Industry Insights

Feeling overwhelmed? Panicked?
Frustrated by trying to juggle life, writing and the business of being an author?

Don’t worry, you are not alone. Author Overwhelm is a common and not unsurprising side-effect of being an author today.

Beat Author Overwhelm with this informative, honest and
practical guide that’s full of tips and techniques to become more focused and less stressed. Together, we’ll help you form an action plan that’ll help you manage your time, social media, marketing and actually getting those words written.

The SPA Girls (SPA = Self Publishing Authors) are Cheryl Phipps, Wendy Vella, Trudi Jaye and Shar Barratt. Together, they host a popular weekly podcast, The SPA Girls Podcast, that features an honest, raw and often hilarious take on their own self-publishing adventures. Their mission is to deliver advice, resources, interviews and self-publishing best practices to help fellow authors succeed in this exciting new world.

For inspiration, advice and full podcast episodes, visit us at SpaGirlsPodcast.

More writers are making money today than at any other time in history. With the rise of ebooks and indie publishing there are now more opportunities than ever for writers to generate substantial income from their work. And there is still a traditional publishing industry that needs new talent to keep growing.

In How to Make a Living as a Writer, you'll learn the secrets of writing for profit and increasing your chances of making a living wage from your work.

This book provides the pros AND cons of both the traditional and self-publication roads, along with some insights on how you need to treat your writing as a business.

From blank page to first glowing (or gutting) review, Betsy Lerner is a knowing and sympathetic coach who helps writers discover how they can be more productive in the creative process and how they can better their odds of not only getting published, but getting published well.

If you want an insight into the world of publishing from the publisher's side, then this book is for you.

This is NOT a book about the craft, but a book about the publishing industry.

Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this volume reveals a view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have.

This is NOT a book about the craft, but rather a memoir of Stephen King's journey into writing. It contains truths about how writing can be destructive if one is not careful.

The latest book from Joanna Penn is all about the gentle reminders on how we can't do it all. We need to focus on the tasks that we enjoy as a writer and look at other strategies to do the rest. And if that means that we don't publish a new book every month, then that's exactly what it means.

Writing is too important for it to lose the joy that brought it to us in the first place.

In this book, Joanna Penn joins up with Mark Leslie Lefebvre to give you a little insight into how they have managed to reduce the stress and become relaxed authors.

With articles written by a wide range of authors who write mysteries and thrillers, this book provides an overview of what it takes to write in this genre. Topics range from working with characters and plot through to publishing and legal concerns of the industry.

This book was reviewed by the BW Book Club in June 2023. The book club decided that the book was worth recommending to others, but with the understanding that this book is structured as an overview of a lot of topics. New writers might find this book overwhelming.