Summary: We started this with our traditional banter, touching on topics from 1) me being inspired by the Self Publishing Podcast (how modest!) to 2) Dave moving to a day schedule to 3) Dave's true nature being soft and cuddly. It was worthless but fun, just like how we occasionally are on topic. Voice mail fun involving profanity and how to market your Kindle books We took two some cool voicemails before starting with our guest, Joanna Penn. The first was uncredited, probably because his voice message exposes himself to be a motherfucking douchebag assbag cocksucker, and was about using profanity in our writing. Do we do it deliberately, or do we do it "as it falls out of our dickholes"? (I can't believe people think this podcast is "blokish." Can you? The second question was about marketing we've done that didn't work. I said that nothing has really worked for me and that Podiobooks hasn't done much for me probably because I only have one book. Sean said that guest posting and the Kindle Fire giveaway they did were worthless. Dave took a nap. Live, with Joanna Penn! We then teased for an update on our Better Off Dead podcast while our guest, Joanna Penn (she's got a fiction site and a nonfiction site) downloaded something to make our hookup work. Then she came on and we dropped the Better Off Undead update, thus being annoying assholes. But what else is new? (We'll give that update next time.) Joanna is interesting to us for a lot of reasons, but the one that had us calling her to be on SPP was the fact that after a very successful self-publishing run for two of the three books in her historical/religion-based ARKANE thriller series (Pentecost and Prophecy), selling almost 50,000 books, she announced that she was signing with an agent with the goal of finding a publisher to take over the series, and maybe more of her work as well. We took a lot out of the discussion of why she made the leap and what's behind it, but here are a few of the important takeaways: Today more than ever, authors are empowered. It used to be you had to lick the boots of agents because they were your only way in. That's no longer true, and it puts us in stronger bargaining positions. If you think you might want to be traditionally published one day, using self-publishing as a springboard is maybe the best way. It's a way for you to prove that you can sell BEFORE they take you on. It also gives you a platform, and authors need audiences first if agents or publishers are to pay attention to them. You can and should pay close attention to your contract. Joanna has tips. Rights are negotiable. Joanna is still able to self publish. Her agent may or may not represent her later stuff, at her discretion. Foreign rights matter. Joanna and Sean had a back and forth on this in which Sean thought Joanna was validating his cause in front of the stodgy Dave, but I came to Dave's defense because Sean's argument for translating his stuff and Joanna's are apples and oranges. And a lot more stuff. Oh, we also discussed this incredibly phallic book cover. We're going to make you listen to find out why, though. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast Episode #18 - Going from Self Publishing to Getting a Literary Agent, with Joanna Penn
