Behind the Scenes at Author Nation 2025: Take-aways, Vendor Interviews, and Vegas Stories

293 / Curious about how conferences can spark inspiration, build connections, and transform your author business? We  recap our experiences at Author Nation, share some lessons learned, and highlight community connection possibilities.

• Panel insights: romance, rom-com, cozy, and more
• Direct sales, Kickstarter, and translations for authors
• New tech for signed ebooks and social media marketing

💙 Become a supporter of the podcast https://wishidknownforwriters.com/support

• Access to backlist of exclusive supporter episodes
• Private slack group
• Shoutout on a future episode

⚡Links:

• Bookfunnel https://bookfunnel.com/
• Melissa Storm https://www.melstorm.com/
• Rebecca Brokaw Sands https://rebeccabrokawsands.net/
• Story Origin https://storyoriginapp.com/
• Christine Wellert https://www.christinewellert.com/books
• Dianna Xirassa https://www.dianaxarissa.com/
• Kevin McLaughlin https://kevinomclaughlin.com/
• Lulu https://www.lulu.com
• Author Scale https://www.authorscale.com/
• Draft 2 Digital https://draft2digital.com/
• Vanessa Kier https://www.vanessakier.com/
• Self Publishing with Dale https://selfpublishingwithdale.com/

Transcript

Sara 0:00

Welcome to the Wish I Know Men podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show, we are talking about Author Nation and all the people that we met there and some of our experiences.

Jami 0:14

Yeah. Yeah. We had a fun time hanging out together. We hung out with HY Hannah. Um the three of us were always together, and that was fun. But yeah, it was a great conference. And I led the romance panel. I moderated it and I mo moderated the romanticy panel. And they both just it was great. The people on them were so smart and and was told by the audience members that they just got a lot out of it. And that's really what I wanted. I wanted the people in the audience to walk away with some good stuff. You go to a panel and it's all basically the same questions, and I've tried real hard to come up with some good ones.

Sara 1:03

Yeah, I thought they were good questions, and I did the cozy panel, and it was great fun. It was interesting because the panel was set up so where we each talked about something we were sort of specializing in. So I talked about Kickstarter and direct sales and letters, and then we also talked about translations and all kinds of different things. It was a good mix of information and it was a lot of fun. And we met a whole lot of podcast listeners, and that was great. We gave out a lot of our little pins, P-I-N-S, like pins you pin on your lanyard, enamel pins. There we go. And that was fun to meet and talk to listeners, and then we talked to a lot of vendors and authors. I went around the last day, the ones that I could catch, and just talk to a lot of the vendors about what they did, what they had experienced at the conference, what questions they were getting. I didn't get to talk to everyone. I was trying to hit as many vendors as had sponsored our podcast, but I didn't get to talk to everyone, talk to some new people. So all those will be in this episode is basically just a little clip show of uh of me talking to different people on that last day. So I'll put a link to all the vendors in the show notes. So if you're interested in learning more, you can click that and then talk to a lot of authors and narrator and some new authors that were there. So it's a good mix of just what people learned at the conference, what they took away, what they're excited about. And I ask everybody what they either did in Vegas or you know, if they got out of the conference hall, and some people did go out and do some things. So that was fun to hear their experiences in Vegas.

unknown 2:41

Yeah.

Jami 2:41

Well, we went and had high tea.

Sara 2:43

We did.

Jami 2:44

We were very la tea.

Sara 2:46

We were. We had a great time. It was really good. The view was amazing. We went to the it was called Peacock Alley, I think, in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. So completely different atmosphere than other places on the strip.

Jami 3:03

It's almost like you're in a completely different world. And then now I am. So I got to Vegas last Sunday. What was that? The second?

Sara 3:14

Yes, I think.

Jami 3:16

I'm still in Vegas, but I'm out of the strip. I'm outside of just outside of Vegas at another casino because my parents, I think I told y'all, drove in to Vegas for a golf tournament that my dad's playing in. And so the golf tournament was yesterday and today. And then I am driving home with them starting tomorrow. So they're gonna bring me back to Houston, and I don't know, I guess we'll probably get there Thursday, maybe. Maybe Tuesday, but probably Thursday. So this ought to be it'll be memorable, right? Yeah, I mean it's fine. Um actually it's been tell yesterday was fine. Mom and my mother and I just hung out and didn't really gamble much at all. And then last night she was hot, like she won so much. I won some on it too, but not like her. And then I sat and played blackjack for about four hours or five hours with the same hundred dollars. Like I sat down and I won up, I won down, and then I got back even, and I was like, okay, I'm done. My dad played for a long time. I mean, it was we just had we had a really fun time this morning. I lost that hundred, won it back, and lost it again. So all before noon. Sounds very vagus. It's very vague. That was my hundred to spend, so I'm good. Yeah. My mother and I are sitting out, we were sitting out by the pool just getting out of the freaking smoke. If you please do not be offended, but wow, it is a lot.

Sara 5:02

Yeah, if you're not used, if you're not around it, yeah, because we're normally you know everything is non-smoking, so it's quite a change, very different.

unknown 5:10

Right.

Sara 5:10

Yeah, and Jamie and her family were my backup plan because I was flying back on Saturday, and with all the airline issues and the cancellations, Jamie was like, Well, you can always drive back with us. And I was like, Okay, I'll sit on my suitcase if I have to, because I may not be able to get home any other way. But my flight did not get canceled. It would have been a lot of fun, but it would be a lot of fun. Maybe next year.

Jami 5:36

I've been looking, I've been looking forward to it only because you know, I just don't get to spend that much time with my parents because I don't live close. But believe this morning I woke up and thought, oh, I wish I were home. I wish I were home today and I was not gonna have to take four days to drive home. But it's okay.

Sara 5:54

Yeah, well, I think I made a mistake by we not a mistake, but I would just not plan this type of trip again in the future because we did a about four days in Colorado on the way to the conference. So we did several days there. Then we flew again, landed, and were there a day or two early for the conference. And honestly, we were waiting for the my husband went with me for the couple days for Colorado in the first two days of the conference, and we were sitting waiting for the Uber at the Las Vegas airport, and we were both like, yeah, we're just so ready to go home. So I think for me, back-to-back trips are probably not a good idea or back-to-back events, maybe just do one at a time and take a break between them. But I had a great time once I got there, and we got to talk to so many people, and yeah, it was just good meeting up with everyone. It's the first time I've been to a really big conference in probably about maybe since before COVID, I would think.

Jami 6:52

Yeah. Yeah.

Sara 6:53

Yeah. So that's was a little jarring, just the number of people, and you know, it is great because you can meet people from all different genres and just talk about all kinds of different things. There's so many vendors there. It was great to meet all the vendors, and I got some really good like author author leads. Well, I think one of them is I'm going to look into a couple of companies. One of them was DropCap. We met with them, and since I already have translations, they help authors do translations. They have a translation marketplace basically. But since I already have translations done, I'm looking to do translations in languages that aren't German, French, and Italian. So I think they may be able to help me do some of that, find some companies that would maybe want to partner with me. So looking into that. And yeah, and I think Dan Wood and I talked about this a little bit in the little clip of the interview that I did with him. That I think what I need to do is actually thin things down and not and try and do less, not add more things. So I need to figure out what I'm going to take off my plate. There's a Becca Syme ism for you. You know. What about you?

Jami 8:08

Well, you know, again, it's hard when you've been in this business for a long time that you know there's not a whole lot new. Plus, we do what we do. So if there's anything new, we're we're usually knowing about it.

Sara 8:21

Talking to somebody about it, yeah.

Jami 8:23

Exactly. But you know, I think that the the best one I went to was well, I went to one on TikTok by the gals at pros, P R O S E. They do like social media marketing and stuff. It was really it was about TikTok, it was just about they gave examples of like emotional hooks and stuff, which was great. But I think the best one I went to was Isabel Knight's. It was branding and it was like kind of invisible marketing sort of thing. But she has a podcast called Build Your Build Your Author Brand Podcast, and we're we'd love to have her on sometime, but you know, and I said this a bunch of times on the zero. If I heard this like just generally, if I heard someone say, Well, you know, get on podcast and get on your local news and get on radio stations and stuff like that, I would be thinking that's not really for that's not really reaching the audience I'm looking for in particular, especially as a romance author. Uh I really am not sure that would be like the best advice, but that is her that's one of the things she talked about. But because this book I'm looking that I'm doing is more women's fiction and it is, you know, it's kind of geared to a more a mature audience, you know, women of a certain age over a certain kind of thing that I think it might not be a bad idea to kind of set myself up in that space. I mean, I already am a in that space on TikTok for sure, sort of on Instagram. I need to work on my Instagram a little bit more, but yeah, that was a good one because it really did make me think, you know, podcasts might not be a bad idea for me to wait for me to advertise this book. Oh yeah, I think so because of the kind of book it is because it's not just for readers who read every day, all day, you know, that kind of thing.

Sara 10:40

Right. Not for readers, yeah. Yeah, not for a whale, a genre whale reader.

Jami 10:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna look into that. Well, I already have looked into it. I've looked into did a little chat GPT survey ideas, so that's good. But yeah, I mean, just thinking more along the lines of um kind of casting a wider net um with this book while also looking at you know narrowing down the audience.

Sara 11:16

Right, because you it's not the same. No, it's similar, but it's not a rom com. Definitely not a rom-com.

Jami 11:24

No, and it's similar, and and as Johnson was like, Jamie, just just your readers are gonna want this book. Just don't worry about don't overthink it about it, basically. And she's right, she's not a panicker, she is not, and she's usually right, so it it it made me feel better. So those are my things, yeah, mostly what a great community this is. I'm always reminded how amazing people are that do what we do, you know, and and we're just really lucky that we get to do this and be in this community with all these smart people. Um yeah, just went a pan and Tasha Black for a while, and that was so great.

Sara 12:13

Yeah, and you get to meet so many people who are writing so many different things, so that's always interesting to me. And then we went also went to Reader Nation. We didn't sign books, but we walked around and talked to the different people who are signing, and it was interesting to see all the different genres that were there, and then all the different vendors just talking with them about a lot of them were or are authors, and they've started something to help authors because they understand our problems so well. Right. And it's just I love to see things that are have grown organically from the community. Someone that said, Oh, this is a problem, let me fix this. So yeah, it was it was a great week. I enjoyed it. It was like a long week for me because it seemed like a long time there because you know, more I do we I've done some shorter things lately, so this seemed like a longer event, but it was good, and I learned a lot of you know, I had I have new ideas, things to try out. Yeah, and just really enjoyed catching up with people that I haven't seen in a while. So it was good.

Jami 13:20

It was good. Can we talk about the book the book funnel thing?

Sara 13:24

Yes. Damon talks about this a little bit in when I talked to him. The book funnel has a new feature where you can sign ebooks. You can it's uh basically inserting a custom page, a digital page, I guess you'd call it, into an ebook that you're going to send to someone. And it's pretty cool, it's in beta. So I'm sure if you're interested in it, you could message them and get access to it if you don't already have access. But Damon gives some more explanation about that. And then I think the other big news was that KDP has enabled translations, I think that's also in beta within the KDP KDP dashboard. Yeah, English to Spanish. And then I think it was also German to English is another option that's in there. So we don't really know anything else about that except that it's just started. So I think this is going to be a whole new wave of translations and translate translation options. You can use them on KDP. I doubt you'll be able to use them anywhere else.

Jami 14:31

Right. So check the fine print. Yeah, definitely. We'll learn more.

Sara 14:38

Yeah, we'll learn more as the days go by. Yeah.

Jami 14:41

So we should probably get on with the episode unless you've got anything else you wanted to.

Sara 14:46

No, that is it. Just thanks to all our supporters, and it was great to meet some supporters in person. That was a lot of fun. And this coming up is just a selection of uh I was gonna say man on the street, but I guess it would be woman in the podcast hall talking to people in the expo hall, just talking to different people that I ran across, and uh it's got the background noise, like the crowd noise. So I'm we will do our best to filter out, you know, the any shouts or loud noises, but there will be some of that in the background. But I thought it was cool, it gives it some ambiance, makes you feel like you're there. Good, good, good, good. All right. Well, here we go. All right, I'm here with Damon from Book Funnel. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_11 15:28

I'm doing fantastic. We are wrapping up. This is the last day of the conference, so I don't know if any of you have heard my voice before. It doesn't usually sound like this, it's pretty scratchy from the week. But yeah, it's been a great conference so far.

SPEAKER_05 15:39

Yeah. So anything new from BookFunnel that you should tell people about?

SPEAKER_11 15:44

So we we actually are demoing our signed ebook feature here at the conference. We we announced it, we did a little webinar for it a few weeks ago, but this is our first chance to really show it off. We have authors that are gonna be using it during the Reader Nation event tomorrow. And it's it's just what it sounds like on the team. You you can actually open up ebooks and you can do a sign, you can put in a page, or you can sign the cover, you can sign a title page and send it off to a reader. Anytime that reader downloads their copy of the book, their copy and their copy alone has that personal signature added to it. So we have authors that are using it for that want to use it for Kickstarter campaigns. You know, a lot of times you have you do, you know, the big thing right now is that everybody's doing you know special editions and hardcovers and all kinds of cool books, which are amazing and they look awesome. But some people just want to back your lower tiers, they just want the ebook edition. Well, now they can get a little something special too. They can get a signed ebook. So that's that's a big feature that we just launched that we're talking about here at Author Nation.

Sara 16:39

Okay, cool. All right. Well, thanks for talking to me.

SPEAKER_11 16:41

Yeah, thank you.

Sara 16:43

Hey, I'm here with Alex from Book Vault, and just catching up with him. What's going on with BookFault? How is your conference going and what's going on for you this year?

SPEAKER_09 16:52

Yeah, so it's been a very busy year and a very busy conference as well. So it's been great talking to everyone. This year we've kind of further strengthened our bespoke editions. So again, all single copy on demand. We launched box sets, so you can get a single physical box set on demand. Sprayed edges again, we've kind of strengthened with that with new machinery, and then also our foiling as well. So really kind of helping you produce beautiful books on demand.

Sara 17:14

Have you had a chance to get any of the sessions here, or are you in the booth all the time?

SPEAKER_09 17:18

We we've been very pinned down at the booth, lots of meetings, so we've escaped to a couple, have a little look around, but yeah, it's been a very busy conference. It's great just to be able to talk to people. I think it really helps with people putting up a face to the name as well and answer any questions that people have as well.

Sara 17:31

And how are you finding Vegas?

SPEAKER_09 17:33

I did my one bit of gambling yesterday, lost $10 in the first go, and that was me done. Yeah. I went to bed English time, and yeah, but it's it's okay. It's it's lots of things to experience and to do. So it's a great conference and so many people are involved as well. So it's really good to see everyone on the conference.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Well, thanks for talking to us.

SPEAKER_09 17:49

Thank you.

Sara 17:50

I'm here doing interviews for the moment with some attendees.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Hi, Melissa Storm here, and I'm having a great time at Author Nation, both as a presenter and attendee. And my favorite thing is always the people. I think when we hit industry points where we have challenges and a lot of fears and changes, we always need to come back to that community to remember why we started so we can keep going. So for me, that conference has definitely achieved that this year, and I'm so excited to keep going and to write again after a two-month hiatus. I'm finally ready to put pen to page again. And I wouldn't have had that without my community.

Sara 18:28

And how is how are you finding Las Vegas? Have you done anything fun?

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Well, Las Vegas isn't my favorite place in the world. Uh the conference is, but uh what I have done fun is hang out with my community and do tarot at the bar every night. That's how I get to know the problems my friends are facing and hopefully give them more clarity. And I love seeing people when they light up because they know what they need to do next, not because of woo-woo and the universe, even though woo-woo and the universe are awesome, but because they already knew and they just needed external confirmation and permission to do the thing. So I love to be the permission grantor.

SPEAKER_05 19:11

Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_07 19:12

Okay, I'm gonna hand off the microphone. I'm Rebecca Brokaw Sands. I'm an audiobook producer, narrator, and voice actor, and I work with Sound Booth and Podium and independently. So I come here to Author Nation not so much for the panels and the conferences, but for learning some trends and really mostly making connections, meeting authors, working in the genres that I like to work in, and I love it. And sharing my knowledge and resources about the process of making audiobooks and the options that you have distribution, partnering, marketing, all of that good stuff. So it's been really fun to hang out with my author friends that I knew and have worked with in the last couple years, and also make new ones, make new connections, start talking to newer authors or established authors who are looking into audio and talk about the process and get really excited about that.

SPEAKER_05 20:00

And how are you finding Las Vegas?

SPEAKER_07 20:02

Las Vegas is fine. I've I I've left the hotel once this year, so that's progress, I think. I think so much of it for me just is around the conference and the connections. So I don't really get to, it's not a focus for me to get out and really do Vegas. It's more about the community and the connections, like Melissa said.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So my name is Evan Gown. I'm the founder and indie developer of Story Origin. And I come every year. I always love this conference. To me, it feels like a high school sleepover where you just get to stay up late chatting with people, having fun conversations. But at the end of the night, you can say, Okay, I'm done now and go back to your hotel room rather than being like, guys, I want to go to sleep now. So I always love coming to this conference and hanging out with authors and chit-chatting and stuff. In terms of Las Vegas, I definitely don't take advantage of it the way that I probably should while I'm here. Mostly I just spend my time hanging out with authors and trying to talk to as many as possible. And then I just am inside the conference hall all week long and I forget what the sunlight looks like and I forget what trees look like. And then when I go back home, I'm like, oh yes, there's a wider world. I don't live inside of a tiny bubble. But yeah, I always love coming in. This year has been it really feels like the energy this year is so much higher than last year. And Joe and the team have been doing a really great job with the conference and keeping things going, and he's got a lot of good ideas for next year, and he's always trying to improve things with this conference as well. And so I'm really excited to see where things go because I think it's gonna keep growing, and I think it's gonna keep improving and getting better and better addressing the needs that authors have.

Sara 21:49

So tell just a little bit about Story Origin in case somebody's curious.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Oh, yeah, sure. So Story Origin is a marketing platform for authors. You can, you know, create reader magnet landing pages, universal book links. Build your author website, put up beta copies. You can do a whole lot of stuff with Story Origin. I started writing back in high school, always had an interest in writing, got interested in tech and entrepreneurship in college, and then eventually left my job because I wanted to get back into writing and then build tools for authors. And I when I talk to a bunch of authors and they're like, Well, I use this service for building my mailing list, this service for finding reviewers, this service for creating universals. And I was like, okay, you have like eight services, five spreadsheets. I'm gonna build the one-stop, one-stop shop for it all. So that's sort of my always been my goal with Story Origin is just keep adding things to make authors' lives easier.

unknown 22:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_12 22:36

Hi, my name is Christine Wellert, and I am a new author. I only have one book published, another one soon to be published. So this is my first time at Author Nation, and it has been incredible. I am an introvert, and so it has been I'm putting my big girl pants on and like actually talking to people and reaching out. So that has been I've grown a little being at the conference, but the classes have been amazing. I've I there hasn't been a single one that's just been a stinker for me. They've all been great, and just meeting people, like Melissa was saying, just the building the community has been huge here, and I think it elevates all of us. And yeah, okay, so Vegas. Not my thing. I did go out to do a little walk about on accident because I got lost, but found myself in the Bellagio, and there's a really cool like fall flower display there. So I did that, and that's that's about it.

SPEAKER_13 23:35

That's that's all I've done. I'm Diana Zarissa, and author nation is just community, and that's why I'm here. I the c the sessions have been great. I went to a couple of really amazing sessions. The opening keynote was really fun, but 99% of the reason that I'm here is to be with my people and and spend time just hanging out and talking and whatever for Vegas. I'm not a big Vegas fan, but but last night I went on the High Roller Ferris wheel, and it was so much I'm because I'm secretly still eight years old in my heart, and I went with my friend who laughed at me for the entire 30 minutes because I was just running from one side of the pod to the other, like, look, you can see this, look, you can see that. And he's just like, Yeah, it's Vegas. But as we were coming down, the Bellagio Fountain Show started, so we got to watch the Bellagio Fountain Show, and I'm like, okay, I don't hate Vegas quite as much as I used to hate Vegas, so there's that.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

All right.

Sara 24:36

Thanks everyone. Continuing our interviews, now I have Kevin McLaughlin.

SPEAKER_10 24:42

Hi, yeah, I'm Kevin McLaughlin, and I've been having a great time here at Authanation. It's been a really fun trip.

Sara 24:48

Okay. And how have you found the conference? Like, what is what has been your favorite session? Do you have one that was memorable for you?

SPEAKER_10 24:56

Oh, uh honestly, the one I probably learned the most from was Melissa Storm's uh talk about advertising. Uh she is like a true master of that. I'm good, she's excellent. So I got some really good tips from that one.

Sara 25:10

And how are you finding Las Vegas?

SPEAKER_10 25:12

I would really rather be anywhere else on earth other than here. The only reason I ever come to Las Vegas is for these events.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

And is it just to connect with people? Yeah, exactly. Well, thanks for talking to us. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_10 25:24

No problem at all. Glad to meet you.

Sara 25:26

All right, I'm walking around talking to the vendors, and I've stopped at the Lulu booth, and we're gonna hear from one of the Lulu representatives.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Hi, I'm Lolly from Lulu. I am our senior director of marketing. I've worked at Lulu for almost nine years, and we've been to Author Nation for a couple of years. We first came in 2022 when it was 20 books 50K. So this is definitely an event that is near and dear to our hearts, and um we love just getting the opportunity to come to events and really talk to authors and publishers and get to understand their author businesses and what they're trying to do to grow and scale. And at Lulu, one of our kind of main things that we do is POD and direct sales. So, what's the question you get the most often from authors about Lulu? I think at this show, people really just want to know kind of how to get set up and get started with direct sales. I think in the past they really wanted to kind of know how it works, and now it's more about okay, I want to get started. I know this is the direction that I want to take my author business. I know that this is gonna help me really get to know my readers better, take more control over the publishing experience, and make more money. So we are here to help with that.

SPEAKER_05 26:37

Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

And have you done anything fun in Las Vegas? Oh, we've done some some good eating, is what I say. Um, the food here is fantastic. So being able to go with my team and have some nice dinners has been really fun. Perfect. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Thanks.

Sara 26:54

All right, I am at the Author Scale booth right now, and I want to know a little bit about Author Scale. So, can you introduce yourself and tell me more about that?

SPEAKER_15 27:03

Absolutely. So I'm Genesis Davies, um, I'm the writer side of Author Scale. Basically, what we do is take TikTok and make it super easy for authors. You upload your manuscript into our software, it pulls the hooks for you, makes a slideshow for you, and you can post it directly to TikTok.

Sara 27:20

And so the interactions you've had with authors here, what are what are they curious about? What are they asking about? What's the most frequently asked question you've gotten?

SPEAKER_15 27:28

Okay, well, mostly people are super excited about the whole idea because everybody has troubles writing their own hooks. The biggest question I'd say is whether or not it'll work with their genre.

SPEAKER_05 27:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_15 27:38

So a lot of people are coming in, they're like, well, we know romance does well on TikTok, but what about science fiction? What about you know fantasy and stuff like that? So it turns out that yes, it works all works on TikTok. Okay, that's good. Okay, cool.

Sara 27:50

And then have you done anything fun in Vegas? Uh not yet.

SPEAKER_15 27:56

Pretty busy, right? Very, very busy. It's been like up to 16-hour days networking and everything. So but it's been really fun.

Sara 28:02

Okay, all right. Well, thank you. No problem. Thanks. Hey, I'm here with Dan Wood from Drafted Digital, and I just want to know anything that you take away from the conference, anything new or memorable that you that has gone on this year at Author Nation for you.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

That's been a really great conference so far, and I've got to hear a lot of great speakers. There's been a lot of great advice around TikTok and all those things people are talking about. But just before the recording, you and I were talking about we we we do think a lot of people need to look at what what all they're doing with their author career and not be so worried about what else should I be doing, but looking at what they're doing and what they can not do anymore. Be that something that they can outsource to someone else, or just something that's not really moving the needle and just double down on your own strengths and what you really enjoy doing. So I think that's I I I feel like I've heard that from multiple people, and just it's great at conferences. There's a lot of new authors here that want to learn how to do everything, but for some of you that are more experienced, maybe you need to be dropping things.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

Yeah, thinning things out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Which feels weird.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

I mean, I've a strange thing to say, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah, as an entrepreneur, you you don't ever want to be dropping things, you're always looking for new things, but double down on the things you're great at.

SPEAKER_04 29:21

Yeah, yeah. And so you're a foodie, so have you had anything good to eat or anything that you've enjoyed? Any great restaurants, meals?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

So many amazing things. Tom Donnelly organized a trip to Super Frico and Cosmopolitan. The food was excellent, but it also has a show component to it, and the show part was amazing too. So I highly recommend that. And then last night I went to Zuma and had great sushi and pork belly and a little bit of sake. So I would recommend that as well.

Sara 29:51

Okay, cool. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Thank you.

Sara 29:53

All right, I'm here with Vanessa Kier. What are some of your takeaways from the conference? Anything that you're gonna try to implement in your business or anything you've learned?

SPEAKER_14 30:01

The biggest thing that I've learned at this conference is things that I've heard on some of the podcasts, such as yours, but be authentic, make direct connections to your readers, be personal, and love what you write and find the readers who connect with your particular brand of weirdness.

Sara 30:19

I love that, Bronnie Weirds. Have you done anything fun or eaten anywhere interesting here?

SPEAKER_14 30:23

Yeah, there's a restaurant over at Paris called Monomie Gabi, I think. And I have a great breakfast. It's expensive.

SPEAKER_05 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 30:30

But I had I I had a really great breakfast over there.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

I had breakfast there too, it was excellent. Thanks.

Sara 30:35

I'm here with Dale Roberts and just getting his maybe top takeaway from the conference.

SPEAKER_08 30:42

I really enjoyed Mark Leslie Lefebvre's talk about going beyond the books. I'm very much about monetizing all forms of your IP. That way you're diversifying your income. So that way it's coming in a lot more. I've always believed strongly in that, but he introduced many other ideas that I hadn't even considered. So it's one of those cases I can't wait to get home, so that way I can start to test out some of these ideas.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

Yeah. And you had a session, right? Yes, it is. So how was that? What did you talk about?

SPEAKER_08 31:07

I talked about community building, and it was absolutely crazy. They put me in the smaller room, it filled up to the brim. People were turned away. I was one of those. It was a rowdy crowd, too. I was like, oh my gosh, but it was a it was very fun. The best way I could put it, it was almost like podcasting in front of a bunch of people. That's the way it felt because I was able to kind of I knew what I was gonna talk about. I'm not the type of person who's gonna try to memorize lines when it comes to that because I feel like when it comes from the heart, people can resonate with it a bit more. But it it was a great session. I feel like a lot of the authors walked away with some actionable insights that they can be able to go and take and level up their business and hopefully build a community that's gonna be able to get their backs.

SPEAKER_04 31:45

Yeah, cool. Did do you have like a top tip for community building?

SPEAKER_08 31:50

Consistency. That's the biggest thing is if you want to grow a community, you must show up consistently. Because if you don't show up consistently, the audience won't show up consistently. They need to be able to rely on you and be able to know, okay, this person's trustworthy. They're gonna come to us time and again. And I think that's one of the things that I've been stubborn for so many years, and why I've grown two massive YouTube channels is the fact that I I just don't like giving up and I like to make sure it works.

Sara 32:15

Yeah. And then have you done anything fun in Vegas?

SPEAKER_08 32:17

Oh my gosh. I I I've been to Vegas so many times before, but I was just chatting with somebody about this. Phil Marshall from Spoken.press took out a group, a small group of us over to a place called Super Frico, and they did a four five-course meal. It it was I I got to the third course, I was ready to tap out. It was so good, but I was so full. And then they had dancers that would come out in between and they would have loud music and they're just and they're going on top of tables and things like that. It was nuts. Uh, they even had an operatic woman who came out in like this, holding a triton in one hand, and she had this giant crown, and she looked like she was like a mermaid type thing, and uh, she was singing opera, and she comes over to a table that was getting some type of a food, and it was something like seafood stack or something. And I was like, oh my gosh, I need an opera singer to come in for every one of my meals because yeah, now I just feel like it's official.

SPEAKER_04 33:14

Only in Vegas, right?

SPEAKER_08 33:15

Yeah, only only in Vegas, but for sure. That that blew my mind. Big shout out to Phil Marshall. I mean, geez, I was like, dude, this was overboard. I'm I'm like, wow.

Sara 33:24

That's crazy. That's crazy. All right. Well, thanks for talking to us. If people want to find you on YouTube, where what's your YouTube handle?

SPEAKER_08 33:30

Uh, you can look up at Dale L. Roberts or at self pub with Dale. Either one of those, those are two of my channels. Appreciate it.

Sara 33:37

Thanks.

unknown 33:37

Thank you.

Sara 33:38

Thanks for listening today. You can support the podcast at wish I known for writers.com slash support, and you can find the show notes at that same link. And we'll see everybody next week. Bye.