#83 - Romantic Times Booklovers Convention Part 2

Kobo Writing Life Podcast

This episode continues from where episode 82 left off with KWL’s recent live interviews with attendees from RT Booklovers Convention in Atlanta, Georgia in early May 2017. RT (Romantic Times) Booklovers brings more than 3,500 fans and between 600 to 800 authors together for a celebration of romance novels.

Mark Lefebvre, Director of Kobo Writing Life, interviewed authors and industry folks about various topics. In Part 2, we share Mark’s chats with:

Meredith Wild

• A new series of collaborative novels launching in September, starting with Meredith’s novel Misadventures of a City Girl and the fun writing experimentation that led to it
• Advice that Meredith would offer to beginning writers who are just getting started on their writing journey
• How Meredith allowed herself some “time off from writing” during this particular conference

Stephanie Bond

• Stephanie’s latest release in the Body Movers Series, 8 Bodies is Enough
• The things that Stephanie loves about RT, which is one of her favorite conferences
• A forthcoming project, Temp Girl, and the temporary tattoos that Stephanie is giving out to fans at the conference

Liliana Hart

• The forthcoming book (due out May 23rd) in a brand new series (Gravediggers) from Pocket Books entitled The Darkest Corner which is a mix between her J. Graves and the MacKenzie Family series (combining thriller and romance)
• The unique position of being a hugely successful indie author who is also working with a major publisher and making the best out of both worlds
• How Liliana writes all the time, including sequestering herself in a hotel room or even as a passenger in the car while touring to events like RT

Stephanie Phillips from SBR Media Literary Agency

• Some of the 20 authors that SBR Media represents, including Debra Presley, Kahlen Aimes, Micalea Smeltzer, as well as authors who are attending RT (M. Willard, Misha Elliott, Elizabeth Hayes)
• The pitches that Stephanie has been taking from authors interested in working with her agency
• Stephanie’s Romance Focused Review Blog: Stephanie’s Book Reports (where authors can submit their books for consideration for reviews)

Mark Coker from Smashwords

• A sneak peek at the annual RT Smashwords survey that explores the aggregated sales data across all the retail platforms, including:
  • Which price points get the most sales / which price points get the most income
  • What impact does a pre-order have on sales related to different genres
  • A deep dive into series, including the effect of free as series starters
• As of the time of this posting, the 2017 report hasn’t been made live, but here is a link to the 2016 and 2015 report, chock-full of great insights and info for authors

Diane and Dante from ListenUp Audiobooks

• Diane’s role at ListenUp in assisting indie authors in the production of their audiobooks, including the initial discussion, finding the right narrator and getting the book distributed if the author chooses that option
• Dante’s role as audio engineer and technical director, including working directly with the voice talent and the post recording production to ensure top-quality audio product
• KWL authors can get $100 off per hour by following this link, navigating to “Get Started” and entering the promo code “Kobo” http://www.listenupindie.pub/