Story Seller HQ with Cathy Park Kelly

Sell your story, not your soul

Story Seller HQ is a supportive community for authors who are tired of figuring out audience-building and book marketing on their own.

It’s a place to learn from people who know the industry, create the content you’ve been putting off, share the wins and the cringe-worthy moments, ask the questions you’re too embarrassed to ask elsewhere — and get a little encouragement to keep going.

Because writing your book is only half the story.

What is Story Seller HQ about?

It’s a community of authors who are working to overcome their self doubt, build their audience and get copies out into the waiting hands of readers.

Just a bunch of writers showing up, sharing ideas, celebrating the wins, commiserating about the cringey moments and helping each other keep going.

It’s not another writing workshop.

It’s the bit that comes after: finding your readers and building the connections that help your book find its way into the world.

A place to ask, “How do I…?”
A place to say, “I tried this and it completely flopped.”
A place to celebrate, “Someone actually bought my book!”
And a place to get on with the things that help people discover your work.

Because you shouldn’t have to figure out how to sell your story all by yourself.

You don’t need a massive marketing budget.

You don’t need to make endless Reels.

You just need to connect with others who are doing it, then give it a go.

Writing the book is only half the story. The rest of the story can happen with support and encouragement.

What will Story Seller HQ look like?

  • One Inside Track online interview per month (I’ll be chatting to authors, publishers, publicists and literary agents about all things book promo-related.)
  • Two online Content Create-along sessions per month. We’ll gather in the Zoom room, choose marketing content we need to create — a newsletter, a few social media posts, a book-launch invitation, an author bio or whatever is currently sitting on your I really should get around to that list — and actually do it together.
  • These monthly community sessions will be a chance to share marketing challenges, successes and ‘I can’t believe I posted that’ moments.

And best of all, this first month of Story Seller HQ is fully free! So you get a seat on our Inside Track webinar and two content create-along Zoom sessions in September… for mahala!

Please click here for details: NOTES FROM MY DAYBED

The one thing that will sell your story … by Cathy Park Kelly

Wonderful advice by Cathy Park Kelly, author of Boiling a Frog Slowly:

I only went to the monthly literary event, a conversation between author James Whyle, author of We Two from Heaven, and John Maytham, a local radio personality, at our local library because I had to.

I’m on the Friends of Fish Hoek Library committee and we were on duty one recent wintery Saturday morning.

The blurb of the book had done the opposite of grab me – words on the back like ‘palimpsest’ and ‘four-part fugue’ had convinced me it was not my kind of book. It sounded like hard work to read, and too ‘literary’ to enjoy.

But the interview with the author, James Whyle, by resonant-voiced and insightful John Maytham, convinced me otherwise. Whyle’s responses to the questions were sometimes rambling, sometimes off-beat, but always candid and thought-provoking. And so I bought the book.

Continue reading: “The one thing that will sell your story …”

Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller with Cathy Kelly and the Life Righting Collective

Are you an author about to send your book out into the world? Does the thought of marketing make you cringe?

Then this two-hour online interactive workshop – Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller – is for you. Reframe ‘marketing’ from a blush-worthy grind to an enthusiastic and energised adventure. 

Cathy Kelly, author of Boiling a Frog Slowly, is thrilled to offer it as part of the Life Righting Collective Writer’s Way Series 2. 

This workshop will help you reignite your passion for your story by showing you three practical steps to reimagine your story’s narrative power and find your readers. 

More info: Life Righting Collective

Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller in 3 Steps

Fellow Authors,

Do you have boxes of your own finished books gathering dust? And would you love to get them into the hands of readers? But you cringe when you hear the word Marketing and you have to fight the urge to apologise every time you do a post about your book? 

How to find your readers and sell more books?

We’re having a free webinar on how to Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller in 3 Steps, with Cathy Park Kelly, author of two popular memoirs, and independent publisher Karavan Press. Together, we’ll show how you can sell more books without selling your soul. 

Click on this link to register for Wednesday, 16th August, 6 – 7pm: 

Shift from Storyteller to Story Seller in 3 Steps

Cape Flats Book Festival is back with a bang!

Taryn Lock, Nancy Richards, Lester Walbrugh, Rešoketšwe Manenzhe, Qarnita Loxton and Karina Szczurek at the Cape Flats Book Festival 2022

“When you live a life of reading, you live like a cat, you experience nine lives,” Premier Alan Winde said at the opening ceremony of the second Cape Flats Book Festival, and added: “There’s nothing like a good book, nothing.” Totally agreed!

And when you live a life of reading, you get to hang out with the coolest of people – readers and writers!

This weekend, readers and writers gathered at the West End Primary School in Mitchells Plain to celebrate the wealth and wonder of literature, and it was an honour to participate. According to the organisers, the festival is “an act of hope, an opportunity to dream beyond our circumstances.” Indeed. And every minute of it was literary delight.

Great vibes, great sessions, laughter and wisdom, lots of connecting and reconnecting and simple sharing – of experience, ideas and the love of books.

Karavan Press authors participating: Joy Watson, Nancy Richards, Lester Walbrugh, Cathy Park Kelly and Joanne Hichens.

Joy Watson, Sara-Jayne Makwala King and Karina Szczurek

The second day of the festival was a little bit quieter, but smaller audience create more intimate interactions and often strong bonds are forged not only between authors and their fans, but also between the authors themselves. Writing is mostly a solitary and often lonely occupation, and it is simply wonderful to encounter others in the same boat and feel slightly less alone in the world.

And when you are lucky, you get to hug Oaky 🙂

Thank you to everyone who made this fantastic event possible!

Karavan Press family – Lester Walbrugh, Thobeka Yose (to be published next year), Karina Szczurek (holding a freshly baked bread, a gift from Lester) and Cathy Park Kelly

Hope to see everyone at the next Cape Flats Book Festival!

Cape Flats Book Festival 2022

Please join us for the Cape Flats Book Festival 2022!

Karavan Press authors on the 2022 CFBF programme:

Saturday, 15 October

12:35-13:15 In Conversation (Adults): Sara-JayneMakwala King (Mad Bad Love) & JOY WATSON (The Other Me)

15:20-16:00 In Conversation (Adults): Colleen Higgs (my mother, my madness) & NANCY RICHARDS (The Skipper’s Daughter) moderated by Leslie Swartz (How I Lost My Mother)

Sunday, 16 October

10:55-11:35 In Conversation (Adults): Karina Szczurek (Disruption) & LESTER WALBRUGH (Elton Baaitjies)

11:50-12:30 Against the Odds (Adults): JOANNE HICHENS (Death & the After Parties) & CATHY PARK KELLY (Boiling a Frog Slowly)

We look forward to seeing you there!