EP 326 - Rebranding and Relaunching with E.L. Williams

Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

Mark interviews author E.L. Williams about her writing life, about her books, about rebranding one of the books in her series, and more.

Prior to the main content, Mark shares comments from recent episodes a brief personal update, welcomes new patron T. Thorn Coyle, and shares a word about this episode's sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by the Patrons of the Stark Reflections Podcast.

In their conversation, Mark and Emma talk about:

• How it took Emma about ten years to write her first book
• Getting slightly "bullied" into going to a writer conference from a fellow author
• Publishing her first book during Halloween season in 2020
• How the global pandemic changed enough things with her day job that allowed her the opportunity to get the book finished and published
• The "Murphy's Law" events that piled up with the launch of book two, which led to a signifcant health issue that had to be dealt with
• The decision to change the title and cover for book two after realizing it wasn't hitting the market properly
• Being a great believer in learning by doing
• Rolling back on the unrealistic expectations Emma set herself up with and learning to enjoy the process and take a more relaxed approach
• Emma's ideas involving merchandise in relation to her book and how that led to collaborating with Deadweight Brewing
• The book "relaunch" party Emma planned out including the beer and book cakes
• The social media "long shot" that Emma took on Instagram asking if the beer book branding thing had ever been done before
• How social media can be a bit like marmite
• Beginning to check out experimenting with TikTok by doing a video a day
• Advice Emma has for other writers who haven't taken the plunge yet
• And more....

After the interview, Mark reflects back on a couple of things his conversation with Emma made him think about.

Links of Interest:

• E. L. WIlliams' Website
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • TikTok
• Deadweight Brewing Company
• Mark's YouTube Channel
• EP 324 - The Asset of Attention with Joe Solari
• EP 325 - Reflecting Back: Three Things That Are Wrong With Indie Publishing
• Buy Mark a Coffee
• Patreon for Stark Reflections
• Best Book Ever Podcast
• Lovers Moon Podcast
• The Relaxed Author
  • Buy eBook Direct
  • Buy Audiobook Direct
• Publishing Pitfalls for Authors
• An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores
• Wide for the Win
• Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books
  • This Time Around (Short Story)
  • A Canadian Werewolf in New York
  • Stowe Away (Novella)
  • Fear and Longing in Los Angeles
  • Fright Nights, Big City
  • Lover's Moon
  • Hex and the City
• The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles
• Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0