It was our great pleasure to interview Michele Scott, a NYT, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestselling thriller and cozy mystery author of over forty novels and the CEO/owner of equestrian sports medicine company Professional’s Choice, Inc. Michele has written in various genres including thrillers, mysteries, young adult mysteries, fantasy, and women’s fiction. Her thriller Daddy’s Home from her Holly Jennings’ Thriller series written under her pen name of AK Alexander has sold over one million...
Aug 31, 2022•54 min
Emilia Rose is an international bestselling author of steamy paranormal romance. With over 18 million story views online, Emilia loves creating the newest and sexiest paranormal romances for her fans. Emilia shares how she started by releasing her work for free on Wattpad and other serial platforms, and building a ravenous audience there. At that time she didn’t have the resources to invest and ads, covers or professional editing and thus her subscription-publishing concept was born: her fans on...
Aug 23, 2022•55 min
USA Today Bestselling author of more than 50 books, Morgana Best writes cozy mysteries featuring witches, psychics, ghosts, mermaids, and anything else that tickles her imagination. Her books have landed on the Top 10 spot on Amazon and are beloved by readers in over 70 countries. Today she is talking to us about selling direct from your own author store, something Morgana has been doing for many years successfully. It’s an info-packed packed episode you will not want to miss! Morgana’s book Sto...
Aug 16, 2022•57 min
This week we talk about how to find new ideas, and how to use those ideas in new ways. How to find them in the everyday hustle and bustle of our lives, and how to turn them on their heads to create something intriguing and interesting to our readers. We go through a series of story starters, of intriguing kernels that you can use to create an awesome story that your readers will love to read… SHOW NOTES: Places to find ideas: 🌺 Invent something from irritation – create a list of everything that...
Aug 10, 2022•40 min
Samantha Price is a USA Today bestselling author of Amish romance books and cozy mysteries. Raised Brethren, she has a deep affinity for the Amish way of life, which she has explored extensively with over a decade of research. She is mother to two pampered rescue cats, and a very spoiled staffy with separation issues. Focused and organized, Samantha’s results speak for themselves, but it will amaze you to hear how prolific she is and how she built her career in a smaller niche than usual. Listen...
Aug 02, 2022•44 min
This week we discuss burnout, protecting our creativity, being productive and not buying in to the hustle culture. You could say we’re “anti hustle” but pro making careers out of our writing! Recommended listening : SPA Girls Podcast with megastar BELLA ANDRE SPA Girls Podcast with Helen Scheurer – Six Figures with One Book A Year 💗 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 ...
Jul 26, 2022•35 min
SPA Girl Wendy Vella has been self-publishing successfully since 2013 in Historical Romance and Contemporary Romance. Her romances are loved by a huge global audience who appreciate her trademark wit, strong family depiction, unique settings, and swoon-worthy heroes. Today, Wendy is a USA Today Bestseller and consistent Amazon bestseller, with 50 books published, and close to 3 million copies sold worldwide. Wendy has seen it all, and tried it all, self-publishing wise! We grill her on how she l...
Jul 19, 2022•45 min
Dave Chesson joins us in the SPA to chat about some of the awesome apps that he’s designed for authors on the Kindleprenuer website. Dave is a smart guy, and he knows his stuff when it comes to self publishing, so the apps are all super useful and on-point. This includes the free apps, such as the Book Description Generator and the Hashtag Generator (if you’ve ever struggled with finding good hashtags on any of the socials, that’s the app for you!) and his two powerful paid apps, Publisher Rocke...
Jul 13, 2022•1 hr 11 min
When you feel the frantic need to achieve and you don’t, it’s easy to get stuck or suffer burnout. If that’s happened to you, then Corinne has some ideas to get you through. The Calm Entrepreneur was born out of a series of aha moments over the past several years. After a long time writing-to-market and chasing the algorithms with rapid release, she found herself in deep burnout. Deciding to write a book about recovery from burnout, Corinne soon realized that it wasn’t just about recovery – it w...
Jul 05, 2022•1 hr 7 min
This week we broadcast our 350th episode and in complete contrast to how laid-back Kiwis generally approach milestones, we’re celebrating the heck out of it! What have we learned, what have we regretted and what’s next? 💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us Patreon. If you join us as a $10 Patreon patron, you’ll have access to us in our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things marketing, mindset and publishing and answer your q...
Jun 29, 2022•38 min
Building a deep connection between your characters and your readers is what creates raving fans, books that stick like glue to the sales charts and fuels word-of-mouth recommendations. So how do we do this? Today we’re talking about tools and resources we use to build reader connection with our characters. “When readers recognize the character’s emotional state as one they’ve experienced in the past, it creates a sense of shared experience. Readers will connect with the character, even on a subc...
Jun 22, 2022•41 min
USA Today best-selling author Lee Savino is a bubble of energy, and this week’s podcast with her left us all feeling motivated and inspired. We know you’ll love this episode too! Lee talked to us about how the mindset of an indie author is vitally important, more important than any other aspect of writing and publishing, including all the tactics and systems we hear about all the time. If you can get your mindset right, you can achieve anything. We talk with Lee about all the mindset changes she...
Jun 16, 2022•56 min
Are you struggling to get your words down each day? Why not give writing sprints a try? You can do them alone, however, you might find they work better with others like we did. How it works: Find a friend or a group and set aside a certain amount of time. Now break this into doable time slots. For example, if you had two hours, then the time could be 4 slots of 30 mins, or 2 times 1 hour each, or 8 times 15mins. Or any number that suits the majority. Sometimes it’s better to start small. It’s al...
Jun 06, 2022•31 min
* we apologize for the technical gremlins that appear occasionally in this recording. Stick with it because the info is gold! Today we’re joined by Julia Roberts , MSc, writer, creativity coach, and soon-to-be Ted Talker. Julia is going to talk us through procrastination and the tools we can use to manage it. Goodness knows we all need this help! Her expertise is the creative process – she focuses on writers and writer’s block. She has her Masters of Science in Creativity and uses proven tools a...
Jun 01, 2022•49 min
Do you want to learn how to design a series that will hook and keep readers, AND set you up for long term success? Helen Scheuerer, YA fantasy author of the bestselling series, The Oremere Chronicles and the Curse of the Cyren Queen quartet, joins us today to discuss how we can write a successful series. Topics covered include: The REAL reasons you should write in a series How to find and use your target market to satisfy hungry readers How to use foreshadowing and cliffhangers to create binge-w...
May 25, 2022•1 hr 5 min
This week, in answer to a listener question, we talk about how we manage the process of writing a book. How many do we write at one time? Do we work on multiple projects at different stages, or just write and edit one book at a time? What do we do to ensure we stay on track and don’t procrastinate? Listen to this week’s podcast and find out!
May 18, 2022•45 min
Ignite your career with collaboration. Bestselling Author Asa Maria Bradley suggests collaboration as a way to get creative again. Asa grew up in Sweden surrounded by archaeology and Norse mythology, and uses her background to inspire her sexy and paranormal romance series. She also writes urban fantasy about empowered heroines who kick ass while saving the world. Her work has received a double nomination for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA contest, a Reviewers Choice Award nomination, a H...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 16 min
Ten Mistakes Authors Make With Their Editing & How To Fix Them Today we’re thrilled to welcome editor extraordinaire, Mary-Theresa Hussey, to the SPA. 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 US...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 19 min
Today’s podcast comes from a listener question. Thanks to Rachel, who asks “- I’ve been wondering about all the visual stuff that ISN’T a cover. For instance, how do you get nice, branded, coordinated headers for your website, your emails, your Facebook profile? Is that something an illustrator does, or a cover designer, or someone else? And logos? For instance for a series? Or I’ve noticed some writers have logos for themselves. How do you prefer to use them if you have one? Is a logo something...
Apr 26, 2022•37 min
Hit the ground running with this episode all about how to successfully finish the first draft of your novel! We talk about how we stay motivated, what you need to know before you can start, how we keep going when we get to the saggy middle, what we plan beforehand, and what we leave to figure out as we go. If you’ve been struggling to get started on your first draft, or you’re wallowing somewhere in the middle, this is the episode for you!...
Apr 20, 2022•44 min
Do you want to be a full-time author? Today we discuss how we transitioned to writing full time, including: how we approached the financial and business planning balancing the creative and business sides of the job mindset tips and corrections along the way our expectations versus reality courage and resourcefulness Show Notes: There are as many reasons to quit your day job, as there are to keep it. From being over your job, to making more than you ever could at it, or being able to do what you ...
Apr 12, 2022•44 min
Struggling to write compelling characters and compelling but realistic conflict in your stories? Well, have we got a show for you! Darian Smith is a prize winning fiction writer with a degree in psychology, and is a member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors. He combines these two sides of his background to provide simple, easy to follow tools that make use of established psychological theory to help writers develop fully rounded, interesting, realistic characters and inject conflict i...
Apr 05, 2022•56 min
In the Spa this week we talk to Audiobook Narrator Naomi Barton. With more people listening to audiobooks now, there has never been a better time to learn about this side of our industry. Naomi has produced audio books for many authors including our very own Cheryl, under CA Phipps, her cozy mystery pen name. We talk about processes, cost, and the industry. You won’t want to miss this one! https://www.naomibartonvoice.com/ You’ll find all the show notes and SPA Girls podcast episodes at: www.spa...
Mar 30, 2022•1 hr 3 min
This week we talk to long-time PR coach and publicist Lilian Sue about how authors can successfully use PR to help with their author business. Her aim is to help authors fulfill their potential and become global industry leaders by focusing on how to build a healthy PR mindset above any strategy. We talk about authors can develop strong and healthy PR mindsets (by busting down fear and imposter syndrome) and how to use the right tools, knowledge, and resources to fulfill their goals. It’s anothe...
Mar 23, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Today we welcome back for a record 3rd time, Zoe York, to talk about Romancing Your Goals. Zoe is a thirteen-time USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance, often with military heroes, and always with scorching heat between the pages. Between her two pen names (she also writes erotic romance as USA Today bestselling author Ainsley Booth), she has published more than seventy books since her debut in 2013 with What Once Was Perfect. Like so many authors it was hard to read and write dur...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 4 min
We’re thrilled to welcome fellow Kiwi author, Deb Potter, to the SPA today to give us the breakdown on how to create, optimize and manage Amazon ads. Many of us have tried different methods to get AMS Ads to work: from creating hundred of ad variations to wrangling spreadsheets with thousands of keywords to try. And then there’s the whole bid price – how do we know what to bid? Can we trust auto ads? As a statistician by trade, and also a self-published author, Deb is fantastic at clearing the c...
Mar 09, 2022•51 min
Jay is a 2020 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Gay Romance and her book Off Balance was the 2021 New Zealand Romance Book of the Year. She is a New Zealand author writing mm romance and romantic suspense, primarily set in New Zealand. She writes character driven romances with lots of humour, a good dose of reality and a splash of angst. She’s travelled extensively, lived in many countries, and in a past life she was a critical care nurse, nurse educator and counsellor. Jay is owned by a huge Ma...
Mar 01, 2022•52 min
This week we talk to fantasy author AK Mulford about how she got started on TikTok! We cover TikTok for authors in depth: how to start, who to follow, how to get your follower count up, best length of videos, what to post, how to create the videos, hashtags, sounds, dealing with comments, batching, duets, stitching, etiquette plus differences from other social media platforms. And most importantly: does it sell books? If you’ve ever considered jumping on TikTok, this is the episode for you! Some...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 9 min
Feeling a bit blah about your writing? Struggling with getting good words down and your word count UP? Today we’re taking inspiration from Marie Kondo, and we’re sparking back the joy in our writing lives! Our SPA Girls tried-and-true steps are: 1. Re-commit to your Why 2. Re-evaluate your ideal writing life / writing day 3. Let gooooooooo 4. Start with Simple 5. Be Like Marie and ask Does It Spark Joy? As always, a brutally honest and real-time discussion how we’re all struggling a bit for diff...
Feb 15, 2022•40 min
How do you get a cover that finds readers and converts to sales? Today we’re unpacking exactly how you can do that. What your cover needs to do What SHOULDN’T be on your cover What cover images risk getting your cover banned from advertising The Anatomy Of A Cover Why are fonts so important? How to find a good designer What to expect to pay for a good cover SPA Girls Podcasts mentioned: Nat Connors and Kindletrends – EP281 Rebecca Haskell – Cover Design – EP224 Chris Fox – Symbolism on Covers – ...
Feb 09, 2022•48 min
