In this week’s episode, we take a look at professional development for writers, and examine both the benefits and the pitfalls.
We also take a look at my advertising results for March 2025.
This week’s coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Curse of the Orcs, Book #4 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store:
ORCCURSE50
The coupon code is valid through April 25, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we’ve got you covered!
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 246 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is April 4, 2025, and today we are looking at professional development for writers. Before we get to our main topic, we’ll have Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing and audiobook projects, Question of the Week, and then a look back at how my various ads performed for March 2025.
So let’s start off with Coupon of the Week. This week’s coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Curse of the Orcs, Book Four in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is ORCCURSE50. As always, you can find the coupon code and the links to my store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through April 25th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we have got you covered.
Now for an update on my current writing projects. I’m very pleased to report that the rough draft of Shield of Battle is done, 102,800 words written in 22 days. That will be the second to last book in the Shield War series. If all goes well, I’m still hoping to have that out and edited and published before the end of the month. I’m now working on a currently untitled short story that newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook form when Shield of Battle comes out. So this might be a great time to sign up for my new release newsletter. I am also 10,000 words into Ghost in the Corruption and that will be my main project after Shield of Battle is out.
Recording is still underway for Shield of Deception and Ghost in the Assembly. That is Brad Wills and Hollis McCarthy narrating, respectively. So I am looking forward to having those audiobooks out for you to listen to and then Shield the Battle and Ghost in the Corruption available for you to read, but I just have to get back to work on them.
00:01:48 Question of the Week
Now it’s time for Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week’s question, what games (if any) are you currently playing? No wrong answers, including “I don’t play video games”. The inspiration for this question was that the fact that Nintendo was having this big Switch 2 announcement on April 2, which is amusing to me personally on a meta level because people have been speculating wildly about a Switch successor for years. Baseless Switch 2 rumors have been a clickfarm industry for years. Probably Nintendo had to have it on April 2 so no one would think it was a really elaborate April Fool’s Day joke.
Justin says: Online it would be World of Warcraft Classic. Otherwise, it is Conquest of the New World. Like me, my games are old and dated.
I can relate to Justin because I’m currently playing a game that was first made in 1994, but more on that later.
Sam says: Currently dancing between two games, my long-term love game, Final Fantasy 14 and Dragon Age: the Veilguard. The Veilguard was a massive disappointment for me, unfortunately, but it still has its reasonably okay points, but man, the developers dropped the ball in the worst way since Cyberpunk’s disastrous release.
That’s interesting because I’ve actually encountered a couple different people who have played Dragon Age: Veilguard and they either love it or hate it. There is just no in-between. So that does seem to be the kind of game where you either love the thing or you just hate it.
Todd says: Enjoying No Man’s Sky, waiting for Light No Fire. Continuing to grind World of Warcraft retail. Recently played the re-release of Half Life. Today, I also installed Lands of Lore, gotta love Patrick Stewart as King Richard!
I had forgotten that Patrick Stewart voiced King Richard back in the ‘90s in the Lands of Lore game. His most famous video game part (I think) is playing Emperor Uriel Septim in the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
JKM says: Monster Hunter Wilds and Star Citizen.
Jesse says: Been doing an on and off run on Enshrouded. The story hasn’t hugely gripped me as yet, but the mechanics are fun if you like Breath of the Wilds-esque world exploration.
Michael says: I’m currently playing Star Traders: Frontiers, which is a 2D indie space trading/exploration/crew management game in a vaguely Dune-like setting. It has turn based squad combat in Darkest Dungeon style too. Originally a mobile game but mechanics are surprisingly deep. It’s good fun.
Randy says: Wizardry Remaster. Ironic because I didn’t play the original.
For myself, I am kind of alternating between three current games. I am playing the Master of Magic remake on the PC and I’m determined to finally beat a campaign at that. I am still playing Iratus: Lord of the Dead and drawing closer to the final level. And when I’m really tired and don’t want to do anything else that requires a lot of brain power, I still fire up some Starfield and go really mess up the day of some procedurally generated space pirates.
So watch my website and Facebook for Question of the Week if you want to have your comment read on the show as well.
00:04:39 Ad Results for March 2025
Now let’s look at how my ads for my books did in March 2025, which is interesting because I changed things up a fair bit for ads in March.
The reason I did this is because the economy isn’t great and not likely to improve for several years. I saw someone arguing that all the policy decisions in the Covid era will have a 15 year economic hangover into which we’re only five years, and I think that argument might have some merit to it. So because of that, I thought it might be prudent to move some older series into Kindle Unlimited. So I did that with the Demonsouled books and with Cloak Games, though not with Cloak Mage, which will remain wide as new books come out. I might do it with Silent Order as well, but I haven’t decided. My thinking is that as people are looking to economize, subscription services will probably offer better value than direct book sales.
So let’s see how we did. For Facebook ads, I did Cloak Games/Cloak Mage and The Ghosts. For Games/Cloak Mage, I got $4.14 back for every $1 spent, with 10% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. For The Ghosts, I got back $8.73 for every dollar spent, with 6% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. Obviously the total for The Ghosts might be inflated because of Ghosts in the Assembly, which did well. Thanks, everyone! Without Ghosts in the Assembly, The Ghosts still would’ve done $3.68 for every dollar spent, with 15% for the profit coming from the audiobooks. So still pretty good.
For Amazon ads, I mostly focused on Half-Elven Thief. Remember that for an Amazon ad to be successful, it needs to get a sale or a complete Kindle Unlimited read for every six to eight clicks. So for Half-Elven Thief, I got back $3.41 for every $1 spent, with a sale or a complete KU read for every 0.84 clicks, which is a really good result.
However, it was not all roses in Amazon ads because I gave up on advertising Stealth and Spells Online: Creation. I’ve realized I fundamentally misunderstood what readers in the LitRPG actually want. I’m still going to finish the series this summer with the final book. I am 75,000 words into it as of this recording, but I don’t think I’m going to advertise the series anymore.
For Demonsouled, I did a combined Facebook/Amazon ads campaign and for a combined campaign like that, it’s easiest just to track the return. So for Demonsouled, I got back $2.53 for every dollar spent on Facebook and Amazon ads. So that was pretty close to how it did in February.
I also did some BookBub ad campaigns for The Ghosts and Sevenfold Sword on Apple. For The Ghosts, we got back $9.24 for every dollar I spent and for Sevenfold Sword, I got back $6.76 back for every dollar spent. So those are some very good results.
Finally, I’ve begun experimenting with BookBub ads for Google Play. I tried out Sevenfold Sword first and for Sevenfold Sword on Google Play with BookBub ads, we got back $3.86 for every dollar. So that is a promising beginning and I might try more experiments with BookBub ads and Google Play in May. So a good month all in all. Thanks for reading, everyone. Hopefully I’ll have more new books for you soon.
00:07:46 Main Topic: Professional Development
So our main topic this week will be part three of our series on writing adjacent activities, and that is professional development. As I mentioned on past episodes, I’m working on a new podcast series on what I call writing adjacent activities. What do I mean by this? I’m talking about the tasks that seem like they’re a part of the writing process but really belong in a different category.
These tasks are important, but they can also be a pitfall if you spend too much time on them or don’t use that time correctly. In this series, we’ll focus on a few of these tasks and how they can benefit or hinder your writing process, even though they seem like good uses of time and may in fact be beneficial in proper amounts.
In this episode, we’ll talk about professional development for writers. Those working in education, healthcare, or the corporate world will be very familiar with this concept. For those who aren’t familiar with professional development, let’s explain what it is. What is professional development and what is it for writers specifically? Professional development generally means gaining skills or knowledge that can help someone stay current in their field and grow in their work. In some fields like teaching or healthcare, professional development is required and must be done regularly.
Some examples of typical professional development tasks include learning a new programming language, attending conferences, and reading professional journals. Writers have many of these same opportunities. Ther are a slew of conferences, workshops, webinars, videos, courses, and books available for writers to hone their craft, pick up marketing skills, and learn the ever evolving technical skills needed to self-publish and have an online presence. Some of these options, especially conferences and retreats, can be very expensive and time consuming while others are free and quick to consume, such as blog posts or podcast episodes.
How can you benefit from professional development? There are five ways.
#1: You can learn information and techniques that can help you improve your writing. An example would be a workshop session presenting data on when readers typically give up when starting a new book, which can help you think about how your book is structured.
#2: You can learn about technology and software that can make your work more efficient or look more professional. An example of this would be tutorials on how to use formatting software to turn Word documents into a formatted ebook.
#3: In-person professional development can help you network with others in your field. For example, if one of your priorities is being added to group promotion, meeting other authors at a workshop or a conference could lead to more promising leads than just emailing people.
#4: You can keep up with the constant changes in the field and adjust your strategies and plans accordingly. For example, Amazon’s policies for KDP change constantly, sometimes monthly, it feels like. Writing blogs and podcasts can often explain these changes in a practical way that’s more efficient than trying to parse long legal documents yourself.
#5: Finally, and fifthly, some people find professional development motivational or it helps them to feel more excited about their work. An example is a phenomenon called the post conference high, when someone returns from a conference with a high level of excitement and a list of plans a mile long. It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day tasks of work and sometimes professional development can shake things up in a positive way.
So professional development can be a good thing, but there are ways it can hinder your writing process. So we’ll look at four ways that professional development can get in the way of you actually sitting down and getting some writing done.
#1: One of the downsides of being a writer is that professional development must be self-funded or you must pursue your own scholarships or grants for it, which are pretty limited compared to professional development in other fields. It is quite easy to spend tens of thousands of dollars on it each year, so each opportunity must be carefully considered. It’s important not to spend money without a clear plan for how to turn it into action and without researching less expensive (but still effective) options that might serve your purposes.
It’s also important to look carefully to see if you can find lower cost options before registering for something. For example, instead of going to a weeklong residential bootcamp to learn WordPress, you could find a community education class or a LinkedIn Learning class (which many libraries provide to their patrons). Do you need a full course offered by another author or are you only interested in one portion of it and can learn that information from a YouTube channel? There is a lot of nonsense on the Internet of course, but one of the advantages of living in the modern era is that there is an abundance of good free information. You just have to find it.
My podcast transcriptionist has something that she likes to call the Two Buck Chuck Principle. It is named after the store brand of wine from Trader Joe’s. That’s way back when it was $2 a bottle, hence the popular nickname for it. Many people refuse to stray from this cheapest available option at the store because they find it meets their alcohol related needs and refuse to buy more expensive bottles.
The point of this principle is that like those Trader Joe’s shoppers, my podcast transcriptionist will search for the free and low cost option for something first and then see what is missing from them that a more expensive option offers before buying the more expensive option. For example, if you’re just starting out as a writer, you may be tempted to pay $3,000 or $4,000 for consulting sessions about advertising strategies because you read a convincing testimonial. Realistically, if you only have one or two books with only a handful of reviews and you’re not willing to throw thousands of additional dollars on a professional style ad campaign, this would be severe overkill.
Applying the Two Buck Chuck Principle to this person’s ad spending, it would make more sense to learn the basics first through webinars and blog posts on the topic. Something like Brian Cohen’s Five Day Amazon Ad Challenge would teach the basics of using the interface and some strategies that keep a rookie from overspending or straying from their target audience. Once a writer has a few years of sales and several books in the same series, then perhaps it might be wise to progress to something more advanced and expensive, like hiring a consultant.
For most professional development, if you’re paying money, you’re either paying for being in a physical location or you’re paying for the time someone else took to assemble and present the knowledge for you (in the case of a conference or workshop, both). For the latter, you can usually apply this Two Buck Chuck Principle by taking the time to assemble the knowledge yourself or find others who have through blogs, podcasts, and lower cost books. Someone like Joanna Penn or David Gaughran provides a wealth of sensible advice through these types of much lower cost options.
#2: Professional development, like many other writing adjacent activities, can give you the illusion of progress. Knowing about something and actually doing it are very different things. You have to have a specific plan for how you will implement your professional development. The sooner you start after completing your professional development activity, the more likely you are to benefit from it. Even five minutes a day working on it helps keep the knowledge fresh and gives you the confidence to continue.
#3: The number of available options for professional development can be paralyzing and it can be easy to feel like you have to do it all. The fear of missing out is a very real phenomenon, but it’s necessary to combat it by being intentional with your time. Start by making your goals for the next year and then seeing what professional development you need to further those goals.
For example, if creating video content is not part of your goals for the year, then it doesn’t make sense to watch webinars on creating Instagram Reels or TikTok videos, even if you feel like it might be useful or you have a fear of missing out on the information. Your professional development, your goals, and your output all need to be in harmony in order to progress as a writer.
I have talked before about how a certain degree of tunnel vision is necessary to write at the pace that I do. Because I want to publish frequently, I often ignore conference and workshop opportunities because travel actively hinders my main goal of getting down as many words as possible each day.
#4: Professional development can take up so much time that it keeps you from the priority of writers, which is actually writing. Like the other writing adjacent activities out there, they expand to the size you’ll allow. Planning your professional development goals for the year when you’ve created your writing goals can help you be disciplined in choosing the activities that will serve you best and fit with the time you can give them.
For example, if your goal is to set up an author website in May, you can allocate a little block of time each day for that month to watching tutorials, reading instructions, checking out other author sites for inspiration, and testing out the software. You wouldn’t want to attend a three week intensive writing retreat in May because that would likely derail your progress on your other goal.
So finally, what do I personally do for professional development? What has helped me? I think the biggest help I had in terms of writing advice was a book called Billion Dollar Outlines by David Farland. It’s well worth reading and a good look at story structure and understanding story structure that I think would be very helpful if you’re struggling to finish an outline and write a book.
Most of my professional development since then has been aimed towards the goal of trying to sell as many books as possible. So I took the Self-Publishing Formula course on advertising for Facebook, which was very helpful. I read a couple of different books on Facebook advertising, which was helpful. What was really helpful was a course on Photoshop I took in 2020 and 2021 that really increased my Photoshop skills and gave me the ability to do my own covers, which is very helpful because you often have to book a cover designer out well in advance. So that was very useful. And beyond that, I keep an eye on the various writing podcasts and Facebook groups. I don’t really participate in the Facebook groups because that can be a huge time sink. Arguing with random people over the internet is not a productive use of time, but it is a good way to keep an eye on news within the indie author space and what people are doing and what trends you can expect to see. So that’s what I do.
In short, professional development, like so many other writing adjacent activities, is a good thing that can hinder your progress if it’s not done with intentionality and clear goals. As I said earlier in the podcast, your professional development, your goals, and your output all need to be harmonized in order to progress as a writer.
So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to the Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. And a quick note of thanks to my podcast transcriptionist for helping me to pull together the research for this episode. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.
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