The Author Rabbit Hole
In this candid, unscripted episode, Inger Johnson steps away from her promised book-distribution deep-dive to share something more personal: the joy of holding her debut novel, Veiled Halos, in print for the first time — and the overwhelm that followed.
She opens up about her writing process, why she switched to Scrivener, and the moment she realized that being an author means more than being in the book-writing business. It means you’re in the author business.
Using Veiled Halos as a real-world case study, Inger walks through a simple four-question marketing framework – who’s your reader, what are you selling, where do your readers spend their time, and what does it cost – to help first-time authors build a book marketing plan without needing a big budget or a magic formula.
Show Notes
- 0:00 – Introduction and welcome
- 0:24 – Setting aside the distribution episode for something more personal
- 1:13 – How the podcast and her author journey began
- 2:27 – The moment her first physical books arrived
- 3:14 – Her writing process: messy drafts, chapter maps, scene maps
- 3:46 – Why she switched from Word to Scrivener
- 4:52 – What actually stopped her “Tasmanian devil”: marketing
- 6:35 – Marketing doesn’t disappear, no matter how you publish
- 7:31 – Realizing authoring is a small business, not just writing
- 8:51 – The million-dollar question: connecting readers to your book
- 9:19 – Wanting a marketing formula, but there isn’t one
- 10:02 – Lessons from her past career launching a financial planning practice
- 10:54 – The four questions of a simple book business plan
- 11:07 – Question 1: Who is my customer?
- 11:23 – Case study: using Veiled Halos as an example
- 13:15 – Question 2: What exactly am I selling?
- 14:24 – Question 3: Where do those readers spend their time?
- 15:27 – Question 4: How much does it cost to sell my book?
- 16:42 – Putting together a concrete marketing path and ARC reviews
- 17:32 – Your homework: four questions to answer before your next chapter
- 18:24 – Teaser for next week’s book distribution episode
- 19:07 – Closing thoughts and sign-off
Resources Mentioned
Find more tools, warnings, and honest guidance on the Resources page.
Enjoying the show? Meet Inger’s novels, or join the conversation on Facebook.