How can you reclaim your creative and emotional life? How can you create content that impacts your audience deeply? We talk to the influential blogger, Natalie Lue, about how she launched and grew her blog, Baggage Reclaim, and how she created a profitable business around her writing. We dive into her success in both self-publishing and traditional publishing, and what it feels like to be an outsider in the publishing industry. We also talk about how to deal with the inner critic, reclaim our emotional lives and learn to say ‘no’.

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ABOUT NATALIE LUE

Natalie is the author of the hugely popular relationship and self-esteem blog, Baggage Reclaim where for over a decade, she’s shared the journey of her transition from toxic relationships to love, care, trust and respect. Her podcast The Baggage Reclaim Sessions have been downloaded over 2 million times. Natalie has sold hundreds of thousands of copies of her books including including Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl, and How to Self-Sooth Quick Guide.

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SHOW NOTES:

[02:03] Finding inspiration and setting boundaries with social media.

[04:05] How her mother's advice that she should learn to love herself, led to the start of her blog.

[07:03] The story behind Baggage Reclaim and what her early posts looked like

[12:35] What's kept her writing consistently over the years

[17:42] How she approaches her blogging today versus 18 years ago

[19:10] Coming up with new ideas and topics for her blog

[20:20]  Natalie explains what “future faking” is

[21:43] How she decides what to focus on and how Seth Godin’s advice: ‘what is the change you're seeking to make?” helped

[23:11] Dealing with imposter syndrome and self-doubt

[28:56] Trusting our intuition and how to be more intuitive with creative work

[35:04] Allocating time across different projects and mediums

[36:44] How her income is distributed

[38:17] Why she ventured into self-publishing

[41:18] Managing her publishing team, and why she recommends hiring help

[43:06] Tips on how to promote and market your own book

[46:06] Why Natalie’s upcoming book will be published traditionally

[51:04] A difficult experience with an agent and how she bounced back

[54:56] The importance of saying no

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QUOTES FROM NATALIE:

“If you can quiet the negative voices down, what do you hear? Because I think that your creativity will show itself. Your intuition, your ideas will show what's out there.”

“So I've realized that no, no is just the inverse of yes. So when you say no to certain things, then you're gonna be saying yes to something else. No can release you from stuff that you don't even know that you need to be released from. I've realized that no can actually be the, really the greatest gifts of your life, that those nos, that kind of wounded you in the past.”

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RESOURCES

Connect with Natalie Lue:

Twitter: @baggagereclaim

Instagram: @natlue

Baggage Reclaim - Natalie’s blog

Baggage Reclaim Sessions - Natalie’s podcast

Bambino Goodies

Books by Natalie Lue:

• Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl
• The No Contact Rule
• The Joy of Saying No
• The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship
• Love, Care, Trust & Respect

Other books mentioned:

• Disconnected by Emma Gannon
• Still Writing by Dani Shapiro
• The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin
• This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See by Seth Godin

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For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit podcast.londonwriterssalon.com

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com

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FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON:

Twitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalon

Instagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalon

Facebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalon

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CREDITS

Production by Victoria Spooner. Artwork by Emma Winterschladen

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON

Twitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalon

Instagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalon

Facebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalon

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