The Creating Pros Podcast

Just home from teaching workshops at the SAGA writer's convention. I brought home a lot of great experiences and conversations. One of the workshops I taught was on pitch sessions, and how to pitch your book in query letters to agents and publishers. In this week's mini-workshop, we cover the big points, and some of the questions that came up over the weekend.
 
The session was recorded, and we plan to make it available soon!

It's another mini-workshop. Over the weekend, I was teaching a business fundamentals workshop for a writers group, and after, a few of us had a deeper conversation about managing money as an author, and the power of understanding cash flows. This week, I give a recap of the discussion, discuss the power of cash flow, and how you can calculate it.

Marketing is the foundation of every business. For creatives, it's also about who we are. But what is it, really? In this mini-workshop, it's all about marketing, and an overview of the STP Method, and how you can start to use it!

No matter what business you're in, or what kind of work you create, the most valuable resource any of us have is time. Are you taking advantage of the time you have? Are you trying to fly before you know how to walk?

Jonathan Maberry (JonathanMaberry.com) joins James P. Nettles this week to talk about the business of publishing in 2023, working in different mediums including novels, short stories, comics, and licensing rights for film and TV. We also go into the workshops he'll be teaching at the Saga writers conference in March (SagaConference.com).
Jonathan offers a lot of free material for writers on his website!

What does it take to be successful as a creator? A creative? In the creator economy? We often hear that it takes ten years to be an "overnight success," and luck is still a big part of it. This week we talk about being in it for "The Long Haul." How do you approach the work? What are the key elements that give you a better shot at success? Do you chase trends? How do you deal with the frustration?Join me and find out.

Linda Robertson Reinhardt is an artist, musician, and novelist. This week we dive into her career, her creative process, using different technologies in the creative process, being an introvert on stage, and how she combines all three mediums as a storyteller. Find out more about Linda and where you can get her work at AuthorLindaRobertson.com!

The social media landscape is changing by the day. The big players are giving ground to decentralized networks, large platforms are offering more AI, CR and AR tools to content creators as they also look at going to subscription models, the move to entertainment platforms instead of social media, and much more. Many of the old rules are out the window, and what fundamentals are the same? What are we to do to promote ourselves and our work? What will it take for you to get your fifteen minutes of fame?

Chat GPT and tools based on AI are proliferating. We're seeing the rapid spread of Chat GPT and AT Driven content solutions being pitched as replacing writers, copywriters, programmers, customer service and more. What is Chat GPT, how does it work, is it violating copyrights, and is this the end of writers?

JD Estrada is a poet and fiction author, but is also a professional translator of marketing materials into Spanish. We take a deep dive into the power of language, and how you go about translating into a different language, working with regional context, idioms, and dialects, and crossing the barriers of storytelling across languages. How do you change a language, but keep the message and the experience?