We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Barb Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Barb below.

Alright, Barb thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Talk to us about building a team – did you hire quickly, how’d you recruit the first few team members? Any interesting lessons?

When I first started out as an author, I was a “one-man shop”. I had to do all of it – writing, marketing, promoting, handle the business and all those little tasks that can be time consuming. Within the first couple of years, I decided to change my perspective on things and build a team. That meant finding the right people, making sure it fit in the budget, and being comfortable with them to keep my brand the way I want. Trust is a crucial factor! I started out with a PA and I knew I had to build that trust, which also meant I had to have confidence in them when it comes to my readers and supporters. With my very first PA, I was prepared to expect the unexpected but when she asked me for a copy of my books so that she could read them all in case she was hired, that sold me on her. She’s been with me ever since and we are going on 9 years now. Jess is able to handle not just booking my events, social media but when she asked to have input on the covers and other things, it was a real high for me.

I now have a full team that Jess manages and she makes sure that they stay true to my brand as well as encouraging them to read my books so they play an active part in the beta teams, promoting and working with others in the industry. My interviewing process is simply a conversation. I don’t believe in drilling people as I find that already increases their nervousness and anxiety. I don’t think I would do anything differently today than I have when I started. I wouldn’t be me if I changed that.

Barb, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was always a storyteller. Even when I was growing up in Hawaii, I loved telling people stories – the scarier, the better. Sometimes that didn’t sit well with the teachers or my parents. I took to writing stories at age 9 and still love telling stories. My passion is writing. It gets me through all the tough times, the bad and the ugly as well as the happy moments. I can write just about anywhere and encourage new authors to always carry something to jot down their ideas or whatever comes to mind. You never know when a good line, a pun, a joke, anything, will make it into that book that’s in your mind, just waiting to come to life.

In fact, several author friends and I decided to take our approach to writing and our passion to create Immortal Cravings. We believe in helping other authors, especially new ones, with consulting services, publishing services, marketing and more. I saw too many authors competing with others instead of networking that my fellow author friends and I decided to do something to encourage networking and more..

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, the most rewarding thing is to hear from my readers or to receive requests of something they would like to see in a book. Because of that, I hold monthly contests for my newsletter subscribers that allow them to be part of the creative process. And their reactions to entering them is just overwhelming at times for me. Anytime I can interact with my readers is the highlight of my day!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met a few of my business partners for Immortal Cravings at in person events. Once we started talking about what we liked and disliked about being authors, we realized that we had so much in common when it came to wanting to help new authors succeed. We tossed around the idea about opening a boutique kind of company to help new authors but for a while, nothing concrete happened until we were all at an event last year. After the event, instead of going home and resting after being on our feet all day, we met for a late dinner and just started mapping it out on napkins. A week later, we decided to go for it. We spent 2023 with a soft opening and in 2024, we are official! Our soft opening allowed us to test the waters, gain exposure and at our events in 2023, we marketed not just ourselves but our company. It was truly exciting. One of our goals (we all live in 5 different states) is to try to go to at least one event all together. The event in 2024 will be in Massachusetts in September.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thebloodprophecy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebloodprophecy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BloodProphecyBooks
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@barbjones_author