How can you find the intersection between what the market wants and what you love to read? How can you strategically seed book sales to improve your marketing? Rachel McLean talks about her 5 steps to indie author success. In the intro, how to predict and profit from publishing trends [ALLi blog]; my live, in-person events IRL and online; lytics.com/dap/a/?a=1&p=k-lytics.com/webinar-joanna-penn/" title="">Trends for 2023 webinar with Alex Newton, K-lytics. Today's show is sponsored by IngramSpark, which I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 40,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries, and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Use promo code PENN at checkout for 1 free book upload, print, ebook, or both, if uploaded at the same time—until December 31, 2022. Rachel McLean is the award-winning and best-selling author of the Dorset Crime novels and the Zoe Finch detective series, and she writes nonfiction for writers under Rachel McCollin. Today we're talking about Five Steps to Author Success: Write Books Readers Love and Become a Full-Time Writer. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes * Why Rachel chose to become an indie author — and why her first books didn't sell so well* How to find the intersection between what the market wants and what you want to write* The importance of characters in a series* Researching locations* Strategically seeding book sales to improve book marketing* Adapting to change as an author You can find Rachel at RachelMcLean.com Header image by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Rachel McLean Joanna: Rachel McLean is the award-winning and best-selling author of the Dorset Crime novels and the Zoe Finch detective series, and she writes nonfiction for writers under Rachel McCollin. Today we're talking about Five Steps to Author Success: Write Books Readers Love and Become a Full Time Writer. So welcome, Rachel. Rachel: Thank you for having me on. It's lovely to be here. Joanna: Oh, yeah, this is gonna be so fascinating. But first up, just tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing? Rachel: Well, I mean, like many writers I've been writing since I was in primary school. I think I wrote my first serialized story when I was about nine. And I loved to write stories when I was a child, and then went to secondary school and had it drummed out of me and had to write essays, went to university much the same process. And then quite a few years later, I was working at the Environment Agency and I was responsible for communication skills training.