Category Archives: Business - Page 3

Janet Grace Riehl – Do-it-Yourself Audiobook Production

Posted by on April 16, 2010 1 comment
On April 15th, 2010 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman interviewed poet, author, and performance artist Janet Grace Riehl about recording, producing, and marketing audiobook versions of eBooks and print publications. Her book Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary, told in story poems, was recently made into an audio book Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music. Twice selected as finalist for Poet Laureate of Lake County, California and a member of Authors Guild, her poems, stories and essays are published in national literary magazines and several anthologies.

Janet broke it all down for us on audiobooks into easy-to-understand steps

  1. Creative;
  2. technical (editing, mastering, disc numbering);
  3. legal (licenses and copyrights);
  4. production;
  5. distribution and marketing; and,
  6. Big Celebration.

Resources mentioned on this podcast
Janet Grace Riehl is an award-winning author, artist, performer, community mentor, and creative collaborator. Her poems, stories, and essays have been widely published in national literary magazines such as “Harvard Review” and the anthologies “Stories to Live By: Wisdom to Help You Make the Most of Every Day” and “Hot Flashes 2″.

Her life moves between the big city in St. Louis in the Central West End to the family home place on the bluffs above the Mississippi River in Southwestern Illinois where she collaborates on creative projects with her 90-something father. Feel free to contact her by email at janet.riehl@gmail.com.
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Edna Washington – What Every Author Must Know About Accounting

Posted by on May 12, 2009 No comments
On May 8, 2009 Victor R. Volkman and Tyler R. Tichelaar spoke with computer training and accounting expert Edna Washington of Washington Consultants, LLC.  We previously recorded Edna at the 2008 Motown Writer’s Conference but response was so great that we invited her on for a full 40 minutes of Q&A about business records, taxes, and structuring your company. Edna Washington is a workshop presenter and has over 15 years accounting and computer experience. We grilled her on a variety of common startup questions incuding:

  • Do I want to be a proprietor or a corporation?
  • How do I setup my business so it is properly recognized?
  • How can I amortize a large book printing over several years?
  • Do I need QuickBooks to manage by business?
  • What are 1099s and when do I give or receive them?
  • How can I draw money from the business?
  • What is the “home office” expense and can I claim it?
  • What types of deductions are commonly missed by authors?
 Edna Washington
Edna is the owner of Washington Consultants, LLC in Detroit, Michigan. She attended University of Missouri at St. Louis. Washington Consultants provides accounting and computer services to small businesses. They also offer computer skills training for youth and adults. Mrs. Washington also volunteers with youth organizations to help young people succeed in life. She believes in giving back to her community. She believes that our youth just need to be encouraged and shown that there is a world to be conquered

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Lissa Warren – Get your book on the store’s front table

Posted by on April 18, 2009 No comments
On April 8th, 2009 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with author and publishing expert Lissa Warren on how to get your book into the sweet spot on those tables in the front of the bookstore. Lissa Warren has worked at several Boston publishing houses including David R. Godine, Houghton Mifflin, and Perseus Publishing, and is currently Vice President, Senior Director of Publicity and Acquiring Editor at Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Specifically, we were seeking answers to the following questions:

  • Who chooses which books go on a store’s front table?
  • What can authors do to help get their books on the front table at a chain bookstore?
  • What are some of the different kinds of table space available at a chain bookstore?
  • What can authors do to help get their books on a front table at an independent bookstore?
  • What kind of media is likely to make a bookstore sit up and take notice?
  • Does it help if you stop by bookstores and autograph copies?
  • What about readings in bookstores—do you get better table space if you do them
 Lissa Warren
The author of The Savvy Author’s Guide to Book Publicity, she has spoken about publishing for the Virginia Festival of the Book, Lesley University , Publishers Marketing Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Publishers Association of the South, BookBuilders of Boston, ForeWord magazine, Grub Street, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project, and the Adirondack Writer’s Conference, among others. Since 2003 she has been an Adjunct Professor at Emerson College —in their Writing, Literature, and Publishing program—and she also teaches in Boston University ‘s publishing certificate program. She serves on the advisory board to the MFA writing program at Southern New Hampshire University.Ms. Warren holds a B.S. in English Education from Miami University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Bennington College . Her poetry has appeared in Quarterly West, Oxford Magazine, Black Warrior Re
view, and Verse, and she’s a poetry editor for the literary magazine Post Road .

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Victor R. Volkman – Lighting a fire with eBooks on Amazon Kindle 2

Posted by on March 7, 2009 No comments
On March 4th, 2009 Irene Watson interviewed publisher, author, and editor Victor R. Volkman about the Amazon Kindle eBook reader platform and how to publish on it. Victor is the President of Loving Healing Press Inc. and its newest imprint Modern History Press. In this wide ranging discussion, we cover key points including:

  • What is the Amazon Kindle?
  • How many Kindles are out there?
  • How many books are really available on the Kindle?
  • Can self-publishers and small presses really compete on the Kindle platform?
  • What kind of conversions issues are there for people doing the work?
  • What’s New with the Kindle 2 product “refresh”?
  • What is the big deal about the new text-to-speech feature that reads books to you?
  • How much are Kindle books and how much do I make as the author or publisher?
Victor R. Volkman began his writing career in the late 1980s writing for computer programming journals such as “Windows Developer’s Journal,” and many other print publications that have been obsoleted since the web was born. He authored two computer programming books in the mid-1990s before finding out that writing for Fortune 500 companies was not terribly profitable. In 2003, he formed Loving Healing Press out of a community project in the Self-Expression and Leadership Program at Landmark Education. Since then, LHP has gone on to publish dozens of cutting-edge books that promote its mission of “redefining what is possible for healing mind and spirit.” As such, he has produced a series of books on Traumatic Incident Reduction as well as empowering other authors in a wide range of helping areas including trauma recovery, self-esteem, physical disabilities, personal growth, and much more. He produces regular podcasts for “
Authors Access,” and the “Unbreak Your Health” show. In 2007, LHP spun off a new imprint Modern History Press dedicated to empowering authors to speak about surviving conflict and seeking identity in modern times. When not publishing, he enjoys spending time with his wife Marian K. Volkman, a formidable author in her own right.

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