How to Sell Your Book Before You Even Write a Single Word – With Rodney Washington

Are you locking yourself away for months to finish your book, only to realize no one knows it exists? In this episode of In the Writer’s Chair, host Lana McAra welcomes Rodney Washington, founder of Published and Thriving, to explain why waiting until your book is on Amazon to start marketing is a "Simba moment" that often leads to zero sales.

Rodney breaks down the essential shift from being "just an author" to becoming an authorpreneur—an identity that focuses on building relationships, community, and revenue streams long before the physical book is finished.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The "Simba" Fallacy: Why simply being on Amazon isn't enough to drive sales.
• Building on Rented Land: The danger of relying solely on social media and how to move your audience to an email list you own.
• The Interest Post Strategy: How to test your book idea and find "early adopters" with a simple social media post.
• Monetizing the Journey: How one client made over $5,000 and established recurring income for a book that is still in development.
• The $15 to $15k Story: Why the book is often just the "tangible" piece of a much larger, more profitable "product suite".
• Identity vs. Mindset: Why you need an "identity shift" to see yourself as a business owner who happens to write books.

About Our Guest:

Rodney Washington is the creator of the Authorpreneur Decision workshop series and the Published and Thriving incubator. With over 30 years of experience, he helps entrepreneurial-minded creators transform their expertise into thriving brands and profitable books.

Connect with Rodney Washington:

• Download the Blueprint: Access a preview chapter of his upcoming book, The Authorpreneur Decision, featuring in-depth case studies.
• Join the Community: Connect with the Published Creator School Community for weekly monetization mapping sessions.
• Visit his Website: http://authordecision.com/

Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by Vandela Publishing, a traditional publisher with an untraditional model that lets you keep your rights and royalties while providing a full year of marketing support. Visit vendelapublishing.com.

Welcome to In the Writer's Chair with host Lana McAra! Today, we pull up a chair with veteran journalist and author Eliot Kleinberg. After a 33-and-a-half-year career at the Palm Beach Post where he wrote roughly 14,000 stories, Eliot transitioned into writing captivating historical fiction.

As the creator of the original Weird Florida books—first published in 1998 before the "Florida Man" craze took over—Eliot has always had a knack for finding the wildest true stories. Now, he is channeling that passion for his home state into vivid historical novels.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• From Journalism to Fiction: Eliot shares why he waited until retirement to tackle fiction, and why the secret to good writing is simply to write, read, and write some more.
• The Dilemma of Historical Fiction: Discover why Eliot is likely the only novelist who includes bibliographies at the end of his books to prove his wild historical scenes actually happened.
• Florida's Forgotten Civil War History: We dive into the Battle of Olustee, the most important Civil War battle in Florida's history, which inspired Eliot's novel Peace River.
• A Wild Prohibition Era: Eliot explains why Florida's Prohibition era was even crazier than the 1970s drug wars, complete with rum runners and gangsters.
• The Adventures of Nate Moran: Get an inside look at Eliot's upcoming four-book series featuring a Miami police detective.
• Real-Life Inspiration: Learn the tragic and fascinating true story of a 1930 shooting that inspired the first Nate Moran book, Hypocrites Row, releasing in February 2026.
• Writing Process: Eliot reveals why he considers himself a "hybrid" writer who skips outlining but relies on a solid historical framework.

About Our Guest

• Eliot Kleinberg is a passionate advocate for Florida history who regularly lectures on the topic.
• He is on a mission to teach people that Florida's history didn't start with Walt Disney in 1970, noting that St. Augustine is actually 55 years older than Plymouth Rock.
• You can sign up for his newsletter, check out his speaking schedule, and read his blog "Something Went Horribly Wrong" at his website: ekfa.com.

Sponsor Spotlight

• This episode is brought to you by Vendela Publishing.
• Vendela Publishing is a traditional publisher with a unique model that provides marketing help without requiring authors to have large social media or email followings.
• Learn more at vendelapublishing.com.

What does a Navy journalist in Vietnam have in common with a corporate communications strategist for global brands? If you're Fred Yager, the answer is a lifetime of storytelling that spans war zones, Hollywood screening rooms, and the deep, silent forests of the mind. This week on In The Writer's Chair, host Lana McAra welcomes the award-winning writer and TV executive to discuss his multifaceted career and his latest leap into the "eco-thriller" genre.

Fred shares how a chance meeting with a Hollywood icon sparked a novel, the gritty reality of the "optioning" game in Los Angeles, and why he’s now rewriting his best screenplays into books.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• The Screenplay-to-Novel Pivot: Why Fred is digging into his Hollywood vault to turn unproduced scripts into "unputdownable" prose.
• The Seeds of The Asian Queen: How a real-life interview with actress Liv Ullmann and a blood-stained river boat in the Mekong Delta merged into a gripping historical novel.
• Writing Under Fire: Fred’s origins as a Navy journalist in the Vietnam War and how he learned to tell the truth when the military was accused of "smoke and mirrors."
• Psychology in Art: How a degree in psychology and NYU film training helped him "get into the mind of the killer" in collaborative works like Untimely Death.
• The "Wood-Wide Web": A deep dive into his latest book, Botanica, which explores how trees communicate through fungal networks to survive mass extinction.
• The Audio Revolution: Why Fred believes the growth of audiobooks is the best thing to happen to the modern attention span.

Instructive Insight: The "Wood-Wide Web"

In his novel Botanica, Fred relies on the fascinating science of mycorrhizal networks. This isn't just fiction; it's a real-world biological communication system.

• Communication: Large "Mother Trees" use this network to send excess sugar to smaller, shaded saplings.
• Defense: When a tree is attacked by insects, it can send chemical warning signals through the fungi to neighboring trees, allowing them to prep their immune responses.
• Mass Migration: As Fred discusses, these networks may play a role in how plant populations shift in response to environmental catastrophes.

About Fred Yager

Fred Yager is a veteran journalist (AP, CBS News), television executive, and screenwriter. He is the founder of the World News and Information Network and a prolific ghostwriter. Based in Tampa, Florida, Fred continues to explore the intersection of technology, nature, and human psychology through his fiction.

Connect with Fred:

• Books: Find Botanica, The Asian Queen, and Untimely Death on Amazon.
• Format Choice: Botanica is available in hardcover, softcover, e-book, and a high-fidelity audiobook narrated by the talented Smartwatch.

Connect with Lana McAra:

• Podcast: In The Writer's Chair
• Publisher: Vendela Publishing

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