Overview

Mary Elizabeth shares the wisdom she's learned through writing her books. Her advice is pertinent to all writers, especially when she talks about publishing independently versus trying to get published traditional.

We discuss various aspects of the differences and pros/cons of which choice that you make when publishing.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/34sLLI6n01Q

Transcript

[00:00:50] Stephen: Let's talk a little author stuff, but let's, we've talked the books. So hopefully we got some people reading it. So you've written several now through the last couple of years, what are some lessons you've learned writing from when you started to now?

[00:01:08] Mary: Oh, my gosh. I've learned so much. It's amazing. It's like you, you started kindergarten and now you're in college. It's such a journey for writing and nobody's journey is the same. And just in the time period from the very first book, if I wrote it in 2013, I was connected with who turned out to be my co-writer for the next two books we met in 2015 to 2016.

[00:01:31] Mary: We got it. Published a contract in 2017. It was released. So it's a long journey in there. I think I've learned more about what works and doesn't work in a book what's attractive to readers. I hope so. At least we try to be a good writer and learn those things and what, what is going to appeal to a reader because you want your books to be out there and people to buy them.

[00:01:52] Mary: But I, you really have to research what are you in this for? Because unless you have, and this is just the truth about it, unless you have lots and lots of money. You can't go into this going, oh, I'm going to write a book. It's going to go on the shelf out of a, make a million dollars. There's so much more that goes to, it goes along with it.

[00:02:14] Mary: So that's, I want to parse that bubble there because it is not the truth at all. And you need to have a five-year plan, I think, going into it. Where do you want to be in five years for your. With your books or as an author, my journey has so much that came into it that I never even saw was going to happen.

[00:02:33] Mary: And I'm so grateful for it, but research whether to be traditionally published or self-published. And I say that even more now, today, because I just went through being a part of two anthologies that were published. They were self published and in eight hours, 29 women. And not even all of us participated all it's all the ladies, not all of them participated I did, but within eight hours we went to a number one best-selling Amazon book and stayed in the top 10 for two weeks.

[00:03:06] Mary: I'm not sure where we are today. Cause I haven't looked. Yeah, it changes all the time. It changes hourly. I actually, with, with Amazon's algorithm. It's so interesting. I, because I have worked with someone who's traditionally published, she's actually getting ready to publish his 33rd book. And so his mindset is totally traditional route that's that's he will not do anything else.

[00:03:29] Mary: That's where he is. And that's okay. Because that's worked for him really well. But then I go through this experience and I see what happened and with the support. So support is very important. If you're going to be a writer, if you are by yourself and putting a book out there, you're going to it's, you're going to struggle unless you have got a lot of support and people who will.

[00:03:51] Mary: And, uh, share your book on Facebook and recommend it to ...