SPA Girls Podcast

One size doesn't fit all - we've all heard that saying, but how do you know what DOES work for you? In this episode, we discuss how to identify what best works for you in three areas: Your Writing Process Your Publishing Strategy Your Marketing Strategy and share tips and resources that we've learned along the way.

Ever wondered what it would be like to have your book optioned for television or film? Join us this week as we talk to Michele Scott, a NYT, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestselling author of over forty novels, who is currently working on multiple projects involving film and television options and find out more about the process, what it entails and what to expect!   

Emilia Rose is an international bestselling author of steamy paranormal romance. With over 18 million story views online, Emilia loves creating the newest and sexiest paranormal romances for her fans. Emilia shares how she started by releasing her work for free on Wattpad and other serial platforms, and building a ravenous audience there. At that time she didn't have the resources to invest and ad...

USA Today Bestselling author of more than 50 books, Morgana Best writes cozy mysteries featuring witches, psychics, ghosts, mermaids, and anything else that tickles her imagination. Her books have landed on the Top 10 spot on Amazon and are beloved by readers in over 70 countries. Today she is talking to us about selling direct from your own author store. Something Morgana has been doing for many...

This week we talk about how to find new ideas, and how to use those ideas in new ways. How to find them in the everyday hustle and bustle of our lives, and how to turn them on their heads to create something intriguing and interesting to our readers.  We go through a series of story starters, of intriguing kernels that you can use to create an awesome story that your readers will love to read... ...

Samantha Price is a USA Today bestselling author of Amish romance books and cozy mysteries. She was raised Brethren and has a deep affinity for the Amish way of life, which she has explored extensively with over a decade of research.   Focused and organized, Samantha's the results speak for themselves, but it will amaze you how prolific she is and how she built her career in a relatively small nic...

This week we discuss burnout, protecting our creativity, being productive and not buying in to the hustle culture. You could say we're "anti hustle" but pro making careers out of our writing! Recommended listening : SPA Girls Podcast with megastar BELLA ANDRE SPA Girls Podcast with Helen Scheurer - Six Figures with One Book A Year    💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports u...

SPA Girl Wendy Vella has been self-publishing successfully since 2013 in Historical Romance and Contemporary Romance. Her romances are loved by a huge global audience who appreciate her trademark wit, strong family depiction, unique settings, and swoon-worthy heroes. Today, Wendy is a USA Today Bestseller and consistent Amazon bestseller, with 50 books published, and close to 3 million copies sold...

Dave Chesson joins us in the SPA for a third time to chat about some of the awesome apps that he's designed for authors on the Kindleprenuer website.  Dave is a smart guy, and he knows his stuff when it comes to self publishing, so the apps are all super useful and on-point. This includes the free apps, such as the Book Description Generator and the Hashtag Generator (if you've ever struggled with...

When you feel the frantic need to achieve and you don't, it's easy to get stuck or suffer burnout. If that's happened to you, then Corinne has some ideas to get you through. The Calm Entrepreneur was born out of a series of aha moments over the past several years. After a long time writing-to-market and chasing the algorithms with rapid release, she found herself in deep burnout. Deciding to write...

This week we broadcast our 350th episode and in complete contrast to how laid-back Kiwis generally approach milestones, we're celebrating the heck out of it!  What have we learned, what have we regretted and what's next? THANK YOU to the thousands of listeners who tune in each week. We appreciate each and every one of you.   💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us Patreon...

Building a deep connection between your characters and your readers is what  creates raving fans, books that stick like glue to the sales charts and fuels word-of-mouth recommendations. So how do we do this? Today we're talking about tools and resources we use to build reader connection with our characters. Full show notes and resource links on our website ...  💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsore...

USA Today best-selling author Lee Savino is a bubble of energy, and this week's podcast with her left us all feeling motivated and inspired. We know you're going to love this episode too!  Lee talked to us about how the mindset of an indie author is vitally important, more important than any other aspect of writing and publishing, including all the tactics and systems we hear about all the time. I...

Are you struggling to get your words down each day? Why not give writing sprints a try? You can do them alone, however, you might find they work better with others like we did. How it works: Find a friend or a group and set aside a certain amount of time. Now break this into doable time slots. For example, if you had two hours, then the time could be 4 slots of 30 mins, or 2 times 1 hour each, or...

* we apologize for the technical gremlins that appear occasionally in this recording. Stick with it because the info is gold!   Today we're joined by Julia Roberts, MSc, writer, creativity coach, and soon-to-be Ted Talker. Julia is going to talk us through procrastination and the tools we can use to manage it. Goodness knows we all need this help!   Her expertise is the creative process - she focu...

Do you want to learn how to design a series that will hook and keep readers, AND set you up for long term success? Helen Scheuerer, YA fantasy author of the bestselling series, The Oremere Chronicles and the Curse of the Cyren Queen quartet, joins us today to discuss how we can write a successful series. Topics covered include: The REAL reasons you should write in a series How to find and use your...

self publishing for beginners.

Bestselling Author Asa Maria Bradley suggests collaboration as a way to get creative again. Growing up in Sweden surrounded by archaeology and history steeped in Norse Mythology, inspired her sexy and paranormal romance series. She also writes urban fantasy about empowered heroines who kick ass while saving the world. Her work has received a double nomination for the Romance Writers of America's R...

Today we're thrilled to welcome editor extraordinaire, Mary-Theresa Hussey, to the SPA. Prior to becoming a freelance editorial consultant, Mary-Theresa (known as Matrice) worked at Harlequin for more than 25 years, editing nearly a thousand titles. As editor, senior and executive editor, she read, acquired, revised, rejected and critiqued triple that. Many of the books she has edited went on to f...

Hit the ground running with this episode all about how to successfully finish the first draft of your novel!  We talk about how we stay motivated, what you need to know before you can start, how we keep going when we get to the saggy middle, what we plan beforehand, and what we leave to figure out as we go.  If you've been struggling to get started on your first draft, or you're wallowing somewher...

Do you want to be a full-time author? Today we discuss how we transitioned to writing full time, including: how we approached the financial and business planning balancing the creative and business sides of the job mindset tips and corrections along the way our expectations versus reality courage and resourcefulness Make a plan, understand your process, know how much you need to earn and adopt the...

Struggling to write compelling characters and compelling but realistic conflict in your stories? Well, have we got a show for you! Darian Smith is a prize winning fiction writer with a degree in psychology, and is a member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors. He combines these two sides of his background to provide simple, easy to follow tools that make use of established psychological t...

In the Spa this week we talked to the talented Naomi Barton. With more people listening to audio books now, there has never been a better time to learn about this side of our industry. Naomi has produced audio books for our very own Cheryl, under CA Phipps, her cozy mystery pen name. We talk about processes, cost, and the industry. You won't want to miss this one!  https://www.naomibartonvoice.com...

This week we talk to long-time PR coach and publicist Lilian Sue about how authors can successfully use PR to help with their author business. Her aim is to help authors fulfill their potential and become global industry leaders by focusing on how to build a healthy PR mindset above any strategy. We talk about authors can develop strong and healthy PR mindsets (by busting down fear and imposter sy...