Mastering the Art of Romance Writing with Paula Judith Johnson

Have you ever tried to write your novel longhand?

For this week's guest, that's simply how it's done. At least for the first draft. For her, it's a great way to connect body and brain and keep the story flowing. But when even that fails, Paula turns to reading to fuel her creative soul. This week's episode offers new solutions that can turn setbacks into triumphs, especially for those navigating the sequel blues.

Paula Judith Johnson is an entrepreneur and the author of 4 steamy romance novels.
Two of her books were finalists in the Book Excellence Awards Historical Romance category in 2020 and 2021, respectively. She is also the creator and host of the Writing Romance Mastery Summit, where you can learn about writing, publishing, and marketing your romance novels.

Hosting summits isn't just about bringing together a community; it's about fostering growth and sharing expertise. Despite its name, the Writing Romance Mastery Summit is not just for romance authors. So much of what we do as writers crosses genre lines, there's definitely something for everyone.

The Writing Romance Mastery Summit will take place from February 19, 2024 through February 23, 2024, and we promise it’ll be a top-notch event. Paula Judith is bringing together the biggest names and most knowledgeable experts to share their best secrets.

We're proud to be included in this year's lineup of guests, talking about how to decide if you should self-publish or get an agent. By clicking this link, we may earn a commission from your purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Get ready to fuel your passion and propel your writing journey to new heights.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hi everyone and welcome to the AuthorWeal podcast. I'm Greta Boris, USA Today Bestselling Mystery Thriller. Author.

Speaker 2: 0:45

And I'm Megan Haskell, award-winning fantasy adventure author, and together we are the AuthorWeal. Today's episode is the second of our two interviews with writing summit organizers, which, if you didn't catch last week's interview with Jesse Quack, you definitely should go back and listen to that one, because we talked all about live in-person events. Today's guest is Paula Judith Johnson, who is the host of the Writing Romance Mastery Online Summit, which we're proud to be a part of. We were actually interviewed about our core self-publish or get an agent and have a few special resources included in the program. So you'll wanna go check that out. And, despite its name, the summit is not just for romance writers. It's kind of for everybody. I mean, we're talking about which past you should choose and why you should choose it for publishing, and I know that there are some other speakers that are talking about mindset and productivity and all sorts of other things too. So it's not just for romance writers, despite the name.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Despite the title.

Speaker 2: 1:50

Despite the title. Yeah, so I have included a link in the show notes so that you can go check that out. We are also affiliates of the summit as well as participating in it, so if you click our link, we may earn a commission on your purchase. If you make one, that's at no extra cost to you, but it does help support this show. So if you're interested, please use our link if you don't mind. But before we get into the nitty gritty details of our interview with Paula Rada, how are things this week?

Speaker 1: 2:23

They have been better. Yeah, and it's that whole stupid D-mark thing. So for anybody out there listening who has a mailing list and a newsletter which you should, if you don't we've talked about that. You know, as I say, there is a special place in hell for spammers and spoofers, because if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have to do this. But it's all about you know anyway. So this week my hosting company basically broke my email, so it was just broken. It didn't work anymore, so I've had to. I spent one sleepless night, then hours on the phone with them getting things fixed and I thought it was completely fixed, but now I'm struggling to get emails into my account in a timely manner. They do. They are filtering in, but slowly, so it looks like I'll be back on the phone with them today. Yeah, it's really a pain, and I know you didn't have a pain with it. You did it easily and so you're lucky. I'm still your friend, that's.

Speaker 2: 3:27

Well, I wish I could help you with it, because, I mean, I did have to spend some time researching it and figuring it out and I don't have it 100% set up correctly yet, because I'm now getting all these like DMARC report, email things that I have to like figure out how to sort them or whatever, so that I only get the ones that are failures or errors or show that I've been spoofed or whatever, and not just oh it ran and it passed, yay, congrats.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Like I don't care, yeah, I only want the problems. So I do still have to like figure that piece out. But yeah, it did not do anything to my email or anything like that, but I also don't have hosted email or anything on my domain, I have just a forward. So it's a little bit different.

Speaker 1: 4:16

But so I did have that just the forward and then they convinced me I should have fully hosted, because I had fully hosted a long time ago. And now I'm thinking about maybe I should go back with just forward, because now I'm not getting my emails. I don't know, but it's very, it's very. And then I did get an email that purportedly was from Google saying they'd shut down my email address, but I think that's not true because I'm getting emails and I'm sending emails. I think that was a spoofer. It's so hard to know what's real and what's not real these days. So anyway, but hopefully my hosting service did say that having the DMARC on there should I should stop getting all these spoofing thingies, which I was getting a lot of, so I should start protecting my email address. That's good. But on a writing happier note, I've been noodling around with ideas for a Christmas novella in the Mortician series, because nothing says happy holidays like ghosts and embalming and all that kind of thing. I know.

Speaker 2: 5:26

But I did. In fact I will.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Yeah, I will give you a copy, so it's fun. I kind of like did some the way we outline, which is very loosey-goosey, but I kind of got some ideas going through A lot of the things that we are teaching about in TROP stacking and other genre magic the course that we're creating. I said I just kind of want to use the things we're teaching and I had a lot of fun with that, like putting different TROP ideas together and what kinds of things do I want to include in this story and looking at crossing genres and that kind of thing. So I think I got some really good ideas. Well, good, yeah, that'll be fun.

Speaker 2: 6:16

It's funny how teaching something forces you to actually do this.

Speaker 1: 6:23

I know, I know, so I should teach a course on how to authenticate your.

Speaker 2: 6:28

Yeah, there you go, your, yeah, I don't think so. Anyway, sorry, back to your thing. Yes, back to.

Speaker 1: 6:34

TROP stacking, which is more fun.

Speaker 2: 6:36

Well, no, I mean, I just think it's so ironic right, Like we know all this stuff but it takes us actually teaching it to really buckle down and do it sometimes.

Speaker 2: 6:49

But yeah it's good, I know I think I mean for me. That's kind of. My only big piece of news is that we've been working on the TROP stacking course and it's coming along. I'm hoping it'll be ready for our Kickstarter backers in the next week or two. We're pretty close. It's going Now that we have everything set up. It took us a long time to get the script and to get the slides and to get all the information gathered together and so forth and so on, but now that we have that all done, the actual recording and posting is going pretty quickly.

Speaker 1: 7:20

So yeah, and I made all the downloads yesterday and that was kind of fun too, because they feel like a teacher again. So, yes, if you were a Kickstarter backer, you will be getting this.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Yes.

Speaker 1: 7:30

We promise.

Speaker 2: 7:31

Yes, yes, and then we'll officially launch it to the wider worlds, probably in like March-ish, I think, is what we're tentatively targeting. So you'll hear more about that later.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Yeah, and we may even have a special code for podcast listeners.

Speaker 2: 7:48

Yeah, I'm sure we will. I'm sure we will. But yeah, otherwise everything else is kind of moving along piece by piece. It's trucking, trucking, trucking forward, keeping that story rolling.

Speaker 1: 7:59

So I don't have any other major news, but Sometimes that's a good thing, because my major news this week was not good news. So yeah, yeah, but on with the interview.

Speaker 2: 8:11

All right, here we go. Today's guest is Paula Judith Johnson, and we are so excited to have her here. Paula is an entrepreneur and the author of four steamy romance novels. Two of her books were finalists in the Book Excellence Awards Historical Romance Category in 2020 and 2021 respectively. She is the creator and hostess of the Writing Romance Mastery Summits, where you can learn about writing, publishing and marketing your romance novels. So welcome, Paula. We're incredibly excited to have you here. This is we were actually interviewed by you for the summit and I'm very excited about that that upcoming event. So welcome. Looking forward to the conversation.

Speaker 1: 8:58

All right, thank you. Yes, hello, and you know this is so funny because they feel like in all these indie author podcasts there's so, so, so many romance authors, but we have tended not to have a lot of romance authors for some reason, and I don't know why. And so I'm doubly glad to have you, because I think all of us have romance in our novels, whether we write specifically romance or not.

Speaker 3: 9:24

So you know that's very true. I don't think that there's any genre out there anymore that doesn't have some type of romance, because it makes it so personal. The characters become our friends. We root for them a lot more when they have love at stake.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Yeah, those interpersonal relationships are so critical, you know, and so yeah, yeah, even if it's a subplot or a minor side character, there's always. There's always, because it's emotion, right, it's relationships. That's what romance is. It's great.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:01

Makes it interesting. But, paula, why don't you tell us how you started writing and your journey into the romance industry?

Speaker 3: 10:11

Well, I've always loved romance. I don't know Pride and Prejudice. I had probably read it 30, 40 times. I've watched the you know the Colin Firth series probably as many times.

Speaker 3: 10:31

But why I started writing? I had this story rattle around in my head for almost 25 years and One day I just realized it. You know, when it comes to writing, it was always I was going to write it someday. And one day I realized, if not now, when? And I realized, oh, it has to be now. And I was still working full time. I had my own business and I started getting up at five o'clock in the morning, so I had two hours to write before going to work.

Speaker 3: 11:09

And I was in my early fifties at the time and I had not written creatively since high school. So you know, I was just writing away, didn't really know what I was doing, but I had been a voracious reader. And my husband got up one day and he says what the heck are you doing getting out of bed so early? And I said well, I'm writing a novel. And he says well on earth, makes you think you can write a novel? And I said I don't know. I said here you take this and you read it and if it's terrible, I will just I will quit, I'll start sleeping in again. And it's not like my husband was going to read romance, right, and it was only maybe two thirds done. So I gave it to him. He read it. It took a few days and he came into my office. I had an office in my home and he said you've got a good story here, keep writing. And wow.

Speaker 3: 12:07

That kind of support wow, he was a wonderful man. And it was a long time after that that I heard from somebody oh, don't ever let your spouse or your significant other read what you have, because they won't support you. And I thought, oh well, I guess I was lucky. And then a funny ending to that story is that when I finally finished my novel and had it edited and it was published and I dedicated it to my husband because of the support that he gave me, and he asked me well, how did this story end? And I said, well, you're just going to have to read it if you want to know. And he actually read it and he loved it.

Speaker 3: 12:54

In fact, one scene that I had not gotten to at the time, he had read the rough draft and I'm not going to give a spoiler. I'll just say that he came into my office one day and he stood in the doorway and very stoically he said, oh, I just got to the part where he started to cry. And he told me to a part he was at and I said, oh well, that's exactly what I wanted for my readers. So I guess I hit that one pretty good. But yeah, so that's how I got started. And then I had the horrible, horrible feeling of oh my gosh, I wrote a book. What do I do now? Do I have another story in me? It was scary.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Now, did you independently publish that first book or did it go with publisher traditional publisher?

Speaker 3: 13:44

I independently published. All of my books are independently published. I don't know that I write the mainstream type of romance that people are looking for. I mean that book was. It took place in the years leading up to the War of 1812, with them an American hero and a British heroine and the trip's back and forth, and I would not change history to make it easy for my characters. There was a lot of on again, off again, embargoes during that time where the merchants could not trade with England or France and my characters had to figure out how they were. He had to figure out how he was going to get back to England to marry this gal and it was a little bit challenging. But that's not exactly. You know when you take a look at Regency romance. That's not the kind of story that they look for in Regency. And the next I wrote two contemporaries after that, which I'll never write contemporary again. They're very good but that's just not what I really like.

Speaker 3: 14:56

My next historical actually kind of takes off from that. It brings in some of those characters for cameo appearances, but again it's in the war. It's the first year of the War of 1812, guess what? It's in 1812. But it takes place in the United States, and my work in progress, which then is a sequel to that one, is in 1813, and it takes place in the United States. So you know, that's not the kind of Regency type although that's the era is not what publishers are really looking for, and I believe that my stories are very good and my reader comments and reviews indicate that that's true. So I'm happy as an independent publisher.

Speaker 2: 15:40

Gotcha. So more historical romance, less bodice ripper is what I'm getting out of that.

Speaker 3: 15:46

Oh, yeah, yeah, but steamy, but steamy, just the stain. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

Speaker 1: 15:54

Well, I was reprimanded for saying bodice ripper by one of my editors. So, if she is listening to the podcast, you may be reprimanded.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Why? What's the connotation that I'm missing.

Speaker 1: 16:06

I don't know, but Mary Turi Sahasi did not like it.

Speaker 3: 16:10

Now, back in the day we're talking about, probably 40 years ago, to have a steamy romance was typically, you know, what was known as a bodice ripper, because usually the heroine had her bodice ripped off at some point before falling madly in love with the man and joining him forever.

Speaker 1: 16:31

You know maybe, maybe that was it that it was kind of implied almost like a borderline rape, and then the woman falls in love with the guy who violated her, and so I would guess that would not be PC or something we would endorse today.

Speaker 2: 16:50

Never thought of it that way, so I apologize because, yeah, that was not my intention. Yeah, I knew it wasn't.

Speaker 3: 16:58

You probably weren't reading romance 40 years ago.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Megan wasn't alive 40 years ago.

Speaker 2: 17:05

I was too, I was a whole one year old.

Speaker 1: 17:09

Yes, I was going to say you were a twinkle in your father's eye.

Speaker 2: 17:15

So, anyway.

Speaker 1: 17:17

But well, that's that. That's very lovely too that you're writing romance and had your romantic partners to support you. That's kind of its own little romantic beginnings to your romance career. I love that. Yeah, that's really great. So I mean, this all sounds very lovely and flowy, but my guess is that you've probably run into a few, stubbed your toes on at least a few roadblocks in your time, and so we'll. The question we always like to ask our guests is what, what would you say it was been your biggest roadblock to date and how did you overcome it?

Speaker 3: 17:57

Well, actually it hits very close to home because I'm coming off of a horrible roadblock. My last novel was published I don't know three years ago. What year did we say? 2021 was the last book excellence award, and the other two I just haven't ever submitted for an award. But I will get around to that soon.

Speaker 3: 18:26

But my work in progress is a sequel to that last book, brewer's Betrothal, and my hero is the British smuggler from that book and I'm really in a lot of ways excited to write his story. And I've known what the story was going to be about. But I had just struggled so hard to write it and I know that a year went by without me writing more than about 10, 15 words. And I finally got in touch with my editor and I said, vera, I need help. I don't know what my problem is, but I am not writing. And she said send to me what you have and let me take a look at it. And I had six chapters written, about five and a half chapters written and with notes here and there about I had to do a little research on this and a little bit of research on that, and I sent that to her along with my beat sheet of where I was going and she reviewed the whole thing and she said this is a really good piece of work you have going here. I don't know what your problem is, but that was enough to get me going again, and I'm still struggling a little bit because I'm only getting about 200 words a day written, which is like I really want to get this finished and published.

Speaker 3: 19:57

But I think one of the issues that I had was that I wasn't reading, and I think that you know, continuing to read as you write is really an important thing to do. It helps keep those juices flowing. I think I had. It's not that I wasn't reading at all. I was reading more of the technical stuff because, you know, I had launched the Writing Romance Mastery Summit and there was a lot that I needed to learn about creating and hosting the summit, and so I think I was devoting a little bit too much time to some technical stuff and wasn't reading for enjoyment.

Speaker 3: 20:37

And so I had started reading for enjoyment again and even though the words are kind of slow coming, at least they're coming, which is a relief to me, because I was afraid that they weren't going to come at all. I don't know, sometimes. Sometimes I think to myself even if the words are horrible and you throw the whole thing away, at least sitting down and writing something, if it's in a journal or whatever it is. Just get the hand and brain moving together and I handwrite all of my novels and then transcribe them onto the computer. Oh wow. So in a lot of ways I think that slows my thinking down enough to be able to get the words down.

Speaker 2: 21:23

That's so interesting. So you're the second person that we've interviewed for this season who said that they write by hand first, and now she said that it was because it seemed to limit her editor, her internal editor, because then she couldn't go back and hit delete all the time. It's really just made it that much harder. Is that the same for you, or do you have another reason for writing by hand?

Speaker 3: 21:52

There has been some studies, and I mean I simply I think it flows better from my brain if I write by hand. I sit down on the computer, put my fingers on the keys and all I can do is write business letters. I mean, that's what I always did, and sitting at the computer constrains my creativity where handwriting doesn't, and there have been studies done that indicate that there is some kind of a mental process that allows the brain to be more creative when you write by hand. I can't quote the studies and I can't even tell you what the technical terms are, but that's an interesting thought For me. It's true, it really does help.

Speaker 2: 22:41

That's interesting. Yeah, I like to do a lot of by hand brainstorming. I have a big whiteboard on my wall here that's all brainstorming stuff, but I'm afraid my hand would just forever turn into a cloth.

Speaker 3: 22:57

Sometimes it does, and sometimes I've thought to myself and I've tried it. You know dictating, yeah, because I've talked to people who say that dictating works real good, and this is almost funny, but I guess I can't engage my brain in my mouth at the same time. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:18

I hear that. I feel that.

Speaker 1: 23:21

I was talking to someone just recently who said they had a like a little placard on their wall in their office that said engage brain before opening mouth. And I was like I need that because I have the opposite problem my mouth and brain. They talk to each other without the really conscious part of my brain being involved and I say things and I go. Well, where'd that come from? You know, it's not always good things, so I have to watch that. But that is interesting.

Speaker 1: 23:54

And I have heard something about that study you were talking about with handwriting. But I'm more like Megan. I tend to do more brainstorming and spitballing and idea generation on paper and I get a notebook and I got papers flying all over the place and all that kind of thing. But then once I actually start writing, I think I'm too. It just it would take too long and I'm always in a hurry. So like the idea of writing it and then having to transcribe it is like no, no, too long, I gotta get you know.

Speaker 1: 24:26

It's interesting how we did an interview with a book coach recently and we were talking about how all the different Enneagram personality types, you know, have different ways of working and I would say that that's like all of our brains work differently, and it's always so interesting to hear how different people challenge their roadblocks and overcome them, and I think that's a fun reason to ask this question of everyone, because it would not occur to me that one way to overcome my roadblock would be to sit down with a notebook and try to write my book out by hand and be like, no, I don't want to do that. But some in our listening audience would be like, oh my gosh, I'm going to try that tomorrow you know Well.

Speaker 3: 25:15

and the other thing that I do and actually it works pretty good is when I go to bed at night I will kind of mold things about the either the scene I'm working on or the chapter I'm working on. Mold that around in my brain and more often than not, wherever I have stopped the day before, I will wake up knowing where I'm going with that, and though it's only been a few words lately, it at least keeps me from staring at the page saying, oh, what am I going to say? What happens next? To go to bed at night and let my subconscious brain figure it out for me.

Speaker 1: 25:55

I love that.

Speaker 2: 25:57

Yeah, that's a great tip too, but I also like the making sure you're reading for enjoyment. I think that's been. I have not read as much for fun recently either, and I have also noticed that it tends to mean that my writing is slower. And I don't know if it's a comparison, because I think I want to aspire to be like that book that I've really enjoyed, or if it's when I read a bad book, bad in quotes, that I don't enjoy as much. I could do it better. And I don't know if it's a comparison thing or if it's just an inspiration thing or an aspiration thing. But definitely making sure you read for enjoyment Because I think that's where we all start is really with being enjoying reading and story, yes, First. So making sure we're filling that well.

Speaker 3: 26:42

Yeah, very definitely an impetus for me to start writing was reading one too many books that I didn't like the ending, yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:54

That'll do it. Yeah, it's true, that'll do it. Another thing, because I write mystery thriller, is I just love to see how other authors handle laying down the clues, or how did they handle the big reveal when you figure out who's doing what? Or it's just because, no matter what you write whether it's fantasy or romance or mystery thriller in my case there's always like typical story beats that are going to be in those types of genres and it can start to feel formulaic until you realize it's like the combinations of things you can do are endless. And then just filling my brain with so many of those ideas when I listen I listen to audio books because I can't sit still long enough to read that if I'm going to write to but just filling my brain with all those story ideas and all those story threads, I feel like somewhere in my subconscious they all mush together and then you've got this. It's like a recipe. You've got all these potential ingredients now and if you don't, if you aren't reading, it's like you're running yourself out of ideas.

Speaker 3: 28:16

I agree with you completely, Greta. I definitely think that reading other people's works helps our brains either get clarity on what we want our work to look like or gives us new ideas For expanding the work that we're doing.

Speaker 1: 28:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:34

Well, so now why don't you tell us about a little bit about the writing romance mastery summit and where that idea came from?

Speaker 3: 28:43

oh, I have no idea where it came from. I I had, from the time I sold my business and my husband passed away, I had been trying to learn all this internet marketing stuff. I had taken courses, I spent thousands of dollars, I wasn't getting anywhere. I was really frustrated and Through a Facebook group I saw that I could take a course to teach me how to Create a course and sell online and actually create the course. As I was teaching the course, well, I'll, I'll give it a go, and actually I did quite well I Came up with the idea of Writing romance mastery, which is what I called the course.

Speaker 3: 29:35

I made it a 16 week course, issued live, and I sold. I Offered it to five, I offered five spots, I sold four spots, doubled the money and what it cost me to take the course and had a great time doing it, realized halfway through that the 16 week course could easily have been a 10 week course, but I kept throwing more stuff in and so that was great. But in that process I came across Another course that I could take From Ray Bram. It was called Summit Lab at that time and and the people that had taught me the first course wanted to continue to work with me, but on a partnership basis. But they wanted some seed money that I didn't really have to give them at that moment. And Learning the summit Was something I could afford and I thought I'll give it a try. I really don't know that I will ever do a summit, but it was a six week course and In the third week we were supposed to start reaching out to people to interview. And it's like I emailed the instructor and I said Am I actually supposed to ask people if I can interview them? He never replied. I think he thought she must be joking, but anyway, I pulled up my socks and I said okay, I'm gonna start asking some people. And I asked some people and I found out that I was a pretty good interviewer, not Because I'm extremely intelligent Although I think I do have that to some degree but mostly because the teacher gave me a cheat sheet to work off of the. These are some questions that you could ask people and and I found out that you know, like a podcast here, it's basically Having conversations and I like talking with people.

Speaker 3: 31:29

So I my first one was February of 2023 and I did not think I had done very good. We had. I think we had about 1300 registrants and Sold 134 tickets. I had an email list at that time of romance authors that was about 250. So by the end of the summit I had an author list of over 1200.

Speaker 3: 32:01

And the man who taught the class, he was totally blown away. He thought that I was so niche down that it would be hard to to actually be successful. I thought it was very successful. I did at the time, but he thought I was very successful and I decided to do it again. So I did it again in August, which, at which time, I interviewed the two of you. Thank you very much and, oh, excuse me, I'm sorry You're on the one that's coming out, not the one I did in August. Okay, yeah, but anyway, um, I had learned from what mistakes I had made. I learned from that and we had oh, it was almost 5000 people register, we sold 416 tickets and that then I decided, oh, this definitely is a success and I've heard from so many people that they love the summits.

Speaker 3: 32:58

I've heard from a lot of non romance writers and they always start the emails. I don't write romance, but but they love the summit because of all this, the topics that we cover, yeah, and because so many other genres include romantic elements. So so that's how that got started, and I love doing it. I have always Appreciated when somebody has helped me, and when I started writing, there weren't the resources that are available now that the internet was. You know, I've been around a while, but you know the stuff that was on there. You know it wasn't really all that helpful, mm-hmm, yeah, and so I wanted to be able to help other people, not have the challenges that I had when I started writing, and so my target market for the, the summit, is mostly novice to intermediate romance authors, although we have a number of USA Today best-selling authors and and Amazon best-selling authors In our Facebook group, and I'm quite sure that a number of them Attend the summit too, so we try to have something there for everyone, that's great, and you know what that was?

Speaker 1: 34:19

one of the big motivations for Megan and I to start teaching and to Do the podcast too, was just that we wanted people to have resources that we didn't have when we got started and and there is fabulous we in fact, we interview all kinds of people like yourself that had offer fabulous resources for people, so we're learning about more of them all the time. But there is something to be said with somebody who is just a few steps ahead Versus somebody who is way ahead, you know, leading people and teaching people because, like, I did take James Patterson's course and it was great, but you know, james Patterson has completely forgotten what it is like to be on that early end of the spectrum Versus taking a course from somebody who's maybe Just a little bit ahead of me in their income earning or a little bit ahead of me in the number of books they have out, or something like that. It's just they sort of remember much more clearly where I met and I can help me with that. So that's that is really great. That's very true. That's very true.

Speaker 1: 35:31

Yeah, so what can? What are some of the topics that you're gonna be covering in this upcoming the summit that you entered, because Megan and I don't write Romeo's, but you interviewed us, so you must do lots of different topics, so yeah let me open up my little screen here and I will Give you a general idea what we have, because we cover the art, the craft of writing.

Speaker 3: 35:57

We talked about Publishing, both Independent and traditional, and we talk about marketing, both Organic and paid. So a couple of the titles Romance your launch that, of course, has to do with launching your first book. Techniques to overcome writer's block. How to sell your book without major media or paid advertising. Seo for romance authors show don't tell, which you know we all strive to do. Romance tropes what you need to know now. Tips of a successful Kickstarter for romance writers that one I'm really excited to be offering in this summit, because there are resources out there that weren't available before.

Speaker 3: 36:51

I even Interviewed a doctor on wellness habits for writers. How to promote your books through email marketing. Romance in the research crafting love stories that ring true. How to get a literary agent and publisher Book marketing made easy with email writing. Inspiration, with writing, with inspiration. How's this one write a Christmas movie in 21 days? That was a fascinating interview with a. She used to be a, an actress. Now she is a screenwriter and producer. Audience building for romance authors. Generating sales without advertising on Amazon, turning off your internal editor pitching to literary agents Writing first American characters.

Speaker 3: 37:43

That was an excellent interview, you know, because a lot of times we need to include Indians or first American or Native American whatever you want to call it Characters. And that is from Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer. She is. I'm trying to remember what tribe. I can't, I'm sorry, it escapes me at the moment. Why, how, why, when and how to write sex scenes into your stories. Beginners, right, the beginners guide your writing. Romance, powerful endings, the black moment in Dark Knight of the Soul. Get book reviews to help sell more books. How to win awards that one is Really important, I think, for all authors, especially newer authors crafting a winning pitch. Sell more books with the romance bundle. Sell more books with guests. Podcasting, such as what we're doing right now, developmental editing, how to write better dialogue. Overcome the fear of marketing and Self-publish. Or get an agent by Greta Boris and Megan Haskell.

Speaker 1: 38:49

Wow, well, that must be a really good.

Speaker 3: 38:54

Build your reader base with lead magnets and creating compelling characters. That's the lineup.

Speaker 1: 39:00

Wow, Well that it sounds fabulous it really covers the whole spectrum the whole gamut, so is the tropes one. Is that Jennifer Hilt that you interviewed for that? Yes, yeah, she. She is a good friend of ours. We love Jennifer. We've had her on the podcast, hot workshops with her, and I actually think she's the one who told us that we should contact you about being part of the next mass romance, mastery Cement.

Speaker 3: 39:27

So, and that could be because I am always looking for excellent people to interview. So if any of your listeners are Are Interested in being a guest on the writing romance mastery summit, I would be happy to talk to them about the topics that they would like to discuss and see whether or not it would be a good fit.

Speaker 1: 39:51

Yeah, oh, that's great. Well, we'll definitely have your link in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 39:55

So absolutely so. You do this twice a year. You said so this one, but this is your third one. Yes, is that accurate? That's correct. So what drives you to keep doing it? I mean, obviously, financially, it it probably makes some sense.

Speaker 3: 40:12

But I actually make more money off of this than my.

Speaker 2: 40:17

But but what else? I mean there's got to be, like the fact that you're doing it twice a year. That seems like there's. You know it's kind of frequent, so what's driving behind it, like what, what it's it's changing or what keeps you coming back for more?

Speaker 3: 40:31

I think the comments that I receive from people about how much value they receive from the summit, that that and I have to admit and this is probably something that you realize to doing podcasts is that interviewing people you learn so much. I Mean some of the people that I interviewed their coaches and if I hired them they would cost me a lot of money. Instead, I interview them and I asked them anything I want.

Speaker 1: 41:04

That is our secret motivation that nobody, except for the three of us and Five, six hundred of our best friends listening out there, know so much from everybody we interview. It's just such a Such a you know, I heard Joey and a pen and say that too, like when I first start listening to her way back when that she started the podcast because she didn't know anything, I didn't wanted to learn, and it's like what better way to Tell learn then to get people on and and I suppose I suppose what I could do.

Speaker 3: 41:45

You know, daniel David Wallace, he does three summits a year and he covers, he covers different things. So if I wanted to, I suppose I could do one just on the craft of writing, one just on publication and one just on marketing. But you know, to me they're all tied together. Yeah, so I put them all together.

Speaker 2: 42:07

Which I think is it was very smart. Because I mean, we you know our logo, our company is the author wheel and part of the reason we chose wheels because they are all Circular and cyclical and tied and connected together. It's like you write and then you publish and then you promote, but then you're writing the next book and when you write that book, having the promotion in mind Makes it easier to craft that book or sell it. And then how you publish it. So it all is constantly Cycling through and tying back together. I don't like, like you said, the divisions between the different subjects, because although there are divisions as far as you know we can compartmentalize anything the fact is that the divisions between the different subjects are all the fact is it's, it's there's spokes on a wheel and not Pillars, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3: 42:53

Yeah, right, you know, yes. And, and something that Grudemite like to know is that I will be expanding out to other genres. In May, I'm co-hosting with Randy Ellison, the fantasy and sci-fi authors, a summit oh cool. And I'm in negotiations with a Adventure thriller author to go into Suspense and thriller oh wow in November. So that's, that's what I'm hoping to do.

Speaker 2: 43:34

Keep me in mind for the fantasy one I'm volunteering right now.

Speaker 3: 43:37

Whatever, Okay whatever you want, I'll be it and we'll keep credit in mind for the For the thriller. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 43:47

Absolutely. Yeah, that's fun. You know, all these conversations we've been having lately make me just miss writing. I've been in, you know, editing mode and publishing mode and all that kind of stuff, and that's a good conversation, right when it makes you miss writing. This has been inspirational. So why don't you tell people, paula, how they can learn more about the summit, where to go to learn about the summit? And because I have a feeling we've, you know, got some people interested with this conversation.

Speaker 3: 44:23

Right, and Greta and Megan are going to be promoting this. So if you're listening to this podcast, please use their affiliate link to register. You can register for free. I highly encourage you to take advantage of the first 15 minutes. If you're going to buy a ticket, to buy a ticket, then before the price goes up, because after 15 minutes it will go up and I've had people comment to me.

Speaker 3: 44:49

After my very first summit, I received an email from a man saying I registered for your summit but I didn't buy the ticket because I thought this would be nothing but a whole bunch of people trying to convince me to buy their services, and the truth of the matter is nobody pitched me to buy any services. I ended up paying the higher price for your ticket, but from now on I will always buy your ticket the minute I register. So so I encourage you to do that, and I encourage you to do that through the affiliate link for the author wheel. I don't know what your affiliate link is yet because this was pre-recorded, but it is basically writingromasmasterysemitcom and that's how they can get a hold if they don't use your affiliate link, which I hope they do. If they want to just email me, I'm at Paula Judith Johnson. Excuse me, I am at Paula at Paula Judith Johnsoncom and they can get a hold of me there. They can get a request to get onto my newsletter there if they want to. The newsletter is for authors, not readers.

Speaker 1: 45:58

All right, so that so, and if they go to the writingromasmasterysemit page, then they can see all the things that are coming up in the upcoming summit. Yes and yes, we will have the affiliate link in the show notes and I'm sure we'll send it out to our mailing list as well. So if you want to support the author wheel and go to this amazing romance mastery summit, that would be the the link to use.

Speaker 2: 46:29

And we do have a. We've included a bonus in the VIP pass, the premium pass, so you can also grab that, along with other, I'm sure, presenters special bonuses and things like that.

Speaker 3: 46:47

Yeah, megan, thank you for bringing that up, because I failed to say that when you register for free, you heard the whole lineup of you know, I think we've got 30, some odd speakers, so new speakers every single day. When you register for free, each day when the speakers videos are released, you have 48 hours to watch them and then they go away unless you buy the ticket. And for anyone who buys the ticket, they have even before the summit starts. They have immediate access. They receive lifetime access, they receive audio downloads of all this things and all the bonuses and the bonuses as of the recording here. Don't have them all in yet, but there's over 2000, close to $3,000, worth of bonuses that are exclusive to the summit, meaning that you can go out and buy them if you want to and pay for them, or you can just buy a ticket to the summit and get them at no cost or at a significant reduction in cost. Most of them are free. A few of them that are higher end ticket items are just discounted.

Speaker 1: 47:59

Well, that's great. Yes, we're offering a free back, so that's what goes with ours. But anyway, this has been a great conversation, paul, and it sure was interesting hearing about your history, and into writing too, and it sounds like your husband was a lovely man and that's just. That was a beautiful story, so thank you for sharing that. And so to all of our listeners. I think we'll have all the things we talked about link in the show notes. But also wanted to mention that if you have not signed up for the author wheel newsletter, you will get. We sent one a week and it is a kind of a recap of that week's podcast event Also has all of the show notes in the link, and then we also make it in. I put our takeaways, so our secret, super private takeaways that nobody knows about unless they're on our emails.

Speaker 1: 49:03

So if you, want to know what we really think about Paula Judith Johnson when she's not around and we're talking about her behind your back. Come on over and sign up for the newsletter and don't forget we do have our seven days to clarity and cover your other purpose Fruit seven day free email course at our website as well. So until next time, keep your stories rolling.