Too Much Social Podcast

Welcome to episode 10 of the Serving Books podcast series!We have covered so much ground in this series, and I hope you have found all of the previous episodes useful and interesting - please forward them on to any writers groups or writer friends you think might be interested. Copy this link and send it to your friends as it will open the podcast on whatever platform they use to listen: https://podfollow.com/1826841227Today was supposed to be the final episode of the series BUT, as Robert Burns so elegantly put it, ‘the best laid schemes o’ Mice and Men, gang aft agley’… which is a phrase etched into my brain from when I used to teach Steinbeck’s novel to teenagers. Basically, what they were both getting at is that even good preparation can’t always stop things going astray…In my case the things that have gone astray are my ability to sit at my desk thanks to a frozen shoulder and carpal tunnel inflammation which means I never got round to inviting one of the guests I want to interview, while another guest had to postpone recording because of much more important things they needed to make space for in their own lives.This all means that for today, we are going to hear from one of my guests who is going to talk about future-proofing your career as an author. She has so much to say of value that it’s probably for the best that she gets her own episode and I can spread the wisdom out! There will be bonus episodes featuring other special guests once I am able to record them, so please tune in when those episodes are released.Please welcome, Claire Venus ✨ "Queen of Substack" and co-author of How to Build a World Class Substack!Before you dive into this episode though, if you are listening to this episode before the 24th September 2026, you might be interested in a free workshop I am running called Setting Up for Instagram Success. This is a FREE online workshop taking place on Thursday 24th September, 2-3pm GMT (replay available).We’ll spend an hour walking through the 5 opportunities you have to capture the attention of every (relevant) potential reader who lands on your account.You’ll learn how to make the best use of: * your handle* your bio* your profile picture* your links* and your pinned postsCome along and set yourself up for success as an author on Instagram! Sign up for free below to attend live and/ or receive the replay: Find out more about Claire and her workClaire Venus ✨ on Substack Sparkle on Substack Website https://www.creativelyconscious.co.uk/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/creatively.conscious/Book, How To Build A World Class Substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nicolawashington.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to episode 9 - the penultimate episode! - of Serving Books: from inspiration to publication. The podcast where I map what it takes for a book to go from being a glimmer of an idea to landing in your readers’ hands. In this series I’ve sought to answer the questions I have as a publishing industry outsider by interviewing industry experts including writing mentors, book coaches, writing community founders, editors, agents, book marketers, publicity and pr experts, and book shop owners to bring their insights and knowledge straight to your ears!In this episode I speak with three guests about a variety of ways authors can keep the momentum going post-launch that are off the beaten tracks of newsletters and social media:* James, founder of Reading Rebels, offers his insights into how authors can hold effective school visits* Karen Powell from ethical audiobook platform xigxag talks about the opportunities they offer authors to reach their listeners* and Elizabeth Morris , creator of the Crib Notes newsletter and community, tells us about the possibilities offered by working in collaboration with bookish influencers and content creatorsIf you’re new to the podcast you might want to start at the beginning: Or, select an episode from this list of everything I’ve released so far:✍🏻 How do you get words on the page?📖 How do you choose the right publishing path for you?🤔 What’s involved in the different stages of editing?🪝 How do you snag an agent and negotiate a book deal?🤝 What are the best ways to work *with* your publisher to prepare and promote your book?🗣️ How might you self-drive your book promotion whether you’re indie or traditional published?📕 What’s the bookseller’s view on how they select the titles they’re going to back?⬆️ How can you keep the ball rolling after publication?🔮 And how might you future-proof your career as an author?Next week is the last episode in the series. If you’d like it to land in your inbox, subscribe to Too Much by Nicola Washington, and you’ll be notified when it goes live ❤️🔗 Links to my guestsElizabeth Morris Instagram https://www.instagram.com/elizabethmorris.cribnotes/James, The Rebel Reading SocietyWebsite https://www.rebelreadingsociety.co.uk/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/the_rebel_reading_society/Karen Powell, Head of Marketing at Xigxag Website https://xigxag.co.uk/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/xigxag_official/I obsess over Instagram so you don’t have to 😉Join the TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM membership for uncomplicated Instagram advice curated especially for writers. In the membership you will:✨ be supported by me and the TMI community as you step into a scary new era of publicly claiming your identity as a writer✨ save time with post ideas curated to suit your needs so you stop wasting your time ‘scrolling for inspiration’✨ gain clarity about what you should be doing next thanks to my uncomplicated adviceTo become a member, click the button and upgrade your subscription 👇🏼Membership benefits include:* lists of trending and proven post ideas to support you with your planning every month 💡* accountability, and an opportunity to pick my brain, every Monday in the check-in chat 🧠* personalised, detailed advice every month in the Ask Me Anything calls (replays available) 🧐* opportunities to get the work done in company in fortnightly co-working sessions 💪🏼* being part of a lively, warm and supportive community of fellow writers and authors who are all working towards the same goal: getting to grips with Instagram! 💓To become a member, click the button to upgrade your subscription This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nicolawashington.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to episode 8 of Serving Books: from inspiration to publication, the podcast for every industry-outsider who, like me, has lots of questions about how a book goes from being an idea, to landing in readers’ hands.If you’re enjoying the series so far, please share it with all your writerly friends to help me reach more listeners, or if you rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts this will help the algorithms do their magic 🪄 Serving Books answers questions like…✍🏻 How do you get words on the page?📖 Which is the right publishing path for you?🤔 What’s involved in the different stages of editing?🪝 How to snag an agent and negotiate a book deal?🤝 What are the best ways to work *with* your publisher to prepare and promote your book?🗣️ How might you self-drive your book promotion, whether you’re indie or traditionally published?📕 What’s the bookseller’s view on how they select the titles they’re going to back?⬆️ How can you keep the ball rolling after publication?🔮 And how might you future-proof your career as an author?When I first started planning this podcast series I knew I wanted to speak to a bookseller about the process of exactly how books end up in book shops.Immediately, I decided that the only bookseller that would do was Ruth Wallbank-Hughes because Ruth is the founder of Drop City Books, a community-focused book shop in my home city of Stoke-on-Trent. So far, so what, you might be thinking, but if you’d indulge me for a minute I’d like to explain what this conversation means to me.Stoke is one of those places often described using that horrible, reductive phrase, ‘left behind’. It has always been a working class city so of course it bears the scars of 80s Thatcherite Britain and forty years later - for many reasons - there are few signs of the kind of regeneration enjoyed by its bigger, flashier neighbours, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham.Stoke tends to only appear in the news headlines when there are riots, or hate-fuelled right wing protests, or when it’s been voted as the worst place in the country to live. In the months and years following the EU referendum in 2016, journalists would only make the trip to Stoke to ask why so many people voted Leave, and in the 2019 General Election the city did its bit to obliterate the Red Wall when all three of its parliamentary constituency seats turned blue.When you’re a left wing progressive who believes in class solidarity, who celebrates and welcomes difference and diversity, who thinks immigration strengthens a country, who is married to a Nigerian, and who has two brown children, it’s… complicated to call Stoke home.But I’m also proud of my home city - of its heritage and its history, of its humour and its unique accent. Stokies - or Potters as we’re known, thanks to the area’s historical ceramics industry - are self-effacing, down-to-earth, and distinctively friendly people.We call everyone ‘duck’ as a term of endearment, and in Stoke an oatcake isn’t a cheese biscuit, it’s a savoury pancake, made with secret recipes that get passed down through generations, that you load up with warm fillings, and to be honest you basically haven’t lived until you’ve eaten a hot, cheese-and-bacon filled oatcake fresh from the griddle. It’s a place where every school child learns the playground rhyme, Cos yer kick a bo agin a wall an' yed eet till eet bosts ar can cos thay, keeping little bits of a dying dialect alive. And it’s one of the few places in the country where people correctly pronounce the word, book.To repeat - that’s booook - like coooook, loooook, and hoooooook 😅More seriously, Stoke hasn’t always made it easy to love it, but it’s still my home, it’s in my DNA. I can’t help myself.And then Drop City Books popped up in my Instagram timeline a couple of years ago - a rare moment of gratitude for the algorithms - and I got so excited!Book shops are never just shops that sell books - they’re portals to other worlds, places to be curious and open your mind to learn new things, they’re gathering places for ideas, and people - but for me, Drop City Books feels like even more than that.It feels like light and hope and belief that things can be better and Ruth’s warmth and humour, and even the colourfulness of her book shop, feel like all the best things about my home city rolled into one.So - at this point you might be thinking, for god’s sake Nicola get on with it… and I will! I promise. I really hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it - please welcome Ruth the founder of Drop City Books, based in Stoke-on-Trent - or, as she puts, it ‘the centre of the known universe’ 😉 Psst… Starting on Monday 31st August, I’m hosting a FREE seven day ☀️WAKE UP INSTAGRAM☀️ challenge.You’ll receive a short email each day containing a simple 10 minute task that will help you reboot your Instagram account if you’re coming back from a break, or things have gone a bit quiet. Sign up for the challenge 👇🏼 Find Drop City BooksOn Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dropcitybooks/ Drop City Books website https://www.dropcitybooks.com/On Bookshop.org https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/dropcitybooksIf you’d like future episodes of the podcast to land in your inbox, subscribe to Too Much by Nicola Washington, and you’ll be notified every time I release a new episode This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nicolawashington.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to episode 7 of Serving Books: from inspiration to publication, the podcast for every industry-outsider who, like me, has lots of questions about how a book goes from being an idea, to landing in readers’ hands.If you’re enjoying the series so far, please share it with all your writerly friends to help me reach more listeners, or if you rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts this will help the algorithms do their magic 🪄 Serving Books answers questions like…✍🏻 How do you get words on the page?📖 Which is the right publishing path for you?🤔 What’s involved in the different stages of editing?🪝 How to snag an agent and negotiate a book deal?🤝 What are the best ways to work *with* your publisher to prepare and promote your book?🗣️ How might you create an ‘author brand’ in a way that doesn’t make you want to die of cringe, and self-drive your book promotion, whether you’re indie or traditionally published?📕 What’s the bookseller’s view on how they select the titles they’re going to back?⬆️ How can you keep the ball rolling after publication?🔮 And how might you future-proof your career as an author?In this week’s episode I welcome two experts who offer insights into how authors might take on the (often) necessary heavy lifting of their book promotion.It might surprise you that I haven’t talked about social media in this episode - but you can always take a look in my archive of past podcast episodes, visit my Instagram account, or take a look at my archive here on Substack if that is what you are looking for!Instead, today’s episode is about the things I can’t advise you on so please welcome my two guests…Lucy Werner, is an award-winning PR expert who has spent her career helping businesses, entrepreneurs and authors gain media coverage without huge marketing budgets. She’s the founder of The Hype, a membership that helps self-employed creatives, freelancers and entrepreneurs get seen and paid in a way that feels good and she is the author of two books, Brand Yourself, and Hype Yourself, which are practical guides to branding, and generating publicity through storytelling and smart PR. Whether you’re publishing your first book or your fifth, Lucy has plenty of practical advice to help you become your own best publicist.And then my second guest today is Sarah Robertson who is a writer, mentor, designer and the author of Shape Your Brand Story, publishing with 91 Editions this autumn.Through Fonn, her storytelling studio, and her Brand Seasons® Method, she helps fellow writers or founders develop a brand strategy, style or story, and ultimately craft a brand that feels like home. Psst… Starting on Monday 31st August, I’m hosting a FREE seven day ☀️WAKE UP INSTAGRAM☀️ challenge.You’ll receive a short email each day containing a simple 10 minute task that will help you reboot your Instagram account if you’re coming back from a break, or things have gone a bit quiet. Sign up for the challenge 👇🏼 LinksLucy WernerThe Hype newsletter and community https://www.hypeyourself.com/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lucywernerpr/Books https://www.hypeyourself.com/shop/#booksSarah RobertsonBook https://studiofonn.com/shape-your-brand-storyWebsite https://studiofonn.com/Substack Instagram https://www.instagram.com/studiofonn/ If you’d like future episodes of the podcast to land in your inbox, subscribe to Too Much by Nicola Washington, and you’ll be notified every time I release a new episode This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nicolawashington.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to episode 6 of Serving Books: from inspiration to publication, the podcast for every industry-outsider who, like me, has lots of questions about how a book goes from being an idea, to landing in readers’ hands.In this series I’ve interviewed industry experts including writing mentors, book coaches, writing community founders, editors, agents, book marketers, publicity and pr experts, and book shop owners to bring their insights and knowledge straight to your ears by answering alllll my nosy questions!If you’re enjoying the series so far, please share with all your writerly friends to help me reach more listeners, or if you rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts this will help the algorithms do their magic 🪄 Questions like…✍🏻 How do you get words on the page?📖 Which is the right publishing path for you?🤔 What’s involved in the different stages of editing?🪝 How to snag an agent and negotiate a book deal?🤝 What are the best ways to work *with* your publisher to prepare and promote your book?🗣️ How might you self-drive your book promotion, whether you’re indie or traditionally published?📕 What’s the bookseller’s view on how they select the titles they’re going to back?⬆️ How can you keep the ball rolling after publication?🔮 And how might you future-proof your career as an author?This week I quizzed two marketing and publicity experts from the publishing industry about how the process works, and how authors can get the most out of their partnership with their publisher.My brilliant guests in this episode:Katie Sadler is Marketing Director at One More Chapter, where she leads creative marketing campaigns for a wide range of bestselling commercial fiction. With extensive experience in book publishing and a passion for connecting authors with readers, Katie has helped shape successful launches across multiple genres. Ana McLaughlin is an author and Campaigns Director at Quercus, where she leads publicity campaigns for an exciting list of bestselling and award-winning authors. With extensive experience in publishing and a talent for creating impactful, reader-focused campaigns, Ana has helped bring a diverse range of books to audiences around the world.If you’d like future episodes of the podcast to land in your inbox, subscribe to Too Much by Nicola Washington, and you’ll be notified every time I release a new episode 🔗 Links to my guestsKatie SadlerSubstack: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiemorwenna/Ana McLaughlinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/anabooks/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nicolawashington.substack.com/subscribe