Why I'm Hiring a Publishing Coach
In this episode, I talk about the crucial role coaching has played in my voice acting and audiobook narration journey, and the importance of investing in the same professional guidance for writing. I look back on my six-year journey as a writer and how my initial focus on craft (while important) didn't help me with the business side of publishing, which is essential for success.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Voice Acting Academy: https://learnvoiceacting.com/
- Speaks and Squeaks: https://www.instagram.com/alicesockettaudio/?hl=en
- Self Publishing Show: https://www.learnselfpublishing.com/podcast-sps-audio
- Learn Self Publishing/Self Publishing Launchpad Class: https://www.learnselfpublishing.com/
- AutoCrit Novel 90: https://www.autocrit.com/novel-90-writing-challenge-summer-g/?gc_id=23224406104&h_ad_id=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23215107735&gbraid=0AAAAABeZvfwnP34TEf9M-MRmdoWdm_6S1&gclid=CjwKCAjw0o3SBhBVEiwAh28-jehMSFfpHhmYmiMzlNSNT-I7N0b1URj0SCJCegGSQ4mtxldR8zgvERoCobAQAvD_BwE
Connect with me:
- Killer Prose Podcast: https://www.killerprose.com/
- Tanner Rutledge: https://tannerrutledgebooks.com/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KillerProse6645
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/killerprosepodcast/?hl=en
- Narration IG: https://www.instagram.com/tannerrutledgevo/?hl=en
- email me: killerpenbooks@gmail.com
00:00 - Untitled
00:47 - Embarking on a Writing Journey
02:35 - Transitioning to Audiobook Narration
07:18 - The Importance of Professional Processes in Writing and Publishing
11:50 - Transitioning to New Goals in Writing
13:02 - Setting Goals for Writing and Podcasting
Speaker A
On this episode of Killer Pros, I talk about why I am looking at coaching, specifically on the business side of my publishing and writing, and how spending the time and money working with a coach is what allowed me to get into voice acting.
Speaker A
Welcome back to the Killer Pros podcast, the show for horror, thriller, and mystery writers, where we talk about the art and business of publishing, and I talk about my journey learning the industry.
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I'm Tanner Rutledge, fellow author and voice actor, and that's actually something that I wanted to talk about today.
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So six years ago, I set out to write professionally and to be published in fiction.
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I had been writing in magazines.
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I had been doing a couple of different things, and I took a lot of creative writing back in college.
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Check out the earlier episodes.
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And my original plan was to be a novelist and a writer when I stopped being a private investigator.
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And I stopped doing that in 2021, about 2019.
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Going into 2020, I really focused on learning and building writing craft and learning the publishing industry.
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That's what started this podcast.
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And it started as an audio diary of me learning my way through the industry.
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And then I started interviewing other authors, and it just kind of became this place that was like a mastermind to learn craft, talk to Authors Network, and just follow this journey.
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And about two years ago, I was looking at publishing and wanting to do my own audiobooks because it was super expensive.
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So I started learning voiceover, and specifically I started learning narration.
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And it was fun.
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I ended up kind of seeing some promise there, and I was like, oh, this will be like a great little side thing, too.
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And I started taking some classes, learning how to really build out a sound booth, learning how to do things here in the VO world, and it grew into its own thing.
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And then I got into audiobook narration, and it took off in two years.
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I am way ahead of where I am in comparison to six years of writing, and I think there's a reason for that with vo.
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And about maybe a year, year and a half ago, it became apparent that we need to homeschool our son.
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And I need something that I have total control over my schedule for the most part, but I can still earn a good living doing.
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I was really hoping that was going to be writing, but it just wasn't happening fast enough.
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So I invested in coaching and courses for voiceover and voice acting to break into that industry.
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And I think that's the biggest reason that my VO work, my narration work, is ahead of my writing.
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It's because I was able to learn from industry Professionals that were way ahead of me.
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I learned their workflows and I learned how to work multiple auditions and get a ton of auditions out in a day and get feedback from that.
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I got support on my acting and performance from different groups and these communities that I joined.
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And one of the most powerful things wasn't just having access to a person who was doing well and working full time in audiobook narration and corporate void.
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It was the community.
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There were a lot of people in there like me, where I was and where I am because I'm still in those communities.
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And we were able to learn from each other.
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So I was able to not only learn from my mistakes and things that I was doing and my wins.
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I was able to learn from anywhere from two to 800 people, depending on which group I was in.
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And generally it's about 20, 20 of us that are super active and out and chasing down things.
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But we were able to learn from each other and it gave me a leg up.
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There was also the technical knowledge.
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It's super intimidating to come in here and be like, okay, so what do I need?
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A microphone, an interface, and yes, I do have a background in podcasting, so I had some of the bass knowledge, but I didn't know anything about acoustics.
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I didn't know how to set up a sound booth that was isolated and get a noise floor that was industry standard, which is sub negative 60 dB.
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Mine's a little high today because there's a lot of stuff going on in the house, but it sits usually around minus 65 to minus 70 decibels.
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That's a really quiet room.
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I learned how to do that because people taught me, because I paid them and I did not do that in my writing.
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Had I done that, I think I would be a lot further ahead.
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And yes, I took writing courses, I took writing classes and I focused heavily on craft.
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And I think that was the right move starting out.
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You can't market and sell and launch and make workflows around crap because you're just going to keep pushing out crap.
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So I'm glad that I spent the money on the classes, the groups, the different things on my writing for my craft.
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But I didn't do that on the business side.
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And the reason there was I thought that it would be very similar to running the businesses that I had run in the past.
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I ran my parents construction business for a little while while my father was sick.
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I had my own PI agency, my own personal training business, and I thought that marketing and running a print company would be very similar to that and it's just not so.
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I think one thing that really, really held me back in my writing and specifically my publishing business because there's the writing and the art side of it, which I did get guidance there, and then there's the publishing in the business side that I didn't.
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So what I am lacking are professional processes.
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I have those processes in place from the Voice Acting Academy and from Speaks and Squeaks.
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Those are the two communities, the two main communities in voice acting that I'm a part of.
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One's done by Joe Zica, the other is done by Alice Socket.
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And what they did, Joe gave me in his Voice Actors Academy A like 20,000, 50,000 foot view of the industry and gave me the basics in everything.
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And I was able to focus in on corporate work and audiobook narration.
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Alice gave me workflows, strategies and feedback on audiobooks specifically, which is what I love doing and honestly is what I see being the most steady work in voice acting.
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So I had those.
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I was able to build professional processes and build a business around that.
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I don't have those processes in place for my writing and print business and I think it's time that I got them because when I look at these two things, that's the difference.
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I didn't have the coaching to learn the processes and the workflows to run it at a professional level.
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And yes, I could develop those myself, tons of people do, but it takes time.
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When I was a personal trainer, I used to tell people, you either pay with time or you pay with money.
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If you want to hit your goals faster, hire me as your personal trainer.
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You will get there on your own if you're consistent, but it's going to take you longer because there's a lot more to figure out and I already have the the knowledge to, to guide you there faster.
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And I think that's what I'm going to focus on this year.
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I've been looking at a couple of programs, I've been looking at mentorship and just really checking out a lot of the other podcasts to find out what other authors are doing, who is doing this well and specifically inside the world of the books that I write, who is coaching.
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And I think one of the first things that I'm going to do here in the next couple months is join the self publishing show.
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They do a podcast, they have a class.
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I think it's called self publishing launch, but it is an in depth course on the business side.
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The process is running the ads, doing the things that it takes to get business in voice acting, that's auditioning.
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So I had to learn how to get get into the rooms that I needed to be in like acx and voice 1, 2, 3.
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And how to meet people and be around casting directors to get cast in parts and to land audiobooks and corporate stuff for books.
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I need to learn advertising, I need to learn marketing and media strategies and I need to come up with a process that has been proven inside of my genre and I can do that on my own and I can spend years doing it or I can hire a coach, classes and join a community.
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So that is what I am going to be working on this year is coaching in the business side of publishing so I can get these books out in a way that is profitable.
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And I know a lot of people don't like hearing about the profit stuff and the business side of writing.
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We really dial in on the craft and that's a mistake that I made.
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I got the coaching and the craft.
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Well, okay, that's not a mistake.
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I got the coaching and the craft.
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I got my writing to where I believe it is good and marketable and the feedback on it is that it is good and marketable but I don't know how to market it.
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So that's the issue.
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I'll let you guys know how it goes as I go through this year and I get prepared to really dive in to the business side of publishing.
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But that that's actually going to be my advice for this podcast.
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If you want to get there and you don't want to waste a ton of time and a ton of money developing everything from the ground up and reinventing the wheel, coaching and courses is the way to go.
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You can hire someone one on one that tends to be the most expensive, like a book coach who can help you get your book finished and come up with processes to write faster.
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You can hire a coach who specifically specializes in the publishing side to make that more efficient.
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Show you like, what do you do?
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Where do you go to get your cover?
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How do you format the book?
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Once you put the end on your final revision of the book and it's been through editing, what do you do to get it in the hands of a reader?
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And that is the knowledge that I am seeking this year from a coach.
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So that's what I'll be doing.
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Like I said, I'll let you guys know how that goes.
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I know that I'm interested in the self publishing shows courses and I'll link to those down in the show notes God, I have this one panel that just keeps flying off the wall and it doesn't matter what I do, it won't stay stuck to the.
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Just came off again.
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Anyway.
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All right, guys.
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Yeah, it's been a hell of a year.
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I want to keep like the conversational part, but I also want to get into the meat of the episode.
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So something I'm trying right now is putting all this stuff at the end where we catch up.
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Currently, I am getting back into writing every single day.
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I've been hyper focused on getting the audiobook business up and going.
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We had some issues with public schooling, so we are looking at homeschooling our son.
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And I had to really focus on getting something that allowed me to work from home and have control of my schedule so that I could be teacher dad and dad and bringing money in at the level that, that I do.
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And I like owning my own business.
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I love audio.
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I've been podcasting for a while, so voice acting was the way to go.
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And it seems out of the blue, but I did acting and stuff in theater when I was in college.
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I loved it.
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Never in a million years thought that I would have an opportunity to do it again.
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So I'm very thankful for this.
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But it has, it has really held up my writing because I've had to put so much time into literally building this.
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I built my sound booth, I built everything.
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And this is a writing podcast, so you guys are probably getting tired of hearing about it.
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But no, that's been my focus and now that it's cruising, I can focus back on my writing.
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So this week I am putting in a goal of a thousand words a day writing fiction.
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So I'm not counting anything else.
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No blog posts, newsletter stuff.
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1000 Words a day of fiction.
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Here we go.
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And I would love to hear what your goals are and what you're working on.
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And you can head over to killerpros.com and contact me there through the website.
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Email me@killerpinbooksmail.com and just let me know what you're working on.
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Getting the podcast back and steady.
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I am shooting for weekly episodes.
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I'm talking to a couple of authors about coming on the show.
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So we're going to get this rolling.
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And coaching is going to be a big thing for me this year.
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Like I said in the earlier part of the podcast, coaching is the reason that I even have a shot at full time career in voice acting and audiobook narration.
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It's how I learned how to do voices.
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It's how I'm actually working with, with another program now on getting better with my accents and I need to take that level of care in the business side of my writing.
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So, yeah, I'll let you guys know how that goes.
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Currently, if you're looking for something that doesn't have a huge, like pay barrier, Autocrit has their novel 90.
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And if even on the free accounts, it's totally free, you sign up, it's, it's a workflow for your planning, a workflow for your drafting, and then a workflow for your editing to get your book done and ready to at least go to an editor within 90 days.
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So if that's where you're stuck and that's where you're needing coaching, that's also going to introduce you to some, some coaches who are familiar with your type of writing.
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There's a planner, a pantser and a plantser, which is where I am, where you're kind of in between.
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So check that out.
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That's the novel 90 over at AutoCrit.
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Once I finish this and get it ready to go out, I am joining the the self Publishing Shows launch class and I'll link to that down in the show notes.
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Anyway, guys, keep listening.
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Reach out with anything that you want covered on the podcast and stay tuned.
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I'm going to have news about my stuff that's coming out.
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Not just my written book, but audiobook projects that are going to be coming out over the next couple months.
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And that's it until next time.
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Enjoy the process.