TCK Publishing Videos

The results of Rachel’s latest book marketing experiments will surprise you. Rachel Aaron is a bestselling traditionally published novelist and author of several books including the Eli Monpress series, as well as one of my absolute favorite nonfiction books on writing:  2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love . We talk about how her writing has changed since our last interview, and her latest experiments with book marketing. We also talk about the importance of writing quality books and what types of marketing work (and don’t work) when you’re just starting to build an author platform. Note: Rachel’s been on the show before: in Episode 36 , we talked about how to write faster, better, and love what you do. We talked a lot about plotting, as well as Rachel’s writing process. It’s worth going back for a listen just so you can get the full scope of what Rachel’s talking about—and how it might work for you! Writing is Marketing Since our la...

Watch on YouTube here: How to Become a Better Person: 5 Steps to Personal Development Via https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcZImr64sN4bR4BB_JA82vg/videos

Jonah Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the bestselling author of  Contagious: Why Things Catch On  and  Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior . This was a great interview. We talk about what makes things go viral and how authors can create a word-of-mouth campaign to sell more books. Jonah’s undergraduate research focus was in human decision-making. He went on to earn a PhD in marketing. He’s always been interested in why people do what they do and what influences the decisions they make. His academic career allows him to study these questions deeply. He wrote his first book Contagious: Why Things Catch On after he taught a course on the subject. A lot of people sent requests for the course materials even though they were unable to actually attend the class. That’s when he came up with the idea of bringing together academic research on the subject of why things go viral, then c...

My journey as a writer began in my early teen years. My parents had divorced under ugly circumstances, and my mother moved us from our very posh life in Hawaii to a small house in a secluded corner of Ojai, California. Being young and not understanding the sacrifices my mother made during this time, I retreated into my books to avoid the conflicts brewing all around me and the displacement I felt coming into a new school with a bunch of kids I definitely didn’t fit in with. I began writing my first fantasy story at 13, about a girl stolen away from her home, becoming a heroine who traveled with fantastical creatures on some quest or other. I don’t recall if I finished it, but I delighted in the retreat and release writing brought me. I could pour my frustrations out on a page and find easy or whimsical resolutions to the drama. That was important; I needed something to help me feel like there was an answer or an end to what I was going through—and that solution turned out to be st...

Writing a fantastic book is only the first step in becoming a successful author. After that, you’ll need to work on building your brand and creating a solid marketing strategy that will propel this book and everything else you do to success. When marketing your book , social media will be an important part of your integrated marketing campaign. An integrated marketing campaign focuses on combining all aspects of communication—advertising, public relations, social media, and more—so customers have a unified interaction with your brand. This approach will determine what you post on which social media platforms, so it’s important you fully develop your campaign prior to posting. One great thing about social media is that it allows you to actively engage with your audience. Readers love being able to chat with their favorite authors and pick their brains, asking questions and learning about new projects they’re working on. Take advantage of this! Build excitement by talking about the ...

Every part of our lives can become inspiration for our next book or short story. From dialogue we overhear on our commute to ideas planted by coworkers or neighbors mentioning a problem they need to solve, writers draw from everything around us to gain inspiration, motivation, and ideas. There’s a billion ways to keep track of these ideas, from bullet journals to whiteboard lists, and no one way is perfect for everyone. If you’ve struggled to keep track of all your ideas by scribbling notes down, you might be a visual learner instead—someone who remembers and focuses better with images than with words. That might sound weird for a writer, but studies have shown that most people learn and concentrate best when they combine images and words for a more vibrant experience. Instead of making lists upon lists of characters, settings, plot points, or topics to cover in your books, try making an inspiration board instead! What Is an Inspiration Board? Also called a mood board, inspi...

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Okay, so it’s a cliché, but it became one for a reason—we need downtime and silly activities to recharge after a long day or week of work! As writers, we’re often constantly working—if we’re not at a day job, we’re thinking about our plot, structure, themes, or grammar…or we’re working on marketing our books and cranking out the next one. Our brains are always on the go, even while our bodies are often firmly plunked in one place, typing at the computer. In order to prevent burnout, refresh our creative energy, feel better, and improve our relationships (both with ourselves and others), we need to take some time off and get back to our roots: play! We give kids recess time to run around, blow off some steam, and just be themselves. Why don’t we treat ourselves the same way? Being a grownup isn’t all about being serious all the time—we have a right and a need to play, too! More and more scientific studies are showing that the power ...

Mike Rohde is the bestselling author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook . He presents sketchnoting workshops around the world that encourage people to use visual thinking skills to generate, capture, and share ideas more effectively. In this awesome interview, we talk about sketchnoting, including what it is and how to do it. And we talk about Mike’s traditional publishing journey and how he was able to make his book a success. What Is Sketchnoting? Sketchnoting is a visual way of taking notes. Normally, notes are text-based. But there’s a problem with that: text-based notetaking limits the type and amount of information that you can record and remember. Text-based notetaking relies on just that one mode of taking notes. The human brain processes text-based notes one way and image-based notes in a different way. Sketchnoting allows us to capture more data and use more areas of our brain, increasing the likelihood that we’re going to remember that data. Using...