writers are no exception. Writing conferences are back in a big way in 2022, both in person and digitally, including one of the best-known and most-talked-about: Inkers Con. The mind behind Inkers Con is New York Times best-selling author Alessandra Torre, who joined Craig and Roland to discuss the benefit authors can get from writers' conferences in general, and some of the history and details of Inkers Con specifically. Find out how her first conference experience changed the trajectory of her career, and what Inkers Con does differently versus other conferences. Inkers Con Website: https://www.inkerscon.com/ Alessandra Torre https://www.alessandratorre.com/
Hidden Gems Hidden Gems Need our help publishing or marketing your book?
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/
All episode details and links:
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Fully Booked EP17: Collaborating in a Shared Fictional Universe

There are plenty of advantages for authors writing within a shared fictional universe, such as expanding their individual audiences, collaborating on new ideas and characters, sharing common costs, etc. But there are many challenges as well. Everyone needs to keep their timelines straight, plan and coordinate major world/story events, and stay on top of all of the other shared details so that they don’t introduce any inconsistencies that will not only affect their own story, but those of their collaborators. Authors Kathy Fawcett (writing as K.M. Fawcett), Jen Talty, and Stacey Wilk have created the Candlewood Falls series, each writing novels that take place in the same small town. Together, they’re a dozen books in and today they’re talking with Fully Booked about everything that’s gone into making this whole thing work so successfully. The Candlewood Falls Series: https://www.amazon.com/Candlewood-Falls/e/B0965TRR8B
Stacey Wilk: http://www.staceywilk.com/
K.M. Fawcett https://kmfawcett.com/
Jen Talty https://jentalty.com/
Hidden Gems Need our help publishing or marketing your book?
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/
 
All episode details and links:
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/podcast
 

Fully Booked EP16: Breaking Down the Craft of Writing

Writing is often described as a craft, not an art, and the most successful writers are those who constantly hone that craft. To that end, we're excited to welcome Stefan Emunds to this week's episode of Fully Booked to discuss what he learned during his journey to becoming a writer.
After struggling initially to find success with his visionary fiction books, Stefan went back to the drawing board and studied fiction writing from the ground up - identifying the "Eight Crafts" essential for grabbing a reader's attention and getting them invested in your character's journey. In fact, Stefan became so well versed in the subject that he wrote a book about these crafts, and teaches a course about them as well. In this podcast, Craig and Roland ask Stefan to give a high-level explanation of what these "crafts" are and talk about the transformative effect they can have on the stories you tell.
 
Stefan Emunds
The Eight Crafts of Writing: https://www.amazon.com/Eight-Crafts-Writing-Map-Storytelling-ebook/dp/B097N9Q6QH
Website: https://www.eightcrafts.com/
 
Hidden Gems
Need our help publishing or marketing your book? https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/
All episode details and links: https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/podcast
 

Fully Booked EP15: How can Wide-published Authors Market their Books?

If you publish on Amazon, then you probably think that paid ads are the best way to market your book. When it comes to selling your eBook elsewhere, though, it’s all about newsletters! Wide-publishing expert Erin Wright is back, this time to talk about how to effectively market books that are sold on multiple online storefronts. In fact, even if you aren’t publishing wide, this episode is one you don’t want to miss because it’s packed with all sorts of useful statistics, information and tips about how to get the most out of both the newsletters you advertise on and your own! Erin goes into detail on how to improve your sales, open rates, build reader loyalty, run effective giveaways and so much more. Erin Wright: https://erinwright.net/
Wide for the Win Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wideforthewin
Hidden Gems
Need our help publishing or marketing your book? https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/
All episode details and links: https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/podcast