289. Livestream/AMA: Book Marketing, Motivation, Language Learning, Picking a Project, and Selling Foreign Rights

<p>Today I have a special episode for you. If you missed <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVWzwjdCT5M">last month’s AMA/Livestream</a>, I’m delivering it right to your ears. In this AMA, I answered questions about:</p> <ul> <li>How should I start marketing my books?</li> <li>How can you cope with burnout that gets in the way of creative work?</li> <li>How can you market your books when it doesn’t come naturally?</li> <li>How did you build your audience and how long did it take? (How can you build an audience without “niching down”?)</li> <li>What’s the difference between an accountability partner and a creativity partner?</li> <li>How did you get your first book deal?</li> <li>How can you stay motivated and get help from others when you work in isolation?</li> <li>How can you create luck in creative work?</li> <li>Which is better: Medium, or Substack?</li> <li>Do you use editing software, such as Grammarly?</li> <li>How did you come up with the Seven Mental States of Creativity?</li> <li>Have you made soap lately?</li> <li>How are you improving your fiction and storytelling skills?</li> <li>How do you hack learning a new language?</li> <li>Why are you using a pen name to write fiction?</li> <li>What are good writing goals for a beginner?</li> <li>Why do you prefer self-publishing over traditional?</li> <li>How can you pick a creative project when you have too many ideas?</li> <li>How do you make foreign-rights deals for your books?</li> <li>What should do with lots of different content on different topics?</li> </ul> <p>I also mention in this <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVWzwjdCT5M">my new giveaway</a>, and I’ll tell you briefly about it now. I’m giving away 20 of my favorite creativity books. As you know from this show, I’m a creativity enthusiast. I love to think about how to tap into your creativity and motivate action, and I love stories about how all creators do that, whether they’re writers, painters, musicians, scientists – or do any kind of creative work.</p> <p>I’ve compiled a list