Wondering how to write a great paranormal romance? What’s the difference between paranormal and monster romance and what are readers looking for? And how to connect with readers on tiktok and other social media? This is a replay of a fun episode we recorded a few years ago with the awesome author, Lillian Lark. It’s well worth a listen no matter what genre you’re writing! About Lillian Lark: Born and raised in the saltiest of cities in Utah. Lillian is an avid reader, cat mom to three demons, an...
Jul 22, 2025•48 min
Tired of chasing the “Amazon Algorithm”? We’re delighted to welcome Johnny B. Truant to the SPA. Johnny is here to discuss the alternatives to “rapid release / fast publishing” mindset to one of an artisanal author and publisher. We always try to emphasise there is NO ONE RIGHT WAY to approach your self-publishing business and writing, and we think this conversation and approach is really worth understanding. Not just for writers’ physical care, but mental health too. Enjoy! “ If modern indie pu...
Jul 15, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Keri Arthur is a NYT Bestselling author of urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Initially traditionally published, she is now fully self-published, and in this episode she talks to us about that transition and shares tips and processes from her writing journey. This is a classic replay, originally recorded in 2020. About Keri Arthur Keri Arthur , the author of the New York Times bestselling Riley Jenson Guardian series , has written more than fifty-five novels–35 of them with traditional publis...
Jul 09, 2025•47 min
USA Today Bestseller, Erin Wright, is the Queen of Publishing Wide and shares with us fantastic advice on: direct sales, AI audio and human narration, AI translations, woo commerce v shopify, kickstarter and platform specific tips. About Erin Wright USA Today Bestselling author Erin Wright has worked every job under the sun, including library director, barista, teacher, website designer, and ranch hand helping brand cattle, before settling into the career she’s always dreamed about: Author. She ...
Jul 01, 2025•1 hr 14 min
BEST SELLING ROMANCE AUTHOR JAY HOGAN is a New Zealand author writing mm romance and romantic suspense, primarily set in New Zealand. This is a fantastic episode, well worth a replay, with Jay’s unique insights into writing MM romance, marketing, craft and the writing life. About Jay Heart, Humour, & Keepin’ It Real Jay is a two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for her books Digging Deep and The Art of Husbandry in 2020 and 2024. Her book Off Balance was the 2021 New Zealand Romance Book ...
Jun 25, 2025•52 min
We’re delighted to welcome USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Sierra Simone, to the SPA today! Our topic is “Writing To Your Own Beat” and Sierra generously shares how she’s leaned into writing forbidden, atmospheric romance that has built a rabid fandom. Resources mentioned: Becca Syme Better-Faster Academy with Becca Syme Kennedy Ryan Home – Kennedy Ryan Jennifer Lynn Barnes – Writing For Your ID https://youtu.be/qymZuGlmJ3c?si=u0_ROjM5wt4gs63k Sierra Simone is a USA Today a...
Jun 18, 2025•1 hr 13 min
This episode with Alaskan author, Tamsin Ley, is one of our most popular and well worth a replay! We talk about Tamsin’s writing journey, marketing strategies, paranormal romance quirks and her fantastic advice for all self-publishers. You can find Tamsin here: https://www.tamsinley.com/ Tamsin Ley builds worlds full of sexy heroes who don’t know they need a mate – that is, until they meet the woman they can’t resist. The romance is sizzling hot, a surprise twist waits around every corner, and t...
Jun 11, 2025•47 min
Molly and Stephanie are two writing besties who launched an incredibly successful pen name, Hailey Shore, writing romantic comedy. Romantic Comedy | Hailey Shore Author This episode we dig into how they intentionally set out to create this pen, their advertising and launch strategy, things they’ve learned along the way, and a few snafus too. These two amazing authors are incredibly down to earth and honest and provide some of the best advice on mindset and business you’ll hear that’s absolutely ...
Jun 04, 2025•1 hr 1 min
USA Today Bestseller, Janie Crouch, shares amazing tips and advice on how she built her readership, launched her romantic suspense, and how she approaches the Business of Authoring and separates it from the creative side of writing. This is a classic replay of a fantastic episode we recorded originally in April 2021. Janie’s writing journey began in the academic world. With a B.A. in English Communication from Montreat College and both an M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Regent Unive...
May 28, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Who doesn’t want to hand off their least-favorite tasks to a trusted assistant? So how do you go about finding the right person? And what’s the cost? Kevin Tumlinson is an award-winning and bestselling author, known as “the Voice of Publishing” for his work as a podcaster and speaker, helping thousands of authors to start, build, and grow their author careers. Kevin is the Chief Brand Officer for Author Anchor —a service aimed at connecting writers to highly trained and qualified virtual assista...
May 20, 2025•52 min
We’re celebrating 500 episodes of the SPA Girls – from our baby podcaster days back in 2015 to today, we share some BEHIND THE MICS stories. How we met, why we started and why we’ve last this long (almost ten years so far, publishing an episode weekly). Plus our vision for the future and selfpublishing 🙂 Thank you so much to all those who’ve listened, downloaded, watched, reviewed, cheered on, guested and emailed. We truly appreciate every single one of you! 💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsore...
May 14, 2025•58 min
This episode features an interview with the incredible Ana Huang, multi-million copy bestselling author of new adult and contemporary romance! Ana is a super-smart, hardworking author with a tonne of great advice that she generously shared with SPA Girls Podcast listeners in this information-packed episode. We range in topics from marketing, to TikTok, to branding, to translations, and everything in between. A must-listen for authors at all stages of their writing career. NB Since recording this...
May 08, 2025•58 min
What happens when your books don’t sell? When is it time to end a series? Or Pivot to a new penname? Wendy, Cheryl and Shar are here to give their advice and (strong!) opinions on when it’s the right time to pivot and the steps writers should take to make that decision. We’ve collectively written and published almost 200 books over the past 15 years, so we’ve experienced and witnessed a LOT of author angst, success and industry changes. We hope that this discussion is beneficial to authors at al...
May 07, 2025•36 min
One of our most popular writing craft episodes deserves a replay: Writing the Black Moment with USA Today Bestseller, Rachel Bailey. NB re audio quality, we apologise that this isn’t to our current standard (despite new editing), but we’re sure you’ll find the content worth listening to nevertheless! A fantastic tutorial on how you can take your writing to the next level! In romance fiction, the black moment (also called the dark night of the soul ) is the emotional low point—when it seems like ...
Apr 23, 2025•43 min
Jennifer Hilt is a USA Today Bestselling author urban fantasy and non-fiction creator of The Trope Thesaurus series. She joins us this episode to really dig into how to use tropes in your fiction (no matter the genre), practical ways of applying them, how to use them to amp up the emotion and characterisation, and your characters’ GMC (goal, motivation and conflict). Jennifer gives lots of tips for practical application and if you’ve ever been confused about where to start writing with tropes, o...
Apr 16, 2025•1 hr 4 min
🎙 Welcome back to the SPA Girls Podcast! Today, we’re diving into one of the most powerful tools in your writer’s toolkit—story structure! Whether you’re a plotter, pantser, or somewhere in between, a strong story structure is the secret sauce that keeps readers turning the pages. In this episode, we’ll dive into chapter “rules”, beats,scenes and sequences, how to craft a compelling beginning, keep the momentum going in the middle, and deliver a satisfying, page-turning ending—while making sure...
Apr 02, 2025•55 min
What ten editing tips should all authors know? We share in this classic replay of our interview with Editorial Consultant, Mary-Theresa Hussey. Prior to becoming a freelance editorial consultant, Mary-Theresa (known as Matrice) worked at Harlequin for more than 25 years, editing nearly a thousand titles. As editor, senior and executive editor, she read, acquired, revised, rejected and critiqued triple that. Many of the books she has edited went on to find places on both the NYT and USA Today bes...
Mar 26, 2025•1 hr 19 min
The SPA Girls get down and personal with a Q1 2025 catchup! From surprising successes, unexpected writing tips, hybrid publishing adventures to mindset resets, we Keep It Real in this wild author life. Links mentioned: Wendy Vella website , CA Phipps website , Trudi Jaye website www.theauthorhelper.com Vinci Books https://www.vinci-books.com/ Dragonblade Publishing https://www.dragonbladepublishing.com/ Maggie Marr (SPA Girls Podcast Episode #451 ( https://www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/sp...
Mar 19, 2025•55 min
A Classic Replay of an episode we recorded with the fabulous NYT Bestseller, Laurelin Page , a few years ago. Her advice is just as relevant today to invigorate sales on your backlist books. Laurelin defines a backlist as a book that’s more than 12 months old. Top tips she discussed in this podcast CRAMMED with amazing advice: 1. Keep a calendar for the upcoming year and write in your new releases, then pad around it with backlist titles for “working” once a month 2. The easiest thing to recharg...
Mar 12, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Today we welcome back Tara Cremin, Director of Kobo Writing Life (KWL) to chat about exciting new opportunities for authors on Kobo and her very best tips and tricks for selling more books and finding your readers! Bio: Tara is the Director of Kobo Writing Life (KWL), Kobo’s premier self-publishing platform, where she combines her passion for books with over a decade of expertise in indie publishing. As a dedicated advocate for independent authors, Tara works tirelessly to ensure KWL remains the...
Mar 05, 2025•53 min
Lucy Score is an instant #1 New York Times bestselling author and one of our all time favorite podcast guests (we’ve interviewed her twice now). She is a fantastic example of great branding, great writing, great team work and immense talent for connecting with her readers. In this Classic Replay episode (2021), Lucy talked about her wonderful facebook group, connecting with readers and why relationships are SO important in your publishing business. About Lucy Lucy Score is an instant #1 New York...
Feb 26, 2025•1 hr 2 min
If you’ve ever wondered about Kickstarter – where to start, if it’s right for you, and tips for running successful Kickstarter campaigns, this episode is for you! We’re delighted to have Oriana Leckert from Kickstarter here today to explain All Things Kickstarter for authors! What is it, and why should authors be using it? Oriana answers best practices for running a successful campaign, the challenges of Kickstarter and common mistakes authors make – and how to avoid them! About Oriana Leckert O...
Feb 19, 2025•47 min
This is a SPA Girls Classic Replay of an amazing interview we did a few years ago with Becca Syme. Becca Syme holds a master’s degree in transformational leadership and has been a success coach (primarily utilizing the Gallup Strengthsfinder®) for over fifteen years. She’s coached over 5,000 individual authors and creatives through her Write Better-Faster and Strengths for Writers classes & coaching cohorts: six- and seven-figure authors, major award winners, midlisters, and new authors alik...
Feb 12, 2025•52 min
Holly Roberds, spicy romance author and Booktok fav is here to tell us all about Building Fandoms and reaching Critical Mass with her publishing strategy. From facebook ads, pinterest boards, to her readers group, Holly gives actionable tips you can apply to your own author career, today! “People crave identity, specialness and a place to belong.” ~ Holly Roberds Resources mentioned: Ana Huang interview with the SPA Girls https://www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-podcast-ep404-inter...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 3 min
Bella is a true Indie Superstar with more than 10 million books sold (so far!). We interviewed her when she visited New Zealand for the Romance Writers of NZ conference a few years ago and this is well worth a re-listen. Bella is an inspiration and talks about her path to self-publishing, how she made it as an Indie, and her advice for people aiming to follow in her footsteps… Bella Andre is the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Sulliv...
Jan 29, 2025•55 min
You’ve heard of tropes – but have you heard of MICRO tropes? Today’s guest, romcom queen Amy Award , is sharing her incredible experience of incorporating readers fav micro-tropes, scenes and emotions that have made her books bestsellers! About Amy Romantic Comedy author Amy Award is a USA Today Bestselling author and TikTok Sensation. She writes curvy girl romance about real love and dirty fun, with happy ever afters because every girl deserves great sex and even better romance, no matter her s...
Jan 22, 2025•59 min
Skye went from struggling to earn five figures while working all day, to earning over a million dollars a year working only four hours a day. This is part two of two episodes where Skye covers her facebook advertising strategies that you don’t want to miss! Skye Warren is a publishing powerhouse and founder of the famed Romance Author Mastermind . This is a classic replay of an interview we recorded back in 2019 and is still absolutely as relevant and inspiring today as it was then. Enjoy! Liste...
Jan 15, 2025•36 min
Skye Warren went from struggling to earn five figures while working all day, to earning over a million dollars a year working only four hours a day. This is part one of two parts you don’t want to miss! Skye Warren is a publishing powerhouse and founder of the famed Romance Author Mastermind . This is a classic replay of an interview we recorded back in 2019 and is still absolutely as relevant and inspiring today as it was then. Enjoy! Find Skye at: https://www.skyewarren.com/ Skye Warren & ...
Jan 08, 2025•31 min
Start the New Year strong! From choosing your “word of the year” to planning tools that simplify your workflow, we share our picks. Tune in and make this your most productive year yet! 💗 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 PL...
Jan 01, 2025•45 min
Who’s been naughty and who’s been nice? The SPA Girls are here with with festive advice! 💗 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. All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast ...
Dec 25, 2024•33 min
