SPA Girls Podcast

Thinking of self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk about the various ways we as authors can speed up the writing process, from getting your head in the right space, to planning, scheduling and just plain old writing faster.  We give some practical tips and ideas that have worked for us, so...

Thinking of self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we go through the book page on Amazon, deciphering some of the sections, explaining how each works and how the information gleaned can help you in your Indie career. 

Thinking about self publishing, and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30ish minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk about the author courses we've done between us, and the ones that we like and would recommend to you, our dear listeners... :)   

Thinking about self-publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls - Wendy Vella, Trudi Jaye, Cheryl Phipps and Shar Barratt - each week for honest tips, resources and (sometimes hilarious) tales from four indie romance authors. Australian author and writing tutor, Rachel Bailey, joins us this week to discuss the Black Moment: that point in your story when all hope is lost, when cris...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we interview the delightful Jami Albright, who just launched her first book, a romantic comedy called Running from a Rock Star. She did such a fantastic job of launching her book, we decided to have her on to talk about what she did, and her phi...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of advice, tips and resources. We're out to lunch today, recording in a café (so enjoy the ambience of the coffee machine in the background!) where we discuss all those myths about writing and publishing.  Some we've fallen prey to; others we've debunked through experience.  You need to know e...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we wanted to talk about talking. Well, book talking, ie dialogue. It can make or break your book - nobody wants to read stilted or awkward dialogue!  Find out the tricks and tips that we use to make our dialogue better, so that you can too! :) 

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for thirty minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk about endings in your books. Not just the main ending at the very back, but the endings on each of the chapters.  Many authors rush through the ending of their book, because by the time they get there, they're sick of the whole conce...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk about the beginnings of our books, and why it's vital to get it right, especially in the world of ebooks. It's really easy to put down a book, and find something else when you don't like the first few pages of a book on your kindle.  We go through...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we sit down and talk through our goals for the first quarter, and how we've been going. It's a bit of a mixed bag, with some of us having achieved our goals and others not so much. But there's always something to learn from our highs and lows, e...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for thirty minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we have a very special guest - Glenna Mageau, book blurb coach and writer who takes us through how to write a blurb that sells more books. We all picked up loads of tips and we're sure you will too! 

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk through the options for formatting your ebook, from getting it done by outsourcing to a service provider, to doing it yourself through programs like Vellum, Calibre or Legend Maker.   

Uploading to Amazon is the first step - then the second step is setting up your Author Central Account and optimizing your Amazon Author Page. Too many new self publishers don't do the second step and it's costing them sales!  It's easy and it's free so listen up and we'll share how to ZHUSH up your Amazon Author Page to make it sparkle!  SPA Girls Wendy Vella, Cheryl Phipps and Shar Barratt share...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk about a subject dear to our hearts - author overwhelm. It's so easy to become overwhelmed in this digital age, with everything that we are bombarded with and told we "have to" do to succeed as a self published author.  This episode we ta...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk through the basic marketing principles that you need to make sure you've got in place on your books. Think of it as a 101 class in marketing your book. 

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we give some writer productivity hacks - ie a big ole list of tips to increase your productivity, based on things that we do each week to help us write more!  From exercise tips and the best writing apps to use, to setting routines and ways to s...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we fought it out and battled to the death over our favourite romance novels of all time. Listen and see if you agree with our choices and the reasons that we chose them...  Another hilarious episode from the SPA Girls... 

Thinking of self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talk about etiquette for authors - how to treat other authors, your fans and the service providers you deal with on a daily basis.   

Wendy, Cheryl and Trudi talk through some common writing mistakes and give suggestions for how to avoid making them yourself.  Based around Jack Bickham's book, The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, we talk on topics from not making excuses, lecturing your readers, dropping alligators through the transom (don't worry, we figure that one out), stopping too soon, giving up and not just sittin...

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we talked about writing the book of your heart versus writing a book to market. What do these terms mean, and why should it matter to you? Listen to this episode to find out! 

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we were lucky enough to talk to Zoe York, USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of contemporary romance, and all around lovely lady. She gave us some fantastic tips on writing in series, including craft considerations, marketing ideas,...

This week we get the show number wrong, yet again, and the sound quality is a little bit bad, but we still manage to get out an episode talking about our goals for 2017 and how we're going to achieve them. It's a fun, motivational episode that will get you started thinking about your goals, and how you're going to make them happen in 2017! 

This week we interview celebrated screenwriter Kathryn Burnett who talks to us about setting and keeping goals for 2017. It's a value-packed episode filled with useful information for writers. Plus Kathryn is super lovely, and great to listen to! 

Join the SPA Girls for an extra-special Christmas episode where we talk about the highs and lows of 2016 - our Hit, Miss and Maybe list for self publishing.   

Thinking about self publishing and don't know where to start? Join the SPA Girls each week for 30 minutes of honest advice, tips and resources.  This week we had the ultimate interview with... Joanna Penn of the Creative Penn Podcast!!  She talks about how she started in self publishing, gives some amazing advice on how to get started as an Indie author, how to decide what success means to you, an...