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Hi! In the longest episode so far (I think), today I chat with Brian Meeks about the importance of copywriting for authors. He’s very generous with his time and provides loads of examples and humor, so we went on for a while. I hope you listen all the way to the end and get a lot out of it. As children’s and YA authors, we can sometimes be a little resistant to proper marketing, feeling like we have a calling that is “above the commercial,” but if you don’t get people to read your work, it can’t inspire a child to become a lifelong reader. This is an important listen for writers for all age groups.
We talk a lot about Brian’s new book for authors: Mastering Amazon Descriptions. It’s one that I have found very helpful and will be a re-read for me this summer when I’m optimizing my backlist.
In my own update, I just finished running a booth at Comicpalooza here in Houston. It was quite the experience! I’ll be telling you all about it, about selling books at these kinds of shows and hand-selling skills in a solo episode in two weeks.
For now, enjoy the interview with Brian. Here’s a little more about him. Scroll on down to the bottom of the page to play the episode.
He discovered a knack for weaving tales quite by accident on Jan 2, 2010, and has been writing every day since. Becoming a novelist has changed his life.
As of September, 2015, Brian has written and published eleven novels and one non-fiction title.
His first novels were the books in the Henry Wood Detective series. After that, he wrote a thriller called A Touch to Die For and a YA titled Secret Doors: The Challenge. During this time he also maintained the blog that started it all, ExtremelyAverage.com.
One reader of the blog asked why he hadn’t written anything more snarky, since there were often piles of snark in his blagh posts. Brian didn’t have a good answer and so Arthur Byrne was born.
Arthur Byrne started out as the protagonist in Brian’s first satire, Underwood, Scotch, and Wry. He became a pen name with the release of Killing Hemingway and later wrote the first trilogy in a new science fiction series, The Magellan Apocalypse. Arthur also writes a lot of the snarky newsletters because Brian just can’t be bothered with such things.
Brian lives in a small town in Iowa, plays tennis and golf, and loves gathering data about his books. He’s a data junkie. He is also a huge fan of guinea pigs.