SPA Girls Podcast

Bink Cummings is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of dark motorcycle club romance. 🏍️ She has made a living from her books since book one, 12 years ago, and book 37 is about to release. In this episode of the SPA Girls Podcast (EP578) Bink explains how to sell more books with a dollar-a-day ad, why box sets are her two top earners, and how free first-in-series books keep bringing in new readers. 💰

She also shares what she would do right now if sales were slow : Read your reviews for the comment that keeps coming up. Refresh the cover and rewrite the blurb. Put a bonus scene at the back of every book to build your newsletter. 📧 Then test one Meta ad at $1 a day for 14 days, and only add budget once it’s working.

IN THIS EPISODE:
🎯 The three things to get right as an indie author: one genre, on-brand covers and your own voice
📅 Beating decision fatigue: ads on Mondays, orders out on Wednesdays and Sundays
✅ Bink’s release checklist, and where to get a copy
💵 The $1 a day Meta ad test, and why she’d start it in the new year
🎁 Stacking a free first-in-series with 99c Kindle Countdown deals
📦 Box sets: when to release them, how to price them, and why trilogies beat duets
📊 The data she checks: read-through, income by country and ad spend per book
🛑 How she decides whether a series continues
👭 Her reader community, the Sacred Sisters, and a readers-only Facebook group
🎄 How Christmas boxes for readers grew into a merch store and curated book boxes
✨ Special editions with foil and sprayed edges, printed in bulk for less than print on demand

Watch on YouTube

👤 ABOUT BINK CUMMINGS:
USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Bink Cummings is known for writing steamy, dark, and unapologetically messy romances filled with walking red flags that readers know they shouldn’t fall for, but absolutely can’t resist. Raised in a family obsessed with motorcycles and classic cars, Bink’s love of bad boys and questionable decisions comes naturally. When she’s not creating fictional chaos from her home office, Bink enjoys spending time with her nerdy husband, her kids, and her four French bulldogs. She loves travelling, adding new ink to her ever-growing tattoo collection, binge-watching her favourite shows, and baking, especially her infamous chocolate chip cookies.

🔗 BINK’S LINKS:
🌐 Website and newsletter: https://authorbinkcummings.com/
🛍️ Merch and book boxes: https://binkcummings.com/collections/merch
🧵 Author advice on Threads: search Bink Cummings
✅ Release checklist for authors: use the link at the top of any of Bink’s social profiles

📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
📊 Author Helper Suite (sales data, read-through and universal links)
📖 BookFunnel (bonus scenes and reader magnets)
🖨️ SeSe Printing (special editions)

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE SPA GIRLS:
🌐 https://www.spagirlspodcast.com
💗 Join our Patreon at the $10 tier for our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group: https://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
🎧 Listen on your favourite podcast app or watch on YouTube @spagirlspodcast

#SelfPublishing #IndieAuthor #RomanceWriting

Katlyn Duncan has published 13 books with a Harlequin UK digital imprint, ghostwritten more than 40 novels, and now self-publishes thrillers, young adult and nonfiction. 📚 She’s a hybrid author, and she wrote the book on it: The Successful Hybrid Author. In this episode of the SPA Girls Podcast (Classic Replay EP577 – originally recorded 2023; still relevant today) she explains how to get your rights back from a publisher, why she split her books across three pen names, and how ghostwriting really works. ✍️

She also shares the systems that keep her writing alongside a full-time job and a family🎯

IN THIS EPISODE:
🔄 Getting your rights back: check the contract, the date and the royalty threshold
🖊️ Three pen names, one website
⚖️ Trad vs self-publishing, and why she doesn’t pay for ads on her trad books
👻 Ghostwriting through Upwork and book packagers: flat fees, outlines and fast turnarounds
⏰ Time blocking and being realistic about your day
🛑 Values, boundaries and saying no
📋 SOPs, automation and delegation
🏡 Decluttering to find time in your day
🤝 Why community matters

👤 ABOUT KATLYN DUNCAN:
Katlyn Duncan is a multi-published author of adult and young adult fiction and has ghostwritten over 40 novels for children and adults. When she’s not writing, she’s obsessing over her many, many television series and hanging out on YouTube, where she shares her writing process and all things bookish.

🔗 KATLYN’S LINKS:
🌐 Website: https://www.katlynduncan.com
🎓 From Chaos to Control course: https://www.fromchaos2control.com
📺 YouTube: Katlyn Duncan’s Writing Life
📖 Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Terms
📖 The Successful Hybrid Author

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE SPA GIRLS:
🌐 https://www.spagirlspodcast.com
💗 Join our Patreon at the $10 tier for our private Self-Publishing Mastermind group: https://www.patreon.com/spagirlspodcast
🎧 Listen on your favourite podcast app or watch on YouTube @spagirlspodcast

#SelfPublishing #HybridAuthor #IndieAuthor

Very few writers’ time is the same every month — often it’s predictably uneven. We say lean into that pattern instead of fighting it.

This episode came from two similar questions from SPA Girls Podcast listeners: “What is a seasonal writer?” and “How do you build a writing career around a full-time job?”

Shar, Wendy and Trudi take both questions on (Cheryl’s away this week). Wendy swapped a planned new series for a novella in a world she already knew, so the book needed less brain space in a hard year. Shar now sets every deadline and pre-order date from her slowest months, not her best ones, and has written ahead so there’s already something in the hopper for next year. Trudi’s new editor builds her Christmas break into every edit timeline — and it’s changed how Trudi plans her own.

The literal seasons are in here: spring calling a gardener outside, school holidays, the Southern Hemisphere pile-up where Christmas, summer and the end of the school year all land at once. So are life seasons — three of the four SPA Girls lost an elderly parent this year, and the episode is honest about what that did to word counts, decision-making and energy. The practical answer is the same for both. Know your pattern, plan from it, and have a list of the tried-and-true tasks that keep the business moving when the creativity isn’t there.

Plus Parkinson’s Law and why going full-time never doubles your output, Saturdays as a no-computer day, the buffalo-versus-cows storm analogy, and why writing before 12 works for some of us and after 9pm works for others.

In this episode:

What “seasonal writing” covers — literal seasons, holidays, life seasons and writing around a job

“Write every day” is the ideal, not the reality for anyone

The predictable seasons (school holidays) and the ones you can’t plan for

A hard year for three of the four SPA Girls — and the sandwich generation

Wendy’s swap from a new series to a novella in a known world

Don’t make radical business decisions in a high-stress season, or straight after one

Protect your head space: Shar’s Screen Zen app and Wendy’s daughter putting a cut-off on her phone

Taking a month off usually won’t break the business — six months is a different story

Why keeping the day job can be the creative choice, not the consolation prize

Parkinson’s Law and why going full-time doesn’t double your output

Age, pace and the long career — book-a-month isn’t forever

Spring in the garden, school holidays, and the Southern Hemisphere Christmas crunch

Wendy’s Saturdays: one day a week completely off the business

Trudi’s editor and the boundaries worth copying

Sarra Cannon’s HB90 — working out what the time actually costs

Set deadlines and pre-order dates from your slow season, with a buffer

When life turns to custard: the list of tried-and-true tasks you can do by rote

Preloading graphics and newsletters so the business runs without you for a while

Buffalo versus cows — meet the storm head on

Track your monthly word count so you can see your own pattern over years

Find the hours of the day that work for you — and the headphones-on-the-couch years

Writing ahead — why holding books back for next year is a good idea

Brandon Sanderson in lockdown versus the rest of us — don’t judge your seasons by someone else’s

Mentioned in this episode:

Screen Zen (app-limit tool): https://www.screenzen.co

Parkinson’s Law — work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion

Sarra Cannon’s HB90 planning method: https://www.heartbreathings.com

More on this from the SPA Girls:

EP419 The Best Mindset for Organisation and Productivity with Sarra Cannon

EP522 Managing Writing + Your Day Job with Chloe Archer

EP553 Inside a Prolific Author’s Daily Routine with Elana Johnson

EP354 It’s Time To Question The “Hustle”

EP558 Mental Resilience for Indie Authors

🔗 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

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”

❤️ 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

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

Mentioned in this episode:

Kevin Kelly, 1,000 True Fans: kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans

BookFunnel: https://bookfunnel.com

MailerLite: https://www.mailerlite.com · Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com

More on this from the SPA Girls:

EP268 How to Use Bonus Content to Sell Books

EP364 Superfans with Steffanie Holmes

EP445 7 Easy Tips for Building Your Newsletter List

EP378 Be a Newsletter Ninja with Tammi Labrecque

EP476 Author Newsletters with Holly Darling

EP433 Selling Direct with Katie Cross

EP479 Interview with Ines Johnson

Support the show: Join us on Patreon at the $10 tier for the SPA Girls Superstars group — brainstorm your bonus content, get feedback on your marketing, and ask four working authors anything about self-publishing — patreon.com/spagirlspodcast