Lindsay - June 10, 2021On this week’s show, Andrea, Jo, and Lindsay are joined by full-time author and regular poster in the Six Figure Authors Facebook group, Shawn Inmon.
Writer of time travel and portal fantasy, Shawn first broke six figures last year before jumping into advertising, and he’s since given his income even more of a boost by advertising on Facebook. Our hosts asked him for some details on how he’s grown his success over the years.
Shawn also writes “into the dark,” without much time spent on editing and revisions, so they asked him all about that too.
Here’s a list of the questions they gave Shawn:
- How did you become an indie author?
- What was your first book about, and how did it do?
- What made you switch to time-travel fiction?
- Do you think focusing on one big series is what helped you break out?
- In the intro, we talked about how you hit six figures in income last year without running any ads. What were you doing for promotion then?
- What tips do you have for an author who is selling decently but wants to do better?
- Now that you’re using ads, do you favor Amazon or Facebook?
- You’re having great results with Facebook ads — are you dropping the price of Book 1 or advertising a full-price book?
- Do you have any tips for authors who are struggling with Facebook ads?
- We’ve had Dean Wesley Smith on in the past, and one thing he’s very passionate about is not revising books. Would you explain to our audience what he means by “writing into the dark” and how you apply it to your own writing?
- What is the average length of the books you write? Do you think this technique is applicable to books of all lengths?
- How have you learned to let go of your inner editor? Are there things you fix as you’re writing?
- What do you do when you get an idea that doesn’t jive with what you’ve already written?
- How does writing to market apply with what you’re doing? Or does it?
- Something that plotters can sometimes do, particularly with a long series, is plant hints and clues for events in future books. Do you have a firm enough idea of the trajectory of a series to do this?
- How do you think outliners can apply this method?
- Something that stuck out to me in your bio was “fourteen book time travel series.” As someone who has written time travel, I’m impressed that you’ve achieved that, particularly without outlining. (My time travel plots aren’t even outlines, they’re flow charts.) How do you keep a series like that fresh and interesting? And how complex do you allow the plots to get, because recursion is a heck of a complicator?
You can find Shawn on his website, his Facebook author page, or check out his books on Amazon.
Thank you for listening, and thank you to Joshua Pearson for producing the show. If you’re not yet a member of the Six Figure Authors Facebook group, here’s the link to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/504063143655523
Revising as you go (or as DWS says, “cycling”) is still editing.
Mr. Inmon’s system is very similar to my own: revising as I go, fixing problems as they crop up, using an alpha reader. It produces a tightly written story in a much smaller time frame.
Thanks for this one. Very useful.
This was an excellent episode. I’m still talking about it with all of my writing friends. Thanks very much!