Regina Calcaterra is the New York Times best-selling author of Etched in Sand . It’s a true story memoir about five siblings who survived an unspeakable childhood on Long Island. Why She Wrote a Memoir Regina was inspired to write her own memoir in part because she read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls when it was published in 2005. It was the first memoir Regina had read about someone wrote about a horrible tragedy without being a victim. Etched in Sand is Jeannette’s memoir about growing up...
Mar 09, 2018•32 min
Ricardo Fayet is a cofounder of Reedsy, an online marketplace that connects authors with everything you need to succeed, from free educational courses, to a platform to help you find the best cover artists, book designers, and publishing support. Ricardo and a friend got the idea for Reedsy in business school. They approached developing Reedsy from a reader perspective. The Birth of Reedsy Ricardo and his friend were among the first early adopters of the Kindle device. They began thinking about ...
Mar 02, 2018•26 min
Josh is the author of four books, including Writing Without Bullshit. He is frequently quoted in major publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal . He’s also given keynote speeches at major conferences on television, music, marketing, and technology all over the world. Josh spent his whole life focusing on his two talents, math and writing. He wanted to make good money, so he put most of his emphasis on his math talents. But he was always interested in writing. When he beca...
Feb 23, 2018•29 min
If you’ve ever been to a theme park like Disney World, chances are you’ve seen Steve Alcorn’s work. Steve is the CEO of Alcorn McBride, a company that designs products used in nearly all the world’s theme parks. He’s also the author of many books. He’s written historical fiction, romance, and young adult novels. He’s also written several nonfiction books, including, Build a Better Mouse , Theme Park Design , and How to Fix Your Novel . Steve fell into the field of theme park engineering because ...
Feb 16, 2018•32 min
Emma Sumner is the author of The Fairies of Waterfall Island . She published the book in 2016 at the age of only eight years old. Today she’s 10 years old and just finishing up her second book, which is a prequel to the first. She was inspired to write her first book when she saw her dad publishing his second book on Amazon. Her dad told her that if she could write 150 words in her story that day, he would help her publish the book when it was complete. She began immediately outlining the book i...
Feb 09, 2018•15 min
Steven Spatz is a writer, marketer, and president of BookBaby , a distributor of ebooks and print books. He started his writing career at age 13 and worked for several major newspapers after graduating from university. Steven got a job as a sportswriter when he was 13. His journalistic heroes were Walter Cronkite and Howard Cosell. He did that for a little while and then went back to the family business, where he learned direct marketing. Steven’s family had a food catalog they grew to be one of...
Feb 02, 2018•29 min
Ethan Jones is the bestselling author of more than 20 books, including the best-selling Justin Hall Spy Thriller Series. Ethan always wanted to be a writer. He started writing novels seriously in 2008, but ever since he was a kid, Ethan would watch TV shows and movies and imagine future adventures for the heroes he loved. He doesn’t have a favorite spy movie, although Salt , The Bourne Identity, and the James Bond films rank fairly high with him. In 2008, he began carving out extra time to sched...
Jan 26, 2018•25 min
Dorie Clark is an adjunct professor at the Duke University School of Business. She’s the author of Entrepreneurial You , Reinventing You , and Stand Out (named the #1 leadership book of 2015 by Inc. magazine). She’s a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and she regularly consults and speaks for clients such as Microsoft, Google, and The World Bank. Dorie’s first job out of graduate school was as a political reporter. When she was laid off from that job, she began the process of ...
Jan 19, 2018•29 min
Jeff Goins is the bestselling author of five books, including Real Artists Don’t Starve . His blog, goinswriter.com , is one of the most-read blogs for writers and creative folks. Jeff has always been a creative person who likes to make things. As a kid, he drew his own Garfield fan comics with a friend. Jeff’s dad taught him how to play guitar when he got older. He was in a number of bands that played really bad songs. It was in high school that Jeff started to write stories for fun. He also ac...
Jan 12, 2018•29 min
Mimika Cooney is an international award-winning photographer and the author of Photographing Newborns . She was nominated by the Huffington Post as one of the 50 women entrepreneurs to follow in 2017. Mimika is a multi-passionate creative. Born and raised in South Africa, Mimika and her husband left in 2000 and emigrated to England. In 2006, they immigrated to the US. She is currently based in Charlotte, North Carolina. She’s had a very interesting journey both creatively and in the realm of bus...
Jan 05, 2018•27 min
AJ Cosmo is the bestselling author of The Monster that Ate My Socks and more than 20 other fun children’s picture books. His stories are crafted to help parents teach children lessons in a fun and engaging way. Six years ago, AJ was at his day job searching for ways to make money online. One of the ideas in a writer’s forum was to write books and put them up on Kindle because, as the poster said, “ Kindle is a gold mine!” The group of writers AJ eventually joined were publishing two types of con...
Dec 29, 2017•22 min
Jesper Schmidt is a fantasy novelist and the author of Twitter for Authors . He’s here to talk about his journey as an author, and how he used Twitter to gather an audience of raving fan readers from all over the world. Jesper always thought in the back of his mind that when he retired, he’d write a book. But on one of his annual family vacations to Finland, Jesper had an insight that changed his life. He asked himself: “Why do we have to wait to do the things we want to do? ” The next morning, ...
Dec 22, 2017•24 min
James Blatch is a former BBC defense reporter. He reported on the UK military from Kuwait, the Arctic Circle, and during the Kosovo conflict in 1999, among many other crazy war zones and places. Today he is the director of The Self-Publishing Formula Course . He’s an online course provider for independent authors. He also cohosts the weekly SPF podcast . James took the lazy way into journalism. He did nothing to build a professional career until about the age of 25. He started by going into comp...
Dec 15, 2017•23 min
Jamie Davis is the author of more than a dozen novels including Accidental Thief . He’s also a registered nurse, a nationally recognized medical educator, and host of The Nursing Show . How Jamie Became a Fiction Writer Jamie got started as a novelist on a dare. He’s been a nurse and a medical educator for quite some time and has several nonfiction books available. In 2014, a friend of his dared him to write a novel for NaNoWriMo . He finished his novel during November and then it sat on the fil...
Dec 08, 2017•25 min
Evan Marshall is a literary agent and owner of the Evan Marshall Agency. He’s also a multi-published novelist and a nonfiction author, and the creator of The Marshall Plan novel writing software . Evan was born in Massachusetts. His first job was with the Big Five publisher Houghton Mifflin in Boston. Then he moved to New York and worked with Signet Books and a small company called Everest House, which is no longer in business. He also worked for a very famous old company, Dodd Mead , known for ...
Dec 01, 2017•26 min
Rachel Starr Thomson is a bestselling author with more than 50 published books, including The Seventh World Trilogy . She is also a freelance editor, publishing consultant, and founder of Independent Publishing Solutions . From a very young age, Rachel spent her time sitting in nature and making up stories in her head. Rachel was homeschooled. Her parents encouraged a lot of reading and a lot of independent study. Rachel read hundreds of books growing up. Her dad had a library of thousands of bo...
Nov 24, 2017•21 min
Ricci Wolman is the founder and CEO of Written Word Media . You may not have heard of Written Word Media before, but I’m sure you’ve heard of some of their brands, including Free Booksy , Bargain Booksy , and Red Feather Romance, all of which are very popular book promotion websites. Ricci has more than 10 years of experience building online audiences using data-driven customer acquisition techniques, and she has an MBA from Harvard University. Ricci’s background is in online marketing, and spec...
Nov 17, 2017•25 min
Tyler Basu is the content marketing genius at Thinkific, one of the fastest-growing online course platforms. In episode 48, we talked with Tyler Basu about how to create a lifestyle business and live your dream life . He had just launched Lifestyle Business Blueprint . Since then, Tyler has gotten on board with Thinkific as their content manager. Thinkific helps entrepreneurs easily create and distribute online courses to their audience. Why Is the Online Course Market Growing so Quickly? The on...
Nov 10, 2017•28 min
In episode 7 , we talked to Rob Archangel about audiobook publishing. In the last three years, Rob has built one of the most successful self-publishing services companies out there. I brought Rob back to talk about what he’s doing now and the lessons he’s learned over the last few years. Selling Books Directly from Your Website It’s helpful if you can think laterally about how you can use your book to grow your business. Not everybody wants to go the bestseller route. There are lots of ways to p...
Nov 03, 2017•27 min
Brian David Crane is a serial entrepreneur. He sold his first company at age 24. He has helped launch six different million-dollar brands, including Archives.com , which was bought for $100 million three years after launch. Brian has been a digital nomad since 2014 and he’s here to talk about the downsides of the digital nomad lifestyle, and why you might want to rethink selling everything you own and traveling around the world. Brian has had an entrepreneurial streak since he was a teenager. Hi...
Oct 27, 2017•31 min
Penny Sansevieri is the author of several books, including How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon. She’s also the founder of Author Marketing Experts . We interviewed Penny back in Episode 22: Getting Red-Hot Internet Publicity for Your Book , where we talked a lot about how to get online publicity for your books. I wanted to bring her back again to continue our discussion about how to get publicity for your books online, and especially on Amazon, the largest retailer in the world. In this...
Oct 20, 2017•33 min
Dustin Mathews is the founder of Speaking Empire, which teaches entrepreneurs how to scale up their business by selling from presentations and stages. Speaking Empire is the company behind some of the biggest speakers out there, including Kevin Harrington, Russell Brunson, and Jairek Robbins. Dustin began his professional journey after he read Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money that the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert Kiyosaki. Dustin thought he was going to be...
Oct 13, 2017•29 min
Heath Armstrong is a serial creative entrepreneur. He is the author of The Sweet Ass Journal to Develop Your Happiness Muscle in 100 Days. By adopting the habits of 100+ creative entrepreneurs, he was able to pay off $20,000 in debt, quit his job, sell all of his belongings, travel the world, and scale his e-commerce startup to over $600,000 in revenue in 2016. In this stellar interview, we talk about Heath’s journey and what you can learn from his mistakes. We talk about the importance of medit...
Oct 06, 2017•31 min
Charlie Gilkey is the author of The Small Business Lifecycle, a business book that helps creative people focus on the actions that will significantly grow their businesses. He’s also the founder of Productive Flourishing, a website that helps change makers finish the projects that really matter. In this great interview, we talk about how to build a platform organically as a nonfiction author. We also discuss how to finish the projects that matter, how to be successful as an author whether you wr...
Sep 29, 2017•29 min
Gabriela Pereira is the founder of DIYMFA.com, the do-it-yourself alternative to a master’s degree in writing. She teaches at conferences and online, and she’s helped hundreds of writers get the MFA experience without having to go to an expensive school. In this fantastic interview, we talk about the value of an MFA degree, but we also talk about how to develop the skills that you get from an MFA program without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. Finally, we talk about how to iterate and...
Sep 22, 2017•30 min
Nick Loper is an author, entrepreneur, and founder of sidehustlenation.com , a growing community and resource for aspiring and part-time entrepreneurs. As the host of the top-rated Side Hustle Show Podcast, Nick explores a different business idea every single week and helps listeners discover the path to new job-free income streams. Nick’s original side hustle was a footwear comparison shopping site. Back in the day before you could just go to Amazon and search for what you want to buy, you’d go...
Sep 15, 2017•27 min
A few bloggers have cracked the code to making money from blogging, and Crystal Paine is one of them. She is a New York Times bestselling author, and she’s the founder of the incredibly successful blog MoneySavingMom.com , where she teaches moms how to save and earn more. In this interview, we talk about how Crystal became a professional blogger, how to make a profit from your blog in 2017, and the importance of building real, genuine relationships with your audience. How to Make Money With a Bl...
Sep 08, 2017•28 min
The results of Rachel’s latest book marketing experiments will surprise you. Rachel Aaron is a bestselling traditionally published novelist and author of several books including the Eli Monpress series, as well as one of my absolute favorite nonfiction books on writing: 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love . We talk about how her writing has changed since our last interview, and her latest experiments with book marketing. We also talk about the importance ...
Sep 01, 2017•41 min
Jonah Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the bestselling author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior . This was a great interview. We talk about what makes things go viral and how authors can create a word-of-mouth campaign to sell more books. Jonah’s undergraduate research focus was in human decision-making. He went on to earn a PhD in marketing. He’s always been int...
Aug 25, 2017•24 min
Mike Rohde is the bestselling author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook . He presents sketchnoting workshops around the world that encourage people to use visual thinking skills to generate, capture, and share ideas more effectively. In this awesome interview, we talk about sketchnoting, including what it is and how to do it. And we talk about Mike’s traditional publishing journey and how he was able to make his book a success. Visual Thinking Benefits Visual thinking isn’t j...
Aug 18, 2017•32 min
