YOU SHOULD TOTALLY WRITE THAT

We started this season asking if you have what it takes to be an indie author. We’re ending it with a harder question: how do you define success — and is your current definition helping you or quietly working against you? This finale isn’t a how-to. It’s the real conversation, the one that started after Tara mentioned tracking one thing and one thing only: whether last month outsold the same month...

A series bible is a continuity document. It lives outside your manuscripts and records everything that’s true in your fictional world: characters and their eye colors, backstories, the streets your shops sit on, the timeline, the rules. If you create the bible with book one, and you won’t accidentally give your heroine new eyes in book four. This episode walks through what a series bible is, why e...

If you’ve published a book on Amazon, you already have an author page. It’s there whether you’ve touched it or not, and most of the time it’s a blob doing absolutely nothing for you. This week on You Should Totally Write That , LL Kirchner and I go deep on two free Amazon tools almost every indie author underuses: Author Central and A+ Content. Sounds boring, but it’s not. In fact, we use the word...

Nobody told us that publishing a book meant starting a company. You’re not just the writer — you’re also the design department, IT, marketing, and accounting. And somewhere along the way, most of us bought a bunch of tools we didn’t need, couldn’t figure out, or used exactly once. In this episode, Tara and I get into what we actually use — the writing tools, book production tools, design tools, sc...

If you’ve ever seen a book drop on release day with 50 reviews already live, you were looking at an ARC team doing its job. ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy (sometimes Advanced Review Copy) — a pre-release version of your book, sent free to readers in exchange for an honest review. But here’s what nobody tells you upfront: ARCs aren’t a launch-day magic button for every book, in every genre, at...

I’ve spent a lot of money as an indie author. Some of it was money well spent. Some of it I would set on fire before doing again. That’s the whole episode this week on You Should Totally Write That. LL and I sorted through everything people try to sell you and split it into what’s worth it, what’s nice to have once you have a few books out, and what you should run from. Here’s the short version. B...

Every author you admire has a list. Thousands of subscribers, books launching to actual readers. Meanwhile, your list is basically you, your mom, and three people who signed up by accident. If you’ve ever wondered HOW people acquire these lists, today we’re pulling back the curtain. The tool almost every working indie author is using — and the one most beginners either skip or barely scratch — is...

The first writing conference I ever attended was the Romance Writers of America in Times Square. I walked through the lobby of the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, looked at thousands of people in name badges greeting each other like old friends, and thought: my god, what have I done? (Yes, I do love the Talking Heads). Conference season is here, and if you’re anything like me, the question every...

There’s a stretch of your book most readers will never linger on: the pages right after “The End.” The pages right before Chapter 1. Many authors treat them like an afterthought — slap on a copyright page, drop in an “also by” list, call it done — and lose newsletter signups and the chance to build a fandom. At the end of Hungry Like the Hex — Book 9 in my Crescent Moon series — I tried something...

We’ve been teasing this one since the very first episode—reader magnets, freebies you can offer readers to entice them to read your whole book. Maybe we put it off to avoid all the confessions? We’re no different than anyone else on this. We got the same advice every new author gets the: write your reader magnet first. Build your list before you have a book to sell. And both of us… did not do that...

Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you’re starting out: choosing where to sell your book is just as strategic as writing it. And “going wide” — making your e-books and audiobooks available beyond Amazon — isn’t automatically better or worse than Kindle Unlimited. It depends on your genre, your output speed, your marketing bandwidth, and honestly, what you’re willing to manage. This week, LL an...

I’ve seen this happen more than once. Two authors at the same event. Same kind of table. Same kind of books. Same foot traffic. One goes home frustrated, convinced events “don’t work.” The other leaves with a handful of sales—and a list of new readers they can reach again. The difference isn’t luck. It’s what they thought they were there to do. Most authors show up to events trying to sell books....

We come to you this week with what feels like a breakthrough: improved audio! We’ve heard from our listeners about past audio issues and believe we have fixed the glitches. This podcast has been a true learning experience and we thank you all for hanging in there! And now that you can hear us clearly, we have some things to say about newsletters. This week, LL and Tara dig into why your email list...

You’ve heard this author advice before: build your platform. Get on social media. Post consistently. Post constantly. Post every minute of your waking life. But do you have to? What if you don’t want to? And does it translate to book sales? In this episode we try to answer that honestly, which means we have a lot of tangents, some strong opinions, and at least one story involving foot fetishists a...

When we are young, green writers, we ask ourselves: can I write a book? But once you sort that out, a much different question shows up. Should it be a series? But wait — then you learn about “serial fiction.” Or maybe, you think your book is a one-off, a standalone. Hmm. In this week’s episode, we talk about what those choices actually mean once you’re a working writer. Series can be powerful beca...

The constant pressure to market can feel like quicksand—the harder you struggle, the deeper you sink. This week, LL and Tara tackle the question every indie author dreads: how much time do I really need to spend on marketing? They break down the difference between marketing (what you pay for) and PR (what you pay for in time), share their current writing-to-marketing splits (spoiler: it’s messier...

After giving away more than 10,000 books in a single day and spending over $800 on a single ad, I can tell you BookBub isn’t what most authors think it is. And that’s why it works. This week on You Should Totally Write That , Tara and I break down BookBub’s entire ecosystem: featured deals, international promotions, newsletter ads, chirp audiobook deals, and the newer offerings like Free Reads. We...

If you’re an indie author and you publish in Kindle Unlimited, your ebooks are exclusive to Amazon. There are a lot of reasons why you might not choose exclusivity, and that’s totally okay — but there are also many opportunities to gain readers and make money if your books are enrolled in KU.Amazon gives you three powerful promotional tools right inside your KDP dashboard. Most authors either igno...

Kindle Unlimited can feel confusing, intimidating, or like a black box of algorithms and acronyms. In this episode, Tara and LL break down what Kindle Unlimited actually is, how authors really make money from page reads, and why KU works well for some writers and not for others. We explain how exclusivity works, what the KENP system means for royalties, and how rankings, downloads, and reader beha...

Metadata — If your book can’t be found, does it exist? Metadata might be invisible to readers, but it’s doing an enormous amount of work behind the scenes. In this episode, LL Kirchner and Tara Lush break down what metadata actually is, what parts authors can control, what parts they can’t—and why treating it like clerical busywork is one of the easiest ways to let a good book quietly disappear. W...

They say audiobooks are booming. That you NEED an audiobook. But do you really? The market hit $2.2 billion last year, and everyone’s saying you must get in on the action. Award-winning authors LL Kirchner and Tara Lush reveal what actually happens when you take the audiobook plunge. In this episode, we decode the confusing world of audiobook production—from ACX’s seven-year handcuffs to support y...

Hoo boy. This is a big topic. So big, that I think we’ll probably revisit it a second or even third time. Book covers are SO IMPORTANT. In this episode, we dig into why covers can make or break a book before a reader ever reads a word. We talk honestly about covers we loved that failed, covers we did not personally like that sold extremely well, and the hard truth that your book cover is not art o...

This episode of You Should Totally Write That dives headfirst into the part of publishing most writers dread: the numbers, systems, and terminology that sit behind the scenes of getting a book into the world. We walk through what authors actually need to understand about copyright, ISBNs, BISAC codes, metadata, and publishing platforms — not in theory, but in practice. We talk honestly about when...

Your manuscript is done, but is it actually ready? Before you hit publish, there’s a gauntlet of editors, readers, and reality checks standing between you and your readers. Award-winning authors LL Kirchner and Tara Lush break down the alphabet soup of publishing prep—from developmental edits that cost more than your car payment to beta readers who might just run your book through ChatGPT (yes, th...

Welcome to You Should Totally Write That, the unfiltered truth about DIY publishing. In this episode, we tackle one of the most confusing parts of an author’s beginning journey: publishing terms. We break down the major publishing paths — traditional publishing, independent presses, hybrid publishing, and self-publishing/DIY — and explain what each scenario involves. Control, royalties, rights, ti...