6:04 / Writers on Writing / Sarah Smith

Tech for Writers / Free Consultation!

Coming in this episode is a wealth of technology resources which only someone with a tech background can provide. Sarah Smith presents a powerpoint packed with resources.

From assists in idea generation and organization, to plot and structure, formatting manuscripts and crafting covers, book descriptions, and audiobook development (so necessary in today’s marketplace), Sarah explains the riches available.

We end with Sarah’s offer to consult with 25 writers through Zoom interviews about all things related to audiobooks.

Check the Show Notes and the website for her powerpoint and special offer.

 

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome / Introduction

02:22 Four Requirements of Tech

11:10 Powerpoint Tools begins / Planning and Plotting

18:30 Unusual Helps: Beeftext and Reverso

21:20 Editing / Formatting / Covers / Publishing

29:00 Audiobooks / AI Narration

35:14 Consultation Offer / https://app.simplymeet.me/soundwrights

37:33 Closing

Total Run Time = 38:33

 

#writing #writingtools #plotting #coverdesign #booknarration #AI

Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2025/01/604-writers-on-writing-sarah-smith.html

Special Offer https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/p/sarah-smiths-special-offer.html

Powerpoint Access to Tools as an mp4 https://youtu.be/S1qe1AFg1EM

Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/604-writers-on-writing-sarah-smith-talks-tech-tools/?token=be6a05098eb0e847503f094debdf6adf

Video https://youtu.be/RqZnAO_mtVs

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

·         You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

·         Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Listen on your favorite podcast site: from Apple to YouTube, Spotify and Podbean (my favs), Google Play, Amazon Music and Audible, Samsung and Player FM, Deezer and Podcaster, the rivals iHeart and Tune-in, and too many to list.

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio  https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163   

 

Content copyright is 2020 to 2025, Writers Ink Books.

6:03 / John Connor on Writing & Publishing

 Writing and Publishing

Two fountain pens and specific paper to encourage creativity. Computer systems like Linux as best tools. In a wide-ranging interview with everything from fonts to covers, John Connor with the UK press Murderous Ink shares it all.

A connectivity glitch smack in the middle of the interview didn’t derail Connor. We continued on, with manuscript format and the concerns of publishers about document file types. The interview could easily have lasted all afternoon, but alas, Zoom called for an end.

John ‘Jay’ Andrew Connor has been writing and publishing under a menagerie of names and genres since the late 1970s—sometimes even professionally. He’s worked at a variety of jobs, in various locations, and has also published small press, and semi-pro magazines in the past. Sadly, even though he is now on full time medication, he’s at it again.

Memindip and the Persian Poet is the second in the Memindip Quartet—The Death and Life of an Unwilling Investigator series, set in an ‘alternative’ North African city, in 1969. The first of the four, Memindip Solves a Problem, appears in Crimeucopia — We’ll Be Right Back — After This!

www.murderousinkpress.co.uk

 

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome and Introduction

5:40 “Write what you want to write.”

11:50 Tech and Critical Failures

15:30 Word Processing / MS Format & into Fonts

25:00 International Connection Glitching !*#@(%&)

27:00 Finding Software that Works

36:00 Print “Reads” Differently in Audio Form

39:00 Closing

Total Run Time = 39:30

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Kctg7OayipF1tU2xl6TKjy

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

·         You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

·         Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Listen on your favorite podcast site: from Apple to YouTube, Spotify and Podbean (my favs), Google Play, Amazon Music and Audible, Samsung and Player FM, Deezer and Podcaster, the rivals iHeart and Tune-in, and too many to list.

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio  https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163   

 

Content copyright is 2020 to 2025, Writers Ink Books.

6:02 / Writers = Scott Ellis Talks the Narration Biz

 In this episode we have All Things Narration ~ clearly, concisely, professionally ~ explained by the award-winning narrator / producer Scott Ellis of Scott Ellis Reads.

From the various unseen and unheard jobs of the narrator before beginning, through major job of recording sessions and re-recording and the pick-ups after, to making the many files easily available for the writer’s use, the role of a great narrator is to help the writer’s story become more accessible to a wider audience.

And Scott Ellis knows all of these jobs.

He’s narrated over 100 audiobooks and coached several authors through the production or narration of their first audiobook. Being a retired teacher, Scott is all about performing and teaching. Scott Ellis Reads, his audiobook production company, started in 2019 and has a team of over 20 people that work in narrating, editing, marketing, and managing the business.

Awards

Audiobook Producer of Magda, Standing - IBPA 2024 Gold Medal Winner Young Adult Fiction Audiobook of the Year

Narrator of Puck and Minnie: All That Is - named 2021 Young Adult Fiction Audiobook of the Year by Audiobook Reviewer.

LINKS

Visit his website:www.scottellisreads.com

Visit his Classroom www.serclassroom.com

 

TOTAL RUN TIME = 37:29

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. The previous series was Fall into Poetry, at this link ~ https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg&si=Te8Jo1vLeu3rVkS4

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

·         You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

·         Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Listen on your favorite podcast site: from Apple to YouTube, Spotify and Podbean (my favs), Google Play, Amazon Music and Audible, Samsung and Player FM, Deezer and Podcaster, the rivals iHeart and Tune-in, and too many to list.

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to the Current Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7IZWMlW9kLwMNEkuLMySGnq

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio  https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163   

 

Content copyright is 2020 to 2025, Writers Ink Books.

6:01 / Writers on Writing / Marie Still

Welcome to Writers on Writing, interviews with active writers to inspire us all for our great start to 2025.

In this week’s episode, our focus is Marie Still, an award-winning thriller and horror author. She’s a marketer turned writer in the coronacoaster year. She took the giant step upon the urging of a friend.

Marie Still torments her characters from Tampa Bay. She also writes women's fiction under Kristen Seeley. Her novels include My Darlings (currently in development as a television series with Amazon MGM Studios), Bad Things Happened in This Room, We're All Lying (named by Buzzfeed as one of the most anticipated mystery/thrillers of 2023), and Beverly Bonnefinche is Dead (a Silver Falchion Award finalist).

Off the page, Marie can be found attempting to corral her five mostly friendly cats for a cuddle, surviving the affection from her very cuddly 150 lb Rottweiler, or keeping up with her four children. She's also known to surprise her incredibly supportive husband with a new cat, to which he doesn't complain (too much).

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:41 Introduction / Marie’s technology use

06:18 How Marie Writes

10:00 Roller Coaster Writing

13:00 Deciding to be a Writer

17:33 Marketing a Book vs. a Product

23:13 My Darlings’ Release / Hurricane Interference

27:08 Closing

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/yPg_aLzMHr8?si=CHXO0EVUmArhYiVX

Listen to the Podcast at your favorite service or free on Podbean: https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/601-writers-on-writing-marie-still/

LINKS

MarieStill.com

Instagram: instagram.com/mariestillwrites

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mariestillwrites

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Writers on Writing, a series of interviews with active writers on technology, social media, process and productivity, and much more. The previous series was Fall into Poetry, at this link ~ https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg&si=Te8Jo1vLeu3rVkS4

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)