163 - Year End: The Writing Craft And The Publishing Voyage

Episode 163 - Year End: The Writing Craft And The Publishing Voyage with Jennifer Hilt & Michael La Ronn

December 6, 2022

I talk with previous guests Jennifer Hilt and Michael La Ronn about YEAR END: THE WRITING CRAFT AND THE PUBLISHING VOYAGE, including starting your planning early, having a North Star, finishing what you start, having a sounding board, the power of a retreat, and keeping it fun. Except for the keeping it fun part, Jennifer, Michael, and I have pretty different approaches to year-end as authors, and I think you’ll enjoy our conversation as much as I did.

Jennifer Hilt is the author of THE TROPE THESAURUS: TROPE YOUR WAY TO A STRONGER STORY, THE HORROR TROPE THESAURUS: KILLING IT WITH TROPES, and the upcoming ROMANCE TROPE THESAURUS. She is also the USA Today bestselling author of 24 books across four pen names.

Michael La Ronn is the author of over forty science fiction & fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He runs the popular YouTube channel Author Level Up and serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a US Ambassador, and he also co-hosts the AskALLi Member Q&A Podcast.

"One of the best things I've done is I do a retreat in early January. And I have to say that is the most awesome thing after you've had many busy months of doing a lot of other stuff, to just have this silence to focus on your work and think about, okay, what do I want to accomplish this year?" —Jennifer Hilt

"If you're stressed out to the point where it's affecting your work, it goes back to what we were saying in the beginning is you got to find ways to keep it fun. Because if you're stressed out like that, you're going to burn out. And that's not I think the reason they have a sign up to do this." —Michael La Ronn

Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

Links

Jennifer's Links:
https://www.jenniferhilt.com/
https://www.facebook.com/authorjenniferhilt

Jennifer's previous episode:
Episode 140 - Troping Your Way to a Stronger Story

Michael’s links:
https://www.youtube.com/authorlevelup
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellaronn/
https://twitter.com/michaellaronn
https://www.facebook.com/michael.laronn

Michael's previous episodes:
Episode 148 - Making the Most of In-person Events
Episode 126 - Estate Planning for Authors
Episode 096 - Emerging Tech for the Writing Craft
Episode 090 - Bringing a Creative Endeavor to an End
Episode 074 - Perspectives on Personal Branding
Episode 055 - The Costs of Self-publishing a Book

Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jennifer and Michael! We all had pretty different approaches to the end of the year—which most resonated with you? Are you going to make any changes to your year end on the basis of our discussion? What might those changes be? I’d love to hear your thoughts! To leave a comment, just go to YouTube and search for The Indy Author—and that’s indy with a Y—and leave a comment on episode 163 ... and I hope you’ll subscribe while you’re there!

Please post your comments on YouTube--and I'd love it if you would subscribe while you're there!

NOTE: After several years of trying to cover the costs of producing the podcast with earnings from patronage and sponsorships, I finally had to acknowledge that, for now at least, The Indy Author Podcast is more a labor of love than an income stream. As a result, I needed to find ways to reduce my expenses, and the expense I finally decided to eliminate was the editing of the transcript.

However, it's valuable for me to know that you were looking for it! If you miss the transcript, please click here to drop me a note!

If you'd like to become a patron of The Indy Author, please click here.

When AI transcription improves to the point that it doesn't require the time and expense of a human edit, or once my earnings from the podcast enable me to cover the costs of a human editing, I will resume that offering!