Have you ever wondered if a course would be a better way to present the material in your book? Have your readers asked you to develop your book into an online course?
You probably know that online courses tend to sell at higher price points than books, but you also know they are a lot of work.
Will it be worth it for you? For your readers?
I’ve been creating and teaching online courses for over a decade and had to learn many things the hard way.
In this week’s episode, you’ll learn the easy way about the lessons I learned the hard way.
We’ll discuss

• Which types of online courses work in different situations
• How you can make sure your course will sell
• Tips for creating your first course

Listen in or check out the blog post version of this episode to discover whether the material in your book could be presented in a course and become a secondary source of revenue for you.

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You probably know that offering a reader magnet on your website is imperative to growing your email list, tantalizing readers with a sample of your writing, and eventually getting them to buy your book.
If you write novels, your reader magnet should be a short story, but if you don’t know how to write a great one, you’ll miss out on the many advantages short stories provide.
In this week’s episode, Steve Diamond, author and cohost of the Writer Dojo podcast, and I discuss the art of writing short stories.
You’ll learn

• The biggest mistake authors make when publishing short stories
• How short story techniques differ from those used in long-form pieces
• Two exercises that will build your short-story-writing muscles

Listen in or read the blog version to discover all the ways writing short stories can benefit you, and learn to write a great one.

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Your website is one of your most critical book marketing assets. It’s where you manage your online reputation, grow your email list, and sell books. But before you build a website, you need web hosting.
You have thousands of web hosting options, which can feel a bit overwhelming. How do you know what kind of host you need for your website?
In this week’s episode, you’ll discover

• What a web host does for your website
• Which kind of web hosting is best for authors (and which to avoid!)
• How much you should (or shouldn’t) spend on web hosting

If you’ve been wanting to build a website or have considered switching web hosts, listen in or check out the blog post version of this episode for some recommendations on finding the best service for your situation.

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Feeling overwhelmed by book marketing can lead authors to look for shortcuts. Shortcuts lead to expensive complications. Expensive complications lead to dead ends. Dead ends lead to suffering. Yoda would call this “The path to the dark side.”
Does this sound familiar? How do you escape this overwhelming cycle?
There are ten different stressors that can lead to book-marketing overwhelm. Most authors face at least one, and if you are completely overwhelmed, you may be facing all of them.
In this week’s episode, you’ll learn:

• Ten factors that may be causing your marketing stress
• How free courses may be contributing to your overwhelm
• How to improve your publishing vocabulary

Listen in or check out the blog version of this episode to discover which stressors are hounding you and how to implement simple solutions to mitigate your marketing stress.

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Being an author requires you to have hundreds of online accounts for different software and services. Websites such as Amazon, ConvertKit, Publisher Rocket, Patreon, K-lytics, Bookvault, AuthorMedia.social, AuthorsXP, BookBub, Kickstarter, Teachable, Bluehost, WordPress, Grammarly, and Plottr (to name a few) all require a username and password.
Some authors avoid using helpful tools simply because they don’t want to create and remember yet another username and password. It seems like too much hassle, and their writing and publishing efficiency and quality suffer as a result.
But what if there was a simple way to eliminate your password problems? There is!
In this week’s episode you’ll learn

• Four password mistakes to avoid
• Which tools provide password security
• My recommendation (which has changed in recent years)

If you’re ready to eliminate your password problems, listen in or check out the blog post version of this episode to find password peace of mind.

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Can you make a living as an author without selling through Amazon? Many authors wonder.
Amazon is the sole revenue source for many indie authors, but Amazon’s algorithms can disable your KDP accounts and cut off your income without any human reviewing the action.
Authors find themselves pleading with a computer to reactivate their accounts while their livelihoods hang in the balance. While this scenario is rare, it does occur.
That’s why some authors connect with their readers without relying on Amazon. How do you do that, and what type of author can pull it off?
In this week’s episode, Connor Boyack shares his strategy for success and sustainability as a career author.
You’ll learn

• How to earn income from your books outside of Amazon’s ecosystem
• How to increase your profit margins without increasing costs
• How to attract and connect with the right kinds of readers

Listen in or check out the blog post version to find out how Connor’s reproducible strategy can also work for you.

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With the rise of AI authors, how do you prove you are a human author? Most authors prove their humanity with their names and photos. Your identity protects you from being called a bot writer.
But what if you use a pen name? Will AI bring the age of pen names to an end?
While pen names are going out of style, there are some reasons you might still consider using one.
In this week’s episode, you’ll learn seven reasons authors use pen names and if those reasons still make sense in an era where your verifiable humanity has become a marketing asset.
You’ll learn

• When it makes sense to use a pen name
• Whether a pen name can protect your true identity
• What a pen name does to your metadata

There are several great reasons (and a few bad ones) to use an author pen name. If you’re still trying to decide what your author name should be, or if you’ve used a pen name for years, this episode will give you some direction, so listen in or check out the blog version today.

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I remember watching Steve Jobs's keynote presentation for the original iPhone. This magical new device, he said, would revolutionize our productivity.
And at first, it did.
But then, along came apps. Soon, user experiences were scientifically optimized to be as addictive as possible. An author's productive output is inversely correlated with time spent on the phone.
In this week's episode, we'll talk about how to spend less time on your phone and more time writing. You'll learn

• How to boss your phone instead of letting your phone boss you.
• A revolutionary setting change that may drastically reduce your desire to look at your phone
• How to use your phone to write more productively

Listen in or check out the blog post version of this episode to discover ten tips for leveraging your phone to increase your productivity and limiting its ability to keep you from writing your book.

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