The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers podcast

#Publishing #Industries #Books #Arts #Entrepreneur #Self-Improvement #Joanna Penn #Book Marketing #Business #Podcasting Education

22:08

Host Francesca Amiker sits down with directors Joe and Anthony Russo, producer Angela Russo-Otstot, stars Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, and more to uncover how family was the key to building the emotional core of The Electric State . From the Russos’ own experiences growing up in a large Italian family to the film’s central relationship between Michelle and her robot brother Kid Cosmo, family relationships both on and off of the set were the key to bringing The Electric State to life. Listen to more from Netflix Podcasts . State Secrets: Inside the Making of The Electric State is produced by Netflix and Treefort Media.…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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Writing Craft and Creative Business

553 episodes

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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updated about 18 hours ago

Series home•Feed

Writing Craft and Creative Business

553 episodes

#Publishing #Industries #Books #Arts #Entrepreneur #Self-Improvement #Joanna Penn #Book Marketing #Business #Podcasting Education

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The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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From Hollywood To Novels: TD Donnelly On Screenwriting, Adaptation, and Storytelling That Lasts 1:17:50

18 hours ago1:17:50

1:17:50

What's the difference between writing a book and writing a screenplay? What are the different business models? If you've written a screenplay, how can you get it read? TD Donnelly talks about the challenges and rewards of screenwriting, as well as his first thriller novel. In the intro, ProWritingAid spring sales 25% off ; Key takeaways from the Future of Publishing conference [ Written Word Media ]; Curios for authors ; Indie author’s scam survival guide [ Productive Indie Author ]; Writer Beware ; OpenAI’s 4o image generation model launch [ OpenAI ]; Plus, check out Death Valley: A Thriller by J.F. Penn. This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket , which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing, and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn T.D. Donnelly is the author of the thriller The Year of the Rabbit . He's also been a screenwriter for more than 25 years, with credits including Sahara with Matthew McConaughey, Conan the Barbarian , and adaptations for the works of Ray Bradbury, Clive Cussler, Stan Lee and others. 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 Challenges of being a screenwriter The competitive nature of the film industry compared to indie publishing Payment structure for screenwriters — stages of payment, production bonuses, and residuals Regaining rights to old, unpublished screenplays Writing differences between screenplays and novels Craft and pitching advice for aspiring screenwriters Why Tom is not worried about AI in the film industry You can find Tom at TDDonnelly.com . Transcript of Interview with Tom Donnelly Joanna: TD Donnelly is the author of the thriller The Year of the Rabbit . He's also been a screenwriter for more than 25 years, with credits including Sahara with Matthew McConaughey, Conan the Barbarian , and adaptations for the works of Ray Bradbury, Clive Cussler, Stan Lee and others. So welcome to the show, Tom. Tom: Hey, Jo. How are you today? Joanna: Oh, I'm good. It's really fun to talk to you about this. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into screenwriting and, particularly, into adaptations. Tom: Okay, so I grew up in New Jersey. My father was an accountant in Manhattan, and my mother was a housewife raising three boys, which is not easy, and sometimes doing a little bit of real estate. So nobody in my family had ever been in a creative field. I had no connection, but what I did have was a 20 minute bike ride from my house growing up, sometime around 10 years old, they built a multiplex, like a 10-movie theater. Back in the 80s, that was quite something. I figured out that on a Saturday, I could ride my bike down like four blind alleys and along the median of a six lane highway for a little bit. It was probably not a good idea, but I could ride my bike to that movie theater, chain it up, spend three or four bucks for a matinee ticket, and then sneak into at least two other movies after that. I was absolutely hooked. I was like, oh my god, this is the best. This is the 80s. This is Raiders of the Lost Ark and Empire Strikes Back . I was transported every weekend into other fantastical worlds. I feel like it indoctrinated me into story and into the scope of story and the power of story. It was all the idea that the Japanese, they have a 100-year plan. When you want to become something in Japan, you apprentice for 10 years, and you just spend all those 10 years learning everything you can so you can become an expert. I guess we call it the 10,000 hours now. I realized at age 15 hearing this, I had like a brainstorm. It was like, hey, if I did that, that's about 10 years of my life. I would still only be like 25 or 26 if I spent all my time just trying to be a screenwriter. If I did that, I would be 25, and if it doesn't work out, I could still do something else at that point. I'm still really young and all that sort of stuff. So I kind of set out with that goal in mind. I told my guidance counselor in high school, I was like, “I would like to be a screenwriter in Hollywood.” The guy just looked at me like, where do you think you are? What planet do you think you are on? Just had no idea what to do with me. He kept trying to suggest other careers that were reasonable, and I just was adamant. So he was like, okay, I'm just going to wash my hands of you and let you go. I've never reached back to contact him, but that would have been funny. Anyway, I got my undergrad at Vassar with an English and Drama double major. Then I got accepted to USC Film School for a master's degree in the directing program, actually. My thesis script—this never happens, okay, I want to preface that this never ever happens—was the first feature length script that I ever wrote, and it ended up, two or three years later, being sold in a bidding war. I ended up getting hip-pocketed. Hip-pocketing means that an agent says, I'm not going to put you on my official roles, and we're not going to go through the official channels and stuff like that, but I will help you. I will read your stuff, and I will give you notes. If something happens, then we'll talk about me representing you officially. Anyway, I had an agent that was hip-pocketing me, and at the time I was editing to pay the bills. I was editing film and television, in particular television at that point. The producer I was working for wanted to hire me immediately onto another television project. I said, “I'm sorry, I can't do that.” He was like, “What? I thought I thought we had a good relationship.” I said, “No, we have a great relationship, but I've saved up enough money to write for six months, and whenever I've saved up enough money to write for six months, I always don't take an editing job because I don't want to just be an editor. I want to be a filmmaker. I want to be a writer.” He was like, “Oh. Oh, do you have anything to show me?” I said, “Well, I have my thesis script that I wrote in college.” He was like, “Can I check it out?” And he read it, and he said, “I'd like to send it to a couple of my friends. Would that be all right?” I said, “Sure.” So I called the agent that was hip-pocketing me, and I said, “Hey, great news, this producer, this guy, he wanted to share the script.” My agent was like, “What? He can't do that. When he does that, he's attaching himself as a producer.” I'm like, oh no. So he's like, “Who did he give it to?” I said, “I don't know.” So long story short, too late already. So sorry, so sorry. He finds out the three people that this producer sent them to, and it ends up it's the head of 20th Century Fox Production, the head of another—like three very big people—and calls up the first one and says, “There's a script that came to you last weekend. It should not have gone out. I just want to claw it back until it's ready.” They're like, “Oh, we were just about to call you. We'd like to put in a bid on it.” After that, everything changed. Suddenly, we're in a bidding war. There ended up being three different bidders, and the script sold for—well, let's just say this. At the time, I had over $100,000 in student debt from grad school and undergrad, and with that sale, I paid off every single debt that I had. I was free and clear. It was amazing. Joanna: So first of all, you seem very mature as a child to decide that you want to—or as a teenager—to sort of decide, yes, I'm going be a screenwriter. Then obviously you making the choice to study it, and then everything falls into place. I guess by the time you did that major deal in, I guess it would have been the, what, late 90s by then? Tom: No, early 90s. Yes, early 90s. Joanna: Early 90s, okay. Tom: No, '95. Sorry. Joanna: '95, and you've stuck at this career since then. This seems incredibly single-minded to me. Tom: It's weird, but I basically came at it from this viewpoint. I love storytelling. I love stories. I love movies. I love books. My mother would, when I was a kid, she would drop us off at the public library, sometimes all afternoon as she would go out and be doing real estate things. So we read everything in the library. We were indoctrinated in story from a very early age. I said, if I'm this fortunate to be able to try and fail things, I better do that because I don't want to have regrets. I don't want to have regrets in my life. I don't know why I realized that at such a young age, I don't understand. If you ask my wife, I'm not a wise person. I'm really not. Joanna: Maybe you're just single-minded. Tom: A little bit. I said, if I could do this as a career, I think I would be happy for my whole life. That thought, once that got in my head, it kind of never left, and it has absolutely been true. As difficult as the writing life can be, it is such a joy each day to know that I'm making something that's never been and I'm putting into the world. There are people that are reading the stories or watching the movies that I've been a part of. For some of them, it's exactly what they needed at a low moment in their lives. Or for some it's like it spoke to them in a really deep and human way. I just think that's magic, and if I could be a part of that, I love it. Joanna: Well, then you mentioned were difficult there. This is really interesting because, of course, I've talked to screenwriters over the years and sort of dipped my toe in and backed off. People hear negative things in the author book industry as well, but what are the difficult things about being a screenwriter? I mean, as in, has just everything been amazing, and like you said, you've been happy for your whole life? What are some of the challenges of being a screenwriter? Tom: Okay, so one thing, I'll phrase it this way, Craig Martelle in 20Books, they say, “A rising tide raises all ships.” In that my success does nothing to harm you. If anything, it might even help you. If I'm putting out a good book that's in a genre that you're in, it's going to make people want to read more, and probably read your stuff as well. In the film business, in the television business, that is not the case. It is a knife fight in a phone booth. It really is. So let me give you a number here, 50,000 screenplays. That is the number of screenplays that are registered with the Writers Guild of America, of which I am a member, every single year. Of those, there's 20 times as many that are written every year. So that is a million scripts a year, and that's just in the US. That's just scripts that are in the North America market. A million scripts every year. Do you want to know how many films were made in North America in 2023? Joanna: Go on, then. Tom: 500. So taking the, “a rising tide raises all ships,” if you end up getting one of those 500 slots to make a film, that absolutely affects me and everybody else. It is not a “we're all in this together,” it is very much cutthroat. The industry is built that way. A lot of times when there is an assignment, people don't just come to me with a book and say, “Hey, would you like to adapt this?” More often than not, they're going to four or five writers that are just as experienced, just as talented, just as right for the material as I am. I have to go in, and I have to pitch, and I have to somehow convince these producers and these multi-billion dollar conglomerates, international conglomerates, that I have that special spark that is going to get this project over the line and is going to make this something that is going to make them a ton of money. That's not easy. That is super hard. In some ways, selling my very first script I ever wrote was an impediment to that because I suddenly was thrust into the lunch meetings, and the getting to know yous, and all that sort of stuff. I was thrown into the deep end before I really had figured out a lot of this sort of stuff. So I had on the job training, as opposed to make all your mistakes in private, in the dark when nobody can see you. I had to learn a lot of these things the hard way, and it was really, really difficult. Joanna: I guess of those 500, as you say, I mean, a lot of those are from existing screenwriters, like yourself these days, and also existing franchises. So of that, let's say— Of those 500, how many are like original screenplays that people pitch? Tom: Not many. Not many at all. I can't really give you a number, but I would probably say only 10 – 20% are completely original material. The reason being, the film business in particular, is the last truly gate kept industry. Back in the 70s and 80s, the music industry was a gate kept industry. If you wanted to put out a record, you had to have a record deal with a major label. They would have the fancy studios, and the backup artists, and everything you needed to succeed, but they would take the majority of the profits. You would still make a fortune, so you wouldn't be too unhappy about it. Then when digital recording equipment came out, all of a sudden, everybody could do it. They could record in their garage something that was good enough and good enough to get on air. Suddenly, within 10 years, the record industry collapsed. The same thing with Kindle for us. The stranglehold that the big publishing houses has had over the industry collapsed. For film, it's a collaborative, very difficult experience. It takes a lot of people to make a film. It takes a lot of equipment. It takes a lot of time. So the lowest entry price you can make a film for is still very expensive. Listen, I've worked with Robert Rodriguez, who made El Mariachi for $7000, $8,000. Amazing guy. I love him to death. It's not easy to do that. It's super hard to be the exception that can make things at that low of a budget level and really do it indie. It can still be done. There are more and more opportunities do the to do that now, but because everything is so expensive that affects what people buy as well. People want assurances in this industry. They don't want to buy a spec script. No matter how good that spec script is, they know that spec script has only been read by 10 people, 15 people. They would much rather have a book series that they know have sold a million copies worldwide because that has pre-awareness. That has a promise of, hey, a large part of those people are going to want to come and watch this movie. So we can afford to spend the $50 million, the $60 million, the $200 million on that project, to get it up and going. That's just the reality of the business. Joanna: Although we should say, so you are a screenwriter in LA. You're obviously in the US Hollywood film industry. There is obviously the indie film market. There's film industries here in Europe, there's film industries in India. There's film industries all over the world. So, just for people listening— You have a particular perspective based on these very big budget films, right? Tom: Yes, I absolutely should say that. Not only do I write in Hollywood, I also write on the very high end of Hollywood productions. I did a lot of work on Marvel's Doctor Strange and Cowboys and Aliens and like these big, big, big, big, $200 million pictures. I know what the budgets are for BBC productions. I know what the budgets are for ITV, for Canal+ in France. I know what they are. They're lower. There's more opportunities in some of those places. There is a kind of universal understanding that for most projects that end up getting made and end up getting distributed, the price to get into that, the minimum cost for most of these films is still, even if it's not $100 million, $200 million—hey, guess what? $5 million is a lot of money. That is still a barrier to entry for a lot of people, and it's a barrier to raise that amount of money in the hopes that that is going to make that money back for a lot of people. Joanna: You know, I was at the Berlin Film Market, and I learned a lot about all of this, and a lot of the networking is about finding all the different ways you can fund things. So you get a little bit from here, a little bit from there, you get a bit over there, and a grant from that location. It's just incredible to me how this works. Let's talk about the business and the money side. We're going to come back to your thriller writing books in a minute. In terms of the business and the way the money works as being a screenwriter compared to owning and controlling your own intellectual property. So can you give us a bit of an idea about that? Are you essentially a very highly paid freelance writer? Tom: Yes, that is exactly right. All work in Hollywood is work for hire, meaning when I sell a script, they buy the script outright. They own it, they own the rights to it. They can do what they want with it. I have certain—because I'm in the Writers Guild of America—I have certain rights that are reserved to me. So if they want to make a sequel without me, they still have to pay me for it. I still get credit on the project, etc, etc, but they do own the things outright. Maybe my deal has licensing money for toys or all of this sort of stuff, but usually not. Generally, I get paid in stages. I get paid a certain amount for the first draft, a certain amount for the rewrite, a certain amount for any polishes that I do after that. When the movie goes into production, I get a production bonus in the first day of shooting. When it's completed and the credits have been established and negotiated and dealt with, I get a credit bonus. Then you start to get residuals after that. My wife calls them the green envelopes of joy. Four times a year, the green envelopes of joy appear on my doorstep, and you never know what they're going to be. You have no idea until you open it. Now you have some idea because it's a big film that came out, and there's a good chance that that first envelope is going to be huge. It tails off fairly slowly, actually, but over time, it tails off. Eventually you start getting green envelopes of joy that are for $2.50. Joanna: It might have been a coffee once in LA. It probably isn't anymore. Tom: Exactly. It feels a little like Patreon. It feels like the studios are now just contributing to my Patreon. So which is to say that you don't own it, which is a painful reality. Now, though you don't own it, the amount that they pay you to write it is embarrassingly big. The industry compensates writers, or at least writers at my particular area, very well. It is a well-compensated business. A famous author who came to Hollywood and started writing for Hollywood couldn't believe what they paid until he saw how he was treated, and he said, “Oh, they're not paying me for the writing, they're paying me for the indignity,” which I continue to believe is true to this day. The writers are not treated the best in my side of the business. I will say that when I hired an editor from Bath, England, who was editing my first novel, she was apologizing and giving me all these caveats as she was giving me the sweetest, nicest notes I've ever received in my life. She was thinking I was going to be offended by her suggestion of changes. I'm like, oh my god, you have no idea what notes in Hollywood are like. Oh my god. It's just so awful in comparison to this. Everybody on the indie publishing side of the business, you guys are so sweet and so nice. I feel like I've left the real world and I've entered, I don't know, the world of the Smurfs or something. Everyone's super nice to each other. It's amazing. Joanna: That is so funny. Well, then let's come back to— Why the hell write a novel? If it's all so wonderful and unicorns and roses in Hollywood—maybe they treat you badly or whatever, but they pay you well—why write The Year of the Rabbit ? Which I should tell people I've read. It's very, very good. So obviously you can write, you can tell a story, but why bother when you're just doing all this amazing work? Tom: Well, okay, so here's one little fact. Hollywood buys between 10 and 20 projects for every one that gets made. So that means, over the course of my career, they have bought so many projects that I have spent six months to a year writing, and rewriting and rewriting again, and honing to the best of my ability to compete in that knife fight in the phone booth that I'm talking about, and to make it like, just sing, just perfect. Then it still does not get made, and that project ended up being seen by 15 people in the world. 15 people ever know that that thing existed, and it's gone. It's just out there. Well, guess what? I've been writing for almost 30 years now. Those rights have reverted. Those projects, there's nothing saying that I can't take those projects and give them a second audience, give them a second chance at life. Even other ones where it's my work on that project didn't end up get getting used in the final project, but god, I love the idea that I had for that. So what could I do? I decided that now, you know, I'm in my 50s. Congratulations, 50, Jo. Joanna: Thank you. What a wonderful decade. Tom: It really is. I'm loving it so far. I am absolutely loving it. It's a time when, for me, I was like, okay, let me look at the latter half of my life, and is there anything I want to do different? I decided that I wanted to take some of those stories that I was well compensated for writing, but never got a chance to be in front of an audience. I could put these in front of an audience now. I can have a second bite of that apple, and I can explore this space where I have total creative control, as opposed to almost no creative control over a project. I thought that was fascinating. Joanna: So just on that, this is the 30-year copyright for scripts? Tom: It's actually less than that within the industry. I wish I had the number in front of me. Within the Writers Guild, there's a negotiated point at which you can regain the rights to a project. Sometimes you have to pay what they paid you, but in a lot of cases, you can literally call them up, talk to them, and say, “Hey, I kind of want to do something with this. Do you guys mind at all?” A lot of times, they'll just say, “We haven't thought about that in 15 years. No, go ahead. Do whatever you want.” Joanna: Take it away. Tom: Exactly. Joanna: Okay, so that's cool. Okay, so then how did you find the process? What is the challenge of writing a novel to writing a screenplay? If people haven't read a screenplay, just explain the difference. Tom: Sure, sure, sure. Well, how should I put this? What you guys do as novelists—and I'm saying you guys, even though I'm a novelist now, I'm still a little bit on the outside looking in—it's cheating. It's not right. It shouldn't be allowed. I'm very, very mad that you guys get to write the way you get to write, and I'm stuck in screenplay format having to do it the hard way. You guys get to write the characters' interior thoughts and emotions and journeys, and that is cheating and it is wrong. I have been trained since I was a young person that, no, you can't do that. You have to imply a character's emotional state through very carefully crafted dialog and situation and moments. The entire structure of a scene is designed to elucidate a character's internal state that cannot be understood any other way. That's screenwriting. That's what that is. I mean, that's why we're so good at dialog. We're so good at dialog because we can't tell you what a character is thinking. Yes, people could do voiceover sometimes, but that is a pitfall of its own accord, unless it's done very, very well. So you have to be careful about that. So you're stuck to two senses in screenwriting, what you see and what you hear. That's it. No thoughts. There are heavy structural demands. A screenplay has to have a—there could be a 3-act structure, 5-act structure. You can make a lot of arguments for how it needs to be structured. Tons of times I'm reading a novel, you know, I get sent several a week from my agents who say, “Hey, check this out. People want to consider you for this.” Lots of novels, their structure is such that it would need a lot of heavy lifting to become a film. Even Sahara , for instance. In Sahara , the bad guy, all the villains die, and there's still 100 pages left in the novel after that point, 80 pages left at the end of that. You can't really do that in a film. I mean, Peter Jackson, God bless him, tried to do the ending of Return of the King , the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There's still jokes flying around the internet about how many endings that thing has. It just keeps going on and on and on. I think he did a great job and won the Academy Award, so kudos to him. In general, you can't do that. So structure is something that is very, very important. Pacing demands, right? Film travels at 24 frames a second through that projector onto the screen, and it does not stop, it does not pause. It does not allow you to go out and get a coffee. I guess now with streaming, you can pause anytime you want, but it is still designed for you to watch in one go to be sitting there and experiencing that. Then there's the length issue. Sahara was a 193,000-word novel. The screenplay for Sahara was 23,000 words. How do you take a 193,000-word experience and create a similar story experience in just 23,000 words? In order to do that, no scene is about one thing. In a novel, scenes are about one thing all the time. In a screenplay, every scene is about four or five or six different things stacked on top of one another, very artfully folded in on each other. So we're advancing this plot element here. We're advancing this character conflict here. We're hinting. We're doing setups and payoffs for this and that and the other thing that are going to come 15, 20, 45 pages later. All of these things are happening in one scene, and that creates a need to rewrite a lot more than novelists sometimes do. Some novelists rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, I get that, but for the most part. It makes it hard for discovery writers, frankly. There are not many discovery writers in Hollywood. It's a very difficult thing. First of all, because you're constantly having to share your work with the producers. So you're sharing outlines and pages and all of that sort of stuff. Just saying, “I'm not really sure what the story is going to be about. I have some ideas, but let me just see where it goes.” Joanna: I'm just going to make it up. Tom: You don't get a very good response for discovery writing. Now that said, there are some. Like Greta Gerwig famously said that she has to start writing to understand what her story is, and I love that. I love that there are, even in Hollywood, there are discovery writers. Her and Noah Baumbach, when they wrote Barbie , did a lot of discovery writing. I think it shows in the work that the depth of the theme of that movie is so evident, and I feel like it doesn't come from an outline. I think that comes from discovery writing, to some degree. Joanna: I mean, as we record this, even just this morning, I've been editing my Death Valley script again. I guess in terms of editing as a discovery writer with the novel, it's a different process, but it is actually much easier to edit 110 pages, 120 pages, or whatever, of quite spaced out—because of the way screenplays are formatted. It's much easier to edit a script than it is to edit a whole book. Tom: I mean, it kind of is, but maybe you'll find in some ways, it also isn't. In a screenplay, because things are so dense and so layered, you have a lot more of the “pulling on a thread and the entire sweater falls apart.” That can happen a lot more in a screenplay sometimes, whereas the spaced out editing of a novel gives you more on ramps and off ramps to get out of the story problems you're creating for yourself in the rewriting process. Maybe. At least that's what I'm finding. So, yes, I am finding editing my novel is very difficult, and I'm very happy to have somebody doing it with me and kind of for me. I'm in that process right now on the second novel, and every time I go in to fix something, I end up adding new chapters. I'm like, oh god, what am I doing? Am I ruining this? All my film instincts are yelling at me, “Don't! What are you doing?” Joanna: I think that's interesting because readers of books, of novels, are a lot more forgiving. When you think about the target market for a screenplay, it is a very small group of very, very picky people. Whereas the target audience for a novel is a lot wider, and they're not necessarily people who are picky about—or they are picky in some ways—but they're not the same. So it feels like the target audience is so different, even though, obviously, eventually you hope your film will be shown in front of people. Most people will never see your script, right? It's a very small audience. Tom: It's so true. The way I describe it is, when you submit a screenplay, you're giving it to readers who are paid to say no. When you write a novel, you're giving it to readers who have already paid to say yes. That's a radically different experience. Joanna: And they paid lot less, by the way. Or nothing in Kindle Unlimited. Tom: It's unreal. Exactly, exactly. That is a major, major difference. In screenwriting, you are writing to a hostile audience, like an incredibly hostile audience, that is all trying to figure out how not to lose their jobs if this thing gets made and fails. That is the sad truth of the matter. Joanna: So you mentioned there about submit your screenplay, and this is obviously one of those interesting things. For me, and maybe other people listening— We've maybe written an adaptation of a novel, or we've written a spec screenplay, and where do we submit it? Now, I've obviously been to some pitch things. I am now looking at some competitions. So what are your thoughts on our scripts, if we do write them and obviously try and make them the best they can be first, but where should they then go? Tom: Okay, so you're getting really into hard questions now. I was told this would not be an ambush interview. This is not fair. Joanna: It's so not. Tom: Let me ask you a question, Jo. You asked me for some advice when you were about to go to Berlin, to the film festival and to the film market. Did you take my advice? Joanna: Well, you said, don't even write a script. Tom: I was very specific about how you had to pitch yourself, and you were like, “Oh, but we're British. We don't do that. This is Europe, we don't do that.” I said, “No, they still do it in Europe, just maybe not quite as brashly as the Americans do.” Joanna: No, I didn't. I don't think I'm very good at that. I am feeling a lot better about that. Now I know a lot more about the industry. I think I needed to be there to kind of understand. As you said, what was so funny was how much, not contempt, but they don't think much of writers, as you said. It's crazy to me. Tom: No, I mean, from an indie writer's point of view, it's shocking, because all you do is run into people that are, “Oh my god, I love your podcast. I love your book. I love your this. I love your that.” They're like, “Oh geez, another writer. All right, fine. You've got three minutes. Tellme what you want to say.” Joanna: So what can we do? Tom: There is no way to break into Hollywood, and yet it happens every day. There is no way to get a film made in Europe, and yet it happens every day. The sad fact of the matter is, as I already mentioned, because of the cost of making these things, it is very difficult to get scripts read and seen and accepted. Every step of the process is a struggle because of the time and effort and cost involved in the endeavor in and of itself. So, that said, there are things you can do to increase your chances of having success here. If you ask me before you write anything, what can you do to up your chances? I will say, if you can write a high concept, low budget, contained-space story with powerful characters and theme, you are going to leapfrog over 90% of all other scripts that have ever been written and put yourself into contention. Those are projects that are eminently producible. When I say contained, I mean one or two locations. I mean really, really contained, simple ideas. I was on the screenwriting panel at 20Books Vegas two years ago, at the last 20Books Vegas, and a romance writer said, “Yeah, well, that's all great and good, but I'm a romance writer. You can't write a contained romance.” I said, “Sure you can,” and I was like, “What about this? Two people—a man or woman, or depends, man and a man, whatever your genre is, whatever your tropes are—are invited to a ski weekend. They're the first two to the chalet. They immediately hate each other. An avalanche snows them in, completely closes them in.” “The romantic comedy is these two people at each other's throats stuck here, who gradually fall in love as they always should have. Wouldn't that be good?” The person was like, yes. I think she was writing it down. Joanna: She wrote it down. Tom: I think she did. So you can do that with anything and create that, but that is the kind of projects that have the greatest odds because they're producible. It doesn't take a lot. The lower the price becomes, the lower the difficulty of making something becomes. The easier it is to say yes, and the harder it is to say no, to some degree. That said, have a log line, number one. A log line is just a couple sentences, two or three sentences. You know how we all hate writing blurbs? Okay, take that blurb that you have on the back of your book and that you have on your Amazon page, and cut it by two thirds, cut it by three quarters, and that is all you can say about your film. Until you have that, you're not really in the game. You need to have something super small and super simple. Joanna: Just a little tip there for people. Just like we now can for sales descriptions, you can upload it to Claude or ChatGPT, and it will give you 20 log lines, 50 log lines, whatever you like. So that's what I do. Only do that if you're happy with the terms and conditions of these sites, but— I certainly am finding this a lot more useful for my pitch material. Tom: A great thing that AI can do, for sure, is to summarize something that you've already written. It's very, very good for that. I totally agree with that. So there are some other ways that you can have your project get more visibility. Some people talk about screenplay competitions. I am going to tell you that very few mean anything. Okay, and I will tell you the ones that do. So ScreenCraft is closing down, Launch Pad, WeScreenplay. Those are all closing down. These were owned by a company called Coverfly, and it's restructuring the way it does its business. So a lot of screenplay competitions are dying, and a lot of the ones that still exist, like nobody in a place to buy a screenplay and to make a film are reading those scripts. The ones that do matter, number one is the Nicholl Fellowship. That is the absolute number one. The screenplay that wins will be read by a lot of people in this town and a lot of people around the world. Screenplays that even make it into the semi-finals or finals, that is a feather in your cap. That is a calling card that you can use to go out there. There's a website called TrackingB.com . The TrackingB, which stands for Tracking Board Contest, is absolutely legit. Hollywood, in particular, pays attention to scripts that win that or make it to the top of that. The Austin Film Festival, the AFF, that screenplay competition is very well regarded and does mean something. There's a screenplay competition called The PAGE. Then there is Sundance and Raindance, both have competitions and fellowships and all sorts of things. They're a fantastic resource. You should familiarize yourself with them. Also South by Southwest. Those are the ones that are legit and have some amount of people that are legitimately looking for scripts to produce reading. So anything else, I would say, save your money. Don't give them the entry fee because I don't think it's going to mean a lot. Joanna: There's a lot of them that charge. What about these pitch things? So obviously, I'm going to London Screenwriters' again next month, and there's a PitchFest, and there's sort of 50 producers, execs, agents. It's like speed dating, five minutes. It's absolutely terrifying. Last year it was ridiculous, and I was just the complete rabbit in the headlights. It was very out of my comfort zone. This year I'm going again, and I think I'm going to be a lot more relaxed. So do you think those [PitchFests] are worth doing? Tom: They vary just as much as screenwriting competitions. Some of them, like nobody on that panel is going to have any interest. I've been on those panels, and I can tell you, I'm doing a favor for somebody to sit there and listen to people pitch me. Joanna: Oh, they're not a panel. It's like, you get five minutes one-on-one, and you do that as much as possible. Tom: Okay, okay. I know that. I know that format as well. You never know, so I can't really say no, but I'll say that, much like speed dating, it's a low percentage game. Joanna: Fair enough. Fair enough. I did speed dating back in the day. Tom: You've got to kiss a lot of frogs. So I wouldn't say no to that, even if it's just to have the pressure of pitching and pitching repetitively, which helps you learn how to do that. Pitching is absolutely a skill that you are not taught as a novelist, and you must learn as a screenwriter. I went to 20Books Vegas two years ago, and this year I was a speaker at Author Nation, and I'm going to be a speaker at a bunch of other things this year, and people are like, “Well, you have one book out? How are you all of a sudden doing all this sort of stuff?” I said, well, I'm used to pitching. I can pitch myself. I can pitch things. I have training in that, really. That's super important. Joanna: Also you're incredibly successful, and everyone wants to talk to you. Tom: That's fine. I mean, sometimes you get blown off by people like Jo Penn, who says, “No, I don't have time for lunch,” and then figures out, “Oh, wait, I know who you are.” Joanna: “Oh, yes, maybe I'll hang out.” Just for people listening, I didn't know who Tom was. Luckily, I read his book, and it was amazing, and that's how we kind of connected. Then I realized he was this big name screenwriter, so it was an interesting connection. That's unlikely to happen to me multiple times, and I'll just suddenly meet this director. Although here is a question, I am getting pitched by so many screenwriters turned novelist, and I was wondering— Is this because of the writers' strike a few years ago and everyone just decided to write their novel? Tom: Yes. I was I was going to say that. I actually got sidetracked at one point, but I was like, the Hollywood studio system did me a huge favor in shutting down and preventing me from writing screenplays for six months last year during the Hollywood Writers' Strike. It closed down the entire business. People lost homes, people lost apartments. People had to leave the business. It was a really, really tough time. For me, I was like, oh, my God, I can actually finish the novel now. I can actually start moving in this direction that I've wanted to move in for so long. Thank you very much. It was very kind of you to do that. Joanna: There is a lot now. You must have been quick off the mark because I'm getting them every day now. Every single day, people in various Hollywood things sending their novels. It is very, very interesting. We don't have much time left. I could talk to you forever, but I do want to ask you about AI because obviously part of that writer strike was around the clauses and use of AI. Film has used different technologies for many, many years. James Cameron is famously working with Runway. There's special effects. Film already uses AI, but it's moving into a lot more areas. So what do you see ahead in terms of opportunities? Will cost come down? What will happen? Any thoughts [on AI in the film industry]? Tom: Yes, I have a lot of thoughts on the matter. I think that we are in a time of profound technological change. We've been here before. We've been here many, many times before. I'm young, and I'm old enough to remember the advent of the word processor and the explosion of the personal computer. Everybody who worked in the white out factory, they had to find another job. Everybody who worked building typewriters had to find another job. There is going to be people that are going to lose jobs because things are being automated out of their purview and automating them out of space. It's not really something that we need to fear as creatives. Almost everything that we're looking at is not a thing that is going to replace us, it is a new tool that we're going to be able to use in creating art and creating great art. If you go to YouTube and type in “Hedra” and watch what they're doing, you will see some stuff that is scaring a lot of people in my business. It's a company that is doing amazing video production that is completely AI-generated. Amazing facial animation and voice cloning work that is giving fairly photo realistic performances of AI actors. I know some actors that are like, there will be no human actors in the next 100 years. I was like, no. Look at this and see how good can this get. It can get only so good. It can deliver a life-like performance, but it can't give an earth shattering performance. It's not going to change your life. It's going to be good enough. It's never going to be at that level of exception. At least that's my belief. The same thing goes for writing. If I had a job writing copy for websites, I would be very worried about my job. I think that is definitely something that AI can replace. Crafting the stories that I can craft with my voice and my weird, twisted sensibility, I don't think AI is ever quite going to be able to do that. As you've said many times on this podcast, it's what you bring that is the differentiator. That is the thing that AI will never replace. That is also why your readers buy your books. They're buying it for that special JF Penn factor, that special thing. I think the same thing goes for my industry. Joanna: I'm glad you said that. I do hope that it will bring down some costs in production. For example, I know here in Bath where they film Bridgerton and all of this kind of thing, they're building these sort of digital interiors, or scanning the interior of the Georgian buildings so that the actors can be somewhere else. They're still acting in the room, but it's just projected onto that green screen. So the future for actors may be that you don't get to travel so much, you just have to act in another green room. A lot of them are used to that, I guess. Tom: I mean, if you look at all of the Star Wars television series that are out recently, they all use the technology similar to that. Where not only are you acting on a 360-degree cyclorama screen, but you are in real time. You're not having to imagine what the green screen is showing. You're seeing what the actual surroundings of you are. Absolutely amazing. There are AI right now that can already dub into foreign languages and do great work with not just subtitling, but actually dubbing projects into foreign languages. That's going to be a cost cutting exercise. There's going to be a lot of stuff that can really, really bring down the cost. The fact of the matter is, you are maybe going to take a 100-person crew and make it an 80-person crew. You can maybe take a 50-person crew and make it a 30-person crew. There are still so many jobs that are still going to require people and skilled artisans in their particular fields. I think there's a limit to how much AI is going to be able to save us, but it will be able to save quite a bit. Joanna: Fantastic. So just briefly— Tell us about The Year of the Rabbit . Also, where can people find you and your books online? Tom: Listen, my first novel out of the gate, I'm super happy that it's gotten the response that it's gotten. Jo, you were very kind to blurb the book for me. I really appreciated that. Joanna: It's a great thriller, for people listening. Tom: I will say that I'm Amazon exclusive. So it's T.D. Donnelly, D, O, N, N, E, L, L, Y. Year of the Rabbit is the name of the book. If you like action thrillers, if you like spy thrillers, if you like thrillers with a lot of character and a very unique lead character, I highly recommend you check it out. Should I give a quick blurb of it? Joanna: Yes. Why not? Tom: Year of the Rabbit is about Malcolm Chaucer. Malcolm Chaucer is the world's greatest interrogator. He is a human lie detector that can read every micro expression on your face to know whether or not what you're saying is a truth or a lie. He knows this because he is a deeply broken man who, for eight years, was tortured in North Korea and suffers extreme PTSD. That is his super power. That is why he is hypervigilant and able to notice all of these things. Well, during a routine interrogation in New York, he finds out that the person that these people are looking for is his ex-wife. That starts him down a road of suddenly being hunted himself, as well as she is, by nameless assassins. Actually, everybody in New York that that has access to a computer is suddenly told a million dollar bounty on his head. Can he figure out truth from lies? Can he figure out who wants to kill him? And can he figure out the secret that is the Year of the Rabbit? Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Tom. That was great. Tom: Oh, let me just say, TDDonnelly.com is the website. That's the other thing. Thank you. Joanna: Thank you. The post From Hollywood To Novels: TD Donnelly On Screenwriting, Adaptation, and Storytelling That Lasts first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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How Ordinary Drafts Become Extraordinary Books. Revisionaries With Kristopher Jansma 57:01

8 days ago57:01

57:01

How can we avoid the mistake of comparing our first drafts with the finished books we love? How can we improve our manuscripts? Kristopher Jansma gives his tips. In the intro, Finding your deepest reason to write [ Ink In Your Veins ]; London Book Fair, AI audio and ‘vibe coding' [ Self Publishing with ALLi ]; Pirated database of books used to train AI models [ The Atlantic ]; Fair use and copyright with Alicia Wright ; The Guardian strategic partnership with OpenAI ; Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan and potential around fair use [ Ars Technica ]; How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed by Richard Susskind; Death Valley, A Thriller by J.F. Penn. 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 Kristopher Jansma is the award-winning author of literary fiction novels, short fiction and essays, as well as Revisionaries: What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers . 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 The mistake of comparing first drafts to finished works Dismantling the notion of genius How to turn our manuscripts into masterpieces Knowing when it's time to walk away from a book, or push through and persevere Seeking support from editors and friends Balancing the joyful side and business side of being an author The importance of social media in developing your personal brand Drawing boundaries and protecting personal information in your writing You can find Kristopher at KristopherJansma.com or The Nature of the Fun on Substack. Transcript of Interview with Kristopher Jansma Joanna: Kristopher Jansma is the award-winning author of literary fiction novels, short fiction and essays, as well as Revisionaries: What We Can Learn from the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers . So welcome to the show, Kris. Kristopher: Thanks for having me on, Jo. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you about this. First up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Kristopher: Well, I have been a writer pretty much my whole life. I'm one of those writers who, as a child, you couldn't get a book out of my hand. I have a whole storage unit somewhere full of school journals that are full of little stories and things. It was just something that I took to really early and always really wanted to do. As I got older, I started taking it a little more seriously. Then I went to school eventually and studied writing. So it's always been a lifelong love of mine. Joanna: So are you a full-time writer? We're always interested in how people make a living writing on this show. Kristopher: I don't know very many full-time writers , sadly. So I'm an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY New Paltz College here in New York State. So I'm teaching creative writing, which is wonderful because I get to talk about what I love all the time and help students with their writing. I'm the director of our creative writing program up there right now. Joanna: Well, that's fantastic. It makes me understand a lot more why you wrote this book, Revisionaries . So let's get into that. Why is it sort of just a number one mistake of writers, which is comparing our first draft efforts to the finished books we read? Why is comparing our first drafts to the finished books we read a mistake? Kristopher: I think it's natural, but I think it's a mistake. I mentioned before, I was a big reader as a child and all through my life, and I think that's how most writers get started. We fall in love with books at some point , and reading, and I think it's pretty natural at some points to start to wonder if we could do it too. You know, how much fun it would be to do and give somebody else the great experience that we've just gotten. We model our efforts on the things that we've read before and the things that we admire, of course. Then a funny thing starts to happen, of course, as we get more serious about it, and — We start to realize there's a huge gap between what we're able to do and what our heroes have done in the past. Then I think a lot of people, after having a lot of fun with it at first, start to get really frustrated because they feel like, okay, well, what's the point if I'm never going to be as good as someone like F Scott Fitzgerald. In my case, he was like my hero growing up, or JD Salinger, or somebody like that. I think what we miss, what most of us don't really learn much about, is that those writers only achieve these kind of great masterpieces after tons of failure, rejection, screw ups, mistakes . A lot of them had a lot of help from other people, like editors and family, and all of that. So I think then we just have this misconception about how it works. What I think we tend to believe is that there are just certain people who luck out in the genetic lottery or something, and they're just naturally gifted, talented writers, and that they're geniuses from day one. That was really what I wanted to try to dismantle in this book, was this idea that these great writers—not that they're not geniuses, not that they're not so great—but just that it's not all natural. They didn't get there on their own, and it didn't come without a lot of failure along the way. Joanna: As you were talking now, I was thinking about also the difference. I mean, as an associate professor in creative writing, you naturally teach—well, maybe you have to teach—specific books, things that are considered classic. There are books that are considered classics. I almost feel this is another problem is that we compare ourselves to the classics. Whereas take someone like Isaac Asimov, who wrote over 400 books, people always compare themselves to the ones that were most successful. Whereas most books are not those classics, are they? Could we compare ourselves to normal books instead of these ‘classics'? Kristopher: Absolutely. I talk about this a little bit in the introduction to Revisionaries . I took a class when I was in college, but I snuck into a graduate class, and we read Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway. It was all these amazing works by amazing American writers. I talked about in the book this lesser known work of Fitzgerald that he didn't finish before he died, called The Love of the Last Tycoon , and realizing it was actually pretty bad. I was finding it kind of depressing at the time, but then realizing later in life that actually that is something that was good. In my mind, I was able to realize, okay, this shows that even somebody that could write The Great Gatsby might write another book that's not so wonderful. Then, of course, and I did mention this in the introduction, but I think of this a lot. With Faulkner, we started with and the Sound and the Fury , and I didn't know for years and years after that that wasn't his first novel. I thought it was his debut book. A friend of mine said, “Oh, if you're ever feeling intimidated, go read one of Faulkner's first two novels.” I think it's Mosquitoes and Soldier's Pay or something, and he said, “You'll feel a lot better about your own writing,” and he was right. Joanna: Yes, I think that's important. Now, you did mention the word “genius”, and you use it in the book to anchor each chapter, but genius is a really hard word. I mean, it's a word many people are uncomfortable with, and I think it's interesting. Why did you choose the word “genius”, and how did your definition change over the process of writing? Kristopher: I'm glad you mentioned that. Each chapter has a little section called “Fail Like a Genius” at the end that kind of gives you some tips on writing, or exercises you can do that are inspired by the chapter. The word genius was floating around for me in the very beginning because what I was wanting to do, I realized, was dismantle the notion of genius . As you mentioned, it is such a problematic idea. As I was mentioning before, if we see other people who are successful, we can just tell ourselves, “Oh, they're just a genius. They were born with some talent or some ability that other people aren't. I'll never succeed because I don't have that thing.” I think that's where a lot of us begin the writing process, and that this idea that we're trying to figure out if we have what it takes somewhere within us. When the reality is — What it takes is a lot of persistence, a lot of practice, a lot of stubbornness. Also mixed in, and I think this is where it gets hard, an ability to learn from your mistakes and see where you've gone wrong, and then make corrections the next time. When you look at these stories of these writers, you realize that this is what they've done as well. It's not like they just sat down one day wrote a masterpiece because they have some magical abilities that you or I don't. Joanna: This is what kind of annoys me with writing, compared to something like visual art. So here in Eur ope, if you go to Malaga, you can go to the Picasso's early museum where he was born. You can see some of the pieces that he did when he was a child and then when he was a young man, and you can see the development. In visual art, they appreciate the development of the artist, and also have this idea of periods. Like, that's the blue period, then that was this, as visual artists experimented. It wasn't like, oh, they suddenly arrive on the scene with a perfect novel, which seems to be the expectation. Even now in modern publishing, it's like, “oh, this debut author.” I guess we don't have this “show your work” thing in writing, do we? We don't really accept that. Kristopher: No, we hide those drafts, and we hope that nobody ever sees them because we want to perpetuate this myth that we did just sit down and this wonderful thing came out. There's this mystique around the writer that way. Debut writers are often fairly young, and you haven't read anything else by them before, so it creates this sense that they just decided to write a book one day, and then this great thing came out. So that's a hard thing to live up to. A lot of debut authors don't end up publishing a second book , I think because the expectations are so high that the second book will be just as seemingly effortless to do as the first one was. Where, in fact, the first one probably took a decade, sometimes longer, of a sort of effort. I had the same thought about the visual art as I was working on this book, and music too. Collectors will get demo tapes and rough tracks of artists that they love, and they enjoy going back and listening to the rawer sound of an early version of a song before it got all produced and polished and everything else. There's something really authentic and cool and fun about that, to be able to hear this is what it sounded like when he was just in the garage with the guitar and the drum machine or whatever. With writing, we tend not to do that. What we have instead, which is almost, I think, more problematic—I talk about this a little bit in the chapter in the book about Louisa May Alcott with Little Women —what we have instead is, every once in a while, publishers will put out a new book that they say they've discovered by a writer that was never published before . What it turns out to be is what we would in academic worlds call like juvenilia, or here's a short story that Hemingway wrote when he was eight years old, or something like that, and published in the local newspaper. They're often quite bad, or they're fine, I'm sure, for an eight year old, but nothing like what they're going to be able to do later. But the publishers, I think, wanting to kind of trick people into believing that they've discovered some new masterpiece that no one's ever read before. They'll hype it up, and they'll say, “Okay, this is an amazing book by Louisa May Alcott that you've never read before,” and it turns out to be it's a book that she wrote and realized wasn't very good, and so she never published it. Joanna: Didn't they do that with Harper Lee? Kristopher: Yes, Harper Lee's story is one that I really love. I talk about this one in the book as well. This, again, was a very confused roll out by the publisher. They claimed that they had a long, lost second novel by Harper Lee, and it made it sound like it was a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird . The new book was called Go Set a Watchman . When it came out, it was very shocking because it involves characters from To Kill a Mockingbird , Atticus and Scout and all of them, but as older characters. So it did seem like something that she wrote later about what would happen to them after To Kill a Mockingbird . People were very scandalized because it turned out that Atticus Finch, who in To Kill a Mockingbird was the snowball lawyer who takes on this case to defend a Black man from the mob. Anyway, in this sort of sequel, he turned out to be like a racist and like a Ku Klux Klan member, or had gone to meetings or something. People were horrified. How could this happen? How could she write this book about him? What it turned out had happened, finally, we worked it backwards, and we've discovered that that book was actually not even really a prequel. It was a rough draft, or you couldn't even really call it a rough draft. It was a book that she wrote before To Kill a Mockingbird . She wanted to write about this woman, and she came up with these characters. When she submitted that book to her publisher, their publisher said, basically, “No, thank you. I don't like this book, but I do like this character, and I do like this world in Alabama that you're writing about. So if you want to go back and write a completely different book now, I would take a look at that.” So that's the moment when most writers would say, “Okay, this is a sign. I obviously don't have what it takes. I got so far, and this editor still said no, then sent me back to the drawing board again.” That's, I think, when a lot of people would sort of give up, but Harper Lee had that persistence where she said, “Okay, great. There are a couple of things here that this editor said she liked. I'm going to go back, I'm going to start over. I'm going to take those elements, and I'm going to work with them.” Then she wrote one of the greatest novels in the 20th century. So she was just so close to it, she just didn't know yet that that's where she was going with it. Joanna: But then, classic example of someone who then didn't write. I mean, I write a lot of books, and I feel like every time I write a book, more ideas come. I just can't imagine stopping writing. Maybe Harper Lee had a paralysis of success or something. Kristopher: I wonder about that with her. She talked a lot in her interviews afterwards that it was so successful, and she got so much attention, and I don't think she was somebody that particularly desired that kind of attention . It's a funny thing, a lot of writers—maybe there's some ego to it— we want to share our thoughts and ideas with people , and we think that others should hear or would enjoy them, at least. But we're not really necessarily people that want to be in the spotlight. Being a writer is an art form that really has to be done alone for the most part. A lot of writers are pretty introspective and kind of quiet people who wouldn't mind sitting alone at their computer for hours and hours and hours. So I think Harper Lee and JD Salinger. I didn't end up talking about Salinger in this book, but I wrote an earlier column about him. I think they had that response to the fame that followed their books coming out, that they sort of retreated away from it. We do know that Harper Lee worked on at least one other project after To Kill a Mockingbird . She was working on a crime novel. So it was sort of a true crime novel or based on a true crime that had happened. That's never been published. I don't think she finished it, or at least we don't know that she's finished it. It's never been published, as far as we know. When they found Go Set a Watchman , originally that's what they thought they had found, was the finished crime novel. I don't believe that she ever did finish it. Joanna: Yes, it's interesting. All right. Well, let's go a bit deeper into how we can turn our books into something better. You have a good quote in the book. You said, “I've seen how messes metamorphosize into masterpieces.” So how can we do the same thing? Like, when you have students and they're like there's something in there, but it's a bit of a mess— What are some ways we can improve our manuscripts? Kristopher: There's a couple of things that came up over and over again in the book, and there's sort of a persistence theme that runs through several of the chapters. Like with Harper Lee, where sometimes what needs to happen is that we just need to kind of stick with the project a little longer and try something else there and see how that works. So sometimes that's how the mess turns into a masterpiece. It's just that we continue to dig in deeper and have some faith that we'll get there, trying out some different ideas along the way. I think a lot of times for most writers, we get to a place where we've done everything we know how to do, and it's still quite a bit of a mess. I think that's when it helps a lot to get some help, basically . This also comes up over and over again. So a lot of these writers had people in their lives that they were able to turn to for advice, or just to be a helper, a reader. F Scott Fitzgerald's first version of The Great Gatsby , Trimalchio , was not nearly as good as The Great Gatsby , for a number of reasons, and also had a horrible title. He got it as far as he could on his own. At that point, he had an editor that he'd worked with on his first book, and Max Perkins read it and gave him some feedback on it that was really helpful. He also needed the help of his wife, Zelda, who gave him some ideas about how to better define Gatsby as a character. So that's another thing that I often recommend, which is — Is there anybody that you can give the book to that might be able to give it a fresh read? Then the important thing is then you need to be open to the feedback that they give you. [ Click here for editors! ] I think a lot of times we give the book to somebody, and we hope that they're going to tell us it's perfect. That always feels good, but it's not going to really help us get it where we need it to go. Kafka, I talk about Kafka in the book, never finished any of the books that he started writing. He always undermined himself and had all this doubt, but luckily, he had a good friend, Max Brod, who had basically pushed him all the time to keep on going and try to finish things . So I think that helps a lot, like bringing it to somebody else. Then the last thing I would say—this came up a few times too—it's sort of the flip side of persistence, in some ways. Sometimes you need to know how to walk away from a project that just isn't working. It's very hard. Of course, we spent a lot of time on these books, sometimes years, and we just can't get it to work right. I really wanted people to see through the project here, through Revisionaries , that this happens to all the writers that they love as well. They work on a project that just can't, for whatever reason, doesn't come together the way that they wanted to. The best thing they can do is take a step away from it and just start trying to work on something different for a while. Joanna: But as you said about Kafka there, like I know someone who has 15 books that are not finished. The thing is, sometimes, like you say, you might need to walk away, but maybe you actually just need to go for a walk and walk away for a week and then come back and finish it. If you keep walking away from projects because it's hard—I mean, the point is, this is hard. It is hard to write a book. How do you know where's the balance between persisting or walking away? Kristopher: Yes, it is hard. I wish there was an easy way to know when you're in too deep on something that just isn't working. I was just reading this the other day, Mark Twain, prolific writer, finished lots and lots of things, and wrote wonderful classics. He tried to write a book about Joan of Arc, I think he said six times in 12 years, and every time he got into it and just realized he wasn't going to be able to finish it. It wasn't going to be able to get any further. When you're in a situation like you're talking about, where you have somebody who never finishes anything, or starts many things and never finishes them, I do think that is a different problem. With Kafka, it was an issue of just a lack of confidence . He would finish something and then he would rethink it and decide, “Oh no, no, no, actually, I don't think it's good enough. I have to go back and change it again,” even when other people were telling him, “No, no, no, it's great. Let's go.” Kafka tried to claw back the manuscript for The Metamorphosis , probably his most famous short story, probably one of the most famous short stories in the 20th century. He tried to get his editor to send it back to him so that he could keep making more changes to it, even right before it got published. So that is a different kind of problem that comes up sometimes where you're just never satisfied with what you've done. You have to be able to decide, “Okay, this is good enough the way it is. I'm going to let it go and move on to the next thing.” Joanna: Yes, and so often—well, I mean, obviously sometimes there are some big structural problems, but that is what editors can help with—but often it's the little tweaks. I mean, we all read our work that's published, and we're like, “Oh, I would change that now. I would change that now,” but— It's probably not even something that a reader would notice or care about. Kristopher: Exactly. I think though, again, as writers, we're always going to have some self-doubt , and we're always going to be, to some degree, our own worst critic. We also have to balance that out against the moments where we feel optimistic and we feel like what we're writing is actually good. This is, again, kind of a moment when I think having somebody else on the outside give you a pat on the back and some encouragement is helpful. Jane Austen was a great example of someone. She wrote a few books when she was young, like very young, 16, 17,18 years old. They were finished, and she thought they were good, and other people that read them liked them, but she just wasn't sure. She felt like they weren't as good as she wanted them to be. Then one of them she waited on for about a decade almost, I think, and then eventually wrote it completely and turned it into, I think it was Sense and Sensibility . She had a sense that she had more to learn, or she needed more time to become a better writer first before she wanted to put that work out there. Joanna: Yes, I think we do get that sense. I wrote a book on the shadow, Writing the Shadow , using Jungian psychology. That took a couple of decades, really, before I was ready to do that. I had to write a memoir first, because memoir changes your writing, and then I was like, okay, now I'm ready to write that book. Kristopher: Yes, it is hard. Although I think when you love the process of it, and you can get to a place where you're enjoying the writing part a lot, that that can be very freeing. Then you're not as concerned about, you know, okay, which one happens first? Or how does this get done before that one? That kind of thing. Joanna: It's interesting. You said, “enjoying the writing.” In the book, you say, “Take the time to write for its own sake again.” I feel like this kind of simple joy is difficult. I mean, I'm a full time author, and many listeners write for a living, and it's like the industry drives us into faster output. Publishers don't put as much editing into things as they did back in the day of those classic authors. We have to do a lot more marketing. You're on the show, you are doing book marketing, not writing. So how can we do this? How can we balance taking the time to do that joyful stuff and the business of being a writer? Kristopher: Yes, this is, I think, really the biggest key for writers today. Like you say, I don't know that it was as big of a struggle for writers in the past because this world of self-promotion that exists for writers today . Even 10-20 years ago, I don't know that it was quite as all absorbing as it can be now in this landscape of social media, but also wonderful things like podcasts that I find really fun to do. We started this by asking about, how can we keep fun alive in our writing? I think I enjoy talking to people about what I'm working on. It actually helps me think about what I want to write next and gets me excited to write more. So I try to keep that in mind as I'm doing these promotional engagements and things like that. I don't feel like it is, or I try not to feel like it's a distraction from the writing itself. At the same time, eventually, you have to be able to log off of Instagram or TikTok or whatever. You have to actually sit down and write and not feel distracted by the desire to go back in and check and see if anyone else is talking about you or responding to your video or something like that. So I've started setting up a time in my day when I can turn off all those devices , when I can turn off social media, when it's just me and the computer. That's something that I've had to really push hard for the last couple of years to really carve out time away from the rest of it. Different writers have different ways of doing this. If there's a room in your house that you can go into and you can leave the phone on the outside, or you can use a computer that's not online, I think those things can help a lot. I set modest goals for writing. Usually, my goal is to do something like 3000 words in a week, which sounds like a lot, but ultimately is maybe like 500 words a day. Maybe a little more during the work week, which doesn't take all that long to do in the course of a day, but it really adds up over time. Over the course of a couple of weeks, you start to really feel like you've made some progress, finished a chapter or story that way. I think when you can build that into your life, this separate time that's sacred from the other parts of being a writer, the other business of being a writer , I think that's really the key. I often talk about with my students — There are times when you have to take off the writer hat and put on your author hat. The author is the one who is on the podcast, who is talking to readers on social media, kind of doing that part of the job. Then the writer is almost like a separate identity. Joanna: I'm not really into golf, but we're watching the Netflix series on golf at the moment, and it's mainly about characters, it's not so much about golf. They're excellent at their commentaries. These young golfers were talking about how much they have to do social media in order to build up their brands. I was like, oh my goodness, it's the same for everyone now. Golf is what they do, like we do writing, and then they still have to do social media and all that. It feels like this is just the reality of being some kind of personal brand now. You have to do that side of it. So as part of teaching your students, that is what you tell them, right? It's not just the writing. Kristopher: Yes, so we talk about it a lot. It's funny, my students, some of them are very online and really enjoy all of those things, and they're excited about that part of it. To some degree, I almost worry more about those students because they're the ones who I suspect that I don't know that they really want to write, I think they want to be famous. I try to tell them in as nice a way as possible, if what you want is to be famous, there are better ways to go about it than writing, probably more lucrative ways too. So I do try to make sure that they remember that it is important, but it's not as important as actually writing something good and taking the time to master the craft that you're trying to master. I think there's an idea out there, another myth maybe that needs to kind of get dispelled, which is that the brand is more important than the writing . We've all picked up a book by a flashy author, and felt like the writing wasn't all that good. I think that leads to this idea that, okay, well maybe that part's just not as important, creating a persona that people want to follow on online. Again, the reality is that I don't think that that works for most people. There are always great examples of writers who are quite successful and really don't have a strong social media presence at all, and are still able to do it. So I try to remind them that it's fine to be excited about that side of things, and if you're good at it, then you should go ahead and do it, but that it's not a shortcut to succeeding in the writing part of it. In fact, I think it's often a distraction. Joanna: Yes, there's definitely pros and cons. You actually have a chapter on keeping secrets, and you do write there about where's the line between what we do share. I mean, I podcast because I don't really do much social media. Podcasting is one way that I can be a brand and sell books, but also share some things, but there are lines that I don't cross with my own brand. So what are your thoughts on when we share, when we stay silent, or even in our writing— When do you write your truth, and when do you keep it quiet? Kristopher: This is something that is funny. I think fiction writers, like myself, I was really drawn to fiction early on, partly because I felt like my own life wasn't all that interesting. So I thought it'd be better writing in a way that I can make things up. Since I've gotten older, I've felt the other way around about it. There are things in my life now that I feel this need to protect, that I don't want to share with other people. As a fiction writer, I have that option. I can always kind of hide things, or I can change them in such a way that there's still an element of privacy around them. This comes up in Revisionaries in the chapter on Patricia Highsmith, who was a very prolific crime writer and wrote some fantastic novels. The Talented Mr. Ripley , The Price of Salt , etc., that are still classics today. What I found was that she had tried a few times to write about her personal life. She was a lesbian, and she was having relationships with women in the West Village as openly as she could at the time, but she was living in a time when writing openly about lesbian relationships could have actually gotten her in legal jeopardy. It certainly could have ruined her publishing career. Publishers weren't able to publish stories about those kinds of relationships unless they ended in tragedy, because otherwise, it was considered immoral. So one of her great victories was writing The Price of Salt , which is a novel about these two women, and the relationship at the end is not really a tragedy at all, or arguably is a happy ending. She couldn't publish it under her own name. She published it under a pseudonym, which was a common practice at the time. It was really difficult for her, personally. She almost fell apart completely in the lead up to it because she was so worried about the exposure that might come from it. The more that it seemed like the book was about to become a big hit, and then it was, the more that she felt like she had just shared way too much. I ended up reading another book of hers, I had to fly all the way to Switzerland to go to the library and the archives there to dig up an unfinished book that she tried to write about that was also a woman reflecting on her life and her relationships with women in her life. She abandoned the book after, I think, about 80 pages, and just realized that she just can't do it. She couldn't write about it. It was tearing her up. So I kind of think, and I talk about this in this chapter, that we have to be able to draw those same lines for ourselves. Like we were saying before, I think it's particularly tricky in today's writing environment where a certain confessional impulse can actually be a big draw. It can help sell books. My most recent novel came out in the fall, and it's a novel based on my grandmother's stories during World War Two. Everywhere that I went to talk about it, that was the first question people asked. How much of this is real, and how much of this is based on her real story? Which parts are real, and which ones did you make up? It's like, well, it's a novel. You're not supposed to know necessarily which parts are real and not. I went through a series of interviews, I was listening to other authors, I think maybe it was like interviews on NPR or something like that. I just was checking for a while to see how many times was the author's own personal life a part of the conversation surrounding the novel that they were publishing. It was well over 50% of the time that was like one of the first questions being asked. How is this book authentic because it comes from your own experiences? These are novels, so again, I feel like we should be able to appreciate the beauty of a piece of fiction without having to be reassured that it came from a true story first. Of course, that's exciting to know about, so people want to share it. Joanna: I mean, I write horror and thriller and crime, and you get a lot fewer questions about, like, how much of this murderer is you? But then I do a lot of research. So for example, my next thriller is called Death Valley , and it's set in Death Valley in California. There's all of the truth of the place, but then it's fictionalized. I feel like with literary fiction, that is something that's an obsession with so many. Obviously, there's been some very high profile novels that have been ripped apart because they haven't been, so called, someone's own story . So I don't know, it's difficult. Kristopher: Well, I think the trouble is when a novel is marketed on the basis of some sort of authenticity, suggesting that the writer's own experiences are informing it, and then it turns out not to be the case. We've almost turned novels and fiction into nonfiction, and we have that same obligation that a memoirist does, to be fully honest about everything that goes into the book. When James Frey had his big scandal around A Million Little Pieces , that book was originally written as a piece of fiction. It was supposed to be a novel, and nobody was interested in it. He then it changed it over and basically said, “Oh, what if I just pretend it was a memoir?” Then people loved it. That's because you've given people this assurance that it's real. Going back to my earlier point, I think as fiction writers, we should try more often not to do that. So it's an easy way to get attention for the books that we're writing because, of course, people want to know that. Even earlier books of mine, the very first question I would get asked at every event was, “How much of this is based on your real life?” I used to know a little better than I do today. I used to know to kind of demure a little bit at that question and say, “Oh, well, you know, that's personal. That's private.” Joanna: That's great. Well, the book is super interesting. We're almost out of time, but— Who is Revisionaries for? Who are the people who are going to get the most out of this book? Kristopher: I really wrote it for writers in the earlier part of their lives . I really wished it was a book that I could have read when I was trying to write my first novel and feeling very frustrated. I wrote three books before the first one that actually sold . Two of them had agents, and then couldn't find a publisher. All through that process I was feeling like, okay, maybe I'm just not good. Maybe I just don't have what it takes. So this was the book that I wish that I had been able to read at that point in my life when I was worried that the fact that I was failing, or what felt like failure, was not some sign that I would never be as good as I wanted to be, or that I would never be as good as the other writers that I admired so much. The only reason I hesitate to say that it's just for the writers trying to find a way to break out, is that when I was writing this book over the last five years, I was in the same position again. I had published two novels. They both came out and did well, and then for whatever reason, I couldn't get the next one sold. Then I wrote another one, and that one didn't sell in the US. It only sold in French translation, which was a whole other story. Joanna: Random. Kristopher: Delightful. I hope the French enjoyed it. Once again, all these years into my writing career, I hit a moment where I thought, okay, maybe that was it. Maybe I lost whatever I had, and now I can't do it again. Then writing this book was a nice way to remind myself that, actually, yes, this happens to lots of other writers. Richard Wright had this huge hit and then his publisher rejected his next book. There are other stories like that in here about other writers like that. It's not a constant climb, higher and higher. It's an up and down experience. Joanna: Yes, it's not a straight up-and-to-the-right graph. Kristopher: Exactly, and there's nothing wrong with that being part of the way that it works. Joanna: Indeed. Where can people find you and your books online? Kristopher: Well, KristopherJansma.com is my website. I'm on Instagram, and these days, Threads. Those are both great ways to find me. I have a Substack called The Nature of the Fun where I post a short piece every month that's all dedicated to finding ways we discover the joy in our writing process and making it more fun again. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Kris. That was great. Kristopher: Thanks so much, Jo. The post How Ordinary Drafts Become Extraordinary Books. Revisionaries With Kristopher Jansma first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

1
Writing As A Tool For Grief And Dealing With Change With Karen Wyatt

15 days ago

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How can writing help you through difficult times, whether that's a change you didn't anticipate or an experience of grief? How can you differentiate between writing for yourself vs. writing for publication? Karen Wyatt gives her tips. In the intro, Amazon opens up AI narration with Audible Virtual Voice on the KDP Dashboard [ KDP Help ]; Voice Technologies, Streaming And Subscription Audio In A Time Of Artificial Intelligence ; Spotify announces short fiction publishing for indie authors [ Spotify ]; Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting, and Voice Technologies — Joanna Penn; Writing for Audio First with Jules Horne ; Writing for Audiobooks: Audio-first for Flow and Impact – Jules Horne. BookVault.app is now printing in Canada, as well as Australia, UK, and US. Plus, Measure your life by what you create: 50 by 50 ; and Reykjavik Art, Northern Lights, and The West Fjords: Iceland, Land of Fire and Ice ; Books and Travel Podcast returns this week ; Writing the Shadow on the Biz Book Broadcast with Liz Scully ; ElevenLabs speech to text for dictation . 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 Dr. Karen Wyatt is a retired hospice physician and bestselling author of books about death, loss, and grief. She's also the host of the End-of-Life University Podcast and an inspirational speaker. 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 Different types of grief that we deal with throughout life Why write about grief and end of life? Using writing to deal with the complex emotions around grief The role of control in grief Transforming personal writing into publication How spirituality plays a role in the grieving process How to approach writing about family members You can find Karen at EOLuniversity.com . Transcript of Interview with Karen Wyatt Joanna: Dr. Karen Wyatt is a retired hospice physician and bestselling author of books about death, loss, and grief. She's also the host of the End-of-Life University Podcast and an inspirational speaker. Today we're talking about her book, Stories from the Dark Night: Writing as a Tool for Grief . So welcome back to the show, Karen. Karen: Thank you, Joanna. I'm so excited to be talking to you once again. Joanna: Yes. Now, it's been a while, so first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Karen: Well, like so many of your guests that you interview here, I've always been interested in stories. I started writing stories when I was seven years old. I wrote a three act play when I was 10, which my school ended up producing. So I guess I could say I'm a published playwright, my one and only play. I've always loved writing down my thoughts and ideas and telling stories and writing them down. I kind of got waylaid in terms of writing by becoming a doctor. So I had a number of years there of intense schooling, and then I was a doctor and a wife and mother at the same time. I had very, very little time for writing. It was precious time if I ever could just sit down and jot down a little story that was in my head. Still, the creative juices kept flowing, as I know you've talked about. Like, just ideas, ideas, ideas every day for stories or things I wanted to write, but I always had to put that aside. I was just too busy . So I finally retired from medicine early, and I was a hospice physician for a number of years. I retired early so that I could write because I'd been gathering all these stories while I worked in hospice. Amazing, beautiful stories from patients I worked with. I just knew it's time for me now to shift into writing mode. I retired early 15 years ago, and I started writing then. I hadn't really thought about what it takes to publish a book, I didn't know that. I finally started delving into that, and through you and your podcast, I learned about independent publishing. I've been able to publish my books myself most of the time. Though, I worked once with a hybrid publisher and then most recently with Watkins Publishing from the UK. It's been a really fun journey for me of finally having a chance later in life to get into the writing that I started when I was seven years old. Joanna: That's wonderful. Just on being drawn to the darker side, I mean, obviously as a doctor, you could have gone into many different areas and ended up being a hospice physician, and— You're writing about end of life. Has that always been an interest? I mean, I guess I'm saying this from the perspective of someone, as you know, I have always thought about death . Like from a very young age, I remember thinking about death and dying. So it's always been on my mind. I wondered if that was true for you. Karen: I did have some interest in death and dying. A classmate of mine died when we were 16 years old, and that kind of really woke me up to the idea that, oh, my goodness, everyone dies, and you could die at any age. I started really contemplating my own mortality at 16. Like, you know what? Nothing's guaranteed. I could die at any time. So I will say death has been on my thoughts since a young age. Then early in my medical career, my father died by suicide , and I was really plunged into this whole world—and I call it my dark night of the soul , in a way—of grief after his death. This is what led me into working for hospice because I realized, even though I had thought about death, I didn't really know anything about it. I didn't know anything about grief, even though I was a doctor. I hadn't had any training in that area. So I started volunteering for hospice to help me understand what I was going through. What am I going through here as I'm grieving my father's death? Ultimately, I shifted my whole career to hospice because I found it was just a rich, very spiritual, sacred place to be. A sacred way to be a doctor with working with patients and families, and it was very powerful for me. So it was really grief itself that shifted my path as a doctor, initially. Then, again, as I said, I started gathering so many stories and learning so many things about this process of loss and how we navigate it and cope with it in life. I really felt inspired to start writing and talking and teaching about it because at that time, it seemed like a very taboo subject. I think it still is, in many ways. Joanna: It's so weird. You said there that as doctors, you didn't really get into the death side of things. It just seems so crazy to me because it happens to 100% of people, and it's like a physical process—obviously, much more than that. Why aren't doctors trained on death? Karen: It's so bizarre. I still can't wrap my head around why that is. It's partly because modern medicine focuses so much on curing illness and saving lives that death has become the enemy. So we don't want to think about that or talk about that because we don't want it to happen for our patients. It's ridiculous because it does happen. I think back to when a patient was approaching death in the hospital when we were in training, suddenly that patient was taken off our service. We didn't follow them anymore because, well, they weren't a good teaching tool now because they're going to die. We'll move on to the patients that we can cure because that's what we're here to learn about. It really doesn't make any sense, but it's part of why we have a problem with how we take care of people at the end of life. I think that's why I just felt inspired. I want to help do this differently, and that's why hospice was so appealing to me. Joanna: And why books and writing and talking about these things are so important. As you say, there's a lot of taboo, and perhaps even more taboo around the way your father died. Before we get into that, I just wanted us to talk about the word grief, because it feels like there are many forms of grief . It is not just if we are dying, or if our partner is dying, or our family is dying, or if someone is dying. What are some of the other ways that grief might come up for people? What might help them if they're feeling certain ways? Karen: I think it is important for us to recognize that — We feel grief whenever major changes take place in our life. I had a mom tell me she grieved when her child no longer used baby language. Like started talking and saying words normally, and they lost all the cute little expressions that their toddler used to say. When that was over with, she felt grief because it was a big change. Something shifted, and she lost something. So we can feel grief even in times of happiness, when good things are happening. If you think about it, life is one series of loss and change after another . So it makes sense, in a way, grief is kind of an emotion that's always present for us if we really look at it. Joanna: Is it a change that is out of our control, rather than something that we can control? I'm thinking, personally, I feel like when I went through menopause, I felt a lot of grief over losing a sense of who I was as a younger woman, I guess. Then I feel like a lot of anger, as we record this in 2025, there's a lot of political anger in different sides, and also anger around AI maybe taking people's jobs. All of these things are not choices that are made deliberately. They're things that are almost out of our control. How much does grief and loss of control go together? Karen: I think definitely. I mean, I think the way we cope with grief or navigate grief has a lot to do with control. If we have any sense that I can control my surroundings, I can change what I need to change, that gives us a little bit more resilience and more ability to deal with the losses that we experience. When it feels outside of our control and there's nothing we can do, I think that is the deeper form of grief that's very hard to manage . As you said, because it's associated with a lot of anger. From the ego level, especially like anger, how is it that all of this can happen to me and I can't do anything about it? Joanna: Well, let's come in to writing then. When these feelings overtake us and we really just don't know what we're doing— Why is writing so useful when it comes to grief? How has it helped you, in particular? Karen: Well, I think grief, as we already said, it can contain such a mixture of emotions . We typically think of grief as just being sadness over a loss, but as you pointed out, there's a lot of anger within grief, and guilt and regret, sometimes resentment. Sometimes there's even relief. There's sometimes a joy that's present within grief. It's a very complex situation with lots of emotions bubbling up all at once, and yet, we don't know what to do with all of that emotion. So writing gives us a place to express it, to ventilate the emotion, and put it down on paper. We sometimes hesitate to express verbally to other people all of these things that are going on with us, this mixture of emotion during grief, because other people don't necessarily understand it and may not want to listen to it. It's why writing is our place to communicate all of these crazy thoughts we have and confusing feelings that we have. It's a safe, non-judgmental place. We can just put it down on paper and validate ourselves that we're going through this difficult time. It doesn't always make sense, but we can express it at least. So we can give voice to what otherwise can be hidden or repressed inside of us. Joanna: So with your father, how did writing help you? Like was it just, “Oh, things are bad. I'm going to write this essay or this poem, and then suddenly I feel better.” Is that how it worked? Karen: No, not at all. Joanna: Obviously not! Karen: I mean, I didn't even think of the idea of writing itself. I didn't even recognize that that could be therapeutic in some way. At the time of my father's death, I happened to be reading Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way , where she talks about doing Morning Pages every day. I had been intrigued by that idea before of doing Morning Pages. I found I was waking up early every morning. I couldn't sleep, dealing with this insomnia. I was actually really busy, as I was a mom and a wife and a doctor. I was so busy, I felt like I don't even have time to deal with grief or to deal with my emotions during the day . I'm just busy having to do all these things. I would wake up at four in the morning and couldn't sleep, and I remembered Morning Pages. I started just getting up early every single morning and writing. Morning Pages, it's stream of consciousness writing, where you just write down anything that's in your head. Much of what I wrote down dealt with, “I'm angry, I feel guilty.” I dealt with all these confusing, conflicting emotions I felt inside around my father's death. I didn't even know for sure that was all happening inside until I started writing the Morning Pages, and it was all coming out of me. It gave me a place to just, as I said, to ventilate and release those emotions . It actually became a place where I was processing grief without even realizing it, every morning, writing those three pages of stream of consciousness. So that's how I began with that type of writing, and I highly recommend it. I don't know if you've ever done it. I'm sure you've read the book, The Artist's Way . Joanna: Oh, yes. I've always kind of been a journaller, but I don't do Morning Pages like every day. When I got divorced, my first husband left me, so it was out of my control. It was not my choice. The three journals that I have from that time are full of—and it's so repetitive. You know, there's no point in me reading it back. Maybe it's the same with you. It's like that is just raw emotion that every single day sounds exactly the same . There is this period where that just happens. For a period of time, you can't really get past those initial emotions in your outpouring. Karen: No. There's so much of it inside of us that needs to come out. That's what I find, that I'm writing the same thing every day. Julia Cameron mentions about writing these Morning Pages, it helps us eventually get out of our logic brain . Which, in grief, the logic brain, she calls it, is always trying to figure out why this happened. It's always trying to figure out an explanation. It needs an answer for all the questions. Once you can move past the logic brain, you actually awaken the creative side of your brain , which can start to express things more in symbols and stories start coming alive. The creative brain is actually figuring out, oh, this grief experience, this is interesting. How can I use that in a creative way to make something else? I think, for me, when I felt that shift happen, that's when I started to move into a more productive aspect of working through my grief . That's when I was really able to start processing it better and get past all these ruminating thoughts that just came over and over again. Joanna: I think that's what's interesting in your Stories from the Dark Night . It isn't just that stream of consciousness grief. In fact, it's not that at all. There's all kinds of different sorts of writing. Tell us what happened when you moved into that productive side of it, and what are the types of writing that came out? Karen: Well, I started writing whatever came to me, and I guess the Morning Pages opened that up a little bit. After doing that for months and months, one day a poem came into my head, and I just wrote it down, and it happened to be about my dad's death. Another day, a story came to mind that I wrote about. It seemed that everything I started writing, even though I didn't think it was related to my dad's death, ended up being about my dad's death in some way or another, symbolically or in some way or another. Gradually, I just started having these creative impulses to write some little thing. I would write down whatever came to me. I was still doing the Morning Pages every day, but at other times of day, something else would pop up for me. I would write a story, or sometimes it was an essay. Sometimes I read a guided writing prompt that actually really helped me dive deeper into a subject. Some of the prompts were as simple as someone said, “Write something about the word ‘leftovers' and what that means to you.” I'd think of the word leftovers, like how is that inspirational? And yet, I ended up writing a whole piece on leftovers. It was just being able to get into that creative part of my brain and writing whatever came to me. I also then went on to more intentional writing. So I started writing letters to my dad and expressing some things that I didn't get a chance to say before he died, expressing some of the deeper emotions that I felt around his death. That was very therapeutic as well. Joanna: On therapy, I think this is really interesting, because when my husband left—I'm very happily married people, if you're listening now, I am on my second marriage—but at that time, I didn't see a therapist. Even though we're doing a podcast, I'm not a talker. I didn't want to talk about my issues. Writing it down, I feel like writing all of that over the years it was, really, and sort of recovering, helped me heal. So I didn't need a therapist, in some way. Where's the balance for people between writing helping with healing and maybe needing to see a professional? Karen: I'm much like you. I'm not much of a talker. I'm not always wanting talk with another person or looking for that kind of external help. I'm much more internally oriented. So I want to dive into my own psyche. I want to look at that. I want to explore it for myself. I think for certain, whenever someone feels like they are just stuck and not getting anywhere and beginning to have very hurtful thoughts going through their minds, or thoughts of feeling hopeless and that they may never be able to move forward, never be able to find a way through the grief. Then they might need an outside person who can come and help them reflect. For me, it's like my journal felt like a therapist to me. I guess I was, in some ways, dialoguing with my higher self in the journal and serving as my own therapist. I could read back through what I wrote and see, oh, here's something I hadn't thought about before, but it's right there in what I just wrote. So this insight is there for me, but some people may not be able to do that. They may not be able to access that higher wisdom or a different perspective through writing alone. They may really benefit from talking to someone else. So I always encourage people to seek out counseling, find a therapist, especially if talking is beneficial for them. Joanna: I think the other thing there is—I mean, you mentioned insomnia earlier—and I do feel like there is a period of grief that is closer to mental illness, which insomnia doesn't help, obviously. At one point, I think, in the DSM, grief was actually a mental illness, considered to be very bad, but then it was recognized as a part of the human condition. So I guess, just to encourage people, if you're feeling like it is completely, completely mad, then sometimes that is normal. It's just a case of how long that goes on for. I guess, a bit like insomnia. You have to get that sorted out at some point. Karen: Yes, because at some point it becomes destructive to your physical health. If you find that you're not thriving, and that you feel, in fact, that you're falling apart in many ways, I think it's really good to get input from an outside person and get help for that. It's funny, grief reentered the DSM this past year. They created a new category, pathological grief , that they defined so that they could include severe grief. I think they realized, first of all, it was a mistake to say any kind of grief is a mental illness because it is actually a normal part of all of our lives. Then when they took it out, they realized, oh, but wait, some people actually do get into a severe state of grief for which they need help. They may need medications, they may need therapy and counseling. So they made up a new diagnosis and put that back in. Joanna: I'm glad you brought that up then, because I thought it had gone, and now it's back. So, of course there is a difference. I think also some religious traditions, there are periods of time and ways of addressing mourning and death . Where it's like for a certain amount of time you are expected to grieve, and then at a certain point of time you are expected to—not forget it all—but to move on with your life. It's almost like those rituals of death and dying can help. In fact, you're a spiritual person, and you do put a Matthew chapter five, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,” into your book. How does a spiritual perspective help you in your life, in your writing, and for people who are grieving? Karen: It has been important to me, and it's one of the things I gained through my work, or deepened through my work in hospice. Observing people and families who were dealing with death in general, and how they all grappled with these universal concepts that I would say are not limited to any one religion, but actually present in all religions. Love and forgiveness and finding meaning and purpose in things. So I gravitated toward these spiritual concepts that, again, I'm not attached to any one religion, but I like the spiritual teachings and the concepts that are universal and apply to all of them. So those ended up being the things where I found the most comfort is being able to focus on love and just bringing more love into my life. Acting with love, through love, and finding ways to love myself even though I was feeling broken and in pain . Then forgiveness became especially powerful as well because I realized one thing that held me back in grieving my dad was not being able to recognize how angry I was at him and tha t I needed to forgive him for the choice he made to end his life . I was in denial of that for many years , and when I finally saw it like, oh, I'm hanging on to this really deep seated resentment toward him for the choice he made. I have to be able to forgive him, because for whatever reason, that's what he chose, and that's what his life came to. I'm hurting myself by not forgiving him. So that spiritual concept of forgiveness really changed everything for me. I work with that all the time now, remembering like, oh, don't hold on to grudges. Don't be resentful. Just get over it. Just find a way to forgive because holding on to that kind of anger can be really toxic. Joanna: Well, that is the other side of anger, isn't it? Anger is such a huge part of death and dying , no matter which side of it you're on. It's something I think about a lot. There's so much anger at the moment in the world, and I feel like some kind of forgiveness is so important because it is just so toxic when everything is angry all the time. I guess you would have seen that idea of a good death, where— There is acceptance of what's happening, as opposed to anger at what's happening. Karen: Yes, and I think the anger is normal and it has a place, so we need to accept it and embrace it. Yes, of course, we feel angry. Life didn't go the way we hoped it would, like we've lost all these things , but it doesn't serve us to stay stuck there if we can hold our anger, and then see a bigger picture beyond that. I guess that's the other thing, the spiritual perspective, for me, has become what I call it — The galaxy view of life. Where you step back and look at everything from a bigger perspective, like looking down on planet earth where we live. How does this experience I'm having fit into the cosmos, into everything that's happening here? How do I accept it as this is just part of life, of this vast mystery of life? I choose to move into curiosity sometimes, instead of anger . Like instead of doubling down and being angry about what's happening, being curious about how did this arise, and what will come of it. What will happen next? What will come from it? Then that puts me back into creative brain again. Once you're curious, you become creative, and you can find ways of making the best of the situation that you're in. Joanna: So we've talked a lot, I guess, about the writing we do for the self. You can put whatever you like in your journal, and it can be as repetitive as hell, and frankly, quite boring for anyone else to read. Then, obviously, you've published several books about death, and Stories From the Dark Night has personal writing, but it is not that repetitive original work, I guess. It's different. It's been transformed. So if people want to publish, obviously people listening are authors, how did you know when you were ready to share some of your writing about your dad and things that were difficult? How can people move from personal writing to writing for publication around these difficult topics? Karen: For me, I understood that I couldn't share this writing until I had clarity around it. I needed to be free of anger and blame. I understood a lot of the things I was writing early on were filled with those mixed emotions, but just ventilating anger and blaming other people, blaming everyone, blaming life. I realized that is not productive. I'm ventilating it. It's helpful to me to ventilate it. It's not productive for other people to read that. I want to get to that place of this higher view, where I'm not looking at it through the lens of anger or blame, I'm looking at it really more through the lens of love. How could talking about the pain that I experienced, is there a way that could be helpful to other people? How can I express that in a way that could foster healing and growth for someone else? That took me years to get to a place where I felt like I'm not writing out of anger. I'm not writing because I want to use my writing to hurt someone. If that makes sense to you, that's what I needed to get past. Making sure I had healed enough and I had enough clarity that I had the right reasons for putting my work out there. Then I chose very carefully what to share. There are lots of things I didn't share. In that book, I was trying to share examples of what I wrote. Not that the writing itself is great, but I wanted to share examples of different ways that I wrote that ended up helping with my grief, different stories or essays or poems that I wrote that were helpful to me, just to inspire other people to do their own writing. Joanna: There are writing prompts within the book in each chapter. So, I guess the main focus is — When we write for ourselves, it is all about us. Then if we're going to publish something, it has to be a focus on the other person. Karen: Yes, that's primarily what I was feeling. How will this impact others? Can it be a positive thing, if I share it, that could inspire someone else and make them want to do their own writing and do their own work? Joanna: So also in the book, you talk about lifelines, and I thought it was a great term. So what do you mean by that, and— How might people hold on to lifelines when they're going through grief or other life changes? Karen: For me, when I was really deep in grief, I had this image of being caught up in a tsunami, in a sense. Just like these massive head waves, like rushing over me and feeling like I was drowning at times, but somehow I would always come to the surface. There was always something I could hold onto, just some little thing, like someone had thrown me a rope. It was keeping me afloat, and it was helping me find my way back to the shore. Instead of getting lost and thinking about, “oh, I'm so overwhelmed with grief,” to thinking, “oh, what was it yesterday that helped me get through ?” Then I would remember, oh, I heard that amazing song on the radio, and that reminded me of something Dad and I did together. Or I would find something. I found just a little note that my dad wrote to me when I was in college. I found it in a box somewhere, and seeing his handwriting, it was so touching to me. It actually brought me joy. That little moment was like one of those lifelines. I started just paying attention to all kinds of things that were happening . Oh, and another thing was a bird song. My dad loved the Meadow Lark. We grew up in Wyoming, and it's the state bird of Wyoming. I would, from time to time, I would see a Meadow Lark or hear a Meadow Lark sing. I started watching for those little things, those little, tiny things . I'd be paying attention to the bird song, and I'd hear the Meadow Lark, and that was one of my life lines. Like, oh, there's dad. There's a connection with my dad. When I started searching for the lifelines every day and just noticing and paying attention, every day there was something. Every day there was some kind of reminder that helped me feel connected to him. Those little things I felt like were just enough to keep me afloat, when it seemed like, “Oh no, here comes the wave again. It's going to wash me under,” but I would know there will be something. There'll be something I can hang on to that will help me get afloat again. Joanna: It's interesting because, of course, specifics, like the sound of the Meadow Lark, are what also bring our writing alive . So it's not just bird song. You know, I heard a bird sing. It's always the specifics and paying attention. I guess, again, that gives you an external. You're looking outside of yourself, not just being stuck in your head. Which can, again, just help you keep going. Karen: Yes, definitely. Looking for all the little symbols and little signs outside of myself that reminded me of dad, sometimes even in a painful way. Oftentimes it was just poignant and sweet, the little reminders I would find. My dad sometimes smoked a pipe with this cherry-scented tobacco in it, and the smoke always smelled like cherries. One day I smelled that. Someone was smoking a pipe with that scent, and I smelled it, and it was like, wow. It was amazing being transported, in a way, back into my childhood and being next to my dad. It's incredible when I started paying attention just how many little reminders there were. For me, they were always very positive. Some people describe that they don't like having reminders because it makes them feel sadness over again, but for me, I always felt a mixture. I always felt the sweetness as well. Joanna: Yes, that bittersweet, I think is the word. What about your family and other people who knew your dad? One thing that people worry about sometimes if they publish work about family members, a memoir or something, is that other people feel differently about the situation. So what are your thoughts on that? Did other people read it? Was that not a concern? What are your recommendations for people? Karen: When I started writing about it, the thing I was most concerned was my mother and how she would feel about it . Initially, I told my mom I had written some stories and they have to do with my dad's death. She said to me, “I don't want to read them. Don't tell me anything about it. I don't want any of that. Don't talk about it or tell me anything.” Then I was really worried, like, oh no, if this is out in the world and other people comment to her, or other people read it, it will be upsetting to her. Then the very next day, she called me, and she said, “ Read the story to me.” So she had to get to a place of comfort. For me, it was a real dilemma. Do I put this out in the world if my mom can't bear it, can't bear that this information is out there? So I read her the story, and the story was just my story of my experience. That's what I told her. I'm not writing about what I think my dad experienced. I'm writing about my experience with grief when I found out my dad died and what that was like. So I really did keep it true and honest to my own experience, without trying too much to conjecture on what my dad felt, or what anyone else felt, or anyone else's actions at that time. I kept to writing about what I experienced. Anyway, I read the story to her. We cried together. She loved it . It was actually this incredibly positive healing moment for the two of us because we hadn't been able to speak so deeply about our grief together in all these many years since my dad had died. That story is what unlocked it for us. Joanna: Oh, that's wonderful. Sometimes it can be a way to bring you together. I mean, again, we both said we're not really talkers. I sometimes feel like I wish my family could read my books, or would be interested in reading my books, so they might understand how I feel. I wouldn't be able to say it out loud, whereas I can say it in writing. It's funny because I used to write a lot of letters, like up until a decade ago, or maybe two decades ago now with email—gosh, time flies. I used to write so many letters in my teens, and then when I was backpacking in the early 2000s. I feel like maybe that's something we don't do so much anymore. Karen: Yes, that's so true. Like you, I think talking is difficult sometimes. To talk together about a painful subject, it's sometimes really hard to find the words. We're in our left brain all the time try, and we're censoring ourselves constantly when we're trying to talk. It's hard to have a really deep conversation with another person, but you can just write with honesty and integrity, and be real and raw on the page, and put it down. Again, for me, it's like I described before, I waited a long time before writing the story and then sharing that story. It was until I knew I did not write this to try to hurt someone, to try to blame my mom or hurt her, or my brother, or cause them any pain. I made sure what I was writing felt pure to me. So I think that's why it had a positive impact for her. Joanna: Well, we say we would rather write, but we both have podcasts, and as we come towards the end, I wanted to just ask about your End of Life University Podcast, which I've been on. So tell people about that and— What can people find on your End of Life University podcast? Karen: I started the podcast after publishing my first book, 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying , and realizing nobody really wants to buy a book about dying. People don't talk about this. Nobody wants to hear about it. I realized it's not enough to write a book, I have to do something else to try to change this conversation around these topics. So I got the idea then. I started listening to podcasts myself, and thought there needs to be a podcast on this subject. So I started doing interviews, and I discovered your podcast shortly after that. I loved your style. I love the fact that you have a more eclectic podcast, that you go in lots of different directions, and you're just interested in everything. So you have lots of different guests, a variety of guests with a variety of topics. I decided that's what I'm interested in, too. So I kind of modeled my podcast after yours. Inviting lots of different guests and having different types of conversations, thinking whatever we put out there should be helpful to someone. The more people are able to hear conversations about difficult topics, the more comfortable they may get with having these conversations themselves. So I've been doing it for, well, I actually started in 2013 with my first interviews back then. So it's been a while, like you. Not as long as you have been, but a while. Joanna: That's amazing. You do have so many different interesting topics and angles and different kinds of people. So has the reception been what you wanted? I mean, you've obviously been doing it for so long, it's still of value to you and your community. Karen: Yes. I don't really even know what I expected in the beginning. At first, I only attracted people who already worked for hospice, people who were already in the field and already had an interest. Over the years, I've attracted more and more people who are just being themselves introduced to grief and death in their own lives. I've received some amazing feedback and wonderful stories from people. One young man told me a friend of his was dying, and he drove across the country to be with his friend. He listened to the podcast all the way there in the car so that he would understand death and dying and grief. He said it made all the difference. He said, “I came to his bedside and I knew what to say, and I knew how to be with him and how to be comfortable with my own pain and grief because of all the interviews I heard.” It was like, oh, wow, that's why I'm doing this. That's why I'm doing this, so — It's a resource for people in a time of need who need to learn about something and want information. So when I get feedback like that, it tells me, okay, this is why I'm doing it. It keeps me going, really, because it's actually hard doing a podcast. It's such hard work. Joanna: Wow, you gave me goosebumps there. I know people listening will be affected by that because every single person is going to be affected by grief at some point. Whether it's ourselves or other people, it's going to happen. So I absolutely recommend your podcast and your books. Tell people where they can find you and everything you do online. Karen: If they go to the website, it's EOLuniversity.com . EOL stands for end of life, but EOLuniversity.com. A link to the podcast is there, and to my books, and pretty much everything they need to know about me. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Karen. That was great. Karen: Thank you, Joanna. I've really enjoyed it. The post Writing As A Tool For Grief And Dealing With Change With Karen Wyatt first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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Intuition, Journaling, And Overcoming Fear. The Creative Cure With Jacob Nordby 59:52

22 days ago59:52

59:52

How can you release more creativity into your writing — and your life? What are some practices to foster creativity in a time of change and overwhelm? Jacob Nordby gives his tips. In the intro, tips for spring cleaning as indie authors; Death Valley – A Thriller Kickstarter; Death Valley book trailer ; Footprints Podcast – Bath in Literature ; 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 Jacob Nordby is an entrepreneur and author of several books, including The Creative Cure: How Finding and Freeing Your Inner Artist Can Heal Your Life . 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 Indications we might need a “creative cure” Practices to strengthen your connection with creativity Journaling as a tool to work through mental and creative blocks Practices around the physical body Tapping into your intuition Overcoming the fear that holds you back Time and effort involved in changing career directions How to keep pivoting, changing, and moving forward You can find Jacob at JacobNordby.com . Transcript of Interview with Jacob Nordby Joanna: Jacob Nordby is an entrepreneur and author of several books, including The Creative Cure: How Finding and Freeing Your Inner Artist Can Heal Your Life . So welcome to the show, Jacob. Jacob: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here, Jo. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into creativity and writing. Jacob: Well, I was born … We won't start there! When I was 10 years old, I came out into the living room, and I'd been reading a book, which I did mostly. We didn't watch television or see movies or anything like that. So books were my very best friends. So I came out of the living room and told my parents that I want to be a writer. Of course, I had told them before I wanted to be a spy or firefighter or something. This was the first thing that really hit for me, and I could really feel it. Then fast forward into adulthood, and I promptly forgot that, and plunged into starting businesses and really trying to secure my place in the American dream. I woke up around age 35 realizing that this was all feeling very hollow. After a series of events that turned my world upside down, I moved to Austin, Texas. It was there, working two or three part time jobs and trying to figure out what was next, that I remembered that I really wanted to be a writer. So I began to write about 15 years ago. One of the things that helped me get started was The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Are you familiar with that work? Joanna: Yes, absolutely. Jacob: Okay, well, I was sitting in this warehouse and was writing away and began to go back into this book my father had given me, The Artist's Way . It really broke me open. I longed, at some point, to be able to share the process of not just writing, but of discovering who we really are and expressing that. Fast forward about five or six more years from there, and I had the great pleasure of meeting Julia, and she's become a dear friend. So that's one aspect of the work I do, is I work with her and share these things. Also, in my own world, I hold workshops and do one-on-one work with people, guidance work, with both writers and non-writers. It's just something I love because — I see creativity as our vital spark, as our life force energy, and it's meant to flow in every part of our lives. Often, when people will show up saying, “I'm creatively blocked,” we will pull that thread a bit and discover it's not just “creatively blocked.” I'm doing my air quotes fingers right now. It's feeling blocked in life. So, often as we work through what are some channels in life that need to be opened up, they discover maybe it was “I need to clean my garage.” Then they go clean the garage and come back in two weeks and say, “Oh my goodness, I had no idea how much I was boxing up my emotions, my sense of possibility, and everything. I found old boxes from my divorce or from when my mother died. I went through there, and all of a sudden I feel emotionally open and able to express again.” So I love working with people in so many ways and helping them realize that expression is meant to be as natural as breathing for the creative spirit. Joanna: Well, let's get into the book then, because it's called The Creative Cure . I find this an interesting title because the word “cure” implies a sickness where we start from. So I guess you mentioned feeling blocked there. What are some of the things in our life or our writing that indicate we might need such a cure? Jacob: You know, it's interesting. I wrote a previous book called Blessed Are the Weird , and that was this very direct sort of manifesto for creatives. I was surprised how many people showed up and raised their hands and said, “I'm one of this group,” whatever this group is. There were a lot of other people, Jo, who would tell me, “I'm not that creative. In fact, I don't know if I have a creative bone in my body.” My heart just said we need to change this idea, what the idea of creativity has become. In a lot of cases, I feel like it's been affected by the industrial era of production and distribution, which are wonderful things. A lot of artists find themselves stuck because they can't see how what they have to create and share will ever become widely viable in that way. So, cure. Here's what I feel very deeply about our creative spirit is that it can't be broken or damaged, but the process of becoming adults in the modern world often fills the connection between who we are out there and our true inner creative self with static. So, for me — The cure isn't curing the essence of who we are as humans or creatives. It is curing that connection. I feel like we are all susceptible to it in some way. Our attention spans are fractured. We have a rate of change that is, I feel, really unsustainable for the human psyche to absorb in our lifetimes. In this era, we've absorbed more change than previous generations might in two or three generations. So I feel like a lot of us can feel hurried and frantic and just out of sorts, and that will become evident in our creative work. So, for me, it's not so much curing the true person. It's looking at what practices can I bring in that will strengthen and revitalize that connection. Joanna: Yes, I get you on the pace of change. On the day we're recording this, just yesterday, Microsoft announced this new quantum state of matter. I was like, seriously, haven't we got enough going on? Do we need something else again? So it does definitely feel like that. So you mentioned there's some things that can help us maybe break through that static to fix that connection with our creativity if we're feeling like we've lost it. I like the word static, actually. I think sometimes it really does feel like that, just a bit disconnected. What are some of the creative practices you recommend? Jacob: One thing that I love to recommend as a starting point is a ritual . Ritual can sound kind of mystical or complicated. To me, it's really a state of awareness . So let's just say we make our cup of coffee in the morning and run out the door and gulp it as we drive, that's one way. Another way would be to slow down and say, “I am creating this cup of coffee,” and bring all of our attention and intention into the process of it, which changes our experience of it. I love to invite people who are sitting down to write to create some version of a ritual, so they realize they are entering a different state of awareness . Our awareness is so yanked in different directions. We jump on social media, and we see distressing things. We see all these things coming around, and we often don't realize that we take that fractured or static-filled state of being or awareness into what we're doing, which means that we're not really allowing the pure stuff to come through as easily. It can feel harder. So I love creating these personal rituals. Whether it's as simple as lighting a candle, it can be almost anything. The real keys here are the attention and intention that I bring. It's an interesting shift, like to invite ourselves in there and notice that, oh, in this space, I feel quite different. I feel I have access to different ideas, a different way of expressing. I'll just use this morning as an example. I woke up, and it's really cold here in Northern USA. It's gray outside, and I wasn't feeling particularly inspired. So I went to my favorite little coffee shop with my journal, and this will be another practice I'll talk about in a moment, but asked myself to enter a different state of awareness. So, for me, one item is creating these small rituals that help us intentionally shift into a different state of mind. Joanna: Well, since you mentioned journals, maybe talk more about that. Jacob: Well, you're aware of The Artist's Way and Morning Pages , and that's where I started with that, really in earnest. I also realized that many people don't find a whole lot of value in just long form, sort of dumping it out on paper. I do. I'm a writer. That's one of my favorite ways of expressing and exploring. So over time, I developed a set of three questions, and I've shared this. When I first created this years ago, Jo, I put it out and was pretty sure it was way too basic and didn't have a lot of value. Then I had people get a hold of me. Therapists were saying, “Oh, my goodness. My clients are journaling for the first time using this practice.” So the three questions are, the first one is, “How do I feel right now?” I'll come back to that. The second one is, “What do I need right now?” The third one is, “What would I love to create right now?” If I'm going through a lot of emotional turbulence or something, I'll often switch that question up a bit and say, “How would I love to feel right now?” So going back to that first question and the second, early in life, many of us internalize the messages that our needs don't matter and our feelings don't matter. In fact, how many of us have been told you can't trust your feelings? So by asking these questions and really grounding them, really coming into the moment, how do I feel right now? Oh, I feel grouchy and tired. I feel uninspired. Or, I feel great. Whatever it might be. The fact is, we send a signal to our psyche by asking that question and answering it that says, “I matter. My feelings matter.” Then we move on to the, “What do I need right now?” Again, often it's prosaic for me, “Oh, I'm thirsty. I need to get a drink of water.” “Oh, I'm tired. I should take a small nap.” Or it might be something larger or more existential, but in any case, again, it sends that message to the inner self saying, “I matter.” There's something wonderfully calming about that, is what I've discovered, Jo. Joanna: I wonder if that's also grounding in the physical body . I mean, I walk a lot, so if I need to ground myself, I often will go for a walk out in nature, and that really helps. Or I do lifting, lifting heavy objects, powerlifting. Again, anything that grounds me in my physical body actually takes me away from the screen. Most of what stresses us is beyond the screen and isn't happening right now, I guess. Do you have those practices around grounding in the physical body? Jacob: Oh, yes. I love that you mentioned walking. That's one of my favorite practices. I also teach, and use as often as I can, just really simple breathing techniques, like box breathing . Often, to your point, I find that — We are often quite disassociated from our bodies. We spend so much time up in our heads and in concepts versus what's in reality. So, yes, I feel like these things can be incredibly simple. I do love going to the gym and lifting heavy things as well. The walk thing, you know, if I can just put my phone in my back pocket or leave it home, which, frankly, I don't really do very often, but go out and take a walk. Things change. There's this bilateral stimulation that's happening when we're walking. It's almost like an EMDR effect, if you want to put it that way. I've found that walking can often help us process deeply and open things up . I can't tell you the number of times I've taken a long walk and come back with the solution to some challenge I was having in my writing work that day. I would love to hear if you've had those experiences too. Joanna: Oh, absolutely. It's one of my go-tos. I walk every day. I live in Bath in the UK. It's a very walkable city, and I live near a canal. So I walk an awful lot. I've done pilgrimages and all of this. So walking, for me, is like a core thing for mental health and physical health and creativity. As you say, sometimes you just go for a walk and you come back—and, I mean, I take my phone too, for writing all the notes down that come up as I walk. So, yes, I think that's important. I do want to come back on the journaling because, and this is very interesting, you mentioned earlier about this industrial era, production and distribution. Keep in mind that I'm a professional author. I write books for a living, and many of the listeners, we write books. Let's say we have half an hour to write, the feeling is, “I must be writing words for my book.” Whatever that book is, and there's always another book, right? How do you suggest people balance this need to write words for the next book versus journaling for the need of expressing yourself? Jacob: I love that. I want to be very clear that I'm not throwing rocks at the industrial era. Civilization has really benefited from so many things that have happened there. I think that sometimes, especially people who are just getting started as writers, they can feel all this pressure. You know, Jo, you've written many, many books and bestsellers, and just had that experience. So that's such a different thing than most people have who are just getting started. I think there can be this intense focus on, “How do I write a best seller?” So that can often become its own block. Back to the journaling piece, I think that a lot of times people conflate those. It's like, well, if I'm going to write, then I need to write on my project, and journaling feels like writing. I really love to think of journaling more like emotional, mental, spiritual yoga. So it's a practice, but it's not the same as what we're doing when we sit down to write. In fact, I would challenge anyone who is feeling a little creatively blocked but also doesn't feel like journaling would have much value, I would suggest trying it for a week. Spend 10 minutes, just 10 minutes. It's 10 minutes a day, writing out—using my three questions is fine, or anything else—but just writing out, “This is what's up for me. What is coming up for me? Okay, this is what's up. This is what's really bothering me.” So often, I find when I sit down to do that, as I pull what looks like a very small dangling thread, it leads to much deeper things that are going on in my life . The act of acknowledging those things does something freeing. It opens up the channel. So when I sit down to write, I'm no longer also trying to multitask by having three different conversations with people I'm having difficulty with in my head, or sorting out my taxes in my head, or whatever. There's something really wonderful about putting it on the page and acknowledging it. I think that there are parts of the psyche that come forward and say, because you paid attention, and we know that you're going to pay attention to this as needed, now we'll relax. We had to get your attention. Now we have your attention. You've acknowledged it. Now we'll relax so you can go on and do these other things that are important to you. I find that to be tremendously valuable, versus just trying to power through with all these prose flying around my head. Joanna: Yes, I think for me, it's just that it is a completely different thing. I feel like the issue is people think writing is writing, but it's not. I call myself a binge journaler, and this is one of my issues with Morning Pages , is that kind of “it must be every day.” Of course, we don't like shoulds and shouldn't, so we'll come back to that. I definitely do not journal every day, but it sort of builds up and builds up and builds up, and then I will go to a cafe and I will journal, and all this stuff will come out. Then it might be three weeks or something until I feel that need again. In the meantime, I do my job, which is writing words for publication, which is like a completely different thing. So is it just the feelings that we have and learning to tap into where are those feelings going? Is it a “making up a story” kind of feeling, or is it an “I really need to sort out my life” kind of feeling? Jacob: I really love that distinction, and I'm glad you brought it up because I don't believe in dogma either, so shoulds and shouldn'ts. I really love that you're so in touch with your intuition or your feelings, that you're able to go, “Oh, I need a different version of this today.” I feel like that's really wise. Joanna: Oh, that's very kind. Well, you mentioned intuition there, and you do talk about intuition and also joy around our writing in the book. If people feel like they're not very intuitive, how can they tap into that and also find more joy? Jacob: I would love to hear your definitions of intuition. When you hear that word, and not just the straight up definition, but any connotations, like what comes up for you when you hear that word? Joanna: I guess we're coming back to feelings again. I just sense that I should do something. I am an intuitive writer, so I don't plot, necessarily. I write the next book with whatever kind of comes up for me. So it's just sort of tapping into what my creative self wants to do, I guess. Jacob: I love that, and I didn't expect a lot different. I was just curious. Some people have a pretty negative connotation, or feel a negative connotation, in that word. They feel like it's really mystical. They feel like, oh, it's just sort of woo or out there. I would suggest it's extremely grounded. I mean, I think you articulated it really well. You know, this is the feeling of this thing. I have a friend who's a neuropsychologist, and he wrote a great book called No Self, No Problem . We were having this wonderful conversation one day, actually, while I was writing The Creative Cure . I said, “Well, Chris, it feels like what you're saying is in our modern world, it's almost as if we've told a body builder to only work out the muscles on the left side of their body. Like that's the only thing that has value. Don't even bother with the right side. Then after 20 years of following that advice, the body builder has a hard time even walking down the road because there's no functional balance or muscle.” He got all excited. He said, “Oh, yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.” I think we have to be aware that in our current paradigm, the left brain activities are so highly valued and rewarded that we tend to distrust what's happening in the right side . This includes our experience of creativity in a more free flowing way. It includes experience of intuition, of feelings, of imagination. So, for me, it's never the idea that we need to get rid of the left brain activity. It's like we really need those to finish a book, to put it out there, to take these steps forward, but we've over emphasized it. So what I like to encourage us to do is play little games. Notice throughout the day what synchronicities come up. We don't have to attach any particular meeting to them. If you see repeating numbers, or you're driving down the road and you just have this nudge to take this road versus the other road on your way to your destination. I like to just play with it without going, okay, I'm going to have some miraculous thing, or an epiphany, or something dramatic is going to happen, or I've just avoided a horrible death. It doesn't have to be anything dramatic like that. Just the noticing of the interoception, the signals that are coming up from our bodies and from our other senses, and tuning into them a little bit more. We can find that there is very interesting guidance available to us at all times. People can interpret that mystically, or people can be very practical with it. There's some brain science here, where when we settle down from our fight or flight response, from our higher anxiety levels, we enter that ventral vagal state, Jo, and that's where all the good stuff happens. I love to call it the Green Zone, or the creative zone, because as we settle more deeply, we become more aware . Our tunnel vision begins to fade, and we become aware of the answers and the ideas that are all around us. So I love to invite people to play with it and actually really use it as a game, so it doesn't have to feel so serious. Like, what am I feeling right now? If I totally listen to my body and to my senses, what would I do this morning for breakfast versus what I always do, for example. Again, it can be very simple. Joanna: I feel like maybe people have a problem with trust and are afraid of getting something wrong. I'm very creatively confident now after many years of being a writer, but at the beginning it was like, well, I feel like I should do this thing, but what if I'm wrong? What if I spend the next six months working on this book, and then nobody wants it? Or what if I choose to spend some money on this particular marketing thing, and then it just doesn't work? This fear of making a choice based on intuition, it holds people back. What are your thoughts on that? Jacob: If you don't mind, I'd love to ask a question in response. I'm curious if you can think back over your career, or just general life, and think about a time you did make a mistake? Something you look back on later, and were like, “Oh, I would never have done that again,” but that it actually led you into experiences that actually became very important parts of your life. Can you think of anything like that? Joanna: Yes, well, obviously there's lots of them because we all make tons of mistakes. I mean, the big one that I often talk about is back before print on demand, I did a massive print run. Back in 2007, I did a big print run of my first book, and then they all sat in my garage because I didn't know anything about book marketing . Joanna Penn with the first edition of what became Career Change. Most of those boxes went to the landfill! I didn't realize that if you wrote a book, nobody would buy it unless you did some marketing. So that actually led me to start The Creative Penn, to start this podcast, to learn about book marketing. What really sort of jump started my career was this massive failure. So, yes, absolutely. I mean, we all do these things, don't we? But— Fear holds people back. Jacob: Always. I mean, I don't know if there's one other factor that holds us back more than simple fear. I feel like it's very primal. We have this wiring that includes a negativity bias, and that's such a survival thing. It serves us, right, so there's nothing wrong with it. I think we just have to be aware of it. Our imaginations are tuned, and often from a very early age, to begin imagining scenes in which we are experiencing rejection or failure or something painful, disappointment, and so we often use our imaginations primarily for that cause. So I love to invite people to begin just taking a recess, even if it's only five minutes, and imagining themselves in scenes of what they would really love to experience. I just love the story you just told. I know that it's completely like imaginary, but I'm just curious, if you hadn't printed all those books and had to learn how to market, and perhaps got picked up by a different publisher, and everything just kind of went swimmingly, I'm just curious what you wouldn't be enjoying in your life right now. Can you imagine what that might be? Joanna: What I wouldn't be enjoying? Jacob: Like you have such beautiful work in this podcast, and all that you do, and the way you serve and teach the writing community. So I'm just curious, if things had worked out better, you know, like a garage not full of your books, I'm just curious what you wouldn't have now if you hadn't made that mistake. Joanna: Well, I think what happened was because of that failure in print publishing at that time in history, it just also coincided. You used the word synchronicity earlier, and I know Jungian psychology, so I absolutely love synchronicity. It was the same year that the Kindle launched and the iPhone launched , and when I failed in this print publishing, traditional media, you know, I got on national TV—I was in Australia at the time—but then none of it worked. Then I saw the Kindle, I saw the iPhone, and I saw Americans, and I was like, what if I can use this technology and I don't have to use print books? I can reach these people through digital means. So I got on the Kindle, and the iPhone, and podcasting very, very early, and have kind of surfed that technological wave since then. So that “mistake” led me into so much. But you keep putting this back on me, Jacob— I think you need to tell us about one of your mistakes that has turned into success. Jacob: Oh, my god. Well, you know, I alluded to it earlier, but I had built these businesses, and I was waking up at 3am every day absolutely terrified . Everyone around me, all they saw was this big new office I had built. All they saw was the influence I had around town or whatever. They couldn't see how terrified I was. That was around 2007, actually. So I had a pretty big breakthrough. I went to what I thought was a meditation retreat. It turned out to be a shamanic initiation, and I didn't know what a shaman was. I had a medicine journey during that that was like this massive moment of clarity, and I had no idea what to do with it. I went back to my life, to my office, and scrambled as hard as I could. All I knew is that I had experienced some aspect of me that was free, that wasn't afraid, and that would actually love to have created something very different with life. I also had no idea how to rearrange my life. I just I felt so responsible. The next year or so, the financial meltdown, the mortgage meltdown, came along and just wiped me out. So, of course, I don't like to sugar coat these things and go, “Oh, you know, everything happens for a reason, and it was exactly what I needed.” It's like, no, it was absolutely terrifying and turned me upside down, but that was the event. I could look back and say, “Oh, I made so many mistakes. I got in so far too deep into these projects and all that.” The truth is, though, that experience—and I love that you're familiar with Jungian work—that's where I began to really learn about the Jungian work during that time, Jo, and that was what really cracked me open and allowed me to find out who I was under all those previous layers. It was like I was wearing this really heavy, ill-fitting armor for so long, and so that was one of those really big “mistakes” that led to me finding the path I was really meant to be on in the first place. Joanna: That's interesting. I think we might be like almost exactly the same age. I think we've gone through things at exactly the same time. Time is a really important thing here because both of us are talking about experiences. I also got laid off in the financial crisis, and it took a lot of time, but that also shaped the way I run my business now. So let's just talk about the perspective of time because it feels like both of us have said, “Oh, this really bad thing happened, and then I changed my life.” How long did it take you to extricate yourself from the situation you were in and be in a life where you were more happy and fulfilled? Not that we're ever completely there. I feel like that's what people need, is this sort of perspective on— If you want to change direction, how long does it take? What's the effort involved? Jacob: Do you want me to give a comfortable story, or do you want me to tell what I feel is the truth? Joanna: The truth, absolutely. Jacob: I love what you said on your website. You know, it hasn't always been this way. No, and I would never want to discourage anyone by saying it can be a really lengthy process. I will say that, at least in my experience, I had so much I was carrying when it comes to my beliefs about myself and the world and what I was capable of, and all of that, that that big, sort of terrifying event that shook everything up , it was like I had some years of simply going. I'd been running so fast that I haven't ever looked under the hood, if you will. I'm mixing my metaphors there. My mother is a therapist, and she likes to use the idea of skating on a frozen river. She said I skated on this frozen river and I was terrified that if ever slowed down, I would fall in, the ice would crack and I would fall in. She's like, one day the ice just broke open, and I fell in, and I had no choice but to do all this inner work and examination. I think that's a really beautiful way to look at it. So once the process of self-discovery really gets underway, I would like to say it's exactly 16 months, in my experience. It can take longer, but if we're willing to see it as that, and not just numb it out or try to run away from it or do whatever over the top of it — If we're willing to go into that exploration, what we'll find in there is ourselves. What we'll find in there is our authentic voice. What we'll find in there is our sense of purpose. So I'd love to give, well, it's a range of one to seven years, but in my experience, it was several years before I even began to feel that my footing was coming back , Jo. I would love to hear what your experience of that was. Joanna: Well, again, pretty similar. It's funny, I was just reflecting then because you're reminding me of those early days. This book, The Creative Cure , I feel like now I'm not in the place where I need this, but this is the book I needed back in 2005 when I was 30 years old and thinking, “What the hell am I doing with my life?” I read, then, and I listened to a lot of audios. Tony Robbins, a good self-help guru. Jack Canfield, The Success Principles . Those are the books I was reading, and I was trying to change my mindset. Then I figured out that I wanted to write, and then I got into writing. It was a process of years . So between 2005 being really super miserable, to 2007 I really sort of put that first book out. Then 2011 was when I finally left my job to go full time. [ Check out my timeline here .] I always talk about it taking five years, so it's kind of good that you put it in that ballpark, too. Jacob: Well, I think otherwise, Jo, it's easy, and god knows I tried to do this, I tried to shortcut the process as often as I could. Like, get me out of here. This is not comfortable. It's not fun. I think that being aware that short-cutting it can—I've seen it happen a lot of times. I wasn't actually writing, but I got really sort of springboarded forward a bit. I entered this thing called The Next Top Spiritual Author Competition. That was when I was living in Austin, and there was this publishing deal as kind of the big carrot. Of course, I didn't win that competition, but I got to witness a lot of other writers, and this is my first time of really being in the space with a lot of other writers. This was kind of a global thing, and there were a lot of people who had entered it. Many of us got to know each other, some of whom are still my friends to this day. I also got to witness a lot of people, Jo, who had had some kind of experience, and they wanted to write about it. They wanted to share their wisdom with the world. They also hadn't given it the time to really cook, to mature. So I've watched some of them get a little bit frozen there, to where had they been willing to keep going in their own process and let it grow deeper for a while, let it really mature, they would have been able to keep going. I've seen some of them kind of freeze frame there, and they've never been able to move beyond that one thing. They reformed their identity a little too quickly around, “oh, this is who I am,” you know. I don't want to make fun of that at all because I think it's very natural. Anytime we're feeling out of sorts or out of balance, we want to recover our sense of equilibrium. So I have a lot of compassion for that, but I would encourage anyone going through what feels like being turned upside down and shaken, give yourself some grace. Realize that jumping on it too quickly and saying, “This is now who I am,” might actually rob you of some real benefits that will enrich your work down the line. Joanna: This interview is certainly going in a different direction than I thought it would be, but we're leaning into that. You talk there about moving beyond the one thing, and those people who were stuck. This is something I think about a lot, and my listeners will know this is something I've been thinking about for a while because, obviously I started in this independent author career back in 2007. For the last few years, I've been really thinking about how to make sure everything stays fresh and new, rather than go into a rut. Every industry, although being an independent author was new in sort of 2007, and there was a lot of new things, things have changed a lot since then. Technologies, obviously. What we don't want to be is stagnant in our creativity, in our writing, in our lives . I know there'll be people listening who have been writing for decades as well. Some people listening will be writing for 30 to 40 years. How do we keep things fresh? How do we keep pivoting, changing, and moving forwards, when we have a career that we love, when we do something we love, but we know we can't get stagnant? Jacob: I feel like that's a ten million dollar question. Joanna: You must be in a similar position, right? I mean, you've been doing what you do a long time, and you work with people who've been doing it a long time. What you don't want to be is the jaded person. Jacob: I was looking over your work, Jo, and I just love how diverse your work is. I feel like you have a lot to teach me about this, actually, in terms of just really being a little more prolific and writing these different types of things. I feel like every creative endeavor, anything that's truly original, there is this required uncertainty. I don't know how this will work out. Without that, often we find ourselves sort of repeating ourselves. I'm thinking of some massively famous writers in the US. One in particular comes to mind for some reason, whose work has become so formulaic, but it's always a blockbuster. I want to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with writing to formulas. I think we all do it to some degree, but I just look at some of these things and realize, oh, the production distribution has become more important than the art, in some cases. So to step outside of that, to step over the line of, this is what I know. This is what I know works for me in terms of bringing me financial security or whatever it might be. I think there's that itch. I think it goes back to what you were talking about earlier, about intuition, Jo. It's that sense of, okay, I know I'm being called outside of this familiar sort of routine. I don't think there's a point at which it's like, okay, this is wrong. So it's not, to me, about right or wrong. Maybe a person decides I really just love writing according to this template or formula. I just really love doing this, and I love knowing kind of what to expect from it and all of that. So I wouldn't say everyone needs to always be leaping off into the abyss and building their wings or something. I would love to hear your thoughts, since we're exploring this together. I definitely didn't expect the interview to go this way, either. So I'm in the deep end. Joanna: Well, I think it is about taking risks. It's funny because between like 2005/2006 and then when I left my job in 2011, I was working a day job. So I was working as a business consultant, and then I eventually went part time. So what I was doing, I was doing on the side, and that's how I think about it now. So right now, for example, I'm writing a screenplay, and it's a risk, and it's not making me any money . So it's almost like I'm doing it on the side. So I feel like the taking risks, where we both started, we took risks to unwind one career and start another. Maybe it is about doing things on the side, whether you love your job or whether you're stuck in a job. Jacob: Ooh, I love that. There were people who asked me early on as I was writing and putting things out there, why I wouldn't just take the full leap into trying to earn my living right from the written word. One thing that I told them then is I didn't want to put my process under that kind of financial pressure early on . I'm like, if I can look at the job that I'm doing, the day job to pay the bills, if I can look at that as a funding source rather than, “It must fulfill my creative needs.” Those things are very important to me in life, but there was a period of time during which it was just important for me to look at the work I did for pay as a funding source and not try to make it more than that. For some reason, that actually freed up that energy I would have used in being miserable about having to work this stupid job for money. It freed that energy up to go, oh, this is how I fund being able to take my time and really grow as a writer. Joanna: Well, we are almost out of time. I think you and I could do this for a lot longer. Tell people where can they find you and your books online. Jacob: Well, you can go to JacobNordby.com , that's probably the easiest way. I would love to just say how much I love the world of writers, Jo. You've been doing such amazing work in this space for a really long time. I just want you to know, I'm so grateful that you invited me here. Thank you for doing the good work you're doing. Joanna: Well, thanks so much for your time, Jacob. That was great. The post Intuition, Journaling, And Overcoming Fear. The Creative Cure With Jacob Nordby first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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Writing Action Adventure And Traveling For Book Research With Luke Richardson 1:05:31

29 days ago1:05:31

1:05:31

What are the tropes and reader expectations for action adventure thrillers? Why publish into KU and what are some of the ways to market there? How can travel enrich your writing? Luke Richardson gives his tips. In the intro, ProWritingAid launches their Manuscript Analysis tool; Navigating legal risk in memoir [ The Indy Author ]; Social media for authors in 2025 [ BookBub ]; Amazon relaunches Alexa, now Alexa+ which is now powered by Claude AI; Scribe, the world’s most accurate transcription model [ ElevenLabs ]; ElevenReader Publishing to the Reader app ; Death Valley, A Thriller by J.F. Penn. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Luke Richardson is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective thriller 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 Taking the leap into full-time indie authorship Reasons for unpublishing books and maintaining your author brand Researching the tropes and market of your genre The purpose of a prologue and when to include one Tips for writing characters that are unlike yourself Turning travels into stories Why publish in KU instead of wide? Selling non-book items or experiences You can find Luke at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com and his new podcast at AdventureStoryPodcast.com . Transcript of Interview with Luke Richardson Joanna: Luke Richardson is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archeological Thrillers and the International Detective thriller series. So welcome to the show, Luke. Luke: Hi, Jo. Thank you for having me. This is wonderful to be able to talk to you. Joanna: I'm excited about it. First up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing. Luke: It's been one of those sort of roundabout ways that a lot of people talk about, but I often cite—this is something I've written on my profiles and written emails about. I often cite my first arriving in India in 2011 as the reason I wanted to write. It was just this transformational moment of being totally culture shocked in a completely different place in a way that I couldn't describe and couldn't really explain. We'd come out of the airport, we're into this taxi going past the slum villages on the edges of this freeway that's sort of 16 lanes wide. There's donkeys, and sports cars, and tractors, and all of this going on. It was just so overwhelming. Although I didn't write for several years after that, it was that excitement about stuff, and the world, and discovery, and adventure that lodged in me . Then when I started to write, those things started to come out of me. Do you know what I mean? They started to come out in my writing. Joanna: That's so funny. We're going to get into travel because you and I are travel geeks. I also remember arriving in India, would have been about five years before that, in the middle of the night in an airport in—it wasn't Delhi—but it was one of the biggest cities. It was like crazy, crazy. So that culture shock is really interesting. How did you then get into indie publishing, as opposed to maybe going traditional? Luke: I was an English teacher in a high school for several years, under the illusions that it would be a creative thing to do because I've always been very creative. I've always loved that. For the first couple of years, it actually was quite creative. Then, I think as I'd done the same classes four or five or six times, over and over again, it became less so. Then I started writing. I came up with this idea for a book, and I was like, great. It was actually set in Kathmandu, and it's the first book in my International Detective series. Someone who's like me in 2011, in the back of that taxi, totally overwhelmed, tasked with finding a missing person in this city that they've never been to. They don't speak the language, they don't know the culture, and they've got to go and find this person. I came up with that idea based on my travels, based on the things that I've done. It was really just a creative outlet. It was a passion. It was something I wanted to do outside of work. Then I finished the book, and I did that thing which we've all done, I think, and you fold your arms, and you go, huh? Half of us is really impressed that you finished this thing, and the other half's like, what do I do now? What do I do with it? I gave my mum a copy and a couple of other friends, and then I went down the rabbit hole of learning about publishing and how to get it out in the world . Your podcast, and other podcasts, and online courses, and YouTube videos, and all this sort of thing. I never tried the traditional route. I was far too impetuous. I wanted to get on with the next book. So I learned about indie publishing and published it in 2019. Joanna: Are you still a teacher? Luke: No, no. I left just before the pandemic. So I quit then. I needed a change, which was great, actually, because it meant I had the whole time of those few years to really focus on my writing. It built up slowly, as these things do. So the first year was quite tough. I had to do some freelance work on the side and do some other writing, sort of freelance writing and things. Then, when was it? I think it was two years ago that it became the job, and now we've surpassed the teaching. It's become more successful than the teaching was, so I'm really excited about. Joanna: I think this is a really good point. You left your job in 2019, and it was 2024 when your income surpassed your old job? Luke: Yes, income from books. I mean, we couldn't travel anyway because travel was off the table at that time, so it was a good time to not spend much money anyway. So I've lived quite a frugal life whilst I was doing that and did some freelance work on the side. I really just started again, I suppose you'd say, in a professional capacity. Built up the mailing list, built up the socials, learned about all these things. What I decided, I think, is that I needed to give it a proper chance. I think if I wanted to do it as a hobby, writing in the evenings and the weekends was fine. If I wanted to do it as a job, and I wanted this to be my life, I needed to give it space. So that was the decision. I didn't love teaching at that point. I was ready for a change. So, yes, I think that was a good decision. It's worked out well in the end, obviously, too. Joanna: So you mentioned the word job there. I feel like this is so important, and I've talked about this before. Having a hobby is amazing, and for most people, writing as a hobby is brilliant and probably what most people should do. As you mentioned, the word job, and that is how we make our living with books or word-adjacent things. So what does that job entail for you? That perhaps when you wrote that first book, when you were a teacher, you didn't even think about? I feel like a lot of people coming in don't understand what the job of an author is, or let alone the job of an indie author. Luke: That's true. There's so much to it. There's the production side, which is obviously the writing, the researching, the actual making the book . I don't just mean research in terms of what's in the book, I mean research of what does the market need. Now, I'm not saying you need to write to market necessarily, but you need to—I think not need, that's the wrong way to say it. It's not prescriptive, but it helps if you have an understanding of what the market likes, if that makes sense. You don't necessarily have to follow tropes. This is an issue, isn't it, I think with indie publishing. You can do whatever you want, but with that comes great challenges as well because whatever you want is massive. No one wants to read a book that's everything, right? It needs to be something. It needs to pin its colors to the mast. Some colors to one mast or another. It can't be everything to everyone. So you need to decide at some point where that is, and who your reader is, and what they like and those sorts of things. It's easier if you're writing in a genre that is popular, that is easy to communicate, that is easy for people to understand. I suppose that helps as well. So, yes, that's production. There's also sort of the business side of it. We're at the end of January now. I've had a really boring week of tax returns and these sorts of things. There's the marketing side. There's running the newsletter and the social media and all of this sort of stuff, which needs to be done and should be enjoyed, if possible. Joanna: I love that you said earlier that it took almost five years, I guess, for the money to get back up to where it was. It was the same for me. When I left my original consulting job in 2011, I took a massive pay cut. It took until 2015 before I started making more than I used to make, and have done ever since, by the way. So hopefully that encourages you. Luke: Thank you. Yes, I hope so. Joanna: So how many books do you have now? Like when you talk about the job and the production— What's your schedule for putting books out? Because you are writing genre fiction, basically. Luke: I have written around 20 now . A couple of out of print because they didn't really match the brand that I was going for, so I've taken them out for now, and perhaps we'll republish them later. So I've got six in my International Detective series, six in the Eden Black series, and then there's obviously novellas and other such things. So it's probably less than 20, actually. It's always a hard question, and I wonder if you feel the same, in that you don't know. You don't know exactly. Almost 20, I'll say that. Joanna: Well, what's funny, I've got on my wall here, “50 books by 50,” and as we record this, I'm 50 in six weeks. Luke: Oh, congratulations. Joanna: Well, the achievement of living to 50, I guess, is one of them. I've actually started a blog post—I can't remember when this goes out—but I will be doing a blog post on my 50th birthday, which is calculating how many books I've actually written, including all the different editions. Well, you said you've unpublished some of those and may republish them. So my first three novels I rewrote, so they're in second edition. Some of them are in third edition. A lot of my nonfiction is in multiple editions. So those ones you unpublished, so people know, when you wrote them originally and published them, you must have thought they were fine, and then you decided to take them down. So why did you decide to do that? Is that something people can prepare for in advance so that they don't have to unpublish things? Luke: I would like to put them out again, and it's probably just me being too perfectionist, actually, because I know people have read them and enjoyed them. They're a good series. I wrote them with Steven Moore, who I know you know as well, and it was a collaboration project we had. My books now are very family friendly. They're very clean. They're sort of in the vein of Indiana Jones style. Whereas those books I wrote with Steve are a bit darker, they are a bit more nefarious. Unless I do a rewrite, which I would like to do when time allows, because I think they could be changed to bring them into the same sort of world as the books that I have. People ask me why I write the books in the way that I do. I want someone to have my book and put it on their coffee table proudly with the bookmark in it, and if their 12 year old daughter or niece comes up and picks it up and flicks through and takes an interest in it, they are happy for that person to go and read it. Or their grandma comes in and picks it up and flicks through it, they are happy for that person to read it. I don't want them to have any sort of, “Oh, that's a bit this for you,” or, “That's a bit that for you.” Do you know what I mean by that? I felt that those books, because of the way they were, I wasn't quite happy for them to be in that situation. I didn't want someone to recommend me and then go, “Oh, read Luke's books, but don't read those.” Joanna: I do feel like that is very much a personal decision, though. As in, I remember the stuff I was reading at age 12. I mean, I do think that different people like different things, but I get exactly what you mean. So you've decided on family friendly action adventure, basically. Luke: Yes, that's right. Joanna: I love that. Okay, so let's come back to action adventure thrillers then. You and I both write around, we use the word thriller, I think, quite loosely, and it is a very big genre. As a sub-genre, what are the hallmarks of your books and the action adventure thriller genre that you (and I) write in? Also, how do you vary them in the books in the series? I feel like this can be a challenge for people. Luke: Yes, it's a good question, and something I only started to understand when I wrote my second series. It has become much more successful than the first, and I think it's because I took time to understand this, actually. It's what I was saying a minute ago about it can help if you do a bit of research in the market before actually sitting down to write. So there's certain ingredients that my books need. They're all based on an ancient legend. So I've done one set in the Pyramids of Giza, one about Atlantis, one about a mummy on the Titanic. That's a proper rumor, I'll have you know. Whether it had anything to do with the sinking or not, they're not sure. One about the Templars. The one I'm working on at the moment is going to be set in the Sahara, and all to do with a hidden city under the Sahara and this sort of thing. So those sorts of interesting settings, locations. Obviously there needs to be a race against time before something happens. The classic one is “this thing can only happen on the summer solstice or when the planets are aligned.” Or, I know this is one of your favorites, “because there's a storm.” Joanna: I love a good storm. Luke: Or, “The storm is coming in six hours, and we need to solve this thing before the storm.” Joanna: Right now, writing Death Valley , I am actually editing the big storm scene. Luke: I love it. Yes, so they're generally set in the present day as well, but the present day can be quite loose because Clive Cussler wrote his in the present day, although that was the 80s. So it can be quite loose as to when the present day is, but they sort of track the events of pre-history. One of the tropes is you have this prologue that takes place in like 5000 BC, and then what happened there relates to the present day when that relic is uncovered. There are other strands too that sort of happen, sometimes a romantic element. A relatable villain is another one, which I think is more of a modern trope, actually. I like this in my books, a pinch of the supernatural. Think like the Ark of the Covenant in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Indiana Jones films. It's just there. We don't know quite what it is, or why it had that strange effect on the people at the end, but it did it, and it could be true. There's a tiny element that it could be true that I like to put in mine as well. Joanna: Yes, and we overlap in so many ways. I think I definitely have slightly more supernatural than you and more religious elements because I'm obsessed with religion, religious relics and stuff like that. You and I both kind of cover similar areas. This is what's interesting, isn't it, in terms of what you love as a kid and then what you enjoy writing. I do want to come back on the prologue, especially because you were an English teacher. Now, I love a prologue. I write prologues in my action adventures as well, but a lot of people have issues with prologues. You explained a bit what a prologue was there, but— What purpose does a prologue serve in a book? When should people use one? When is it not a good idea, do you think? Luke: I had this conversation with a writer who I'm working with at the moment, and they had put it as chapter one. I said, this is not chapter one. This is a prologue because a prologue is clearly delineated from the book itself , in my mind. I'm not asking Google this, this is just what I think. It's clearly delineated from the book itself. It isn't part of the story. So the story can be read without the prologue, should you want to. It just add some context. It puts some root in the history of the book that tells you a little bit about where that book is going to go based on sort of what happened before the event, if that makes sense. Joanna: I think it's like a foreshadowing. Often in my one, the ancient relic is there or discovered by someone thousands of years earlier, and something very bad happens. This then kind of foreshadows the present day, where obviously something very bad is about to happen, and then they have to stop it. A prologue can be foreshadowing. Luke: Yes, and I think it helps the reader know the passage of time as well, because they're clearly not at the same period. That's one thing that I like that I find useful with it as a writing technique. Joanna: Yes. I've definitely written some that are only a couple of weeks earlier, but sometimes a thousand years ago or whatever. Luke: Yes, but that's the convention, isn't it? The thousand years ago one. I'm not saying that can't be a prologue, but I'm saying the convention, in my mind, and I could be completely wrong, is that it's sort of someone putting the capstone on the Great Pyramid, and then it cuts to black. Then we see someone, in the present day, driving through the pyramids on a Jeep or whatever. Joanna: That's cool. I personally do like a prologue. Actually, just coming back to your English teacher side, many authors have to fight the sort of snobbery that some English teachers instilled in them, including myself . I certainly look back and was told by my English teacher that I couldn't write such things, that I should write something acceptable for a young woman. That definitely stopped me writing for a long time. So if people do feel sort of hamstrung by this, by the comments from their English teachers in the past— Is there anything that you say to people to help them get over comments from a teacher about their writing? Luke: It's a hard one, isn't it? That teacher, certainly in your experience, did the wrong thing. That's not an encouraging attitude to have, and I wouldn't have had that attitude with one of my students. It's a challenge because, and without getting too political, the school system is very sort of dictating in what you can teach and what you can't teach. I didn't want to teach certain students 19th century literature. That's a very difficult thing to teach to students who would be better off with something more modern, with something more relatable to them. that's a struggle for all English teachers, and a lot of teachers generally, actually. So I think that gives a perception to young people about what books should be, that you're in this place, and it is just books that are important and that have sort of stood the test of time. There's no fun in it, or there's certainly less fun in it, which was one of the reasons I ended up getting fed up of it and moving on at the end. Joanna: Well, I love that you, as an English teacher, are writing genre fiction. I think that you must have had to put aside some of that snobbery yourself, I guess. Luke: I don't think I ever had that snobbery, to be honest. I think writing should be fun. I've always thought it should be fun. There's no reason for it not to be. That's why people open a book. That's why they get involved in this imaginary world for an escapist adventure. it's our job to make that fun. Sometimes we put a bit of history and a bit of social commentary, perhaps, or one of our opinions, we slip that in there as well. That's fine because we've honored the contract with the reader to make them enjoy themselves as well. Joanna: Well, that's great. Then just coming to your books, like one of your bestselling series is this Eden Black Archeological Thrillers. Eden Black is a woman, a female protagonist. So some people will say, I don't, but some people say you shouldn't write a character that is not like yourself. People have said this to me writing male characters or people of different persuasions in whichever direction. So how do you deal with this? Like, did it even come up in your mind that you shouldn't write a main female character? Luke: No. Of course, it didn't. Joanna: No, exactly. What are your tips for authors who might be concerned about writing characters different to them? Luke: I know. I had some people comment—not people—I had a comment about this on a Facebook ad saying, “Who are you to write?” It was actually from a bloke. I was surprised that it was from a man. I don't know why I was surprised it was from a man. He said, “Who are you to write strong female characters?” And I said, “I'm married to one. I was brought up by one. I have many friends who are them.” Joanna: And do you think the rest of it is true? I say to people, I'm like, seriously, do you think I'm all my characters? Like the villain and the murderer and, you know, whoever? It's crazy. So I'm so glad you did that. So it didn't come up in your mind before you started? Luke: No, not at all. One thing to say is that — Every character in your book is you in a weird sort of way, even the villain. They're all parts of you that you're projecting into the page in some way. Also, you're inventing in some sort of way. Actually, I feel that we as humans, without getting too meta about it, are more similar than we are different. Regardless of whatever. Race, gender, age, anything, we're more similar than we are different. We feel the same things. Of course, there are differences, but my books are about things—like we've talked about getting the relic and all of this—but beyond that, they're about fitting in, and loss, and grief, and understanding each other, and belief, and hope, and all these feelings. It's quite generic to being human, regardless of whether you're female, male, whatever. So I believe that by writing them in that way, that it really doesn't make a difference. Joanna: No, and I love it because when I started writing my ARKANE Series with Morgan Sierra , I mean, there really weren't many action adventure books with female main characters. ARKANE action adventure thriller series by J.F. Penn That is why I was got excited about the Lara Croft movies and stuff like that because that was kind of the only option. Now, what's great with indie is there's so many. It's brilliant. Luke: Wasn't there an article saying that they're a dying trend or something recently? Joanna: Oh, everyone always says action adventure is dying. The thing is, there's always a group of people who still like that, including us. Well, let's also talk about your travels. You will be coming on my re-booted Books and Travel Podcast , and if people want to geek out with us on travel, come on over there. So let's just talk about it as a writer. How do you turn your real life travels into the stories? What are your tips for authors on turning real experiences into story? Luke: That's true, isn't it? Generally, the way I do it is I go to a place without a preconceived idea. I just get immersed in the place, and I walk around the place . I don't worry about creating content particularly, or anything about taking photos or taking notes. I just sort of fall into it. I'm going to let you into the secret behind my book that I haven't written yet, actually. I'll do that because I think this is really exciting. So in the 70s, they created this pattern called quasi crystalline tessellation, and it was created by scientists in the UK and in America. Now, they realized that this pattern exists in two places in the world. It exists in meteors, t he molecular structure of meteors that come from out of space, and it exists in the sand upon which a nuclear blast has happened. The heat has been so intense that it has formed the sand into a rock that has this molecular structure. Then they discovered it existed in a third place. It's on the walls of 13th century mosques in Morocco and Iran and other countries in the Middle East. I was walking around Marrakesh, where we were traveling about a month ago, and I read that, and was like, this is amazing. It's nuts, isn't it, to think that these cutting edge scientists were doing this thing in the 70s, and yet it was there already in this mosque in Marrakesh, and there's one in Iran and somewhere else. There's these places with this pattern on the wall of the thing. Of course, because I'm a writer, that gets me going. I'm like, whoa, maybe the Islamic scholars of the 13th century were trying to communicate something to us in the modern era. Joanna: Before you go on, let's stop there because that exact point, I call this ‘the seed,' because people are always like, where do your ideas come from? I'm like — These seeds of story are everywhere. You just have to notice them. Luke: That's right. Joanna: I feel like you and I, because we travel, that we find our seeds while we are traveling. You may never have stumbled—you might have stumbled across that on a YouTube video somehow— But because you were in that place, I think it evoked story in your mind. Luke: Yes, exactly right. Joanna: So how do you then—I know that this is a book you're going to write—but how do you get from there? People are like, okay, sure, but that's not a book, is it? Luke: Yes. So now this is the stage I'm at with this book. So I'm just sitting on the idea, really. I'm not putting too much pressure on it. I've got a few ideas now about how it will fit into what will happen, and also fit it into the series as well. I know the characters that are coming into this. I obviously don't know the villain and some of the other villains, sort of henchmen, that are going to come in, but I know my characters. So I'm sort of jiggling it together. I want part of it to take place in the United States, as well, because my characters haven't been there for a while, for a few books. So that's important. It's a case of picking it together, but I've got a couple of scenes, and for me, that's how it starts. Stephen King writes about writing like discovering a dinosaur skeleton. I love that idea. I've discovered a bit, and I'm now there with my brush, brushing off this part. I don't know whether it's the face or the back or the leg or the tail, you know. I've just got this one bit, and slowly I'll work in one direction, and maybe that will lead me to another part. Or I'll go, nope, it's not over there. Then I'll come back and go over to the other section, and the story will emerge in that way. Joanna: Do you write in order or out of order? Luke: I've got better at writing in order, but it's still not totally chronologically. Joanna: I feel like this is also because we use multiple places. Like for Spear of Destiny , I've been in Washington DC like a couple of years before, and I was like, I have to use it because I expense that trip. Then I was like, I need to put it in a book. How on earth am I going to tie it to Vienna and Nuremberg and all of this? So I knew I had those scenes somewhere, but I didn't know what was going to happen . It's almost like when you know you want to set things different places—like you said, I need some scenes in America—you almost can write different things and then figure out what on earth links them. Luke: What I tend to do is — I write the hero's part first, and then put the villain in afterwards. I don't know if you do the same? I think your books are similar, where you have two or three scenes from the hero, and then like a cut scene from the villain where they're scheming in a dark lair somewhere. Joanna: Or doing bad things. Luke: Yes, whatever. They sort of offset each other, and so I'll quite often come back and put those in afterwards. Joanna: Well, that's good. I think it's important for people to know that you don't have to write everything in order, and you can just figure it out. Also, some authors are worried about using real places in their books. Where is your line between using real places and then fictionalizing things? Luke: The place is almost completely real in my books. I tend to be as real as I possibly can. Not down to like the building, though, because I think you'll understand this as well. It winds people up if you say, “They walked for five minutes down the street and then they were outside the coffee shop.” I won't say that because someone will email and say, “There's not a coffee shop on the street. That closed in in 2004.” So I don't get that specific. In terms of the place, I try to get things specific, like what sort of public transport it is. I wrote a book in Riga, and in Riga, they've got these wonderful old school, Soviet-esque trams that clang and rumble around the city. So they had to feature in the book there. There's sort of what the air is like. Is it a sea sort of air? Is it cold? Is it warm? Is it sandy? Desert-y? What's the sensation you'll get? To set that book apart, I want the reader to know, if they're interested, that I've been there. They see something more than I could have gleamed from a cookie cutter explanation of this place. I suppose that's going to become ever more important, isn't it, that we've been to this place. You write great authors’ notes as well, and that's something that's really important to me, is delving behind the story. Joanna: I think that's important because, actually, I do think ChatGPT and some of these other models can write very good descriptions of places. The Author's Note, as you say, and our connection with our readers when we're kind of, “Look, here's me,” which is why selfies are important, “Here's me with the pyramids of Egypt.” Luke: Exactly right. Joanna: So this was me. Okay, well, talking of audiences, let's get into the publishing and marketing side. So on publishing, so I'm really interested in this because you are in KU for your ebooks, and this is something I still find difficult after all these years. So why make that decision? How does that work for you? What is your main marketing in KU? Luke: So why make that decision? It's an 80-20 decision for me . I have got X number of hours a day, not very many, same as everyone else, I suppose. I want to do other things too with my time. So actually, the best use of my time is to write the best book possible, and let Amazon do what they are really good at , which is distributing the book to people. They do a great job at that. They've proven it for years and years and years, with thousands of data sets and all this sort of stuff. I would love to not be exclusive, of course, and that would be fun to go on the other platforms. Yes, it does bother me that my book isn't available in every single country and these sorts of things. I believe that in terms of getting my book into as many hands as possible, and as such, sustaining this as a career, etc, for now, that's the best way, if that makes sense. Joanna: I will tell people that your books have a lot of reviews. This is something I say to people — If you want a lot of reviews on Amazon, then being in KU is one of the ways to do that. I see, obviously, that on all the books that are action adventure that are in KU, which is most of them, have a ton of reviews. So there are pros and cons. You do have print books, you have audio, and you do have your own store for these other formats. So tell us about that. Luke: So I sell print books on the store . I don't sell particularly many. I sell most of them in the UK, I think because when people outside of the UK see the delivery cost, it puts them off. I like the idea of having a store, more than actually make any money from it or make anything from it at the moment. I don't feel like I've completely cracked it yet. Actually, that's probably the reason. There are frustrations from it, which I'm sure you have as well. Customer service is one. People are like, “How do I get my book? Why haven't I got this?” Sales duty is another. My friend bought a book in Spain. Joanna: Oh, Europe is the worst. Luke: Oh, this book has cost him 70 euros in total, including the duty. He says he hope it's a really good one. Sorry, mate, you bought it now. Joanna: It is, and that's actually something for people to keep in mind. For example, I had someone in Canada and there was a problem with something, and their duty they paid was ridiculous. So in the end, I paid that back from them. It's exactly what you said. There are problems—well, let's say challenges—with it, but clearly you wanted to do something. Is it that you're not doing any marketing to your store, which means it's not getting much traction? Luke: I'm not doing any paid marketing to my store. I do paid marketing to the first in series on Amazon, and I try and keep that as simple as possible, so that I can see what the return on investment is very clearly. I still sell a fair number of audiobooks. I sell the other series, which I do know my International Detective series has no direct marketing to it. I sell quite a lot through Ingram Spark as well. I can only think that is because people see the advert on Facebook, they don't want to shop on Amazon, so they take it into Waterstones, or they look on Barnes and Noble or whatever, and they buy it there. That is great. It is a good way to do it, really. With regard to the store, I'm looking at people outside the author space and trying stuff. I want to see what YouTubers, podcasters, and influencers are selling on their stores. I'm thinking it's not books, if that makes sense. Like bespoke, unique experiences, stuff, things, I don't know. A few ideas, nothing yet. I'm going to test a few things this year and see what comes out. Joanna: That's great. I also have had this on my list for a while, instead of trying to sell books. The crazy thing is, like I just bought a necklace, they got me on Instagram. It's a really nice necklace, and it wasn't expensive, but it was still more than the price of a book. I just bought it. It was a one click purchase from a store. I didn't know them. They had good reviews. So I was like, okay, I'll buy that. It came and everything. I was like, what makes people buy something that costs you 50 pounds from somebody they don't know, and then resist paying 20 pounds for a book from an author they like? Like, it's crazy. Is it easier to sell non-books to people, and then upsell them on a book? Luke: That is what I'm thinking. I'm trying to look at it in the way that a YouTuber would. Now, a YouTuber puts all their content on YouTube, and they don't bemoan the fact that they're exclusive to YouTube. They just put their content on there, and they get their payment from their ad clicks, or whatever it is, every month, and that's fine. What they do have is, underneath the video, they have this bar. I'm following various people, and they're selling coffee, tin openers, hats, all sorts of things. Then I'm like, this is cool. This is great. I like this. I like this coffee. Joanna: I do like the idea of selling coffee because I drink a lot of coffee! Luke: Yes. So at the moment, I've got this idea of potentially some of the sort of stuff you might find in one of the markets . The cool, bespoke jewelry and funky textiles. There are small things that you can post, or whatever. A few things like that I'm going to try, and see how it goes, really. That's the testing phase. Joanna: I like that, and I think we do need to think differently. One of the basic things, I mean, with KU for example, and in fact, page reads and sales. So with sales, Amazon hasn't changed the $9.99 cap ever. We've had a $9.99 cap on ebooks since the beginning. So even with inflation, we can't charge more for a book. Then the page reads, obviously generally trend downwards. Then you think, well, look, with inflation, just the cost of living, we should be able to put prices up. But because of all the reasons, books remain the price they are. So therefore, as you're looking at it, it is about, well— What else can we offer people that's interesting, where the price isn't so fixed? Luke: That's exactly right. You might only get 0.1% of people want that thing, and that's fine. That's great because they're the person who's really interested in whatever that thing happens to be. It could be, I don't know, an event, an online event, or something. There's a few ideas. I haven't pinned them down yet, but there's many ideas. Joanna: I get that. Well, talking about marketing as well. So obviously, as I mentioned, you're coming on my Books and Travel Podcast, but you also have a new podcast. So tell us about that. Why did you start the podcast, and what are you hoping to achieve? Luke: Yes, it's called The Adventure Story Podcast. It's basically, if you like that idea that I told you about, the crystalline tiles in Morocco and how they preempted the breaking of the atom—or whatever you think it might be, the splitting of the atom—then this is the podcast that you will like. It's all about the stories behind my stories. So episodes in series one, which will start in March, are on things like—and this is a true story Jo—the cursed Egyptian ghost on the London Underground. That's one. The truth behind the legend of the crystal skulls. There's an episode on Cambodia from a guy who grew up there. In fact, he's really excited about that. There's one about lava tubes. The truth behind lava tubes. Oh, there's a few I've planned this week. A couple on the Templars as well. It's all this sort of history. It's like an extended author's note in podcast form. That's what I'm going for. Joanna: So why are you doing that? You said you do paid marketing to your first in series on Amazon. You have a business. You're doing well. Why a podcast? Luke: I think trying to be more authentic is important to me. I want people to know me as the person behind the stories. It's important to for me to tell people, and I do this in my emails quite a lot, that by buying my book, by reviewing my book, by sharing my book, you're not just having the story, you're supporting me and my family and this house I'm standing in now. That still blows my mind, that the mortgage is paid by people buying books. It's wonderful. It's an incredible thing. I want the people who read my books to be able to see that and see the real human me behind the story, and share on the adventures. This podcast will share some of the travels my wife and I go on. We'll share some of the adventures we've had. We'll share the inspirations behind the books. We'll have other authors on as well to talk about the inspirations behind their books, too. Joanna: Fantastic. Where can people find you, and your books, and the podcast online? Luke: By the time this goes out, The Adventure Story Podcast will be live as well. It will be on wherever you listen to podcasts, but also AdventureStoryPodcast.com . My website is LukeRichardsonAuthor.com . Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Luke. That was great. Luke: Thank you. The post Writing Action Adventure And Traveling For Book Research With Luke Richardson first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

1
Kickstarter For Authors With Oriana Leckert 56:38

5 weeks ago56:38

56:38

How can you use Kickstarter to help bring your creative vision into reality? What are some of the biggest mistakes authors make? What are some tips to ensure your campaign is a success? Oriana Leckert shares her expertise. In the intro, AI-narrated audiobooks from ElevenLabs will now be accepted on Spotify through FindawayVoices ; A Midwinter Sacrifice by J.F. Penn with my voice clone for the Author's Note on Spotify ; BookVault introduce boxsets and slipcases ; Managing your finances [ Becca Syme ]; How to write non-fiction [ EOLU Podcast ]; Thoughts on the Berlin film market; Death Valley – A Thriller . Today's show is sponsored by my patrons! Join my community and get access to extra videos on writing craft, author business, AI and behind the scenes info, plus an extra Q&A show a month where I answer Patron questions. It's about the same as a black coffee a month! Join the community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Oriana Leckert is the head of publishing at Kickstarter, as well as an author, freelance writer, editor, and consultant. 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 Types of Kickstarter campaigns for authors Unique rewards to offer your backers Biggest mistakes authors make for a campaign that doesn't fund Bringing your own backers vs. discovery from Kickstarter Tips for creating a visually pleasing page The importance of a pre-launch page Making sure your Kickstarter gets approved Creating a detailed budget for your rewards You can find Oriana and more about Kickstarter at Kickstarter.com/creators/publishing and Kickstarter.com/publishing . Transcript of Interview with Oriana Leckert Joanna: Oriana Leckert is the head of publishing at Kickstarter, as well as an author, freelance writer, editor, and consultant. So welcome to the show, Oriana. Oriana: Jo, I'm so excited to be here talking with you. Thank you so much for having me. Joanna: It's great to have you on the show. So first up, just in case— What is Kickstarter, for anyone who doesn't know? What is your role there? How did you become involved in the publishing side of things? Oriana: Absolutely. So Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform . We are unique in the crowdfunding landscape for a few reasons. We are only for creative projects , so you can't use Kickstarter for medical bills, investment funding, charitable donations. Every Kickstarter project has to create something new to share with the world. Kickstarter is also a public benefit corporation, which is a sort of legal and business charter that turns us basically into a mission-driven for-profit organization . So our mission is to bring creative projects to life. Everything we do comes back to bringing more creativity into the world through that structure. We are also quite a progressive company. We do 5% after-tax profit donations every year to organizations fighting systemic inequality and doing music and arts education. We are very transparent about our tax contributions, the salary difference between our CEO and the median staff salary. So we do all sorts of things that make us, what I believe, a really ethical place to be and a force for hopefully good in the world. My role is head of publishing. So I've been a Kickstarter six years, which is the longest I've been at any company, actually. I came here to grow our journalism category at the very end of 2018. I have done journalism, I've done comics, I've done publishing. It, sort of unexpected to me, is the best job I've ever had. Which is slightly corny, but worth saying. I can't believe I get to do this work all the time. My background is about half and half digital media and traditional publishing, so I've spent most of my career fully focused on books and the written word in one way or another. I generally describe my job here as one part literary industry expert, one part crowdfunding consultant, one part life coach, and one part cheerleader . So those are the various roles I get to play for my creators. I also get to be out in the world all the time doing wonderful things like this, just kind of talking about Kickstarter and helping people get a better understanding of what it's for, how you can use it, the benefit for authors and creative people of all stripes. Joanna: Oh, that's great. You are a cheerleader. I love your energy. You bring such a great energy. I do feel like Kickstarter, obviously, is a company, but it does have that very creative feel. So I really appreciate that. I've also met you a couple of times in Vegas over the last few years, and so I thought we'd start there. What have you seen in terms of the changes in the author community over the last few years? What are the types of Kickstarter campaigns that authors do? Obviously, we're not all Brandon Sanderson (whose campaign made over $41 million!) . Oriana: That's a great question. It's been pretty exciting. So I was hired by Margot Atwell, who held this role, also, for five or six years. I really see a pretty strong through line from her work to mine. The amount of change in perception from authors, publishers, illustrators, toward Kickstarter, the shift has been absolutely massive. I mean, certainly when Margot started, and even when I started, there was a lot of sort of bewilderment, hedging toward distrust, and people thought Kickstarter was just for desperate people who couldn't get a book deal through the traditional systems. The change has been so dramatic of people understanding that — Kickstarter can be transformative for an author's career — and that it can work for traditional publishing, indie publishing, hybrid publishing, all kinds of authors. I mean, obviously I'm in the bag for Kickstarter, but there are so many ways that it can be tremendously helpful. Kickstarter is really about collapsing the boundaries between a writer and their readers, a publisher and their fan base, any creative person and their audience. There's so many benefits to doing that. You get to thrill your backers with new and exciting rewards. You get to turn what can be a sort of, not boring, but like just a standard book release, into a moment. You get to build your brand, your profile, get press. You get to test out ambitious projects. You get to understand so much more about your audience — and what they want and how you can give it to them. So, yes, going to shows like Author Nation, formerly 20Books, was a real revelation for me. Margot's work was mostly concentrated on the traditional publishing industry and getting to know the people who are really driving forward indie publishing and self-publishing and owning their own author careers. It's been really marvelous getting to make a lot of inroads into that world and seeing the great success that people can have on our platform and outside of it. Joanna: You mentioned there that you can thrill backers with new and exciting rewards, but I feel like many people listening might not even know what kind of rewards they would do. The word “reward”, it's quite a different word if people haven't been involved with Kickstarter. For an author, what are the kind of rewards that people are doing? Oriana: I love that question because, to me, the rewards are really like at the heart of the Kickstarter proposition and what makes this kind of fundraising so interesting and kind of thrilling. Basically, Kickstarter, your process is that you're inviting people on a creative journey . You're saying, I'm going to make this cool thing. I want your support, and in exchange, you're going to get stuff. You're going to get to be part of my process. Your main reward is going to be your book, or your series — or, if you're a publishing company, your season. Whatever it is, that's your main tier, and then you're going to build everything else out above and below that. Then a lot of people think the rewards means swag or merch, which is fine, but merch can really add a lot to your production costs . It's causing you to learn how to produce all kinds of things that maybe you've never done before. So that's not the only way to do it. If you're going to do some merch, I think it's nice to come up with some custom items that feel really related to the work that you're doing. If you've got a romance novel with a pivotal scene on the beach, maybe you make some candles that smell like the ocean. Maybe you do some kind of handkerchief that's printed with the pattern of the dress that your heroine is wearing. You can really think beyond merch, into digital rewards, experiential rewards. There's a lot of parts of the writing process that can be sort of like pulled out and packaged as rewards. Things like notes from the field, outtakes, deleted scenes. I've had people write bloopers, as if it were like a comedy movie, like added new scenes or novellas, other pieces from different works that you've done. Certainly, your back list and other books that you've written, those can all be included . We've seen people do tours of the writer’s studio, things like that. Also think about what skills you have in addition to your writing . Perhaps you are excellent at marketing, or social media, or poetry. You can offer webinars on those sorts of things, other kinds of ways that people can experience the creative practice that you have. Then you can get into like high-end exclusive one-off, crazy rewards . One whole section of rewards I love is naming rights. We've seen all kinds of “We'll name the dragon after your dog. We'll name the illness after your mother in law. We'll name the hero after your son.” There's a LitRPG novelist named Matt Dinniman, who did this really well. He writes these big cast, you know, there's dungeons, and you're in an intergalactic reality TV show with hundreds of characters. So in his last campaign, for $666 he will kill you off in his next book, and for $777 he'd let you live. He'll write a whole scene around you personally and that sort of thing. So those are just some. I mean, you can do book release parties. You can do book clubs. If you're writing children's books, you can do coloring pages or supplemental material for teachers or other educators. The sky is really the limit, and it is based on your creativity — and the things that both you can make and that your audience wants. So this is another opportunity to talk to them. Ask them, if I'm going to do a piece of swag, would you rather have an enamel pin or makeup bag? If I'm going to do alternate covers, would you like the blue cover or the red cover? See what your people are interested in, and then figure out whether it's possible for you to deliver it to them? Joanna: Wow, so many ideas there. I feel like this is part of the game, is that if someone's listening and they're like, “oh, that sounds great,” well— You need to get on Kickstarter and start backing things and understanding how it works. It's quite different. People think, oh, it's just like an Amazon or whatever, it's just not. Oriana: My number one piece of advice for anyone who's even a little bit Kickstarter curious, get on the site and back some projects , even just for a buck or two. Follow the creators out in the world, watch what people are doing. I often say this, but I am an expert in Kickstarter because I stare at Kickstarter all day long. You too can stare at Kickstarter all day long. You can follow everybody. You can look at what people have done and what's worked and what hasn't. Find all the best tricks, steal them for your own. Imitation is the highest form of flattery and all that. It is absolutely the best way to get good at Kickstarter, just like immerse yourself in this strange and lovely world and see how everybody else is doing it, and do it better. Joanna: I mean, I now buy a lot of just ebooks. I mean, I buy a lot of beautiful print with foil and all this, but I also just buy ebooks. They're kind of a similar price as you might get on some of the other platforms. So people can do that. I think you mentioned the book being the main offering, and people might think, well, that's the paperback. But you can do ebook, you can do audiobook, you can do bundles, you can do series , as you said. So there's so many options. So obviously things have changed over the last few years, but— Have you got any numbers on how big the Kickstarter industry is now with publishing? Or anything you can share around that? Oriana: I would love to tell you. So first I'll tell you, Kickstarter overall, by the numbers since our inception, there have been 273,000 projects funded, eight and a half billion dollars pledged, from more than 24 million backers. In publishing specifically, we've had 69,000 projects launched, 3.2 million unique backers, and over $380 million pledged to campaigns. I have lots of other stats, but a few things I'll share here. The publishing category has grown year over year, every year since 2017, in terms of number of projects launched, number of projects successful, and the overall percent of success rate. There has never been a dip since 2017, so for over a decade. Another stat that I really love about the publishing category, if you look at campaigns that have at least 25 backers, the overall success rate is 84% . I think that's really telling because 25 backers, that's like a little bit more than your mom, your best friend, the folks who are essentially obligated to support anything that you do. So if you can get a little bit beyond that sort of inner circle, your chances of succeeding on the platform are tremendously high. Another thing that I wanted to call out, I just got some new numbers around this, the average backing amount per backer across the whole category has nearly doubled since 2020. So we used to see an average backing around $40, and it's currently at $72 per backer. I think this is clearly around the trend of special and deluxe editions, but it's a great indication that — The backer behavior on Kickstarter is just very different than your general book buying public. People don't come here looking for 99 cent ebooks, the lowest bargain basement prices. Folks are really willing to pay more because they understand that this is a different kind. It's not exactly a purchase, it really is supporting bringing a strange and wonderful new thing into the world that wouldn't exist before. People are also much more forgiving about timeline . If you buy something from most online booksellers, you're expecting to have it in your hands within a couple of days. People wait months, and sometimes years, to get their Kickstarter rewards, and they don't mind if the creator is clear and transparent. You're also doing the work of demystifying the publishing process . Why does it take so long? Where are books printed? How long does it take them to ship via freight over the ocean? What do all these things really look like? So it's really interesting just figuring out what your backers want and will bear, versus the general book buying public out in the world. Joanna: Absolutely, and that's why we have fewer backers than we might sell total books on other platforms. As you said, they do spend more money and we can do higher quality and more interesting products. Obviously there, you mentioned that not every campaign actually funds. What are some of the top mistakes you see that mean the campaign doesn't fund or there are other issues? Oriana: The biggest mistake I think authors make, or any creator, is overestimating their abilities to reach their crowd. I think making sure that your ambition matches your reach is the number one most important thing to like come close to guaranteeing that you will be successful. If you are an emerging writer, and you're still building your audience, and you don't have that many followers or subscribers out in the world, you should not try to fund a multi-volume, leather bound omnibus. Do a real, honest assessment of who's in your crowd, how to find them, what percentage of them are likely to support what you're doing — and then find a project that feels realistic based on those numbers. That's really the biggest thing, sort of conceptually. As far as tips for a project page, again, back campaigns, look at what other people are doing. A project page can be either as simple or as complicated as you want to make it . You definitely want, obviously, to talk about the book, what is in it. Do a trope card, if you want. We're seeing those all over the site. Just what kind of book it is, and like specs. Also, page count, trim size, cover design . Obviously, if you're doing a special edition, exactly what sorts of bells and whistles, with a prototype, if you can. Then you can be really expansive from there. What are your inspirations? Who are your collaborators? What brought you to this work? What are some of the things that make you excited about your writing practice? Your timeline, your budget. What made you choose these rewards and how are you going to produce them? All those sorts of things will make backers feel both more trusting that you will do the things that you're promising, and just more excited to be part of your journey. Joanna: So just to be clear with what you said at the beginning. So somebody, they're a new writer—and I've seen several authors fail this way—they want to do some gorgeous book, and they put a level of $25,000 is what they want, but they don't necessarily have an email list or anything. When I saw this particular person I'm thinking of, I saw that and was like, there's no way that's going to fund. So what is the problem with people that are kind of expecting Kickstarter to bring people? So maybe just talk about— What's the split between what Kickstarter does with discovery and then what the author has to bring? Oriana: Yes, absolutely. So we track backer behavior, obviously, all across the site and category by category. In your Creator dashboard, if you run a campaign, you will see a breakdown of what percentage of backers are coming through your efforts and who are coming through the Kickstarter ecosystem. In publishing, an average is about 30% are coming through Kickstarter. That can be like 20% to maybe 40%, depending on how much exposure your project winds up getting. So that's not nothing. Being on Kickstarter will help you grow your audience, but it's definitely not everything. You really do need to bring your people first. Our algorithm works on attention. So any project that's getting clicks, getting backings, getting comments, our algorithm says, “Oh, people want to look at this. We will expose it to more and more people.” That means raising it up in search results, slotting it into various of the macros and carousels around the site. Our recommendation engine powers recommended projects on the top of campaigns, at the bottom of emails . We are doing a lot to make sure that projects are being surfaced to folks who want to see them. We actually are doing some significant backer-focused work this year on improving our search results, improving our recommendation engine. We're really working to make sure that people are finding the projects that they are going to be excited by. Joanna: So, I mean, and this is something I think is quite different, it is very visual. The story page, the sales page. There's a main visual. There's kind of two fields, the header field, and then a very small description field and then the image. That's what's really surfaced around Kickstarter, isn't it? Any tips for the image and those text boxes for SEO purposes? Oriana: Yes, totally. So SEO is important, but it is not as crucial. We can always tell when people are coming to us from KU because rather than the title of the book, their project subject says, “Reverse harem, lesbians on Mars, with an enemies to lover subplot.” You know, you don't have to do that on Kickstarter. Keywords are important, but it's not the same. It's much more about, what is this project? Who is it for? So I would, of course, absolutely maximize your title and your subtitle to get as much information as possible. Then exactly as you said, I mean, imagine somebody looking at your project on their phone. They're going to see the title, subtitle, the project image, maybe one sentence. That's also what they're going to see in a tweet, in a search result, in a newsletter thumbnail. So those elements are really, really important, and you want with just those four items to sort of bring everybody in and get them excited to click through. For the project image, we recommend one full bleed image. Maybe it's your cover, your cover image, or like one gorgeous illustration from the book. Or if you've got a series, maybe a stack of books. We don't recommend larding up that image with a whole lot of text. Remember it's going to show up next to your title, the title of your project. So if the title of your project is the title of your book, and the title of your book is also written on the book cover, you don't also need a text bubble that says the book title on top of that project image. Sometimes people try to cram a whole lot of very salesy text onto that image. It not only like makes the image pop less and makes it less interesting, it also is very difficult to read when that shows up thumbnail sized on a search page or a social post. So concentrate on making like a bright, exciting image that isn't too overloaded with many tiny elements . Joanna: And then the video. I wanted to ask about this because on Kickstarter it says you really should do a video. So why is that? Any tips on the sales video? Oriana: We definitely do see a preference for videos . It's, again, probably the tiktokization and the pivot to video all around the internet. Kickstarter is on the internet. It's a visual medium. People like videos these days. That said, if the video is the main stumbling block keeping you off the platform, I am here to tell you that you don't have to do one . Plenty of projects fund extremely well without having a video. So if that's the calculation that you're making, just have beautiful imagery and you'll be fine. That said, if you are going to do a video, it needs to be short, bright and compelling . Especially on the publishing side, we see about 50% of potential backers stop watching after one minute , and everybody else is gone after the second minute. So you don't need to undertake some massive Hollywood production style situation that's going to cost you tons of time and money. Much better to do just kind of like a direct to camera. It is nice to show your face if you feel comfortable doing so. Just a teaser. Talk a little bit about who you are, what you're doing, ask for people's support, and say that you hope they click in and read through the whole rest of your story. Joanna: So, and this is a tough one, because I've done different kinds of videos, now coming up for my fifth campaign. For the fiction, I did do one for Blood Vintage which is like a book trailer . So it goes straight into the sort of thriller book trailer, and then I put on my face afterwards, and I'm telling them about the book. On my nonfiction ones, I've really just done, sort of as you said, a face to camera . Is there any data on what kind of video people prefer? For fiction, is a book trailer better than a direct to camera, or vice versa? Oriana: That's not the kind of data that we do or possibly even could collect. I think it's more a question of knowing your audience, knowing what they want, and what is going to fit the best. I mean, I think that's really smart that you've done it slightly differently for your fiction versus nonfiction. Whatever you think is going to be the best representation of this particular work, that's what you should go with. Joanna: I guess I think about it from my perspective as a backer. With fiction—and it's terrible to say, but it's true—I often don't care so much about the author, I want the story. I've bought a ton of fiction off Kickstarter without knowing the author, whereas I feel like the nonfiction I've bought, I've actually known the author, so I'm more interested in the author. So that's just, I guess, my personal behavior. Oriana: Sure, but your personal behavior is probably fairly telling about a broader book buying population. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Joanna: It's good to know though. I mean, for people listening, look, there's no structure for it. In fact, the very first video I did, I went to Russell Nohelty's bestselling page and I deconstructed his video. I literally wrote it down, and then I followed his script with my stuff. Oriana: That's a great way to do it. Joanna: I think to find someone who's successful and model them , I think that's always a good trick. Oriana: Yes, absolutely. Joanna: Okay, so let's just talk about some of the other aspects. So the pre-launch page, this is something that seems to be very important. Talk about the pre-launch page. Oriana: Absolutely. It's a new feature. We've released it—gosh, what is time—last year or the year before. It has really changed the way that people are doing the kind of period before they launch. [Check out my pre-launch page at JFPenn.com/deathvalley — which will become the main sales page on launch.] So a pre-launch page, it's a cover page. It lives at the same URL where your campaign will ultimately go. It's simplified, and it is designed to generate followers. So anybody who follows the pre-launch page is going to get a system email from Kickstarter as soon as you launch . We see a very high conversion over the life of the project, from pre-launch followers to project backers, sometimes 40 or 50%. Most of them tend to do it right away. The work that you do to promote that pre-launch page and get your follower count up is going to pay off very handsomely once you launch. It really helps you have a strong first day , which is excellent for morale, excellent for messaging, good for the overall percentage chance of success on the project. So, as I said, this is still new-ish. We don't have a huge amount of data about it, but I recommend a pre-launch period of at least two weeks . We've seen some people do it for weeks, months, even in a few cases, over a year. I think in the best case, that pre-launch period is sort of a crescendo into the burst of launch. So if you urge someone to get excited and follow this page, which they do, and then six months later they get an email that the campaign is live now, I think you've really diluted the excitement that they had when they first came on board. Everyone should do what works for them and their timeline and their project, but definitely don't skip that as a step. Spend some time promoting that pre-launch page , getting up your follower count. It will really, really, really help once you go live. Joanna: For people listening, my pre-launch page is at JFPenn.com/DeathValley . Depending on when people are listening, it might well be live, or it might be in the future. So when I did my first campaign, obviously you don't know when you first start all the things you kind of have to do. There's obviously KYC, know your customer, that Kickstarter has to do. So if people are going to set up their pre-launch page, how long will it take and— What do people need to set up so that Kickstarter knows they can be approved? Oriana: So there's two different approvals. The KYC stuff is done by Stripe, our payment processor. I would give yourself lots of extra time for these approvals. It usually only takes a day or two . Sometimes you get an automatic approval, but don't leave that to the very end. Make sure you get your bank details, your ID, all of that information up and sent over to Stripe well before you need to, well before it comes to crunch time. As far as the Kickstarter approval process, that too can be automatic or it can take up to a few days . We do want, especially for first time authors or first time creators, the trust and safety team who reviews the projects wants to see pretty much a final draft when they're approving it. You can't put up your pre-launch page until the project is approved. For serial creators in good standing, we are making some allowances where people can get that pre-launch page up before the approval process. Especially when you're starting out on the platform, it's good practice to like have your campaign more or less finalized, so that the reviewers can see everything that you'll be doing. Then you can get that pre-launch page up at that point. Joanna: Yes, because — When you put up the rewards and things, you have to have costed it all out. You have to say, like, how much people need to pledge, and you need to know things like your shipping details. So let's get a bit more into those finances. Earlier, you mentioned that adding merch can add a lot of money and lot of cost to a campaign. Of course, if you don't know how much it's going to cost even just to print your book, say, with foil or sprayed edges, or whatever, you can't cost it out either. What are some of the issues that people find with finances around Kickstarter? Oriana: I cannot stress enough the importance of doing a full, real, detailed budget . That doesn't mean vaguely guessing how much you think it might cost to print a book. Really, actually get samples, figure out all of your processes. Budget, not just for print production, but for bubble wrap and tape, for pens and stickers. For all of the things that you are going to be producing in your rewards and also budget contingency plans. Think about all the things that might go wrong. Make sure you're doing a really, really detailed job of understanding all of your costs. It's good that you mentioned Russell before. There's a publishing creator tips page, that's kickstarter.com/creators/publishing . There's a whole lot of resources there for all kinds of different projects and different elements of the crowdfunding process. One piece is a budgeting article by Russell. It's got a worksheet in it and details all of these things that we're talking about. So I absolutely recommend using that as a guide when you're setting out your budget. One thing about it that I love is that he also says, “Include a little bit of money to do a nice thing for yourself. ” For him, he gets a tattoo of one of his characters after every successful campaign. So maybe for you, that's getting a manicure or a massage or a nice dinner or a new book, but do do something sweet for yourself. That's a nice way to give yourself a reward at the end of what can be a pretty intense process. Joanna: Yes, it is intense. It's funny because I was scared about it before I pressed that button on the first time, but I feel like what I love about the Kickstarter thing is that it's a real launch period. I feel like one of the most tiring things for authors is the constant need to do marketing, whereas with Kickstarter campaign, you can be like, okay, I'm going to really push hard for this couple of weeks, or a few weeks before that. Push hard, do all my marketing, and then I can go into fulfillment, and I can ease off a bit . I feel like this is more surge marketing, isn't it? Oriana: Yes. I think that's an excellent way to describe it, for sure. That's definitely the Kickstarter proposition. You know, look, I will be screaming from the rooftops about this project for 30 days, and then I will stop talking about it. Joanna: Yes, and you can't have it. Well, there won't be a thing anymore. Oriana: Exactly, exactly. Joanna: Well, then on that, I guess once we have finished, the campaign closes, and Kickstarter collects the money, and we get the money in a couple of weeks’ time. We also have to fulfill the stuff, which is, all the shipping and all of that. One thing that I've seen people be confused about is around taxes. So any clarification on who pays the tax? Oriana: So I am actually not allowed to give tax advice, as I am absolutely not an accountant. I would say you should certainly talk to your accountant about what you're doing on Kickstarter and how you should report that and what that's all going to mean. This is a reasonable point to note that, as we are recording this on February 13th, yesterday, Kickstarter announced a whole bunch of new features that we have been working on for a long time, and we are in the process of rolling out. Including a lot of post campaign tools that we've never had before. We're doing an internal pledge management system . That is something that people have been asking us for probably over a decade. There are many elements to that, but one thing that we are going to be doing in the future is we're going to be helping everybody with tax and VAT collection. So that's something that's coming soon, and we're going to do our best to help demystify a massively complicated process. Joanna: It is. Well, then I'll say, from my perspective, I know what taxes I have to pay, and I make sure I pay them after I get the money from Kickstarter. So as far as I'm concerned — Paying tax is my responsibility as the creator. What else then is coming? Or things that perhaps authors aren't using enough yet? Oriana: Well, so last year, we released late pledges. This means, as like it says on the tin, once the campaign is closed, you can still collect additional backing . There's some caveats with that. We don't want to undermine that sort of now or never, all or nothing, do or die situation. So our recommendations for late pledges, they're most effective in two to seven days after the campaign has closed. The final 48 hours of a campaign are really strong. You know, that's when all of that FOMO really kicks in. So a lot of marketing happens, a lot of outreach, a lot of just like traffic. So inevitably, no matter how hard you have been pushing this project, the day after your campaign closes, three people are going to email you and say, “Well, I didn't know you had a live campaign.” So late pledges are really for them to still be able to get on board, even though they missed all of the main part of the activity. We also recommend you do not have all of your rewards available in late pledges, and those that you do, cost more. So again, you want to make sure that all of that talk you've been doing during the campaign of like, “This is your only chance to get this book, at this price, at this specificity,” has not been made into a lie by late pledges. Then also with late pledges, they don't get to stay up forever. At some point you do say, now I am going to press, so I'm going to turn them off. So that's how late pledges are designed to work. Some other really cool features that we've just announced, and again, as I said, we announced this yesterday. So I don't have a ton more information, although I should tell you where to go to find it. I mean, we've got pop ups and things all over the site about it. Well, it's a slightly cumbersome URL, updates.kickstarter.com/kickstarters-2025-product-roadmap with some hyphens. I don't know if you have show notes. Joanna: I'll put a link in the show notes. Oriana: Excellent. That would be great. That's where we lay out the sort of overview of all of the stuff that we're working on this year. Some things that I will just call out, we are in beta currently for a payment plan. It's called Pledge Over Time. That allows backers for rewards above a certain dollar amount, I think it's $125, to make their pledge in four payments, rather than all at once. We are working on secret rewards, which, this is also still in beta. Creators can get a direct link to a reward that's not listed in the campaign and send that to specific groups of backers. So we have a lot more features planned for this year. We're trying to make things that people have been asking for. This also means, if there's a feature that you want Kickstarter to have that we currently don't, write into our support team and tell them. A lot of the things that we have developed over the years have come directly from so many people asking for it that we realized we just had to do it. So please tell us what you want, and maybe it'll come to life. Joanna: Brilliant. Where can people find Kickstarter for Publishing and any other help online? Oriana: Yes, kickstarter.com/publishing is where all of the publishing projects are. I mentioned that creator tips page, kickstarter.com/creators/publishing . We are all over the socials. We are everywhere that you can find us. Oh, another thing we also just rolled out is a whole new learning lab curriculum, which is a video series of every element of your Kickstarter project. It is probably geared a bit more toward like larger sort of design and tech and gadget and games creators, but I'm sure that there are really, really relevant tips for publishers and publishing folks in there as well. We're trying to give as much help as possible. We want everybody to succeed. Of course, a rising tide lifts all boats, which is foundational to the Kickstarter ethos. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Oriana. That was great. The post Kickstarter For Authors With Oriana Leckert first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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The Happy Writer With Marissa Meyer 59:07

6 weeks ago59:07

59:07

How do you keep the happiness and joy in your writing practice, along with managing the business side of being an author? Marissa Meyer gives her tips. In the intro, How authors can price their books for profit [ Self-Publishing with ALLi ]; How to recover from author burnout [ Self-Publishing Advice ]; my Brooke and Daniel crime series in KU ; Day of the Vikings ; Outback Days and City Nights in the Lucky Country – Books and Travel ; replanning with Calendarpedia . 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 Marissa Meyer is the New York Times bestselling author of fantasy romance and graphic novels, including The Lunar Chronicles. The Happy Writer: Get More Ideas, Write More Words, and Find More Joy from First Draft to Publication and Beyond is her latest book for authors. 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 Finding joy and happiness in your creative process Tips for finishing a first draft when you hit a wall Ways to fill your creative well How to make your research methods more fun Coming up for new ideas within a series Managing your to-do list and learning when to say no Remaining positive when querying and pitching Finding joy in book marketing You can find Marissa at MarissaMeyer.com or on Instagram @MarissaMeyerAuthor . Transcript of Interview with Marissa Meyer Joanna: Marissa Meyer is the New York Times bestselling author of fantasy romance and graphic novels, including The Lunar Chronicles. The Happy Writer: Get More Ideas, Write More Words, and Find More Joy from First Draft to Publication and Beyond is her latest book for authors. So welcome to the show, Marissa. Marissa: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Joanna: It's great to have you on. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Marissa: Oh, goodness. I always wanted to be a writer. I am one of those. I was a huge reader growing up, loved stories, had a big imagination . So, really, from the time that I was a little kid, I started making up stories and telling them to my parents, asking them to write them down into little books for me. Then as I got older, I, of course, started writing them myself. Then — At some point I realized that this is a job. This is something that people actually can get paid for. You could actually get paid to come up with stories and get your name printed on a book. I think I realized really early on that that was for me, and that's what I wanted to do with my life. So I kept writing. As a teenager, I got really into fan fiction and credit that a lot with learning how to tell a complete story . Beginning, middle, end. I got my bachelor's degree in creative writing and a master's degree in publishing because I thought writing might be a difficult career to break into. I wanted to have a backup plan, and thought, well, if this writing thing doesn't pan out, maybe I can be an editor, maybe I can be a publicist or an agent or something. The deeper I got into learning about publishing, the more it really just cemented how passionate I was about writing and how much I just really wanted to be the writer in this publishing equation. So I wrote many multiple manuscripts that went nowhere , but eventually got the idea for a Cinderella retelling about a cyborg, a futuristic retelling. So that became my debut novel, Cinder . Joanna: Wow. Okay, so it’s really interesting that you did publishing as a degree, as well as writing. Did you have a job before you became a full-time author? Like did you work in the publishing industry? Or did you just go straight from uni into full-time writer? Marissa: No, I did. From university, I got a job as an editor at a very small publishing house in Seattle. That publisher focused mostly on fine art books. So those beautiful coffee table books that you get at museum exhibits and art galleries. You know those books. So it had virtually nothing to do with my ultimate career of being a fiction writer, but it taught me a lot about just the behind the scenes, what goes into creating a book, and the actual production of it, the marketing of it, all of these various aspects . So I did that for five years, and then I spent about a year as a freelance typesetter and proofreader. At which point my first novel sold, and I got to become a full-time writer. Joanna: That's very cool. I love that you did typesetting and stuff like that. We'll come back to the business side, but let's get into the book. So you use the words “happy” and “joy” in the book title, but I feel like many writers think suffering and pain is more of a hallmark of the creative process. If writers are not feeling the ‘joy' and the ‘happy' right now, what are some tips for getting back to that? Marissa: Thank you so much for asking this question. It is so funny to me that we do have this stereotype of the writer. That you must be struggling in order to create art, and you must be suffering some way. If it's not painful, then how can you possibly call it quality? This stereotype really bugs me, and I'm really trying to dismantle it with this book. But that said, we're also not shying away from the fact that writing, it's not just fun and play all the time. There are struggles, there are challenges, no matter where you are on your journey . Whether you're suffering from writer's block or burnout, whether you're in the query trenches and you're facing rejection or criticism. There's a million things, of course, that can be roadblocks in our path to being happier writers. That is largely what this book is about, trying to refocus our attention, not on all the things that can go wrong, not on all of the struggles that we face, but looking at the things that we really do love and enjoy about the craft of writing. The hobby, the career. We get into it because we do have a passion. It's not the sort of job or hobby that most of us take on just for the heck of it. I mean — You start writing because you love to write. So I really encourage writers to find what it is that appeals to them about this . Do you love the process of taking a messy, complicated plot and fitting it together like a big jigsaw puzzle and that satisfying feeling when everything comes together? Or do you love that you have the freedom to go to a cafe with your laptop and sip lattes all day and stare out at the people and let the world inspire you? Or maybe you love the research process and learning about things that you are so curious and interested in and just want to do deep dives into it. There's a lot of things that we can find joy and satisfaction in. So that's going to be different for every writer, and that's going to be different based on where you are, both in the process of writing a particular book, but also where you are in your overall career. I always encourage writers to go back to that. What can I find joy in today? Joanna: I love the research . I also love saying with a finished book, “I made this.” I always enjoy holding that book in my hand. You, coming from this fine art books thing you did early on, I guess you must love the really beautiful special editions and all that as well. Marissa: Oh, I love it, and the smell! I love the smell of a new book. You don't always get it when a lot of books these days just come in like a cardboard box, but some of these special editions will come wrapped in plastic, and so they still maintain the smell of the ink and the binding glue. Ah, I just nerd out over it. Joanna: Well, and that is important too, isn't it? I feel like we've come around to that. Like there was a lot of focus on digital for a while, especially for independent authors, but now it's really come round to beautiful, physical products. That, to me, is a very exciting part of the process, finishing the whole thing with something beautiful. That satisfaction is really part of it. Marissa: Absolutely. I'm really big on celebrations. I think it's so important to take a moment and say, “I made this thing. I accomplished this. I had a goal. I had a dream, and I kept moving. It took months or years or decades, but I did it.” That is such a huge part of the process. It's really easy—and especially like for me, I'm about 20 books now into my career— it can be easy to be like, “Oh, just another one. Set it on the shelf, and keep on working on the next deadline.” I really have tried to be very conscientious about it. No, let's pause. Let's pop some champagne. Let's take a night off. Let's get a massage. Like, what is it that's going to make me feel like, yes, I've done it again, and I'm really proud of this moment. Joanna: That's great. Well, you do have a section on the writing process in the book. Of course, every author is different, but if people haven't got to that 20 books place— Tell us how you get that first draft done. Any tips for actually finishing a book? Which I know some people have an issue with. Marissa: Finishing is hard. I think it's important for people to know that everyone struggles with finishing. We talk a lot about the siren song of the next project because at some point in every book you're going to reach that point where you're in the murky middle and it feels endless. You're confused about the plot, you're frustrated that things aren't going well, and suddenly you get a sparkly new idea for the next thing. It's so easy to think, “Ah! That one's going to be really easy and really fun, and it's not going have any of these other problems that I'm dealing with right now.” It's very tempting to switch over and to follow that path of least resistance. I think it's important to know that that fantasy of the next one being so easy, probably not reality. Probably you will get to relatively the same point in the process and, once again, be hit with, “Ah, this is hard. It's work. What else can I do?” For me, one of the tips that I started using fairly early in my career is when I am at the start of a project, and I'm really excited, and I've got lots of ideas, and you can feel all the potential for it, and there's a reason that you're choosing to write this thing out of all your other ideas. Why am I focusing my time on this one? I will write down either a list, or I will write a little letter to myself detailing all of the things about this project that I cannot wait for. Maybe it's the romance that I'm really excited to write, or I just love the protagonist, or there's a really big twist in the plot that I can't wait to see how readers are going to react to. Whatever it is, I will write down everything that I really love about this idea . Then when I'm a third of the way or halfway through the book and suddenly hating it and feeling like this is the worst thing I've ever written, and I can't believe that I chose this, what was I thinking, I'll go back and I'll read that list. I will remind myself why I chose this one in the beginning, and what do I love about it? What do I still love about it? Then I will take those ideas and I will try to incorporate them into the next scene or chapter, or couple of chapters that I'm going to write. “All right, I love the romance.” Well, let's have a romantic scene. “I think the villain is so cool.” Well, let's have a scene where we really get to see how cool the villain is. You know, whatever it is, focus on that, and that will hopefully help you get over that bad period. Joanna: Do you write out of order if you get to that point? You're like, I'm just going to write the climax scene because I know that will be fun, or do you write linearly? Marissa: It really depends on the project. I have done both, and I think both processes work. Some books are more difficult than others. The books that I'm struggling with more, then I will tend to jump around and go ahead to write a scene that I'm really excited about , but not always. Some books have very complicated plots that are very interwoven, and in those cases, it can be less of a mental gymnastics challenge if you do write it linearly. So it really depends. I think, for me — Momentum and forward progress and consistency. Whatever you need to do to keep moving forward and keep on top of your goals — whether it's a word count goal or a chapter goal or whatever it is, anything you can do any day to keep moving forward is going to be helpful. Joanna: Sometimes that moving forward might not be getting new words down. You also have a section about filling the creative well. Sometimes, especially when you've written as many books as we both have, it can be like, okay, do you know what I need? Some more input. What are some ways that you fill your creative well? Marissa: Absolutely, and that's such an important thing to note. Like you say, sometimes getting words down is not the answer . If you're facing some amount of creative burnout, or if you're just really stuck in a plot and feel like things just aren't working, or maybe you've taken a wrong turn somewhere and you're not really sure how to fix it, sometimes the best thing you can do is take a step back, and do it intentionally. I think there's a distinction between saying, “I have writer's block and I can't possibly write anything today,” versus, “I am choosing not to write today because I recognize that I need a moment and need some space to refill the well and tap into that creative spark again.” So, for me, when I decide I'm going to take a day off, there's a myriad of things that I might choose to do with that time. I think getting outside, going for walks, or if you can go to a park or go on a hike somewhere, if you can go swimming. Anything like that tends to, for me, really generate some new ideas. Spending time with my family is always good. A lot of times I will use those days off to tackle other projects, things that have kind of been looming in the background. Maybe they're taking up more mental space than they should be. That could be things like getting your car washed, or that could be like reorganizing your pantry, just things that have been really bugging you lately. Maybe it's time to take a day and clear some of those things out because that will help clear your mental clutter as well. Or you might take a day and be like, I'm going to do some really fun research about this project. Or I'm going to take a day and spend some time brainstorming or reoutlining my plot. So you can also take a more hands on approach to writing. There's really no right or wrong here. Whatever you feel like you need, give it a shot and see if it helps break something loose. Joanna: You mentioned fun research there. What does that look like for you? Marissa: All of it. I really enjoy research. I love reading. I love doing deep dives, you know, going on Wikipedia and clicking the little further reading links at the bottom and seeing the rabbit holes you go down. Also, if I can find a way to do a hands-on or more of an experiential research, that's the best. Of course, we all fantasize about being able to travel. If you can go to the place where your setting is inspired by, that is worth gold. It's not always an option, of course, for different reasons, but if you can get out and see the world and take in these really great sensory details, it is so helpful. It could also be talking to an expert on something about your story, something about your protagonist or your plot, because they're going to have just the best insights. They're going to clue you into things that you never would have even known to look up to research. I've crawled under cars to see how they work because I don't know anything about cars, but I had a mechanic character, so I better learn something about cars. I love cooking. If there's a dish that my character has to cook or bake or is served, I'll find a recipe and give it a try myself. Just little things like that to just kind of give you that hands on experience. I think it adds a lot to the authenticity as you're writing. Joanna: It also makes it more of a fun process. Marissa: It's more fun. Why not? We're all about trying to make it more fun. Joanna: Yes, exactly. Well, then coming to writing series, because it feels like, obviously we need tropes in the books. If we're writing different books in a series, we need to make sure the characters are consistent and all that. How do you keep coming up with new ideas for series? I feel like a lot of people now are sort of like, okay, is it the same thing, the same thing? What stays the same in a series book and what changes? How do you get ideas for that? Marissa: That's a good question, and it's going to depend on if your series follows one main protagonist versus if it's more like a loosely connected series with maybe different protagonists or different love interests in each book. Generally, I think it's more common that you've got the solo protagonist who has a complete character arc. So when I'm thinking of the entire series as a whole and trying to step back and see kind of a big picture, I will give a lot of thought to the protagonist's arc . Where do they start page one, book one? And where am I hoping they're going to end up? Within that, depending on how many books you have in your series, there's probably going to be some reversals. There might be that in book one, your protagonist might end on a really high note. Book two, it might be the opposite. They may be way down at the bottom now. Something terrible has happened that they have to claw their way out of. Or they learn something about themselves in book one, but then book two, you flip it on its head and say, “They thought this thing, but surprise, actually, it's a negative in some way.” Playing around with these different moments as the character is changing, developing, learning about secrets, exploring their world. Generally speaking, we tend to think of character arcs as being upward, but I think it's helpful to think of it more as a roller coaster. There should be dips, there should be lots of places where things are going wrong. So that's one thing that I'm thinking about as I'm putting together a series. Then I'm also thinking about my antagonist and my conflicts. I have often likened it to like old video games, where every level ends with a boss, but then the very end of the game has the big boss that you're really trying to defeat. So the first boss, you have barely enough skills to defeat that first boss, and maybe it takes a few tries to beat that first level, but you do it. Oh, but now you have to do the second level, and that next boss is going to be even harder. As you go, you're getting better. Your characters are picking up new skills, new weapons, new allies. So at the end of every book we have a conflict, a climax, something that we have to face , and everyone is going to be a step up, a little more difficult than the last one. So that we know by the time our character is finally ready to face that big conflict, the big struggle, the antagonist, villain, whatever it is you have at the end of the series, that you have given them the skills that they need to actually defeat them. Joanna: There's some great advice there. So let's come into more of the business side because you do have this section on the to-do list. I love this because the to-do list is never ending. For indie authors, we're publishing, as well as marketing and writing and everything. How do authors say no and reduce that to-do list, in order to stop being so overwhelmed? Marissa: Oh, my gosh. It is hard, and I will admit this is something that I personally have really struggled with. I'm a yes person. I like to say yes. I like to please people. I like to feel like I am doing everything within my power to make a book a success, to further my career. So I get it. I absolutely get how difficult it is to recognize when we need a little space, or we need some downtime, or when we need to take a step back. For me, and I didn't come up with this, I read it in some productivity guide, self help guide, a long time ago, but it really resonated with me. Every time you say yes to something, you are also saying no to something. For example, if you say, yes, I will be on this panel at this book festival. Okay, let's say you have to travel there. Let's say it's a full day being on the panel. There's probably going to be a signing. Maybe there's an author dinner. Another full day of travel going back home. So we've got essentially two to three days for that yes. There's lots of times when, great, I can't wait. I'm looking forward to this. I'm going to meet some readers, I'm going to network with authors. Maybe you recognize that by saying yes to that, I'm saying no to three days with my family, or I'm saying no to three days of working on my novel, or I'm saying no to a day where I could relax and spend a day reading a book and refilling my well. So none of these are the right option, none of them are the wrong option, but just recognizing that there are pros and cons, and give and take, and be really picky about what you're spending your time on and what you are making your priority at any given point. Joanna: It is interesting. You mentioned a panel there, and I feel like conferences and conventions are one of these things that is quite difficult. Now, you and I, again, have been doing this a while, so we have a community, like we have author friends. There are people listening who might be introverts. They might feel very uncomfortable about going to writing conferences, and they're like, should I just say no to that? I guess that the question is— When should you go to something, even if you feel you want to say no? When do you have to push yourself as an author, and when should you give into those feelings? I know it's tough, but when have you done this as an early writer and then later stage? Marissa: This is one of those things where I really think people have to tap into their own psyche and recognize, what are my limitations, what are my goals? For me, early in my career, I did it all. If I was invited to something, it was an automatic yes. I also did not have children at the start of my career, so for me, when it really started to change, as far as recognizing my time is limited, my energy is limited, I have to step back and say no to more things, was when I had kids. Then it really became that balancing act of, when do you focus on the writing and the career? When do you focus on family? That said, I mean, the publishing process, the writing process, there's ups and downs. There are times when you are really focused on selling a book, on marketing a book, promoting. That's both with in-person events, doing book signings, doing the festivals. There's also social media, sending out newsletters. There's going to be periods where you're trying to get your book noticed by readers, but that doesn't have to be all day, all the time, for years and years and years. You can really focus on it for one, two, three months, whatever your capacity is, and then step back. Maybe take a hiatus on social media. Maybe say, for these next five months, I need to write a new book, and I need to focus on being with my family and do some self-care. So for these five months, I'm saying no to all other requests. I mean, whatever it is. I'm just throwing out numbers. Of course, this is going to be different for everybody. So really think about — What are my limitations? Know that you really can't do it all. I hate saying that because I am one of those people where I feel like I can do it all, just let me try. But you really can't. You have to make choices sometimes and recognize that if you're trying to do it all for too long, then that's a recipe for burnout. That's the last thing we want. The last thing we want is to get to a point in our career where we dread the writing , or we dread the travel, or we dread the book events. So whenever you start to feel like it's too much, listen to that and give yourself some space. Realize that the world is not going to fall apart if you take a little bit of time off. Joanna: I love that. Actually, I prefer this sort of campaign focus, which is what you were really saying there. It's like, go hard for, say, three months, and then take a couple of months off. I do that. I kind of step back from social media. Some people feel like they have to do, I know the TikTok authors in particular, are doing a lot of videos every single day. They feel like if they stop, it's all going to end. The race never stops, does it? It never stops unless you stop. Marissa: It's true. There's always going to be the next goal post. There's always going to be that next thing that you're thinking, “Oh, if I just get this many followers, then I can slow down.” Then you get that many followers, and you think, “Oh, but I've got a book coming out in two months, so I'll keep going until then, and then I'll slow down.” “Oh, but now I've got this other thing.” I mean, it's always going to push back. It's always going to be something else. It's hard to recognize when you do need some personal space, but it's also really important. Not just for our mental health and wellbeing, but for our creativity too . Joanna: Okay, so another thing that some people are not that happy or joyful about is pitching publishers and agents. Mostly people are quite stressed about that. Now, you work with traditional publishers. I'm primarily an independent author. There are pros and cons. Tell us a bit more about your experience with traditional publishing. Any tips for people who want to position themselves in a world of publishing flux, as ever? Marissa: Definitely one of the most stressful periods in a career is the pitching to the agents, the querying trenches, the submission trenches . It can do some damage on your confidence, on your everything. So it's a really difficult period. If your goal is to be traditionally published, as opposed to independently published, and as you say, great options. There's so many great directions that we have available to us today. If you really think you want to be traditionally published, of course, number one, just make sure you've written the best book that you can. Get some feedback . Have some critique partners go over it. Edit and polish it to within an inch of its life. Then when you feel like, okay, I've done the best I can do, write your query letter . Again, get feedback there, because query letters are particularly tricky, and there is a science and an art to them. Do your research. Then send it off, and, number one, celebrate because it's so huge. It's such a huge accomplishment to get to the point where you're querying. So regardless of whether you get 10 agents interested and it goes to auction at publishers, or if no one bites, like regardless, you have written a complete book and submitted it. That's so awesome, so like take a moment to congratulate yourselves and go out for pizza or whatever, whatever you do to celebrate. Then start writing the next thing. The worst thing that we can do is have this book sent out, and then just spend all day, every day, worried about it and stressing about it and having that anxiety building up and checking our email 100 times a day, which like you're probably going to do anyway. If you can, try to refocus your energy on something new, what is the next project you can be excited about? Then dive into it, body and soul and spirit, and try to immerse yourself in a new story. This is for a number of reasons. One, because it's going to be a great distraction. But two, when and if your book on submission gets picked up, your agent is going to ask you, what else you got? So it's great to have something else that you can talk about. Joanna: Then what I do like in your book—I mean, I like lots of things—but you do also — Talk about what might happen if you break up with an agent, or lose an agent or an editor or a publicist. I like that you covered this because so many people think, “Oh, if I get an agent or a publisher, that's it forever. My whole life is amazing, and I'm rich and famous, and everything will work out.” So why might some of these things happen over a career, and what's the kind of attitude you need to survive it all? Marissa: This was one of the big surprises for me, as I started to expand my group, my network of writers, how common it is to break up with an agent or to switch publishers, publishing houses, to switch editors. I t happens all the time. This was shocking to me because I very much felt like, no, when you've got an agent and a publisher, you are set forever. That is your career, those are your people. So I was really surprised that that is not the case. There's so many reasons why one of these relationships may not work out. I've had friends whose agents have retired, whose editors have moved to different publishers. So it might be something rather innocuous. Life just happens. Or it could be a matter of just not being the right fit for each other. Maybe your agent only represents kid lit and you want to move into adult. Or you really want to start writing romance, but they don't represent romance. It could be a matter of my agents not communicating with me . Or I feel like they're no longer focused on me and my career, and I feel like I'm not getting the attention that I really need and want out of an agent. Again, there's so many reasons, but it does happen. It's not the end of the world, it's just a little blip, another blip in your journey. By and large, the friends I have who have left an agent, or whose agent has left their career or whatever, then when they find someone new, more often than not, they end up feeling like, you know what? This was the right thing. I really took my time, I found someone new who is a great fit for me, who is excited about my career and my upcoming projects, and who is really working it and making things happen, and making book deals happen. So I know it's really hard in that moment because you can feel like I worked so hard to get this agent, why would I ever leave them and go back to querying? So really try to take a big picture look and think, well, I might be going through a bad spot now, but what is the potential payoff in the end? What do I stand to succeed and to gain in doing this? So it's a tough decision. It's not a fun part of the career, but it is a reality for a lot of us. Joanna: If you want a long-term career, you're the one who is in charge. So you just make some more choices and carry on. We don't let that end our careers. Marissa: Absolutely, and you're always going to be your best advocate. We think of our agents as our advocates, and we think of our editors as our advocates. They absolutely are, but ultimately, no one is paying as much attention to your career as you are. So we really have to speak up for ourselves, first and foremost. Joanna: We're almost out of time, but I have to ask you about book marketing because it is a part of every author's life, and again, something where happiness and joy might not be such a big part. So how can we make marketing more fun? What do you enjoy most about book marketing? Marissa: Oh, my gosh. If you figure it out, you let me know. Joanna: Well, I like podcasting. So, there you go. Marissa: I also really enjoyed podcasting, although I did just retire my podcast because, again, too many things, too many spinning plates, and you have to make some tough choices sometimes. For me, you know, find the things that you do enjoy . I learned early on, I don't like Facebook, and I don't like Twitter/X. It was difficult pulling back from those because I had a fair amount of followers, but when I did, it was clearly the right decision. I wish I'd done that a long time ago. Then it allowed me to focus my energy and my attention on Instagram, which is the platform that I just naturally gravitate toward best. I just enjoy it the most. Pick and choose the things that you do get some enjoyment out of, and then set boundaries around it. We were talking about the TikTokers who feel like they have to make multiple videos every day. Figure out what—again, back to limitations— what is your capacity? Have a plan in place and say, okay, I'm going to post three times a week, or five times a week. Or maybe I'm going do Fan Art Fridays, and I'm going do New Book Tuesdays or whatever it is, and then maybe I'll have one fun family post, or one fun “this is a quirky thing about me” post every week. So you can kind of have a plan and break it down so that you're not every morning looking at your phone thinking, “Oh, I have to post on Instagram again,” or, “I have to do a TikTok video. Now, what am I going to talk about?” I also think it's helpful to maybe once a month, or maybe at the start of a big promo season, spend some time doing your big brainstorming and kind of like batch. I like batching things, like the things on my to-do list. So I'll spend a day brainstorming what I want to post, and then I'll spend a few hours taking the necessary photos and trying to put together the captions or trying to put together the graphics or whatever. Then that's done, and I don't have to worry about that for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, if you're really productive. So it's a really nice, efficient way to tackle that and then be able to move back to writing, which is, for most of us, the thing that we would rather be doing. Joanna: Absolutely. Now, the book is The Happy Writer . Where can people find you and all your books online? Marissa: Thank you so much. I can be found on Instagram at MarissaMeyerAuthor , or on my website at MarissaMeyer.com . Books are available pretty much wherever you like to get your books. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Marissa. That was great. Marissa: My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. The post The Happy Writer With Marissa Meyer first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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Writing And Selling Short Stories With Douglas Smith 1:00:39

7 weeks ago1:00:39

1:00:39

How can you use short stories to improve your writing craft across different genres? How can you make money from licensing your short stories in different ways? How do you structure a short story collection? Douglas Smith shares his tips. In the intro, S&S imprint says that authors no longer need to get blurbs for their books [ The Guardian ]; James Patterson will be headlining Author Nation 2025 ; How to sell books from a table [ Novel Marketing Podcast ]; My lessons learned about screenwriting ; Death Valley, a Thriller . Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Douglas Smith is a multi-award-winning Canadian author of novels, short stories and nonfiction, with over 200 short fiction publications in 36 countries and 27 languages. He's also the author of Playing the Short Game: How to Market and Sell Short Fiction , now out in its second edition. 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 How beginner writers can use short fiction to improve their writing craft Overview of the different short story markets First rights and second rights for selling short stories Financial expectations for traditionally published short stories Tips for self-publishing a collection Benefits of exclusive short stories Using Spotify playlists as a discoverability mechanism – here's a playlist of my short stories on Spotify How to market a second edition You can find Doug at SmithWriter.com . Transcript of Interview with Douglas Smith Joanna: Douglas Smith is a multi-award-winning Canadian author of novels, short stories and nonfiction, with over 200 short fiction publications in 36 countries and 27 languages. He's also the author of Playing the Short Game: How to Market and Sell Short Fiction , now out in its second edition. So welcome back to the show, Doug. Douglas: Oh, thank you, Joanna. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me back. Joanna: Oh, yes. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and short stories, in particular. Douglas: Well, I guess I did a fair bit of writing in high school and a bit in university. Then I just drifted away from it, pursuing a business career and raising a family , etc. I always told myself I would go back and chase the writing dream someday. I remember, I was in my early 40s, and I came back from a family vacation, and one of the first things I read was the obituary for one of my all-time favorite writers, Roger Zelazny . He was the American science fiction fantasy writer, and he had died far too early at, I think, 56 from cancer. That just drove home the fact that none of us are guaranteed of a someday . So I started writing that summer and turned out about eight short stories. I joined a writing group to get feedback on my writing. Then about a year and a half later, it was actually on New Year's Eve of the following year, I got my first acceptance letter. So that was a great way to end a year and start a new one. So that's how I started. I started with short fiction. I started because one of my favorite writers died far too young. Joanna: What was your previous career? Douglas: I was an IT executive. Just in case people are wondering, I remained an IT executive. I did not give up the day job, so writing was done in spare time. Especially when I started with short fiction, it's very hard to live and raise a family on the proceeds of short stories. Joanna: I think that's a really important thing to say. I suspected you were going to say that. Then just with perspective— So what year was it that you did that first sale? Douglas: That story came out in '97, so a long time ago. That story actually ended up winning an award . So, yes, it was a good start, but I stayed with writing short fiction for about 10 years. Part of that was inertia, and part of it was just writing a novel at that time seemed kind of daunting. I finally did decide that I needed, for the same someday issue, that I wanted to move into novels, and I better not wait any longer. Joanna: Yes. I mean, obviously the publishing industry is quite different from 1997, and we'll come back to some of the other markets. What have you noticed with short fiction in particular, or in general with the indie author community, and things changing? I mean— This book, Playing the Short Game , you self-published this, right? Douglas: Yes, I did, and my novels as well. My collections, which were the first things I put out, they came out from traditional publishers that are small press publishers, one in the UK and one in Canada. When it came to the point where I was ready to publish my first novel, for me, I saw no upside in trying to go a traditional publishing route. Ironically, my advice is quite different for short fiction . One, I think writers should start with short fiction and that they should pursue the traditional short story markets that are, if anything, far more numerous now than when I started. Thanks to the option of a lot of these short fiction magazines or anthologies, they put out ebook editions, so it's a lot easier. You don't have to worry about the physical distribution, physical production of the magazines. There's still a lot of print magazines around, still a lot of print anthologies, but you'll find there's a lot of options for selling short fiction. Much more than when I started. Joanna: So let's get to some of the pros and cons, I guess. So you said there you do think fiction authors should start with short stories. Why do you recommend that? Why write short stories? What is fun about it? What are the good craft reasons? Douglas: Yes, it is fun. I mean, if you do not like short fiction as a reader, it's going to be difficult for you to be successful as a writer. So that would be the first thing. The standard advice for any writer is you've got to be a reader. If you don't read, you're not going to be a writer. Why short fiction to start with? My main, strongest argument is that it helps you learn your craft. It teaches you how to be a writer. There are far too many indie novels out there that are, quite frankly, terrible. The good thing with short fiction is that it gives you a method where you can try out a lot of different types of stories, types of story structure. You can basically build your toolbox as a writer, and many of those tools are the same ones you're going to need if you move onto novels. The other thing is it gives you a benchmark . If you're writing short stories and sending them out to professional markets—and I assume we'll get into that—you get a wonderful little measuring stick for when you've become a professional writer. Or in other words, when your writing has become good enough that someone out there wants to pay you money to publish it, in the hopes that they will make money from what they publish. So if you don't do that, if you just jump into indie and send your stories out into the world, put them up on retail sites, quite frankly, it's probably not going to be a very good piece of writing. It's hard to develop a craft. One of the complaints I have with a lot of the indie writers out there is, and you see it if you go to convention, all they focus on is, “I've written a book. Now, how can I market it? Please tell me the secret to beating an algorithm.” There are good marketing approaches. The problem is, if you come up with a good marketing approach for your novel, your first novel, it's probably going to do you more harm than good. Because if you get a lot of people to read it, and they read it and say, this is not very good, they're never going to come back to your writing. As opposed to if you've taught yourself the craft of writing, and you become a competent writer, and you get to the point where professional publishers are willing to give you money for your short stories, your writing has reached that point. So when you move to a novel, it's going to be a different beast than short stories, but you're going to have a lot of the skills already in place that you've honed over the time you've been writing short fiction. So that's my main argument for writing short stories, is that it teaches you how to be a writer. One more thing is, the example I love to give is, you can try a lot more points of view: first person, third person. Different story structures , things you want to try. Genres: horror, science fiction, fantasy, mainstream. You can try more of those over 25,000-word short stories than you can in one 100,000-word novel. You've written the same number of words, but you're going to come out at the end of those 20 short stories being much more knowledgeable and a better writer than writing that first 100,000 word novel. Joanna: I mean, I totally agree with you there in terms of the potential for doing shorter stories. I mean, you said 5000 words. What is a short story range, in terms of word count? Because people often get obsessed with this. Douglas: Yes, and the definitions I'll give are from the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers Association. So a short story is anything up to, I think it's 7500 words . Then a novelette is above that, up to 17,750 or 17,500, I can't remember which. Then a novella is above that, up to 40,000 words. Then flash, it varies. Anything typically up to 1000 words is called flash. Your typical short story, if you look at markets out there, they will want something in the range of 3000 to 5000 words . If you write above that, the other tip I'll give is, the longer the story is, the harder it will be to sell. If you've got a 10,000-word story, and an editor loves your story, but they also love two 5000-word stories from two other writers, they're probably going to buy those two stories as opposed to your one big one. They're taking a bigger chance on your single story. Joanna: Okay, well, let's talk about those markets then, because you mentioned the traditional short story markets, but that there are a lot more of them these days. Give us an overview of what you mean by short story markets. Obviously, just so everyone knows, in the book you go through this extensively. So I highly recommend people get the book for more detail, but just give us an overview. Douglas: Well, generally speaking, your markets for any story that you write—and we're going to have to get into the rights that you'll be dealing with when you're trying to market a short story—but simply, it's a magazine. There are lots of magazine markets o ut there, and those are ones that come up with a different issue—not too many do it monthly anymore—but four times a year, three times a year. They are either in print format and/or electronic edition. So they're called serial publications. Then the other main market is an anthology, the anthology markets . Those are books that contain stories from different authors. So those are your two main options. Anthologies typically are themed , so they have the advantage of, if you've got a very strange story, you may luck out and find that there is an anthology coming out of radioactive chickens from space or something. You haven't been able to sell that story of yours, and now you probably have a higher probability. So anthologies and magazines. The other major market would be audio markets. Again, there can be audio anthologies or audio zines as well, and they will be producing essentially a podcast version of your story. They will have a narrator that will read your story and dramatize it. That's the third type. Joanna: Let's talk about the different rights. Because it is quite different, isn't it, to long form fiction and nonfiction. Douglas: In many ways, it's very similar. The main thing that if you're going to start writing at all is understand that you have rights. As soon as you finished a story or a novel, you have rights associated with that creation. So for short stories, when a publisher that you've submitted to comes back to you and says, “Hey, I love this story, I want to publish it,” we typically say, “Hey, I sold a short story.” You actually haven't sold anything. What you're going to be doing is licensing a very particular set of rights to that publisher. They're going to have a number of dimensions. The first dimension I deal with in the book is, I call it the Media Dimension, and we just talked about the three different types of markets. So if you're selling to a print magazine, they're going to want to license print rights. If they're only in electronic format, then they'll want electronic rights . If they're an audiobook publisher, they'll want audio rights. So there's that, there's the three dimensions of types of media, and that's combined with whether they're an anthologist or a magazine. So for example, if I sold a story to a magazine that only has print editions, they would want to license serial print rights. Serial means they're a magazine, and they need print rights to legally publish my story, because that's the format they're in. If they also have an ebook edition, then they'd ask for print and electronic serial rights. The other dimension is language . So, I mean, most of your listeners are going to be writing in English. Then the other dimension is geography. Some publishers, short fiction publishers, are still restricted to a particular geography, and that is usually only for print publishers. So if a magazine publishes in Canada only, and distributes in Canada only, for example, they would ask for first Canadian print serial rights. So all these things in English, all these things, as you see, get combined into a collection of rights that they'll be licensing from you. Joanna: You mentioned first serial rights there, and this is what's quite different. With short stories, you might have first rights and then reprint rights. Douglas: I call them old currents rights. The very first time you sell a story, they will be licensing first rights from you . It'll be first—whatever those other rights were—first print rights, first audio rights, etc. After that, there's a time period associated with rights, and it's called the reversion period. After your story has been published, the rights will revert to you. Meaning that the publisher will say, “Hey, the story is yours again. You can do whatever you want with it.” Typically, if it's a magazine, they will ask for a reversion period that will be somewhere around where the following issue comes out. So if they publish four times a year, they'll probably ask for about a six-month reversion period, and that's very fair. Anthologists will ask for anything from a year to two years after the publication date. So let's say that reversion period has passed, the rights come back to you . Those rights come back as second rights, not first rights. You only get to sell license first rights once. When you do have those rights come back to you though, you can now, what we call, sell a reprint. In other words, you can market to another publication that accepts reprints and sell the story over and over and over again. No matter how many times you sell a reprint, you're always licensing second right. So there's no such thing as third rights or fourth rights or anything. It's one time for first rights, and after that, you can license second rights as many times as you can find a market who wants to publish your reprint . Joanna: I feel like that is one of the big differences with rights for a novel. I mean, I see a lot of authors getting term of copyright contracts, or really, really long time limits. Whereas, as you say with shorts, they're maybe six months or up to two years, but then you can keep selling it over and over again. I'm sure you have sold some of your shorts multiple times over decades. Douglas: Yes, for sure. I've got stories that I've sold 30-plus times. Joanna: Wow. So, well, then for people listening, 30-plus times— How much money can writers expect to get for a short story for the premium traditional markets? Douglas: So that's a good question, and it leads into what my strategy is for short fiction that I recommend to writers. It's that you're only going to get the top rates from a short fiction market if it's a pro market . Pro markets only license first rights, they don't take reprints. So I'll eventually answer your question, but the main point I want to make is my strong recommendation is that when you're sending your stories out, when you try to sell them for the first time, you only submit to the top professional markets. That's the only time you'll ever get a chance to get into an Asimov, or a Fantasy and Science Fiction, or a Lightspeed, etc, because once you've sold that story, they're never going to be interested in it. So you need to, as I say in the book, start at the top. Start at your most desired markets, the ones that have the most cachet . Those are also the ones that pay the top pro rates, and also the ones that get the most awards, press, and nods, etc. After you get the rights back from that, you can market it to any market that takes a reprint. You'll find anything. You'll find markets that will simply publish your story and not give you any money. You can find markets that will pay you up to five, six cents a word for a reprint. Whereas pro rates, I think, they're still at eight cents a word for SFWA . So it really ranges. So how much money you can make from a story kind of depends on what you want to sell your reprint at. I personally warn authors that if you sell a story anytime, it's going to involve work and time on your part. So you should set sort of a minimum dollar amount that you're willing to accept to pay you for your time to work with the editor, go over the print copy before it's published , etc. Joanna: So on that, eight cents a word, it'd be around $400 then for a 5000-word story at premium market. Douglas: Yes. At US dollar rates, yes. Joanna: US dollar rates. Then, let's say, in six months, you get that story back, and then you can do what you like with it. As you said, you can license it over and over again. It's so interesting. I've written now a few short stories and have been in a few anthologies, but basically, I've never submitted to any traditional markets. Mainly because of my lack of patience and the fact that, I guess, I know that if I publish it myself and put it out right now, then I'm going to get some money. Especially if I'm selling direct, I'm going to make more than that $400 from my own audience. So it's a very different definition of success, I guess, in terms of cachet and awards versus money in your pocket now. I noticed that you also sell direct. How do you balance that side as well? Douglas: Sure, so one comment on that. I mean, you have a name, and you have a huge audience and platform, so it's more conceivable that you're going to be able to indie publish a piece of short fiction and get more money than a beginner. So my comments are focused at the beginning writer , and if you want to get the most mileage out of your short story that comes from selling it to a top pro market. It helps you build your resume. You can also build up a backlist. You can attract fans and subscribers to a newsletter, using some of your short stories as reader magnets, etc. So it helps you build up your own network. So, you know, you're in a position where you already have that. If I'm a beginning writer, my advice to them is I would still start with short fiction. So, yes, probably about two dozen of my early short stories are available in ebook format. So those are all stories that I sold first rights for to a traditional market. So in other words, when I did an ebook for those stories, the rights had already reverted back to me. The story had been out. A lot of them were award winners or award finalists. I did it at the time because I was sort of just getting into looking at indie publishing. I didn't have any novels, so I thought I'd try just putting out some of my short stories as individual ebooks, use them as reader magnets, etc. I got a great artist who gave me a great deal on producing covers for them, so they all have the same cover. It was a price that made it sensible to try that experiment. So, yes, if you go to Amazon, any of the retailers, if you go to the bookstore on my website, you'll be able to buy my short stories individually. That's not how I started, and I would never put out a new short story that way. I'd still go to a traditional market for it. Joanna: Okay, I think that's really interesting. I do want to point out to everyone that I grew my audience, and that everyone has to grow their own audience over a long, long time. You've obviously done the same thing, I think starting at different times. I started a decade after you, so 2007 was my first book that I self-published. So it's kind of interesting how things change over time. I do want to just ask about collections because, obviously, you have collections. Here I'm saying a collection as a single author, as opposed to an anthology with multiple authors with shorts. What are your tips around doing a collection, since I am thinking of doing this myself? Douglas: The first step is to make sure that you have enough quality stories . So enough means, you know, minimum 80,000 words. I think a dozen stories that is at least that length would be reasonable. The main point is that those stories all have to be good . A collection, it's like a chain is strong as the weakest length. It's going to be judged on the worst story in the book. So as soon as the reader hits a weak one, sadly, they're probably going to remember that one. So you really need your 12, whatever, best stories. So you need to have written more than 12 stories because probably the 12 that you've written aren't the best. They all should have appeared in a top market because that is one of the ways you can tell it's a good story. Someone paid you pro rates for it. If you have any award winners or award finalists or stories that appeared in annual best of anthologies, they go in as well. So that's the main thing. They have to be quality stories because this collection is going to be a calling card for you. After that, it depends. The next piece, let's say you've picked your great stories that you want to put in the collection, he next thing is, what order do you put them in? The rule for doing collections or anthologies pretty much has stayed the same since I started writing, anyway. Figure out what your best three or four stories are. You put the best one first, and another really good one last, and you put another strong one second. So the idea is you want to pull the reader in with two really good stories and then leave them with a positive memory the collection when they read the last one. If you have another really good one, you should put it in the middle as sort of a tent pole in case things are flagging. So that's the quality criteria for sorting through what order you want to put your stories in. After that, it comes down to, as I say in the book, trying to craft a reader experience . You have to sit down and think, “Okay, they just finished this story. What should come next?” There's so many ways to do that. I write in science fiction, and fantasy, and horror, and some Slipstream, etc. So do I mix all those? Do I put one section for all my science fiction? Do I put one section for my fantasy, etc.? The questions I put out, I alternate, but I also look at the tone. You have to look at the length too. By tone, I mean, if you have a really, really downer story, you might want to follow that with something more upbeat. The reverse is true too. If you have a couple that are like novel at length, you probably don't want to put them back to back. You want to have a shorter story following a long story. It's crafting the reader experience. Joanna: I read a lot of short story collections and anthologies, and it's more that I dip in, and I never, ever read them in order. I usually only read like one story at a time. It's something I do before I go to sleep, like just before bed. So it's very weird because I feel like different readers have different experiences. So we can try our best, but readers might just decide to do what the hell they want. I do have two other points on this. What about including exclusive short stories? So I'm going to do a Kickstarter for my collection, and I'm thinking of including a couple of short stories that have not been seen anywhere else, so they're real exclusives. Then also, I was wondering about extra material. So I always do an author's note as to what inspired the story . I was thinking of expanding those sort of into interstitial pieces . So any thoughts on those two things? Douglas: Yes, both good points. One is if you have a story that has not been published anywhere else, you should include one of those. One, it's a bit of a teaser. If you have a fan who's a completist and they just want to read everything that you write, the only way they're going to be able to read that story is if they buy the collection . So it is a good policy to include one previously unpublished short story in a collection. The additional material, the author notes around stories, I personally love , and I'd recommend it. I mentioned Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite writers, and he had a lot of collections. What I enjoyed about his collections were his either forwards or afterwards where he talks about the story and how the idea arrived, and maybe how it ties into other stories he'd written, etc. I love that. I know I had a couple of comments on my collections where people were saying they didn't like it. They just want to read the short stories. So, I mean, you can't please everybody. I would say, in general, most of the feedback I've received on my short stories, my collections, has been that the reader enjoys learning more about the story . Either how you wrote it, or why you wrote it, or whatever. So I'd recommend putting that in. Sometimes I've done it as forwards, sometimes afterwards. Depends if there's any spoilers. Sometimes both. Joanna: Yes, I think that's really good. I mean, I'm thinking in my special edition for the Kickstarter, I'll include photos if I can, as to some of the things that sparked the idea or a thing to make it a special, special collection. Which I feel is possible now with the print possibilities we can do. I also wondered just on the audio, so at the moment, I narrate my own short stories and just release them as individuals. With a collection, again, I will narrate the whole thing and release that separately. I wondered if you had any thoughts on audiobook collections for short stories? Douglas: Interesting. I'm not sure I have the patience to do my own narration, so I think it's a personal thing. I certainly don't have the expertise to talk about producing audiobooks. I've had a lot of my short stories produced as audio plays, but that's because I've submitted them to audio markets. There are good productions and bad productions. I've sort of found the ones that I absolutely love and who will actually cast a story, and they'll have different voice actors for the different characters. I find that just so awesome. I think if you're an indie writer and you're thinking of doing your audiobooks, I know I would say, first of all, am I willing to invest in the necessary audio setup? Do I have the patience to do the narration and do the editing, etc.? I think it's a personal choice. Audio is a growing market. Joanna: Yes, and it's really interesting because I talked to Spotify at Author Nation last year, and they said what they're often now doing is audio that's under an hour. Generally, an hour of audio is about 9000 words, so pretty much all short stories are going to be under their range of an hour. So they're kind of serving those in their discovery thing for people's commute because that's the average commute. So just a tip for people listening, creating playlists on Spotify of short story collections or anthologies, just with other people. You don't have to publish them. You can just link to them in a playlist. [ Here's a playlist of my short stories on Spotify , most narrated by me.] I think that's actually a really good discoverability mechanism for things like Spotify, which is now trying to get more and more people into audio fiction and audio nonfiction. Douglas: Yes, especially if it leads listeners to your other work. Joanna: Yes, exactly. You can do cross promotion that way. So I can link one of my horror short stories, to one of yours, to one of Mark Leslie Lefebvre’s. So we can make these playlists mixing stories that we like, just as a more discoverability mechanism, as I mentioned. So I think that's something new that's really only emerged in the last couple of years. Anything else on short stories? Because I do have one other question before we finish. Douglas: I'm making notes here because that's going to go into the next edition, in terms of audio versions and Spotify. I mean, there's so much to talk about. One of the reasons I put out the second edition is, well, one, it had been 10 years since the first one. Then, two, when I looked at my notes, there had been so many things that had changed over the past decade. Joanna: Well, that is my last question. I've also just done a second edition of my How To Write Non-Fiction , which now includes memoir and all of this. I know a second edition can be a right pain. So I wondered if you had any thoughts for nonfiction authors who are listening— When do you do another edition? When is it worth it for you? Also, what is the difference in marketing it? Since many people, including me, also have your first edition. Douglas: What I did when I put out the first one, my email is in the back, and people would get in touch with me via the website . I encouraged writers to reach out to me because it was sort of my way of paying forward to new writers to write that book. If they had any questions interpreting what I'd written, or something I didn't cover, I encouraged them to please reach out to me, and a lot of writers did. Sometimes it was just clarifying what I had in the book. Other times it was, “Wow, that's a really good question. I didn't think of that scenario,” and I would just start to keep a file of things to add to the second edition . So when I realized it had been a decade, and I started coming across things like Ralland.com, which was my go to market list, and he stopped updating his website. So I realized that there's probably a lot of other changes. I looked at that file and said, yup, there's ever so much I can put into a new edition. So it was that. When is the right time? I think when you start to look at the first version and say, “Wow, no, that's actually not right anymore,” or, “I should say more about that particular topic.” Joanna: What about the challenges marketing a second edition? Douglas: I'm not big on marketing, I guess. I don't do a lot around that, and probably should do more. For this one, I told my newsletter subscribers. Most of them are readers, not writers, but there is some overlap. The retailer sites help because the first edition sold pretty, pretty consistently. So, now if you go to Amazon and look for this, you're only going to find the second edition. So linking the first edition to, “Hey, there's a new edition,” things like that, but honestly, that was it. Joanna: Well, I must say, you didn't pitch me for this. I pitched you because I saw it in, I think it was a StoryBundle last year. Douglas: Yes, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She will do these wonderful reader bundles. She does at least one a year, etc. I communicate with Kris and Dean fairly regularly, and she reached out to me and said, “I see you're putting out a second edition. I've got a StoryBundle that's coming out in two months. Would you have an ebook edition ready for that time frame?” I said, “Yes, sure. Can you write a new introduction for it?” Joanna: So I think that's important because — People think marketing is just like paying for Facebook ads, but it's also your network, and you've been growing your network for a really long time. Obviously, Kris is an amazing writer. She was also an editor in short story markets and all that. So that's part of your network giving you opportunities, which is just as important. Douglas: Yes, for sure. I know Jason, who runs StoryBundle, so it all helps. There's different ways to market. I know Kris and Dean because I went to their workshop a couple of decades ago. The first one I went to was How to Write Short Fiction. Joanna: Amazing. Douglas: Led by Kris and Gardner Dozois, the late Gardner Dozois. I think Kris is the only person who beat Gardner for a Hugo for Best Editor. Joanna: Wow. I've been on Dean and Kris's workshops and things like that, and that's kind of how I've ended up discovering your work. So just for people listening, again, sometimes these things take decades to come around, but that's okay. Where can people find you, and your books, and your stories online? Douglas: Sure. The best starting point is my website, which is SmithWriter.com . You can find links to my own bookstore or to all the retailer sites. I just completed an urban fantasy trilogy called The Dream Rider Saga, and the books are The Hollow Boys , The Crystal Key and The Lost Expedition . The Hollow Boys won two awards when it came out. The third book, The Lost Expedition , just came out last year, and I had an earlier novel as well. You can find links to those and all my collections on the website. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Doug. That was great. Douglas: Okay, thanks for having me on again, Joanna. The post Writing And Selling Short Stories With Douglas Smith first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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Aristotle for Novelists, And A Strategy For Selling More Books With Douglas Vigliotti 57:05

8 weeks ago57:05

57:05

Why is ‘story' more important than ‘writing'? How can you write characters that engage the reader? And how can you sell more books by connecting authentically? Douglas Vigliotti shares his tips. In the intro, Bookshop.org will start selling ebooks [ TechCrunch ]; LinkedIn for Book Promotion [ ALLi ]; The Money Making Expert, branding and marketing [ DOAC ]; 24 Assets – Daniel Priestley; My J.F. Penn books by location ; Death Valley, A Thriller ; Copyright and Artificial Intelligence [ US Copyright Office ]; Superagency: What could possibly go right with our AI Future – Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato 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 Douglas Vigliotti is the author of four books, a poet, and podcaster. His latest book is Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story . 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 Why Aristotle? Creating characters that resonate with our readers — and the four important elements to keep in mind Why story is more important than writing Creating complications that make readers want to read on The intersection of commerce and art Tips for pitching podcast interviews You can find Douglas at DouglasVigliotti.com and his latest book at AristotleForNovelists.com . Transcript of Interview with Douglas Vigliotti Joanna: Douglas Vigliotti is the author of four books, a poet, and podcaster. His latest book is Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story . So welcome to the show, Doug. Douglas: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Joanna: It's great to have you on the show. So first up, just— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Douglas: My journey is long and winding, but that's probably similar to most writers. I grew up as a pretty, I would say, average or normal American childhood. Youngest of five boys, played hockey, played sports. Believe it or not, writing and books and all of that was not even a thought in my mind until I reached probably my 20s, early 20s, mid 20s. Then kind of a light switch turned on. The first book that I ever wrote, and the first writing that I ever did publicly, was actually a derivative of my business career. It took me following my interest, and growing as a writer and as an artist, to start exploring that more creative side of writing. Then that's how I ended up writing novels and poetry and all that good stuff. Joanna: What was that business? Douglas: My professional career, I started, let's see, 20 years ago. It was sales, selling. I've sold everything from financial services, to medical devices, to payroll and tax filing, to myself. Then I wrote a business book called The Salesperson Paradox , and it was in conjunction with my sales consulting company at the time, and that was how I started into my creative career. So it was totally, totally orthogonal to where I ended up. Joanna: Well, or not. We're going to come back to that because I love this. I love that you have a sales person background. Just so you know, I'm actually the eldest of five children. Obviously, not all boys. So being of five siblings, I completely get, which is very cool. Let's get into the book itself. In case people don't know— Who was Aristotle? Why write a book based on his work? Douglas: So I think in modern day, we throw around the name Aristotle quite a bit because it's referenced a lot in pop culture. I think it's one of those things where you hear the name and you assume—I don't know what you assume. You assume smart, you assume historic, you assume legendary. People probably don't know who he is, and that's always an interesting thing. The fact that he's lasted over 2300 years is something of a testament to itself. So he was a philosopher and a polymath, really. I think his life, it was 384 BC to 322 BC . He studied under Plato, and Plato studied under Socrates before him. When I said he was a polymath, that's really essential to understanding who he is, because he wrote over 200 works that spanned across a plethora of topics . From politics, to economics, to poetics, and all of these different subject matters that ended up becoming, in some cases, the foundational material for many of these disciplines in universities across the world. So the fact that his ideas and his philosophies and concepts have stood the test of time is sort of a testament in itself, as I alluded to. One of the interesting things about those 200 works is that many of them, call it 80%, so I think we've only recovered 30-something of his works. I mean, the number is kind of debated. I don't know how they quantify this, because if they're lost, how do we know how many we recovered? But they've only recovered 30-something of his works. One of those is Poetics . So that is actually the nature of tragedies , but more broadly, storytelling. It's one of the major reasons why I ended up writing this book, obviously. Joanna: You didn't say there that we're talking about Ancient Greece. So we're in Europe. I often think Americans forget that it all started over here in Europe. Douglas: Sorry, I tend to skip over things sometimes, but you are correct. Ancient Greece. Joanna: It's funny because we seem to be at this period in history, in literature, when people just refer a lot to, obviously, the Stoic Movement and a lot about Marcus Aurelius. Obviously, Roman emperor, but the empire that came after the Greeks. A lot of this is resurfacing, isn't it, in culture? Do you think there's some kind of zeitgeist where this is all coming back? Douglas: So in a general sense, or in a broad sense, I think it's more comfortable for people to reference people who are already gone, so to speak. I don't think it's as easy for people to credit living legends or living thinkers as it is to credit people who are gone. So I think there's something to that. I also think that there's something to the idea of grabbing onto something that gives people a framework to think that they know , even though they might not really know. Like foundational philosophical thinkers, they were at some of these topics first, so they have some really strong ideas around a plethora of things. So I think when we bring them to life, to this day and age, we realize, wow, there's really—and I'm going to use a biblical quote here, not to be religious—but it's nothing new under the sun. We are living these same issues over and over and over again, and I just think that there's a lot of resonance for that. Look, I think there's a certain thing to nostalgia that we have as a society. It's a saleable commodity. I didn't write this book because I was trying to fill a void with Aristotle and his ideas and storytelling. To me, when I started to research story as a concept, everything started funneling back to Aristotle . Then I realized, wow, everything is there. You know, it was how I learned about story. So the fact that Aristotle, his ideas in this book came to fruition, was more of a function of me realizing that all the theorists in modern day, or practitioners for that matter—so people in the dramatic world, like Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet or a lot of these people, they'll often reference Aristotle. Or if you read theorists like Robert McKee, they'll often reference Aristotle. So for me, it was only natural to then double down on Aristotle, and read Poetics , and read multiple translations of Poetics , and really understand the text. Then what I quickly realized was how resonant these ideas were in modern storytelling, on both the screen, the page, and in our lives . I think that that's one of the big things that drew Aristotle to storytelling in general was how intrinsically linked it is to living, because we live stories. So I think that the principles that we'll talk about, or some of these ideas that we'll talk about, they are applicable to our life, as well as they are applicable on the page and on the screen. Joanna: Yes, and of course that quote you mentioned is from the book of Ecclesiastes . I quote that in a number of my novels, actually. It's probably my favorite book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes . I think part of that is what you're talking about, is that — There are principles in human nature, as well as principles in story, that don't change, regardless of how many millennia go past. I was thinking as you were talking, like maybe part of the reason we're re-latching onto this now is because there's so much change in the world. With AI, and technology, and social media, and all this constant stream of stuff that there is— Maybe we're sort of harking back to things that don't change, and that perhaps helps a little. Douglas: I totally agree with you. I think when we're talking about stories specifically, there are a couple fundamental elements that are there in almost every story that we tell, at least in Western society. In Western society, the stories we tell, almost all of them, even in sprawling epics or multiple storyline plots and all this stuff, they have three characteristics that are always there. That's a protagonist who wants something, and there's obstacles standing in their way. Those obstacles come both externally and internally. I think if we zoom out and we look at our lives, Joanna Penn's life, Douglas Vigliotti's life, I'm a protagonist who wants something, and I have obstacles standing in my way that are both internal and external. Do I overcome those obstacles? Well, then we end up with an Aristotelian comedy. I end up better off at the end, even if it's only temporarily. Do I succumb to those obstacles, both internal and external? Well, then we have an Aristotelian tragedy because I end up worse off. So these ideas are baked right into our lives. You can see the framework for story everywhere as you walk through life if you understand these core components of what makes up a story. Again, like I said, at least in a Western sense. Joanna: Yes, well, since we're on characters then. A quote from the book, you say — “Novels should contain true characters.” Now, I find this word ‘true' extremely difficult because fiction, you know, it's fiction. True, in general, is very hard. So what do you mean by this? How can we create characters that resonate? Douglas: I think that you hit the nail on the head. True has multiple meanings to multiple people. I'm speaking specifically in the sense of what would Aristotle say would be true. To Aristotle, there's four elements to characters, in general. They are goodness , so it's your characters are good if their choices are good. Appropriateness would be, are they acting appropriately? Not right or wrong, but based on who they are, are they acting truly to who they are? So are they acting appropriately? So that directly links to this trueness of character in, are you writing characters that are true to who that character is? Not true to real life, true to who that character is. There's a big difference there. It's not about fact and fiction. The third element is relatability . That has more to do with, are you making the character relatable? So are you giving them characteristics that embody human characteristics? The best way to do that is through imperfection. Despite what our world wants to try to convince us every day — We are relatable because of our imperfections — not because of our perfections. So there's this big chasm between what we see every day and what we should be depicting in our stories or on the page, and what we actually relate to. If we sat down and had a conversation, we're probably going to relate based on some of our struggles more than we're going to relate on some of our successes. Then the fourth piece is consistency . Even if you were to write a character, a true character, who is inconsistent, Aristotle would say, by nature, they should be consistently inconsistent. We see this all the time in storytelling with unreliable narrators. They are consistently inconsistent. What ends up happening with those unreliable narrators is this ties into something else that Aristotle talks about or that you can observe in stories, but eventually what they say doesn't line up with what they do. It's always what a character does, it's always what we show, it's always about action. That is the more important piece. So we can get into trouble in life or in stories if we're only listening to what characters are saying. I could say one thing and do another, and doing is more important than saying. So to answer that question and peel back to it, those are the four characteristics that would make up a true character in an Aristotelian sense. Joanna: Yes, I think it's an interesting way forward. I like the relatability because if you're writing, let's say sci fi, and you have aliens there, or you're writing something literary and writing from the perspective of like a plant or an animal or something— You still have to have relatability to the human who is reading the book. That kind of comes across whatever type of character you're writing, essentially. Douglas: 100%. Aristotle is very specific in Poetic, saying that he believes that the two reasons why storytelling began for us humans, one is because of imitation. So we learn how to imitate to live. So as young kids, we imitate the world around us, the people around us, our parents, and that's how we learn how to actually live. So storytelling is a derivative of that. So we should be imitating what is happening in the real world. Not writing realist fiction or realist work, but we should be embracing all of human nature has to offer, because that is why, according to Aristotle, storytelling actually began. It's what's relatable to humans, so we should be reflecting all of those qualities in our work. For anyone who's interested, the second reason is rhythm . So he thinks we have a natural rhythm, and I tend to agree with him because even if you are writing, all writers know voice, they know pacing, they know tone. Rhythm to your prose, just like rhythm in music, is really, really important. I think this is one of the big reasons why, as a writer, you don't even need to know grammar to be able to write. If you have rhythm, it's going to work on the page. You have editors for that stuff. I think musicians are great examples of this because so many of them don't learn how to—you know, top level musicians, I mean, people who are iconic. In the book I talk about some examples of Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen, and American musicians who didn't know how to read music, and things turned out pretty well for them. Not to say that that's the benchmark, but it's countless, the amount of “I don't know how to read music, I learned how to play the guitar.” All of that's based off of rhythm. Writing and voice on the page is no different, really. Aristotle would call that your meter, your poetic meter. Joanna: Yes, that's interesting. Actually, you do say this in the introduction, “Writing is not story.” I guess there you mentioned you don't have to know grammar to write story, and this is a tension. Of course, you're a poet as well, and writers often prioritize the intricacies of language before the story. Especially in this sort of age of AI, when word generation, however you generate words, whether you're writing them by hand or you're generating them with AI, that doesn't matter so much. How can we prioritize story over the intricacies of writing? Douglas: So, for me, this is a really important distinction. I think oftentimes writers, at least through conversations that I have with them, we confuse writing and story. To me, there's a very, very clear distinction, in that story is governed by what I would call principles, whereas writing is governed by style. I really have no interest in telling someone how I think they should write their story. I don't even believe that you can. Even the best prose—and I'm using air quotes because best is so subjective—it could take me 15, 20 pages to get used to that writing or I could never get used to that writing. Writing is that different from person to person, writer to writer. I have this funny saying, where it's, “Story is why they come, writing is why they stay.” Writing is the tool that writers utilize to tell their story. Story is the foundational component of what you are trying to achieve. That's why you can watch movies, you can listen to audiobooks, you can engage with all these other forms of media and learn how to tell story. That doesn't mean you're going to learn how to write because writing is a different thing. Aristotle does have some ideas on what he thinks around style, of course, and I have my own opinions on that as well. Ultimately, what I'm trying to achieve with Aristotle for Novelists , let's say, is more of a foundational education on the principles of what makes up a story. So there is a difference between the two, at least in my view. Joanna: So I guess one of the other things, we talked a bit about character there, but we should also talk about plot. You say, “Novels have a complication and a resolution.” What are complications, and how can we create those that fascinate readers and make them want to read on? Even though they may, or sometimes we feel like, maybe they've heard this before or read this before? Douglas: So my favorite Aristotle quote is, “Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill.” What he's talking about there—and when he says poets, he's talking about something much wider in scope than literally poets. The same could be said, by the way, for poetics in general. What he meant by poetics is something much larger in scope than poetry, so for anybody who's wondering that. What he's talking about there is the difference between a complication and a resolution. So we all know that when we come to our stories, we come because we have an idea for the complication of that story. We have a character who is put in a situation and we wind that up. What he's saying is that it takes the truly great writers the ability to unwind that, to unravel that knot. There's so many ways that we could go wrong when we're doing that. Whether it's lack of believability, lack of cohesion, illogical, impossibility, irrationality. There's so many different ways that we could falter as we try to resolve the complication that we depicted in the early part of our story. I find it helpful when I read books and when I watch movies—I'm a bit of a story junkie, so I do both quite a bit. I look particularly for, when does that writer or when does that story begin to unravel the knot? Some would say, in a traditional three-act structure sense, you begin to unravel the knot—and Aristotle would say this—when that change of fortune actually happens. So if it's at a tragedy, it would be when that character is at the ultimate high before they fall. Or if it was in a comedy, it would be at that ultimate low before they rise. You start to unravel that knot a little bit. I find it helpful to start thinking about and answering little questions that you propose earlier in your novels, somewhere around the midway point. Never actually answering that big question, right? You want to keep that tension for as long as possible. Then there's other people who would suggest you keep that tension as taut as possible all the way through until you get to the very, very end. So what you'll find is there's a lot of differences in how people achieve this. I think one of the things that you will see consistently is there is a complication and there is a resolution. One of the things that Aristotle is really, really insistent about is he calls it avoiding Deus Ex Machina. So things coming from outside of your plot to solve plot problems. I see this all the time, I'm going to be honest, in stories where it's like, solve the plot problems within the existing world that you depicted. Now, obviously you can introduce new characters and all of that stuff, but when stuff comes out of left field to solve a plot problem, you're not unraveling the knot well, so to speak. He has a great quote, and he says, “The solution to a plot problem should come from the story itself.” I find that to be a really informative quote, and also a benchmark to try to hit every time you write a story. Whether that story is short as a poem in five sentences, or whether it's extrapolated out to an 80,000 word novel. Joanna: That's actually great. People are like, oh, but how do I do that? Then I'm like, well, that's why we do self-editing, because if you get to a point in your book and you finish your book, you just go back and edit in something earlier on in the process. So I don't understand how people can't figure that out later on. As you say, you can just put in things earlier on that will help you resolve it later. That's why we edit. So I think that's quite cool. I want to come back to something you said earlier about your previous career and your book, The Salesperson Paradox . I feel like this is a problem for most authors. So if you're a poet, you've got this book, Aristotle for Novelists , you've got other books, and you also come from sales. So how are you marketing your books? How are you selling your books? How can authors who care about the craft also care about sales and marketing? Douglas: I do think that they are driven by two completely different motors. I have this conversation since I have my toe in both worlds, and I have for a long time now. The creative side is run by a different engine than the business side is, at least for me. I do think one informs the other when you start thinking about what it's like when your actual work hits the real world and becomes a commercial entity. Just because you're near and dear to it, and it's so close to you. Believe me, I write super personal stuff, so I totally, totally get it. For anybody who's out there saying, “I'm an artist, and I write from the heart,” — The intersection of commerce still exists if you want to sell your work to people, if you want your work to be seen. For sales, there's one thing that The Salesperson Paradox hits on, and that has been the bedrock for my success in that world. It's simply helping people get what they already want. We lose sight that there's people out there that already want what you have. You have to find them and give it to them. That's it. It's that simple. You're never going to force somebody to want something that they don't want, but if you find the people who want the thing that you provide, you will be able to sell much more of whatever you're selling. It's a matter of helping, not selling. You're helping somebody get what they want, not selling them a good or a service. It's face to face, over the phone, on a zoom, anywhere. That distinction is critical. If we look at books in general, I often say that there's four elements to value, and that value framework is time, status, ease and money. So we all want things that save us time or increase the speed of things. Apps do that, you mentioned AI before. All of that hits on time value. Time, it's a value driver, innate value driver for humans. Ease. Am I making it easy for the person to say yes, or am I making it hard? The easier I make it for someone to say yes, the more likely they're going to say yes. You can infuse that into when you're doing outreach via email or outreach via phone. How easy are you making it for people to say yes? Come have this conversation with me about your book or whatever. There's multiple ways that you could go about something. Are you making it easy for someone to say yes? That's a big driver for us. It's a big driver for me, and it's a big driver for most people. Status is another huge innate human driver. We all have people we want to look good toward, and can I help that person look good towards those people? That is a huge, huge value driver. It happens in a micro-sense when you're dealing with people on a one-off level, like a one-on-one level. So it's like, I don't know, maybe that person wants to look good to their mother. Maybe this person wants to look good to an audience. Maybe this person wants to look good to their boss. Can you help that person look good to that individual? That's a huge innate value driver because we are all status creatures, whether we want to admit it or not. The fourth piece is money. If you can make someone money or save them money, that's a huge value driver . So I always look at when I'm trying to sell things on a commercial aspect, how could I fit it into that value equation, whether it's on a micro sense or a macro sense. I know that if I'm able to create some kind of value proposition around that, at least I'm going to have a story that I'm going to be able to communicate. So that's going to put me in a better position to actually sell things. I hope that's helpful. Joanna: It's helpful as a framework. So like if someone has a thriller novel or a sci-fi novel— How does that fit into that framework when there are lots of other thriller novels and sci-fi novels out there? Douglas: 100% agree with you. It becomes really hard when you're talking about fiction. I have a podcast, it's called Books for Men, and when I have conversations with other men about books—because the podcast is designed to inspire men to read—the number one thing is that most of them aren't reading fiction, and they're reading nonfiction. The reason why they're reading nonfiction is because it has a higher value proposition . So when we're looking at the bigger picture, fiction struggles to sell consistently for a lot of people because it doesn't fit into the value framework. The only way that you're going to be able to get people to consistently buy your products is by developing your own relationship with them and creating things. Like creating a podcast, having a blog, you have to do that. If you don't do that, you're never going to sell the thing consistently, unless you just want to roll the dice and look hope for luck. I think that in a world of AI, that personal connection as creators, writers, filmmakers, is going to be even more important. People are going to want to buy from people that they know, like, and trust. So the more you can build that personal connection with people, the better off I think you're going to be in the long term. So while people are all concerned about the craft element of writing a thriller novel—believe me, I'm a craft junkie, and I totally empathize with that—but — You should also be thinking about, how am I going to create a personal connection with my readers? Do they know what Joanna Penn is about? Do they know what Douglas Vigliiotti is about? If they do, they're going to be more likely to buy from you. In an art sense, it's really the only strategy that you have moving forward. Unless you're lucky enough where you're that one in a million shot, where your work just shoots up the charts and everything you become after that becomes saleable. You hit on something very, very important. Fiction in art doesn't necessarily fit into that framework, and that's what makes it such a challenge to sell it. Joanna: Yes, or you pay a ton for Amazon and Facebook ads. That's another way. Douglas: For me, that's a tactic. It's not a strategy. Like, so that's a great tactic, but to me, tactics are endless. Like they're endless. What works for some people, might not work for somebody else. Strategically, I think the better bet is to try to create something where people can find you being you. It goes back to that whole help people get what they already want. Do your best to create the thing and draw people that would like that thing into it. Not try to create the thing for people. Just create the art, create the thing, and then try to build the framework around your creative career that people come in and they engage with you because they're interested in you. To me, that's like the only selling point that we're going to have as we move forward into this new world, 10, 20, 30 years. I mean, people have a really myopic view about what is happening with AI right now. It's not meant to scare people. It's just how crowded and how cloudy the content and art and creation aspect already is, it's going to get 10 times worse. So the only thing that I think is worth investing in, from a sales standpoint, is individuality and building something that is personally who you are, and so people can engage with that. I know that's scary for a lot of writers, but to me, it's inevitable. It's the only thing that we have, the only selling point we have moving forward. Joanna: Yes, I often say — Double down on being human. Your voice, and your face, and I'd say an author's note in the back of fiction grounds your story and why you care as a person. On this, you have a podcast, Books for Men, as you mentioned. Obviously, I have this podcast, I've had other podcasts. I think voice is a big thing. As you say, people can get to know you, like you, and trust you. So I'd say podcasting is a great way to do book marketing. Obviously, you think the same thing. Just as tips for people listening, if people listening want to pitch a podcast, not you or me, obviously, but other podcasts—because I get terrible pitches every single day. Your pitch was very good. What are your tips for people who want to pitch for podcast interviews around their books? Douglas: Get to the point. Not you. That's the tip. Get to the point. The briefer you can make it, and the more pointed that you could make it, the better off you are. If I could do the email in three sentences, I would do it. If it has to be five, then I'll do it in five. If it has to be 10, then I'll do it in 10. I want to make the email as short as I possibly need to make it so you understand why I'm emailing you, where the benefit is, and what I'm asking you to do. Even when I had my own podcast where I was doing a lot of interviewing, I was reaching out to a lot of really big names in the space and trying to get them to come onto the show because that's how I thought I was going to be able to drive audience. Even in that sense, I was doing extremely short emails. So most people when they email somebody, they think that telling them everything they need to know because they don't want to miss a little possible thing that could spark Joanna, or Doug, or somebody, to say, “Oh, I like that.” The reality is, is if as soon as you get an email from somebody that is a chunk of text, you don't read any of it. The shorter that you can make the email, the more prone that person is to actually reading it and being super, super pointed. The other rule is, if you wouldn't say it in real life, don't say it in an email. I think emails live forever, and we forget that when you press send, that email is going to sit there. I've sent a lot of bad emails over the years to learn this lesson, and me thinking to myself, wow, how did I say that in an email? Now one of the biggest things that I focus on, aside from brevity, is would I say this to this person face to face? If I wouldn't say it face to face, then I wouldn't put it in an email. It turns out that those two things go hand in hand. How often do you go up to somebody and read them three pages of material about who you are, what you're doing, what your books are about? Never. What you do is you get right to the point. “Hey, I'm Doug. I'm a writer. X, Y and Z,” blah, blah, blah, whatever. I mean, that's not what I would say in an email, but you do it short and brief, and then let the person respond. Joanna: Just to come back there, you said, “what the benefit is,” and you said that quite quickly. Just to be clear, it's the benefit to the podcaster, not the benefit to the author. I get so many pitches that say, “I'm blah, blah, blah author. I've written this book. When can I schedule myself onto your show for my book tour?” Douglas: Well, here's the thing, with books specifically—you know this better than anybody, you probably get tons and tons—podcasts have almost become an adjunct of the publishing industry. A new book comes out, and now this is the best way to sell this. It's the same method that was utilized forever, where you'd go on radio talk shows, you'd go on Johnny Carson, I don't know, like all these talk shows. Now that there's podcasts, and because of technology there's so many of them, what the publishing industry realized is the best way to sell books is the same way it's always been to sell books, which is get people on shows and get people in front of audiences that they don't already have. So now, people like yourself and all of these podcast hosts are getting hundreds and hundreds of pitches, especially if the show is popular, getting so many of these. So what could you do to stand out from that? Get it so someone would actually read it. So how do people read things? If it's short and to the point at why it would be beneficial for that person to have you on the show, then in my world, you're more prone to get through . Again, this is not something that I've just utilized in outreach with podcast pitching. I have 20 years of sales experience where I've utilized this in other aspects too, to get in front of prospective buyers and whatnot. It's short, and it goes back to what I was saying before. You want good guests. I don't have guests on my show anymore, but I would want good guests on my show. What I don't want is a long, extended email about all these different things. What I do want is a short, polite, direct email of telling me why you're emailing me and why it would benefit me to have you on the show, in as short as possible. I found that people, in general, they respond well to that strategy over the span of life, not just in the podcast world. It's because you're putting it in their world. I'm having respect for you. I'm having empathy for you. You're reading a million emails, so how could I make it easy for you to say yes to me? Something that I was talking about before, am I saving you time? And status, am I making that person look good if they have me on the show? These are all things that a human would innately consider, even if they're not consciously considering them. So you could sell something, yourself in this situation, via email by utilizing that value framework that I was referencing before. Joanna: Fantastic. So lots of tips there. Where can people find you, and your books, and everything you do online? Douglas: So it's very, very easy. For me, just go to my website, DouglasVigliotti.com . If you want to know more about the podcast, BooksForMen.org is the best place to check that out. Again, that's a podcast to inspire more men to read. Then for the book, it's AristotleForNovelists.com . Joanna: Well, thanks so much for your time, Doug. That was great. Douglas: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. The post Aristotle for Novelists, And A Strategy For Selling More Books With Douglas Vigliotti first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

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Fair Use, Copyright, And Licensing. AI And The Author Business With Alicia Wright 55:31

9 weeks ago55:31

55:31

How does generative AI relate to fair use when it comes to copyright? What are the possibilities for AI licensing? Alicia Wright shares her thoughts on generative AI for authors. In the intro, Publishing leaders share 9 Bold Predictions for 2025 [ BookBub ]; OpenAI launches Operator [ The Verge ]; Bertelsmann (who own Penguin Random House) intends to work with OpenAI to expand and accelerate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the media, services, and education sectors; Death Valley — A Thriller . Today's show is sponsored by my patrons! Join my community and get access to extra videos on writing craft, author business, AI and behind the scenes info, plus an extra Q&A show a month where I answer Patron questions. It's about the same as a black coffee a month! Join the community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Alicia Wright is an intellectual property lawyer for a technology company, and also writes science fiction and mystery as Alicia Ellis. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in writing popular fiction, she is expertly placed to comment on AI as it applies to writers. 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 Using AI as a brainstorming partner and collaborator AI as fair use because it creates something transformative Using the right prompts to produce quality outputs from AI AI is the next technological change in our society Licensing your IP for training and AI usage — what to look for in contracts Training the AI systems to include your work in generative searches Developing your authorial voice and creative confidence Uitlizing AI agents in your author business You can find Alicia at WriterAlicia.com and on social media @WriterAlicia . Transcript of Interview with Alicia Wright Joanna: Alicia Wright is an intellectual property lawyer for a technology company, and also writes science fiction and mystery as Alicia Ellis. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in writing popular fiction, she is expertly placed to comment on AI as it applies to writers, which we're talking about today. So welcome to the show, Alicia. Alicia: Thank you so much, Jo. I'm happy to be here. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk to you. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing, and also into AI and technology. Alicia: All right. Well, I should say that I got into AI and technology first. I was always one of those science and math people . Math was my favorite subject in school. Not a lot of people say that, but I loved math. I loved the sciences. I always was reading forward in my textbooks. Then my mother didn't want us watching TV, so we read a lot of books . I got into writing poetry, writing song lyrics, writing short stories, and the creative side of me came out. It never occurred to me to write something longer—because I was a math/science person—until I got into law school, and there you have to write all the time. You have to write briefs, you know, these 30 page documents. Then it occurred to me that, hey, I'd like to write a novel. So I would say the technology interest was always there, and the creative interest, the writing, came later. In my work as a patent attorney, I have encountered AI-related applications throughout the years, even generative AI technologies as far as 10 years back . So I had an interest in that even before it became relevant to the writing industry. Joanna: So when did you get into writing fiction? How many years have you been writing fiction, as well as doing your incredible job? Alicia: I have been writing fiction, specifically long form fiction, for as long as I have been a lawyer . The time is almost exact. I know this because I was in my final year of law school and sort of had this crisis. Like, I'm graduating law school, do I want to be a lawyer? I spent time thinking about that. Just sat down for really a day and went through what I would do if it wasn't law. I decided that I did want to do law, but I also wanted to write novels. So as soon as I graduated law school, I enrolled in some local writing courses. So I've been practicing law and writing for the same amount of time. Joanna: Which is approximately? Alicia: 17 years. I got into indie publishing in maybe 2013, but I've been writing for 17 and a half years. Joanna: Brilliant. So you mentioned there that you, as a patent attorney, you look at AI applications. You did mention using a bit of generative technology there. How do you currently use AI tools as part of your creative and business processes? Alicia: In my business work, well, I see a lot of AI technologies in what I'm writing patent applications for , and that's what I was referring to before. In managing a patent portfolio at the cybersecurity firm where I work right now, I definitely use AI technologies to help inventors organize their thoughts when they submit to us to do analyses. Sometimes I'm dealing with a huge patent portfolio, and AI can help organize the analyses and my thoughts on that. In my writing, I use it mostly at the planning stages as a brainstorming partner. I love AI as a brainstorming partner. I always tell it that it's my junior partner because it tends to go off on its own, and I like to reel it in to run the show, if you will. I give it my ideas. Often I'll ask it to, say, “Give me five ideas on how to put these things together,” or, “Give me 10 ideas on how to put these things together.” Even if they're bad ideas, it helps me sort of organize my thoughts. Like, why don't I like these ideas? So, together, we walk through what I want to do. We create a Save the Cat outline. Which I usually start it off once we have all the ideas on the table, I ask it to create the Save the Cat outline. Usually, I have a lot of changes. We make those changes, and then we'll break it down into a scene list that follows the three act structure. I often have it generate character sketches and setting sketches — because, honestly, I'm no good with thinking about what does this setting look like. What kind of house is this? Bricks? Facade? I don't care. So the AI is really helpful with that. There's a lot of editing, a lot of back and forth. AI is a great partner for brainstorming and plotting. When we get into the writing, my authorial voice is really important to me, in part, probably because I have diagnosed OCD. I have experimented with using AI in pretty much every aspect of my process, but for me, personally, the writing part I have to do. I would spend more time editing AI output than I would have just writing it myself. I tend to use dictation and input the dictation output into ChatGPT to clean it up — — and they'll catch the dictation error, so I have a much cleaner copy going forward. Then when I'm done writing, I'll use a little AI for developmental editing. Joanna: I love that. You sound similar to me in the way you're using it. You're using the word ‘partner', your junior partner, your collaborator. You use the word ‘we', which I really like as well because I feel that too. Like with Claude, I feel this is almost my—not so much co-writer—but like you said, collaborator. It really is a backwards and forwards way of doing it. I can hear the smile in your voice, and I have a smile in my voice as well, because this is fun, right? This makes it more fun for us. Alicia: It's so fun, and I feel like my work is better, that this brings out a better side of me. Connections that I hadn't made, problems that I didn't foresee. It's having a partner, so that it's improved. It's not just me, it's me plus some artificial intelligence. Joanna: Yes. So we could geek out about how amazing it is all day, but I did want to ask you about some of the objections that authors have. You did this great talk at Author Nation, and you were so clear on it. I don't think there are many people in our community who have degrees in computer science and law, and an MFA, and are an active indie author. I think you're the only person, right? Alicia: Maybe. Joanna: Maybe. Let's start with one of the most common objections from authors, which is, “AI companies stole our work.” What are your thoughts on this, and how does it relate to fair use? Alicia: So when I think of the word stolen, I think of an illegal taking. So I think, are we talking about copyright infringement here? I would say, in my opinion, that the work is not stolen. The reason I phrase it that way, in my opinion, is because I'm sure a lot of folks know, there's ongoing litigation about whether the use of copyrighted works in training data is copyright infringement . Until those are actually decided, until those cases are actually decided, I can't say definitively, but I feel pretty confident that the training of AI using copyrighted works is fair use. Fair use is an exception to copyright infringement. Basically it says, yes, we copied copyrighted works, except we did it for a use where this exception is cut out. Fair use exists in order to allow us to grow from existing copyrighted works, to spur creativity so that you can create based on what already exists. There's four factors in the US that courts consider for fair use, and one of the key factors is, is your use transformative? I think that's really important to what fair use is about. Have you created something new? Have you created something that can be used in a different way? I feel strongly that the use of copyrighted works to train AI is so transformative, and is what fair use is about. There's case law that's related to using copyrighted works, even for AI in the past, but not for generative AI in the way we're talking about now. I feel that the case law is pushing US courts towards saying that this is fair use. We will see, probably in a couple years, for sure. I would say that I don't feel like AI is theft . I feel like it will be shown at a later date that AI is not theft, but I can't say 100%. I certainly think that it is premature to say that it is theft. Joanna: It's interesting. I mean, I would have thought that the US would be further ahead on this. Maybe with your incoming Trump administration, those cases might get settled more quickly. Here in the UK, our government has literally, like yesterday, come out with the AI plan , and they are almost pushing for an exception around data training in copyright, which is really interesting. We have a very different rule around this. The argument here with the British government is that these strict things restrain innovation or restrict innovation. As you mentioned, fair use is so we can have more innovation, and we don't want to stifle that. Alicia: Exactly. Joanna: Another thing that I hear is that ChatGPT and all of this, they're just “plagiarism machines.” They can't create anything original. They can only spit out things that come from other people's work. What are your thoughts on that? Alicia: Calling AI plagiarism, saying that that's all it does, reflects a basic misunderstanding of how AI works at a technical level . These generative AI models at their core are statistical models. They've taken in—read, if you will—millions, billions of pieces of writing or images, in the case of the image generators. Then based on basically statistics—it's much more complex than that, but I'm going to simplify it by saying it's a statistical model—it determines what token—a token could be a word or a symbol, like a period—what token comes after the previous token, and it forms output based on that, one token at a time. The reason I want to emphasize that it's one token at a time is that you're not lifting even phrases from existing work. It's not at the phrase level. It's at the word level, just like you and I write. You can't take a combination of words taken from millions of other works and say you plagiarized it because you took a word that was over here and a word that was over there. It's not a logical reflection of how AI works at the technical level . Asking, can it only create things that already exist? I would say humans also can only create things that already exist. We all learn from what exists. You're going to see cliche phrases in AI output because, statistically, you'll see words together that you often see together in writing. So you're going to see things like, “She released the breath that she didn't know she'd been holding,” because you've seen it a lot of other works. In the same way that that's not plagiarism when you write it, it's not plagiarism when the AI writes it, either. Joanna: I keep hearing people say — “Oh, this is a crap book. It must have been generated by AI,” — with the assumption that only bad quality writing can be generated. So given that you and I use this a lot, our prompts are very, very different to somebody who is brand new to generative AI. Do you think that the quality—and I know quality is a tough word—but—Is the quality of writing from generative AI when you use the right prompts? Alicia: I think — Prompts make a huge difference. Especially if you're using AI for the writing part, say, for a first draft or for a final draft, however you use it in the actual writing part, I think it's important to prompt it to write like your authorial voice. The more you do that, I think it's going to be closer to you and may even be better writing, assuming that your author voice is well developed. I think if you just ask the AI—well, I've seen from experience—that if you just ask the AI to write something, it's not necessarily going to be a style that's appropriate for what you're writing. The more specific you are about how that writing should look, or even give it samples of your writing, describe your own writing, the writing gets better. By better, I mean closer to what you as an author want it to be. The more specific you are in your prompt, the more you learn how to talk to the AI in a way that it interprets the way you want it to. Joanna: Yes, I agree. I mean, sometimes my prompts can be like 100 words. With Claude, I'm prompting with whole sentences and beats and all kinds of things that at the beginning of my use I didn't necessarily know how to do. Again, coming back to the co-writer idea, the collaborator idea, it's like working with another person. You mentioned you're OCD. I'm not OCD, but I'm certainly into control around my writing. I found it very hard to work with a human co-writer, but I love working with Claude for this reason. [My use of the AI tools] developed over time. You don't just do it from your first interaction. Alicia: Right. I 100% agree with that. I've been using AI in my work, in my planning for my writing, and bits and pieces in my actual writing since it first went mainstream the end of 2022. My prompts are so much longer now than they were then because I've learned how they're going to respond. Then my prompts for different AI models are different. My prompts for Claude might be different than my prompts for ChatGPT because I have a sense of how they interpret things. My prompts have gotten more specific, and I chain my prompts together because that's something you learn. It's a skill, using generative AI as a tool. Joanna: Yes, and that is why I've been harping on about this for so long, because every month that goes past that people don't even try it for little things, they are missing out on time to learn what is essentially, what I think, it kind of underpins the next technological change in our society. A bit like the internet changed so much, this is going to change so much. Do you feel it's that significant, as well? Alicia: That is going to change a lot? Absolutely, and there's a lot of change that I look forward to. I'm interested in how the writing industry is going to look when these legal cases are decided. Speculate and say that it's determined that it is okay to train AI models based on copyrighted works. I'm interested to see how those who are so anti-AI in the writing industry would respond to that. But more than that — I'm interested in what's coming next. What's going to happen with AI next? I'm hard of hearing, and I'm really looking forward to outside of the writing industry, some sort of captions. You know, they're making smart glasses. I want smart glasses with captions . I'm just waiting for it. I'm rubbing my hands together. I can't wait. Some of this stuff is going to be life changing. Joanna: Wow, okay. So you mean you're looking at someone while wearing the smart glasses, and as they speak, you'll see captions of what they're saying? Alicia: That's the dream. Joanna: That is amazing, and of course, why wouldn't you have that? That just seems very sensible. So I don't even think that's that far away, surely. Let's hope so. Well, look, let's come to those court cases. So in the USA, and there are still these open court cases against various AI companies , but there are also now far more companies that have done intellectual property licensing deals for data training , including some publishers and media companies. Now, as we record this in the middle of January 2025, a company called CreatedByHumans.ai has just launched, and they're partnering with the Authors Guild in the US. The aim is to help authors license their IP for training and AI usage. Now, this is a non-exclusive thing, and authors can choose how the data is used. What are your thoughts on the opportunities of this kind of licensing for AI and what should authors keep an eye out for in any contracts? Alicia: I think the main thing I want to say about this is, if you're being offered a licensing contract for using your work to train AI, that I would jump on that. It may be that soon courts bring down decisions that this is fair use, and in that case, they can use your work without a license. So someone's offering you money for it now, I would say, get into those negotiations and think about getting that locked down. Specifically with respect to terms, I would say, know the scope and the type of model that your work is going to be used for . If it's going to be used for a general purpose that could be used to create competing works, then maybe you want to be paid more than if it's going to be used internally at law firms, for example. So know what it's going to be used for because that tells you what the value of this license is. I would say, make sure that your terms don't include derivative works , or are very specific about what derivative works are included in what you're giving. You don't want someone using AI to generate works that are directly based off your work, like sequels. Just make sure that that's something that's out of the scope of the license. It would exclude anything about sub licenses , unless you're getting paid for a sub license. Ideally, put a term on it, on the licensing of your work, because this area is developing. You don't know what's going to happen five years from now, 10 years from now. There may be whole new clauses that you want in there because of how technology has developed. So I would, personally, try to avoid a license that's 20 years or the term of your copyright because you want to be able to develop that license as the technology develops. I would also limit how your work is going to appear in outputs , meaning the percentage of your work that can appear in outputs. It is unlikely that with a general purpose chat bot where millions or billions of works are used to train that a significant portion of your work would appear in the output because it wouldn't have that large an input on the statistical model that is the AI model. However, you don't know how big the model is going to be or how many works are going to be used to train it. So I think it could be worthwhile to have a percentage, say, only 2% of my work at a time can appear in any given outbreak. That's something that they can program as a layer above a generative AI model, so that it sort of screens that before any output gets put out to a user. So that's something that I would have in there as well. In general, make sure your contract has remedies, so that if there's a breach, you can cancel the contract, for example. As opposed to just getting paid out, or whatever remedies you prefer, make sure they're outlined in there. Ideally, you want a right to audit what's happening with your work in the training, so that you can take advantage of those remedies. If you can't see what's going on, then the remedies aren't doing you much good. Joanna: Those are all really useful things. It's funny because the first thing you said was, get into this because things might change, and we might not get anything if it becomes fair use. The other thing I thought is we almost have a burning platform on the creation of synthetic data. So I've been looking at the OpenAI's o1 model, and some people are saying that one of the reasons it was created is because it can create really good synthetic data to train the o3 models. Alicia: Oh, wow. Joanna: I know. I was like, wow— If they can do really good synthetic data, they don't even need to take our data. Although I guess the original sin, as such, may still stand. I don't know. I mean, any thoughts on that? Alicia: Well, I hadn't heard that about the o1 and the o3 model, but synthetic data, that's something that I'm excited about because I want these models to improve . I want them to use my work to train the models. Synthetic can write more like me, make my job easier. I'm excited for more training data. I hope that more folks in the writing industry get on board and allow their works to be licensed if allowance is needed . Even if allowance is not needed, I know that folks in the AI industry are feeling the pushback from the writing industry, and it may slow them down. I don't want them to be slowed down. I want to see this stuff develop. Joanna: It's interesting that we both want our data in the models. Partly, I also think there's a big change in generative search, in that I mainly use ChatGPT now to do my searches. So I've been trying to do sort of book discovery, you know, “Give me 10 books that are action adventure thrillers with a female protagonist set in this area.” Then it gives me 10, and I'm like, “Well, what about this book by JF Penn?” I'm like almost trying to train it to think of my books as well. What do you think about generative search and people using these models for searching? If we're not there, we just won't be found. Alicia: If we're not there, they just won't be found. What do you mean by that? Joanna: Well, as in, the models have access to certain data and certain data that's on the internet. So a lot of the time, it can look at Goodreads, or it can look at Amazon. I want ChatGPT and Claude to know J.F. Penn , so that if someone is searching for something to read—and a lot of the apps that go on top of things now are powered by these tools— I want the models to know my writing so that it can promote me or recommend me if people go looking for things like I write. Alicia: Oh, for sure. I know there are anti-AI folks in the writing industry who don't want AI anywhere near their work. I'm more what you just said. I want AI to be able to find me. I want AI to be able to write more like me. I believe strongly in my own creativity and my ability to create something that is specifically me, and because of that, I'm not concerned about AI being near my work. I want it to help me. I'm not scared about how its use is going to impact my marketability because I know what I've got. Joanna: I love that, and I actually think the same thing. I wonder if this is creative confidence that comes from—like both of us have been 17 years writing, and previously I was in tech as well. Not quite as deep as you, but I'm confident with tech. So this kind of creative confidence in our own work and in our own worth that some newer writers might not have, I guess. Is there anything you can say to newer writers who might not have as much creative confidence as you? Alicia: This may be strange coming from someone who is very fond of AI, I have a lot of fun with it, but I would say that maybe building that creative confidence means not using AI for a while. It means discovering who you are as an author , what sort of things you like to write before bringing in a partner, be it AI or a human writer of another sort. Really find your uniqueness and your identity as a writer before you start adding tools into the mix. Joanna: That is actually a really good point. You and I have both already done enough books and written enough that we're confident in our voice that we found before AI. Then I just wonder if maybe people who are younger in the usage of these tools, or people younger in their journey, or just physically younger, are going to do things differently. Like you and I grew up without iPhones, and we grew up without television. My mum was the same as your mum. We weren't allowed to watch TV until I was about 12. So I feel like maybe people will develop their voice differently now . Alicia: That's a really good point, and I honestly don't know what that will look like, but I'm excited to see it. Joanna: Yes, me too. Okay, so let's just circle back on copyright because another sticking point for authors in using these tools is— They're afraid that they won't have copyright in their finished work if they use AI tools in any way. So where's the line here? How is it in the US? Because it's different in the UK. Alicia: Right. In the US, first of all, expression that is generated by artificial intelligence, by a machine, is not copyrightable. However, your authorship is copyrightable . Thus, when you combine your authorship with an AI-generated output, then the part of that that is your creative expression is still copyrightable . So what that means is, if there's a combination, if you're using AI as a partner, then whatever expression that you contribute to that final product is copyrightable in the US. Thus, say someone was to copy a chapter of your book that has you in it, as opposed to telling the AI in a short paragraph to write a chapter, if you've been a part of selecting what goes in that chapter, arranging that chapter, editing words that were initially output by the AI, that's all your expression. One cannot copy that chapter without copying that expression, which is yours. There's still copyright eligibility when you've used AI, depending on how you use it. The Copyright Office has confirmed this . This isn't all theoretical here. The Copyright Office has handled some cases. [ Note from Jo — here are some excerpts from the US Copyright Office info, and also the UK, as they differ . Please check your jurisdiction. ] In the UK, Section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 around authorship and ownership of copyright states: In the case of a literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work which is computer-generated, the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken. In the US, copyright is all about ‘human authorship,’ and in March 2023, the United States Copyright Office issued guidance around the definition of human authorship in an age of generative AI. They note: A human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that ‘the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.’ Importantly, they also say, This policy does not mean that technological tools cannot be part of the creative process. Authors have long used such tools to create their works or to recast, transform, or adapt their expressive authorship. For example, a visual artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit an image remains the author of the modified image, and a musical artist may use effects such as guitar pedals when creating a sound recording. In each case, what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control over the work’s expression and ‘actually formed’ the traditional elements of authorship. [Back to the interview] There was a semi-well known case with a graphic novel where the author had generated each image using AI, but the copyright office determined that the arrangement of those images, the selection of those images and arranging them into a story, was copyright protected. Thus you can't just take that graphic novel and copy it and sell it, because the author's expression is in there. That's the case with cover art as well as written work. Audiobooks with AI narration are a little different because your copyrighted expression is already in the input, and the output is just your words spoken. So you don't even have to edit that output, it already has your expression in it, and is copyright eligible in the US. I know in the UK, there are even stronger protections for copyright eligibility of AI-generated works. I think if you direct the creation of it, it's yours. Joanna: Yes, and I think that's probably why so many people are putting offices here. OpenAI has an office here. I mean, Runway ML, the video generator, they've got an office here, and are partnering with the UK film company. It's essentially like if a machine generates something, it belongs to the person who who directed it. I was thinking about this, like I like the word director because, increasingly, if you think about a film director—and you know, people will have their favorite movie directors— Movie directors direct and have a creative vision, but they are not acting every scene. They're not doing all the sets. They're not they're not doing every piece of work in a movie. They are the director. So I almost wonder if that's the direction we're going is—This much bigger role, where we can do much bigger things, with a lot more help. Alicia: I think so. I think that there's a lot that we can do with AI to create and expand our creativity besides just writing. We can direct a little movie now ourselves with AI-generated visuals. However, I also predict, I don't know for sure, that we're going to see copyright eligibility of AI-generated outputs that are unedited in the US. We're going to see some of that become protectable. Right now, that's really shaky ground, except with the exception of audiobooks and the like. It's really shaky ground, say that an AI-generated image as is, would get any kind of copyright protection. I think we may see that depending on how specific your prompt is, that there may be some copyright protection based on the creativity that you put into that. Joanna: Yes, I think so. As these models get better and better, you can have a much bigger process. So let's come to that, because we're still in these early days, like we're literally like 2001 in terms of the internet. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, just shared in a new blog post, Reflections, last week, “We believe that in 2025, we may see the first AI agents join the workforce and materially change the output of companies.” I'm like, hell yes, give me some agents to do things. I'll do the stuff I love, and my little AI agents will do the rest. I mean the word ‘agent' is difficult in the publishing industry, but think about little bots or little employees doing your work. What do you think about AI agents, and how might we use whatever they might be in the future? Alicia: I'd personally love a social media agent because I am no good at keeping up with what's going on my social media accounts. They will go dark for a month and a half, and then I'll remember that I have them and should use them. So I'd love a social media agent. I kind of have a custom GPT, a prompt set up to help me plan my social media. I've actually tried some products that try to be social media agents that I don't love. I feel that the writing industry is going to be reluctant to take on these agents. Just based on what I've seen about how protective the writing industry has been—some people in the writing industry—about related industries, like cover artists and voice narrators, how protective they've been wanting writers who want to use AI to hire a cover artist. They're being very insistent about that, some anti-AI folks. They're being very insistent about hiring a human narrator for your book. I think that we may see that same protectiveness over virtual assistants. When we're talking about these agents, like a marketing agent or a social media agent, these are things that one might hire a virtual assistant for. I think we may see some pushback from this same segment of the writing industry that's opposed to using AI-generated cover art. We're going to see some pushback saying, hey, you should hire a virtual assistant instead. Joanna: I totally agree, but I think that people are going to use these things anyway. Especially, coming back to creative confidence again, if you are strong in what you want, then actually using these agents. You mentioned a chain of prompts earlier, and I just have these amazing ideas about how— I want a chain of agents doing book marketing for me. There is absolutely no way it would be affordable to have that where humans do it. Alicia: Absolutely. Yes, affordability is a huge issue. If you weren't going to hire someone, I don't understand the objection to passing along to AI to do it for you so that it gets done, as opposed to not getting done. I've actually used virtual assistants in the past, and it didn't work so well because I'm so particular . First of all, I felt like a jerk wanting to tweak things all the time. I don't feel like a jerk when I talk to AI. Then it wasn't saving me time because of the amount of time I was spending tweaking things. So for me, having an AI social media agent would be something that I wouldn't hire someone for anyway . I don't think that's a requirement for using AI, but it expands what we can do, having these agents, having AI in general. I love that. Joanna: I mean, I think — Marketing is probably the biggest thing that people want to use these tools for. I see that one could almost have an agent per book even, who's responsible for making sure that book gets marketed. I mean, we've got multiple books, and I find myself marketing whichever one that catches my eye, but there's so much of a backlist I just completely ignore. So I'd really love to have things surfaced from my backlist of work. Also things like having an AI— I've just started using the ChatGPT Tasks. Have you done that? They only just started it like yesterday, the ChatGPT Tasks . Alicia: Tasks? Oh, I have not. I noticed it a couple days ago, and instead, I started using Projects. I recently restarted my ChatGPT Pro or Plus account. I sort of switch which AI I want to use at any given time. So right now I'm digging into the ChatGPT projects, but digging into the Tasks is definitely on my to-do list. I'm hoping I can get it to remind me of stuff that we've generated that I need to do. Joanna: So for people listening, this is brand new. It's very, very small, as in you ask it to do a task, and it will do something for you at a certain time. So I've just set my ChatGPT so that — Every morning it will bring me five headlines across the boundaries of archeology, religion, architecture, and genetic engineering. Basically, I gave it a list of things I'm interested in writing for my fiction, and then it'll bring me five headlines that I can click through to that will just give me ideas. So every morning, I get this really cool message, and then I go and just have a look. It just helps me think about stuff. So that's my first task, that's what I did. Alicia: I love that. I'm totally going to steal that. Since I'm into near future science fiction, I make a point to read technology magazines and subscribe to them, but then I have to actively go to those sources and read them. I love the idea of having them come to me like that. So I've just stolen your idea, Jo. Joanna: Fantastic. Well, I wanted to mention it because this is an example of something where it will do some work for you and it helps you, but it's certainly not writing your book. So for people listening, please do steal that idea. That is a ChatGPT task. So we are out of time. Where can people find you and your books online? Alicia: As we said at the beginning, I write under the name Alicia Ellis. My website is WriterAlicia.com . My social media handle across the board, across everywhere, is @WriterAlicia . I use Instagram the most, and BlueSky I'm just getting into. Like I said, I go dark for an extended period of time, and then remember that social media exists. So WriterAlicia.com is the main place you can find me. Joanna: Great. Well, thanks so much for your time, Alicia. That was amazing. Alicia: Thank you, Jo. I really appreciate you. This has been fun. The post Fair Use, Copyright, And Licensing. AI And The Author Business With Alicia Wright first appeared on The Creative Penn .…

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