Today's episode features another author interview, this time with S. Alexander O'Keefe, author of two novels: The Return of Sir Percival and Helius Legacy. We're excited to welcome Sean, as we'll refer to him in the episode, to the show!

Today's episode shifts into the publishing industry as a whole. There are an overwhelming number of options out there for authors looking to publish a book— self-publishing, finding an agent and getting a traditional deal, or working with someone like Greenleaf who falls in the middle in a hybrid publishing model.

In this episode of Published, we're switching things up a little. So far, we've been interviewing industry experts about specific areas of writing and publishing a book. We're excited to announce that we will be adding some author interviews into the mix. We'll focus in on one aspect of their publishing experience and provide advice for first-time authors.

One of the main reasons authors opt to work with hybrid publishers is to be able to maintain the rights to their book. For that reason, we decided to take a closer look at rights — copyright, foreign rights, and subsidiary rights — and what authors should know about them when negotiating deals with publishers.

Our guest in this episode is Sujan Trivedi, the General Counsel to Greenleaf Book Group.*

In today's episode, we'll be talking all about book covers, from what makes them successful to the designer's process for arriving at a finished cover. Neil Gonzalez, the Art Director here at Greenleaf Book Group, will be joining us to share his insights.

In this episode, we'll be focusing on understanding your message and why you should be the one sharing it. We'll be using the building blocks we discussed in the previous episode to create a full strategy with Brand Strategist Karina Keating.

This is the second of a two-part series on Author Branding. Part I can be found here.

In this episode, we'll be doing a deeper dive into the components of an author brand, like website, social media, newsletter, etc. Brand Strategist Sam Alexander joins the show again to discuss the author brand in more detail.

This is the first of a two-part series on establishing an author brand with Brand Strategist, Sam Alexander. Part II can be found here.

So why does an author brand matter? An author brand can really make or break the success of a book and is so important that Greenleaf built out a branding team to help authors with it. On that team is Sam Alexander, whose goal is to help authors understand their message and strategize how to bring that to their audience in the best way possible.