When is the right time to start planning your nonfiction book launch? The answer is yesterday, but you can also start today after listening to this masterclass on book promotion with journalist and author, Ernest Owens.

Ernest Owens is an award-winning journalist and CEO of Ernest Media Empire, LLC. He is the Editor of Eater Philly, Political Writer at Large for Philadelphia Magazine, President of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, and Regional Vice President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Mid-Atlantic Chapter). He is also the executive producer and host of the hit podcast Ernestly Speaking!

Ernest’s book, The Case for Cancel Culture was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2023.

On the show, Ernest shares his brilliant strategy for marketing and promoting The Case for Cancel Culture including:

• Critical mindset tips
• Strategies any author can use to get their book seen by more people,
• Who to make friends with to sell more books
• Why your loudest critics can be a boon to book sales
• Why travel is a necessary part of the promotion process
• When to cash in your personal IOUs

(Note: This episode originally aired during Season two of the podcast.)

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

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Welcome to Season Six of the Your BIPoC Writing Coach podcast. On this short intro episode, we’re sharing why we changed the name of the podcast, what you can expect this season on the show (Think, Famous Author Era!), and a quick pep talk for the moment we’re in right now.

Press play to get inspired and get ready for another season of your favorite literary podcast.

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

Sign up for the Reed, Write, & Create monthly newsletter.

Join the Tell Me More email list to be the first to know when we start taking new applicants to the Reed, Write, & Create Sanctuary.

Follow Lori on YouTube at LiteraryLori

Please feel free to show your love and support for this podcast by making a small donation via Buy Me A Coffee.

Episode 58 is the final episode of our special Behind the Book season. And we're going out with an inspirational bang.

In order to inspire you to rise up in defense of the book, we're sharing two exciting examples of literary activists from history.

We're going from Civil War era Spain, to the island of Puerto Rico. We're going from wartime, to story time, to showcase how many different ways we can all support a thriving literary ecosystem.

Tune in to get educated and inspired by Spain's Alliance of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, and by New York city librarian, Pura Belpré.

*Also, hear Lori's literary updates for the summer.

LINKS FROM THE SHOW

Mora about the Antifascists Intellectuals in Spain and Langston Hughes

Read more about librarian Pura Belpré from the New York Public Library

MORE FROM REED WRITE & CREATE

We need new equipment for the show. Please feel free to show your love and support for this podcast by making a small donation to help Lori buy a new microphone and headphones via Buy Me A Coffee.

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

Follow Reed, Write, & Create on Instagram at ReedWriteandCre8

Sign up for the Reed, Write, & Create monthly newsletter.

Follow Lori on YouTube at LiteraryLori

On episode 57 we’re going Behind the Book with legendary literary agent, Regina Brooks.

Regina is the founder and CEO of Serendipity Literary Agency in New York, the largest African American–owned agency in the US. She has represented and established a diverse base of award-winning clients in adult and young adult fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature.

Currently the president of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA), Brooks is also a founding member of Literary Agents of Change (LAOC) and the Black Book Accelerator.

Grab your notebooks because this episode is full of truth bombs and actionable advice for writers who want to find an agent, and stand out in a crowded field.

She breaks down the difference between being a good writer and a good author.

Regina also gives us a true behind-the-scenes look at how agents really run their business, and she answers the question whether BIPOC writers should only use BIPOC agents.

This is an episode you can’t afford to miss, so press play.

LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Serendipity Literary Agency

Literary Agents of Change

About the Black Book Accelerator

The African American Literature Book Club (AALBC)

Books Regina Recommends

The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze by Derrick Barnes (Middle Grade Fiction)

Who Better Than You by Will Packer (Adult Non Fiction)

MORE FROM REED, WRITE & CREATE

Please feel free to show your love and support for this podcast by making a small donation via Buy Me A Coffee.

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

Follow Reed, Write, & Create on Instagram at ReedWriteandCre8

Sign up for the Reed, Write, & Create monthly newsletter.

Follow Lori on YouTube at LiteraryLori

On episode 56 of the podcast, we’re going Behind the Book with Stephanie Lim. Stephanie is the co-founder of Third State Books, a new publishing house that amplifies the voices, stories, and issues of Asian America and the Pacific Islands. They publish fiction and nonfiction for both adults and children.

Stephanie Lim is a publisher and marketing executive who brings an abiding love of literary classics, guilty-pleasure genre fiction, fanfic, and children’s books to her work at Third State Books. She spent over 15 years in digital marketing and operations, first as a strategist for advertising clients at Google, then leading e-commerce teams and managing multi-million-dollar advertising budgets for retail brands such as ModCloth, Bebe, and Serena Williams’s eponymous fashion label. She co-founded Third State Books in 2023.

During this enlightening conversation with Stephanie we discuss:

• Why she left a career in e-commerce and fashion to run a publishing company.
• What are the unique challenges Asian-American authors face in the mainstream publishing industry.
• What new titles Third State Books is putting out next and why.
• Why she wants to see more Asian Americans getting to play the main character in books and in life.
• Why she wants to dispel the myth that Asian Americans only read and write literary fiction.

To Find out more about Third State Books, visit ThirdStateBooks.com

Follow Third State Books on Instagram.

Check out these recent and upcoming titles from Third State Books

Please feel free to show your love and support for this podcast by making a small donation via Buy Me A Coffee.

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

Follow Reed, Write, & Create on Instagram at ReedWriteandCre8

Sign up for the Reed, Write, & Create monthly newsletter.

Follow Lori on YouTube at LiteraryLori

We’re going Behind the Book with someone who plays a critical role in the literary ecosystem, you!

On episode 55 we’re replaying my short but important pep talk about why writers need a reading habit and not just a reading hobby.

Even if you heard this episode last year when it first aired, I encourage you to listen again to remind yourself why it’s so important for you as a writer, to develop a consistent reading habit in order to up-level your writing skills. And, of course, to contribute to the literary ecosystem. I mean if we writers aren’t consuming good books on a regular basis, then we can hardly expect the industry to survive, much less thrive.

You’ll learn:

• The difference between a reading habit and a reading hobby.
• How to cultivate a reading habit to up-level your writing skills.
• How to read like a writer.
• Why writers should avoid the basic book club.

Let’s get a good reading habit going for the summer!

Please feel free to show your love and support for this podcast by making a small donation via Buy Me A Coffee.

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

Follow Reed, Write, & Create on Instagram at ReedWriteandCre8

Sign up for the Reed, Write, & Create monthly newsletter.

Follow Lori on YouTube at LiteraryLori

On episode 54 we’re going Behind the Book with bookseller Jeannine A. Cook, founder of Harriett’s Bookshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Jeannine A. Cook is a self-described word worker. In 2020, she opened Harriett’s Bookshop in the Fishtown section of North Philadelphia with the mission to celebrate women authors, women artists, and women activists. In 2021, she opened Ida’s Bookshop in Collingswood, NJ, and Josephine’s Bookshop (a bookshop installation in Paris).

Jeannine’s work as a literary activist has been recognized by several national and international news outlets including The New York Times, Vogue Magazine, Google, and Forbes, Inc.

Jeannine is also a writer and author who writes about the complex intersections of motherhood, globalism, activism, and the arts. Her delicious debut novel, It’s Me They Follow will be released in September, 2025.

During our conversation, Jeannine shares:

• How magic, synchronicity, and obedience to spirit play a part in her success as a bookseller.
• The history of word working and miracles in her own family that inspire her own literary work.
• Why she doesn’t worship money.
• The challenges she faces as a bookseller who is also a writer.
• What she’s working on next in honor of the late Kenyan environmental activist and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathii.

This is a magical and motivating episode.

To learn more about the amazing Jeannine A. Cook and what she’s up to, visit her website.

To Follow all the fun at Harriett’s Bookstore and her sister shop, Ida’s Bookstore, visit their website and/or Follow on Instagram.

You can pre-order Jeanine’s debut novel, It’s Me The Follow at the Reed, Write & Create bookstore.

Please feel free to show your love and support for this podcast by making a small donation via Buy Me A Coffee.

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

Follow Reed, Write, & Create on Instagram at ReedWriteandCre8

Sign up for the Reed, Write, & Create monthly newsletter.

Follow Lori on YouTube at LiteraryLori

On episode 53 of the podcast, we’re going Behind the Book and back in time, to meet David Ruggles, the first Black American to own and operate a bookstore for Black people.

David Ruggles was a revolutionary thinker, a bibliophile, a healer, and a radical abolitionist who believed that reading and the written word would set his people free.

He opened the first Black-owned bookstore, D. Ruggles Books, in 1834 in New York City.

On this episode you’ll hear all about David Ruggles' incredible life, his revolutionary bookstore, and the extraordinary career pivot he was forced to make after losing his eyesight as a young man.

I promise, you will love this story. And you will feel even more motivated to get your stories out into the world after listening.

David Ruggles was living proof that a bookstore is a powerful weapon against oppression.

To learn more about David Ruggles, visit the David Ruggles Center for History and Education website.

If you want to read a complete biography of Ruggles, try this well regarded biography by Graham Russell Gao Hodges.

Grab a copy of Prose to the People, an excellent book about the history of Black bookstores in the United States.

***

Please feel free to show your love and support for this podcast by making a small donation via Buy Me A Coffee.

If you're looking for more creative writing inspiration, and useful resources for your literary life, check out the Reed, Write, & Create website at ReedWriteandCreate.com.

Sign up for the Reed, Write, & Create monthly newsletter.

Follow Lori and her global literary life on YouTube at LiteraryLori