May 8th, 2013

Most aspiring authors today are quick to note that the traditional publishing gates are closed to them and that digital is the way of the future. For many authors it has boiled down to self-publishing being the only potential path they are aware of to get their work published. And though the old prejudices against self-publishing are slowly fading (not without a whole lot of bar fighting and knifing of authors with one star reviews) the stigma is still there - digital books/authors = self-published = lesser quality.
Yet, with e-books taking a greater share of the reading markets each year it was only inevitable that traditional publishers would start using digital strategies to solve one of their biggest problems – how they could publish authors they really loved, but had to pass up because they didn’t believe there was a strong enough local market for an author’s odd mix of genre. Enter digital first publishing imprints, all the benefits of a traditional publishing deal (yep, editing provided and no formatting, designing or technical know-how required) with less risk to the publisher and more royalties for the author. In this podcast I talk to digital first author Jeffe Kennedy, a ‘traditionally’ published author with Carina Press (imprint of Harlequin), who has only had her work published digitally. During the podcast we explore this alternate path for authors, who just want to write and be published without dealing with the self-publishing/vanity press rollercoaster.
Jeffe Kennedy is an award winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Starting originally as a highly successful essayist, Jeffe found her career drawn towards fantasy and romance. Finding her feet at digital first imprint, Carina, her fantasy BDSM romance, Petals and Thorns, has won several readers awards. Sapphire, the first book in Facets of Passion has placed first in multiple romance contests and the follow-up, Platinum, is climbing the charts. Her most recent works include three fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns, the Facets of Passion, and the post-apocalyptic vampire erotica of the Blood Currency. Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com or every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog. She is represented by Pam can Hylckama Vliea of Foreword Literary.
In this podcast we discuss:
· ‘Traditional’ deals in digital (Digital first publishers)
· How the romance community are at the forefront of the digital revolution
· Alternate paths to traditional and self-publishing (No, we’re not talking vanity press!)
· The benefits of submitting to digital first publishers rather than self-publishing
· How Jeffe ended up at a digital first press
· Benefits of online friendships with other authors
· How Jeffe signed with an agent after being published with a digital first press
· How the Harlequin ‘propaganda machine’ works
· Marketing a digitally published book
· What genres lend themselves better to digital first releases
· Appeals of digital erotica to readers
· Whether or not her readers follow her work from romance to ‘sexy’ novels
· How digital first publishers are more likely to give ‘different’ books a chance
· Fairer royalties for authors
· And the more diverse marketing opportunities for erotica writers.
Enjoy!
I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb (Australian e-book store).If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb.
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com
Category: E-Book Revolution · writing · Education · publishing · Emily Craven · E-books · Business of writing | Comments |
April 3rd, 2013
With print on demand, self-publishing and global writing opportunities it's no wonder a new breed of writer is emerging. No longer are we restricted to traditional publishing, to shipping books from overseas, to just writing prose, or even to being in the same room as your fans at a signing. Even with 'new' pathways to publication you are no longer restricted, Amazon certainly isn't the only big fish in town. In particular I am thinking of Kobo, a fantastic company with some revolutionary ideas in the works for publishers and authors.

After the great experiences I've had with Kobo it makes total sense to me that they would hire someone as revolutionary as this podcast's guest, Mark Leslie Lefebvre. Mark is a writer, editor and bookseller and as of 2011 became the director of self-publishing & author relations at Kobo. He has been writing horror/twilight zone fiction since he was 13 and not only has several traditional publishing projects going at once, but also several self-publishing ventures. He was drawn to the profession of bookseller, and remained in the book industry in various management and information technology roles since graduating from university in 1992. He has been instrumental in developing strategies for the use of the Expresso Book machine and has organised several global POD projects using it. He has even organised successful book signings for his store without the authors even being in the same city. You can find out more about Mark at his website or his blog, and Kobo Writing Life at http://kobowritinglife.com/
In the intro I talk about the slow but steady progress of my latest novel (released in December), and the various marketing mini-courses I'm putting together for writers as I market my own novel. The idea of the mini courses is to give writers the information they need in one simple and affordable package, not to make them pay for information they already know, to get the information they actually want! I've also started a new Facebook novel, and begun my two new jobs: one as Digital Producer at If:Book Australia and the other as Producer of the interactive Choose Your Own Adventure event set to launch at the Brisbane Writers' Festival in September this year - so it's been a busy month!
In this podcast we discuss:
- The benefits of self-publishing.
- How indie authors and Kobo are partnering with bricks & mortar book stores and how you can too!
- How an e-book author can sell copies of their books at events and functions in the real world.
- Why Mark bought an Expresso Book Machine (Print On Demand Technology) and how indie authors can use it to deliver cheap print runs.
- The problem with CreateSpace for global distribution.
- How Mark became a 'hybrid' author.
- How you can use Kobo to sell pre-release copies of your book.
- How to do global book launches.
- How authors can use their out-of-print back list to increase the sales of their front list from publishers.
- What Kobo can offer authors (promotion & development opportunities).
- What sells best on Kobo.
- Why the 99cent model is unnecessary and detrimental for authors.
- The consequences of increasing the price of your book.
- Mark's most successful self-publishing and marketing experiments.
Enjoy!
I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb (Australian e-book store).If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb.
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com
Category: E-Book Revolution · Education · publishing · Emily Craven · Digital Book Store · E-books · self-publishing · Marketing | Comments |
March 12th, 2013

At last we get to the final E-Book Revolution Podcast from last year's World Fantasy Convention in Toronto - in this mini-podcast we diverge into the realms of fantasy authors and writing. For those listeners who are unaware I am a fantasy author and early 2012 I was awarded a grant by the South Australian Government to attend the World Fantasy Convention. The final mini-podcast from that convention is with Myke Cole.
Each mini-podcast has myself and a prominent fantasy author aiming to answer ten questions in twenty minutes covering a range of topics including writing, the digital revolution, avoiding procrastination and their own writing. Finally we end with a mystery question...dum-dum-dum!!!!
Myke Cole is an american action, fantasy author of the Shadow Ops Series. As a security contractor, government civilian and military office, Myke's career has run the gamut from Counterterrorism to Cyber Warfare to Federal Law Enforcement. He's done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. All that conflict can wear a guy out. Thank goodness for fantasy novels, comic books, late night games of Dungeons and Dragons and lots of angst fuelled writing. His latest novel, released in February, is a Shadow Ops Series book 'Fortress Frontier'. You can get in contact with him via Facebook and Twitter.
In this podcast we discuss:
- How his mother's childhood urging got him into writing
- How D&D lead him to becoming a 'warrior'
- How he moved from a military career to writing
- That there is no BIG break
- Why persistence is key
- How he stalked his (later) agent at a convention (& why he purposefully talked about everything other than writing)
- Why there is no way around one important factor - writing a killer book
- How he combats the loneliness of writing
- Giving yourself permission to write a shitty first draft
- The fact that there is no right or wrong way to start a writing career.
- How much help his military background gives him in writing action scenes.
- What we can learn from Frodo
- His goal to write a romance under his own name
PLUS the all important MYSTERY QUESTION.
I love hearing from Listeners and readers so please drop me a line at ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
In 2011-2012 Emily undertook a twelve month mentorship with fantasy author Isobelle Carmody. Emily blogs about fantasy writing and the lessons she learnt from Isobelle at http://theoriginalfantasy.blogspot.com.au. Emily's trip to the World Fantasy Convention could not be possible without the assistance of the South Australian Government through the Carclew Youth Arts Board. Thank you Carclew for the opportunity.

The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com and http://theoriginalfantasy.blogspot.com.au.
Category: writing · Education · Emily Craven · World Fantasy Convention · Fantasy Writing · Carclew Youth Arts | Comments |
February 26th, 2013
I've always been fascinated as to how writers build their author platforms, and which platform, if any, brings in the most traffic and whether or not more traffic equals meaningful connections with readers. Are reviews important? How should you approach a reviewer? If reviews are so influential, should you be doing your own? If you're confused as to whether you should be trying normal blogging, review blogging, or podcasting to connect with your audience then this podcast is for you. Today I talk with Sean the Blogonaut (or Bookonaut) a speculative fiction reviewer, blogger, writer and podcast. Not only will be be discussing the merits of different platforms but the best way to approach a reviewer with your novel (because let's face it, poor Sean has seen it all!)

Sean Wright (AKA Sean the Blogonaut, Sean the Bookonaut) considers himself an aspiring writer, he tends to do quite a lot of aspiring and not much writing. He blogs at Adventures of Bookonaut in attempt to keep himself sane and connected with other humans who share his tastes in fiction and to comment on and support the Australian speculative fiction scene.
He lives in rural South Australia, in the midst of wheat fields, in a 120 year old farm house which has its own history book but no ghosts. He holds a 2nd Dan in Chung Do Kwan, a Korean School of Shotokan Karate, and consequently can speak about 10 korean words and can break pine boards with just his mind. He is currently working on two manuscripts. You can find him on Twitter and at his website. He files audio interviews for the Ditmar nominate
Galactic Chat, a reviews column for the
International Speculative Fiction Magazine and has recently started his own genre fiction podcast. inventively named
Adventures of a Bookonaut Podcast
In this podcast we discuss:
- The importance of attending local writing events and workshops.
- Why it's important to approach a reviewer correctly.
- Mistakes authors make when sending a review.
- How blogging helps you get into the habit of writing every day.
- Podcasting vs Video casting.
- How Goodreads should figure in a writer's overall strategy.
- Why community minded authors get further.
- The proper use of Twitter.
- The mechanics of writing a balanced Tweet.
- Thoughts on paid reviews.
- How to go about blogging.
- What the benefits of podcasting are.
- Which platform draws the most traffic.
- Which platform creates the most interaction.
Enjoy!
I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb (Australian e-book store).If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb.
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com
Category: Education · publishing · Emily Craven · E-books · self-publishing · Blogging · Reviews | Comments |
January 31st, 2013

The days of a pasty author hunched over their manuscript in the garret have flown passed us in a whirlwind leaving more than one confused writer in the Land of Oz. No longer can authors let the publishing machine do all that pesky promotion work for them, heck authors can’t even throw their self-published works up on Amazon and expect to be ‘discovered’ anymore. Yet there are more people now then any time in history that claim being a writer as their full time job. While the paycheck for a self-published writer is slowly becoming more sustainable then a traditionally published writer, selling just books is still not going to be enough to keep the mortgage in check. Which is why this new generation of ‘full-time’ writers are using a new model, that of the author-entrepreneur. Basically, the author is making their money not only from their novels, but speaking, consulting and selling online courses, creating a more sustainable cash-flow. This is the model I am aiming for this year, being able to write and talk about writing is a dream job to me. So today’s podcast is all about learning how you and I can also become author-entrepreneurs! Our guest speaker for the podcast is none other than the fabulous author-entrepreneur herself, Joanna Penn.
Joanna Penn is an author, internet entrepreneur and international speaker based in London, England. She spent 13 years as a business IT consultant in large corporates across the globe before becoming a fulltime author-entrepreneur in September 2011. In 2008 she self published her first non-fiction book
and made ‘a lot of mistakes’ which culminated in the sale of almost no books. Determined to learn about marketing and become a better writer she started a website for indie authors called the Creative Penn. In Feb 2011, she self-published her first thriller novel ‘Pentecost‘, and her second novel in the ARKANE series, Prophecy was released in January 2012, debuting above Lee Child in the Action-Adventure list. Her novels have now sold over 50,000 copies, becoming bestsellers in the Thriller and Action Adventure categories. She has just released her third book in the series, Exodus. She has been asked to speak all over the world on self-publishing and the author platform and last year release four courses for authors on publishing with C.J.Lyons, a NY Times bestselling author. Although she continues to love self-publishing, she signed with a literary agent in July 2012 in order to pursue a traditional publishing deal for her mainstream novels.
In this podcast we discuss:
- The benefits of being an author entrepreneur and how you supplement your income
- Why you need an entrepreneurial spirit to be a successful indie
- The reason why hybrid publishing is a good way to go
- Why Joanna started the Creative Penn and how she found her creative 'stride'
- How to create a community around what you love
- The important truth: Traditional press does not necessarily give you book sales
- How to get started on creating your author platform
- How she went from connecting with writers to connecting with thriller readers (The best results for fiction)
- What to do if you're starting from scratch
- A typical day for Joanna (with and without a part-time job in IT!)
- The ins and outs of working with JV partners
- The compound effect
- How to bridge the gap between giving things away for free and promoting novels
- When giving away your fiction for free works
- Top three pointers for indies starting out
- Why writing novellas is a good idea
- And much, much more!
You can learn more about Joanna and her ProWriter courses at http://www.thecreativepenn.com/prowriter/
I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb (Australian e-book store).If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb.
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com
Category: Uncategorized · E-Book Revolution · writing · Education · publishing · Emily Craven · E-books · self-publishing | Comments |
January 22nd, 2013

Over the next month the E-Book Revolution Podcast is going to diverge into the realms of fantasy authors and writing. For those listeners who are unaware I am a fantasy author and early this year I was awarded a grant by the South Australian Government to attend the World Fantasy convention. The final two mini-podcasts are with authors from that convention.
Each mini-podcast has myself and a prominent fantasy author aiming to answer ten questions in twenty minutes covering a range of topics including writing, the digital revolution, avoiding procrastination and their own writing. Finally we end with a mystery question...dum-dum-dum!!!!
Today's World Fantasy author is the charming Mindy Klasky. Mindy Klasky is an American fantasy novelist. After graduating from Princeton University, Mindy considered becoming a professional stage manager or a rabbi. Ultimately, though, she settled on being a lawyer, working as a litigator at a large Washington firm. When she realized that lawyering kept her from writing (and dating and sleeping and otherwise living a normal life), Mindy became a librarian, managing large law firm libraries. In addition to her Harlequin Special Editions, Mira, and Red Dress Ink books, Mindy has written traditional fantasy novels for Roc (including the award-winning, best-selling The Glasswrights’ Apprentice), short stories, and nonfiction essays. Mindy now writes full time.
In this podcast we discuss:
- How fan fiction got Mindy into fantasy writing
- How she got her agent from a book in the library
- How to survive an agent breaking up with you
- The benefits of doing spot research rather then going 'in depth' before you begin writing
- How to handle publicity and create a marketing plan
- The importance of marketing goals
- And the importance of diversifying your writing career
PLUS the all important MYSTERY QUESTION.
I love hearing from Listeners and readers so please drop me a line at ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
In 2011-2012 Emily undertook a twelve month mentorship with fantasy author Isobelle Carmody. Emily blogs about fantasy writing and the lessons she learnt from Isobelle at http://theoriginalfantasy.blogspot.com.au. Emily's trip to the World Fantasy Convention could not be possible without the assistance of the South Australian Government through the Carclew Youth Arts Board. Thank you Carclew for the opportunity.

The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com and http://theoriginalfantasy.blogspot.com.au.
Category: writing · Emily Craven · World Fantasy Convention · Fantasy Writing · Carclew Youth Arts | Comments |
January 11th, 2013
Ok, it may be pretty clear to some of you now that I'm a little bit obsessed with crowdfunding. There are some fantastic projects getting off the ground (including my project 'Images of Joy' that would not have been possible without the crowd funding platform Pozible) now that the gatekeepers of the arts world are no longer the only funding bodies. In the last podcast I talked with author Alain Guillimaine about his personal crowd funding journey. So it was only natural that in this podcast I have gone to a crowd funding and digital content expert, Anna Maguire, who has been in the publishing industry for almost twenty years. In this podcast we talk about management of and author's digital content as well as the crowdfunding phenomena.
Anna Maguire is a Sydney-based consultant and blogger specialising in digital training and strategy. She advises on digital publishing and crowdfunding through her consultancy Digireado. Anna has worked in book publishing and digital content for 25 years. She is a former head of production and interactive at Random House Australia and is a passionate advocate for digital developments in the book industry and the emerging Australian ebook and app market. She is a graduate of the Yale Publishing Course and has appeared at the Sydney Writers’ Festival and Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Anna regularly conducts training for editing and publishing students at Macleay College and has presented to Master of Publishing students at Sydney University. She has also trained authors in their digital publishing options for over two years.
In September 2012 Anna published her first ebook with digital-first publishing start-up Editia Books. Crowdfund it! is the first Australian book about the $1.5 billion crowdfunding phenomenon. Anna blogs on the Digireado website, www.digireado.com.au, and at www.crowdfundit.com.au. She is also on Twitter (@digireado and @crowdfunditnow) and Facebook (facebook.com/digireado).
In this podcast we discuss:
- The 1.5 Billion dollar crowdfunding phenomena
- How crowdfunding works and why it works for writers
- How this digital evangelist went from producing book content, to website content, to phone content, to working for Random House.
- What a digital content strategy is and why it's important for authors to think about
- The benefits of having your own ISBN
- How Facebook generates 8x more funding then any other network
- The best way to convince people to fund you
- How to manage your crowd funding project in three steps
- How to put together enticing rewards
- How small UK press Unbound uses crowdfunding to determine which books get published
- Issues of Tax when crowdfunding
- How to keep interest in your project consistent over three months
- How often to post project updates on Facebook in comparison to Twitter
- Crowdfund It!'s publisher Editia and how they specialise in long form journalism and short form non-fiction.
- And examples of successful projects and why they were successful.
Crowdfund it! is available from the Editia website http://editia.com/books/crowdfund-it/
I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb (Australian e-book store). If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb. Thinking of doing your own crowd funding project? Hire Emily's brain! Emily has successfully conducted her own crowd funding project and interviewed many other authors on the subject, she know exactly what is needed to get a project off the ground. Contact her about it on the above email address.
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com
Category: writing · Education · publishing · Emily Craven · Crowd funding · E-books | Comments |
November 20th, 2012
What if I told you, you could get paid for writing, or to make your first print run? Especially if you are an already established author? If you are willing to do the work, then perhaps crowd funding is for you. Crowd funding allows artists to raise funds for their project, by asking everyday people to pledge money toward their project. It's not like traditional fundraising where you wear a Santa suit, put out a bucket to collect change and you hand it into the organisation (or I suppose yourself in this case). Crowd funding sets a goal and time limit, if you don't get enough people to pledge in the allotted time, everyone keeps their money, and the project goes back to square one. If the artist makes the funding goal, only then will the project go ahead, and then everyone who pledged gets some sort of reward for their wonderful help.
Crowd funding is what first time author Alain Guillemain used to edit, print, and launch his book Customer Delight (See his crowd funding project here).Yes you heard me right, Alain is a first time author, not an established author, and in 40 days he raised $7600. I was so intrigued I interviewed him about how he did it.
In this podcast we discuss:
- What crowd funding is and how it works
- Alain's proposal concept and how he made it appealing to pledge
- How to create relevant and enticing rewards for project participants
- How he promoted the project and in what time frame
- The three things you need to start your own crowd funding project
- The best way to get started
- The amount of experience a non-fiction author needs in comparison to a fiction author
- The plan of attack now that the money has been funded
- The elements an author need to consider when costing the project
Customer Delight is available at http://customerdelight.com.au
Hope you enjoy the show! And remember, I love hearing from Listeners and readers so please drop me a line at ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co. If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from http://emilycraven.bkclb.co. Thinking of doing your own crowd funding project? Hire Emily's brain! Emily has successfully conducted her own crowd funding project and interviewed many other authors on the subject, she know exactly what is needed to get a project off the ground. Contact her about it on the above email address.
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com
Category: E-Book Revolution · writing · Education · publishing · Emily Craven · Crowd funding | Comments |
November 6th, 2012
I am the first person to tell you that I am in awe of what Amazon, Smashwords, Apple and Kobo have created. Platforms where authors can release the content and stories they want to, with access to their stories made so easy you can purchase a novel at the click of a button. But then Amazon goes and locks authors out of their own dash board, only gives them 35% royalties if an Australian reader is interested in their work (no matter what you think Amazon, we are a bloody first world country with technology equal to your own!) or Smashwords allows you limited options to pretty up their not so pretty author pages as well as committing heinous crimes against your cleanly formatted MS; it's enough to make you want to go into their office, smack them on the bottom and send them into a corner.
Which is why my interest was piqued by the new start up e-book platform Bkclb. It is not trying to be another Amazon or another distribution site like Smashwords. The founders aims is to give authors and publishers complete control of their own e-book stories, allowing them to customise colours and looks and promotions to suit them. Some fantastic features are in the works for this start up (including discounts on books for paying with a tweet, linking into Goodreads reviews, full analytics of reader locations and what site referred them to your store, as well as the ability to include YouTube videos/book trailers right next to the book in question) and I was very excited when founder Connor O'Brien agreed to this podcast. Bkclb is the first platform I used to test the water for my e-books.
In this podcast we discuss:
- How Amazon and Smashwords don't allow a lot of control over how your 'book store' works
- Promotion functions necessary to successfully market your novel (Twitter/video/Goodreads)
- Partially paying for a book with a tweet
- Different e-book models now available to writers such as short stories, subscriptions, and plays
- The Kindle Serial program and its potential problems
- Thoughts on creating communities for serial works
- Getting more royalties AND Australian's reading your work
- How independent publishers are forgotten in the digital revolution
- How to create an epub file easily and cleanly
- Taking advantage of reverted book rights
- Digitally publishing magazines
- Authors making money from sharing their mistakes
- The boon online publishing is for poets
- Mistakes authors make in marketing
- How segregating yourself from the rest of the traditional publishing community may not be to your benefit
Hope you enjoy the show! And remember, I love hearing from Listeners and readers so please drop me a line at ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co. If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from http://emilycraven.bkclb.co
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com
Category: E-Book Revolution · writing · Education · publishing · Emily Craven · Digital Book Store | Comments |
October 25th, 2012

Over the next week E-Book Revolution Podcast is going to diverge into the realms of fantasy authors and writing in the lead up to the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto. For those listeners who are unaware I am a fantasy author and early this year I was awarded a grant by the South Australian Government to attend the convention.
What better way to celebrate and get excited for a convention then to talk to the attendees? Each mini-podcast has myself and a prominent fantasy author aiming to answer ten questions in twenty minutes covering a range of topics including writing, the digital revolution, avoiding procrastination and their own writing. Finally we end with a mystery question...dum-dum-dum!!!!
Today's World Fantasy author is James Alan Gardner. James is a Canadian science fiction author with a Bachelor and Masters degree in Applied Mathematics (yeah, he knows what he's talking about!). He has published science fiction short stories in a range of periodicals, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. In 1989, his short story "The Children of Creche" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Two years later his story "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" won an Aurora Award; another story, "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream," won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards. He has written a number of novels in a "League of Peoples" universe and has also explored themes of gender in his novels, including Commitment Hour in which people change sex every year. Find out more about James here.
In this podcast we discuss:
- Getting his big break via a competition
- Using competition winnings to pay for intensive Clarion Workshop
- A hot tip for finding which editors are more eager to sign new writers then most
- How his KungFu helps him write fight scenes
- How he uses his iPad to avoid procrastination
- Using meditation to push away distraction
- Reading science blogs and twitter feeds for research/story seeds
- How the act of writing helps to draw out inspiration
- The surprise an author gets when his character says something unexpected
- How the internet has helped improve reader-author connection
PLUS the all important MYSTERY QUESTION.
I love hearing from Listeners and readers so please drop me a line at ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
In 2011-2012 Emily undertook a twelve month mentorship with fantasy author Isobelle Carmody. Emily blogs about fantasy writing and the lessons she learnt from Isobelle at http://theoriginalfantasy.blogspot.com.au. Emily's trip to the World Fantasy Convention could not be possible without the assistance of the South Australian Government through the Carclew Youth Arts Board. Thank you Carclew for the opportunity.

The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.blogspot.com and http://theoriginalfantasy.blogspot.com.au.
Category: E-Book Revolution · writing · Education · Emily Craven · World Fantasy Convention · Fantasy Writing · Carclew Youth Arts | Comments |