Tag Archives: Write by the Rails

by | March 26, 2014 · 12:29 pm

Episode #31: Reflections and Lessons Learned from a Blog Tour (with Nick & Stacia Kelly)

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What a grand time we had in studio! If you remember from a previous Shared Desk, we enjoyed good panel with Stacia Kelly & Nick Kelly, another husband and wife team in the Science Fiction and Fantasy market. We finally got them over at Imagine That! Studios, enjoyed the last of the gas in the grill, and got them on mic. In this first in-studio appearance (and something tells me, far from the last) we talk about the recent Endless Possibilities Book Tour, lessons learned, and where we are going from here.

00:00 — Introduction

  • We’ve got alcohol introduced into the system which means the drops-in’s are leaning towards the ruder side of things. Even with guests in-studio.
  • Welcome for the first time in-studio our special guests, Nick and Stacia Kelly.
  • Bitching about the winter that shows no signing of ending…
  • Good things about Trinity Episcopal: We meet awesome people!
  • What do you do when you’re about to have a book released?
    • Tee — Goes on a CLEANING BINGE!
    • Pip — Drinks. (But Tee has other opinions as to what she does…)
    • Stacia — When she is nervous, she dances! Then cleans up after herself….
    • Nick — Channels his inner-Jaeger pilot. (He tends to cave to peer pressure from the show host, too.)
  • Go out and get Dawn’s Early Light! NOW!!!
    • A lot is riding on this new book.
    • There’s been a lot of hype around the book.
    • Our blog traffic is up by 300% (Now 400%….)
  • No one touches the bell!
  • A lot has been happening across all our blogs… 

08:47 — Reflections and Lessons Learned from a Blog Tour 

  • Blog Tours
    • What did we learn?
    • How do they happen?
    • How do you organize one?
  • Stacia — “This was my idea.”
    • WbtR wanted to try something new with book promotions!
    • First time with the blog tour — Sixteen participants! (Yikes!)
  • Nick admits there was a learning curve, but there were some challenges ahead.
  • Tee had a problem: The traffic during the blog tour dropped. Oooops…
  • Is there a strategy at composing blogposts?
  • What are tips for participants new to blog touring?
    • A “How to Blog 101” blogpost or “class” for those involved
    • Understanding a commitment level
    • Advantages: a new pool of content for my blog
  • Rules for repurposing blogpost and creating content
    • Nick — Ask yourself “What makes you want to read a blogpost?”
    • Tee — Ask your blog host “What would you like?” and pitch ideas.
    • Pip — On evergreen content
    • Stacia — Change more than 20% of a blogpost before you think it is a repurposed blogpost
    • Nick — On a blogpost’s exclusivity
  • Timing on topics does matter.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  — does it really work?
  • What Tee has to deal with on a daily basis…
  • So someone is intimated by Tee? For what exactly?!
  • Oh MySpace’s Tom, where are you now?
  • Tee builds up a joke about DC (Comics) but Nick thinks it’s about (Washington) DC…
  • Another resource for blogposts — Writers…who behave like idiots
  • A tangent on SFWA…
  • Another tangent — albeit a much longer one — on Kickstarter…
  • If you are going to blog about something out there or controversial, own it.   
  • Other bits of advice for writers new to a blog tour
    •  Know the works of the authors
    • Look for a sweet spot for blogpost length

35:30 — Seriously? Seriously.

  • So much stuff to choose from for this week’s section…
  • Pip reads the web, and Nick is happy.
  • A threat that that is creeping up on established authors of the Empire: The Loss of their Cushy Offices in London!
  • Are these writers serious?!
  • Nick and Stacia take the blame for what happening to toad’s professional author.
  • Stacia shares an opinion on those who rely solely on traditional house publishing.
  • Your obligatory Doctor Who reference…
  • What you, as an author, need to do to survive in today’s modern publishing world.
  • Do authors really need a downtown metropolitan office?!
  • Nick Kelly steps up and knocks it out of the park!

46:04 — The Wrap-Up

  • Now THAT’S a segue!!!
  • Pip and Tee have an jam packed week this week between…
  • Later on this Spring…
    • RavenCon, April 25-27
    • A quick cameo from Sonic Boom who wants S’mores and feels the need to plug America’s Funniest Home Videos
    • DemiCon 25, May 1-5
  • What Nick and Stacia have on their plates…
    • Finishing and releasing Gian in time for Earth Day
    • “Catwalk: Jericho” coming
    • Catwalk: Lineage coming this Halloween
  • Remember: Always honor Rule #34!
  • Nick Kelly gushes for a moment about James Langton…while explaining the moment he figured out why Pip and Tee call this podcast The Shared Desk…

  50:57 — The Outtake

cover art by J.R. Blackwell 

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Find us on Twitter at either Tee’s or Pip’s account,
leave us a voicemail or question for the show at 703.791.1701,
or leave us a comment here at the blog.
Enjoy the ride
and we’ll catch you later.

 

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by | July 23, 2013 · 2:28 am

Episode #24: Collaborating Couples (with Nick & Stacia Kelly)

TSD-back2back_Kelly Holy cow! Two in two weeks?! The deuce, you say! We do say! And it’s a special Shared Desk as we’ve recorded our panel at the Write by the Rails meeting that included a panel discussion with couples that collaborated on their writings. Joined by local authors Nick and Stacia Kelly, Tee and Pip share stories and approaches on how they make a collaboration work and also share advice on how to keep collaborations successful.

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00:00 — Introduction

  • Flying solo in the opening…
  • Throwing in a special episode without making it special…
  • Hooking up with Nick and Stacia Kelly (and yeah, Tee trips up on her name a bit in the introduction…)
  • Quick Announcement — Tee & Pip will be working the York County Library on JULY 30!!! 
  • Teasing the next special guest for The Shared Desk…
2:47 — Collaborating Couples (with Nick & Stacia Kelly)
  • Recording LIVE from the Write by the Rails writing group here in Manassas, VA
  • Sadly, we can’t enact the “Bar Panel” rule here…
  • Who’s on the panel tonight?
  • What’s the collaboration process between us?
    • Stacia got an idea, but wanted to write with her husband, Nick.
    • Nick works more with the nitty-gritty, not so well on the romance…
    • Nic and Stacia discover their differences in how they write.
    • The truth of successful collaboration, and how marrying your writing partner is not the sure-fire solution to a great process.
    • Pip and Tee talk a bit about Discovery Writing.
    • When you do the open idea sessions, all four of us need to write it down!
  • Pip & Tee flinch over the “Red Pen” experience with Harper Voyager.
  • How does collaboration go with people outside the writing experience?
    • Editorial pains
    • Working with cover artists
    • Okay, Tee could get behind the “Hot Tub” sessions….
    • Working on the covers of Kindred & Wings and Dawn’s Early Light…
  • When Collaborations go wrong…
    • Stacia stands alone as the writer amongst the experts. Let the madness commence!
    • Tee finally reveals the story behind his first story…and it is as epic as the story itself….
    • Pip’s “bad experience” was actually not that bad.
    • Facing the worst-case scenario as a married couple.
    • The panel goes deep into having an Exit Plan and the importance of communication.
  • Mad props to Delilah S. Dawson for coming through…
  • Unexpected Collaborations
    • Working with book bloggers on blog tours
    • Collaborating with other authors in your worlds
    • Spending some quality time on Jack Mangan and his influence on The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences….
  • What you need for a solid collaboration — Trust, Communications, and an Editorial Timeline

40:45 — Questions from the Audience

  • How do you divide responsibilities between yourselves?
    • Pip and Tee evolve their collaborative process from when they went from a podcast-for-pay to a series from Harper Voyager and Ace.
    • Pip & Tee’s biggest argument
    • Stacia makes Nick put on a “special suit” for working out fight scenes.
    • Nick breaks down their writing process using a musical analogy.
  • How did Pip and Tee first meet?
    • Meeting online
    • Everybody wanted to collaborate with Tee because…
    • The open honesty from New Zealand
  • Do you all do your own editing?
    • Why hiring an editor is so important.
    • Stacia’s editing resource — http://autocrit.com
    • But you should still edit your own drafts before going to an editor.
    • When is the editing done?
    • The little discoveries when you go deep into editing
    • What an editor should never say to a writer…
  • How many Beta Readers do you have?
    • What to expect from Beta Readers
  • What are you doing when you’re not writing?
    • It’s a wide field of expertise.
    • Tee’s suggestion: A social media panel for writers (with a quick tangent on John Scalzi)
    • A quick discussion on Hootsuite and other strategies in social media
  • ….and that’s all from us here at Write By the Rails!
 
Find us on Twitter at either Tee’s or Pip’s account, leave us a voicemail or question for the show at 703.791.1701, or leave us a comment here at the blog.
Enjoy the ride
and we’ll catch you later.

 

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