Writer Mom Life Episode 14: Honorée Corder and Top Indie Author Regrets

We’re kicking off 2018 with a new website and an awesome interview with Honorée Corder, author of dozens of books, including The Successful Single Mom series and the Miracle Morning series with partner Hal Elrod. She coaches business professionals and authors to write and publish their books, and to achieve bestseller status. Daphne and Honorée talk about what her writer mom life looked like as a single mom with a preschooler and how being creative with her childcare allowed her more time to work.

A few other things they talk about:

• Honorée’s new non-writing goal
• Using “stolen moments” to reach your goals
• What being a full-time writer means to her (hint: it’s not spending 8 hours a day writing!)
• the importance of mindset and how you should think of writing like any other business (=invest for success!)
• Some of the mistakes she made in self-publishing that she wants to save others from doing
• Why waiting to launch can be better…
• ..but why you shouldn’t wait to get started until kids are older

(Disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that at no cost to you, we get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.)

Honorée’s links:

Write Like a Boss and Publish Like a Boss

Honorée’s website

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J. R.’s tips and links:

J. R. has been involved with the indie author community for about 4 years now. Throughout all those years, she’s watched and listened to many indie authors share their successes and … well, not “mistakes”, per se, but regrets, as to what they could have done or should have done differently when publishing and launching their books.

The Top 5 Indie Author Regrets seem to be:

1. Not investing in their books up front from the beginning (ie, getting great covers, paying for great editing, having proper formatting, etc.) and having to re-do it all later, including re-launch all their books.
2. Publishing without a plan (ie, no launch plan, no marketing plan, no promotion plan… they don’t even know who their readers are!)
3. Discounting the importance of a mailing list, and not getting started on building one IMMEDIATELY.
4. Failing to track ROI (return on investment) for any ads or promotions they pay for, thus having no idea if their money is being spent wisely.
5. Not waiting to publish Book 1 in a series before the other books in the series are complete.

J. R. talks in more detail about each of these regrets within the episode, so be sure to listen now to get the full break down!

In the meantime, here are the links to the resources she mentions to help you learn from other indie author’s mistakes and start strong, right from the beginning!

• For affordable covers, editing, formatting, and mailing list sources, see J. R.’s ultimate list of indie author resources compiled RIGHT HERE. (If you want to build your mailing list from scratch, really the best teacher J. R. has found (and, eh, she’s tried several) is Nick Stephenson. Even his free training videos will get you started, no need to take the whole course if you’re strapped for cash!)
• An article by Tim Grahl explaining why mailing lists are so important HERE.
• A blog post by Jeff Goins about the very same thing HERE.
• For a general list of tasks related to the launch of a new book, see the Task List compiled by J. R.’s publishing imprint Wordrwaith Books HERE.
• No online presence? No worries, you still need a launch plan! Check out this recommended process by Jane Friedman HERE.
• Another interesting approach to a book launch is by Derek Murphy HERE. If you have some time before your first launch, this may be a good strategy for you.
• Check out Chris Fox’s WRITE TO MARKET and LAUNCH TO MARKET to find your audience/readers and make a launch plan.
• For those pesky ads and figuring out how to do it right and what to track, I highly recommend HELP! MY FACEBOOK ADS SUCK! by Michael Cooper and MASTERING AMAZON ADS by Brian D. Meeks!