Jenna Moreci is an award-winning romantasy and writing craft author with a YouTube channel of hundreds of thousands of subscribers and tens of millions of views. In this classic replay (originally recorded 2023) episode she explains how she built the channel, and how a writer can do the same without it taking over the writing.

Her channel grew slowly for months. It took off the week she stopped trying to be polished and started being herself. Her advice to anyone starting now is the same: don't copy another creator, and don't make your first video about you. Give the audience something useful first. They get interested in you and your books once they're loyal to the content.

She also covers the practical side. Film on your phone, spend money on a mic before anything else, and edit with free software. Post on the same day every week. Budget about a week a month for YouTube and protect the rest for writing. Treat the whole thing as an experiment, so if it isn't for you, that isn't a failure.

In this episode:

• From a finance degree to full-time writer and YouTuber
• The channel grew when Jenna stopped trying to be polished and started being herself
• Who she makes videos for: readers and writers who would like her books
• Why "worst" outperforms "best" in a title, and why she caps the rants at one a month
• Thumbnails that work: silly faces and the dog
• Video length, Shorts, and why the bookish audience likes longer videos
• One video a week, same day, same time
• Writer first, YouTuber second: when to dial YouTube back
• Starting on a budget: phone, a decent mic, iMovie
• The pros: free marketing, six or seven revenue streams, an audience that likes you as you are
• The cons: scripting, batch filming, editing, and the trolls
• Give writing advice and readers will judge your books harder
• Release videos: character art, backstories and worldbuilding around launch
• Repurposing videos into Shorts, TikToks, Instagram clips and blog posts
• Your first videos will be bad, and nobody is watching yet, so that's fine
• The biggest mistake: making your first video about yourself
• How to find BookTube and AuthorTube

About Jenna Moreci

Jenna Moreci is an award-winning romantasy and writing craft author and YouTube sensation. Her first installment in The Savior's Series, The Savior's Champion, was voted one of the Best Books of All Time by Book Depository. Following the release of her first writing craft book, Shut Up and Write the Book, she has been asked to speak for many literary communities and affiliations about the writing process and romantasy genre, including Robinson College at the University of Cambridge, the University of Groningen, and the London Screenwriters' Festival.

🔗 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/JennaMoreci 🔗 Website: https://www.jennamoreci.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE SPA GIRLS:

🌐 Website & free self-publishing resources at www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com

🎧 Subscribe to our weekly episodes on your favourite podcast app — search "SPA Girls Podcast"

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💗 This podcast is supported by our amazing Patreon community! ⭐ Join at the $10 tier for access to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group where we discuss marketing, writing, and answer your burning questions: http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

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You don't need a million readers. You need 1,000 who buy everything you write. Cheryl, Shar and Wendy take Kevin Kelly's 1,000 True Fans model — 1,000 people spending $100 a year — and work out what it actually looks like for an indie novelist right now.

Wendy has a reader group of 1,000 and gives away a signed print copy with every release. Her bonus epilogues run 3,000 words and jump five or ten years ahead. Cheryl writes hers the day she finishes the book, sets it a week later so it leads into the next one, and delivers it through BookFunnel with her also-by page attached. Shar's position is that a newsletter signup can be worth more to you than the next book sale, because the list is the only reader relationship you own.

Ad costs are climbing and social reach keeps shrinking — one author they follow has 25,000 followers and around 1,000 of them see a post. So the conversation is about what you can control: the list, the reader group, your own store, and the bonus content that makes people want to stay. Plus Amazon's new limits on how many titles you can upload a week, why being a human being being a human is the one thing the AI flood can't copy, and the professional line between talking to your readers and using them as a sounding board.

In this episode:

• The 1,000 True Fans model, and why a number to build towards beats firing off in five directions
• You're not after a stadium — you're after the people who buy whatever you make
• Turning a reader into a superfan: the extras, and giving a little of yourself
• Why the email list is the foundation — it's the one thing you own
• Reply to readers who email you, or acknowledge them in the next newsletter
• Reader groups: giveaways, questions, and the posts that only they get
• What to give away — signed print copies and special editions beat mugs and chocolate
• Direct sales: better margins, promo codes, and the release two weeks early
• Growing the list: the link in the back of the book, and what to offer for the signup
• Bonus epilogues — Wendy's and Cheryl's two completely different approaches
• Delivering bonus content through BookFunnel, and giving it to your existing subscribers
• Amazon's upload limits, AI pulp, and where human connection actually wins
• Make yourself easy to find, and check your links
• Keep the behind-the-scenes troubles off your reader-facing platforms
• Send the tech problems to BookFunnel — that's customer service done well
• Be authentically you, pen name or not
• Start with 10 true fans, not 1,000
• Author buddies and brainstorming

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE SPA GIRLS:

🌐 Website & free self-publishing resources at www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com

🎧 Subscribe to our weekly episodes on your favourite podcast app — search "SPA Girls Podcast"

❤️ Watch our episode recordings on the SPA Girls Podcast YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast

💗 This podcast is supported by our amazing Patreon community! ⭐ Join at the $10 tier for access to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group where we discuss marketing, writing, and answer your burning questions: http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

#SelfPublishing #IndieAuthor #romancewriter

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🔁 CLASSIC REPLAY — This episode was originally recorded in 2023 and the writing craft advice is just as relevant today.

Matt Bird is a screenwriter and the author of two craft books for writers, The Secrets of Story and The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love. For the second book he read the first ten pages of dozens of great novels, memoirs, movies and TV pilots, and found the same three moves in nearly all of them: the reader has to believe in your hero, care about their circumstances, and invest their hopes in them. In this episode of the SPA Girls Podcast (EP573) he shows how to land all three before your plot has even started.

Whether you're drafting an opening chapter, working out why readers aren't connecting with your lead, or looking for concrete character development tools you can use today, this one is practical from end to end. Matt covers the first page of The Hunger Games, giving a character a unique object and a metaphor family, why repetition beats surprise early on, and how to set, upset and reset reader expectations. Plus why readers pick your hero for you, what James Bond's first scene tells us about vulnerability, and the single thing he'd tell every writer to do — put an ironic object in their hand.

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About Matt Bird

Matt Bird is the author of Secrets of Story, and creator of The Secrets of Story podcast and blog. He has an MFA in screenwriting from Columbia University. He lives and writes in Chicago where he and his wife Betsy are raising two delightful kids.

All episodes of his podcast with James Kennedy, The Secrets of Story: A Screenwriting & Novel Writing Podcast can be found on podcast apps.

Matt's latest podcast, A Good Story Well Told with co-host Jonathan Auxier, is also on all podcast platforms.

http://www.secretsofstory.com/

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE SPA GIRLS:

🌐 Website & free self-publishing resources at www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com

🎧 Subscribe to our weekly episodes on your favourite podcast app — search "SPA Girls Podcast"

❤️ Watch our episode recordings on the SPA Girls Podcast YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/c/SPAGirlsPodcast

💗 This podcast is supported by our amazing Patreon community! ⭐ Join at the $10 tier for access to our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group where we discuss marketing, writing, and answer your burning questions: http://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast

#authortube #SelfPublishing #IndieAuthor #romancewriter

#SelfPublishing #romancewriter #writingpodcast #writingcommunity