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Stefanus Mutileni 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a Mechanical and Marine engineer from Namibia and I have written 3 books so far. I focus on both fiction and non-fiction, and I enjoy hiking and camping.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Soar with Emotional Intelligence. The Covid-19 pandemic brought a lot of issues ranging from job losses and added stress, trauma, depression and anxiety. I am a depression survivor and I wanted to share my skills and tips with people so they can rally through this pandemic, while also advancing their chances of scoring jobs and growing skills everyday.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Yes, I write the best after midnight and at times when I am sad.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Mark Manson’s Everything is f*cked.

What are you working on now?
The Potter’s Bay Second Episode.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
facebook, Amazon ads.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Never give up, find that niche that works for you and run with it.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
If you can think about it and feel that someone might need to hear about it, write about it, then writing will become your best skill.

What are you reading now?
My own book Soar with emotional intelligence because I plan to make podcasts on it.

What’s next for you as a writer?
Try out script writing.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Mark Manson’s books and any of Lee Child.

Author Websites and Profiles
Stefanus Mutileni Website
Stefanus Mutileni Amazon Profile

Mario Guadalupi 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a psychotherapist. I specialize in family therapy. I was also a consultant to the magistracy for about twenty years. I dealt with the custody of minors between separated or divorced parents.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
• The invisible education.
• Family communication patterns leave more influence on children’s education than words and example.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Yes. It takes me one day or two to get a full picture of the story, but I don’t write from start to finish according to the time sequences of story. When I write, I write the part of the story that I feel at that moment. In the end all the pieces of the puzzle are in the right place and the story is completed.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Everyone and no one in particular.

What are you working on now?
This is the title of the new novel: “Love that does not die”.
It is the story of two very young lovers, a girl and her boyfriend, and of their two children. All four separate. They search for each other for fifty years and eventually find each other again.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
social media, awesome gang, amazon ads, spread words…..
Highlight the protagonist’s drama and his final victory.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
• Make the children dream with your stories.
• Write about the victory over pain for adults.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
My advice for myself: Don’t write the stories people expect. Write the stories you feel the desire to write.

What are you reading now?
I’m rereading: “The Hidden Persuaders” by Vance Packard (David McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1957)

What’s next for you as a writer?
I write for myself but if only one reader were happy to have read my books I would be happy too.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
1. El amor en los tiempos del cólera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. The catcher in the rye by Jerome David Salinger
3. Voyage au bout de la nuit by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
4. Anna Karenina by Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj

 

J.U. Scribe 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a laid back, creative writer and blogger from Wisconsin where I get to experience all 4 seasons sometimes in one day! I’ve been self-publishing since 2013 where I wrote a historical middle-grade fiction book, “Before the Legend.” I wrote 3 more books for free on Wattpad that follow the first book. Later I changed gears and ventured into the world of nonfiction with my book “How to Self-Publish Without Going Broke.”

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
“How to Self-Publish Without Going Broke” is my latest book to drop this past July. It’s a step-by-step guide to self-publishing for those not sure where to start and are tight on funds. I was inspired mostly from my own experience in self-publishing. When I first started I didn’t realize the importance of certain steps and as a result, made a lot of careless mistakes. I want writers to avoid the mistakes I made and come up with a plan to launch their next book for success.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not sure if this counts but I often listen to music to put me in the mood for writing.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
For fiction books, “The Giver” by Lois Lowry
For nonfiction, “Let’s Get Visible” by David Gaughran. I credit him for inspiring me to pursue self-publishing.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on getting my stories that haven’t been published for sale beta read and polished. I’m also building a growing list of bonus resources for indie writers on my blog at Writer’s Nook.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
One of the cheapest but overlooked way to promote your book is self-promotion. As an introvert, this doesn’t come easy but is something I’m working on. For sites, I like Bargain Booksy or their sister site Freebooksy. I’ve worked with them in the past when running promotions and I’m usually pleased with the results.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
My advice is to come up with a comprehensive plan on how you’re going to write the book and sell it before you even write the manuscript. It’s something most writers fail to do but good planning can help you have a clear idea of what your book is about, who it’s for, and how to position it in front of readers. Knowing the market ahead of time is also valuable in knowing what topics or niche markets are trending, giving you an indicator of how marketable and profitable your idea could be. But at the end of the day, you should still write what you enjoy.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
One of the best advice I’ve heard when it comes to self-publishing is on choosing keywords that people actually search on. Choosing the right keywords is critical for your book’s visibility. One way to know which keywords people are searching on is to try typing a word or phrase related to your book and see what the search bar auto-populates. The first few results whether on Google or Amazon is a good indicator that the search term is popular.

What are you reading now?
I started reading “The Art of Career Change for Introverts” by Rebecca Healey. The book is very relevant to my situation as an introvert. It’s still early but so far it seems very promising.

What’s next for you as a writer?
My hope is to venture into copywriting and create new rivetting stories from ideas that have been floating inside my head lately.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Bible
The Giver
The Rule of Three (the book will literally tell you what need for survival)

Author Websites and Profiles
J.U. Scribe Website
J.U. Scribe Amazon Profile

J.U. Scribe’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account

Sagan Morrow 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a romance novelist and productivity strategist at SaganMorrow.com. After freelance writing for nearly a decade, I decided to start writing romantic comedies… and two years later, I’ve written and published seven so far! I document my author adventure (and share writing tips and behind-the-scenes experiences) in the Indie Author Weekly podcast.

All seven of these romcoms are part of the Polyamorous Passions series. The tagline for these books is “Make your own rules,” which is very apt: the stories feature 20 & 30-something women “coming into their own,” and learning to embrace who they are, flaws and all. These stories touch on important themes about how we don’t need to force ourselves into societal expectations if we don’t want to. I love sharing about important issues in the entertaining, lighthearted format of romcoms.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
“Her Bad Idea” features Scarlett Mitchell, a burlesque dancer with financial struggles. Her only chance to save her failing burlesque business is to become dance partners with her enemy—who just happens to be outrageously sexy. Things get complicated when she unexpectedly finds herself in an accidental fake relationship with him to garner media ratings… There’s a thin line between love and hate in this dance competition romance!

I’m a hobbyist burlesque dancer myself, so I knew right when I started writing romcoms that I *needed* to write a book featuring someone who does it for a living! Financial difficulties is something that so many of us can relate to, as well—it’s always important to me to write “realism romance,” so that readers can relate to the characters and storyline on a deeper level.

Her Bad Idea is an enemies to lovers, fake relationship, slow burn, forced proximity romance, and even though it’s Book 7 in the Polyamorous Passions series, it can totally be read as a standalone.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
So far, I’ve written each book in my series a little differently. A few of the techniques I’ve used and enjoyed include mind mapping, organizing chapters with colour-coded sticky notes, and having a “Scenes & Ideas” document to jot down quick scenes and dialogue snippets before I sit down to write the first full draft. I give my characters a lot of free rein, but I am definitely more of a plotter than a pantser!

You can learn more about my writing process and writing habits on my podcast, Indie Author Weekly.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Real-life scenarios are the most influential for me—that’s where I get the majority of my inspiration from. The tiniest moment or passing comment or expression can spark new ideas.

As far as authors and books go… I think I’m influenced in one way or another from every book I read! That’s one of the wonderful things about books and stories in general: there’s always something that we can learn from them and be inspired by. I like reading a range of genres to flex those creative muscles.

I saw the TV show Crazy Ex Girlfriend after I’d already written the first few books in my Polyamorous Passions series, and I remember sitting there, watching the first few episodes, and thinking, “This is my style!” I loved that. There’s something really wonderful about seeing other storytellers and creatives using fun, light-hearted mediums to share important messages and touch on very serious issues through a supposedly “fluffy” lens. There’s so much power in stories.

What are you working on now?
I have two more books in my Polyamorous Passions series that I’ll be writing very soon, but first, I’m taking a short break to write a standalone novel—still in the theme of polyamory—about a big city girl getting trapped in a small town, who reconnects with her childhood best friends (spoiler alert: she falls for both of them!). I also have plans to write a paranormal thriller romance and a fantasy erotica soon… romcoms are so wonderful, and I’m also keen to play with other genres.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
The book community. Book bloggers and bookstagrammers and advance readers are some of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. They’re so supportive of indie authors, and they care so much about books and stories. It is such a wonderful privilege to work with them.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Understand your goals with your book, schedule time for writing, create an action plan and timeline for yourself, and write the book YOU want to write. Focus on what brings you joy, rather than worrying about how readers will receive your book.

The more you love your book, the more readers will love it. And if you’re bored writing a particular scene, your readers will probably be bored, reading it.

Write, and write, and write some more. You’ll never be a perfect writer—there’s no such thing as perfection, after all—so enjoy the journey and aim for improvement, rather than perfection.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Life is too short, but also too long, NOT to spend it on what you love doing.” So many aspiring authors come to me and say they’d love to write books, but they haven’t done it yet… they’ve been procrastinating for YEARS. And I totally get that, because I used to be that way too.

But really, what are you waiting for? There’s never going to be a “good” time to write a book. If you want it, you need to prioritize it, and take action despite your fears. And then you’ll realize how much your story needs to be out there for the world to read… and how much readers WANT to read keep reading every new book you write.

What are you reading now?
I just signed up for Kobo Plus and downloaded a ton of new books! I love reading other feminist romcoms. Anything lighthearted and fun is on my list right now. I also find Face Reading fascinating, and since I have a Rhetoric & Communications degree, I’m really interested in communication theory and how we connect with one another.

What’s next for you as a writer?
More books! I’m currently working to make the author side of my business my main focus. I’m very multi-passionate and I adore the work I do as a productivity strategist—and at the same time, one of my biggest goals is to be able to make a full-time living as an author.

I’m eager to keep writing more books. Writing makes my heart happy, and I view it as its own form of activism, to be able to share your messages and values with the world through story.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Emma by Jane Austen, The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell, and probably something by Neil Postman or Malcolm Gladwell… but I think it would depend on my mood at the time! I’m a big mood reader.

Author Websites and Profiles
Sagan Morrow Website
Sagan Morrow Amazon Profile

Sagan Morrow’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account
Pinterest Account

Dani J. Caile 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m an ESL teacher in a foreign land and I also proofread for other authors and edit for university magazines. I’ve written many novels, novellas and hundreds of short stories. I’ve yet to find any huge success, though there are maybe in total over 10,000 copies of my books out there, somewhere. Who knows where…

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is ‘Gubacsi Dulu’, the first in a sci-fi series of three under the umbrella title ‘Humanity H2O’. I was inspired by my craziest student to finish this book in record time after sitting on it for a few years. She also made me realise that the character should be female.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I steal minutes, even seconds in my usual daily life to write. I find the best way to find an idea is to let it mull over in the back of your mind while being busy living.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
I studied the classics, from Greek to Modern while doing my Literature MA, so I can say I have many influences. It’s tough to say who influences me the most, though I do have my ‘heroes’, namely Milton and Conrad.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on books two and three of my ‘Humanity H2O’ series and having a lot of fun with it. I’m also working on the third book in my ‘How to’ series, comedy books set in a world of mud and soup.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I usually only use Twitter or Facebook, but when it comes to a special promotion, I try to spread my wings a little, like here.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Keep writing. Every day.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Keep writing. Every day.

What are you reading now?
Dryden: Mind and Art

What’s next for you as a writer?
To keep writing. Every day.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Milton: Complete Works.
Huxley: Crome Yellow
Conrad: Heart of Darkness

Author Websites and Profiles
Dani J. Caile Website
Dani J. Caile Amazon Profile
Dani J. Caile Author Profile on Smashwords

Dani J. Caile’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account

Robert Shulman 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a lifelong storyteller, I have written many short stories, poetry, and led a bunch of tabletop role playing games. I have a series of science fiction books that I am preparing for re-release, and I have begun a new series of my personal memoirs, about the unusual experiences of my interesting life.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Land of the Friendly People is my story of being inside the notoriuos Aneewakee Treatment Center, where a cabal of elite pedophiles committed hundreds of acts of child abuse over the course of over two decades. This included physical, mental and sexual abuse, as well as forced labor and deprivation of education.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
My memoir series is written in a very casual, easy to read style. It swings from very polished analysis to ranting against injustice.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
I am a huge fan of Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazney, and Asimov.

What are you working on now?
I am preparing 3 scifi manuscripts for release as ebooks, and paperback. I am also drafting an outline of part two of my memoirs, an exciting tale about being on the run from the law.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Promoting books is tough! But if you are trying to do this yourself, Don’t Give up! Take advantage of helpful sites like awesome Gang to help establish yourself as an author.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
I will echo the advice of Brad Thor, who writes excellent action/aadventure novels; $0% of the work is writing the book, 60% is selling it.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Read. Alot.

What are you reading now?
Hollow City, by Ransom Riggs, this is the sequel to Miss Perigrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

What’s next for you as a writer?
After I get my scifi trilogy online, I want to write part two of my memoirs. After that I have loose notes for another scifi trilogy, which are intended to stand alone, but exist on the same imaginary universe as the first set. The first three books begin in a familiar world, with near future technology and settings. The second set will be in the far future, showing where the events of the first part have led, at the end of a long passage of time.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would bring Dune by Frank Herbert, The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas, and the Silmarillion by JRR Tolkein.

Author Websites and Profiles
Robert Shulman Amazon Profile

Robert Shulman’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account

Ralph Lane 

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Ralph Lane has been in the comedy business ever since being dubbed “the class clown” by his third grade teacher. Of course, Ralph took it as a compliment even though neither his teacher nor parents saw it that way. Ralph’s next big accomplishment was a comedic hat trick in middle school when he caused three classmates to squirt milk out of their nose upon hearing the punch line of one of his jokes.

It was only natural that Ralph would go on to write numerous #1 bestselling joke books with a special focus on Dad Jokes. His books are three-for-one deals since they are joke books, gift books and holiday books. Ralph’s ever-growing list of books include:
Dad Jokes Christmas Gift Book
Dad Jokes Valentine’s Day Gift Book
Dad Jokes St. Patrick’s Day Gift Book
Dad Jokes Easter Gift Book
Mother’s Day Gift Book
Dad Jokes Gift Book
Dad Jokes Halloween Gift Book
Just ******* Vote

Ralph’s books are available as e-books, paperbacks and, in some cases, audio books. So buy one of Ralph Lane’s books for yourself or as a birthday gift, holiday gift, get well gift or for any special occasion. Ralph’s books make great additions to gift baskets, too.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is “Dad Jokes: Halloween Gift Book.” I’m not sure why I waited until recently to publish a Halloween joke book since Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.
I was inspired by the classic Halloween book “The Legend of Decimus Croome: A Halloween Carol.” When I discovered the book was both spooky and hilarious, I realized that Halloween can provide a gold mine of hilarious jokes and stories.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Since I have lower back pain, I can’t sit down when I write. So, I have an inversion table that I lie on, stomach down, to do most of my writing.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
As I mentioned above, “The Legend of Decimus Croome: A Halloween Carol” by Kevin Purdy has been a big influence. It was based on “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, and I’m a Dickens fan. BTW, Mr. Dickens also had lower back problems, so he wrote standing up.

What are you working on now?
I think I’ll probably publish a birthday gift book next.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Besides the obvious, “Awesome Gang,” I also utilize Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads & Pinterest. Each of these platforms is pretty good for the price.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t feel like you have to be either a prolific writer or a literary giant. You can be both. I always have at least two projects in the works. One is a joke book and the other is the next bestselling fiction novel.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Read, read, read!!

What are you reading now?
A historical fiction book set in medieval England.

What’s next for you as a writer?
I would like to publish a dystopian trilogy.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Catch 22
Ender’s Game
My Side of the Mountain

Author Websites and Profiles
Ralph Lane Website
Ralph Lane Amazon Profile

Ralph Lane’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account