Mark Leslie is a writer, editor and bookseller who lives in Southern Ontario. In 2005, Mark joined the blogging bandwagon and started posting random thoughts and musings on writing, bookselling and being a father.
I had the opportunity to chat with Nichi of Dark Between Pages the other day during an hour long live chat. Okay, we went one hour and eighteen minutes. But that's because the chat was so fun, and the folks watching and commenting during that chat were so lively and entertaining.
We spent quite a bit of time talking about my Canadian Werewolf series . . .
Though we talked about all kinds of other writing things too, including my background helping authors steer clear of the predators and thieves trying to trick authors out of their money using a combination of "smoke and mirrors," false promises, and highly exaggerated "results" from their useless marketing packages.
It was a load of fun. It's always a grand time talking to someone who adores books.
I received a neat look at my YouTube stats for 2020.
Nope,
I am not any sort of YouTube sensation but I'm enjoying putting out creative
content and some folks are resonating with it. (A pretty strong
parallel to the books and stories I publish - hanging out in that broad
mid-list realm)
Of course the most popular new video this year
was early on during the first wave of Covid-19, when Liz and I performed Stuck in this House Here with You, a Stealers Wheel parody of "Stuck in
the Middle with You"
I think we did even better on the less popular K-Tel spoof commercial - a medley of pandemic-inspired parodies. Still Stuck, Still with You, Still in this House
I was so thrilled to create a CHEERS parody (that I'm curious to try to do more episodes of throughout the winter), when I put out Mark's Tavern (because I so MISSED hanging out in bars)
In January of this week I started a weekly podcast called Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing. I have released a new episode every Friday every single week since January 5th.
Sometimes the episodes are solo ones with me harping on about something in writing and publishing.
Most times the episodes are interviews with writers, creators, industry folks and other people who inspire me or I want to learn from.
There will likely be 54 episodes by the end of this year. Mostly because I made a math error and accidentally skipped an episode number and so felt obliged to quickly fill in a mini-episode so they all added up. I'll also be posted a special 50th episode post this coming weekend - just because I like that round number.
These two extra episodes in Season One will make it 54 episodes rather than 52.
But there are a lot fewer episodes of the podcast in Video format.
I use ZOOM to record most of the interviews that aren't done in person. And for those, I will ask the person I am interviewing if it's okay to use the video feed for sharing the interview portion on YouTube.
When they are okay with it, and, maybe more critical to the process, when I find/make the time to actually produce a video version, I post the videos to my Stark Reflections Playlist on YouTube.
For the sake of those who enjoy video over audio, here are some of the video interviews from a few different episodes:
Episode 5 - Global Audiobook Opportunities for Authors with Kelly Lytle
Episode 29 - Writing with Authenticy, Humor and Passion with Terry Fallis
Episode 21 - Real Connections in a Digital World with J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon
Episode 15 - The Process of a Writer's Life with Kevin Tumlinson
Episode 35 - Lessons Learned from the Novel Intensive Workshop with Ara Grigorian, Janis Thomas and Julie Strauss
Episode 48 - Publishing Strong with Andrea Pearson
Episode 45 - Co-Authoring with the Writers Behind C.K. Wikes (Kerrie Flanagan and Chuck Harrelson)
I haven't been all that great at capturing/keeping all of the video feeds to post in this format. But I did manage to get some short clips derived from some other episodes.
Like these excerpts, often from my own little post-interview reflections....
Using Digital Reading Analytics for Strategic Planning...
Understanding the Cost of Self-Publishing an eBook
And, for a funny, here's a blooper from Episode 16 with Natasha Bajema . . .
It's a great conversation where we talk about how Rob was the first science fiction writer to ever have a website and how he made sure to generously apply the keywords Science, Fiction and Writer throughout the site (aptly named SFWriter.com) in order to appear at the top of most keyword search results for people looking for a science fiction writer. (IE, when someone from the media wants to talk to a sci-fi writer about a recent scientific news item)
This (among other author brand exercises) has helped Rob land more than 400 radio and more than 400 television interviews over the years.
