Who’s been sassy and who’s been sweet, the SPA Girls bring the holiday heat!

We’re thrilled to have Ines back in the SPA to teach us about Direct Selling for Authors AND Special Editions in a very special episode packed with great advice for writers at all stages.

Ines is a former television producer and college professor, and alongside her fiction writing, is producing some amazing resources for author including her podcast and courses for authors.

Links mentioned in the podcast:

Katie Cross – SPA Girls EP433

Joanna Penn and Payhip

https://www.ingramspark.com

Ines and Skye Warren’s course Direct Sales For Romance Authors

About Ines Johnson

Ines writes books for strong women who suck at love. If you rocked out to the twisted triangle of Jem, Jericha, and Rio as a girl; if you were slayed by vampires with souls alongside Buffy; if you need your scandalous fix from Olivia Pope each week, then you’ll love her books!

Aside from being a writer, professional reader, and teacher, Ines is a very bad Buddhist. She sits in sangha each week, and while others are meditating and getting their zen on, she’s contemplating how to use the teachings to strengthen her plots and character motivations.

Ines lives outside Washington, DC with her two little sidekicks who are growing up way too fast.

Ines’ author website : https://ineswrites.com/

Ines’ author courses: https://thebreakdown.teachable.com/

A Replay Classic : Samantha Price is a USA Today bestselling author of Amish romance and cozy mysteries. Focused and organized, Samantha’s results speak for themselves, but it will amaze you to hear how prolific she is and how she built her career in a smaller niche than usual.

About Samantha:
Samantha grew up in the Brethren community and has a deep affinity for the Amish way of life, which she has studied in detail during over a decade of dedicated research. Her stories radiate authenticity and heart, transporting readers into the peaceful and inspiring world of the Amish community. Samantha is also an animal lover. She shares her home with two spoiled dogs and a rescued cat who thinks she’s also a dog.

www.SamanthaPriceAuthor.com

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Kaci Rose is a steamy romance author who published her first book in March 2020 and has since catapulted into six figure income thanks to intentionally connecting her books within a universe. We’re rapt she’s in the SPA to share how she connects her books, intentionally putting characters into “guest” appearances, selling bundles via her direct store and many more pearls of wisdom you won’t want to miss!.

About Kaci

Steamy Contemporary Romance author Kaci Rose runs on coffee, chocolate, and Oreos. She’s also a mom to five kids, a dog lover, and a bookworm.

She loves romance books and has been jotting down ideas since she was in high school and is now putting all her ideas down on paper. She loves her book boyfriends with tattoos, muscles, beards, and a little dirty. She also believes in satisfying, happily ever afters with a lot of steam along the way.

Find Kaci at KaciRose.com

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Stop dreading writing another author newsletter and get ready to sell more books with email! Holly Darling (Mortimer) is the “newsletter queen” and has fantastic, actionable tips. Holly talked with us a few years ago and her advice is still as relevant today as it was then.

Get ready to ramp up your author newsletter in 2025!

Find Holly at: https://pages.hollydarlinghq.com/

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

A short but impactful (hopefully!) run down of great tips for growing your author career and staying (relatively) sane and focussed. Topics include:

1. Consistency, no matter the speed
2. Diversification / be nimble
3. AI
4. Personal Connection
5. You Do You

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Kel Carpenter is a publishing powerhouse who has been a successful fulltime author since she was just 22 years old. With the goal of publishing 30 books by 30 years, she’s achieved that and more! Kel has incredible business-savvy and a “learning” mindset that has helped her achieve multi-six figure pa success, manage burnout, and diversify her income streams. As well as her fiction, Kel is the creator of the Rule Your Author Empire course (and book) at https://www.ruleyourauthorempire.com/

Resources mentioned:

Heather Hildenbrand – SPA Girls EP434 – Manifest Your HEA

Renee Rose –SPA Girls EP365 Write To Riches

Karin Winter https://karinwinterauthor.com/edge-print

You can find Kel at https://kelcarpenter.com/ and https://www.ruleyourauthorempire.com/

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Cathy Yardley is an award-winning author of romance, chick lit, and urban fantasy, who has sold over 1.2 million copies of books for publishers like St. Martin’s, Avon, and Harlequin. We met Cathy at the 2024 Romance Writers of New Zealand conference, and immediately knew we had to get her on the show!

This is a fantastic episode for writers at all stages of their careers. Cathy covers writing in your unique voice, writing your truth and how to ROCK YOUR PLOT.

Books mentioned in the episode:
Debra Dixon’s GMC (Goal, Motivation & Conflict)

Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure

Cathy Yardley’s Will Write For Shoes

About Cathy:

Cathy Yardley is an award-winning author of romance, chick lit, and urban fantasy, who has sold over 1.2 million copies of books for publishers like St. Martin’s, Avon, and Harlequin. She writes fun, geeky, and diverse characters who believe that underdogs can make good and that sometimes being a little wrong is just right.

She likes writing about quirky, crazy adventures, because she’s had plenty of her own: she had her own army in the Society of Creative Anachronism; she spent a New Year’s on a three-day solitary vision quest in the Mojave Desert; she had VIP access to the Viper Room in Los Angeles.

Now, she spends her time writing in the wilds of East Seattle, trying to prevent her son from learning the truth of any of said adventures, and riding herd on her two dogs (and one husband.)

You can find Cathy at : www.rockyourwriting.com (for writers) and cathyyardley.com

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Comparison is the thief of joy

-Theodore Roosevelt

Today we talk about comparisonitis in the SPA. A topic we’re sure is dear to many hearts.

We live in a world where we can see what everyone else is doing online. Successes and failures. We are the ‘instant gratification’ generation, and have a need for success, so we compare ours with others! So sit back with your favorite beverage and let’s dive in, and see if we can work through a few things that may help.

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast @spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

Get ready to be inspired this week by our guest interviewee, romance author Juliette N. Banks.

“In 2020 I wrote a book, pitched it to a few agents, got rejected three times, and waited another 35 seconds before deciding to self-publish. One of the best decisions of my life.” ~ Juliette N. Banks

Juliette is a bestselling romance author who has taken the genre by storm with her popular series The Moretti Blood Brothers, The Dark Kings of NYC, and The Dufort Dynasty. She has written more than 50 contemporary and paranormal romances (on the same pen name).

Juliette has a vast background in consumer marketing and brings her business savvy to her business planning, release strategies, reader relationships and mindset.

This is an incredibly inspirational episode and we cover everything from approaching self-publishing with a “business” mindset, combining genres on the one pen name, release strategies, getting regular bookbubs, building a a loyal audience, and encouragement for those starting out, as well as experienced authors.

You can find Juliette at:

www.juliettebanks.com

Read her guest post for Bookbub : https://insights.bookbub.com/maximize-first-featured-deal/

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!

This episode we discuss Book Signings and Book Fairs – in person events where authors get out of the writing cave and actually (gasp!) interact with readers and fellow authors. These can be great fun – and a little intimidating. Wendy’s just returned from RARE Edinburgh so we grilled her on how she prepped, her table “set up”, how preorders worked, what merchandise she took and how she handled the signing. Cheryl’s done a number of book fairs in New Zealand and there is a definite benefit to starting locally and finding your feet at smaller events.

Links: https://rarettes.wordpress.com/

💗 The SPA Girls podcast is sponsored by everyone who supports us on Patreon. Thank you so much, we love our listeners and our patrons!

⭐ Join us at the $10 tier, and you’ll be invited to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group for authors, where we discuss all things self-publishing, marketing and writing PLUS answer all your burning questions.

⭐ Get personal online coaching with the SPA Girls each month through our $100 tier. Spots for this are strictly limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

All the info is at http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

✍️ Visit http://www.SelfPublishingAuthorsPodcast.com for our FREE self-publishing resources, podcast episodes and info

😊Watch our weekly show on YouTube @‌spagirlspodcast

Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen, so you don’t miss an episode!