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Today we had our good friend and erotica writer Lexi Maxxwell (who Sean and I have said we’re helping out with her business and publishing and stuff) back on the show as a follow up to her popular earlier appearance on the show. As with last time, this show is spicier than normal, so hide the kids.

We talked to Lexi about a ton of stuff, including:

- What to do if you built your audience on free stuff and want to transition away from free
- How to select and court the best readers for you
- How to think like a publisher and outside of just “putting words on a page,” including an AMAZING new partnership between Lexi and premier adult site X-Art.
- The branding reason that Lexi’s friend KR Gray got a MUCH, MUCH different and worse response than Lexi — sufficient that he had to bail on solo work and move “under Lexi’s umbrella” — despite their styles being very similar.
- Why “erotica” is kind of a bullshit category, seeing as everyone in most books are having sex anyway, and erotica just “shows it.”
- Lexi’s genius in mixing sex with humor in the STUPIDLY funny upcoming Kindle sitcom Adult Video, which Sean and I created and then gave to Lexi because we couldn’t do it justice without holding back.

NOTE: As we did with Ed Robertson last week, we kept Lexi on with us for Better Off Undead for a lot of really NSFW discussion. We also kept Ed on from last week because we recorded this and last week back-to-back, thus making this week’s Better Off Undead a 5-writer show!

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Today we had our frequent and popular guest Ed Robertson to talk about selling in other bookstores, like Nook (Barnes & Noble) and Kobo. But we kicked things off by asking Ed about his experiment in writing his serial The Cutting Room. Lots of good discussion on reader expectations and new experiments here, as Ed wondered about his ability to convert readers of his popular Breakers series to the new serial.

Then we talked about selling in other stores. TONS of good info here, including how Ed ranked well on the hard-to-crack Nook store and why selling on Kobo is currently harder than the other stores. We also talked about why Apple makes shit so damn hard.

NOTE: At the end of this show, we realized we should have talked to Ed about writing in Sean’s and my science-fiction world of The Beam, since he’s one of the writers we’re inviting to join us. So we kept him on to talk about that with us on a VERY cool episode of Better Off Undead, which you can find here.

To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #58 – Selling On Other Platforms with Ed Robertson

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Today we had an AMAZING chat with Mark Lefebvre, Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo. We talked Kobo — our favorite non-Amazon publishing platform by a mile — up one side and down the other in this info-packed session.

Here are a few of the things we talked about:
- How Kobo is different from Amazon and how to get the most of it
- How Kobo ranks books, and how best to price them
- A few of Kobo’s eccentricities that you’ll want to know and keep in mind
- Why putting your books in multiple stores makes sense
- What Kobo has going on that Amazon doesn’t (though we do still love Amazon)

And here are the tools and articles Mark mentioned on the show:

- The correct way to link to books on Kobo by using ISBN search
- Getting your Goodreads Reviews to show on Kobo, from the Kobo team
- A post where author Eric Kent Edstrom posted a guide for hooking Goodreads to Kobo on his own website (with a nice visual tutorial)

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NOTE: Johnny and Sean would like to announce that the FULL SAGA OF UNICORN WESTERN (books 1-9) is now available. You can get it here on Amazon, or search other stores to find it there.

Today, we talked about the various species of writer’s block… I guess. But more accurately, we talked about stalling or failing on a project and then ditching THAT PROJECT (or that draft) and doing something different or trying again. What we don’t suggest doing is staring at a blank screen and thinking about how we can’t write and are “blocked.”

Sean and I share the story about how in our new publishing company Realm & Sands(you’re signed up for the mailing list to get our new releases at a discount, right?), we ditched the concept for one of our “sitcoms” because it wasn’t working and replaced it with other projects.

Dave talks about ditching words, Sean talks about pushing through discomfort, and I also share the story of how I COULD have gotten blocked writing The Bialy Pimps but was too new and too stubborn to do so.

To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #56 – What to do When the Words Aren’t Coming

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Sean and I would like to announce the debut of our new channel (including the release of the rest of the Unicorn Western saga, which got pretty damn epic) on May 23rd. You can sign up for the Realm and Sands list to get our new releases at a discount here.

Today we were supposed to have a guest, but he didn’t show up so instead, we just got all caught up on the voicemails you guys have been sending in. Here’s what we answered:

* What’s the best way to publish microfiction?
* A comment about JK Rowling as pertains to crossing genres
* When is it useful to use a pen name?
* WHY THE FUCK DON’T WE SHARE OUR NUMBERS OMG (Dave loved this one.)
* What’s the thing in writing that makes readers share it with others?
* I have three months to do ** SOMETHING ** in publishing and writing. What’s the best way to spend it?
* Is it worthwhile pricing at 99 cents? Permanent free? Whatever?
* We also got a shout out from a listener on her blog.

There was also some discussion of free and of moving to other publishing platforms and a fun revisiting of writing in several genres. Enjoy!

Lastly: Don’t forget to sign up for the Realm and Sands mailing list for channel launch on May 23rd!

To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #55 – The “Catching up on Voicemails” Episode

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Today, we talked again with our friend and bestselling author CJ Lyons. We talked about how self publishing has changed (and how traditional publishing is apparently just figuring it out), how to bond with your readers and grow your audience, and how smart publishers today need to pay more attention to strategic basics that never go out of style (writing good books, writing a lot, pleasing readers, etc.) instead of trendy tactics.

CJ also weighed in on our writing across multiple genres and convinced Dave of several other things that made Sean jump up and down. As usual, it was like watching a marriage break up.

CJ’s main site is CJLyons.net and her blog is No Rules, Just Write. Pop in and say hi, and buy her shit!

To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #54 – Exploding Your Growth, with Bestselling Author CJ Lyons

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One year ago as of the day we recorded this episode (we recorded it on 4/26/13), we posted the very first episode of the Self Publishing Podcast.

So in our longer-than-usual anniversarial episode, we talked about what a difference a year makes, how things have changed in self-publishing, and what we think the future will bring.

Sean and I also announced our new “channel,” called “Realm & Sands,” which will launch on May 23rd. We’re going to debut with three written “shows” and release one book a week. Our first three shows are the full saga of our epic fantasy/western series Unicorn Western, a sitcom-style self-referential series called Better Off Undead, and a serious, non-hilarious sci-fi serial called The Beam.

Thanks for a great first year, SPP listeners!

To view the video version of this episode, go to:  Self Publishing Podcast #53 – SPP’s 1-Year Anniversary Show

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As Sean and Johnny tie up production on Unicorn Western 9 and prepare to publish the full 1-9 Saga (in addition to launching a whole new venture), we decided to talk about the concept of “trusting the story,” which is something we did a ton of as Unicorn Western finished.

There was a lot of our typical debate, but in short, we all believe that there is a “truth” to a story and that it’s your job to find it.

Sean and I (Johnny) diverged significantly from Dave, though, in our nearly blind faith in the story. We truly believe that the story’s “truth” exists out in the world and it’s our job to excavate it as much as create it.

Dave, however, said that it’s super-possible to write yourself into a corner while you’re being a story-trusting dumbass. Sean and I took that as a challenge, saying we could paint our way out any cockamamie situation Dave wrote us into.

Hilarity then ensued.

To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #52 – Trusting the Story

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Today’s show was a knock-down, drag-down fight that left all of us — but mostly Dave — exhausted. We talked about whether you should brand yourself as a writer of one type of writing or not, and ridiculousness ensued.

But first, a voicemail from Garrett

Garrett asked, in short, what we thought about what we’d done so far with our transition from releasing books for free at launch time to requiring folks to pay (99 cents) for them. Sean and I talked about what happened with the launch of Unicorn Western 4 (at 99 cents), and S&D contrasted it with the Available Darkness Season Two launch (episodes released individually for free). They weren’t happy with the A.D. launch, but Sean and I were quite happy with the UW 4 launch — not because the numbers were huge (they weren’t), but because those people were PAYING CUSTOMERS.

We also talked about the VERY interesting (and also very good) results of a recent launch done by our friend, erotica writer Lexi Maxxwell. Lexi released a title called The Slutty Little Mermaid and a buy-up $9.99 bundle of Filthy Fairy Tales recently using a similar model, and it worked great.

More awesome talk about free vs. paid ensued.

Then we got into it.

So… is it smarter to be “a horror writer” or “a fantasy writer” or whatever else so that people will get to know you as a master of that niche? Or is it better to spread yourself around and write in as many genres?

The very short answer is that both can work, in certain cases.

The short answer is that it depends on which expectations you want to set and what your goals are.

The longer answer is that Sean and I argued vehemently for writing across as many genres as you want under your own name, and that Dave disagreed with us.

For the full answer, have a listen.

To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #51 – Writing in Multiple Genres

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I’m really under the gun today trying to finish up the Unicorn Western series (I’m writing the final volume — #9 — right now) so I’m totally going to phone it in on these show notes. We’re cool with that, right?

The short version is that we all really, really, really like collaborating with other writers. You can bounce ideas off one another; you can play to your biggest strengths; you can move much, much faster.

(NOTE: This is where I mention that in the previous 12 days, I wrote books 5-8 of Unicorn Western. That’s like 105,000 words. Insane, and not possible if I weren’t collaborating with Sean.)

So we talk on that for a while, and it was a great discussion.

I’ll end my “phoning it in” here and get back to work.

To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #50 – Collaborating with Other Writers