The Pulp Writer Show

Jonathan Moeller
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Hosted by Jonathan Moeller (author of the FROSTBORN and SEVENFOLD SWORD fantasy series and the SILENT ORDER scifi series), the Pulp Writer Show discusses how to write, format, publish, and sell your novel. Sometimes there are jokes.

  1. 4d ago

    Episode 316: Common Scams Targeting Indie Writers

    In this week's episode, we take a look at some of the common scams targeting indie authors and offer tips on how to detect and avoid them. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Blood, Book #3 in The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: CAINASUMMER The coupon code is valid through August 31, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 316 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is August the 14th, 2026, and today we are discussing common scams targeting indie writers. We also have a Coupon of the Week and a update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Blood, Book #3 in The Ghosts series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That code is CAINASUMMER. As always, the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through August the 31st, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook for this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's head on to a progress update. As I mentioned last week, Cloak of Frost is done and it's published and you get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my own Payhip Store. It is doing quite well. Thank you all for that, and people seem to be enjoying it. So if you haven't checked out Cloak of Frost yet, you can get it at your favorite ebook store. Now that Cloak of Frost is done, my next main project is Blade of Visions, which will be the sixth book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I am 28,000 words into that. I think the rough draft will be about 100,000 words, but we will see. Might be a little more, a little less. I'm hoping to wrap it up early in September so that the book can be out to you sometime in the second half of September, if all goes well. In other news, my secondary project now is Elven-Warlock, the seventh Rivah book, and I am 1,500 words into that. If all goes well, I hope to have that out in October. In audiobook news, we have three things coming your way. The first one is Blade of Thieves, which Brad Wills is currently narrating and should be wrapped up before too much longer. Hollis McCarthy is narrating Cloak of Worlds, and I believe we'll be able to start proof listening to that soon, so that should be available before too much longer. I just finished uploading Stealth and Spells Online: The Complete LitRPG trilogy in audiobook form. So, the entire trilogy in one audiobook comes to about 32 hours long. So hopefully that will get through ACX processing before too much longer, and then you can listen to it. So that is where I'm at with current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:22 Main Topic: Common Scams for Writers Now let's move on to our main topic, common scams to avoid for writers. Authors, especially new ones, but to be honest, all of us are hungry for praise, recognition, and professional opportunities. They also have a hunger to be the big new publishing phenomenon, ideally as fast as possible. Unfortunately, scammers are very aware of this and use it to prey upon authors. An example I use for this is if you've read the Heir to the Empire books by Timothy Zahn, the villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn, makes a habit of studying his opponent's artwork to discover their psychological blind spots. Then he tailors his strategies around those psychological blind spots. Now, the reason I mentioned this is that scamming or falling victim to a scam is not necessarily an indication of base intelligence or savviness. Everyone has their psychological weak spots. If a scam hits your psychological weak spot at the right time when you're in the right state of mind when you're tired or sick or have had some additional bad news recently, that might hit. For myself, the scams I've nearly fallen victim to have been ones based around bad news because I'm essentially a very pessimistic personality, so I always kind of half expect bad news. One example was I got a fake email allegedly from Spotify saying that my tax information was wrong for my Spotify audiobooks and that needed to be fixed immediately. This was one I could have fallen for because it arrived during tax time. As we know, tax time is often very onerous and unpleasant and involves a lot of work and digging through papers. So I was inclined to believe it, but still, fortunately, I didn't click on any links in the emails. I went directly to the portal, double checked, and then realized it was a scam. Another example was that recently I got a phone call purporting to be from my local police department. I was thinking, "Oh man, this is going to be a mess." I was listening to it and then thankfully before I gave out any information, I realized that it was in fact a scam and then hung up. Just to be thorough, I called the actual local police department and double checked that it was a scam. But again, that played out my psychological weak point of being a pessimist and expecting bad news. I mention this because if you're aware of your psychological weak spots, like many writers, as we mentioned, are hungry for praise or quick opportunities, then you're more likely to be aware of scams. The other thing I should mention in sort of the introduction here is that thanks to the rise of ChatGPT and Gemini and Claude and all the other LLM slop machines, it's become a lot easier to scam people than it used to be before. I heard it said that Web 1.0 was a static content. Web 2.0 was interactive content like social media. Web 3.0 is scams in the forms of NFTs, cryptos, and LLMs. For example, as I mentioned, I just recently published Cloak of Frost. Since I published Cloak of Frost, I've gotten like 20 scam emails that for the most part read like this: "Dear Jonathan, I'm Stephanie Davis and the thing that caught my attention about Cloak of Frost was how quickly an obligation Nadia would rather avoid turns into a situation where the fate of earth is suddenly on the line. She's supposed to be attending the Winter Frost Games. Then an old friend arrives being chased by clone soldiers with a mysterious magical artifact and suddenly this isn't just another duty for the Marshall of the High Queen of the Elves. The fact that losing the game can mean earth burns gives the whole premise a wonderfully sharp sense of consequence. I partner with Around the World in 80 books, a vibrant community of readers who enjoy discovering books from different authors." It goes on and on in this vein. Since Cloak Frost came out six days ago, I've gotten 20 different emails along those lines, all of them clearly generated by LLMs. In fact, I didn't have to save that email. I just opened up my inbox, picked the most recent one, and that was it. Of course, if I responded, what would've happened would've been a few more emails and eventually they would ask for payment for attending their book festival and I would provide payment and then they would promptly disappear off the face of the earth and go on to target someone else. So you can see how that kind of scam would be dangerous. Imagine you're a brand new author who's just published your first book and doesn't know all that much about ChatGPT and the other LLM slop generators out there and you get an email like that, you'd think you'd won the lottery and you'd be very susceptible to giving payment to the scammer. So today, that's why we're going to go over a few of the more common scams out there and provide some general tips for spotting a scam. #1: Publishing Packages You will frequently be contacted by scamming companies offering to help you publish, market, and work on social media for your book. Some of them will even have official sounding names like Amazon Author Hub or Amazon Book Publisher, which are using the Amazon name but not affiliated with Amazon. It's very, very important to be skeptical of these types of publishing companies in general. At best, most of these publishing services companies greatly overcharge for basic services. At worst, they're outright thieves and scammers. David Gaughran has written about these types of publishers if you're interested in learning more. Writer's Weekly's website keeps a running list of confirmed scam publishers and publishing services, but even if they're not on a list and you find reviews that seem to be good, it's best to be extremely skeptical. It's very easy to accumulate fake Google reviews. For example, without naming names, a local business that I used to frequent recently changed owners a couple months ago. And before that, the local business had two five-star reviews. Since the new owner came in, suddenly there's like 500 five-star reviews popping up, all of them having a variety of names that do not seem like they come from the geographic region in which I live. So what he probably did was use a ChatGPT type service to automatically write a bunch of fake reviews for his business. A lot of these scammy companies can do that as well, so it's best to be very skeptical about this kind of thing. #2 Fake conference/book festival/book club speaking invitation This scam is incredibly common, but comes in a variety of types. You will be contacted by a book club/conference/book festival coordinator saying that they love, love, love your book and offer some praise or comments about it and then invite you to their event. The scam part will also come in after you accept when they will want money for this privilege. It's bad to work for free, but it's also very foolish to pay money to show up for a professional event, especially one located outside your immediate area. The email I read earlier in the show is a good example of

  2. Aug 10

    Episode 315: Tips For Writing In A Coffee Shop Or Other Public Place

    In this week's episode, I share a few tips for writing effectively and politely in a public space like a coffee shop, library, waiting room, or similar location. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Exile series at my Payhip store: SUMMEREXILE The coupon code is valid through August 24, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 315 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is August the 7th, 2026 and today I am sharing tips for writing while in public in places such as a coffee shop, a waiting room, or a library. We will also have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First off, let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Exile series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is SUMMEREXILE and this coupon code will be valid through August the 24th, 2026, so if you need a new ebook to read this summer, we have got you covered. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I am very nearly done with Cloak of Frost. In fact, I'm so close to being done with Cloak of Frost, I am hoping (if all goes well and the creek doesn't rise), to finish it this afternoon after I finish recording this episode. So after you finish listening to this episode when it goes live, go check out your nearest ebook store for Cloak of Frost because hopefully it should be working its way through the platforms and be available then. Once Cloak of Frost is finished and published, my next main project will be Blade of Visions, the sixth book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I am currently 17,000 words into that. If all goes well, I am hoping to have that book out sometime in September. I'll need a new secondary project since Blade of Visions is getting promoted from secondary project. So my new secondary project will be Elven-Warlock, the seventh book in the Half-Elven Thief series. That hopefully will be out sometime in October, again, if all goes well. In audiobook news, we have a couple different audiobook things to discuss. Dragon-Mage, the sixth book in the Half-Elven Thief series (as narrated by Leanne Woodward) should now be available at all audiobook stores. Stealth & Spells Online: Final Quest (as narrated by C.J. McAllister) should be at my Payhip store, Google Play, and Kobo as of right now, and it should be working its way through the other audiobook platforms before too much longer. Cloak Mage: Omnibus Four, which is a three-book bundle containing Cloak of Illusion, Cloak of Dragonfire, and Cloak of Embers (as narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is now available in audio as well. It's 38 hours [long] and you can get that at Audible, Apple, and Amazon. As for upcoming books, Brad Wills is working on Blade of Thieves and as of this recording, he's about halfway through it. Hollis McCarthy is working on Cloak of Worlds and I believe she's done with main recording and doing edits right now. So before too much longer, if all goes well, we'll have a bunch of new audiobooks for you. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:57 Tips for Writing in Public Spaces Now let's move on to our main topic this week, writing or working in a coffee shop, waiting room, library, or other public space. People often romanticize the process of writing and imagine that writers spend all day in a cozy cafe with a leather notebook and a fountain pen, sipping espresso with [chuckles] acoustic guitar music playing faintly in the background. In reality, most full-time writers don't regularly work that way. For myself, I don't generally like working in public, and I prefer either to work in my office at home or with my laptop on my couch (also at home). I only work in public spaces like coffee shops, libraries, and waiting rooms when I'm waiting for someone or don't have any other option. Because of course, real life has its demands, I do that a fair bit. I've written large chunks of most of my books in various waiting rooms while waiting on various appointments. But again, it's not my first choice. If I had total freedom to pick where I was going to work today, I would not pick a coffee shop. I would not pick the library. I would probably pick either my office or my couch with my laptop, depending on how hot the day happened to be. However, just because I don't like working in a public space doesn't mean that other people do not, and many people do love to work in public spaces like coffee shops or find it a necessity for a variety of reasons. So today we're going to go over what you should consider when working in these kinds of spaces. For many people, the benefits of working in a space like a coffee shop or a library are significant. Let's go over a few of the reasons that people might benefit from this working arrangement. Some people don't have much control over the noise or activity levels in their home environment or are experiencing a temporary issue like a power outage or home renovations. For example, this morning at about seven o'clock, a tree trimming truck pulled up directly in front of my house, so I was worried that I would not be able to record this podcast today due to chainsaw noise, but for whatever reason, they haven't started yet, so I'm hoping I can actually finish recording this episode before any chainsaw noise begins. Many people also like having a change of scenery or like getting out of the house if they primarily work from home. Some people find this helps them to feel more creative or interested in their work or feels like a reward for doing the work. Another reason is that some people also miss the social aspect of working in person and enjoying making small talk or working alongside a friend in these types of spaces. Some people, especially those who've been diagnosed with ADHD, benefit from being in a space where others are also working, even if they're not interacting with those people. It actually helps them to focus and be more productive when they can see others working. If you're interested in learning more about that, you can read about the concept of body doubling, which describes this in more detail. So with those reasons in mind, let's go over some of the appropriate etiquette for working in a public place. You might think these etiquette tips about working in an American public space are obvious, but after you spend a fair amount of time in a coffee shop, you'll see that many people never get this advice or blatantly ignore it. So let's spend some time stating what feels like the obvious, especially for people who might not be familiar with American customs and behaviors. First, if you're spending time in a business, you need to order, and if you're in America, you should at least leave a small tip. If you're staying more than an hour or so, you should probably order more than once. For example, if you're spending an afternoon working in a coffee shop, you can start with a plain coffee and then after a couple of hours order another cup or a snack. You're essentially renting their space at their expense, so you shouldn't be there all day after buying only a $2 cup of coffee (or worse yet, nothing at all). Another important factor is to have realistic expectations. Coffee shops are primarily places for people to eat and gather, so you can't be upset when people do just that. These spaces are not designed to be workspaces and you have to adjust your expectations about the noise and activity level. It might be tempting to ask that table of high school girls to be quieter or the toddler across the room to stop running about, but that's not your job and it's not appropriate of you to ask that of strangers in a place where people come for conversation. If you truly need quiet space, many libraries have designated quiet areas and larger cities usually have rentable coworking spaces designated for just working. And if you are going to the library, remember that the library doesn't cost you anything as opposed to a coffee shop or a coworking space. Also, don't hog space. If the establishment is absolutely packed and there are no available tables, it's not good etiquette to take up an entire table for hours on end. Try to choose a lower traffic shop if this is something that you regularly observe happening in your preferred one or come in outside of peak hours. Likewise, it's generally considered impolite in America to use your belongings to hold the table more than a minute or two. And if, depending on where you are in the country, if you leave your belongings at the table for too long without being there to attend them, there's a fair chance that something's going to get stolen. It's also a good idea to have some situational awareness about cords and not being a tripping hazard. If you're using a charger, make sure the cord isn't going into an employee space like the condiment bar or causing a tripping hazard for others. Likewise, make sure that your bags are also situated on the floor in such a way that others won't easily trip on them or have to step over them. Another point is no pacing. Many of us like to pace while working or thinking, but that's generally considered annoying or even unsettling and threatening in a public space like a coffee shop or a library or a waiting room. [As for] making noise, how appropriate it is to take a video or a phone call will depend greatly on your environment. Some coffee shops have many people working and it's normal there. In a small town coffee shop where the locals gather to talk about the forecast or local news or the local parade at great length, it's most likely going to be inappropri

  3. Aug 3

    Episode 314: A Second Bonus Audiobook Short Story!

    In this week's episode, I share the audio version of my short story SOULBLADES, as narrated by Brad Wills. I also provide updates on my current writing and publishing projects. If you want to listen to the complete short story collection, it is available here: https://www.audible.com/pd/Tales-of-the-Shield-Knight-Audiobook/B0D68C3S22 This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Flames, Book #2 in The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: FLAMES50 The coupon code is valid through August 17, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered!

  4. Jul 27

    Episode 313: Worldbuilding Questions From Andomhaim

    In this week's episode, I answer worldbuilding questions about my setting of Andomhaim, and discuss the future of THE GHOSTS series. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store: JULYGHOSTS The coupon code is valid through August 10, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 313 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July the 24th, 2026 and today we're answering world-building questions about Andomhaim, which is the setting of my Frostborn, Sevenfold Sword, Dragontiarna, Dragonskull, Shield War, and Blades of Ruin series. We also have one bonus world-building question about the Caina series. Before we get into all that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. Let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store. That code is JULYGHOSTS. As always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through August the 10th, 2026, so if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report I am done with the rough draft of Cloak of Frost. It was just slightly over 100,000 words. Now I am writing a bonus short story called Metal Soldiers, and [newsletter] subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Metal Soldiers when Cloak of Frost comes out, which if all goes well, should be sometime in August. So I think this is an excellent time, therefore, to subscribe to my new release newsletter. My secondary project is Blade of Visions, and I am 11,000 words into that. There's also a good deal of news about audiobooks. Dragon-Mage, as narrated by Leanne Woodward, is finished and is rolling out to the various stores right now. As of this recording, you can get it at my own Payhip store, Google Play, and Kobo (with more stores soon to follow). Recording on Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest is very nearly done, and I hope to have more news on that soon. Brad Wills is currently working on Blade of Thieves and Hollis McCarthy is recording Cloak of Worlds. So we should have a wide variety of audiobooks coming for you soon. 00:02:00 Questions about Caina Before we get to our main topic, we have a bonus question about Caina. When I said my next project was going to be Cloak of Frost, I got a couple of questions like this: Just wondering when/if there will be another Caina novel to look forward to? The answer is not right now, but maybe later. I am glad and appreciative that people want more Caina books. That said, I don't want more than three unfinished series at any one time, and I've got three right now with Blades of Ruin, Cloak Mage, and Half-Elven Thief. So I'm not starting anything new until one of the three is done. If you reach the end of Ghost in the Siege, which is the latest current Caina book, you know that the series was at a pretty significant stopping point. If I want to keep going, I need to think long and hard about how to do it right. I do have a couple of ideas, but I need to think about them some more. It's almost like we'd have to shift to a slightly different genre of fantasy than the Caina books have been previously. The tricky part is Caina has changed a great deal since Child of the Ghosts. The tricky part in that is that sequels in a long-running series need to be more of the same, but also something different. There have been 35 Caina novels. So I've done that quite a bit. But Caina has had some experiences that have very much changed her life. To use a rough comparison, it's like she became a justice on the US Supreme Court or the governor of one of the five largest US states in the sense that once you've had change in your life that significant, your life will never be the same afterwards. And without spoilers, Caina had a shift that big at the end of Ghost in the Siege. So more Caina is definitely a possibility, but I need to think about it some more and it definitely won't be before 2027 until I finish one of my three currently unfinished series. 00:03:35 Main Topic of the Week: Andomhaim Worldbuilding Questions Now onto our main topic, which is I had some world-building questions about Andomhaim from Frostborn come in lately. So I thought I would answer them here. Question #1: Why hasn't the Heptarchy invaded Andomhaim again? The answer is money, basically. Remember that the ultimate purpose of the Heptarchy is to provide an endless supply of sacrificial victims for the Seven Temples' altars so the seven urdmordar who rule the Heptarchy can endlessly feed. These seven urdmordar don't have much interest in the day-to-day governance, so their spiderling priestesses essentially run the Heptarchy as an exceptionally malignant theological bureaucracy. However, while the priestesses are evil, they're efficient and very good at their jobs. In practice, the Heptarchy tends to operate more like an imperial confederation or a very loose federal government than an actual empire. Kingdoms, tribes, and city states have a great deal of autonomy so long as one, taxes are paid in time and two, sacrificial victims are taken to the temples on time. To help encourage this, all the various local rulers in the Heptarchy tend to have priestess advisors who make sure that the rulers make the "correct" decisions. So when things go awry, the Seven Temples have a wide array of tools to deal with difficulties, from assassinating and replacing truculent rulers with more tractable successors all the way up to exterminating entire populations and settling new colonists upon the depopulated lands. The difficulty of the Heptarchy is that the seven urdmordars are gluttons and gluttony is impossible to satiate. So when the Heptarchy learned of Andomhaim and the possibility of an entirely new land to conquer and feed upon, of course they had to conquer it. The priestesses built an enormous fleet and gathered a vast army and sent it three and a half thousand miles across the ocean to Andomhaim. Of course, if you've read the Dragontiarna series, you know that this didn't go well. The Heptarchy seized the Isle of Kordain and had early successes in Andomhaim, but Agravhask, the commander of the invasion force, was secretly a disciple of the Warden of Urd Morlemoch, and he seized control of the Heptarchy force and used it to further the Warden's goals. The Visionary foresaw this happening, but didn't care because it gave her an opportunity to try and capture her old enemy, Tarmyntir. So the Heptarchy didn't conquer Andomhaim, and then 10 years later they lost control of the Isle of Kordain, their only stronghold near Andomhaim. To put this situation in contemporary terms, this is a significant geopolitical setback or to put it in popular vernacular, it's "taking a massive L." The Seven Temples spent a colossal fortune on the invasion force and in return got back exactly nothing. Even evil sorcerous empires are bound to the laws of economics. In The Ghosts books, the Umbarian Order failed to figure this out. And it would take a while for the Heptarchy to pay for and assemble another invasion force of that size. And since the first invasion force had failed, there wasn't much appetite for pulling together a second one. So now the official policy of the Heptarchy towards Andomhaim is quiet CIA-style subversion. The Spider Cult was founded to secretly bring nobles and wealthy merchants to the worship of the Seven Temples. It might take a century or so, but the plan is to eventually place a spider cultist on the throne of Andomhaim and then send a sympathetic ruler an army to back him or her up. Of course, the Brotherhood of the Ravens is aware of this and has been fighting the Spider Cult in the shadows. So that is why the Heptarchy hasn't tried to invade Andomhaim again- it costs too much, the outcome is uncertain, and the priestesses have decided a careful subversion (which costs much less than an invasion) will work out better in the long run. Question #2: Is Blades of Ruin really inspired by the English Civil War of 1138 to 1153 AD? Yes. Why? Because alcohol and boats are a very bad combination. In the 12th century, the Kings of England were also the Dukes of Normandy and were more interested in Normandy than in England, so they spent a great deal of time on both sides of the English Channel. In November of 1120, King Henry I wanted to return to England, but allowed much of his retinue to travel on another ship. That included his heir and only legitimate son William, several of his bastard children, and numerous high ranking members of his court. Everyone on William's ship was quite drunk, including the crew, and decided it would be a good idea to try and overtake King Henry's ship on the English Channel at night in November. Remember how I said alcohol and boats were a bad combination? William decided that he wanted to overtake his father's ship, and since a significant portion of everyone on his ship was drunk, they ended up crashing into some rocks, the ship sank, and most of the passengers and crew drowned, including William. For Henry, this was an absolute disaster since he had put a lot of work into setting up William as his heir. Henry then settled on his daughter Matilda as his heir and forced his vassals to take oaths so they would support her as his successor. When Henry died in 1135, Matilda assumed the throne, but her cousin Stephen of Blois seized the crown instead. Many of the lords of England were leery at the idea of a female monarch and Stephen was amiable and well-liked. Matilda was also imperious and had a knack for offending people at the worst possible time

  5. Jul 20

    Episode 312: Bonus Audiobook Short Story!

    In this week's episode, I share a bonus audiobook short story: GHOST ARIA, as narrated by Hollis McCarthy. I also provide an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Child of the Ghosts, Book #1 in The Ghosts series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: CAINAJULY The coupon code is valid through August 3, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered!

  6. Jul 13

    Episode 311: File Management For Indie Authors

    In this week's episode, we share nine tips and tricks to help indie authors manage their files. Since I now have 174 novels, file management has become important! This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store: JULYSKULL The coupon code is valid through July 27, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 311 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 10th, 2026. Today we are discussing file management tips for indie authors. Before we get into that, we'll have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is JULYSKULL. As always, the coupon code and the links to the appropriate pages in my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through July the 27th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As I mentioned last week, Blade of Thieves is now out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, Bookshop.org, and my own Payhip store. It is selling well and people seem to be enjoying it, so thank you all for that. Now that Blade of Thieves is out, my next main project is Cloak of Frost, which will be the 15th book in the Cloak Mage urban fantasy series. As of this recording, I am 52,000 words into it. I'm thinking the rough draft will be about 100,000 words. So if all goes well, I hope to have the book out in August. My secondary project is Blade of Visions, the sequel to Blade of Thieves, and I am 4,000 words into that. Once Cloak of Frost is finished, Blade of Visions will become my new main project. In audiobook news, recording is done for Dragon-Mage, the sixth book in the Rivah series, and that will be excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward. I just have to proof/listen to that and then we can submit it to QA and then it should be showing up on the audiobook stories in a few weeks. Recording has started on Cloak of Worlds, which will be [recorded by] Hollis McCarthy, and Blade of Thieves, which will be [recorded by] Brad Wills. So look for more news and updates about that in the coming weeks. So that is where I'm at with current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:16 Main Topic of the Week: File Organization for Writers So let's move on to our main topic this week, file organization tips for writers. One of the inspirations for this episode was an episode of the sitcom Community, which is quite funny. In the episode, the college is making a movie based on a legal loophole because they have some archival footage of a suddenly popular actor. One of the characters, Jeff, becomes concerned that people aren't treating the movie as seriously as they would deserve. So he steals the laptop with the movie and sets out to edit it himself. However, Jeff doesn't know anything about editing a movie, so he watches a YouTube tutorial about how to edit videos. The first lesson is "Step 1: How to properly organize your files." Jeff rages that no, he just wants to learn how to edit movies. While realizing that proper file organization is vital in the age of digital video editing, maintaining a good file structure isn't quite as rigid for authors and writers as it would be for video editors. However, even though many people consider file structure to be old-fashioned or pointless in the age of Google Docs and AI, in my years working in IT, I found that people wasted many hours trying to find files unnecessarily. For example, I always flinch a little bit when I see someone whose desktop is just a wall of misplaced icons and thousands of documents stacked upon each other. I used to do tech support for someone who had the most amazing gift for the most unhelpful and un-useful file names, often with misspelled words. He would get very frustrated and angry that he couldn't find anything because he hadn't labeled files properly with good file names. Better file structures and file naming conventions would have saved them all that stress and time. It's not wise to have all your files stacked up on your desktop and hope for the best. As you grow as a writer, files suddenly become much more complicated than one single draft in a word processing file. There needs to be organization for audiobook files, cover art, marketing materials, research, and much more. Blade of Thieves was my 174th book. So if you think about it, that means I have 174 separate book files on my computer. Many of them have audiobooks. They all have cover art. The audiobooks have cover art, to say nothing of the hundreds of short stories I've written and all of that needs to be organized properly so I can find it when I need it to. So today we're going to talk about setting up and organizing file structures for your writing work. First of all, what do I mean by file structures? In traditional computing, files like Word documents and Excel spreadsheets are organized in folders. How you navigate through the folder structure on your computer or server to find the files is called a path. Much like with a real path on a hiking trail, you want the path to find a file in a folder to be as clear from junk and confusion as possible. Good file and folder naming is like setting up signs on that hiking trail to help you find the way. Setting up your folders and files correctly makes them easier to use, find, and share with others. So let's go through some tips on how to properly organize your writing files and save yourself much stress and hassle of trying to find things. #1: Make a plan before you begin. Instead of borrowing someone else's file structure, take some time to think about how you use your writing files every day. Do you have a lot of project files for each book like book research, cover ideas, mood boards, and so on? Do you do most of your writing collaboratively? Think about your working style, the amount of files you have, and what kind of files you have that need organizing. It helps to plan for flexibility and growth in the future as the amount of files you have grows. For example, if someone currently runs only ads on Amazon but wants to add other companies like Facebook or BookBub, it'd be messier to add files from those projects if everything in their advertising folder was all Amazon documents with no sub-folder for Amazon. Making an Amazon sub-folder right away in your advertising folder prevents confusion as you start to add other companies into your advertising strategy. What you design should be realistic and as simple to use as possible. Are you someone who makes grand and complicated plans, but then sees them fall by the wayside after a couple of weeks? Many people are. Good organization is something where it's easy to let the perfect be the enemy of the possible. If you design overly complicated file and folder structures and naming conventions that you can't remember without a 20-page guide, you're not very likely to keep up with it. It's better to make something simple that it's easy to remember. Carve out the time to do this with your full attention instead of trying to do it in bits and pieces on the fly. It may take anywhere from an hour to days, depending on how many writing files you have. At the very least, set up the initial folders in one chunk of time so the organization is in place before you start moving files around. #2: Clean up before you start organizing. Get rid of duplicate and obsolete files before starting to organize other files. It will save time and make the process easier. #3: File structure is supported by good naming. Versions and drafts should be numbered to find the most recent one. Be specific. "Second draft" or "Volume one" without a book title isn't helpful if there are multiple books with that name across multiple folders. If you are using dates, be sure to include day, month, and year because in 10 years, "March ads" is not going to make much sense without the context of a year. Be consistent in how you order month, date, and year in a file because being inconsistent with it could make for mixed up dates. #4: Version control. "Rough draft THIS ONE" is not a good name to indicate that this is the latest draft and never use "final" as part of a draft or project name until it's well and truly done. On both Windows, Mac, and Linux, you get 256 characters for file names and it's a good idea to use them to be as descriptive as possible in your file names. #5: Be consistent. Don't make a folder called "Fix These File Names Later" because guess what? That date won't come. In the meantime, you'll probably get annoyed trying to find one of those files that don't have a correct name. If you're struggling with remembering to use your folder and file names, either make yourself a one-page reminder guide or take it as a sign that you might have made your structure and naming conventions too complicated. Remember that simpler is always better. #6: Document it. As with so many areas of life, proper documentation will help you remember something in the future. Write out how your folders are going to be structured, what style and formatting you will use to name the folders and files, and give yourselves some examples to jog your memory. If you're sharing the files and folders with others, make sure to share documentation with them and go over the system with them. That will save much time later since you won't have to spend so much time explaining to people where to find things in your file structure. #7: Decluttering isn't just for your college t-shirts. Schedule a regular time monthly or quarterly t

  7. Jul 6

    Episode 310: 5 Lessons Indie Authors Can Learn From Tradpub

    In this week's episode, we take a look at 5 lessons indie authors can learn from tradpub. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Crown of the Gods, Book #9 in the Dragonskull series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store: JULYCROWN The coupon code is valid through July 20, 2026. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 310 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 2nd, 2026 and today we are discussing five lessons indie authors can learn from traditional publishing. Given how negative I've been about traditional publishing over the years, that may be a bit of a surprise, but we will find out more later. We will also have a Coupon of the Week and a progress update at my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Crown of the Gods, Book #9 of my Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is JULYCROWN. As always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through July 20th, 2026, so if you need a new audiobook for your summer travels, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report that Blade of Thieves is now done and published. Once this episode goes out, you should be able to get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, bookshop.org, and my own Payhip store. It's starting off strong, so thank you to everyone who is reading and enjoying it. Thank you for everyone being patient while I got to it. Now that Blade of Thieves is finished, my next main project will be Cloak of Frost, the 15th book in the Cloak Mage urban fantasy novel series. I'm currently 24,000 words into that. I think the rough draft will be about 100,000 words. If all goes well, I hope to have that out in August. My new secondary project is now Blade of Visions, which of course will be the direct sequel to Blade of Thieves. As of this recording, I am 1,000 words into it. In audiobook news, Leanne Woodward has started recording Dragon-Mage and Hollis McCarthy is currently recording Cloak of Worlds, which was the 13th book in the Cloak Mage series. In a few days after this, Brad Wills is going to start recording on Blade of Thieves. So we should have a bunch of new audiobooks coming up for you to listen to before too much longer, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:23 Main Topic of the Week: 5 Things Indie Authors Can Learn From TradPub Now onto our main topic this week, five lessons indie authors can learn from TradPub. Given how critical I have been and continue to be of traditional publishing on this blog and my podcast, this might come as a bit of a surprise and this should be in no way an endorsement for anyone to pursue traditional publishing. My blunt opinion is that if you are a new author starting out, you are much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much better served going indie instead of traditionally publishing. You will retain ownership over your IP. You will potentially be able to make more money and you won't have to deal with the various problems endemic in traditional publishing. Occasionally I see on social media a newish author trying to get an agent or being excited that an agent responded to their query letter or whatever. I don't do this because arguing with strangers on the internet is a waste of time, but I want to tell them, "Don't do this. Go indie. You'll be much happier in the long run and you won't have to worry about your agents stealing all your money," of which there have been documented cases that have happened. Now with all those caveats aside, traditional publishing has lasted for a long time. There is a reason that traditional publishing has survived so many changes and continues in many different forms to this day. And while I wouldn't recommend that you pursue traditional publishing, there are things you can learn from it to enhance your career as an indie author. So today I'm going to talk about five things you can learn from TradPub as an indie author. #1: Your book doesn't exist in a vacuum. Many authors are resistant to their book being put into categories or being paired with similar books. I've frequently noticed that aspiring and first time authors are particularly resistant to the either idea of their book best fitting into a single category or being similar to another authors. It doesn't mean that your book isn't creative or unique, it's accepting the reality of bookselling. Even in the modern indie era, books are still very much classified by a limited number of categories on book sites and ads are built on comparing your books to other authors. Focus on the category that best represents your book if it spans genres and focus extra effort on finding similar authors to help potential readers understand what type of book you are offering. For example, I had this problem with Cloak Games and Cloak Mage for a couple of years because the series is primarily an urban fantasy, but it's also set 300 years in the future. There are increasing science fiction elements in the series. The protagonist has visited several different planets and so forth, so trying to cram that all into an ad description or an ad targeting is a difficult proposition. I had better success when I started describing the series as the Dresden Files crossed with the Shadowrun RPG, which readers of it will say probably captures it quite well and then in the marketing, I always focus on the urban fantasy elements. I don't even mention the sci-fi elements because I think that's a fair representation of the book is that it's 80% urban fantasy with some sci-fi stuff in the background. So that is an example from my own books that I've done where I have emphasized the urban fantasy and contemporary fantasy aspect of Cloak Mage in the advertising and then just didn't mention the rest of the stuff in the other advertising. Traditional publishers even create the feeling of similarity with their own books by using the same artists and styles for their book covers. There was a post going around last year showing all the romance books with blue covers, cartoon figures facing each other while outside, and swooping white font. Book genres have conventions and trends in their covers. Instead of fighting that, you might want to take a time to look at the best sellers in your category to take note of what's working for other authors in your category. A book cover doesn't have to match everything about your book. It just has to give people a quick impression of what the book is about so it makes sense and doesn't confuse people and gives them something that is least in line with genre expectations. My rule of thumb for book covers is always that it should, in a space of two seconds of looking at a book cover, it should tell you the title of the book, the author of the book, and the genre of the book and it should do this all in an aesthetically pleasing and attractive matter. Those are essentially the four rules for a successful book cover, that you look at it and you can within two seconds know the title, the author, the genre, and it's presented in aesthetically pleasing and attractive manner. So to get a good book cover for your category, it would be a good idea to look at the other books in your category and see if you can find a design that while it doesn't copy the other designs, nonetheless follows some of the same design rules. #2: Timing matters. Traditional publishing is largely based on three seasons: spring, summer, and fall. By building the release schedule this way, it offers reliability for booksellers and libraries and each season has a general theme that makes it easier to market new releases. For example, fall has a lot of prestige literary fiction titles while summer might focus more on beach reads and SATs study guides. Indie publishing isn't beholden to this type of thinking about scheduling book releases, but it's smart to learn from what has worked for traditional publishing over the last couple centuries. Book sales in the US are generally a little softer in January and the summer and peak around the winter gift giving season. Thrillers often get published in September and October so they can get the "spooky season" boost from people looking for Halloween adjacent reads. It makes sense to look at the rhythm of what has been working for bookselling in your genre and see if there's a time that is especially advantageous for you to put out your book where you're just starting out and don't have very much in the way of your own sales data yet. For myself, I found what indie authors really need to watch out for is holidays. Publishing a book the day before Christmas or the day after Christmas is not a good idea. One of the reasons I didn't rush to get Blade of Thieves out the last week of June is because a lot of people will be taking the last week of June off because it leads right into the 4th of July holiday, which is why Blade of Thieves came out after 4th of July. I'd say the weakest times in my experience for indie authors are generally on November, December (because of the late Christmas), and then August and September also tend to be fairly weak because that is back to school time, which is very often very expensive and a financial strain for many people, in addition to their time and energy being focused on things other than recreational reading. Also, I've been doing this long enough to say this with some authority is that presidential election years, esp

  8. Jun 29

    Episode 309: Seven Tips For Audiobook Profitability For Indie Authors

    In this week's episode, we offer 7 tips indie authors can use to help their audiobooks turn a profit on production costs. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Night series at my Payhip store: JUNENIGHT The coupon code is valid through July 13, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 309 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 26th, 2026 and today we are sharing seven tips for audiobook profitability for indie authors. Before we get to that, we will have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up is Coupon of the Week and this week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Night series at my Payhip store. That code is JUNENIGHT. And as always, the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through July the 13th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook series to read this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I am pleased to report I am on the second editing pass of Blade of Thieves. I am about 13% of the way through that. And so if all goes well, I think the book will be out after the 4th of July weekend/second week in July, if all goes well. I have a few real life things to do that might slow that down, but I am very, very keen to finally have this book out after the 4th of July weekend. After Blade of Thieves is published, my next project will be Cloak of Frost, the 15th book in the Cloak Mage series. I am 17,000 words into that and I am hoping that will be out in August, if all goes well. I have no audiobooks currently in production, but that will change next month because Brad Wills will be recording Blade of Thieves once it's done. Hollis McCarthy will be recording Cloak of Worlds and Leanne Woodward will be recording Dragon-Mage. So we'll go from having no audiobooks being worked on to a bunch being worked on all at once. Funny how things tend to bunch up like that. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing and audiobook projects. 00:01:59 The Economics of Audiobook Production for Indie Authors [All money amounts mentioned are in USD.] Now today I want to talk about a very advanced level indie author topic, namely audiobook production and the economics of it. Recently there's been some controversy because ACX (which is Amazon's audiobook production platform) has been changing its royalty model and rolling out what they call synthetic voice, which is basically an AI generated voice. Some writers have been using it because it's a lot cheaper than a good human narrator, but the flip side is that not many people like listening to it and won't pay money for it. Admittedly, synthetic voice is not fundamentally a new technology. Text to speech has been around forever. Macs have had it since I believe 1984, back when 120 kilobytes of RAM was a lot. As a brief digression, I wish the term AI hadn't been bandied about so liberally. Before the public backlash began against generative AI and data centers, the term AI was trendy, so it got slapped on a lot of things that are actually wildly different than generative AI. I saw a post where someone was complaining about the locations in Starfield being AI generated, when in fact they're procedurally generated, which is something totally different. Anyway, synthetic voice is just a more advanced version of the text to speech technology that's been around since the early 1980s. The fear is that AI generated audiobooks will swamp the market and dominate most of ACX's payment model. Now, while that is a valid fear, I strongly suspect that it is not going to work out that way, given the hostility I have observed towards synthetic voices, especially in fiction. I think what'll happen is authors who use synthetic voice will save a lot of money by not paying a narrator, but then they won't actually make any money because no one will want to buy these machine voiced audiobooks. I have some basis for that because in the early 2020s, I experimented with making synthetic voice versions of my Silent Order science fiction series and putting them on YouTube. The overwhelming response was that people liked the story but hated the computer generated voice. It might be different for nonfiction. A romance novel with a synthetic voice would obviously be quite flat, but that wouldn't matter as much for a primer on tax law or agriculture or something similar. So there's a lot of uncertainty on whether or not audiobooks can still be profitable for indie authors. However, I suggest this is nothing new. Audiobooks have always been indie publishing on hard mode, partly because they're expensive to produce and partly because they're harder to sell than ebooks and sometimes even paperbacks. That said, I'm on my eighth year of self-publishing audiobooks and some of them have made back their production costs and turned a profit. So I thought it would share seven tips on how to have profitable self-published audiobooks. #1: Think long term. If you want your audiobooks to be profitable, you need to think in the long term. ACX has this program called Royalty Share where rather than pay a narrator, you and the narrator split the royalties on the audiobook for the next seven years and after those seven years are passed, you get all these subsequent royalties. I've never taken this option, but I cite it here because I think seven years is not an unreasonable amount of time for an audiobook to earn back its production cost. People always blanch a bit when I say that, but I've been doing self-published audiobooks for eight years now, so let's see how some of them have done. The Frostborn audiobooks, 100% of them have earned back their production cost. Of the 24 Ghosts books in audio, about the first 10 have earned back their production cost. For Cloak Mage, of the 12 Cloak Mage books currently in audio, about the first three and a half have earned back their production cost. For Dragonskull, of the nine Dragonskull books, the first three and a half have earned back their production cost. For Malison, of the four Malison books, they have 100% earned back their production cost. It helps that they're short. For The Shield War, of the six Shield War books, the first one has earned back its production costs, but I only started the series in 2023. The Linux Command Line Beginner's Guide (my one nonfiction book) has totally earned back its production cost. So I don't think seven years is an unreasonable length of time to earn back the production cost for an audiobook. That means you have to think long term, almost like a small business owner buying a new piece of equipment. Depending on the business, the owner might budget for the equipment making back what he paid for it in four or five years, or if he has to take out a loan to buy the equipment, he'll calculate how long it'll take to pay back that loan. Like for example, I just had to pay a lot of money to have these struts in my car fixed and I expect the garage owner carefully considered how much he would spend on his vehicle hoist since I believe a new vehicle hoist and installation typically costs between $7,000 and $12,000 and how long it would take him to make back that money. All successful small business owners have to think like this. Now this mindset is a bit tricky for indie authors because we often have a strong tendency to think in the short term, especially new indie authors who want their books to make a ton of money right now. But as I said above, audiobooks are self-publishing on hard mode, so you need to decide whether it is worth the investment and if you're comfortable waiting a few years to earn back the production cost over time. The reality is that if you are paying a professional narrator to create an audiobook, you're paying $200 per finished hour or above, which is a small business expense. So for that kind of money, you need to think about the audiobook like a small business owner. #2: Deductions First off, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice and I am not an accountant and this is not investment/financial advice. If you want financial/investment advice, you should talk to an accountant or financial planner properly certified with the tax laws of your state, province, and nation. If you want legal advice, you should talk to a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. The way my writing business is set up, I can take the production cost of audiobooks as a deduction against my taxes. This initially was one of the reasons I got into self-published audiobooks in the first place way back in 2018. I realized that if I was going to have to pay the money in taxes anyway, I might as well spend some of it on audio production instead, since that way I'll at least get a revenue generating asset out of it. Other small businesses will sometimes do this when they approach the end of their fiscal year and realize they have more tax liability than expected, so it's probably time to invest in some new equipment or upgrades that they would need anyway. Like maybe the garage owner we mentioned earlier has a really good year so he decides it's a good time to spend that $12,000 on a new vehicle hoist so he doesn't have quite so high a tax bill at the end of the year. I once had someone tell me rather self-righteously that this was a tax dodge and therefore immoral, but that's ridiculous. [Transcriptionist's side note: I wish I had that person's level of unearned confidence. I'd use it for cliff diving or starting a library just for puppies and the weirdest, clumsiest orange cats. Literally anything else.] No less of an authority than Jesus Christ himself said that to render under Caesar what

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About

Hosted by Jonathan Moeller (author of the FROSTBORN and SEVENFOLD SWORD fantasy series and the SILENT ORDER scifi series), the Pulp Writer Show discusses how to write, format, publish, and sell your novel. Sometimes there are jokes.

Information

  • Creator
    Jonathan Moeller
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    317
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Jonathan Moeller
  • Show Website
    The Pulp Writer Show

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