Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

In Episode 18, Mark interviews Ricardo Fayet, one of the founders of Reedsy , an online marketplace connecting authors with top editors, designers, ghostwriters and publicists. An avid reader and a person who travels the world to attend industry events and author conferences, Ricardo shares his insights and tips for authors, including a number of free resources that authors should be taking advant...

In this episode, Mark interviews Steena Holmes. Steena Holmes is an Award winning USA Today and Amazon best-selling author from Calgary, Alberta who writes psychological suspense, family drama, women's fiction and sweet romance. She publishes under an Amazon-owned imprint as well as her own self-publishing imprint, is a fan of reading, of chocolate and of traveling. Speaking of traveling, Steena,...

Stark Reflections Episode 16 – Crowd-Funding and Audience Engagement with Natasha Bajema Mark interviews Natasha Bajema, a fiction author who lives in Washington, D.C. and has been an expert on national security issues for over 18 years, specializing in weapons of mass destruction (WMD), nuclear proliferation, terrorism and emerging technologies. In the introduction, Mark performs a Terrible Tongu...

The smooth and sexy-toned Kevin Tumlinson is an award-winning and bestselling thriller author, with books available in hundreds of countries worldwide. With a long-standing career in film, television, radio, and podcasting, Kevin is a seasoned world traveler, and has produced documentary programming and films ranging from historic aviation to military history. His debut novel, a thriller, and the...

This episode is a solo one where Mark shares the 5 Ways mentioned in the title, and then goes on to reflect how the chat with T S Paul in the previous episode, combined with the concept of FREE helped inspire a new project that he is launching in April. The Terrible Tongue Twister in this episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices. Click here to learn more about Findaway Voices. The tongue twister th...

In lucky episode 13, Mark interviews author T S Paul about not listening to people who told him he was "crazy" with the ideas he had for his writing plan. T S Paul (AKA, Scott) writes Science Fiction, Space Opera, Military, Cookbooks, and Paranormal Fiction. His books used to be exclusively available thru Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited, but towards the tail end of 2017 he started to publish a...

Let me be perfectly frank here. I screwed up and mis-counted episodes. So I produced the "next" episode as Episode 13, completely skipping episode 12 (the way some buildings skip the 13th floor) So I'm owning up to my goof, and inserting this quick episode which is a clip from an inspirational speech that Arnold Schwarzenegger gave to a group of graduating students about his 6 Rules for Success. I...

In Episode 11, Mark interviews Kevin MacLeod , the writer, composer and producer for the music used in this podcast. Kevin MacLeod is an American composer and musician who is perhaps best known for his distribution of royalty-free library music through his website, Incompetech.com. He has made over 2,000 self-composed pieces of music available for download under a Creative Commons 3.0 license whic...

Episode 10 features a great interview with Jean Leggett, CEO and co-founder of One More Story Games . After her husband Blair's near-death experience in 2012, the two embarked on a journey back to his childhood hometown to each pursue their life's passion which includes the company One More Story Games and their software, StoryStylus, which simplifies video game creation for storytellers to create...

Featuring an interview with Chuck Heintzelman of BundleRabbit.com . Chuck lives in Spokane, WA with his beautiful wife and three children. Each day he juggles his passion for writing with his family, a full-time job as a computer programmer, and the inevitable curve ball life seems to throw. In the introduction to the show, Mark talks about being on the Oregon Coast at the Fiction River writer wor...

Featuring an interview with Ricci Wolman, founder and CEO of Written Word Media about the challenge that authors face with the most common questions they often have when first starting out; questions that include the following: How do I get the right people to discover my new book? Where can I find people to review my book on Kindle and the other retail websites? Is there a way for me to increase...

In the introduction Mark talks about the newly announced Book2Pod service announced by Jim Kukral on the Sell More Books Show podcast and shares two of the voices available (Nigel and Jessica) to talk about one of the things he likes best about it (freeing authors to be able to work on their next book). Authors interested in testing the service out can do so at https://www.book2pod.com/testdrive/...

Today's episode is a little bit different. It's a solo one, rather than an interview. But this week I wanted to do a solid reflection, or perhaps even a rant, on something I've been thinking about a lot, especially in the last few weeks. This episode is entitled "What's Wrong With Indie Publishing" or rather, "3 Things I Worry About And That I Think Could Improve Indie Publishing" I went with the...

In the introduction, Mark talks a little about being in Colorado attending Superstars Writing Seminars in Colorado Springs, CO and the importance of understanding the business of writing and publishing. He shares that he will be doing Facebook Live videos of his experience at Superstars on his Stark Publishing Facebook page. This episode features an interview with Kelly Lytle from Findaway Voices...

Mark chats with Canadian Science Fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer. Sawyer is one of only eight writers in history — and the only Canadian — to win all three of the world's top Science Fiction awards for best novel of the year: the Hugo , the Nebula , and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (the full list of such winners: Paolo Bacigalupi, David Brin, Arthur C. Clarke, Joe Haldeman, Frederik Pohl, K...

Mark interviews Sinead McElhinney, PR Coordinator on the Communications team from Rakuten Kobo in Toronto, Ontario about some interesting reading data that Kobo released near the end of 2017. They discuss the analysis of reading data, understanding core eBook readers better, as well as some of Sinead's favorite things about her role in the book industry. During the chat, they discuss: Where she st...

Mark interviews Joanna Penn of www.thecreativepenn.com about her latest book The Healthy Writer: Reduce Your Pain, Improve Your Health, And Build A Writing Career For The Long Term (co-authored with Dr. Euan Lawson) and they also have a discussion about trends in publishing and speculation about the opportunities that might be coming for writers. In his introduction to the episode, Mark announces...

The start of a new year is always a time for reflection. It's often a look back at the previous year and the goals accomplished during that period. And it usually also involves setting some goals or targets for the year ahead. In this episode, Mark Leslie Lefebvre shares three of the goals that he set for 2017 which he didn't complete. He walks through each of them and demonstrates not only where...

Access to publishing has never been easier; and it's an amazing time to be a writer. But it may also be harder and more confusing than it ever has been. You currently have more choices, more options than ever in the history of publishing. What paths are right for you and for your goals? Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing is a weekly podcast starting in January 2018. Drawing upon more than...