How can you write a book proposal that will make a publisher want to buy your book? How can you write a successful non-fiction book that both interests you and attracts a lot of readers? How can you improve your communication in person and online? Charles Duhigg gives his thoughts.

In the intro, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray on audiobooks and AI [TechCrunch]; OpenAI's 12 days including Sora and o1; Google Notebook LM expansion; How Creatives Might Survive and Thrive in a Post-Productivity World [Monica Leonelle]. Plus, How to Write Non-Fiction, Second Edition.

Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a reporter at The New Yorker Magazine, and a multi-award-winning author whose book, The Power of Habit, spent three years on the New York Times list. His latest New York Times bestselling book is Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Charles at CharlesDuhigg.com.

Joanna: Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a reporter at The New Yorker Magazine, and a multi-award-winning author whose book, The Power of Habit, spent three years on the New York Times list.

His latest New York Times bestselling book is Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. Welcome to the show, Charles.

Charles: Thank you for having me. This is such a treat.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. So first up—

Charles: Well, it actually started when my wife was pregnant with our first child, and we didn't have any money, and so I thought, okay, I'll go write a book. Maybe that'll give me enough money so that maybe we can find a decent place to live.

My first book was The Power of Habit, about the science of habit formation, and it really came out of my own problems and questions. I wanted to figure out how to improve my habits, how to be able to lose weight and exercise more easily.

You get to get so deep into the material, you get to understand what's going on. Not only what experts are telling you and what stories you ought to tell, but also you get to think about the ideas in really profound ways.

So that just kind of became an addiction for me. I've really enjoyed writing books. Even though if you asked me in the middle of them, I would tell you it's the worst thing I've ever done in my entire life.

Joanna: Well, yes, all of us listening understand that.

It is interesting because, I mean, there's a lot of comparisons to your journalism. You interview a lot of people, and you include a lot of that.

Charles: So it's a little akin to writing magazine pieces, because oftentimes for the magazine piece, I'll write 8,000 to 12,000 words, and each chapter of a book is about 7,500 to 9,500 words. So it's not that far off.

The difference is that when I'm writing a magazine piece, I can just write a magazine piece about whatever the topic is. I can write about AI, or I can write about politics.

With a book, you're writing the equivalent of, let's say, eight to ten magazine pieces, but there has to be something that ties them together.

The two hardest parts, I think, of writing a book are, first of all, deciding what topic to write on. Oftentimes, it takes me a year or two to really figure out a topic that I think is going to be interesting and that I think readers are going to think of as interesting.

Then it oftentimes takes another year or six months to figure out what the overarching argument is. Oftentimes it's not obvious from the reporting what that connective tissue is, but it's my job to find it.

Joanna: That's really interesting that it takes you a year or two to figure out what you want to write. You mentioned there what you're interested in, but also want the what the readers want. So what is that process? Because this is something we all struggle with. I write fiction as well, and much of my audience do.

Charles: I think a big part of it is you just have to indulge things and then be prepared for them not to be successes.

So take Supercommunicators, my most recent book, which is about the science of communication. It originally started with me trying to figure out why some people were better listeners than others.

I thought it was a book about listening, but the thing is, that as I talked about it with my editor and as I did research, I realized listening is a little boring on its own. Most people don't wake up saying, “I really want to be a great listener.” They say, “I want to be a great listener and I want other people to listen to me.”

So it took a little while to figure out, okay, this is actually about communication. Then once we started figuring out it was about communication, it also got a little bit boring to me.

It just seemed like there was so much research and so much advice out there on, “This is how you should hold your arms,” or, “This is how you should repeat back what the person said.”

After a little while, and particularly after talking to neuroscientists about why communication works within our brains, what I realized is it's actually not a book about communication, it's a book about connection. How do we connect with other people?

Communication and conversation is how we connect, but the thing that is under that is how to connect with other people.

Now that question, how do I connect with anyone? That seems like a question that a lot of people would be interested in. I can see myself caring about that when it comes to parenting. I can see myself caring about that when it comes to managing people at work.

I can see me caring about that when it comes to sales or being in government or trying to evaluate political leaders.

So the process of figuring out what is both interesting to me and interesting to a broad audience is a matter of listening to my own curiosity —

Just because I think it's interesting, I need to prove to myself and my editor that many, many other people will think it's interesting as well.

Joanna: So you mentioned there about proving to your editor and also finding a connection with the market that might buy the book. I'm interested because, obviously, you're several books in, you're very successful, do you still do a book proposal when you have an idea?

Charles: Absolutely.

Joanna: Tell us about that because it feels like that's something we need to know about.

Charles: For nonfiction is a little bit different than for fiction.

Then you use that advance to essentially go write the book.

I mean, in theory, I could hand my editor a two or three page book proposal and say, “Let's sell this,” but the thing is, I have to do the work at some point. You have to come up with a grand outline at some point and know a map for the directions you want to move in.

So what I do is I put together a 50- to 70-page proposal. I started this with The Power of Habit before I was a known writer, but I've used it ever since. That proposal is, first of all, written in the voice of the book. So it's actually as if you're reading little samples of chapters from the book.

So there's little anecdotes in there, there's interviews. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to prove to myself, as much as my editor, there's enough here for a book. Like if I spend another two or three years reporting on this, I'm going to come back with something amazing.

So writing that proposal and polishing that proposal, again, 50 to 70 pages is pretty long, making that into something that is really compelling. That allows me to kind of stress test whether there is a book there.

The other thing is that for the publisher, it gives them a lot of confidence. So when writers come to me in nonfiction and they say, “How much time should I spend on my proposal?”

I always say, well, look, for your own sake, you should spend a lot of time on it, but equally for the publisher's sake. They are going to be comfortable paying you a larger advance if they have a fully fleshed out proposal. Since you have to do that work at some point, why not do it when it's going to make you a bigger advance?

So my advice to folks is that it oftentimes takes me 6 to 12 months to write a proposal, but by the time I write that proposal, I know what that book is going to be about. I figured out that overarching question, that overarching idea, that overarching theme. I figured out how each chapter fits into it, and from there, it's just labor.

Joanna: Yes, labor. The research then, because obviously you mentioned there that you're going to go on and spend more time on it, but you also said there's snippets from interviews in that proposal.

Where's the research based?

Charles: So, both because oftentimes what happens is you write the proposal, and then once you start writing the chapter, you realize, like, oh, there's 20 other people I need to talk to. I would say for a proposal, I usually talk to at least 15 to 20, sometimes as many as 30 people.

Again, what I'm doing is I'm calling people up and I'm basically saying—these are experts, these are folks who have written a paper on communication that I think is interesting.

I'm calling them up and I'm saying, “I read your paper, and I thought it was really interesting. I'm not smart enough to really understand it, but I'm just wondering, what do you think is the most important takeaway from your research? When you're having beers with friends and they ask you what you do for a living, how do you explain to them why what you do is important?”

What I'm trying to do there is —

The reason why I ask the question that way, almost like, “I'm too dumb to understand why you're smart, so tell me why you're smart,” is that what happens is that oftentimes people will do two things.

First of all, they'll explain to you the significance of their research, rather than just the research itself, which is really important because that helps you create this mental map of why this research matters.

Then secondly, they'll oftentimes tell you about anecdotes or little funny things that happen in their lab, or things that they didn't end up publishing, that end up being really great aspects of telling the story.

My goal is the same every single time. My goal is to get this person to essentially say something they haven't said before. To explain to me not only what they've done, but why what they've done is important, and what was interesting about the process of doing it.

Joanna: Just on a sort of author technical question, how are you organizing that amount of research? Are you recording, like AI transcription? Are you keeping like little cards, like Ryan Holiday?

Charles: So I'll tell you what I do for each chapter, and this is also what I do for magazine stories. I'll create a folder, I'll come up with a call list. I'll identify 30 or 40 people that I want to talk to, and I'll prioritize them, and I'll start with number one.

I'll reach out to them, and I'll do an interview with them. I'll ask if I can talk to them on the phone.

I'll oftentimes record that call, but the recording is really just a backup. What's important is, at least for me, is to take notes as I'm speaking to the person.

First of all, it's much more efficient than reading through a transcript, just to have notes that I take during the interview. Then second of all —

So I'm oftentimes, in these notes, I'm transcribing what they're telling me as they're telling it to me and typing quickly, but I'm also leaving little notes for myself. Like in all caps saying, like, “This is an idea,” or “We can connect this to that.”

Then once I've done all my interviews and I have a sense of what the chapter is about, I take all of my interviews and all my other research—because there's a lot of studies involved— and I take a bunch of index cards.

I go through all the interviews and all the studies, and I write on the index cards, usually just like one or two words, maybe half a sentence, of each idea or quote I might want to include in the chapter. Each chapter produces something like 200 or 300 index cards.

The idea here isn't necessarily that the index cards are exhaustive. The idea is that I’m creating an index of everything I've learned. I don't have to think right now about how I organize it, I just have to think about getting it onto these cards. In the corner I'll put where each thing came from, so it's easy to look up later if I want to look it up.

Then I'll take all those cards and I'll make little piles, and I'll try to arrange them as the sequence that they will appear in the chapter.

So if this idea comes first, and these two quotes are related to this idea, then this next idea should come second and this anecdote happens now, and I'll create little piles of cards.

I mentioned I have 150 – 200 index cards, sometimes 300. I would say that when I'm organizing them, they all get put in the organization. Only probably 50 or 60 of those cards are going to end up in the story or in the chapter, but the process of organizing is really, really important.

Our job as writers is not just to learn and convey information.

Once I have those cards together and I've organized my cards, what I do is I write just a long letter to my editor. It's almost kind of like rambling. I'm not thinking about choosing the poetic language. I'm not thinking about making sure that I'm getting to every idea in exactly the right order or setting everything up.

What I'm doing, though, is I'm basically trying to describe. It usually starts like, “This is the way this chapter will work.” Then I just start and say, like, “Oh, there's a story I'm going to tell from here. Then this guy told me this one idea that's kind of interesting.”

I'm using the organization that's occurred to me in organizing the cards to organize this letter. Then I send that letter to my editor, and that letter oftentimes will be 4000 words long. A chapter is, at most, 9500 words long. So I'm literally writing essentially the equivalent of half a chapter in a letter to my editor.

I'm not worrying about anything.

Then my editor will oftentimes write back and say, like, “This is interesting. This is interesting. This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my entire life.” You know, “This part's boring. This part, I kind of see where you're getting at, but I don't buy it yet.”

So I take all of that, and that's really, really useful to get someone else's feedback. Then what I'll do at that point is I'll take my cards, and I'll start organizing my cards, and sometimes I have to get extra cards. I have to do more research, as my editors pointed out.

Based on this experience of talking through the chapter, of getting feedback on the chapter, now I usually have a pretty good sense of how the chapter is going to work. I have these, let's say, 100 cards. So about half the cards I've discarded because I've realized, oh, that idea doesn't fit in here, that anecdote doesn't work.

So I have about half the cards left, and I and at that point, I start writing the chapter. Sometimes I'll actually go back to my cards as I'm writing the chapter, but the cards, actually at that point, are kind of embedded in my head.

because I have to figure out, like, how do I make this story entertaining? How do I make this idea crisper? How do I make this something that's easy to remember?

At that point, I know where the chapter begins and ends, and I know where it's going to get to in the middle. If I do have a moment of crisis, I have these cards that I can turn to.

You know, what happens after this thing? I can't really remember. Oh, that's right, my card says I go to this thing next. That's how I write a chapter or write out a magazine article.

Joanna: That is fascinating. I know everyone's like, ooh, that is so juicy.

Charles: It's enormously inefficient, but it works.

Joanna: It works for you. Yes, I love that. I think that's really interesting.

Let's get into the book Supercommunicators, which I read on a beach in Corfu this summer and really enjoyed it. It's really about the importance of finding a connection and, obviously, the communication with others.

I was really thinking as I was reading it, I was like, okay, there's a lot of ideas around doing it in person, but for me and my audience, as authors, we primarily communicate online through emails, social media, maybe podcast interviews like this.

Much of our communication is written communication, so I wonder what thoughts you had on doing that?

Charles: Well — 

One of the core ideas in Supercommunicators is that a conversation is a back and forth. It's you expressing what kind of discussion you want to have, whether it's emotional or social or practical, and me responding to that and matching you, and then inviting you to match me.

When we don't have someone we're talking to face to face—and I think we do this digitally all the time, like we do it through text, and we do it through email, and we do it through DMs.

So let's imagine a situation where I'm writing something and the audience I'm writing it for is not going to get back to me right away. In those situations —

I'm anticipating their objections. I'm anticipating where they get bored. I'm anticipating their questions. I'm anticipating where they say, “Well, you know, you think you know it all, but here's this other thing.” I'm trying to anticipate all of that because I want this to feel like a conversation.

Oftentimes you start a chapter and you say, here's an idea, here's an argument I'm making. Now you might be saying to yourself, but why? Why is that true? Because there's all these other examples that prove that it's not true. Well, let me explain. That's a really good question.

So oftentimes I'm dialoguing with the audience in the text itself, and you can do that in a non-clumsy way. You know, “This raised the question in the protagonist's mind, so such and such,” because the protagonist is a proxy for the reader.

So as I'm in conversation with that character, or as I'm in conversation with that person, that protagonist, they are asking the questions that I suspect the reader is asking. They are saying the things that I suspect the reader is saying.

Sometimes that protagonist is myself. Sometimes I come in as the author, and I say, “This didn't make any sense to me. I was skeptical,” because I know my audience is skeptical. So I think it's still a conversation, it's just a conversation where we're relying on our intuition about what the other side would say.

Then we're going out and we're testing it. We're asking people to read it, we're asking them to react to it, and we're making edits based on those reactions. That's what an editor does.

Joanna: I guess I'm thinking more of when we put stuff out on our email list or social media. It's interesting because we can anticipate a lot of what people are going to think or say.

From the book there's a great quote,

At the moment, as we record this towards the end of 2024, obviously in the US and in the UK, we've had elections, and our society is quite fractured.

Miscommunication seems to happen a lot, and many authors are scared of saying the wrong thing, of getting canceled, of trying to communicate but failing.

What are your tips for dealing with this, as someone who does speak to much bigger audiences?

Charles: Well, I think this fear can be a little overblown. I mean, obviously, look, if you go up on a stage and you're talking about Gaza in Israel, and you're taking one side very strongly, you should anticipate that people will react. That people who disagree with you, will let you know they disagree with you.

In my experience, most of the times when we have conversations, first of all, we're often not talking about Gaza and Israel, right. We're talking about what it's like to be a parent or what it's like to be a writer.

Equally, if we are talking about these tough topics, I think the best conversations are ones where someone says, “You know what? I am not certain that I am right about this. I am not certain that I know enough to say this definitively, but let me tell you something that I'm feeling.”

If you go into a conversation, even a charged conversation, about politics, about religion, about race, if you go into it with this attitude of saying, “I'm not going to make grand, sweeping statements about what's right or wrong, I'm going to tell you what I've experienced and what I'm feeling, and I'm going to invite you to do the same.”

“My goal here is to understand you, is to understand how you see the world, and to speak in such a way that you can understand how I see the world.” I think in those conversations, those are not the conversations that end up getting us canceled.

Those are the conversations where everyone walks away saying, “Oh, that's a tough topic, but I feel better about it.” So I don't think it's something people have to be scared about.

If you're issuing polemics, if your goal is not to understand the other side and not to listen, but simply to force them to listen to you, then, yes, they might react negatively. If we're really good communicators, if we're really good writers, that's not our goal. Our goal is not to be a polemicist.

Even George Orwell was not a polemicist that ignored the concerns and feelings of the people he disagreed with.

When we feel like we're in that conversation and we feel like we're being listened to, we don't get angry, we feel connected.

Joanna: Yes, and it is that going deeper. Reading those chapters in the book was really interesting.

Another quote here, “Asking deep questions is easier than most people realize, and more rewarding than we expect.” You mention things like emotional things, and this means we have to be vulnerable with other people.

Charles: Give me an example of being worried about judgment in conversations because I think, actually, most people are not worried about judgment in conversations..

Joanna: Well, I'm obviously British, and I was at a conference in America the week after the US election. I very much felt that I could not mention the situation because of the fear of offending a person, either way, not being too much in favor of whichever president.

So this sort of censorship of what are deeply meaningful things for people, when you're worried about people's judgment or it affecting business or whatever.

Charles: Well, what I would argue is that in that situation, certainly, if you're someone who says, “I hate Donald Trump,” and you go up to an American who has voted for Trump, and you say, “By the way, I hate Donald Trump. You guys are idiots for electing him,” that probably would not be great, but that's not a conversation.

That's not you trying to understand this person and trying to help them understand you. So I think something that would not be particularly scary or inappropriate would be to say, “Hey, you guys just had an election. I'm just wondering, you don't need to tell me who you voted for, but how are you feeling about the election?”

“Like, how are you feeling about what happened? Are you worried for the future? Are you happy about what's happened? What do you make of this?” Nobody's going to mind being asked that question.

What you're not saying is, “Here's my opinion. You have to listen to my opinion. I don't care about your opinion.”

You're an American, and I'm coming from overseas, and I want to know how, as an American, you sort of see this.”

There's this experiment that I do when I'm on a stage talking to an audience, where I ask everyone to turn to the person next to them and ask and answer one question, which is, “When is the last time you cried in front of another person?”

When I introduce this idea, people hate it. They think it's going to be terrible, super awkward. Then we have the conversation, and people love it. They say it's one of the best conversations they've had in the last week.

This has been studied extensively by a guy named Nicholas Epley at the University of Chicago, that people think this conversation, asking this question, is going to be awkward. They think they're not going to enjoy the discussion. They think they're not going to feel close to the person afterwards.

Then once they actually do it because they're forced to by someone on a stage, it's exactly the opposite. It's not awkward at all. They actually are fascinated to hear what the other person has to say. They feel close to them. They feel close to each other.

Now again, back to my polemics point, if you go in and you say, “I'm going to tell you why, as an American, you just chose the worst leader on earth,” then that's probably not going to go over well, but that's not a conversation. That's a polemic.

If you go in and you say, “Look, I want to understand your nation. I want to understand how you see your country. If you don't mind, I'd love to tell you how I see your country,” that back and forth, that's a discussion.

That's not going to result in anyone getting angry at each other. It's going to result in something that feels good and connected.

Joanna: So, really, what you're saying is it's just curiosity.

And that brings the connection that then can lead to other things.

Charles: It is curiosity, but it's also having the right goals when you open your mouth. Having the right goals when you go into a conversation.

The goal of a conversation is not to convince the other person that you're right and they're wrong, or that you're smart and they're dumb, or that they should like you, or they should admire you.

The goal of a conversation is to understand how someone else sees the world and to speak in such a way that they can understand how you see the world.

When we're focused on that goal, rather than trying to “own the libs” or trying to prove that we're right and they're ignorant, when we're focused on understanding, mutual understanding, it almost always goes well.

Just look at both of our nation's histories. Our proudest moments are not when the entire nation agreed with each other, our proudest moments are when we disagreed with each other, but we felt connected to each other, and we felt unified enough to embrace those disagreements and find a way forward.

Joanna: So you mentioned goals there, and I'm fascinated with goals. Again, we're recording this at the end of 2024. A lot of people will be putting goals together for next year.

You've won a Pulitzer, which is frankly amazing, and many people would say you've hit all the goals that nonfiction authors, journalists, would want to reach. So I wondered—

Charles: Oh, of course. I mean, my definition of success hasn't really changed very much.

My goal and my definition of success is to write things that are beautiful and true and that people are desperate to finish.

Just because you've written one book that managed to hit that mark, that doesn't mean that you don't want to write more books that hit that mark. It doesn't mean that you don't find new ideas that you think are just as compelling and just as important.

So I've been extraordinarily lucky and enormously thankful for that luck because it's allowed me to afford a life where I can, instead of being a daily newspaper reporter, I can go and I can devote myself to writing things that are longer and harder and, frankly, riskier.

Some of them might not work because audiences might just say, like, I'm not interested. Though that's a means to an end.

You just can't wait to finish. You can't wait to inhale more of it.

I feel that way about books all the time, and it's just such a wonderful feeling. So that's my goal, to write things that other people feel that way about what I've written.

Joanna: Interesting. Well, then I'm going to come back to what you said at the beginning. So I asked you, why did you get into writing books? And you said, to try and make some money.

Just for people listening because, again, it's very hard to look at someone's career and say, “Oh, I should just do exactly that, and I will make some money.”

Charles: The number one thing I would say is you have to choose topics that have the audience in mind.

I've come up with 20 or 30 book ideas that I thought were just fascinating, and the reason I didn't write them is because I did not think enough other people would think it was fascinating.

That doesn't mean that we're beholden to the reader.

That doesn't mean that we dumb our things down because we think the reader wants it dumbed down or that we don't investigate avenues that we think might challenge the reader, but at some level, we have to be writing for the reader, as opposed to writing for ourselves.

The bookstores are filled with these beautiful, beautiful novels and beautiful nonfiction books that are so intricate, and so well reported, and so well written, and they're on topics that I just don't care about.

I'm not that interested in the Bhutan Death March, but I am interested in, for instance, cancer. I've worried about cancer, I've lost family members to cancer.

So I'd skip over a book about the Bhutan Death March, even though it's a beautiful book, and I'd pick up The Emperor of All Maladies, a book about the history of cancer, because it's something that speaks to me. So I think authors who think about the reader are authors who end up finding readers.

Joanna: Perfect.

Charles: Absolutely. So they're sold anywhere you buy books. They're on Amazon.com, or Audible if you like audiobooks. They're in your local bookstore, and supporting and celebrating independent bookstores is always important.

If they want to find me, I'm at CharlesDuhigg.com or on all the social media stuff. I'm the only Charles Duhigg on Earth, and so I'm relatively easy to find.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Charles. That was fantastic.

Charles: Thank you.

The post Book Proposals, Writing Non-Fiction, And Supercommunicators With Charles Duhigg first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can you build a scalable business around non-fiction books? How can you turn a book into multiple streams of income? How can you delegate in order to scale? Michael Bungay Stanier shares his thoughts.

In the intro, Bookfunnel's Universal Book Links, and How to Write Non-Fiction Second Edition; ALCS survey results of writers on AI, remuneration, transparency and choice; AI Translation is the Game-Changer’s Game-Changer [The New Publishing Standard]

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Michael Bungay Stanier is the bestselling author of five books, with a million copies sold, including The Coaching Habit, How to Begin, and How to Work with (Almost) Anyone. He's also the founder of training and development company Box of Crayons, a podcaster, speaker, and coach.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Michael at MBS.works or BoxofCrayons.com. You can get the journal at DoSomethingJournal.com.

Joanna: Michael Bungay Stanier is the bestselling author of five books, with a million copies sold, including The Coaching Habit, How to Begin, and How to Work with (Almost) Anyone. He's also the founder of training and development company Box of Crayons, a podcaster, speaker, and coach. Welcome to the show, Michael.

Michael: Jo, I'm so happy to be here. It was earlier this year that you and I were hanging out in a field together, and this is warmer and less damp, amongst other things.

Joanna: Yes, indeed. We were at The DO Lectures in Wales, which we're going to come back to. First up—

Michael: Well, the seed was planted by having a grandmother who was a writer. So my dad's mum lived in Oxford, England, and she wrote columns for the local newspaper, kind of gossip columns. Her pen name was Culex, which is Latin for mosquito, which I love.

She also wrote kids’ books, and memoirs, and plays, and radio scripts. She was a really prolific writer.

So I think that was probably the early seed, along with my dad being a great storyteller. He would tell stories at night of Sir Michael. I was meeting Sir Nigel, Sir Angus, my two brothers, and we'd head off and have adventures.

So this idea of loving stories and loving writing, I think was planted pretty early on. I found in university and in my first careers after university, I would inevitably end up writing the newsletter. In university, I was part of the law newspaper and the English department newspaper.

Which, as you know, is all part of putting in your 10,000 hours, finding your voice, learning how to write a sentence. Starting off copying other people's styles and then trying to find your own style emerging from that.

The first time an actual book idea showed up in my head, and this turned into an actual book that I published called Get Unstuck & Get Going. I had this idea that I thought about coaching, which was a profession I just started in. I was like, you know, there's a way of doing this that can be more efficient than actually having a coach.

I had this idea of like the kids’ flip books, where you have like a ballerina's head and a scuba diver's body and a soccer player's legs, and you kind of combine them into these kind of different combinations. I had this idea that you could create a book with different questions.

So you'd bring a problem to the book, and you'd open it and randomly generate some questions, and voila, you'd have a self-directed coaching practice. So I had this idea, and wrote some stuff up, and went and made some prototypes.

Then I honestly just couldn't figure out how to publish it because no publisher wanted this, and self-publishing felt impossible.

So I kind of put it in a drawer, until my cousin Robert went, “You know that book you were telling me about, this kind of self-coaching book? I noticed you're not doing it, and I was telling my boss about it, and he thought he his company could do it.”

I was like, “Wait, no, what? Ah!” So that was kind of the catalyst to me getting a first book published. After that — 

Joanna: I love that, and it's a really interesting story. Just give us a sense of the timeline because you said there that self-publishing would be difficult. I mean, self-publishing that kind of book would be difficult. You've got five books now with, I presume, different publishers or self-publishing.

Tell us a bit about that publishing journey and the timeline.

Michael: So, let's see. Get Unstuck & Get Going would have been around about 2006, so before Amazon and others kind of made self-publishing a regular book normal.

Then I self-published another book called Find Your Great Work, and did a print run of like a couple of thousand copies. I was super excited about it. A friend of mine went, “Oh, this is good,” and he sent it to his editor at Workman, which is a New York publishing house. They came back and said they'd like to publish this.

I was like, well, I've already published 2000. They're like, well, soon as those are done, we'll redo this book for you. So in 2010, I think, I published a book with Workman in New York. So that was a regular publishing experience.

Then 2011, I partnered with Seth Godin, who is a marketing blogger, author, general kind of guru guy. He had a year where he partnered with Amazon and produced a book a year through them, only created through Amazon.

I created an anthology called End Malaria. It was pretty exciting, actually. We had like 60 people. They all wrote articles around how to do more great work.

All the money raised from that book, not just the profit, but all the money, all the revenue, went to Malaria No More. We raised $400,000, and we hit number two overall on Amazon.com with that.

Joanna: I should just say on that, I think, well, one, I'm a fan of Seth Godin. I've talked about him a lot on the show, so my listeners know of him.

I bought that book, and lots of people bought that book, regardless, but to support that as a charitable work.

Michael: Yes, it was a project I'm very proud of because I was like, oh, this is using what I can do, which is write books which I know a bit about, and connect with people which I know a bit about. With having the partnership with Seth, I'm like maybe we can make something cool happen here.

So the next book wasn't until 2016, but it was my big breakthrough book. It was called The Coaching Habit. It was because I spent four years trying to pitch this book to Workman who published Do More Great Work, as it became called.

They kept turning me down. I kept writing the book and designing the book and writing proposal. I went through probably six or seven iterations of the book. I did a lot of writing, and they kept saying, “Ah, no, it's not quite right. We don't like it. Go back and have another go.”

At a certain point, Jo, I went, “Okay, this is it. This is the book. Take it or leave it.” I was pretty sure that they would take it because by this stage, Do More Great Work had sold maybe 70,000 copies. So that's a pretty good performance, and I was thinking they would bet on the author, but they didn't.

They turned me down. I was affronted and depressed, but at a certain point I was like, there is something here in this book.

I work with a company called Page Two, and they have this hybrid publishing model which we can dig into.

That came out February 29th, 2016. So February 29th, because I could pick my pub date, and I'm like if this book doesn't sell very many copies, I can say on its first birthday, it sold X number of copies, even though that's a four year stretch. You know, always thinking.

That book just took off. So it sold almost 200,000 copies in its first year. It's sold now probably a million and a half copies. Maybe not quite that much, but kind of getting close to that number.

Four years later, I published a sister book to that, called The Advice Trap, which is a kind of deeper dive into how do you tame your advice monster. So now I was on a roll. I'm like, I've got this thing.

So a book that followed that is called How to Begin, which is about what you do when you hit midlife and you're trying to figure out what you do next. It's how do you find a worthy goal.

Then my most recent book is called How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, which came out, I've lost track now, maybe a year ago, bit over a year ago.

Somewhere in there, there was one other little book that I published, which was like a daily provocation. It's one of those books with 366 pages, each page is a date with a question or a provocation in there.

Joanna: I love that because you've done so many different ways of publishing. Have you done all of the books—the rest of them, the recent ones—with the hybrid publishing?

Michael: I have, yes. Ever since The Coaching Habit, I've just loved this partnership with hybrid publishing. It's a really good model, particularly if there's more to your business than selling books. If your book is often a doorway into other stuff that you do, they're a particularly powerful partnership.

You and I both make a good living through selling books, Jo, but we're in the minority.

What that business model does is give me much more control over my book, without me needing to worry about all the minutiae detail stuff that I'm not good at and not interested in.

It gives me freedom to distribute my books out in the world in a way that can generate bigger returns through my speaking or through my training or through other stuff that I do.

Joanna: I think this is a really important point. I mean, you mentioned there the business beyond the book. So give people a sort of clue as to the other ways that you make money, but also that you have made money, because you're a multi-passionate creative.

You do things that maybe they're kind of project based, and then you move on. I think it's really interesting because a lot of people say, well, you just start doing one thing and that's it, but—

Michael: Yes, some would say multi-passionate creator, other people would say easily distracted.

So I started a training company called Box of Crayons, you mentioned it in the introduction. It sells and licenses the IP that's from The Coaching Habit book and The Advice Trap to big companies. So their clients are people like Microsoft and Salesforce and Gucci, kind of these big name brands.

It's trying to get thousands of people to change their behavior so that when they're leading people, they can be more coach-like and ask better questions.

So I started that company. I still own it with my wife, but luckily, I don't run it anymore.

So that's a multi-million dollar a year company, like $5 million or $6 million in revenue. The profit of that company gets shared a bit with me, and a bit with the people in the company, and a bit reinvested back into the company.

How to Begin, which is the book on setting a worthy goal, a goal that's thrilling, important, and daunting, there's a business model on the back of that which is an online training course for about 50 bucks, I think, or 100 bucks. It's a kind of a deeper dive into that work.

So The Conspiracy is where people come together to do the work and actually make progress on their worthy goal.

Many of us feel that call to do something bigger and braver and bolder than ourselves, but it can be pretty daunting to do it by yourself. So this is a community, an encouragement, and some structure to keep making progress. That's mostly run by a small team of one full-time person and a couple of part-time people.

There's a theme here, Jo, which is that—

Because if I'm running a business, we're in trouble. If other people are running businesses, we've got a chance.

I give speeches, so sometimes webinars from my office, but sometimes I get on a plane and I fly different places to give a speech. The success of The Coaching Habit book means that I am ridiculously well paid for doing that.

If you're Brene Brown, you're charging a quarter of a million dollars to give a talk.

Joanna: Wow.

Michael: Yes, exactly. If you're me, my rack rate, as we call it, is $50,000 to give a speech. Now, that's an enormous number, and it's partly there to have most people go, “That's ridiculous. Why would we pay you that much money?”

That means that I can stay focused on the stuff that I really want to do, which is to create and to write and to build new stuff, rather than be on the road giving speeches. So partly it's to try and make myself inaccessible.

Let's say I give about 10 to 15 speeches a year, and definitely not everybody pays that sort of amount of money, but that's the start of the conversation around that.

Then there's book sales, and working through the hybrid model, you can expect somewhere in the 30% to 40% royalty rate. It's not really a royalty, but in terms of money generated for a book sold, 30% to 40%.

That is roughly three to four times more than you would on a traditional publishing deal, where your royalty rate's more likely to be in and around 10%. It's less than if you just did a straight publishing, uploaded a PDF to the Amazon enterprise and sold ebooks through them.

Joanna: I love this. This is so useful for people, for me and for people listening, because, like we've said, it's about building an ecosystem around your personal brand. This is basically what you have built. Your name is the thing that is, I want to say famous. Your name is what people recognize, and then there's all these other things.

There's a couple of follow up questions. So one is, way back when, did you design this? Like coming out the gate, did you go—I am going to design this ecosystem business around a personal brand?

Or was it just you took opportunities, followed ideas, and there was no potential planning around it?

Michael: Well, ironically, the planning that was there was trying not to build a personal brand.

Joanna: That's really funny.

Michael: The thing is, I would say that my name is largely unknown, as much as it might be.

Not in the way that like a Dan Pink, or a Susan Cain, or a Brene Brown, or any of these folks are known. In part, that's because when I was building Box of Crayons—and that's the business I spent most of my time building, I spent 17 years working in that business directly.

I was like, the business is called Box of Crayons. It's not called Michael's Training Business because I wanted to make myself redundant as fast as possible. The reason for this, Jo, is kind of a philosophical one and a practical one.

The philosophical one is at the heart of the work I do, it's to invite people to step into the best version of themselves, to kind of take responsibility for their own freedom, to unlock their greatness. Part of the act of doing that is for me to create space for them to do that.

As somebody who got dealt lots of the great cards: straight, white, over educated, English speaking man, blah, blah, blah, I've got a lot to give away. So my job is to get out of the spotlight as much as possible so that other people have an opportunity to step into that space.

Practically, I want to do that because I'm a fundamentally lazy person. It's like things work better when I'm not involved.

Some version of podcasting, some version of creating, some version of writing, all of those projects get me most excited. So partly, this is trying to find other people to do the work.

Joanna: This is also interesting to me because there are a lot of us who are independent authors who are ‘doers.' You know, we like doing the work, as such.

So you used the word ‘lazy' there. I know other people who use that word, but actually what you are good at is delegating and trusting other people and helping other people be the best they can to run your business for you, or to be your publisher, or whatever. I actually think this is a real trick.

So how can people who are overly doing, and I include myself in that—

Michael: That's a wonderful question, and honestly, I wish I was a much better delegator than I am. I'm still too much of a meddler, but you're right, I've been practicing for quite a long time to try and make myself better at that.

Partly, it's I'm lucky enough to have a wiring that has me kind of wired to think about what the next thing is, rather than kind of obsessing about what's happening at the moment. So I'm kind of wired to be able to let some stuff go, which helps for sure.

When I stepped aside from being the CEO at Box of Crayons, and Shannon was coming in to take on that role, honestly, she was totally freaking out about it. I wasn't. I was freaking out a little bit, but not really like she was.

She was freaking out because I had hired her from behind the bar of my local pizzeria four years earlier. This is her first job. Now, it's her first job, but I hired her as she was in the tail end of her completing her PhD in literature. She's incredibly smart, and I just went, you have a ton of potential.

Really quickly, it just became obvious to me and the person who was coaching me that maybe this person could be a CEO. So we're like, okay, how do we set you up?

We hired somebody for two years to help us in this transition, a year leading up to Shannon becoming the CEO in a year after it. That was very helpful because that just helped somebody look at the two of us and make sure that we didn't collude in our own destruction.

That's something that can definitely happen because founders are terrible at handing over control, for the most part. The other thing we did, Jo, which was really helpful, is we used the tool that comes from Susan Scott's book called Fierce Conversations.

Shannon and I went back and forth to figure out what the decisions were for Box of Crayons.

Now, Twig decisions are decisions that I will never hear of, just never know about. It's just not in my future life will I ever come across what that conversation was about.

Branch decisions are ones that probably I hear about afterwards, either in a conversation with Shannon, or maybe her monthly update to the company, which I'm part of. Those are those decisions. Nothing to do with me, but I'll find out about them.

Trunk decisions, and this is where it starts getting interesting, are decisions for Shannon to make, but for her to talk to me before she makes them.

Then Root decisions are decisions that I get to make as the owner of the company.

Those are categories that are useful for whenever you're looking to delegate to figure out where does the power rest in this decision making. Now for Box of Crayons, where we got to pretty quickly was to realize that actually I only had two decisions, two Root decisions that I could make.

One is, do I sell the company or not? The other was, do I fire Shannon or not? Because in this instance, I wanted this to be Shannon's company that she was running that I happened to be a shareholder in. Not Michael's company that Shannon was managing on my behalf.

It just meant that we came up with a hierarchy around what those decisions are. So that's one tool that helped.

The second tool that helps, and I kind of touched on this actually quite a lot in the book How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, is with most of the people with whom I work—

That doesn't normally happen. You think it would, but most of the time when you start working with somebody, you plunge into the “what” of the work. The doing of it, the stuff that needs to get done, the stuff that needs to get delegated. Here's why we're having the meeting, blah, blah, blah.

What I do with the people with whom I work is I'm like, let me tell you the best experience I've had with when I'm working with somebody like you, in the kind of role you have.

Why don't you tell me the best experience you've had when you're working with somebody in my position, in my role? What's the worst experience that we've had?

So setting up those conversations allows us to get a little clearer about how we best work together, which means that both they and I are more comfortable about what's being delegated.

Joanna: Yes, that's super useful. I think often the conversations—and authors, writers, you know, many of us are far more comfortable writing. So, I mean, people can do a sort of first draft of that in writing, get the ideas down and then talk about it. As you say—

Michael: Exactly, and it's like you also have to understand what your standards are.

Most of us don't know what good enough looks like, and most of us don't know what excellent looks like. If you don't know it, how on earth can somebody who you're delegating to find the right level on which to perform.

So it's doing your own work to kind of go, look, this is what I mean by getting this done. This is what it looks like. This is what it doesn't look like. It's taken me a long time to learn this, Jo, but —

So I have an assistant, Claudine, and when something isn't quite as I want it to be with Claudine, I don't hoard it. I don't linger over it. I just ping her a quick note, going, “This, I prefer it to be A, not B,” and she's like, cool, got it. Then she builds it into her process.

Joanna: Yes, that's great. So I wanted to return to your book projects because you have a premium Do Something That Matters Journal coming in 2025. Now, many of us people listening, we do premium print editions of our books, and sprayed edges, and foil, and all this.

We can do we can do anything now. Like pretty much as independents or hybrid as you are, we can do anything. I do know that a journal is tough.

Michael: Doing a journal is tough.

When I talk to my Page Two folks, the hybrid folks, they're like, whoo, there's a journal mafia out there. I mean, it's relatively easy to create a journal, at least it feels easy compared to writing a “proper book” in inverted commas.

So it can be really tempting to all of us to go, “Look a journal, how hard is it?” It's like, throw down a few questions, have a lot of blank pages, add a ribbon, maybe a bit of an elastic thingy to hold it shut, and you're signaling journal.

If you go onto any of the online retailers, there's a gazillion journals for sale, most of them cheap, shoddy, nasty, underwhelming. So I was like why on Earth would I do a journal?

So I get kind of clear on what success is. Sometimes it's like, you know, it doesn't have to sell that many, I want to get this thing out in the world, and I want it to be created.

So too with this journal. It was like, do I want to do this journal? I've got this idea, I think I know how it might work, and I've got a way of where it connects. It connects to the How to Begin book. So it's part of that ecosystem. So this comes down to understanding what your business and your business ecosystem is.

So, okay, I've got a little marketing machine that is about trying to find people in midlife, trying to figure out what to do. I can sell them the How to Begin book. I can sell them the Do Something That Matters Journal. I can sell them the How to Begin Course. I can sell them The Conspiracy.

The journal is a whole different price point. It's more expensive to create something like this because you're using nicer paper than you would on a regular print book. You've got ribbons. I've got a cloth bound journal with an indented title. So it's all kind of fancy and lovely.

So what made me go yes is, first of all, this is an outcome from my actual journaling practice. I spent 20 years trying to figure out a journaling practice, and this turned out to be helpful for me, and these questions turned out to be helpful for me.

Secondly, it kind of builds on some brand awareness around me, which is that I'm kind of known for asking good questions. This journal not only has regular daily questions that repeat, but it has unique weekly questions that are different over the 18 weeks of this particular journal.

So first of all, it's like, okay, it'll enhance my brand. It's something I will use. So if I don't sell any of these, I've got a lifetime supply of journals. So that'll be fine.

Thirdly, we did a smaller print run than I would normally do. For me, I would normally do an initial print run of a book of around about 20,000 books because I've got The Coaching Habit that continues to sell really well. It sells a couple of thousand copies per week.

It means that I can bet that the rising tide effect will mean that over a lifetime, I should be able to sell 20,000 copies of most of my books. That's the rule of thumb I have.

With this journal, our first print run is 8000 copies. I'd be delighted if I just sell out this first print run, that would be a success for me. Otherwise, it'll be Christmas gifts to everybody I know for the rest of my life.

Joanna: Can I just ask on the product side, because I've looked at this, one of the things is the lie flat.

This is the thing that costs the money, basically. One of the things.

Michael: So mine doesn't lie flat. I don't totally know.

Joanna: As in, do you have to break the spine to lie it flat? Or is it like the Leuchtturm or the Moleskine, where you just open it and it lies flat, basically?

Michael: It has a like, I don't know what the fancy terms are, but it's a hardback. So the spine is a hard ridge.

Joanna: So it's more like a ‘book' book?

Michael: It's more like a book book, but when you open it, you don't have to do anything fancy to be able to write on both sides of the book.

Joanna: Okay. I think this is the interesting thing because different people like different journals. So, for example, I might buy one of those because I want just to see your products and to get your questions, but I may not journal in it. For example, I journal in just a plain other notebook. I use a Leuchtturm.

Michael: Oh, I love Leuchtturms.

Joanna: Yes, I love them too.

Michael: Right, because there's the Leuchtturm ones where they're really plain, and that's the ones I've used for 10 years. So now I'm moving away from them now with this new journal, or using them differently, at least.

Then you have kind of the planner style journal, which is: write down what you're doing today, write down your top three things, write down your intentions. I mean, it's kind of a more how do I actually hold my universe together.

Then the ones like mine, which is like, here are ways of checking in with yourself. So a little more structured than Julia Cameron's Morning Pages, where you'll just write for three pages or three minutes or something, free flow.

So I'm like, well, this is what's worked for me. It's got the discipline to check in on a daily basis because getting clear every day on what matters most and what you're grateful for and what you're present to, really helps.

You check in on a weekly basis to kind of help you learn and grow and evolve and see the bigger picture.

Michael: It's through Page Two, so that's my hybrid publisher. As you can tell, I love Page Two. I love the expertise of around publishing that they bring, and I love that they understand authors who have a back end.

I love that I get to be in control and make the final decisions on the look and the feel of all the stuff I create because that matters to me.

Joanna: I think it is on Amazon for pre-order. I think that is how I found it.

Michael: It is on Amazon. It's at DoSomethingJournal.com.

Joanna: Fantastic. Okay, so we're almost out of time.

I want to just return to The DO Lectures in Wales, which I'll link to in the show notes. It's very interesting. Let's call it a festival, but it was mostly a festival of ideas. It was full of people looking for a new direction or the next pivot.

You and I were there for different reasons, and I was feeling a need for a pivot. There were lots of people wanting to reinvent themselves.

Now, this is going to come out towards the end of 2024. People moving into 2025, we've got lots of changes in the political things, in AI, and there's so much going on.

Michael: I have three suggestions. The first is, a really great question to try and answer every single morning for a period of time is, “what do I want?” It's such a hard question. Oh, man.

It is actually one of the three morning check-in questions that I use as part of this new journal, but you don't need to buy the journal to just use this question. So sitting down with, “what do I want?”

Often when people are at that kind of restlessness, what's becoming clear is what they don't want. I need something to be different, but they haven't yet got a clearer reading, or even started picking up some faint signals around what they do want.

It is hard, but the more you can spend time with that, the greater you're going to find solid earth underneath your feet that will enable you to move and act.

The second question that I think can be really powerful is —

Most of us, and I include me in this, for sure, we underestimate just how powerful the status quo is. It has a really heavy gravity, and shrugging off the status quo is always harder than you think it is.

When you say no to something, you're actually saying no, most of the time, to someone. Whatever you're thinking as your reinvention, somebody's going to be a bit disappointed in you. They were hoping for more of the same.

So try to figure out what you're going to say yes to, and therefore what you have to say no to. So much of this reinvention process, we add yeses, but we're not brave enough to say no. Your yeses mean nothing unless they come with a no.

The third thing I might suggest is find some people to perhaps do this with, have this conversation with, walk this path with. It can be a coach. It can be an informal gathering of people.

I mean, tomorrow I'm going to a day-long gathering of a brand new mastermind that we're starting up with me and four other people to support each other as we figure out who do we want to be when we grow up. So you don't have to fork out money for this. You can just find your people.

This is an existential question. It's hard to wrestle with existential questions just by yourself, so go find somebody else to walk the path with.

Joanna: That's great advice. I'm definitely thinking about all those things too.

Michael: The best place to go is probably MBS.works. That is the umbrella website. It points you to social media if you're into that sort of stuff. It points you to all of the books. All of the books have free stuff associated with it, so you can get in there and pillage the free stuff from the books if you'd like to do that as well.

If you have a multi-million dollar budget for corporate training, then you should also go and look at BoxOfCrayons.com, but I suspect there aren't that many of those people listening in here.

Joanna: No, but certainly some people might buy your journal! So that's more the level of us.

Michael: I would be thrilled. As an author, and everybody who's listening knows this already, which is it's nothing but a treat when somebody has the generosity to buy a copy of your book.

I saw a thing on LinkedIn, I think, of somebody going, “The Coaching Habit is my most dog-eared book.” I'm like, oh, my god, that is just the best compliment an author can get.

Joanna: Oh, brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Michael. That was fantastic.

Michael: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Jo.

The post Building A Business Ecosystem Around Non-Fiction Books With Michael Bungay Stanier first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can we write from the perspective of others while still respecting different cultures? How can a children's book author make money from bulk sales? How is self-publishing in South Africa different? With Ashling McCarthy.

In the intro, Spotify for Authors and Katie Cross on self-narration and email marketing; How do I know when to leave my publisher? [Katy Loftus]; and Claude Styles.

Today’s show is sponsored by FindawayVoices by Spotify, the platform for independent authors who want to unlock the world’s largest audiobook platforms. Take your audiobook everywhere to earn everywhere with Findaway Voices by Spotify. Go to findawayvoices.com/penn to publish your next audiobook project.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Ashling McCarthy is a South African author and artist, as well as an anthropologist, graphic designer, and non-profit founder. Her latest book is Down at Jika Jika Tavern, in The Poacher's Moon Crime Series.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

Find out more about Ashling at AshlingMcCarthy.co.za.

Joanna: Ashling McCarthy is a South African author and artist, as well as an anthropologist, graphic designer, and non-profit founder. Her latest book is Down at Jika Jika Tavern, in The Poacher's Moon Crime Series. So welcome to the show, Ashling.

Ashling: Hi, Joanna. Thanks so much. I'm really looking forward to it.

Joanna: Yes, great. So first up—

Ashling: Well, writing and publishing has come quite late to me. It wasn't something that I'd ever actually intended on doing. I started off as a graphic designer in South Africa and did a bit of work in the UK, then came home when I was completely homesick.

I got into a really interesting craft development program for people who had a three-year qualification in design, and we would be working with women who lived in rural communities in an area called KwaZulu-Natal, where I live.

As long as you had a three-year design qualification, they'd match you up with women in rural areas who were very skilled at craft. The idea was that then we would work together to match those skills to create high-end product.

So it was really that experience that allowed me to see South Africa in a very different light, and I went on to become an anthropologist and a nonprofit founder. So that took a good probably 15 years of my life and writing a book kind of came out of running the nonprofit.

We're an education nonprofit, and we work with rural schools. So children who go to really poorly resourced schools in rural communities in in South Africa.

We would get lots of donations from overseas companies for books, but there was nothing that reflected their lives, their experiences. So I thought, oh, maybe I'll start to write a book that kind of reflects that.

So Down at Jika Jika Tavern is actually the first book in The Poacher's Moon Crime Series. I, last year, published the second book, The Leopard in the Lala.

How that came about, in terms of writing a crime series versus an educational kid’s book, was that my family was very involved in a game farm with wildlife. Just one day I was thinking about the fact that so many people who live on the outskirts of these game farms have no access to them.

So the only chance of them seeing a rhino or an elephant or any other kind of game is from the other side of the fence, and I kind of wondered what that would feel like. So I started to write a story that would bring that to light.

It was during our time on the game farm it was the height of rhino poaching, and we had six rhinos poached over a period of time. I really started to get a feel for what the book would be about because there were so many interesting incidences that took place.

So for example, a traditional healer was arrested on the neighboring game farm for being involved in rhino poaching. I wanted to understand better, why would somebody who effectively has a calling to do good, why would they be involved in such a heinous crime?

We just had so many little interesting things happen that I was able to then weave these real life stories into fiction to better understand why people become involved in rhino poaching and wildlife crime.

Joanna: Yes, because being an anthropologist, I mean, obviously that means you're interested in people and what different people do.

Talk about what the job of an anthropologist is and how much you use from your career in the books. What are some of the interesting anthropological things you weave in? I mean, you mentioned the traditional healer. Like, what are the other things?

Ashling: So I must say, anthropology plays a really big part in my writing. I studied Anthro, got a master's degree in HIV/AIDS and orphan care, and really it was looking at what kind of cultural practices lead to people becoming infected and affected by HIV.

It was really those experiences of understanding how culture can have such a huge impact on the way people respond to certain things.

So now in my books, I mean, obviously, as a South African, we have 11, in fact, now 12 official languages. We are multi-faith, multicultural, so it's very hard to try and tell a story from one perspective.

So I really do use the methodologies that we learnt in Anthropology, of curiosity, listening, observing, and trying to understand somebody's perspective from the world that they've come from without bringing in my own thoughts and feelings about that. So it's really interesting and fascinating.

I think it helps to better understand why people do things. Then we can look at—I mean, obviously we want to end rhino poaching and wildlife crime, but just telling people not to do it isn't good enough. We have to try and help them work with the systems that they have in place that could lead to a reduction in those actions.

Joanna: I love that, and I think that's so good in terms of whatever we're writing, whatever genre, taking the perspective of someone else.

I mean, just your examples there, say poaching and HIV, there are some people who might write a story that's like, “Well, they are evil. They're the criminal. They're the bad person because they did this.” Whereas there are some very logical cultural reasons, like good reasons, why these things happen.

I mean, but re-education and changing people's minds. I mean, even the economics, right? Sometimes this is done because people need it for money to feed their children or something. So this is all so caught up in things that we often just don't know about.

I mean, this is really hard, though. You've spent all these years working with these communities, so you're trying really hard.

For people listening who want to write other perspectives, how can normal people who aren't anthropologists with your background write the other?

Ashling: I think that's research. I mean, obviously, as I'm writing about poachers, it's very hard to meet a poacher. They're either sitting in prison or they're just totally inaccessible to you. So a lot of research, a lot of interviews, I've read a lot of academic papers.

There's a huge amount of academics that are doing research into wildlife crime and have worked with communities. So I think wherever you can't physically meet somebody, or even if it's online, is to really try and read as much as you can.

Also, find people who are representative. I mean, what I know about a traditional healer, which we call an Izangoma here, I know very little about that.

So I found somebody who I could interview and who explained to me what the perspective of that faith and that calling is, and then why somebody might turn from the calling to do good, to do bad. So I think it really is a lot of research goes into it.

It's not just asking one person. Just because I'm writing about a particular character, and then I interview one person, that's certainly not the perception of a number of people from that culture or that faith.

Joanna: Oh, that's really good. I think that's excellent. As we're recording this, this will go out a bit later, but we're in the last week of the American election. It's just so fascinating to read different perspectives from the polar opposites of a political side of things.

I mean the triangulation in that sense—I know that's not South Africa, but we all have these same things, right—the triangulation is really hard if you have two extremes and a moderate somewhere in the middle. I mean, with some of these, it's very, very hard to get into someone else's perspective.

Is empathy just a big part of it? Like putting aside who you are to try and really listen?

Ashling: Yes, definitely. I think that's probably the biggest thing that I learned from Anthro was empathy and really just sitting with somebody else's life experience.

I mean, you talked about wildlife crime and the economics of it. The fact is that I've worked and been in communities where really the poverty is just horrendous. People have aspirations just like you or I do, and they want their children to have a better life.

So if somebody's being offered their entire year's wages, if not more, for one night to poach a rhino, I mean, very few people would turn that down in order to help their family or to better their family.

Yes, obviously, there is greed and higher syndicates and all of that, but for the average person, or the average poacher who gets involved, I think a better understanding of the other aspects of their life is important.

Joanna: I mean, obviously talking about things like poaching rhinos, I mean this is a normal thing to talk about in South Africa, but most people listening won't have been to South Africa. They might not know much about it. I think some people might even think it's an area of Africa, as opposed to a separate country.

Ashling: Well, I think South Africa gets a very bad rap in terms of, obviously, crime and corruption, and there is truth in that. I'm very much not looking at the country that I live in with rose tinted spectacles.

Yes, there is crime. Yes, there is corruption, but I absolutely love this country. I have no intention of ever leaving.

I think what's so wonderful about South Africa is the people and how they're so welcoming and kind and empathetic in many ways. We just have kind of a culture of helping one another, of community, of looking out for one another. 

I mean, often when you see videos on TikTok of people mocking South Africa, the first thing that you would notice in the comments is how South Africans, despite race, faith, political agenda, will band together and protect our country to the death. It just really is a country of huge opportunity.

For me, I think it's really changed the way I view the rest of the world. I have lived in the UK. In fact, my older sister lives in the UK. I've got a twin who lives in Hong Kong, and I've visited, obviously, on numerous occasions.

I always feel such a great sense of relief and happiness on getting back into that airport at O.R. Tambo and setting foot on South African soil.

Joanna: That's really great. I worked in Australia in the mining industry with a lot of South Africans, who I guess they must have left in the 90s, which was a different time, obviously. I feel like when people say South Africa, they have Nelson Mandela in their head, which is what, 20 or 30 years ago?

Ashling: Yes, 30 years ago this year.

Joanna: 30 years ago, yes. It's a very, very different time. As you said, I guess the other thing we hear is the crime for travelers. So if people want to travel—

Ashling: Absolutely. Like any country that you visit, there are areas to avoid. There's just the simple rules, like not going into the CBD, the Central Business District, late at night. I mean, there are very clear areas that you shouldn't visit during the evening.

I know everybody loves to flock to Cape Town. Cape Town is amazing. It's beautiful. It's got wine farms. It's got the mountain. Absolutely stunning, but it's quite interesting, a lot of non-Capetonians feel it's a very different experience. Like when I visit there, I always feel like I'm in a slightly international kind of zone.

Areas like where I'm from, Durban, a lot of people bypass Durban because Durban does have a bad rap. It's worth visiting Durban though. I mean, we are two hours away from the mountains. We're two hours away from game reserves. We've got the beach on our doorstep.

My suggestion is to look around at the other places and other locations to visit. There's the Karoo, there's the Kruger National Park, which obviously a lot of international visitors flock to as well.

So I think just do your research and try and get on to maybe some South African groups that can share with you some of the best things to do and maybe some of the places to avoid. There's quite a lot of those websites.

Just thinking about what you were saying about Australians and South Africans in Australia, I think probably the worst ambassadors for South Africa are those that have left. Many have left for good reason, better job opportunities, or maybe have had a traumatic experience in this country and often don't represent us well overseas.

I think to look past that, as that's the same for virtually every country in the world.

Joanna: Yes, I totally agree. I mean, obviously there are dangerous places in any country in the world, so I think that's important to stay. Also, I totally agree with you with going home. It's interesting how you talk there about going back.

I mean, I lived in New Zealand and Australia between 2000 and 2011, and you know, there were reasons that I was away. Jonathan, my husband, is a New Zealander, and both of us are so pro the UK. I'm so English now. I feel like I am English, not just UK, but I'm English.

I think going away, like you also lived away, going away and then making the decision to return, it means you make it like an active choice to live in your country. That's huge, isn't it?

Ashling: It's a very, for me, an intentional commitment to the country. Also, I mean, I was born in the very late 70s, so I had 10 years of apartheid South Africa. I understand how privileged our position was at that time, and still is, and wanting to contribute back to the country that allowed me to become the person I am.

That was part of running the nonprofit, was saying there are so many kids out here who deserve better. If I can contribute to that and make something happen there, then I actually owe it to this country.

It's been a very intentional decision to return here and to make the best life possible, not just for myself, but for those around me.

Joanna: So let's come on to the books and publishing side.

Do people use like Kindle and the Kobo? How do they listen or read? What are print sales like, as well?

Ashling: Yes, Kindle is definitely big here. I still get into arguments with people about Kindle versus physical books, and there's still a lot of people who want to have the book in their hand and smell the paper and all of that. So I would say both are used widely.

I, personally, haven't heard too much about Kobo, but that could just be because I have a Kindle, so I don't listen out for that. Ebooks, as far as I know, it's through Kindle.

I've started looking into, after listening to the talk with yourself and Adam Beswick about selling direct, I didn't realize I could sell ebooks directly from my website. So that's something I'm exploring now as well.

Audiobooks and Audible is very popular here as well. So, yes, I would say there's still a big physical store presence, like to go into a store and buy a physical book. Books on Amazon, yes, downloading ebooks.

To order a physical book on Amazon, the courier fee is very prohibitive to get a physical book from international to South Africa. So that probably isn't too big, but I mean, all the bookstores here sell whatever it is that you are looking for.

Is it mostly independents? Is that something you've looked into, or is it dominated by publishers?

Ashling: So in terms of self-publishing, in order to get your book into big bookstores, like Exclusive Books, or Bargain Books, or whatever it is, you have to work through a distributor. So there are probably about three or four distributors.

The big chains won't deal with you as an independent author. They want to work through the distributor. So the distributor, they read your book, and then they either accept it or reject it. If they accept it onto their list, then you would send your books to them, and then they approach all the big chains.

They also work with schools and other entities, but it has to be done through that distributor. So what that does mean, though, as an independent, I'm still not coming out with a huge amount per book.

The bookstore gets quite a big discount so that they can sell it at your retail price. Then the distributor takes a big chunk of that. Whatever you're left with, then you obviously minus your expenses off of, and you're left with that little amount as a profit.

Joanna: Yes, print books are a very challenging situation. Well, those same chains, do they work across Sub-Saharan Africa in general, or is it like a South African thing specifically?

Ashling: Some of them do. I'm thinking of two very big ones that would probably work in Namibia, Botswana, those countries that are quite close to us, but I don't think through all of Africa.

Joanna: You mentioned earlier that there are 11 or 12 languages just in South Africa, and obviously every other African nation has a whole load more languages. I mean, there's a lot of them.

Ashling: English and Afrikaans would probably be the two main languages to publish in. There is a push towards indigenous languages, like IsiZulu, isiXhosa, some of those other languages that some authors might want to publish in.

English is taught through in most schools. So, generally, everybody can read English or Afrikaans. Those are the two biggest languages spoken in the country.

If people listening are in South Africa or they're interested, what are the specific challenges? Are you using exactly the same stuff as I would, or an American would? How does that work?

Ashling: So self-publishing, it hasn't been too difficult in terms of just setting it up. I mean, you get your ISBN from the National Library System.

Then I went straight to Amazon, in terms of wanting to reach an international audience. So I have the physical book and an ebook, so that's not difficult to do.

Now that the payment systems have changed, prior to about a year and a half ago, your payment would have to go through an American bank account. Then you would withdraw that to a South African bank account. Now you can be paid directly from Amazon, which is fantastic.

Then the actual physical books here, I work with a local printer, and I do runs depending on how many books I need. That can be quite costly, obviously, because we're not printing thousands of books, but I'm sure that's the same for print on demand anywhere

I haven't really found anybody yet here who does print on demand to say that I just want 10 books and for it to be cost effective.

So what I do is some of my books I will work through my distributor, and then other books I will have for myself. I do a lot of art shows. If I do a book launch or a talk, I will take books with me and sell directly to the public.

Joanna: You mentioned your online store as well. What have the challenges been with selling direct? A lot of people listening, they're not in the US, they're not in the UK. I mean, even people in Europe are struggling with some of this stuff.

Ashling: Really, around payment. So, I mean, I'm quite new to this part of trying to reach an international audience outside of Amazon. I wanted to move away from people being able to only buy via them.

So it was interesting, as I said, when I listened to Adam Beswick's talk of how he's doing sales directly from his website, my first challenge there was, well, who am I going to use to print these books? How do they get delivered to people? How do I get paid for that?

I was really trying to work out what is the best platform, and it seems to be somebody like Ingram Spark that can do all of that for you. The distribution, the printing, so I'm looking into that.

Then, you know, if I use a BookFunnel for ebooks, then just ensuring that my website is aligned to BookFunnel's way. It's just trying to work out the technicalities of how these things work together.

I'm very much listening to a lot of your podcasts and trying to learn from what people have already done. I think that's probably the best way to do it is find people who are doing it, and then just email them and ask them and hope that they will email you back.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's a good call. I mean, I'm using Shopify. I think Adam uses Shopify.

Ashling: So it's straight from my website, which does have an ecommerce platform.

I did speak to my web person about this. Like, should I rather just start a different website? Also on my website, I am an artist, and so it's almost like a multi-disciplinary website. Should I rather have just a website for my books?

She said, well, the issue with that is that you really have so much SEO and traction and articles linked back to your original website. You would lose that when starting a new website.

It's those kind of little things that I obviously wouldn't think about because I'm not a web person, and my tech side is very poor.

I think it's even just finding out those little issues that could kind of create a hassle or an issue as you try and build the book business away from your original author page, or whatever it might be, and then trying to figure out what the solution is for that.

Joanna: It's definitely a challenge. I mean —

Redirection onto another site, and then have call-to-action. So there's ways around that.

The other thing is, like you mentioned Ingram Spark for print books, and I think there's no integration that I know of that will be just one click where they just go straight through to Ingram. So at that site, you'll have to get the orders manually and then load them up separately.

Ashling: Yes, so it's quite challenging. I don't think I had any idea of what lay ahead.

Also, because it happened quite—not suddenly. It took eight years to write the first book, but when you write in the book, you're not thinking about how am I going to get it out into the world? You're just impressed that you actually finished it.

So trying just to work out —

So something that I am very focused on, and it might not work for everybody, but it certainly does work for me because of the content of my books, is that they are perfect for high school English set works. The content is very relevant to the social, economic, political, conservation challenges faced in South Africa.

I have got the book into two schools, so my marketing focus is actually on books and schools.

Then also the services that can benefit kids in terms of writing. So one school has taken books, and then we've written a teacher's guide and a student workbook, which will be out next year, so then the teacher can really engage with the material.

Then they've asked me to come and do a narrative writing workshop because apparently kids today don't know how to do creative writing because they're always on their phones and they're not actually reading.

Joanna: I think that's great. In that way, as much as I love Adam Beswick, I don't think that model is for you.

I think the bulk sales model is for you, and exactly what you're doing in schools.

A few years ago now, I had an interview with David Hendrickson, who has a book about how to get your book in schools. He has a book, How to Get Your Book Into Schools and Double Your Income With Volume Sales. I'll link to that in the show notes, or search the back list for David Hendrickson.

He talks exactly about that. I mean, also Karen Inglis has been on the show talking about books in schools and doing that. As you say, I mean, when you think about the fact that you do have to make a living, you don't want to grind it all out to get a couple of sales on Ingram Spark when it's difficult to do.

So I think that's definitely the way to go.

Ashling: Yes. Even that photo that I sent you of all those books that were going out, I had been very lucky too.

I've been in the nonprofit sector for so long, I also understand the landscape of charity and donation giving, and how corporates in South Africa must give a percentage of their profit to charities in order for their scorecard to be up to date.

I was able to approach a funder, an environmental funder or company, and say to them, “I have these books. Are you interested in encouraging reading in schools, but also working with conservation organizations?”

There are two really big training organizations here for wildlife conservation, and they very happily purchased 250 copies, which then were handed over to those colleges so that their conservation students could read the book and learn about community interaction and how important it is.

That was a great opportunity for me to get my books into those. So I got paid. The company gets what is called an SED certificate.

The organization has a resource that they can use, and that also I can then work with them further going forward, in terms of training, workbooks and workshops. That's a really nice opportunity for both them and for me.

Joanna: I think that's great. Like you say, schools want to do this, and charities want to do this. This bulk sales model, I realize I focus a lot more on the sale to the end customer, but —

So more people should definitely think about that, because as you said, you probably got that money—Did you get the money before you even printed?

Ashling: Yes, I don't print until I get paid.

Joanna: The cash flow situation is just a lot better.

Ashling: Much better. Yes, as you're not seen sitting with boxes and boxes of books and hoping that somebody's going to relieve you of them over time.

Joanna: Exactly. I think this is the thing to think about book sales. I mean, none of those sales of those 250 books, they're not going to appear on any best seller list, but that's not the point. As you said, this is a living for you, so that's what we have to think.

Ashling: Absolutely.

I'm really not too concerned about being famous, that might have been in the back of my mind at one point, but it's really that I just want people to be reading the books. I specifically want high school kids to read them. I mean, it's written for adults, but it's great for high school.

I love meeting people who've read the book and their minds have shifted. Their mindset has shifted, or their view has shifted on this topic, and they can be a bit more empathetic and kinder. That's really the point of it.

Joanna: Just on marketing. Obviously, we've talked about the schools there, but as you said before, you're also an artist. You have physical art. You mentioned there a bit about SEO.

Ashling: I'm not very good, I must say, at marketing.

I think I definitely fall into the Gen X of hating self-promotion. I know I should probably be on TikTok and all of those kind of platforms, but I use mainly Instagram. Facebook, I have an author page.

I think that's how my focus on the schools came about, when I realized this is not a strength of mine, of marketing and really posting every single day, and kind of trying to get people to become interested in the book. So actively pursuing schools is one way to get around that.

For art, I will attend art exhibitions. So we have quite a number of them throughout the year, which are like three or four day events which you can attend and have a stall.

I must say though, that art, as much as I enjoy it, it's not my focus anymore. If I have the time to paint, I'll definitely paint. I've realized throughout my entire working career — 

Actually, maybe I could just focus on writing. It's what I love doing. With art, so for example with the student workbook, I can illustrate that workbook and use art in that way. It's kind of a complimentary service to the writing and not just always stand alone.

Joanna: I think that's great. I only laughed with what you said about the marketing because pretty much everyone feels that way. I really don't know many people who are like, “Oh, yes. I love marketing, and I'm so good at it.” Not many authors do that. I was going to ask you—

Ashling: Yes, I am desperately wanting to do an audiobook. It's very expensive here. I don't know if it's hugely expensive on your side. It's definitely something I get asked a lot about.

I think, again, it would complement high school, especially for kids who don't want to read the book, or maybe they have a learning disability or challenge. So, actually, the audiobook would be perfect for them. So I'm in the position right now of going, do I actually just record one with me reading it?

Joanna: Yes, I was going to say exactly that. I mean, I love the South African accent. People listening can hear that you've got a lovely voice. Is your protagonist female?

Ashling: She is a female. My only kind of reticence about doing this is that she, while there are many characters of different races and cultures, she is a black female. I really wanted to have a young black female do the reading of the book.

It's been suggested to me, why don't you just put the first book out and your voice? Then when you are able to pay for a proper recording with a professional narrator, then do that. So I think I might do that just to get it out there.

Joanna: I think that's a really good idea. As you say, the practicality of finding the exact perfect person for that voice, that's going to be really hard. So it's known as just the narrative straight read, the straight read by the author. Quite a lot of people do it.

I'm starting to do it more. I've mainly done my short stories, but I have thought about just doing my novels as well. You don't have to make up voices and things like that, you don't have to do accents. It's just a straight read, as if you were reading it in schools.

Ashling: No, not a lot, not yet. I will be as of next year, as I go into the schools. I do readings at book launches and stuff.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. I think that recording your own audio now, the software to do the mastering and stuff is good. So for people listening, Hindenburg Narrator is the software that I recommend now. It just gives you a one-click output for ACX and Findaway Voices.

So I would agree with people who say to record it yourself. Then if you make enough money, and if you find someone—I mean, maybe in one of these schools you'll find a young black woman who wants to act or wants to get into that. That might also, in itself, be an interesting opportunity.

Ashling: A great opportunity.

Joanna: I'd encourage you with that, and I love your voice. I've always liked the South African accent. Okay, so we are pretty much out of time.

Ashling: Well, if you're South African, you can just pop over to my website, www.AshlingMcCarthy.co.za. Then, for now, I am on Amazon, both Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

I am probably not going to be on Kindle Unlimited for too long because I want to try opening up the ebooks to other platforms as well. So for now, my South African website or Amazon.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Ashling. That was great.

Ashling: Thanks, Joanna.

The post Writing The Other And Self-Publishing in South Africa With Ashling McCarthy first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can you manage the competing priorities of an author career? How can you deal with the demons we all have to wrestle with along the way? Tiffany Yates Martin talks about the role of intuition in decision-making, the challenges of feedback and rejection, and the importance of reclaiming creativity during difficult times.

In the intro, Amazon Music Unlimited will now include a free audiobook a month [The Verge]; When to pivot or quit [Self-Publishing Advice]; Thoughts on sunk cost fallacy, and how do you know when things are ending? Are they spiraling up, or down?, Quit: The Power of Knowing When To Walk Away by Annie Duke.

Plus, HarperCollins AI licensing deal [The Verge; The Authors Guild]; and Seahenge is out everywhere, as well as at my store, JFPennBooks.com.

Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Tiffany Yates Martin is an editor, speaker, and teacher with over 30 years in the publishing industry. She writes contemporary women's fiction as Phoebe Fox, and her latest non-fiction book is The Intuitive Author: How to Grow & Sustain a Happier Writing Career.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Tiffany Yates Martin at FoxPrintEditorial.com.

Joanna: Tiffany Yates Martin is an editor, speaker, and teacher with over 30 years in the publishing industry. She writes contemporary women's fiction as Phoebe Fox, and her latest non-fiction book is The Intuitive Author: How to Grow & Sustain a Happier Writing Career. So welcome back to the show, Tiffany.

Tiffany: Thanks for having me again, Joanna.

Joanna: So we talked about your background when you were last on the show in April 2022, so today we're going to jump straight into the book. Why did you write this book?

Tiffany: I know, it's kind of a departure for me. I've spent all these years as an editor working on hard skills, craft skills, and teaching about that. Then I was actually in the middle of writing what was to have been the follow up book to my first, Intuitive Editing, which was a deep dive into character development.

I just kept writing and thinking and talking about these other ideas because I was hearing from a lot of authors that they were feeling overwhelmed by all the changes and the constantly evolving publishing environment.

I think it's a fortunate time to be an author because I think we have the opportunity to have more control and autonomy over our careers. We have more avenues than ever before.

I was hearing a lot of discouragement, so I started in my blog, where I used to focus a lot on hard skills, I started writing more about this stuff. I just wanted to try to help authors based on what I was hearing and seeing, and they got huge response.

So the character book just kept balking at me, and I finally realized that one of the things I kept talking about in my blog posts was to pay attention to your motivation, to what you want out of your career.

That's the part that we really have control over, is what our day to day life looks like as authors. So I decided to follow my own advice and turn my attentions to the book that really wanted to be written right now, that I felt like authors probably need more than ever.

Joanna: I think that's so important, as much as I'm sure your character book will be amazing if you do do it. I think this is something I felt very much last year, which is the more prescriptive—you call it hard skills there—the prescriptive, “do this, do that.” I mean character development, there's a lot of books on that. Your take would have been different. 

Also similar, my last nonfiction book, Writing the Shadow, it's like the personal stuff, the mindset stuff, the lifestyle stuff, all of that actually is something that AI and the machines can't share. I mean, they can share it, but it's not their experience, whereas it is actually our experience. So I agree, I think that's so important.

Just on that overwhelm and the changes that are going on, what are some of the things that people are saying to you? Because I think that will resonate with people listening as well.

Tiffany: I was startled by how many—particularly in traditional publishing—how many authors were feeling discouraged by what seems to be trends in the industry.

I'm a fan of any kind of publishing path that fits an author, so I'm not slamming on traditional publishing, but advances do seem to be going down, in general. There is a fascination with the debut author.

So if you're not that shiny new thing, I think that it feels as if traditional publishing doesn't help an author build a following and a career over the span of their career in a way that it used to focus on. So it's like, come on, make a big splash with your book, or else they're moving on without you.

As a result of that, a lot of authors—I just talked to one yesterday—are being encouraged to try new genres, to write under a pen name so that you can kind of disown disappointing sales in the past.

There's more than two million books published a year. So I think authors are feeling like it's harder and harder to pop out of the slush pile.

Even with indie publishing, with all the opportunity that it offers and the greater autonomy in many areas, there are a lot of different responsibilities authors have to take on.

Then running a business in conjunction with running the creative part, which are both, I think, very consuming pursuits, is a lot. We're trying to balance all of that with our lives.

One thing I talk about a lot, and I know you do too, Joanna, is I call them the “writer demons”. It's the things I think writers and creatives have always suffered from keenly. Like imposter syndrome, and competition, and comparison, and procrastination, and self-doubt.

It feels like we open up more space for those with all the other overwhelm going on. So it's kind of a combination of all those things.

Joanna: Just to stay on those demons because you have in the book, one chapter is called,

It made me laugh because I think in my The Successful Author Mindset, I've got a section that says, “If you haven't published yet, don't read this,” which is like, do you really want to know all the things that you might feel later on?

It's interesting, and I can't remember if you have this in the book, but you just mentioned overwhelm. I feel like another one of the demons is overwhelm, in that we struggle with focus and making a choice. Almost part of the problem is authors are trying to do everything, and you literally cannot do everything.

Tiffany: This is a huge question, and I love it because I think it's really relevant. One of the things I talk about in the book is really defining what drives you as a writer and what you want out of your writing career.

I think a lot of times we go into it just out of sheer love of the written word, and storytelling, and imagination, exploring our imagination. All that's great, but we have to think about what a writing career actually entails because it's a business. So we have to think about what that's going to mean for us as authors.

So I think part of that is setting priorities. I had a friend who we sort of compare notes creatively and in our creative careers. I was really feeling overwhelmed myself. I'm a freelancer, and I'm pretty sure you can relate to this, Joanna, but you build your reputation and your career as a freelancer by being what I call the “yes girl.”

It's very common for me to get overwhelmed and overbooked, and it does become hard to work on things and to give your attention when all you can see is the giant mountain of stuff in front of you you have to do. It's hard to start taking a single step at a time.

So she suggested that I create a priority list, an actual written priority list of what is most important to me in my career. Not a to-do list, but if I had to stack rank the goals that I have, the things I want to devote my daily attention to, the reality of my writing career day by day, what does that look like?

Then when I started to consider what I wanted to say yes to and book myself with, I was able to literally go back to that list and rank it in order of: how important is this to me —

So that's one way to start.

I do think it's helpful to think of it, especially if you're indie publishing, let's say. With any publishing path, really, there is such a giant pile of things writers are responsible for now.

I think more and more, which is part of that overwhelm, we're not just writing, we're marketing. We have to learn graphic design, and we have to learn legal language to manage our contracts, and we have to worry about every aspect of the publishing process in a way I think authors never had to before.

So I think we just have to figure out how much of that we are comfortable with, what suits our goals, and rest. I don't know if you've read the book by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, but the instinct, at least for me, when I'm overwhelmed, is to work harder, work longer, work more.

Sometimes I think that's counterproductive because we're burning out. We’re depleting all of our resources that we need in order to accomplish those things. So we have to remember to unplug sometimes. What is your advice on this? Because you are one of the busiest people in the industry that I know.

Joanna: It's funny you say that because I don't think I am. I think I just demonstrably have output. On my wall, I have—

So in terms of my focus every day, that is my focus every day. All those other things, I often will not do them. I just don't do them.

Tiffany: Like what? Do you mean social media?

Joanna: Social media is probably a very, very good example. If Sacha Black's listening, she'll laugh. I did try TikTok. I tried TikTok for like less than 12 hours, and I was like, you know what? No. There's just no place in my life for this.

Things like advertising, I do things in campaigns, so I don't do things all the time. So as we record this, I am just finishing up a Kickstarter, so I have been doing some social media and stuff, but most of the time I don't do that.

This might help people who can't say no. So for example, and people sometimes think I'm a bit mean for this, but podcasting, one of my rules is if you have fewer than 50 episodes, I won't come on your podcast.

Sometimes I have exceptions, but what I have found is that a lot of podcasts, most podcasts, don't last past 50 episodes. So it's a bit of tough love, but most of them don't last. I've had enough time wasted over the years that I've been like, okay, that's one of my rules. So it's on my not-to-do list.

Another thing on my not to do list is TikTok, for example. There's also particular types of writing. So I think having a not-to-do list can really help.

Let's come to intuition because I feel like intuition is part of this. How do we make a decision as to what we do prioritize, what we do value? So let's just take a step back. Can you talk about how you describe intuition?

Tiffany: I think intuition gets confused sometimes with magical thinking or manifesting, and that's not what I mean. I used it in the title of my first book, which was a hard skills book, Intuitive Editing, because it's the approach I take to editing.

Basically what I mean by it in that capacity, is that rather than trying to take some external system of writing and impose it on our writing, which I think is counterproductive and strips the writing of its voice and originality, we have to grow a story from the inside out.

Then if you want to take some of these, many of them wonderful, systems for helping you fine tune and make your story more effective, great. To try to cram what we're doing into a mold, I think takes all the life out of it. That's kind of how I feel about creating a writing career.

It touches on what you were just saying, which I love, which is even in this area of our field, there's a lot of prescriptive advice about you know, here's how you become a best seller, here's how you make six figures as an author. It's all very system-oriented, kind of like these craft systems I'm talking about.

I think writers go into it thinking, okay, I've got to do all those things, check, check, check, so that I can be successful also. We have to do more of what you were just talking about, set up our personal path, our boundaries.

First of all, nothing that works for one person is going to work for every person. So if somebody is trying to set something up as the holy grail of “here's the secret sauce,” there is no secret sauce. Also, the secret sauce isn't right for everyone.

I think what we neglect to do as authors is honor ourselves and what we want.

What you just said is so empowering because it's giving ourselves permission to not do things that we don't want to do.

We can't control any outcomes, but what we can control is the day-to-day experience of being an author and building a writing career, and that's your main source of fulfillment and satisfaction and joy that's going to allow you to weather all these hard parts of publishing that are not within your control.

So I'm with you. I sort of only moderately enjoy social media, so I sort of only moderately do it. I'm aware that I'm building a business, so my intuition is to do things that are more organic marketing. I really like talking to people. I love conversations like this with you. I love teaching.

I love writing my blog it turns out. I did that because, like everyone else, I'm like, “You should start a blog to create more followers.” Then it turned out it was really a wonderful way for me to help create community and to start exploring some of these ideas that weren't necessarily in the purview of what I was known for doing.

So intuitively, I have been creating a career where I say all the time, that my worst day at work is still a really good day. I'm not always waiting for some holy grail that I'm trying to attain that may or may not happen. I'm enjoying what I'm doing right now.

Joanna: Yes, I agree with that. You used the word love when it comes to things like the blogging and talking and teaching and things. The word love, of course, is an emotional word, and I'm sure you don't love everything all the time.

Tiffany: I don't love everyone all the time, Joanna!

Joanna: No, exactly. I think partly, to me, the—

Like, I like using TikTok (as an example) because I feel like some people absolutely love it and some people hate it. I tried it, and I just had almost a visceral (negative) reaction. I just don't do video.

You and I, we're not on video right now. I don't know whether it's because I'm an introvert and highly sensitive, but the visual field, when it's doing a lot of things, is just too much for me.

Now, I have, and I do have some YouTube videos and blah, blah, blah. The point is, I don't love it, so I can never, ever sustain that. Whereas this show, in fact, I'm just about to record my 10 million downloads episode.

Tiffany: Congratulations.

Joanna: Thank you. This will go out after that, so people can listen to that a few shows ago. Essentially, when I started this podcast in 2009, podcasting wasn't even a thing, but I intuitively felt that I should try it. So I tried it, and then I enjoyed it. Like we're having this conversation and we've talked before, this is great.

We're enjoying this, even though it's also “marketing”, in inverted commas. So I was like, I tried something, I liked it, I continued doing it, and here we are 15 years later, whatever, still podcasting. That only happens because I intuitively started and then enjoyed the process.

It's like you say, you can't think of an outcome of 10 million downloads. That's just impossible. You just have to start and go in a direction.

How would you advise people tap into that emotion? Because the problem with that also is that sometimes you go to a conference and there's all this hype about something, or you get caught up in some hype and you do it.

Tiffany: I just wrote a post about this obliquely, and that it's very easy to market a dream to people who want it desperately. The whole first section of the new book is called Foundations, and this is kind of the core of it. I think we have to define why we went into this in the first place.

For most of us, I don't think it was that we wanted to be rich and famous. If it was, allow Joanna and I to disabuse you of that notion right now. If you don't already know, the odds against that are enormous.

You wouldn't go into any other career where you had, what is it, I don't even know the statistics, but it's something like less than a 3% chance, or even less, of making millions. Even becoming a full time writer, making all of your income from your work, is dauntingly rare, but we go into this anyway.

We have to remember why it matters that much to chase after something so unlikely. That's the thing that's going to start to build that resilience in all of us as creatives. Then, as I said, you have to define what you actually want out of this.

If we are in this business because we want to be a New York Times bestseller and nothing else will make us happy, then the chances are phenomenal that we will never be happy at what we do because most authors are not going to become New York Times bestsellers. It's the harsh reality.

We have to understand and accept the realities of the business so that we can stay in touch with why it's still worth pursuing for us.

There's a question I ask in the book that I've used. I started as an actor, and then I was a journalist, and I wrote fiction. As you said, I haven't been doing that lately because I identify primarily as an editor.

Every time I'm sort of evaluating where I am in my career, what I want intuitively, I ask myself: if somebody told me right now that I would never hit the heights, the greatest heights to which one might achieve in this field, would I still want to do it?

Asking myself that was the reason I eventually left acting. It was one of the reasons I stopped writing fiction. Every time I ask myself that as an editor, the answer is, hell yeah, I would still do it. I love it every day. I do use the word a lot.

You say it's an emotional word, this is an emotional business.

And that is emotional, I think. So, yes, I love my daily job, and I don't want to do anything else. Even if someone said, “You've peaked, baby. This is the best it's ever going to get.” I'm happy, and I think that is what we have to find a way to get in touch with.

Otherwise, everybody says you have to develop resilience in this field and persistence, but that's the ingredient. The main ingredient of that resilience is finding the satisfaction in what is within your control to affect.

Joanna: Yes, it's interesting. I've also been reflecting on this around persistence and resilience. Somebody said to me, “Oh, you've got so much discipline.” I'm like, I have no discipline.

Same as you, right?

It's interesting, you talked about moving on from acting and let's just say you're not in a fiction phase right now, because that may or may not come back to you. I feel like we're writers partly because we almost have no choice. Once you tap into that vein of creativity, whatever that is, you can't stop doing it.

It's like even if nobody reads the damn story, or nobody buys the book or whatever, you're going to continue. I was thinking about this with the podcast, given the reflection on the downloads and things, at some point I will stop podcasting. I can see an end to me podcasting, but I can't see an end to me writing.

I feel like that's actually something I could do for the rest of my life, you know, right up until I die. PD James, wonderful British writer, she was still working on a manuscript when she died at like 94, I think she was.

In fact, I have so many quotes on my wall, and I have a quote on my wall by a horror author called Adam Nevill, and it says,

I feel like that just gives me permission, and people listening and yourself permission.

We have an imagination, and I used to think everybody had what we have, but they don't. They really don't. People don't live with all these things in their head that they want to write on the page. They just don't, but we do. I mean, almost part of it is—

Tiffany: I mean, it's kind of a basic instinct, I think, especially for those who are called to do this. Do you want to set yourself up to dread and hate and get burned out on the thing that nourishes you so much?

I feel like if we're just a little kinder to ourselves, give ourselves more grace, and give ourselves more agency in how we spend our days pursuing this thing we want, that's how you sustain it until you're 94 years old, writing your last book right before you die.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. Okay, so you used the word “kinder” then, and so I want to come onto this feedback section of the book.

Being kind to ourselves is all very well, and self-love is great and everything, but you have this thing about feedback. It encompasses writing feedback, rejection, criticism, and also the crickets when nobody responds to an email or query, or nobody buy your buys your book, and nobody even cares. I feel like this is the opposite side to the whole “love side” of things.

Even if we intuitively reject it, because that can actually happen as well, how do we become better writers as well?

Tiffany: I love that you make the point that I probably should have clarified. I do have a lot of positive regard for this field, but let us not downplay how difficult and challenging and just downright painful many aspects of it can be. This is probably prime among them, rejection. It's really hard, and criticism is tough.

You just recently wrote about this I think, Joanna, about getting back your notes from your editor, and how you always just kind of have to take a beat with it. I do think we have to be gentle with ourselves.

The first thing I tell authors when I return an editorial letter, and mine tend to be pretty meaty, so I mean, I just wrote one that was 10,000 words, just to give you an idea, on top of all the comments.

I tell them, draw a bath, pour yourself a glass of wine, take a moment to be in the right headspace to hear all the things that may not be as effective on the page as you hoped they would be.

I think that's one critical distinction, is that good critique is not commenting on you or your talent or the worth of the story. It's simply reflecting what is on the page and whether it's coming across in a way that is conveying your vision as effectively as possible for the reader.

Again, this is a subjective thing. That's another thing to remember is that all criticism, all critique, is subjective. I include mine as a professional editor, or any professional editor, I include agents, publishers, and every single reader who leaves a review.

Everyone feels how they feel about a story, and everyone is affected by something different. So remembering that can be helpful. Good critique is also not personal. I make a distinction in the book between three different kinds of feedback: commentary, criticism, and critique.

Criticism is my least favorite kind, and that's just basically unhelpful negative feedback about your writing. Like, “This isn't working. I hate this character,” things like that. First of all, it's very daunting to hear that, and it's hard to take it in in a way that allows you, as the author, to do something constructive with it.

Second, it is the criticizer, let's say, the critic, who is simply offering their judgment, their assessment, which is personal and doesn't necessarily help you.

Then there's commentary, which you get a lot in critique groups, which is stuff like, “Well, you know what you should do,” or, “This actually happened to me, and let me tell you how it really would look.” That's somebody telling you prescriptively how they would do something that is also not helpful.

Critique is that thing that simply holds up the mirror and reflects what that hopefully educated critiquer is seeing in your story, and is able to do so in a way that says, “Here is where I was pulled out of the story for this specific reason, and here are some ways you could address it,” not prescriptively, like, “What she should do is.”

For example, a good piece of critique would be something like, “I didn't understand the character's motivation in this scene, so I felt a little bit uninvested in her. It would help if we understood why she wants him to do so-and-so, and maybe that's simply her telling him, or maybe it's giving us a glimpse of her inner life.”

I'm giving some suggestions, but I'm not saying how to do it. Now, we don't always get that. So you have to become your own advocate in many ways in this career, but this is one of them.

You're great at this, I think, Joanna. You take in the feedback, and you determine what resonates for me and the story I'm trying to tell and what isn't right for my intentions. So you take what is helpful to you, and you disregard what isn't, and then you just leave it behind you and not let it continue to percolate.

I do want to talk about rejection too, but I want first to ask if you can weigh in on this as well, because I know you're very experienced at handling critique.

Joanna: Well —

[You can find a list of editors here.]

I have never been in a book group or a writing group because I want somebody who knows what their job is.

So you're a professional editor. You like editing. You know what the job of an editor is. Now, I do think finding an editor is a bit like dating, as in you might not find the right person for you at one point in your life. I think you also, when you grow as a writer, you might need a different editor.

So I think that that is important. Now I work with Kristen Tate at The Blue Garret, and she's been on the show talking about editing, and helps me a lot. So I do think the intuition comes back in with when I get the feedback, sometimes I ignore it.

Like you say, I don't take every single piece of feedback from Kristen and put that into action, but it usually is 80 to 90%. If I'm really reacting to it, it's like, well, why am I reacting so hard? Is that a good reason? As in, do I just feel like, no, that's really important? Or is it a more of an ego reason?

To me, the main thing with editing, like professional feedback, when it comes to someone who is trying to make your work better, is turning yourself into a reader rather than the writer.

I think there's such a precious moment when an editor reads your book for the first time because you're never going to have that time again, that first sort of feeling of the manuscript. So it's important to take that feedback seriously because that's the experience the reader's going to have.

They are coming to this cold. They don't know what this is going to be. So, yes, I definitely take feedback from a professional editor differently to a one star review on Amazon, or “You're just a boring person and just a crap writer.” I'm like, okay, whatever.

You mentioned you wanted to talk about rejection.

Tiffany: Yes, especially if you're trying to pursue a traditional path, that's a pretty big part of it.

Again, you have to learn not to take it personally, first of all.

Let me tell you, having been an actor, there is no rejection like the rejection of somebody staring at your face and going, “Thank you,” in the middle of what you're saying. So I feel, in some ways, very lucky to have started that way because you can take anything after that.

It still hurts to get back even a form letter that says no thanks, if you get anything at all. So I think you have to find ways to keep it in perspective, for starters. If you're getting a form letter, keep in mind you are one of likely hundreds of submissions they're trying to read through on the slush pile.

They may not have made it past the first page or paragraph. They may have read a little more, and it's just not right for them, for what they represent, for what the market is buying right now. They may like it, but they don't love it. You want a champion who loves it, so be glad in that case.

It is like dating because you don't want to go out with someone who doesn't really think you're all that. Also, you understand when you're dating that it's going to take a long time for most of us to find the person you really want to commit to.

We tend to lose sight of that because we set our sights on, “Oh, but this is the perfect agent for me. This is the perfect date for me. This is my perfect spouse.” We have decided that based on really nothing. We have to understand that it has to be the right fit, just like with an editor.

I made poetry out of mine. I included some in the book because the form letters, especially, they're very funny to me because every agent, every publisher, is hoping as hard as you are that you're the one.

So they're not in the business of crushing dreams. They don't want to do that. So a lot of these form letters are really nice, but they're really generic. They will say things that are almost like haiku. “We admire this work greatly and feel that your talent will find the right home, but sadly, it is not for us at this time.”

This just began to strike me as hilarious, so I put it in poetry form, and I put them up on my wall, and it helped. I also started making kind of a contest out of it. It took me 113 queries to get my first agent. It took us two books and three rounds of submissions to get a publisher for it.

So I think if you go back to what we were talking about earlier, you develop that resilience and persistence. It's also helpful in the rejection arena or the crickets arena, which can be even harder because it's almost like you're invisible or you don't matter.

Again, that's just a function of the industry.

They're just trying to keep their head above water, and sometimes that means they can't even acknowledge. So don't take it personally.

If that's really hurtful to you, maybe that's not the right person for you anyway. So take it as you're one step closer to finding the person who is.

Joanna: Yes, and get back to writing, I think that's the other thing. Like everyone, I have a bit of a slump after finishing a book project because you're empty, you've emptied yourself into the book, and I start to kind of mope around. I'm like, what am I doing? What should I do? Then in the end, some idea pops into my head.

I started writing this short story called Seahenge over the weekend because I was just in such a bad mood. I was like, why am I in such a bad mood?

I was just kind of waiting around for the Kickstarter to finish. I do have this book with an agent. I was like, why is everything so slow?

Tiffany: It's kind of nice. It takes the pressure off. With this one launching now, I have the same thing. It opens up an empty space, but I always see that as, first of all, rest, because you know how hard it is to launch a book.

Then, freedom. Now I get to pick anything that I want to work on. What could that be next? I always think that's a happy time.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. Now, there may be people listening who are struggling with that creative spark. I think sometimes it's easier to find than others. You do talk about reclaiming the creative spark in troubled times.

I mean, right now, you just look at the news and there's extreme weather, and hurricanes, and political upheaval, and war. Also, the creative community is being ripped apart by divisions over AI.

Tiffany: Well, you left out plague, which we also had!

Joanna: I'd forgotten that now. That didn't happen!

Tiffany: It'll be back, don't worry. So I think that was sort of the genesis of thinking about a lot of this for me, was when COVID happened, I was hearing from so many authors that they couldn't write.

Not just because of time and all the unrest we had then, and they were so busy making their sourdough starters, but because there was so much mental unrest and uncertainty and fear and distractions at home that you never had before for lot of us, or isolation you never had before.

So that was actually when I started doing online teaching. The first course I ever created was called “How to Train Your Editor Brain”. I was telling authors that just because you're not feeling like you can create right now, that doesn't mean you cannot be creative.

I am a big advocate that one of the greatest things you can do for your own writing is to analyze other people's stories because you have the built in objectivity with those that you don't in your own stories. So it lets you see the inner workings of it in a way that I think it's hard to pick apart our own.

So you're watching something, and you can follow back your own. You know, what were we doing during the plague? We were lying on the sofa, binge watching stuff.

I created this course that that showed authors how to watch analytically, like an editor. That is something you can do for your creativity, whether you're able to create or not, and not feel that you are no longer a creator. Plus you're resting, and I cannot overstate the importance of that.

There is a great value in our writing, I think, in using it in leaning into those feelings. I mean, first of all, a lot of us start writing, why? Because we want to escape something, the real world. We want to create an ideal world we love. We want to work through our emotions, anything painful or uncomfortable.

We want to learn what we think about things. We want to share our beliefs about things. All of that, especially in troubled times, I think can be your engine.

Allison Winn Scotch is a bestselling author that I've worked with in the past, and she had a book called Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing about a female politician. It was inspired by her frustration and fear about the political situation, and just the global unrest we've been having, and the polarization.

I think she told me that she wrote that book in something like six weeks, that it just poured out of her. She took all of those feelings, fears, fury that she was feeling, and put it into this story. So that's one thing you can do with it.

I think, for me, some of the most impactful moments I've had as an artist have been when a single individual said something to me, like one lady said, “Your books helped me get through chemo.” I don't know of any greater reward than something like that.

It helps other people process pain. It connects us. It helps people make sense of what seems senseless.

It can give voice to the voiceless. It creates hope for people. It can change the world.

This is not a dumb story, but it's so kind of pop culture-y that I tell it all the time. It is established that the show Will and Grace was a huge part of the reason that marriage equality passed in the Supreme Court.

It brought “the other”, for many people, into their living rooms in a way that broke down those barriers and misunderstandings and preconceptions people may have had about the LGBTQ community. So it enhanced acceptance.

I hate to use this word because it implies abnormal, but it normalized it for people in a way that influenced the law and civil rights. That's astonishingly powerful.

I don't know if that's helpful for people when they're in the middle of all that unrest, but for me, it does hold out a little bit of a beacon. I dedicated Intuitive Editing to the storytellers who illuminate the world, and I believe that.

Joanna: Yes, I guess to come back to the intuition, if the spark is anger or a cause that you have or something in your own life, but to let those sparks ignite and follow those sparks. Even if people say to you, “Oh, that's a dead genre,” or, “That's not going to sell to anyone,” or, “That's just not going to make any impact on anything.”

Tiffany: Or, “You can't write about that.” Do you want to write safe or not?

Joanna: So, really, do write those things that keep at you. I would say even if you don't know how long it'll take to resonate with people. So coming back to my book Writing the Shadow, I've been kind of working on an idea for that for like 20-odd years, and it took a long time to write.

I know that it's not for most people most of the time, but when people are ready for that book, then it makes a difference.

Tiffany: It was important to you to write it, obviously, that you persisted for two decades to do it, which is the inherent reward of it to me. Like that's the thing that makes that worthwhile for you as an author.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. So it's quite interesting how these things develop. We're out of time—

Tiffany: The best place for it all is FoxPrint Editorial. That's my website. Writer's Digest has named it one of the best websites for authors. It's full of resources for authors, many of them free. Downloadable guides, recommendations. I've got my blog on there that's full of like tips on craft and writing life.

The book links are there, but you can buy them anywhere you buy books. Then I also have online classes. Those are paid, but I keep them very low priced. Pretty much everything else on there is free and designed to just help authors write better.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Tiffany. That was great.

Tiffany: Thank you so much, Joanna.

The post The Intuitive Author With Tiffany Yates Martin first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can you write memoir with deep sensory detail? How does terroir in wine equate to the writer's voice? How can you manage your online presence while still protecting yourself from the haters? Multi-award-winning wine writer Natalie MacLean shares her tips.

In the intro, initial thoughts on Author Nation 2024, photos from Death Valley @jfpennauthor, Folk horror on The Nightmare Engine Podcast, Walking the Camino de Santiago on the Action Packed Travel Podcast; Introversion and writing the shadow on The Quiet and Strong Podcast.

Today’s show is sponsored by FindawayVoices by Spotify, the platform for independent authors who want to unlock the world’s largest audiobook platforms. Take your audiobook everywhere to earn everywhere with Findaway Voices by Spotify. Go to findawayvoices.com/penn to publish your next audiobook project.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Natalie MacLean is a multi-award-winning wine writer, named World's Best Drinks Writer at The World Food Media Awards, as well as a sommelier, TV wine expert, and host of The Unreserved Wine Talk Podcast. She's also the bestselling author of multiple nonfiction books on wine, including Unquenchable, named as one of Amazon's best books of the year. Her latest book is Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Natalie at NatalieMaclean.com.

Joanna: Natalie MacLean is a multi-award-winning wine writer, named World's Best Drinks Writer at The World Food Media Awards, as well as a sommelier, TV wine expert, and host of The Unreserved Wine Talk Podcast. She's also the bestselling author of multiple nonfiction books on wine, including Unquenchable, named as one of Amazon's best books of the year.

Her latest book is Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much. So welcome to the show, Natalie.

Natalie: It is so good to be back here with you. We've had an initial chat on my podcast [about biodynamic wine and Blood Vintage], but I am so looking forward to this, Jo.

Joanna: Oh, yes. So first up, just—

Natalie: Sure. So my career path was probably like a lot of folks. I didn't plan to be a writer. I didn't have the confidence to be a writer. I was brought up by a single mom, single parent mom. She was a school teacher, so she really pounded it into me, make sure you get an education that will get you a job.

So I wanted to study English, but no, no. So it was PR and an MBA, and right into the workforce in high tech marketing.

Along the way, I was working for a super computer company that was based in Mountain View, California. I'm Canadian, and I still live here, but the head office was down where the campus of Google now is.

So I started arranging all of my meetings there when I had to go on Fridays so I could stay over the weekend and drive up to Napa and Sonoma. While I didn't have time to learn golf or pottery or anything else, I was dining out a lot with clients or whatever. So I really grew to love wine. So that sparked my interest in wine.

Then while I was off on maternity leave, I thought, well, I have to keep my brain active somehow. I had taken a sommelier course just for fun because that's what type As do. It was a good thing I wasn't taking golf lessons because, you know, long iron clubs and type A, that's just not a good combination. So wine worked.

So while I was off on maternity leave, I pitched the editor of a local food magazine because I noticed they had all these gorgeous recipes, but no wine content. I knew just enough about wine to be a little dangerous.

She said, yes, okay, have you published before? I said yes, praying that she would not ask me to send samples because all I had was my high school newspaper. So she gave me a chance.

The first article or column was “How to Find Wine Food Pairings on the Internet.” That was the headline back then, it's gotten much more specific since. That led to a regular column, which gave me the confidence just to cold call other editors.

Then I started landing columns in some of our national newspapers here in Canada and magazines. I didn't know anybody. I was a nobody from nowhere who made a career out of nothing.

I loved it so much that by the time my maternity leave was over, which is generous here in Canada, was almost a year, I decided not to go back. I had found something that really sparked a passion.

Otherwise I would have never thought someone's going to pay me to write. Also, I could be home with my son. So it just all worked, and that's kind of how it came together.

Joanna: Just on that, should we just be clear that you were not swigging bottles of wine during your maternity!

Natalie: Yes. No need to call child services. Mommy doesn't drink while she's pregnant. I had finished the sommelier course while I was pregnant. In all seriousness, I never took a drop, and that remains the health guidance.

There are a lot of tips in my book about cutting back on drinking. I didn't mean to write a self-help book, but it kind of turned into that for some people. Definitely, no, I was not swigging. I was not giving my little guy Pinot Noir early on.

Wine just touched all my senses. I often say you could do a liberal arts degree with wine as the hub because it ties to all facets of human endeavor. History, art, religion, commerce, science, war, politics. So it just fascinated me, beyond the buzz of it.

Joanna: Oh, and let's add dating and sex to the list.

Natalie: Oh yes, absolutely. There's a reason why it's a better social lubricant than, say, orange juice.

Joanna: Absolutely. That's fantastic. Then, again, just so people know, when was that? It wasn't like last year.

Natalie: So my son was born at the end of '98, and so it's been 25 years. It's been a time.

Joanna: I think that's really important because what you just described there, starting out and having nothing, and now you're multi-award-winning. I mean, you are so super successful. I think some people forget the journey, and they just kind of see you now.

I mean, I'm not as lauded as you are at all, but people look at how many books I've written, for example, and they're like, how did you do that? I'm like, well, it's 16 years of doing this. So that's the thing, isn't it? It's year after year, and—

Natalie: Yes, and you just keep plugging away at it, and the adage is compare and despair. The mistake that I used to make is I'm comparing my sort of back end—I know what's going on in my life—to somebody else's front end, which looks amazing. Like if you ever look at Instagram, everybody's life's perfect.

You don't see what goes on behind the scenes or how long it took them to get there. You also don't see that for every win, whether it's a book published or an award or whatever, there's like 76 losses or no’s from editors or whatever. It's just going up to bat over and over and over and keeping going.

Joanna: I think what's interesting about your writing is, obviously, you still write about wine and food pairings on your website, but also for loads of other places. You do reviews, you do articles on wine, but Wine Witch on Fire and some of your other books are much more personal.

Natalie: So I've always written from a first person perspective. I like to be conversational. Memoir is a whole, as you know, Jo, is a whole other animal from nonfiction, and even from fiction.

Memoir does share so many techniques of fiction. I had to learn a new genre of writing, really. That's how it felt. I had to learn about plot, and setting, and character, and conflict, and themes, and all the rest of it, and dual timelines.

All of this I did not have to do when writing a straightforward nonfiction book about wine or travel. It was so complex, and yet that's what also made it exhilarating.

Memoir is a true account, or at least the way you understand the truth of what happened in your life, but you have all these other techniques. It's a mountain to climb, but it's definitely doable, but again, you have to keep at it.

I took all kinds of online courses. I started listening to your podcast, which has been immensely helpful. So that's one set of challenges.

Then with memoir, if you're writing about anything juicy, it's probably something bad that happened to you because no one wants to write about “here's my perfect life, and it all turned out nicely.”

So, of course, I write about my no good, terrible, very bad vintage, personally and professionally, in Wine Witch. To do that —

They've done MRI scans on the brains of people who've been through a traumatic car crash, survived, but then they read them the script of what happened during that car crash. The same areas of the brain are lighting up. So you're not remembering it, you're reliving it.

So that is another challenge of memoir. You're going to have to go back into those scenes of your own life and really relive them if you want to tell it in full detail.

Joanna: You mentioned there how you understand the truth. I get quite obsessed around the word truth, as in truth with a capital T versus the small t. There are some things that obviously happened or didn't happen, but how we write about it in memoir is how we see it, and other people can see it in quite a different way.

So the example being, you and I have both had relationship breakups. I'm sure everyone has, but divorce, particularly. Divorce, I always think of it as a good example. My parents are divorced. My husband's parents were divorced.

Divorce from two different perspectives, it's such a different thing. If both partners wrote a memoir, it would be completely different from their perspective. So what are your recommendations to people listening, when—

Natalie: So you can always put that caveat up front, the author's note that says, “This is how I understand what happened. It's my story, my story alone. It's not someone else's story.” Even though other people may come into your story in order for you to tell your story, you have to stick to your story.

So if there are parts about somebody else's life that really don't play a role in you telling your story, leave it out. Let them tell their story if they want to in their own memoir. Stick to your own story.

The other thing that I had to do was, you know, competitiveness and perfectionism are kind of the two snakes in my life. As I say, one is a cobra that will bite you. The other is a boa constrictor that will squeeze the life out of you. So I'm dealing with that all the time, trying to, during this memoir, get past that.

So showing my flaws, all my flaws. I think it's only in being very honest with yourself, and on the page, that anyone's going to relate to you.

For me, a memoir is not exactly what you did and what happened to you, because your story is going to be so different from anybody else's, but what you did with it, how you recovered from it, and so on. It's what people can take away from that story.

So just to wrap this up, I always tried to be harder on myself than anyone else, questioning myself, my own motives and so on. As opposed to a memoir never works if it's a revenge book or if you're tilting the story some way. Readers are too smart, and it serves no one, including the author.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. It can be like legally difficult, and it's not your therapy. You have to be past therapy.

I wanted to come back to something else. So you're a sommelier and you're a super taster, which I discovered when I read your memoir. This fascinates me because I'm very visual in my writing. In my mind's eye, I see the thing play out, and then I write what I see. So I'll often use the language I see.

Other people obviously hear. Taste is literally something I always forgot in books, and smell I forgot in books. Then with COVID, I lost a lot of what I even had left, and it never really came back.

I mean, you write about wine over and over and over again. You must have such a range of sensory details because otherwise it would get quite repetitive. So what are your tips for doing this? What is the world like when you are a super taster?

Natalie: Wow, I must say, I read Blood Vintage, as you know, Jo, and I think your sensory detail was amazing. Not just the visual, but the smell and the taste. I thought you did a great job.

Joanna: Thank you.

Natalie: So you've mastered that. So I'll answer the last question first. As a super taster, it just means you're very hyperaware of your sensory environment. I got tested in California by a master of wine. He actually measured my taste buds.

25% of the population are super tasters, and most of them tend to be women. We don't know if that's evolution because we were the ones cooking or tasting the berries before giving them to the children. Or we may just we're more practiced in it today, sensing and sniffing and perfume and all the rest of it.

It was Dr. Linda Bartoshuk at Yale University of Medicine who discovered the phenomenon. She said super tasters live in a hyper sensory world. It's like having 500 fingers rather than 10, or a hyper-neon world. It's a lot of fun, Jo.

Joanna: Sounds overwhelming.

Natalie: It is. It is. Why do I drink? Why did I used to overdrink? It's noticing everything. Without my telling him, the master of wine who tested me, he said, “I'll bet you, you remove your tags from your clothing. You don't like zippers. You have thermostat wars with your family.”

I'm thinking, that's just creepy that he's so right on. So it's just a matter of noticing, over-noticing.

So that leads me to the answer to your question, how do you get better at sensory detail?

You do not have to be a super taster, you can be a super noticer, though.

I teach online food and wine pairing classes, and one of the first things we talk about is pay attention to everything in your life. So when you cut open a vegetable or a fruit, that's when it's most pungent. Smell it, taste it. Put that into your mind, give it a name, say it out loud, you'll remember it better doing it that way.

We live in a very visual culture, but we've forgotten our sense of smell. It's kind of downgraded. There was a study of graduate students, and they said, which sense would you give up for your smartphone? It was smell. We know that loss of smell can lead to depression and all sorts of things.

So notice everything in your life. I even tell them, sniff the leather furniture in your living room, just don't let anyone catch you doing it. So notice everything and then start naming it, and you will develop a vocabulary that you can call on in your writing or when you're tasting wine or whatever.

Notice differences. The other thing we do is we don't taste one wine alone. We'll put them side by side or have a flight of wines, and notice the differences. Hey, that one smells different. Why? Again, it's just about paying attention.

It's like when a movie critic goes to a movie, they don't just sit back. They've got their notes. They're making notes on plot and narrative. Just pay attention, and you'll open up your world, your vocabulary, and I think your writing.

So for example—and a lot of writers get this wrong—they might say it smelled of apples, let's say. Whereas if you were tasting a wine, I presume you would say, like a Granny Smith apple, or Golden Delicious, or whatever you have in Canada.

Natalie: Exactly. “After a spring rain, and the orchard manager had an argument with his daughter.” No, I wouldn't go on that way, but you're right. Specificity, isn't that what writing's about? Like getting more and more specific so people can paint that picture in their mind of where you are and what you're talking about.

Joanna: Absolutely. So another thing that I love from the book is terroir, which we talked about a lot when I came on your show, and in Blood Vintage it's very important. I feel like it's a word that's thrown around a lot, but that perhaps some people don't know what it means. So why is that important for wine?

Also in your book, I love that you compared that to the author's voice.

Natalie: Yes, thank you. There's a wine label at the beginning of the book that kind of sets up for the contents of the book, The Memoir Domaine MacLean, and then I talk about terroir.

For me, terroir in the wine world means it's a magical combination of like soil, geography, climate, weather, the decisions the winemaker makes, all of these different influences that come together to create the final taste of the wine.

I think we do it as writers. The parallel would be our word choice, like our point of view, our humor, our dialogue. All those different techniques come together to form your voice.

We often hear in courses or rejection letters, you know, “I want to hear your voice. What is your writer's voice?” I think it's all of those things that are working together and that are uniquely you.

If you picked up a book and it didn't have your name on it, or an essay, someone would know it's you. Just like someone would know this wine is definitely a Pinot Noir from California. It isn't from Burgundy. We could get even more specific than that, but that's basically how I think about it.

Joanna: Yes, I think one of the issues with a lot of teaching of writing is that often we have to self-edit. Obviously, we believe in editing, and we believe in working with editors as well.

Often when you're editing, I feel like there's something in your brain that says, “Oh, that's too me, like I should be more professional in my writing,” or, “I shouldn't say that because it's too colloquial.”

Natalie: Exactly. I like puns, even though they're supposedly the lowest form of humor, lowest intellectual form of humor. So you learn to not overdo it so that it's not one big groaner, but let a little through if that's who you are.

In the wine world, I stopped capitalizing words like Pinot Noir and Cabernet, and it was like a shock, or using contractions. Wine writing could be very stiff and jargony, but I wanted to make it conversational. So it's all those little, tiny touches along the way.

Again, it's a sense of vulnerability, of being okay to show yourself to the world. As I say these days, everyone knows everything about everyone anyway. So why not show them the parts you want without harshly editing yourself. They're going to find out some bits and bobs anyway, so why not welcome them in?

Joanna: Yes, and again, that's a longer term thing. In fact, I was talking to an early stage writer the other day, and she said, “Oh, I just won't put stuff about me online.” I was like, if you want a career this way, it's actually impossible, a long-term career. You just can't keep yourself away from everybody entirely.

I mean, you have to have your boundaries clearly, but you just can't stay completely separate. So if you're open from the beginning, then that's all good.

Natalie: For better or worse, we are all brands, as authors, as business owners, if you self-publish, or even traditional.

I keep dragging this back to wine, just because it's what I do, but when people present a bottle of wine, whether it's at a dinner party or they're asking for recommendation in a restaurant, we're fascinated by if there's a story with that bottle.

Every bottle has a story, every book has a story, but it's the person behind the bottle. Did they struggle and live in a van for seven years, and then they finally got a break, and they got a high score from a famous critic, or whatever. We want to know who made this. Where did it come from?

It's just there's no human touch. We want to see who's behind the books and the bottles.

Joanna: Which is why I think memoir is even more important than ever. When I think about the writers whose memoir I've read, I feel like I know them as a person far more.

Whereas, to be honest, I read fiction every day—well, every night I read fiction before I go to bed—and yes, there are some writers who I follow in other ways, but most of them, I just want to read the story. I just want the book.

With a lot of nonfiction, it's I just want the information. So I think there is a difference. Memoir is the most personal of genres, really, which is why it's so challenging, but—

Natalie: Absolutely, yes. You've got to be all in. So it's the most challenging, the most scary, and the most rewarding, I think, can be, for the reader and the writer, but you have to be all in. You can't just hedge it a little bit, and I'll tell this little bit, but I want to edit out that.

Joanna: Yes, that's true. Now, of course, so talking about putting ourselves out there, one of the things that authors are most scared of is being attacked online, being canceled. The negative side of being out there, of putting your head up above the parapet and getting shot at.

This happened to you in this terrible way. The book goes into it in more detail. So just briefly explain what happened. Also, more importantly—

Natalie: I didn't deal with it that well at first. So what happened, just to summarize without going down a rabbit hole, is that this happened 10 years ago, but I do think the issues are even more relevant today.

This was in the heyday of aggregators, Huffington Post, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. I was looking at different sites, and there were a few wine sites quoting my wine reviews. They had invited me to be part of their website, but I declined because I had my own website.

So I noticed, okay, they're quoting my wine reviews. Why are they doing that? Then I realized they were quoting my reviews from our provincial liquor store, which is government owned. So I thought, well, that must be okay. Wrong.

So I started quoting all the reviews from the liquor board because I thought, oh, that will give my readers more context. So I'll have my review, and then I will have it clearly separated that this is a different review from another writer, just like rotten tomatoes will gather movie critic reviews.

That lit a bonfire, and allegations of copyright infringement or misattribution, all the rest of it. So I did get legal help. I sorted it all out. In the end, I was within the bounds of what we call fair dealing in Canada. It's fair use in the United States, in terms of what you can quote and how much you can quote.

In terms of dealing with it at the time, it just kind of hit me like a Mack truck out of the blue. At that time it was just before Christmas, it's a lovely Nightmare Before Christmas holiday feel bad story. No, it has a happy ending.

At the time, I thought strength meant dealing with it myself, independently, and not dragging friends and family into this mess that was happening online. I thought, I can handle it. I went for a week without telling anyone what was happening.

I was just watching these nasty streams of social media and all the rest of it happening online, in the wine world, admittedly. Still, in my world, it was a tsunami. In that time, it was about 11 days, I lost nine pounds, and subsequently I developed a heart murmur.

So people say sticks and stones will break my bones, you know, whatever, it's just the internet turn it off. But if you live online, or make your earning online, as we do, if we have online businesses, you can no more turn it off than a surgeon can operate outside the hospital.

So the first thing was leaning on friends and family and bringing them in. Admitting this awful thing has happened.

Yes, I'm involved and partially responsible for not communicating better and what happened. I thought it would just be an exercise in shame, but what it turned out to be was an exercise in strength. That my friends and family were there to help me, to support me.

My hot buttons, what triggered me online, weren't their hot buttons. So they didn't care if so and so was saying whatever, they were there for me. It was such a relief. It was just a psychic relief.

Then dealing with the crisis, you have to do the things you need to do. I got legal advice. Originally, I was enrolled in the combined business program law degree. I dropped law and just finished the MBA, but I sure got my law degree in the end by the end of it.

In terms of copyright, invasion of privacy, suing for defamation, all the rest of it. All those issues that writers worry about, I took a crash course. So I got really solid legal advice.

Then I took steps after that to address what the people were saying online, but at a certain point you also have to stop responding. You have to block and walk. Block them, then walk and ignore them. As tempting as it is, even though what they're saying is “ugh,” stop reading it.

You've done what you can do, then you need to remove yourself. Or it's just going to take all of your creative energy out of you, and it will have a physical impact in many cases.

Joanna: I mean, for people listening, unfortunately, this is something that happened to you. You did make a mistake, but as you said, it was not legally a mistake. The reaction happened, and all that happened to you, and now I think people are like, well, why would I ever do this?

Why didn't you, at that point, give up? You're a highly educated, intelligent woman. You could have got a job again doing something else.

Natalie: Well, first of all, I'm very stubborn. Second of all, I'm a collapsed Catholic. So I believe in suffering makes you stronger. Beyond that, I did ask friends and family. I had some conversations saying, should I just go back to high tech marketing? But I left high tech marketing because there was so much sexism.

Then I land here, it's like, oh dear, I just left Brave New World, this high tech world, move fast, break things, and stumbled into Downton Abbey. There's a different brand, a different blend of sexism here.

One friend asked me, well, you know, you love what you do, you've worked at it now for—at that time—13, 14 years. Are you sure you want to walk away from that and go back to a corporate job?

I thought, God, no, that's not me. I'm too feral for an office. I just love what I do, so why wouldn't I continue?

It was very scary because at the time when you're in the middle of a maelstrom, you don't know what's going to happen. You can't see the future. You don't know if you're going to get sued or something's going to happen. You have to take a breath, come back, lean on friends and family advice.

I was in counseling at the time. I remain in counseling. I'm a big proponent of therapy. You have to get back to, why did I do this in the first place? Why did I start writing about wine?

I love writing, and I love the sensory engagement that wine brings me. So has that changed? No. So why should I leave even though it feels like it might be safer at the time, but it's not.

Joanna: I mean, it's not at all what you went through, but several times over the last few years, I've attracted the hate for my stance on AI. I have at several times said to Jonathan, my husband, I think I'm just quitting the whole thing. I mean, screw this.

Then, as you say, the part of the community that are like, “No, this is valuable, and we want this,” it becomes part of why you stay. Also, as you said, I love what I do as well. I love writing books, but I also like technology and learning things. So why should you give up?

Also, people forget, right? So this is the more relevant question for people listening. How are things for you now?

Natalie: Well, I'm so glad you do what you do, Jo. I mean, I just love following you all about AI. Unfortunately, those of us who are on this planet today evolved from probably the most paranoid ancestors who were always searching the environment for what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong.

So that's our negative bent because that's what helped us stay alive and procreate. So we are the progeny of the most worried people on the planet.

So we're going to notice the naysayers and the negativity, but you have to kind of, again, step back after you block and walk, and realize there's just so much more positivity. There's so many more supporters.

So in terms of now, I've had the benefit of this has been a decade since this happened.

My family at the time said, “Well, okay, you've done the healing. Why would you bother to write about this? Aren't you just opening the scar?”

Well, I always loved Sean Thomas Dougherty, an Irish poet who said, “Why bother to write about it? Because there is someone, somewhere, right now who has a wound in the exact shape of your words,” which I love. So that's why I shared the story, but that's why I'm also able to share the story.

I've had the telescoping of time, the lens, to pull back and to make the reflections on what happened 10 years ago from a place of being healed, so it feels safe. It's those reflections that are useful to readers. So no one wants a misery dump for a memoir.

They want to know not just what you did, but what you did with it, so that they can apply that to their lives if they're in a professional crisis or a personal meltdown with a relationship. So that's why I'm able to do it now.

Then in terms of safeguarding my health, well, I work out with a fabulous trainer. You recommended him to me, I love him.

Joanna: Yes, even though I'm in the UK and you're in Canada, we have the same personal trainer.

Natalie: We do. I do it remotely. Obviously, I'm not flying over to Bath once a week. I learned to say Bath correctly, too, on the last podcast. So physical health, exercise, sleep, diet, but also mental health.

Also, just the safeguards I put for myself online. A lot of blocking, a lot of deleting comments, whatever, because that's your daily mental stream that's in there. So you have to protect it.

Joanna: Well, another tip for people. For a while, I outsourced my inbox because I just couldn't do it. I get a lot of email, and at the time, I was getting a lot of email that I didn't want to see, and it was hurting my brain.

For about a year, I did outsource my inbox, and then that person triaged and then sent me the emails that were nice or that I could respond to. So that actually helped. I think perhaps that's a crisis management tip. I don't use that anymore. After a while, that kind of died down, and so I was able to take it back.

I mean, you're on TV, and you're visible, and you're on social media. I mean—

Natalie: Sure, so when I go on TV, it's all about wine and fast food, or wine and Turkey for holiday dinners. It's pretty happy topics, other than when I was talking about my book, which does, again, have a lot of humor. I'm painting it as this really dark story.

In terms of boundaries, I am public, I am out there. The memoir is very personal, but it's what I've chosen, where my boundaries are. In the memoir, I did change the names of my family because I wanted to protect their privacy.

Sure, someone who's really diligent can Google and try to figure out who everybody is. So I have set up those boundaries.

Just a side note that writers might like to hear on this bit about changing names—at first, I didn't want to use the real names for all of the trolls online. So I changed all their names because I thought, don't give trolls oxygen in your book.

Then once one of the lawyers read the book, he said, “Well, you know that if you quote what they're saying from statements online and you use a pseudonym, you're violating the copyright.”

Then by the end of writing the book, I came to the full, deeply peaceful conclusion that they deserved full credit for what they did and said, so I used their real names.

Joanna: I love that. That's great.

Natalie: So that's basically what I do, is try to have some boundaries. I don't expose where I live or real names of my family. There are just some things that just are good safety protocols.

Joanna: So another thing I wanted to ask you about was you sent me this extraordinary book club guide. It's got wine pairings for the book, and it's 54 pages. When you sent it to me, I thought, oh, I'll just open this, I'm sure it's just a list of questions.

That is what I do for book clubs, which is, “Oh, here's 20 questions that you might like to explore.” You do that, but you've basically written a whole book for a book club, and this fascinates me.

Because you clearly didn't make this for no reason.

Natalie: The evolution of that was at the end of each chapter in the memoir I was recommending wines that kind of tied into the themes. For two reasons, my editor and I decided to eliminate that and put it into this book club guide.

One was, are you down and depressed and getting divorced? Here's a wine for that. It's like, okay, that's not the message that I want to send. The other thing is, it became too long. So 54 pages, 13,000 words in this little book club guide, we removed that because the length of the book was too long.

So it comes in at 75,000, which is a typical soft paperback at 300 pages, I think it is, or just under. So that made it the right length. So that's where this first developed. I didn't sit down to write a 54-page book club guide.

It worked as a standalone, I think, because it does go chapter by chapter. It gives you a wine, it asks you chapter-specific questions, but I tried to go beyond that because, again, a memoir should be relevant to the reader. It should get them talking about their own lives and what they can draw from the book.

So it asks questions like, do you feel that wine is marketed to women differently from men? How do you feel about your own relationship with alcohol? Did it change during the pandemic?

So these are all questions that can spark discussion for book clubs, especially when members don't read the books, which I've heard happens sometimes.

Also, it was interesting because it came back to me through people emailing and direct messaging that like a husband and wife or husband-husband, wife-wife, would read it together and use the book club guide as a way to talk about those issues between them.

Also daughters and mothers and so on, of drinking age, were using it in that way. So I thought that's great. So the marketing to the book clubs has been mainly through the front and back pages, or front and back matter, as we call it.

So at the beginning of the book there is a QR code and a URL, that if you scan it, it will take you right to the book club guide. So that's WineWitchOnFire.com/guide, and then it's there again at the back of the book. So that's the greatest marketing that I did for this book club guide.

Of course, you're collecting email addresses. They can unsubscribe anytime they want, but that's how I heard from a lot of people. Then I also put at the back of the book, you know, “Email me if you've spotted a typo or just want to ask a question.”

Like, there weren't a lot of typos, but I know people love to email about typos, so I got a lot of emails that way. I'm just trying to seek out engagement with my readers because I want to take them on the journey with me.

I'm not as prolific as you are, Joo, but I do believe that one of the key success factors for marketing any book is an email list. I'm on social media, but the majority of my effort is through my email newsletter because you've got that one-to-one conversation, not on rented land, as we all say.

That's been the major thing. Now, when I hear there's a book club reading my book, I'll offer to go on Zoom and join their meeting. I get a lot of book club members who read the book on their own and then recommend it for their book club, just because it has such a big discussion potential.

Then they discover there's a book club guide that will help them not only organize the discussion, but also the wine tasting. Which is, again, the reason why a lot of clubs meet in first place.

Joanna: I think that's genius, and I think we should all try a bit harder, I think. I certainly felt like, oh, I should try harder with that. I've tried to go to a book club, but I just couldn't get involved with that. I'm not a very groupy type person. So I think because I haven't been part of them, I haven't paid enough attention. Reading your guide, I was like, okay, this is great.

Natalie: Thank you. Book clubs aren't for everyone, but if anybody's listening that does interact with a lot of book clubs, I would love to hear their suggestions. For my next book, I do want to write a book that's specifically for book clubs, but I'm still trying to get my head around it, you know, with wines to taste.

Most book clubs are very proprietary as to which books they choose to read. So I'm trying to think, well, where would a book for book clubs that's recommending wines and maybe some books on the side, where would that fit in?

Anyway, so that's just an open invitation. If anyone wants to contact me at [email protected], I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Joanna: I think that's great. I wanted to just move into the business side for a minute. You mentioned that you're not as prolific as me. I don't think that's true because you write freelance articles, you write for your website every day. In terms of number of words written, I think you outstrip me like a lot.

Natalie: I definitely out drink you

Joanna: You have a business around writing and wine, so it's not just the book.

Because I think that's really interesting.

Natalie: So the first one would be online wine and food pairing classes. So at NatalieMaclean.com you can find the wine and food pairing classes I offer. I have an in depth course. Food seems to be less intimidating for people to get to know than wine. You know, a chicken is a chicken. It doesn't have a vintage chart, whatever.

So I bring people in that way, but also those who know a lot about wine, sommeliers and so on, also take the course. A lot of sommelier courses and so on, surprisingly, don't have a heavy food and wine pairing element to it.

It's just a lot of fun, and people get to know each other from around the world. So that's stream number one.

Stream number two is subscriptions to my wine reviews. So every two weeks, there's a new batch of 100 wines that come out in our liquor stores here. Our provincial liquor store is the second largest purchaser of wine in the world. So it's a huge chain.

So a lot of the reviews are relevant to other regions, countries, and so on. I review wines from all over the planet. That'd be number two.

Number three is advertising on the website.

The books. What else? I get paid some honorariums for TV appearances, some not. Then I also do speaking.

Lately, it's been a run of teachers organizations wanting me to speak to them. My mom was a teacher for 32 years. My grandmother was an English teacher. I taught Highland dancing. So I'm loving these groups.

It's a variety of topics, from marketing wine to women, to make your dumpster fire your superpower, getting stronger through resilience after you've struggled through something, all those kind of topics.

Joanna: I mean, this is so important because nonfiction books, in particular, having an ecosystem around the book is where you can make more money. Then just finally, you've got your Unreserved Wine Talk Podcast. I've been on that talking about Blood Vintage, which was great. I know how much work podcasting is—

Natalie: I am a listener first. In fact, I don't know if I've read a physical book for a long time. Even when you sent me the PDF, I put it up into Adobe and got it to read it to me. That's how I consumed Blood Vintage. So I'm listening to podcasts all the time. I listen to audio books. I'm an audible learner, audio learner.

Even before the rise of podcasts, I had a short wave satellite radio, and I would listen to the BBC at night because that's when the reception was best. These voices, these lovely British voices, would sweep in and out over the ocean, depending on how clear the night was. I loved listening to those.

Perhaps it goes back to when my mom used to read me stories at night, and just hearing her voice read The Wizard of Oz, and putting my hand on her forearm and feeling her strength, and the words were in the air, and then coming into me. I love all that. I love audio.

So I decided to start the podcast in—well, I actually made a few attempts in 2008, but the technology just confounded me. Then I started officially near the end of 2018 and got it up and running.

It was an excuse for me to be nosy and ask impertinent questions to people in the wine world, people connected to the wine world. It's not just winemakers. I interview authors like you, but they tend to be wine authors. Sommeliers, cheese people, chefs, anybody, but it's all about the storytelling.

So it's very much similar to what I do with my books. It allows me entry into someone else's life to ask the questions that I hope that my listeners/readers would want to ask but might be too afraid to or don't have access to this person. That's what I'm trying to do on Unreserved Wine Talk.

Joanna: People who think about starting a podcast, it's like, does it help me sell books? Does it promote my brand? Does it make me money? Because it is a lot of work, or you might pay other people to do that for you.

Natalie: I think it does. There's a bit of irrationality, like I love to do it, so I'm going to do it. I do think that it is like having a 100-hour conversation with someone. They get to know you pretty well because I don't just launch into the interview.

There's always a preamble where I'm talking about something, perhaps more personally, like you do. I love those bits and pieces. What's happening in your life makes me feel connected, makes me feel like I really do know you, Jo. I think people love that, like it's very intimate.

So the business case though, I know that I have purchased online courses after consuming hundreds of episodes of somebody's podcast. While I don't have sophisticated enough tracking, I do believe in the power of podcasting. Not only is it intimate, but the stats are amazing.

People will listen to you for 30, 45 minutes, sometimes longer. Whereas it's considered a win on Facebook or YouTube to get a 5-10 second watch of a video. I mean, it's just so engaged. It's an engaging medium.

Whether they're reading a physical book or listening to it. So I do think there's quite an overlap, and I hope that the tools get better for measuring it.

Joanna: Yes. I mean, I think there will never ever be tools for podcast listeners conversion because, as you say, someone who maybe has listened for months doesn't buy anything, and then one day they will when they're ready.

Or I have people come back now, people will be like, “Oh, you're still here. You're still podcasting. I listened to you like five years ago. Then I gave up on my book, and now I'm writing it again.” So they've come back. I think for both of us, I think podcasting is very valuable. Insane, Nat, we're out of time.

Natalie: So you can find me at NatalieMaclean.com or WineWitchOnFire.com will take you to NatalieMaclean.com. Then I'm on all the social media channels with my name, but my primary hub is NatalieMaclean.com. You can get that book club, that reader guide, at WineWitchOnFire.com.

Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Natalie. That was great.

Natalie: Cheers, Jo. I'm looking forward to that glass of wine or two in person next time you.

The post Writing Memoir And Dealing With Haters With Natalie Maclean first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What is dark tourism and why are many of us interested in places associated with death and tragedy? How can you write and self-publish a premium print guidebook while managing complicated design elements, image permissions, and more? With Leon Mcanally.

In the intro, level up with author assistants [Written Word Media]; and Blood Vintage signing pics.

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Leon McAnally is the author of A Guide to Dark Attractions in the UK.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Leon on his Facebook page: Dark Attractions in the UK.

Joanna: Leon McAnally is the author of A Guide to Dark Attractions in the UK, which is brilliant. My quote is on the back, and I said, “A fascinating book for all the dark little souls out there.” So welcome to the show, Leon.

Leon: Thank you, Joanna, for having me.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk about this topic, and you and I are both dark little souls. First up—

Leon: Well, I studied travel and tourism in college. That's where I first learned of this term called dark tourism, places associated with death, suffering and tragedy. I came away looking into these places and was really fascinated with the tourism aspect and the history aspect.

My university touched on this topic more, so I went and studied Travel and Tourism at the University of Northampton. I focused a lot around the motivations of dark tourism and the ethical issues around dark tourism.

After uni, I wasn't sure what to do, but I wanted to travel to a lot of the places that I'd been writing about, like Auschwitz and the Catacombs of Paris. Then I got into writing because I came across yourself, actually. When I was researching dark tourism, I think you popped up on a website. I started reading your ARKANE thriller series and looked into yourself a bit more, and I was like, you're just an inspiration.

Joanna: Thank you.

Leon: So it seemed from that, and then yourself. Then I was in Paris visiting the Catacombs at the time, and that evening I sat down and was like, what do I do with myself now? Then I thought to myself, there's no book that covers like dark tourism across the whole of the UK. So, yes, it set me off on a journey, really.

Joanna: First of all, I'm really thrilled to inspire you. I'm glad I turned up on some website, that's excellent.

You mentioned places associated with death, suffering and tragedy. You mentioned two places that are quite different, Auschwitz, which of course, is modern horror, really. Then the Paris Catacombs, which, if people don't know, are full of plague dead, but it's bones that are arranged in different ways. I find the Catacombs an awesome place. I'm sure you enjoyed it as well, right?

Leon: Yes, definitely. It was really eye opening.

Joanna: Exactly. I think those two places are disturbing in different ways. People are like, why are the pair of you interested in this stuff? So what do you think? You mentioned studying the motivations. Why do people visit these places?

Leon: I think there's a number of factors at play. It depends on the place you're visiting because dark tourism is an umbrella term for loads of places, and that's what a lot of people don't realize.

So it could be that you go to a memorial to remember people who have tragically died. It also could be a totally different place, and it makes you perceive life differently and how you wish to be known in life, as well as after life.

The Victorian cemeteries that are within my book, The Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London, I visited them. So one, they gave me a kind of inspiration and motivated me with my book.

Also, I look at the people who are buried there and how they are known after life. Like they were known back when they were alive, and they're still being known, and their story and their life history is being retold.

Joanna: I mean, you're still in your 20s, and I'm nearly 50, but—

By going to these places, it's almost inspiring—you mentioned the word inspiration—inspiring you on how to live your life.

Leon: Yes, that's one thing from each place I've visited, while they are different, it still drives that determination in getting my book out there and getting these places known.

There's so many simple memorials to massive tragedies. There's one in Barnsley, a memorial to a coal mine disaster, I believe it killed 361 people.

I look at that and think of the Aberfan in Wales, that is an awful disaster as well, and that's a kind of well-known disaster. It tragically killed a number of children, and that's really well known, but I feel like this other one in Barnsley should just be as well-known as that one.

Joanna: Yes, if people have seen The Crown, they show that Welsh tragedy on The Crown. I can't remember which series.

I get what you mean, like some of these things are more famous than others. For example, Auschwitz, obviously that's not in the UK, but many people will have heard of that and the deaths that went on there. There were so many other camps, that was not like the only camp, but that seems to be what people think of.

So as you say, it's remembering the past, but also helping us live in the future. So I did also want to ask, what reactions have you had around this? So do your family think you're weird? Do your friends think you're weird?

Leon: When you're going to these places, a lot of people don't consider it dark tourism. You may just go to a castle and learn about executions and walk away, and you don't consider that it is dark tourism, but it falls under this umbrella term. So I'm like, you've participated in dark tourism without knowing it.

They do find some of the places that I visited a bit odd and peculiar. There's a place called Littledean Jail. A gentleman has this old jail, and he's filled it with a number of artifacts and newspaper clippings. It's got artifacts to the likes of Fred and Rose West, the infamous serial killers, and the Kray twins. They found that a bit strange. Like, why would you want to go there and see that? That was a very unusual experience.

Joanna: Did you find that it was glorifying the serial killers or it was more just exposing them?

Leon: Yes. The rooms within the jail, when I walked into Fred and Rose West's cell, it had belongings, like his work boots and a tie and a cabinet, and it had newspaper clippings, obviously, when it all happened. I felt like it was a shrine to them.

It was a bit strange. I was like, why would you want to have all of this on display and stuff. In some aspects, yes, you can look at it as it's glorifying these kind of infamous criminals at the end of the day.

Joanna: It's interesting that some places, so again, we mentioned the catacombs, I find catacombs where there are bones that are obviously long dead, more, I don't know, more peaceful in some way. Yet, I don't want to visit serial killer things.

So I think there are also gradations. So if people listening are like, everything's the same thing, it's not, is it?

Leon: Yes, there's definitely a lot of different emotions and feelings that come into these places. I definitely agree with you on that. If you go into the likes of Princess Diana's grave, you're going there to pay respects and remember her life.

You're going to feel a number of different emotions to maybe what you'd feel if you were to visit the Tower of London. You may take a tour, and that's going to be very energized by the tour guide. They're totally on different spectrums, but that's where it's an umbrella term, dark tourism, for all of these different kind of places.

Joanna: Yes, so I was thinking too whether it taps into the same thing as the true crime podcast. True crime is the biggest podcast niche, and I feel like perhaps dark tourism is similar.

It comes from a similar place, a sort of fascination with death and the macabre. It's having a separation from violence and death, like we're still alive, we're still fine, and sort of reflecting that way. What do you think? Do you think it relates to true crime?

Leon: Yes. In some aspects, yes, but it depends how recent the event is because there's got to be some underlying historical factual elements, that dark tourism element. I think the dark tourism has been getting thrown around and been used for marketing of places on the wrong kind of aspects.

Places in America and stuff, places that are haunted are marketing themselves as dark tourism. I'm like, no, it's not. It's not that. There's got to be the factual history element to be labeled under this term dark tourism.

Joanna: I like that because that annoys me as well. To me, I know what dark tourism is, but as you pointed out, a lot of people might get confused.

So let's get into the book then because I have lots of dark tourism. I guess I call them death culture, so morbid anatomy and books around that kind of thing. Paul Koudounaris, I'm sure you've seen his books, lots of that kind of thing. I feel like you could have pitched this to traditional publishing, but you went indie.

Leon: I think that's where you come into play a little bit because you inspire me because you're self-published and everything. So that kind of came into play.

When I actually started looking into it with my designers, they said you could take it to a publishing company, but you wouldn't have so much control over elements of it.

That was a big thing because I was covering the umbrella term of a number of sites. I didn't want a publisher to be like, “No, I don't feel that site should be in there. I don't feel that site should be in it. Oh, this should be in there.” It gave me the control of giving a vast amount of attractions and showing what falls under this term.

Also about when I was styling my book as well, some publishers may have a particular kind of format and style that they would steer towards. I didn't want to be constrained on the designing aspects of my book, really. So it gave me a bit of freeness, should we say.

Joanna: Yes, I love that. I mean, that's why a lot of people go indie because of the control aspect of what goes in the book and the design. We're going to come back to the design, but let's talk about the research. You did mention a bit earlier that you went traveling, but this particular book in the UK, it is really comprehensive.

Leon: It took me three years in all. It was traveling to places and also working with a lot of places. I wanted to make sure the factual history element was there within each kind of place. So it was traveling to places, and working places, and also cross referencing information, really.

Joanna: How did you keep all that organized? If you visited a site, did you write notes in a journal? Did you write them on your phone?

Leon: I used notebooks, and I did use my phone to take bullet points of information. So I would read the exhibits, and if there was bits of information that would stick out with me, then I'd bullet point them.

Then I also would then go back to the attraction and say, obviously, “I'm writing this book, and I've got this information, so I just want to double check things.” That then started to build a relationship with attractions.

I just found that when I was researching, there's just so much. I didn't really want to use the internet so much because there's just so much unreliable information and incorrect information. So I made sure that was up to date and things.

Joanna: I think that's great.

Leon: Oh, my goodness. There's just over 300 places.

Joanna: That's just incredible. So you didn't visit every single one of those?

Leon: No, I couldn't visit every single one. I did visit quite a few of them. I did work with quite a few as well. Up to Scotland, all the way down to the south of England, I was working with places.

When I was writing about their history and things, and when I was saying I was writing about dark tourism, a lot of places would be like, “Oh, we're not too sure.” Then showing them what I was writing about and giving them more of an in depth understanding of the dark tourism term, that helped in me gaining places. Also some places just still didn't wish to fall under that term.

There was one place that I won't say the name of, but I'd written about, and they was happy with the write, but they said they don't wish to fall under this term dark tourism because they look at it more as a scientific kind of purposes. So I was like, okay, no, that's fine. So obviously they didn't make it into my book.

There was another aspect to it is I wanted to show how society reacts to dark sites. So if it was a more memorial, how had societies reacted in the process of the disaster and after the process in remembering people?

So that Barnsley Coal Mine Disaster Memorial, there was a community that helped that disaster, and there's still a legacy of it. The community is wanting it to be known and remembered. So I felt that it was important that places like that went into my book, really.

Joanna: I agree with a lot of the places in the book, but you do have a lot more memorials and things than I would have I've. I've got the book right here next to me. I've got my copy next to me, and I just opened it. I just opened it to London.

So you've got the Hunterian Museum, which is awesome. I should say that it inspired my book Desecration. I love that museum. Then next to it is the Hungerford Footbridge Skateboard Graveyard. So I was like, okay, that's really interesting because I do know that if you walk over that bridge, you can see it. Why choose something like that?

Leon: Yes, it's the response of the skateboarding community of what took place on that foot bridge, at the end of the day. It's kind of how they remember a local skater, that aspect of how they pull together and remember their fellow skater. They lay their skateboards and chuck them over the bridge.

Joanna: It's interesting. In the book you say, “The skateboarding community has shown how the process of grief differs among communities, and there's a need to personalize the way we honor someone's life.” So I love that. I think it's really interesting what you've done with the book.

One of the things I noticed immediately is that there are lots of pictures. I've discovered that image permissions are a nightmare. Even if they're your photos, if they're in a private place, then you need permission.

Leon: It stems back to building that relationship with places. So I'd write the piece and send it over, and they would be quite happy with it. Then I would say, I've got images from myself, or I've sourced images, are you happy for this to be featured alongside it?

There was like, yes. Other places would be like, oh, we prefer to give you an image for it to be credited. So I was happy to do that. It was literally building that relationship and saying, “I'm writing a book. I'm looking at featuring you in my book. Can I write a piece and see what you think?”

I was making sure that the kind of factual history element was correct, and then going from there, really. There was a couple of sites who were like, “No, you can write a piece, but we don't wish for an image to be featured because we don't allow photography within this space.”

So that's why there's a few places I name that have not got images because they were happy for the entry to be featured, but as they don't allow permission of photography, they didn't wish for an image to be featured within the book.

Leon: I did have to pay for a few of the permissions.

Joanna: What sort of price?

Leon: It varies a lot. One of them was 170 pounds to have it within my book to get the permission, but I was adamant that I wanted that image within my book.

Joanna: Yes, you have a lot of images. I like the book a lot because it has so many images. As I said, when I looked at it, I was like, oh my goodness, I know how much pain this is. You must be very organized then to keep track of everything. Like, if you're emailing all these places, you're sending them text, you're asking for images.

Leon: I am a very organized person. I get told I'm too organized. Even in doing my day job, I get told I'm too over organized because I'm looking at kind of February now. People are like, Christmas is not even here yet.

So, yes, it was emailing places, and then I'd have kind of that written permission, and I'd put it to one kind of side to keep at the end of the day. I think my designer has a few as well.

We keep them to one side because if later down the road, they were to say they don't wish for that image to be featured anymore, that's fine. We can obviously remove it and things later, at a later day.

Joanna: You mentioned your job.

Leon: I am an activities coordinator in a care home. So that did actually come in. It did make me think a little bit when I was writing about my book, because working with the elderly generation, history is important to them.

I was speaking to the residents, and they would tell me aspects of the war and stuff. They were so passionate about telling their stories to make sure that future generations were known and they were told correctly. So that had a bit of an impact as well while I was writing my book.

Joanna: Oh, I love that. So you mentioned your designer. So tell us, how did you work with the designer? As you said, you're quite controlling, so you must have known how you wanted it to look.

Leon: Three designers actually collaborated on this book together. I had one main designer, Marie-Louise, who owns the company Lovely Evolution. Then she was working with another two designers as well, and they gave me different proofs.

Then I picked aspects that I liked from different proofs, and then that was brought into one. I was a bit picky along the way of my process of designing it.

So even when I got the proofs—because there's a background on the pages, like the illustrations behind the text and the images and stuff—we only had the one proof of that. I was like, oh, it'd be a really good idea to have the sections with a different background.

So it was little bits like that I picked out and made suggestions. All three designers were very good at working together. It was just a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, as you can probably see from looking at it, and fitting it all together.

Joanna: Yes. I mean, I think my brain is very different to your brain. It is, as you say, a jigsaw puzzle. Your brain must have figured out how you wanted it to go.

As you say, there's so many little extra things. Like in the corner of each section, there's like a little illustration as well. A dragon in Wales, and different things there. As you say, different background images as well as other images. I just think it's incredible.

You mentioned there, three designers, it's took you three years, you've got all these permissions.

Leon: It is a labor of love because I'm just very passionate about our British history at the end of the day. With dark tourism, people associate so many places abroad, like Auschwitz, the Catacombs of Paris, Ground Zero.

I was just like, there's so much to England. So it was a very passionate project in showing there's so much more in England that's linked to dark tourism than people initially thought. There has been a budget and that has gone over a bit, I'm not going to lie.

Joanna: It does look like a pricey project, as far as I can see. I did want to ask, because at the moment the copy I have is a large scale, but it's still paperback. So are you planning on doing an eBook? I think it would work on a tablet, on an iPad or something. I think you could also do an audiobook, or a short form podcast, or a hardback.

Leon: I can't say too much because we are working on other little things, but the physicality of the book is an important part to myself. Like I feel like to appreciate it, you've got to be holding it.

I know a lot of people like tablets and things, and I do understand that, but I just feel like it's so heavily designed. My designers like really hard on designing it and piecing it all together.

Like the maps on their own, Mark worked on the maps at Pixooma, and he took three months just working on the maps on their own. So I just feel like you have to be holding it to appreciate it. I'm a bit old school like that.

Joanna: I love this. You're like, 20 years younger than me, and you're so old school. I am actually holding it, and I am appreciating it as we're talking.

Leon: I started working with an editor really early on. Before the design kind of process, it was important to get the editing aspect of it all done to hand over to my designers because of the length of the text, and obviously then putting it together like a puzzle piece.

So working with an editor started very early on, and she worked on Lonely kind of Planet guide books, and had a lot of experience on guide books and things. She made a number of really good suggestions, as well as the text. She also helped me on proofs of the designs. So she gave suggestions for the designs from her experience.

Joanna: I think that's a great person to work with, someone who's done like the Lonely Planet books. It is similar to that in the vibe, in that you don't sit down and read this cover to cover. You're going to dip in and out depending on different areas. I buy books like this for inspiration for my own travels, but also for my own writing. So I think that's cool.

So we've got the book. You've invested your time and your money in making this beautiful book, but marketing this kind of book is difficult. So tell us—

Leon: I haven't stopped marketing the book since its release. It's been a real push. I've marketed the book from doing a few book signing events that stemmed from me building that relationship with places. So they've been happy enough to hold me for book signing events.

Then I've also done podcasts with people. I'm using social media. I'm speaking about the book wherever I can, really.

Joanna: I did see you doing signings at interesting venues, like some of your dark venues, on social media.

Many people, including myself, are scared of doing signings because often nobody shows up. So how did you do that? How were those?

Leon: Yes, they worked okay. It did depend on the day and the footfall. A lot of the attractions, because we'd organize this book signing, they would promote it on their social media or via their newsletter.

What really helped, some places have been better than other places, but there has been this rippling effect I have noticed afterwards. So I have had people contact me afterwards and said, “Oh, I saw that you were at Shrewsbury Prison. I'd actually be interested in a copy of your book.”

Then I've also had places that have been then willing to stock it in their gift shop as well.

Joanna: I was going to ask about the bookshops because it seems to me a lot of these bigger places have bookstores, and if you can get them to take some copies and do it like that. I do know the profit margin on that is very low, and they'll want their own profit.

Leon: I think the agreements have worked quite well so far. The places that I've built that relationship with and worked with, they've been quite good, really, in compromising. Obviously they have wanted to take a profit and a percentage of that, but then obviously they understand the product as well.

Obviously, there's the time that I've put into it and my designers working on it and everything. So they've been quite good at working together.

Joanna: Then on social media, obviously you've been posting photos of you in these different places and some of the research stuff.

Or are you just trying to do as much as possible and see what happens?

Leon: I think one thing I have noticed is getting it into the relevant groups that would be interested and showing how that is relevant to that group. If you're going to use social media and just plow it across social media and use kind of one post, then it probably wouldn't work.

I've been going to groups and speaking to people and stuff, and then seeing which aspects of my book links in, and then I've shared about. That has helped as well.

Joanna:

This is something that people buy and have on their shelf or their coffee table, whatever. This is difficult in one way to market, but in other ways, it's evergreen.

So it's going to keep selling over time, as opposed to make you tons of money right now and then stop selling. This is more like a long-term prospect, I think.

Leon: Yes, definitely. Me and the designers I work with wanted it as that guidebook that you can take with you, but also it's a coffee table, bookshelf kind of book that is a talking point. It's something that you can pick up, read one entry and put it back down, and then pick up and read a different entry another day.

So it's not going to generate that massive one-time income. I do to see it is a trickle in, long-term thing. Hopefully, I'll work on other ideas alongside that.

Joanna: Yes, well, that's the other thing. Marketing one book is hard. So are you considering Dark Attractions of Europe?

Leon: There are other ideas. I'm working with my designers, and I'm also still working with the attractions closely. So, yes, there's little ideas there, but it would be at a moment where I'm just not expecting it, and it will all just gel itself together.

Like I said going back, you inspired me. I'd learned of this term dark tourism, and it was when I was on a holiday of an evening. It literally will be that I'll have a moment, and I'll think, right, okay, that is it. So, yes, I'm kind of working on a few different ideas that I'm trying to just gel together at the moment.

Joanna: I love that. You said you're super organized and quite controlling, but you're also intuitive. So I think that sounds great.

Just looking back over the years you've been working on this project. So if people are thinking of doing something like this—

Leon: I think don't put too much pressure on yourself. Along the whole process of my book, I was very harsh myself because it was a vast book, and I was doing a number of different places.

There's so many aspects to this book. Designing, researching, writing, and then I was emailing, and I was calling, and I was sourcing images. If you're going to take on a big project like this, don't be too harsh on yourself.

Just give a good time management to each aspect that you're working on. Have time to step back away from the whole desk to re-energize because it was a hefty project to take on. I was very determined, but I was very harsh on myself as well.

Joanna: I do remember when we had originally talked, you had a timeline in mind. Then you said, no, it's going to take longer. As you said, this is a huge project.

Leon: Yes, definitely. I definitely underestimated. I was writing, and there were so many places that I wanted to get in and then research. Then when I got to just over 300 I was like, this is the cut and rope kind of moment.

There's also a lot more to the design process because I know that I wanted a lot from my designers. I asked for a lot in the whole kind of designs, and I was picky. So, yes, there was that aspect. My main designer, Marie-Louise, she fell pregnant and didn't expect to fall pregnant in the process.

Joanna: Well, I think you've done an incredible job. So how do you feel now?

Leon: Yes. I am really proud of it. I am happy with it. I just want to keep on pushing it and getting it out there and known. It's not a financial element, it's actually I want to get more of our history made aware.

Like I said, there is loads of little places in there that are simple memorials, or just little places that people are just not aware about. I'm very passionate about our British history, and I just want it to be known. I want to give people inspiration to just have a simple little day trip out.

People say, “Oh, there's nothing to do, and we've got to go abroad to go on holiday.” There's just so much that people don't realize that there is to do.

Joanna: That is so true. The more I stay in our country, the more interesting I find things. There's so much history here.

Leon: You can find my book on Amazon. I have a Facebook page at Dark Attractions in the UK. People can follow me through that and keep up to date.

Joanna: So thanks so much for your time today, Leon. That was great.

Leon: Thank you, Joanna, for having me. It was fantastic speaking to you. Thank you.

The post Dark Tourism And Self-Publishing Premium Print Books With Images With Leon Mcanally first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How do you approach writing a second edition of a non-fiction book? How does self-publishing compare to working with a traditional publisher? Can you build a viable business without active social media use? Gin Stephens shares her tips.

In the intro, the end of Kindle Vella [Amazon]; Lessons from week one of the book launch for This is Strategy [Seth Godin]; Seahenge is out now on my store, and on pre-order elsewhere; ChatGPT launched Search [OpenAI]; How Generative AI Search Will Impact Book Discoverability in the Next Decade.

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Delay, Don't Deny, Fast. Feast. Repeat., Clean(ish), and other health-related nonfiction books. She's also a podcaster at Intermittent Fasting Stories.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Gin at GinStephens.com.

Joanna: Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Delay, Don't Deny, Fast. Feast. Repeat., Clean(ish), and other health-related nonfiction books. She's also a podcaster at Intermittent Fasting Stories. So welcome back to the show, Gin.

Gin: It is so great to talk to you again.

Joanna: Yes, it's been a few years [Gin's previous interview here]. Now, you have recently released the second edition of Delay, Don't Deny, and I completely get the pain of a subsequent edition. It's just a bit of a nightmare. So I wanted to start by asking you—

Gin: Well, that is a great question. I have written new things since writing the original Delay, Don't Deny. This original book that I wrote in 2016, Delay, Don't Deny, and self-published, is just really the bedrock that everything else has been built upon.

I've learned so much more about the topic since I wrote it in 2016, and this book just needed a refresh. It needed some love. I really didn't understand how some people love this one the most.

I was speaking at an event a few years ago, and someone in the audience said, “Which of your books should we start with? Delay, Don't Deny or Fast. Feast. Repeat.?”

Fast. Feast. Repeat. was a New York Times bestseller. It's comprehensive, it's thorough, it's thick. It's every question you could possibly ask about intermittent fasting. It's well referenced. So I said, “Of course start with Fast. Feast. Repeat.“

Then someone in the audience said, “Can I disagree?” I'm like, “Well, go ahead.” She said, “Delay, Don't Deny. I love that one the most.” That got the wheels turning in my head because ever since I moved towards traditional publishing, I hadn't self-published anything.

So I thought, people love that original book. I never talked about it anymore, but it kept selling, and people kept buying it. It did need to be updated because some of the advice I did not necessarily agree with anymore.

From 2016 to 2024, things are going to change. There were just some things that were out of date, so it deserved some love.

You know what kept me from revising it sooner? The audiobook. I didn't want to rerecord the audiobook, and of course, you want them to match. Finally, I just bit the bullet.

First I offered it to my publisher, and the amount that they wanted to give me for an advance was so itty bitty. I was like, well, forget that. I'll redo it myself.

Joanna: That's interesting. I want to come back. So you said there Fast. Feast. Repeat. I've got these books, I've got several of your books, and Fast. Feast. Repeat., you said it's comprehensive, it's thick, it's well referenced. You're a scientist. You do a lot of research. You are very knowledgeable.

Gin: Well, it depends on the person. There are people who resonate with each kind, and that's what I realized. I would like the one with all the references in there, definitely. I want to be able to look at them. I actually do that, by the way, when I read a book written by a scientist or a doctor.

I'll turn to the reference section, especially if something doesn't sound right, I'm like let me look at that myself. I've actually found places where they did not actually represent the study the same way—after I read it—it's not what they said about it.

I also want to correct, I am not a practicing research scientist. I have a master's degree in natural sciences and a doctorate in gifted education. At my root, I'm very much a teacher.

I had to write a dissertation, I learned how to research, I learned how to share all of that research as a part of going through my doctoral program. So I just wanted to make that clear.

So some people just want the basics, and that's what Delay, Don't Deny is for. So it really needed to be updated, like I said, because the people that preferred, you know, just tell me the quick part, give me the stories, they needed Delay, Don't Deny.

Then I actually am now recommending everyone start with Delay, Don't Deny because it might be all you need, but if you want more, that's when it's time to turn to Fast. Feast. Repeat.

I also think that once you've lived the lifestyle for a while, everything in Fast. Feast. Repeat. will click, if that makes sense. You'll understand it better, and you're ready to dig into the science more than maybe on day one.

Joanna: Yes, I totally agree. I discovered you on the podcast years ago, and I still am IF. It's so funny though, I almost don't say I'm IF anymore because I never eat breakfast, or very occasionally, but mostly I start after lunch sometime and have sort of an 18:6 type of lifestyle, as you say. It's almost like I don't even consider that to be IF anymore.

I know you've been doing Intermittent Fasting for years. Do you kind of feel that way sometimes?

Gin: It's just what we do. I've been doing it for over 10 years now, and it's just what I do. I don't have to think about it. You're not like, what am I doing today? What's my window? You just live your life, and then you have your window.

Joanna: No, it's interesting.

Coming back on the book, you said it needed a refresh. So I've done several subsequent editions, and I know how that feels. For people listening, how do you know? So you're reading it, and are you just like, “oh my goodness, I can't believe this”?

Gin: Well, I know what questions people have, and I know where the confusions lie. You're familiar with the terminology “clean fast”, and that is foundational in my work. What's funny is, when I wrote Delay, Don't Deny in 2016, we had not started using the terminology “clean fast” in my groups yet.

I came up with that wording at some point in 2017, and it stuck. So it's just kind of funny that Delay, Don't Deny doesn't have the wording “clean fast” in it. I also was a little wishy-washy about a few things related to the clean fast and how to fast properly.

That was because there was the doctor who had written a book, Dr. Jason Fung, The Obesity Code. He was like, “Well, have a little lemon if you want,” and I didn't want to contradict him in my book. Who am I to contradict him? So I'm like, well, I'll just kind of go along with what he said.

Then the longer that I supported people through intermittent fasting and my Facebook groups, we had about 500,000 combined members before I ended up leaving Facebook. So over time I realized the lemon does make a difference, and that little splash of cream does make a difference.

So I became more emphatic, I guess is the word I would use, about the clean fast, just because we had it validated with so many people who found that the clean fast changed the whole experience. So I developed confidence, and I can say with confidence, this is how it works better, and you should give this a try.

By the time Fast. Feast. Repeat. came out in 2020, I was really embraced to the idea of the clean fast and very confidently saying, “This is what I think would work for you better. Try this.” So I needed to get that into Delay, Don't Deny as well.

Not to mention the success stories in the back. Looking back at it through fresh eyes today, when I wrote Delay, Don't Deny, I was just leading a small Facebook group. At that time we had like, I don't know, 1500 members or something. I can't even remember.

So I just put out into the group, “Hey, anybody want to share their story in my book? Just send it to me and I'll put it in,” but I hadn't written anything yet. I didn't have any podcasts yet. I was just leading people who had joined together in a Facebook group.

So the stories are just very ‘interesting' that are in the original Delay, Don't Deny. I'm just going to say they're ‘interesting' because I'm so grateful for the people who shared their stories early on. Now, many of them are not things I would recommend that you do. So reading through them years later, I'm like, oooh.

So what I love more than anything about the revised second edition of Delay, Don't Deny is the success stories section.

I was like, how am I going to gather them just in my community? Am I going to need to email my whole list? How many stories will come in? I just put it out into my private intermittent fasting community and said, “Here's the Google link. Fill out this form if you want to.”

Then I just left it there, and people submitted their stories, and they're just amazing. The beauty of it this time is that they have read my books, and listened to my podcast, and been a part of the community. So all the stories align with the advice I would give.

There was nothing that jumped out as, oooh, I wouldn't suggest that someone do that. Instead, they're all aligned. So that was really, really important to me to get the good stories with the aligned recommendations out there.

Joanna: Then I guess there'll be some people listening, people who want to write a non-fiction book, that feel a bit like you did, which is, “Oh, well, there's a doctor who's written a book on this. Maybe I can't because I'm not special,” or whatever it is.

Looking back, you're happy with that? You're not embarrassed? How can you encourage people to put the book out there even though, as you say now, maybe everything wasn't perfect?

Gin: It wasn't perfect.

If you look at books written by doctors, they don't all agree. Doctors are people with opinions and blinders on for certain things on occasion.

So the more you read and see what's out there and how people disagree, the more you feel like, oh, I can have an opinion too. Now, do I regret putting it out there? Absolutely not.

I've sold over 380,000 copies of that first little book, and for a self-published book that is only available in paperback through Amazon I feel pretty good about that. I mean, that's it. I don't have it wide. You want the paperback. It's Amazon. That's it.

Just think of all the lives that have been touched by intermittent fasting. I'm not pretending to be something that I'm not. I'm very, very clear throughout the book of who I am, what my background is like.

For example, I mentioned that I have a doctorate in gifted and talented education. I remember when I first joined this like health and wellness community with influencers, writers, podcasters, a lot of doctors, actual medical doctors in this group.

One of the first things the people running this group said to me is, “You're Doctor Stephens. You have a doctorate. You should put doctor on the front of your books.” I'm like, nope, because I'm not that kind of doctor. I don't want to misrepresent myself.

Be confident in who you are. I know what my skills are. I'm a teacher. I can read things and then teach them to you. I taught math, and I'm not a mathematician. I taught history, and I'm not a historian. I taught reading, and I'm not a linguist or whatever.

I am able to teach things and say, “Here's what I have learned, and I'm sharing that with you. Here are some resources where you can go learn more.” I think the fact that I'm not a medical doctor, and that I am a teacher, has been my superpower because people can understand what I write.

Joanna: Absolutely. There'll be some people listening who listen to the medical podcasts out there, Peter Attia and things like that, where you're like, okay, but I can't listen to this because it's way too technical for me.

I mean, Intermittent Fasting Stories is normal people talking about normal life, and not using difficult words about whatever hormones. You do go through things like hormone effect and all of that kind of thing in Fast. Feast. Repeat., I think, but it's like you don't need that to get started. You can just get started with the story.

So I think that's so important. I think this is one of the problems with nonfiction books, is people think they need to be all fact based and emotionless. You've written with real voice, like your actual voice is in the book.

Gin: I think it's just a matter of readers want to connect with stories, whether they're reading nonfiction or fiction. We enjoy connecting with stories. Stories are powerful.

So when I first wanted to write a book about intermittent fasting and share what I knew to help people learn how to do it and apply it into their lives, I was really inspired by a set of books that I read when I was pregnant and a new mother. It was The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy. Do you remember that series?

Joanna: No, but I'm happily child free, so not my thing.

Gin: I was pregnant, and my babies were born in '98 and '99. So that tells you when those books were really, really popular. There was the Bible of pregnancy, What to Expect When You're Expecting, and that one was dry, and it was like factual.

You definitely needed that one, but The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy was irreverent, and it was funny, and it was like a girlfriend was talking to you. You wanted to read it. I mean, I read that multiple times.

The same thing with, she had The Girlfriends' Guide to the First Year and The Girlfriends' Guide to the Toddler Years. You just felt like somebody got it. You're learning about it from someone who got it, and it was funny, and you didn't feel alone.

I think that when we're thinking about health and wellness and the diet industry, you know, you can read a book written by the person who is maybe a nutritionist or a workout expert, and they've never struggled like you. They've never been overweight, really. Maybe they had to lose five pounds or something.

They've got this book for you, and you're like, but do they really get what it's like to weigh 210 pounds? You know, I know what that's like because I did weigh 210 pounds. I was obese, and I lost 80 pounds with intermittent fasting.

I know what it's like to be on that diet roller coaster of up and down. I know what it's like to read all the diet books, and try everything, and just be so stuck. So I wanted that to all come through in a way that was relatable. It's my story in there interwoven through Delay, Don't Deny.

I think the reason people love this book so much, and I've heard this hundreds or thousands of times, I don't even know how many times, that people will say—

It was just the fact that they felt like it was a real person that was telling them there's hope, and here's the science. You know, I'm putting the science in there too. It's not just only my story, I have the science in there.

I talk about autophagy. I talk about the problem with calories in, calories out. The Biggest Loser study, and why low calorie diets fail us. So the science is there. It's got that underpinning of science, but it's also relatable, and you know that you can do it.

Joanna: Absolutely. So one of the other interesting things is that when you started out on intermittent fasting over a decade ago, there really wasn't much out there about it, but now it feels like the market is saturated.

There's books and podcasts. You go on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, reels, and there's positive stuff, there's negative stuff, and there's just a lot of stuff. I mean, even on Amazon, there's just a ton of stuff.

Especially when there's a lot of hype, misinformation, and people might put you in the same bracket as some of the people who aren't so good, let's say.

Gin: I will say the truth sells. There's a lot of misinformation out there, but the truth will make the difference. The truth of the clean fast and the way that that will change the experience for you.

For everybody listening who may be like, “Well, I tried intermittent fasting. It didn't work for me,” I bet you weren't fasting clean. I bet you were trying something overcomplicated. So my magic secret, which isn't so magic and it's not really a secret, is word of mouth.

If somebody read my book, let's just say the original Delay, Don't Deny, and they read it in early 2017 when it first hit the market, and then they had great success. Well, people around them notice, and they're like, “Hey, what are you doing?” And then they tell them, and then you're just spreading the word like that.

That's really been the magic of my work reaching a lot of people. Yes, I've got the podcast, Intermittent Fasting Stories, and my newer one Fast. Feast. Repeat. we've been doing for just over a year.

People might just stumble across them, and then they hear the stories, and then they're like, well, let me see what Gin has written. Then they end up with my books, and then they try it, and then it works. Then they tell people.

There was a commercial in the United States in, I don't know, the 70s, the 80s, it was like a shampoo commercial. Maybe it was Faberge Organics, I can't remember, but it was, “And then I told two friends, and then she told two friends, and then she told two friends.” It was just like, yes, word of mouth really can spread the word.

So, yes, there's a lot of confusing information out there.

But I think those kind of fall from the wayside. Delay, Don't Deny has been selling steadily since I released at the end of 2016. Other fasting books come and go.

The same with Fast. Feast. Repeat. It's been selling steadily since 2020. If you compare it to the other fasting books that are out there, almost 100% of the other fasting books also have a diet plan they want you to follow.

Maybe they want you to be intermittent fasting plus paleo. Or maybe they want you to be intermittent fasting plus keto. Or you have to be intermittent fasting plus whole food, plant based, low fat, or whatever it might be.

My work is intermittent fasting plus eat the way that makes you feel your best, whatever that is, and it will probably change over time. It really empowers you, instead of being a prescriptive plan.

People want that. They might not know they want it. They might be used to a prescriptive plan. There's a lot of magic in being empowered to choose for yourself.

Joanna: This word of mouth, I totally agree with you. You said there, selling steadily, which is the mark of word of mouth. It's not like you put everything into the first month and then it all disappears.

This is also one of the challenges of a second edition because with a true second edition, you lose all those reviews. You lose all the incoming links from all the websites that linked to that edition of the book. So presumably you feel that's worth it because—

Gin: It does, and you know what? I put that out there in August of this year, 2024, and I think it's got 78 reviews already. Whereas my other one had like 13,000, okay.

Joanna: It takes time.

Gin: It does take time. When I'm looking to buy a book, I look at the overall ratings. I'm not going to read 13,000 reviews, right. A book with 78 reviews, and it's 4.9 stars, I'm going to be really excited about that book.

I'm very clear in the updated description that it's a second edition, and I talk about the updates and how it's changed. I had to really think about that, since I'm self-published, I could have just slipped the revisions in the old version. I could have done it.

I debated about that and decided not to for multiple reasons. One of which is used copies, and then people would accidentally end up with the used copy of the first edition, and I didn't want them to read the first edition anymore. I wanted them to read the second edition.

So I just made that decision, and it was not easy that day that I started with zero reviews on the new edition. Luckily, my community, of course, they're the ones who found it first. My community found it, and they're the ones giving it the five star reviews because they're already fans. So hopefully that will lead more people to it.

Joanna: Then I've got to return to the audiobook because you said you did not want to do the audiobook. So tell us—

Gin: I just hate doing audiobooks, but I have to read them myself because everyone's used to my voice. They listen to my podcast. So I know I have to read it myself. Also I'm going to give it the right kind of intonation. I know how it should be emphasized.

It's a lot of work, and I don't edit audio. I can edit the written word. I can design my own book. By the way, you self-publish, right? You're self-published?

Joanna: Yes, but I employ freelancers to design things.

Gin: Well, I'm pretty much a one stop shop when it comes to the paperback. I just have started using Atticus for formatting.

Joanna: Yes, sponsor of the show. Atticus.

Gin: Atticus, you are amazing. I don't know how I found out about it, but that's another reason why I needed to do a second edition because, embarrassing, my first edition, I did it in Word. It looked crazy when I put them side by side.

I mean, people still bought it, but after being traditionally published with professional book designers, I was like, oh my gosh, Delay, Don't Deny looks like I made it on Word, Whereas —

The thing about the audiobook is I had to hire somebody. I had to go to a recording studio. I'm still going through the editing process right now. So it's just a lot of work. It's like running a marathon.

Joanna: Yes, it's definitely something you have to get used to. After my first audiobook I did myself, I was like never again. Then I started hiring people, and then I went back to it.

I've got an audio studio here in my office, so I just now do it myself. There's a lot of AI tools you can use for editing. So I think it depends how many books you end up doing yourself. Maybe there's more.

Gin: I'm grateful that I can outsource it. Just like you said, you send some things to designers. For me, it's the audio part.

That's the part I want everyone who's listening to hear. Be confident in the part you can do, and also be confident in the part you can't do. If that's the part holding you back, you can hire somebody to do stuff for you and get a professional product out there.

Joanna: Absolutely. Let's come to the publishing bit because, like you said, you started out in self-publishing, but then you did several books with traditional publishers.

What did you find useful? What did you enjoy? Since I know you love learning.

Gin: There are definitely parts that I enjoy. I enjoy having copy editors who read my work and find mistakes, but they also don't find everything. Let me just put it that way. Even after a book has been completely copy edited, things can still get out of whack through the traditional publishing process.

I enjoy that there are cover designers to work on the cover, but again, also you want to be able to give your input. You have to put your foot down sometimes and say, no, I want it to look more like this, and that's important to know.

I enjoy that they have a liaison with Amazon if those scammers get out there, and they will, and they do. Putting out their little scam books, and it ends up in the listing, and they can get right on there with Amazon and get that taken care of for you. So I really enjoy that.

It feels great to be supported through the audiobook process. MacMillan Audio handled everything. They set up the studio. All I had to do was show up. There was a director there with me, the audio engineer.

Actually, two of my audiobooks I did at home because of COVID. Like even though I had MacMillan Audio and professional directors, we did it from home with them with me throughout the process. It was just because of COVID both times.

The third time I went to the recording studio, and that's where I connected with the guy. When I did my latest book, 28-Day FAST Start Day-by-Day, which was my last to be traditionally published, they found the audio engineer with a recording studio close to me.

I didn't have to try to put blankets up in my office, for example, like I did the last two times in my little blanket recording fort. So that was really, really nice having the professionals to go through it and listen to it and make sure it's just right, all of that. It's just nice to have those eyes.

I learned a lot, and I think it made me have a better product. Like I said, looking at the results of how my first edition looked compared to how my second edition looks, it just made me bump it up. You want to have a book that compares.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's it. People listening, know that you can hire editors, you can hire book cover designers. As you have done, you can hire audio people. You can hire pretty much everyone now, a lot of whom used to work for traditional publishing. So there's options both ways.

What's interesting, of course, and you mentioned that the advance you were offered was not enough to be interesting.

Gin: Just because Delay, Don't Deny is like I wanted it like I wanted it. That's one of the tradeoffs of working with a traditional publisher. From the title, to the book cover, to what they put on the back, to what's written in the Amazon listing.

Every single one of my traditionally published books, the way it's worded in the Amazon listing is not the way I would word it. Every one of them. The back matter is not the way I would have worded it.

As a part of the collaborative process, you might get a first draft from your editor, and then you make suggestions, but it's still that somebody else is uploading that to Amazon. Somebody else is doing all of that.

I mentioned to you before we recorded, in an email, I have another book that I'm going to be working on, and my agent shopped it to my editor, and I got a very substantial six figure advance offer from it, and I have turned it down. I'm going to self-publish the new book as well.

I mean, it made total sense to do the second edition of Delay, Don't Deny myself, but for a new book with a great advance offer from a traditional publisher that I enjoy working with. I love my editor. I love my agent. They're great people. They have a great team.

I looked back at a book that I wrote in 2017 called Feast Without Fear, and I haven't talked about that one much, and I looked at my earnings from 2017 through today, and my earnings on that little book I never really talk about are almost as much as the big six figure advance that they're offering me. I was like, huh—

I have an audience of people who are going to be interested in reading what I have to put out there.

Of course, it's not all about the money, but now that I have realized with Atticus, and I've got someone who can help me with the audiobook, I really can do it myself now. I have the skills to do it. I have the support.

So everything that I really enjoyed about traditional publishing, I can make my new book look very professional, and do it myself, and retain the royalties, and have control.

The new book that I'm got in my head, and I have it a little bit outlined, both my agent and my editor said, “I like the idea, but you're going to need to work on the title. We don't really like that.”

I'm like, well, I don't want to work on the title. I really like it the way I want it. So just all those little things along the way that you lose control of when you do traditional publishing. That's important when you're a writer and you're a little bit of an artist too, and you want it like you want it.

Joanna: Yes, I think that's important. One of the biggest things there, of course, is that you have a community. Now, like everyone, you started with no community, so you did have nobody. Then over time, like you said, you started on Facebook groups.

 This is something that many people are petrified of. A, of leaving Facebook, but B, starting a paid community. So can you maybe talk about that? Why you did it, why you left, and any tips?

Gin: I could do like a five hour show about why I left! When I left, it was the end of 2020, going into 2021, and you can remember what a charged time that was on Facebook. Okay, now imagine I'm running health related groups, and also imagine that there are almost 500,000 combined members.

So you could just imagine how charged that time was and how difficult it was. One thing about Facebook groups, especially in the health and wellness community, is that Facebook was shutting people down for things.

I mean, I don't know if they're still doing that in groups. I don't really know since I don't run any groups. I can remember somebody that was actually in my community, in my Facebook community, had some sort of recipe group or something related to food. It was a Facebook group with maybe 10,000 members.

She woke up one day and the entire group had been shut down by Facebook, and there was no way for her to get it back. I thought, what if Facebook decides that fasting is dangerous and shuts me down? I would have no recourse. It would all be lost. All these people that are in my community would just be gone.

We got dings against our group for things like AI didn't like certain wording, like they really don't like the word fat. In a fasting community, there's something called being fat adapted, and that is actually a good thing. You want to be fat adapted, meaning your body has flipped the metabolic switch and is running on fat easily.

AI would be like, “You used the word fat, and you're the admin. Three more strikes, we'll shut down your group.” I mean, you'd get an AI-generated ding. Somebody who was a moderator accidentally did some emoji, and then she's like, “Oops, sorry. I didn't mean to pick the angry emoji. Fat thumbs.” Ding, bullying.

She's like, “Wait, no, that was me. I said I had fat thumbs.” You know what fat thumbs means. It's not bullying. It means you accidentally clicked the wrong thing.

There was also a little bit of wandering off the street in Facebook, if you know what I mean. People could find you by accident, and that was beautiful, but also not always.

Sometimes people would find you by accident, and they wouldn't have any idea about you or anything about you, or your books, or your podcast, or what you recommended, and they would come in hot. Then they'd argue with you about things.

I just want to support people who are bought into the clean fast. I want to support people who have similar goals, who have similar philosophies towards fasting. I don't want to argue with people who think that Bulletproof Coffee is a great way to start your day when you're fasting.

There are communities where those people can be really happy, but I don't want to have to police that all day long. So I would like a community where I can support people who are following the advice that I give.

So it was hard because, like I said, I had a giant community. I thought maybe I'm only selling books, and maybe people are only listening to my podcast because of my Facebook groups. Maybe leaving Facebook will make it all stop and that'll be the end. I said, it is worth it. Even if that is true, it is worth it.

So I started my private community, and, oh, some people some people were mad. People that were used to being in my Facebook group for free were super mad. They're like, I read your book, I bought your book, and now you're asking me to pay for your community.

I'm like, well, buying a book means you get a book. You got the book, right? I don't know why reading a book means you get free support for the rest of your life from me, the author. It doesn't.

So the people who joined my community wanted my support, they wanted my advice, they wanted to interact with me, and they were willing to pay for it. It's like $9.99 a month. I'm not really asking a lot, but $9.99 a month weeds out the people who really don't want to be in my community.

So I have a wonderful community, and I love interacting with the people there. They ask questions, and we help them. People post their struggles, they post their successes, and the right people find it who are excited to be there. So that fear that I had when I left, I'm so glad that I did it anyway.

I love my community so very much, and I'm grateful for everyone who has moved over with us.

Joanna: I think it's such a big thing. So at the end of 2023, I did something similar with content, which I've put within my Patreon/thecreativepenn. So I've got a Patreon, but I did the same thing. It was like—

The difference to mental health is tremendous, right? I was around you at that time, and I remember how stressed you sounded around the stuff on Facebook.

Gin: Well, it was awful in the summer of 2020, when everything was really politically charged. We had a ‘no politics' rule in our Facebook groups, but something happened while I was sleeping one night where someone tried to post something political, and my moderators did not allow it because we're not a political group, we're a Facebook group.

Whether I did or didn't agree with the post, we're not going to have political posts. So the person got really upset that the moderators wouldn't let them post something.

Then instead of just whatever, they went to Amazon and left a one star review on my book and said really mean things that were untrue about me and my personal philosophies. I wasn't even awake. I was sleeping the whole time when it happened.

So I was like, oh, we can't have this. That made me realize that there does need to be a little bit more gatekeeping. We're not going to be political in my group, no matter where we are.

We're going to help you with fasting. We're going to help you with your questions. We're not going to talk about your political leanings, no matter whether I agree with them or whether I don't.

I hope people have no idea where I stand politically. That's what I want. You got plenty of content for that, Gin Stephens doesn't need to be part of it, if you know what I mean.

Gin: I am on Facebook as Gin Stephens, the person. When I said I was leaving Facebook, I wasn't kidding. I took the app off my phone, and I did not open it or look at it for over a year.

I mean, even like, what are my high school friends doing? What are my college friends doing? I didn't know. I was in my bubble because it almost felt like PTSD, honestly. I realized, you know what, I can go back on Facebook as Gin Stephens, the person. I went in and, first of all, unfriended everybody that I didn't really know.

There were some people that I had met through intermittent fasting that I really liked, and I kept them because some of them were in my new community. Some of them weren't. I considered them friends, some of them who'd maybe been on our cruises before COVID.

So I really weeded it out, and so now Facebook really is my friends. It's people that I have from college, people that I grew up with, people I worked with, kids I taught. I mean, I can go on Facebook and just be me.

I don't interact on Facebook a lot. I definitely do not do any political commentary with friends who I may or may not agree with. I just ignore those. I'm just like, “Oh, what's she doing? Oh, she went to a concert. That's nice.” I'm using Facebook like it was originally intended, and I'm not talking about intermittent fasting at all.

Instagram is a different kind of beast. The problem with Instagram is, being a public figure on Instagram makes people sometimes think that anything you post, they can then feel free to comment on in different ways. I don't care for that.

I posted a picture of me and my husband on Instagram, just Gin Stephens, the person. It wasn't a fasting post. In some of the comments, one person wanted to critique Intermittent Fasting Stories, and one person wants fasting coaching.

I'm like, no, no. This is me and my husband on the porch. If you want fasting coaching, you will not get it through the comments on Instagram, sorry.