Episode 199 #HowtoLovePromotingYourWork

Our guest today, Dan Blank, sure seems like a man who loves his work. On his own podcast, the Creative Shift, he’s a warm and engaged interviewer. In his emails, he’s genuine and engaged. Is he selling his book and his services as an advisor to authors developing their platform and launching their work into the world? Sure, but it never feels like he’s selling. It feels like he’s sharing.

Wouldn’t we all like to feel like that, and have our readers see us that way?

We were hoping Dan would share his magic sauce and we’d all go skipping off towards easy street down a rainbow path, but it turns out there’s some work involved here. So instead, we talked about process, from the way you manage your personal trolls to the way you manage your emails, and then we talked—buzzword alert—authenticity, and finding the things you genuinely want to share with the people who are a match for your work. (You can download Dan’s free guide, 5 Ways to Immediately Connect with Readers, here.)

Episode links and a transcript follow, and that’s it for shownotes, because man has it been a couple of weeks. It’s been February for at least a year, right? And I thought January felt long. A few things you can do to help us out or get more #AmWriting:

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As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode.

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST

#AmReading (Watching, Listening)

KJ:

Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid

How Could She: A Novel, Lauren Mechling

Red, White, & Royal Blue: A Novel, Casey McQuiston

Sarina:

The Starless Sea: A Novel, Erin Morgenstern

Dan:

Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts

Bonus: Clementine, The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill

Our guest for this episode is Dan Blank, and you can find more about him at We Grow Media.

This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)

KJ (00:00):

Hey listeners, KJ here, if you're in with us every week, you're what I like to call people of the book. And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only are we writers, we're people with a gift for encouraging other writers. Maybe that comes out in small ways for you, but for some of you, it's a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. And if that's got your ears perked up, head to authoraccelerator.com and click on become a book coach. Is it recording?

Jess (00:41):

Now it's recording.

KJ (00:43):

Yay.

Jess (00:43):

Go ahead.

KJ (00:44):

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess (00:48):

Alright, let's start over.

KJ (00:48):

Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Now, one, two, three. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is our podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, essays, book proposals, all the things that I list every week because this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing work, whatever that is, done.

Sarina (01:20):

And I'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of 30-odd romance novels and my new one is called Heartland. You can find more about me at sarinabowen.com.

KJ (01:31):

I'm excited for Heartland. I was just crawling all over your website today for no apparent reason. Anyway, I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of The Chicken Sisters, a novel coming out in June of 2020, as well as How To Be a Happier Parent, which is out in hardback now and in paperback this summer. And I am exci