Episode 008 / Renaissance man of the author world David Gaughran decodes Amazon and breaks down Bookbub ads for authors in addition to writing historical fiction and science fiction. He joins Jami Albright and Sara Rosett to discuss how his mistakes have shaped his decision to reboot his fiction and nonfiction books. 

You can find show notes and links at wishidknownforwriters.com.

Jami and Sara are in the podcast timewarp because they recorded the episode intro early since Sara will be in London (hopefully) when it airs.

Jami’s making progress on her work-in-progress, and Sara was interviewed on Nathan van Coops’ podcast, Book Faces Live. They also talk about how the coronavirus is impacting travel and how it has brought fist bumps and elbow bumps into vogue. Jami mentions The Daily podcast’s recent episode on the topic.

In this podcast episode, you’ll discover:

• David’s Irish storytelling heritage and how conversation in the pub is a combat sport in Ireland
• His first mistake of writing “all over the map” in different genres while using the same author name
• The one thing that he wishes he could change
• David’s first big success and how he became an accidental nonfiction author
• Unlearning assumptions related to writing pretty sentences and the value of a good story that resonates with readers
• How Kindle Highlights can give you an insight to what readers value most
• What you can learn from books that are selling well--even if you don’t think they’re well-written
• Assumptions David made about ads and how important it is to question our assumptions
• Number chasing vs. knowing your readers
•  David’s biggest gamble when he rebooted both his fiction and nonfiction career
• The value of long-term thinking and creating evergreen systems for your writing and marketing
• How the pressure of going full-time can impact you psychologically
• Why emailing too infrequently is a mistake and how David’s mindset about email has changed
• How David is using what he’s learned from his mistakes to reboot his writing career with pen names and book relaunches