Podcast Show Notes

On The Indy Author Podcast, we discuss the writing craft, the publishing voyage, and how we can navigate our way to the readers who will love our books. Click the links below for the show notes for episodes since 200, including summaries and transcripts.

Matty Dalrymple 4/15/25 Matty Dalrymple 4/15/25

Episode 283 - Writing Pivots and the Power of Humility with Kevin Tumlinson

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Kevin Tumlinson discusses WRITING PIVOTS AND THE POWER OF HUMILITY, including Kevin's journey of moving from a pantser to an outliner. They discuss his reasons for adopting outlining, influenced by his co-authoring project with J.D. Barker, and the cognitive challenges he faced during the transition. Kevin also speaks candidly about his existential crisis and burnout from overcommitting to activities outside writing, revealing how it affected his creative process. The conversation gives insights into the balance between structure and creativity, strategies for maintaining momentum in writing, and the importance of humility and continuous learning in a writing career. Kevin shares how his collaboration with J.D. is unfolding, along with his new role at BookBrush and the launch of Author Anchor.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is The Writer_, a bestselling and award-winning author, prolific podcast host, and in-demand public speaker. Kevin writes mostly thriller novels and Substack posts and enjoys a life of travel and exploration alongside his wife and their tiny dog.

Episode Links

https://kevintumlinson.com
http://kevintumlinson.substack.com/
https://youtube.com/kevintumlinson
https://x.com/@kevintumlinson

Summary

Matty Dalrymple talks with Kevin Tumlinson, a bestselling author and prolific podcast host, about the journey from pantser to plotter, and how an existential crisis forced him to rethink his writing process. The conversation dives into the nuances of outlining, the challenges of overcoming personal hurdles, and how collaborating with fellow authors like J.D. Barker influenced his approach to writing.

Introducing The Writer_

The discussion kicks off with Matty's inquiry about Kevin's unique moniker, The Writer_. Kevin explains that this title evolved while naming his Substack newsletter. He wanted the name to symbolize the ongoing process of writing, represented by the underscore as a cursor that signifies continuous activity. This metaphor ties into a philosophy—that being a writer is an active, ongoing journey, not just a static state.

Transition from Pantser to Plotter

Matty and Kevin delve into Kevin’s transition from being a “pantser,” someone who writes by the seat of their pants, to adopting more structured outlining practices. Kevin attributes this shift largely to his collaboration with J.D. Barker. Initially apprehensive, he saw potential growth by stepping into the world of outlining. Kevin recounts his early struggles with rigidity in plotting, fearing a loss of creative freedom. However, he began to view outlines as jazz music, where improvisation between plotted notes allows for creativity while maintaining structure.

The Value of Outlining

Throughout the conversation, Kevin emphasizes the benefits of outlining, stressing that having a framework doesn't limit creativity but rather provides a safety net. He compares intricate outlining to building a structure that supports flexibility within the narrative, allowing unexpected subplots, like the evolving "C story," to enrich the narrative. The process of outlining, initially daunting, emerged as a practice that could help avoid extensive rewrites later.

Experiencing an Existential Crisis

Kevin discusses a period of existential crisis, which coincided with his transition into outlining and collaboration with J.D. Barker. Having previously put his writing career on hold to focus on other commitments, he hit a low point. This period of self-doubt was amplified by the stress of adapting to a new writing process. However, completing an outline became a turning point, reinforcing his capability and sparking renewed confidence in his writing journey.

Collaboration and Humility

Collaboration with Barker required Kevin to adopt a learner's mindset, setting aside his ego to refine his craft. Despite initial resistance, he acknowledges the necessity of humbling oneself to learn new methodologies and accept feedback. This openness allowed Kevin to integrate new practices into his writing, bridging the gap between experience and innovation. He likens this process to climbing a mountain, where reaching new milestones requires adapting and learning continuously.

Revisiting Early Work

The conversation also touches on the potential of revisiting early writings, comparing it to visual artists who refine their past work with evolved skills. Although Kevin suggests the idea of returning to previous drafts with newfound knowledge, he admits personal hesitations. This reflection challenges authors to reconsider how they view their early attempts and the value of reworking them with improved craftsmanship.

In conclusion, this episode of The Indy Author Podcast provides listeners with valuable insights into the intricate balance between structured planning and creative freedom in writing. Kevin Tumlinson's candid discussion about his journey, challenges, and growth offers aspiring authors both practical advice and inspiration for their own writing endeavors. By exploring themes like overcoming personal hurdles, embracing collaboration, and maintaining lifelong learning, the episode underscores the dynamic nature of the writing journey.

Matty Dalrymple 2/11/25 Matty Dalrymple 2/11/25

Episode 274 - Elevating Your Presence with Panel Appearances with Joanne McLaughlin

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Joanne McLaughlin discusses ELEVATING YOUR PRESENCE WITH PANEL APPEARANCES, including participating in panels as a way to build confidence, network, and promote one's work. We discuss the importance of contributing meaningfully during panels and the benefits of both genre-specific and non-genre-specific conferences, and we touch on the roles of moderators, the structure of panels, and how varied experiences can enhance panel discussions.

Joanne McLaughlin’s novels include CHASING ASHES, a crime thriller, and NEVER BEFORE NOON, NEVER UNTIL NOW, and NEVER MORE HUMAN, a darkly romantic vampire trilogy. A POETIC PUZZLE, a romantic mystery, launches in early 2025. Her latest short fiction appears in RUTH AND ANN’S GUIDE TO TIME TRAVEL. An editor of prize-winning news and features for newspapers and public media, Joanne also is a former VP of a musicians-management firm. She lives in Philadelphia, where she indulges her love of design and walking.

Episode Links

https://joannemclaughlin.net/
https://www.facebook.com/joannemclaugh
https://www.instagram.com/joannemclaugh
https://x.com/joannemclaugh
https://bsky.app/profile/joannemclaughlin.bsky.social

Summary

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Joanne McLaughlin about the journey of gaining confidence as an author and the benefits of participating in panel discussions at conferences. Joanne shares her experiences transitioning from being a behind-the-scenes editor and public relations instructor to stepping into the spotlight as an author on panels.

Joanne opens up about her hiatus from writing, describing how she re-entered the writing community after a challenging period. She candidly discusses the doubts she faced when she first thought of joining panels at conferences. Despite these initial hesitations, Joanne decided to engage actively in conference panels, which played a significant role in rebuilding her confidence. She emphasizes, "What you have to remember is that everybody is looking for different voices and new stories, and every author has a unique perspective to share."

One of the critical aspects Joanne highlights is the idea that, regardless of your level of experience, "You're an expert in who you are," making it important to impart your unique experiences and insights during discussions. This mindset has helped her in scenarios where she found herself alongside highly acclaimed authors.

The conversation also acknowledges the challenge of imposter syndrome, especially when participating in panels with more experienced authors. Joanne shares, "You can't help but feel like an imposter," but stresses the importance of overcoming this feeling by focusing on the unique contributions one can make.

Matty and Joanne also explore how attending or participating in panels can lead to unexpected and exciting opportunities. Joanne recounts an experience where her involvement on a panel led an audience member to share enthusiasm for her work with new potential readers.

The episode touches on the logistical aspects and etiquette of panels, including the benefit of cross-genre discussions that can lead to new insights. Joanne further emphasizes the benefits of engaging in panels as both a learning opportunity and a chance to network. She explains how these interactions can organically lead to other opportunities within the community.

Summing up their conversation, Matty reflects on the idea of writing a "script for yourself" to overcome personal barriers and doubts—a concept well-suited to fiction writers who craft characters for their stories.

In concluding the episode, Joanne reiterates, "You've got nothing to lose," encouraging authors to seize opportunities, challenge themselves, and embrace the value of networking through panels and conferences. Matty agrees, highlighting the importance of such experiences in an author's publishing journey.

Matty Dalrymple 12/31/24 Matty Dalrymple 12/31/24

Episode 269 - The Discipline-Driven Path to Success with Dre Baldwin

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Dre Baldwin discusses THE DISCIPLINE-DRIVEN PATH TO SUCCESS, including the importance of having clear goals to maintain focus; the role of discipline, time management, execution, and planning in achieving goals; the value of seeking external perspectives and of sharing your goals only with those who can provide support to achieve them; and practical tips for overcoming writer's block.

Dre Baldwin is CEO and Founder of Work on Your Game Inc. He has given 4 TEDxTalks and has authored 35 books. Dre’s content has been consumed over 103 million times. His daily Work on Your Game MasterClass has amassed over 3,100 episodes and over 7.3 million listeners. Dre had a 9-year professional basketball career, playing in 8 countries. Dre’s framework is the "roadmap in reverse" for professional High Performance, Consistency, and Results.

Episode Links

http://WorkOnYourGame.com/Dre
http://Instagram.com/DreBaldwin
http://YouTube.com/Dreupt
https://www.facebook.com/WorkOnYourGameUniversity
http://LinkedIn.com/in/DreAllDay
http://Twitter.com/DreAllDay
https://starkreflections.ca/2024/09/13/episode-379-simplify-your-life-work-with-dre-baldwin/

Summary

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Dre Baldwin about effective goal setting and the importance of discipline, planning, and execution in achieving success as a creator. The discussion offers insights into why goals are necessary and how creatives can use these principles to produce consistent work and achieve desired outcomes.

Matty and Dre begin the conversation by exploring the significance of setting goals, emphasizing that having a clear target can help maintain focus and drive productivity. Dre, drawing from his sports background, notes, "If you don't have a goal, you can't score," highlighting the essential role of goals in directing energy and resources towards achieving specific results.

One key topic discussed is the timing of goal setting. Dre mentions the importance of setting goals irrespective of the time of the year and argues that it's more about continuously setting targets rather than waiting for a specific date. Matty then explores how goal setting can sometimes lead to analysis paralysis, prompting Dre to suggest that individuals should carefully evaluate the deeper motivations behind their goals to ensure fulfillment and alignment with personal values.

Dre emphasizes that the 'why' behind a goal is crucial, as it serves as the emotional driver that fuels persistence and dedication. He advises keeping personal goals private, sharing them only with those who play a role in achieving those goals, like mentors or accountability partners. Dre shares his take on the concept of accountability, saying it's valuable when partners are intentional about their role in providing practical and motivational support.

The discussion transitions to the principles of discipline and time management. Dre describes discipline as a foundational aspect of professionalism, likening it to a force that compels individuals to perform their roles regardless of external circumstances. Matty delves into how indie authors, especially those juggling writing with other occupations, can establish discipline. Dre asserts that the process remains the same irrespective of the time one has available — consistency is key.

Dre also tackles the topic of time management, pointing out that what people refer to as managing time is actually about managing oneself. He stresses the significance of self-accountability and control, emphasizing that identifying what needs to be accomplished within a set timeframe is paramount for productivity. According to Dre, applying pressure and stress correctly can transform them into productive forces that drive individuals towards action.

Matty then explores how one can set goals at different levels, whether broad or specific, and how this affects productivity. Dre further explains this by structuring his approach to systems, goals, and byproducts: a goal is achieved through a specific system, and once it's reached, it produces certain byproducts. This structured approach helps in clear goal articulation and efficient execution of plans.

Execution, as Dre describes, is where all the planning comes to fruition. It's about adhering to the predefined systems to achieve set goals. He shares practical advice for overcoming creative blocks, like writing chapter headers or leaving notes to jog one's memory later. This preparation acts as "homework," setting oneself up for productive writing sessions.

In conclusion, Dre shares insights into the value of planning as a dynamic, ongoing process, despite plans themselves often changing. He underscores that effective planning prepares individuals better for unforeseen developments, by having considered potential challenges and how to address them in advance.

Dre concludes by explaining how reassessment is a vital tool for recalibrating goals and performance, recommending that individuals seek objective insights from industry outsiders to gain fresh perspectives. Matty ties this back to writers by encouraging them to take stock regularly and assess their objectives against their achieved outcomes, ensuring they are set up for success.

Overall, this episode of The Indy Author Podcast offers a practical guide for authors and creatives on how to effectively strategize their goals with discipline, planning, and consistent execution, setting the foundation for professional growth and success.

Matty Dalrymple 10/29/24 Matty Dalrymple 10/29/24

Episode 262 - Combating and Tapping into Imposter Syndrome with Diane Vallere

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Diane Vallere discusses COMBATING AND TAPPING INTO IMPOSTER SYNDROME, including how understanding personal goals and recognizing the difference between internal self-assessment and external comparisons can help manage imposter syndrome; the benefits for creatives of focusing on our own definition of success rather than external validation; and how pricing our work appropriately is crucial in avoiding the pitfalls of both imposter syndrome and undervaluation.

Diane Vallere is the national bestselling author of over forty books, including the Material Witness, Madison Night, and Killer Fashion mystery series. She edited the Agatha Award-winning essay collection Promophobia: Taking the Mystery out of Promoting Crime Fiction. Diane majored in art history at the College of William and Mary and worked in luxury retailing before reigniting her love of fiction. She currently lives in Pennsylvania where she spends her free time curled up with a book.

Episode Links

https://facebook.com/dianevallereauthor
https://instagram.com/dianevallere
https://pinterest.com/dianevallere
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4739022.Diane_Vallere
https://www.youtube.com/dianevallere

Summary

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Diane Vallere about tackling imposter syndrome as an independent author. Throughout the episode, they delve into the psychological challenges that writers may face and how these affect their careers and creative processes. Importantly, they discuss how authors can manage the pressures of comparing themselves to others and staying motivated. Diane Vallere brings her insights as an indie author to the table, as they explore crucial themes such as comparison, rejection, and pricing in the publishing industry.

Understanding Imposter Syndrome in Creativity

Diving into the podcast, Matty and Diane discuss the widely accepted notion that writers are introverts, and they challenge assumptions about imposter syndrome being an inevitable phenomenon for all creatives. Diane emphasizes that imposter syndrome typically arises when we doubt our abilities or face criticism that fuels our self-doubt. She notes that the writing and self-promotion required of authors can exacerbate these feelings, leading one to question their worth or the quality of their work. Diane states, "No one ever experiences imposter syndrome when they know they can do something."

Matty raises the question of imposter syndrome in the context of one's creative life, suggesting that these doubts can impact other areas. Diane concurs, identifying the myriad of question marks when transitioning from a stable job to a creative endeavor and the self-doubt that accompanies such a change. They agree that both imposter syndrome and "comparisonitis"—an obsession with comparing oneself to others—are related, with Matty noting, "It’s the internal assessment versus the external assessment."

Navigating Comparison and Setting Personal Goals

One critical point they explore is how comparisonitis, while often condemned, can sometimes serve as a useful indicator of what we want in our careers. Diane suggests using others' successes as a guide, saying, "When you see somebody who has something, and you realize you want it, that is huge because it tells you something about your own journey."

Matty and Diane caution against setting overly aspirational goals, like comparing oneself to bestselling authors with extensive support teams. Instead, focusing on achievable goals inspired by peers can provide clearer, actionable steps. They highlight the importance of knowing one's goals, whether it’s gaining reviews, awards, or a wider readership, and aligning one's efforts with these objectives.

Dealing with Rejection and Maintaining Control

Matty brings up the inevitability of rejection in the creative industry, whether from agents, publishers, or even platforms like BookBub that promote books to large audiences. Matty advises treating rejections as transactional decisions rather than personal judgments. Persistence is key; authors should continue submitting work and understand that many factors in a rejection decision are beyond their control.

Rejection should not deter authors from pursuing promotional opportunities, as the process of applying itself can be an affirmation of one's belief in their work. This mindset allows authors to maintain focus on what they can control—writing the best book possible.

Pricing and Perception of Quality

The podcast delves into how pricing can influence readers' perceptions of a book's quality, a topic of significant interest to indie authors. Matty shares her experience of raising the prices of his books and encourages other authors to charge prices that reflect the quality of their work. Diane agrees, noting that while low prices can initially attract readers, they may also signal inferior quality.

Diane and Matty discuss the balance between setting competitive prices and ensuring that the pricing strategy aligns with the perceived value and quality of the book. For authors, pricing is an essential aspect of positioning their work alongside traditional publishing standards.

Conclusion: Self-belief and Continuous Improvement

As the podcast concludes, Matty and Diane reiterate the importance of self-belief while recognizing areas for improvement in one's work. Diane encourages authors to assess their projects honestly and seek feedback to ensure their works meet professional standards. They underscore that imposter syndrome can be mitigated by establishing a robust understanding of one’s work and its place in the market, as well as by celebrating personal achievements.

Ultimately, the podcast offers practical advice and encouragement to indie authors navigating the hurdles of self-doubt and comparison. Diane’s insights emphasize that authors can take actionable steps to overcome imposter syndrome and embark on a confident and self-aware publishing journey.

Matty Dalrymple 10/15/24 Matty Dalrymple 10/15/24

Episode 260 - Four Pillars of Author Success with Emma Dhesi

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Emma Dhesi discusses FOUR PILLARS OF AUTHOR SUCCESS: Awareness, Acceptance, Growth, and Fun. She shares insights into the ups and downs of the writing journey and how to maintain focus and joy throughout the process. We discuss the importance of aligning your plans with your goals and of staying true to your writing style and pace. We also touch on the psychological aspects of writing, marketing, and promotion. And Emma provides advice on maintaining balance and avoiding burnout while pursuing writing as a career or passion.

Emma Dhesi, bestselling author and certified book coach, educates and inspires first-time authors to fulfil a calling and write their debut novel. Drawing from her own success and training, Emma guides writers to finish their first book through detailed feedback, accountability check-ins, and compassionate support in her year-long 1:1 mentorship. Emma lives in Edinburgh with her husband, three children, three cats, and is passionate about helping authors achieve their dreams through her individualized mentoring.

Episode Links

https://emmadhesi.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@emmadhesi
Four Pillars document for listeners of The Indy Author Podcast: https://emmadhesi.com/IndyAuthor

Summary

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Emma Dhesi, a bestselling author and certified book coach, about the "Four Pillars to Author Success." Emma shares her observations and experiences from over ten years in the writing community, focusing on the challenges and triumphs authors face. The discussion revolves around how writers, whether new or established, can navigate the journey of writing with the help of these four pillars: Awareness, Acceptance, Growth, and Fun.

Pillar #1: Awareness

Emma emphasizes the importance of being aware of one's position in the writing journey. She describes how writers often experience ups and downs, not only in the writing process but also in the stages of publication and marketing. Awareness involves recognizing where you stand on this path, whether you're just starting or have published multiple books. Emma encourages writers to acknowledge their progress and understand that every writer is on their own unique journey.

Pillar #2: Acceptance

Acceptance is the second pillar, where Emma discusses the need to be at peace with where you are in your writing career. She highlights the tendency to constantly chase the next milestone, often leading to unnecessary stress. Acceptance doesn’t mean complacency; rather, it's about acknowledging your journey and continuing to work towards your goals without beating yourself up. Emma advises writers to stay in their lane and run their own race, doing the work necessary to progress.

Pillar #3: Growth

The growth pillar represents the challenges writers face, from drafting to revising, and learning the ropes of publishing and marketing. Emma notes that every step, from writing to promoting the book, is filled with opportunities for personal and professional growth. She reassures writers that growth is the most rewarding part of the process, despite the difficulties and insecurities that arise. Emma reflects on how each book she writes presents new challenges, pushing her to improve her craft.

Pillar #4: Fun

The final pillar, fun, reminds writers to find joy in their creative endeavors. Emma points out that the seriousness of publishing can overshadow the original joy that led writers to put pen to paper. It's essential to celebrate milestones, both big and small, and to remember the excitement that initially sparked a passion for writing. Simple acts of recognition, such as treating yourself after completing a draft, can maintain the fun in the writing process.

Beyond Writing: Applying the Pillars

Emma and Matty discuss how these pillars extend beyond writing into areas like marketing and promotion. Emma encourages writers to align their marketing strategies with their personal preferences, whether it's blogging, social media, or podcasting. The key is to feel comfortable and authentic in your promotional efforts. Emma also advises not to let marketing fears prevent you from finishing or sharing your book. Recognizing the value of your work and communicating it effectively to the right audience can transform your approach to marketing.

Understanding and Overcoming Hesitation

The conversation also explores the reasons behind writers' hesitations to market their books. Matty suggests examining whether hesitancy stems from discomfort with promotion or doubts about the book's quality. Being honest about these feelings can help address underlying issues and improve both the writing and marketing process. The discussion touches on the psychology of publishing and the impact of money mindset on authors' willingness to promote their work.

Conclusion

Emma Dhesi's insights on the Four Pillars to Author Success offer a valuable roadmap for writers navigating their creative journeys. By cultivating awareness, acceptance, growth, and fun, authors can not only enhance their craft but also enjoy the process of bringing stories to life. Whether you're facing the challenge of writing a first draft or promoting your latest release, these pillars provide a framework for achieving success on your own terms.

Matty Dalrymple 10/8/24 Matty Dalrymple 10/8/24

Episode 259 - Working Harder, Working Smarter with Diane Vallere

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Diane Vallere discusses WORKING HARDER, WORKING SMARTER, including the trap of busywork; the danger of getting caught on autopilot; how small tasks can add up to big chunks of time and the importance of always assigning value to your time; pursuing a minimum viable product; understanding what you’re doing for your audience versus what you’re doing for yourself (and acknowledging what work is strictly for your own enjoyment); considering the indirect as well as direct value of work; when outsourcing is the smart option; and when doing nothing is sometimes the smart choice.

National bestselling author Diane Vallere writes funny and fashionable character-based mysteries. After two decades in luxury retailing, she traded fashion accessories for accessories to murder. As past president of the national Sisters in Crime organization, she edited the Agatha-Award-winning essay collection PROMOPHOBIA: Taking the Mystery out of Promoting Crime Fiction. Diane started her own detective agency at age ten and has maintained a passion for shoes, clues, and clothes ever since.

Episode Links

https://dianevallere.com/
https://facebook.com/dianevallereauthor
https://instagram.com/dianevallere
https://pinterest.com/dianevallere
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4739022.Diane_Vallere
https://www.youtube.com/@DianeVallere

Summary

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Diane Vallere about the nuanced balance between working harder and working smarter as an indie author. Vallere shares valuable insights on managing time, prioritizing tasks, and leveraging community to enhance productivity while maintaining a healthy and fulfilling writing life.

In the episode, Matty and Diane dive deep into the philosophies of working harder and working smarter. Matty starts by explaining her own approach: "I like to work harder and smarter. I figure I get double benefit if I do both of them." She asks Diane about her philosophy on this topic.

Diane and Matty’s Philosophies about Working Harder and Working Smarter
Diane reveals, “I have definitely fallen into the trap of working harder, not smarter. A lot of people who had day jobs are used to fitting more into a day to get as much done as possible.” She talks about the endless to-do lists that indie authors face, emphasizing that there's always something to improve or update. However, Diane notes that self-acceptance is crucial, saying, “We're all doing enough, and just accepting that is a big hurdle to get past."

Having Another Pair of Eyes on Where You're Focusing Your Work
Matty highlights the importance of external perspectives, sharing her experience with her business manager who helped her identify uneven investments in time and money across different business activities. This outside perspective showed her how shifting focus from less profitable to more profitable tasks could have a significant impact.

Diane adds, “Those kinds of things are fantastic because, for that exact reason, we function, we just do what we normally do and we don't question it because it's just what we've done.”

Being Clear on Your Goals
Diane underscores the necessity of having clear goals, suggesting, “We should have a concrete goal attached to everything we do.” She talks about using recaps as checkpoints to ensure that time and resources are being utilized effectively.

The Trap of Busywork
Describing busy work as a form of self-deception, Diane says, “We don’t give ourselves that ability to step away from the task and see if it's actually an important thing to do.” She explains that unnecessary tasks, like tweaking a website endlessly, might give temporary satisfaction but don't necessarily yield productive outcomes.

Minimum Viable Product
Matty and Diane discuss the concept of the "minimum viable product" in the context of indie publishing. Matty mentions how simplifying her website by following the advice to maintain fewer pages significantly decreased her maintenance tasks. Diane agrees, adding, “It felt so good to just wipe them, like just blow them up and be like, I don’t even have to think about that anymore."

Acknowledging What Work is Strictly for Your Enjoyment
Matty acknowledges that some tasks may not have direct business benefits but are worth doing because they bring joy. She enjoys making book trailers, admitting that while they may not boost sales significantly, they are fulfilling.

When Outsourcing is the Smart Option
Matty and Diane concur that delegating tasks that don't align with their strengths can be tremendously beneficial. Matty shares how she outsourced financial management, and Diane mentions how hiring professional editors allowed her to focus more on writing, thereby increasing her output.

Effective Use of Time
Diane discusses how eliminating distractions, like unnecessary social media use, helped her gain more productive time. She realized that small pockets of time add up and eliminating even minor distractions can lead to significant cumulative benefits.

Always Assign Value to Your Time
Matty stresses the importance of assigning value to one's time. She encourages authors to put a monetary value on their hours to understand better the costs of doing tasks themselves versus outsourcing them. Diane supports this by sharing an example of how recalibrating her approach to editing freed up her time for more profitable tasks.

You Don't Know What You Don't Know
Both Diane and Matty emphasize the importance of staying open to learning new practices and tools that can save time and improve efficiency. Diane talks about discovering Vellum for ebook formatting, which drastically reduced the time she spent on formatting tasks.

The Double-Edged Sword of Community
Matty and Diane discuss the pros and cons of author communities. While communities can provide valuable insights and support, they can also lead to shiny object syndrome. Diane suggests adopting practices from the community while being clear about personal goals and values to avoid this pitfall.

Finding a Community That Shares Your Goals
Diane advises that aligning with people who share similar goals is more beneficial than just joining any author community. Matty shares her experience of finding alignment among rapid release authors and realizing that these practices didn’t align with her goals.

You Probably Know More Than You Think
Diane closes by encouraging authors to trust their instincts. She states, “You’re not starting at ground zero, you're not starting in a vacuum with no knowledge.” This recognition can help authors feel more confident in their decisions and strategies.

Conclusion
Matty and Diane's discussion offers a comprehensive guide for indie authors striving to balance working harder and working smarter. By setting clear goals, acknowledging the value of their time, leveraging community wisely, and being open to learning, authors can achieve a sustainable and successful writing career.

For more about Diane Vallere, visit her website at DianeVallere.com, follow her on social media, or subscribe to her newsletter, The Weekly Diva.

Matty Dalrymple 9/17/24 Matty Dalrymple 9/17/24

Episode 256 - Lessons from the Nomadic Author with Nicholas Harvey

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Nicholas Harvey discusses LESSONS FROM THE NOMADIC AUTHOR, including how Nick became a nomadic author, and how his lifestyle has opened out-of-the-box marketing opportunities for him to connect with his fans (here’s a teaser: it’s not even on land!). We discuss which came first, the book or the location, how to create a writing-friendly environment, the importance and challenges of building routine, and the vital importance of stepping away from the keyboard.

A USA Today Bestselling author, Nicholas Harvey's life has been anything but ordinary. Race car driver, adventurer, divemaster, and since 2020, a full-time novelist. Raised in England, Nick has dual US and British citizenship and now lives nomadically wherever he and his amazing wife, Cheryl, choose to land for a few months. He is the author of the AJ Bailey Adventure and Nora Sommer Caribbean Suspense series, as well as multiple collaborations.

Episode Links

https://www.harveybooks.com

Summary

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Nicholas Harvey about navigating the diverse landscape of marketing strategies for authors. The episode underscores the idea that one size does not fit all when it comes to promoting books, and that an author's unique process and preferences should guide their choices.

Matty kicks off the conversation by discussing the pitfalls of jumping onto popular marketing trends without considering personal fit. Nicholas concurs, emphasizing the importance of authenticity in marketing. He argues that blindly following trends can be counterproductive if they don't resonate with the author's brand or personal comfort level. For instance, he mentions TikTok as a platform that, while successful for some, doesn't align with his own marketing strategy. Harvey states, "People shouldn't jump on an approach if it doesn't fit for them, period, on anything."

This sets the stage for a broader discussion on the variability of successful marketing methods. Nicholas points out that what works for one author might not work for another due to the diverse nature of audiences and platforms. He illustrates this with the example that some authors achieve great success with Amazon ads while others find Facebook ads more beneficial. The key takeaway here is the absence of a universal, guaranteed path to success in the writing business.

Nicholas also touches on the idea of developing a personalized process. He encourages authors to experiment and discover what works best for them. He acknowledges that this can be a trial-and-error journey but stresses its importance for long-term success. "One thing you have to figure out is what's your process, what works for you," Harvey advises, reinforcing the notion that authors should trust their instincts and experiences.

Moreover, Nicholas challenges the authoritative voices that claim to have the definitive strategy for book marketing. "If anyone stands up there and says, this is the way you should do this, I'm like no, I don't really subscribe to that necessarily," he asserts. This skepticism towards rigid methodologies promotes a more flexible and personalized approach to marketing.

The podcast episode with Nicholas Harvey provides valuable insights into the significance of personalized marketing strategies for authors. It advocates for an individualized approach, encouraging authors to experiment and find their own path rather than adhering strictly to popular trends or prescriptive advice. By highlighting the successes and preferences of different authors, Harvey demonstrates the value of authenticity and personal fit in the competitive landscape of book marketing.

The conversation is a reminder that there are few hard-and-fast rules in the business of writing. The priority should be on figuring out what resonates personally with the author and their audience, and then pursuing those avenues with dedication and creativity.

Matty Dalrymple 8/13/24 Matty Dalrymple 8/13/24

Episode 251 - Strategic Self-Doubt and the Indie Mindset with Diane Vallere

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Diane Vallere discusses STRATEGIC SELF-DOUBT AND THE INDIE MINDSET, including overcoming limiting beliefs, handling self-doubt, and recognizing personal roadblocks. Diane emphasizes the importance of understanding the various choices available in the independent and traditional publishing routes, and we discuss myths within the indie community, the impact of constructive criticism, and the significance of aligning personal goals with creative and business objectives.

National bestselling author Diane Vallere crafts humorous mysteries that are out of this world. After two decades navigating the galaxy of luxury retailing, she swapped designer accessories for accessories to murder, propelling her career into the stratosphere. As past president of the national Sisters in Crime organization, she edited the Agatha-Award-winning essay collection “PROMOPHOBIA: Taking the Mystery out of Promoting Crime Fiction,” rocketing the conversation about marketing crime fiction to new heights. Diane launched her own detective agency at the age of ten, and her passion for shoes, clues, and clothes has been in orbit ever since.

Episode Links

https://www.dianevallere.com/
https://facebook.com/dianevallereauthor
https://youtube.com/dianevallere

Summary

This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Diane Vallere about the critically important "Indie Author Mindset" and how it shapes the journey of independent authors. Diane offers practical advice and shares her experiences, providing invaluable insights that can help indie authors navigate through various challenges in their careers.

Meet Diane Vallere

Matty kicks off the episode by introducing Diane Vallere, an author known for her humorous mysteries, including a series set in outer space. Diane's diverse background—once being involved in luxury retailing and now writing quirky, crime-solving adventures—is a testament to the indie author mindset. She shares how she pragmatically adapted her bio to be genre-specific, reflecting her latest outer space-themed book release. By updating her biography creatively, Diane illustrates the importance of aligning your marketing materials with your current projects. This adaptability embodies the indie mindset, ensuring that you consistently stay relevant to your audience.

Leveraging an Indie Mindset

A significant part of the conversation focuses on the "Indie Mindset," beliefs and attitudes uniquely beneficial to indie authors. One key topic is overcoming limiting beliefs. Diane identifies a common hindrance facing many indie authors: the self-defeating idea that one isn't good enough for traditional publishing. This limiting belief can deter an author’s confidence and skew their perception of the indie publishing route as a lesser alternative rather than a chosen path.

The rapid growth and increasing legitimacy of indie publishing, supported by various channels and resources, have made it a respectable career choice. Diane encourages authors to view indie publishing as an empowering option. It offers control over one’s work, from editorial choices to marketing strategies.

Understanding and Conquering Limiting Beliefs

Discussing another prevalent issue, Matty and Diane explore how limiting beliefs can pave the way to suboptimal work. Authors who treat indie publishing as a backup plan might not devote the required effort to make their work as polished as that of established publishers.

Lies We Spread Through Our Community

Diane brings up another noteworthy subject: the unintentional "lies" spread within the indie community. These include generalized statements like "you can't sell books on XYZ platform" or "you must be in Kindle Unlimited to succeed." While initially intended to help, such advice can be misleading. The absolute truths one author experiences may not apply universally across the diverse landscape of indie publishing. Diane advocates for a more nuanced understanding, urging indie authors to discern what advice will effectively align with their specific goals and circumstances.

The Role of Self-Doubt

The power of self-doubt and how it can be used constructively is another critical discussion topic. Diane refers to self-doubt as a signal that denotes the presence of something one might deeply care about. Recognizing this, indie authors can harness these feelings and transform them into actionable plans to overcome perceived obstacles.

The Importance of the Creative Process

In dissecting the creative process, Diane emphasizes the importance of focusing on one's creation without succumbing to external pressures or reviews. Writing a book true to your vision and maintaining its integrity is paramount. Reviews often reflect more about the reviewer’s personal preferences than the inherent quality of the work. The key is to stay authentic to your creative impulse while also being open to constructive feedback that aligns with your vision.

Recognizing and Overcoming Roadblocks

Diane also touches on recognizing personal roadblocks. When feelings of jealousy arise about another’s accomplishments, it's a useful indicator of one’s own aspirations. Instead of viewing them as barriers, these emotions can inform authors of what they truly desire, helping them to recalibrate their goals and strategies appropriately.

Staying Focused Amid Multiple Paths

Matty and Diane also explore the complexity of taking on too many paths. In striving to embrace every opportunity, indie authors may become less effective in their endeavors. The focus should be on identifying and pursuing avenues that align closely with defined goals, fostering deeper expertise and more meaningful progress.

Closing Thoughts

Towards the end of the episode, Diane shares her focus on social media and the strategies she employs to balance online visibility with her intensive creative process. She also emphasizes the significance of aligning one's actions with the core goals of authentic storytelling and meaningful reader engagement.

This episode of The Indy Author Podcast encapsulates the indomitable spirit of the indie author mindset. Diane Vallere’s insights serve as a valuable guide for authors navigating the ever-evolving terrain of indie publishing, empowering them to take confident, deliberate actions in their careers.

Matty Dalrymple 6/11/24 Matty Dalrymple 6/11/24

Episode 242 - Uncovering Your Author Purpose with Greta Boris and Megan Haskell

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Greta Boris and Megan Haskell discuss UNCOVERING YOUR AUTHOR PURPOSE, including understanding your priorities and circumstances; having a unifying theme as a "hub"; the importance of alignment between your creative and business focuses; mining your fiction preferences for clarity about your author purpose; writing with a goal of marketability; the danger of shiny object syndrome; creating a reader-focused tagline; and having different taglines for the author and the books.

Greta Boris is a USA Today Bestselling mystery and thriller author. Megan Haskell is an award-winning fantasy adventure author. Together, they founded The Author Wheel, publishers of books, courses, and a podcast to help writers overcome roadblocks and keep their stories rolling. With over twenty-five years of writing and publishing experience between them, they’ve made the mistakes, so you don’t have to.

Episode Links

Greta and Megan's Links:www.AuthorWheel.com
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWheel
https://www.facebook.com/groups/856705052538168
Clarify | Simplify | Implement Newsletter: https://meganhaskellauthor.substack.com/

Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events

Summary

This episode of "The Indy Author Podcast" features a discussion with Greta Boris and Megan Haskell, both accomplished authors and founders of the Author Wheel, a platform providing resources for writers. They explore the concept of author purpose, offering insights into personal experiences, industry observations, and strategies for authors to identify and align with their core motivations and goals in writing.

Megan Haskell shares her journey from using writing as a creative outlet to grappling with the commercial aspects of publishing. Her experience highlights the importance of understanding why one writes, to maintain joy and satisfaction in the process. Greta Boris adds to this by discussing how misconceptions about publishing paths can lead authors astray. They emphasize the significance of identifying one's unique authorial goals and preferences, rather than following generic or misleading industry norms.

The conversation delves into various author archetypes, such as the "bucket lister" and "calling card writer," illustrating the diversity in authors' motivations and the necessity of a tailored approach to publishing. This ties into the broader theme of author purpose, where understanding one's own goals and values is crucial for long-term satisfaction and success in the literary field.

Matty, the host, and the guests discuss the practical implications of author purpose, including the impact on publishing decisions and marketing strategies. They advocate for a balanced approach, considering both personal fulfillment and market demands. The dialogue also touches on the importance of authenticity in writing, with examples illustrating how a genuine connection to one’s work can enhance its appeal and longevity.

The discussion emphasizes the dynamic nature of an author's career, noting that goals and motivations can evolve over time. Reflecting on personal themes and reader expectations is highlighted as a way to maintain relevance and resonance in one’s writing.

In summary, the episode is a nuanced conversation about the concept of author purpose, offering valuable perspectives for writers at different stages of their careers. It underscores the importance of self-awareness, authenticity, and strategic planning in navigating the complexities of the publishing industry. The discussion serves as a reminder that while financial success is a common goal, the foundational element of a fulfilling authorial career is a deep understanding of and alignment with one’s personal motivations and objectives in writing.

Transcript

Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guests are Greta Boris and Megan Haskell. Hey Greta and Megan, how are you doing?

Greta: Hi, Matty.

Megan: We're good. Always happy to talk on the podcast.

Meet Greta Boris and Megan Haskell

Matty: I always love to talk with you guys. so just in case anyone, doesn't know about you guys, Greta Boris is a USA Today bestselling mystery and thriller author, and Megan Haskell is an award-winning fantasy adventure author. And together they founded the Author Wheel, publishers of books, courses, and a podcast to help writers overcome roadblocks and keep their stories rolling.

With over 25 years of writing and publishing experience between them, they've made the mistakes so you don't have to. And, Megan and Greta were last guests on episode 184, Planning a Novel.

Why a focus on author purpose?

Matty: So, I invited them back, because I wanted to talk about a topic that I know they have both thought about deeply, which is uncovering your author purpose, and I always like to start out these kind of conversations saying, What did you see in either your own author career or the career of the, authors you interact with that suggested that uncovering your author purpose was an important message to get out there? And, Megan, I will start with you. What do you think about that?

Megan: So this is actually a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. Greta and I are both, you know, Achiever personalities. And I in particular am a Type A Achiever, which is just like cherry on top of that, that particular ice cream sundae. and What happened for me, I'll tell my story, and that's that when I first started writing, it was all about that creative outlet.

I was sitting on the train, commuting into work every day, reading a lot of books, which was great, but I needed, and I had a number crunching job. I was an accountant, a forensic accountant, actually, at one of the big accounting firms, and so I needed that, creative moment in time where I could just sit with myself and process things and do something new and unique and You know, artistic.

And so that's how I started. But because of who I am and my personality and all these other things, once I started publishing, I immediately started going, okay, how do I make money doing this? How do I make this business? How do I like, and you start doing that grind and that, that churn on trying to, you know, You know, be a six figure, seven figure author and how you can't be successful or say you've achieved anything until you've actually hit those metrics, which is honestly kind of ridiculous because there are very, very few seven figure authors out there, So, for me, I had to come back to, why am I writing? It is not, it was never intended to be this grind. It was a creative outlet, and I needed to understand that piece of myself, and that piece of my own mission, why I'm telling stories, what drew me to this art, what I'm trying to bring to readers, all of those issues were incredibly important for finding the satisfaction I needed in the writing and bringing back the joy of writing itself.

Matty: I love the answer. Greta, what, what, attracts you to the idea of author purpose?

Greta: So, I mean, I also had a little come to Jesus meeting with myself, as my career progressed, but, I'll take it a different way. Megan and I were teaching quite a bit at conferences in the oily days, and we were teaching on, independent publishing versus traditional publishing.

At the time Megan was indie, I was traditional. And so we were kind of just trying to give people the broad scope. And what I really noticed was there's a lot of people who had just swallowed a line, like a something they'd heard as truth. And thought this is what you have to do. And they never stopped to figure out what they particularly were trying to accomplish.

You know, so you'd meet, people who were retired and had written their bucket list book, you know, that the book they never had time to write when they were corporate or whatever. And now they're in their sixties, they've written their first book. It's not particularly saleable, but it's their book and it's cool that they did it, but they think they have to pitch agents.

And they think that the only way they're going to get published.is if they get, you know, Penguin Random House to pick up their book and it's like that's just chances of that happening are kind of like getting bit by a shark, you know, so it's I

Matty: an interesting analogy.

Greta: My son is a surfer, so we use this analogy frequently, although his chances of being bit by a shark are probably greater than the average person's. But I digress.

Matty: You're swimming with sharks.

Greta: Exactly. So, so we began, we actually started this concept with this little thing we did called an author personality quiz, and it was just kind of to help people realize that no, not everybody needs to get an agent and not everybody needs to be an authorpreneur either and study all the things there is about indie publishing and learn how to do crazy Facebook ads and run book club ads and do all that.

Not everybody needs to do that. Some people Just need to do a good job and maybe get some help and publish that one book and send the link to all their friends and family and that's what's going to satisfy them. So, that's kind of where it started, but then as we began to work more and more with authors who are more similar to us, you know, trying to actually at least cover their costs with their publishing life or maybe make a few bucks, then it became honed into more of a, well, there's so many ways that you can do this.

So, what are you actually trying to accomplish? Who are you? And that kind of thing. So that’s where we started kind of getting deeper into, what is your author purpose?

Understanding your priorities and circumstances

Matty: Well, that is, uh, really resonates with me for two reasons. One is that it was interesting because I was putting together a presentation, for people who didn't know anything about publishing. It was going to be, if you want to indie publish, here are the options. And I organized, just for the part that was like production and distribution, I organized it from kindle if you value money over time, and then if you value time over money, and so the first level I put was, if you want to get your book out there to a lot of different places, and you're not really worried about how much money you make, then just do it all through Draft2Digital, because you can get to, Pretty much anywhere that most people in the American market are going to want to get to.

You can do it through ebook and print. And you only have to go to one place. You only have to deal with one company. and it's the most time efficient way. And I showed that to a couple of, my fellow indie authors, and they were all horrified that I would suggest to somebody that they not at least go direct to Amazon.

I was like, yeah, because, you know, I think all three of us and probably many of the listeners want to make some money and there are financial reasons that you would want to go to Amazon Direct and not through Draft2Digital. But if you just want to get your book out there and you don't care how much money you're going to make and you don't have very much time, you know what, Draft2Digital is the way to go.

Greta: We'll do it for you.

Matty: yeah, they'll do it for you.

Megan: And I think that's so key right there, and that's why I think the mission statement is not just for how you're developing your author strategy, it's also, it's internal and external. It's both pieces coming together, because you have to understand what your own goals are before you can decide what strategy you want to pursue.

and They're all valid strategies, they're all valid reasons for writing or publishing, whether you're what we called in that author personality, quiz, the bucket lister, who's just written a book because it was something they always wanted to do and they just had one story that they wanted to tell or it's their memoir or whatever, that's the bucket lister.

Or maybe you're what we called a calling card writer, which is someone who has a business, and that book is going to support that business. It's going to be your calling card. Calling Card, hence the name. and then there's the artist and the entrepreneur. And we had all these different personalities, and the concept has really evolved over time, but ultimately it comes down to understanding yourself, your goals, your motivations, and your processes so that you can find that satisfaction and reach the right kinds of readers in the right places and the right way over time, whatever that length of time is for you. I think that's so, it's so important to have both of those aspects when you're considering, you know, what you're doing and why. Why, why pick this job, this horrible, painful, wonderful job, if you don't have to?

Matty: That said, I love the names you're throwing out, like the bucket list and the calling card, the entrepreneur. I think that this idea of, having those kinds of, that kind of terminology for these different purposes is really great.

Understanding what's "you"

Matty: And the other reason that this resonates with me is that, So, we're recording this toward the end of March in 2024, and at the end of 2023, I made a resolution for myself, which was that I was going to stop cutting myself off from possible financial benefits for personal reasons. This isn't quite the right way to describe it, but as an example, I'm working with someone to try to improve, engagement with my YouTube channel.

And I look at, across all the big name YouTube channels out there, especially ones that are author facing, And a lot of them have the, the thumbnail with the person having the very dramatic facial expression, oh, and, he said, well, you know, that's what's popular. You should do that. And I was like, oh, no, I couldn't do that.

Greta: It’s not me.

Matty: Exactly. And so, and I haven't yet. and I realized that although. Oh, and the same thing, I could generalize this to like book covers, you know, sometimes people will say if you just put like Haunted House on the front of your Ann Kinnear books, you'd sell more.

And I was like, Oh, no, no. And I think in 2024 was when I was going to try to get over that, just get over myself and do the things that were going to make these more financially viable. And in some cases, I have been in some cases, I'm just like, I don't know. Evidently, the making the money isn't the top priority for me. This is me is the most important for me, which I think is very much in line with what you're saying about author purpose.

Greta: And I do think that in the long run, you're better off. Doing the, this is me, because that's something else for those of us who've been around for a little bit, I've seen is it's almost like when somebody decides to write to market, but it isn't really the book series or this that, that they want to write.

It's not like I'm going to take this thing I want to write and I'm going to tweak it a little bit, pivot it a little bit. Toward the market, that I think is one thing, but when somebody just like pulls from air, Megan's a fantasy writer, a little bit of romance in her books, but she hears romantasy is the big thing, so now all of a sudden, she decides to write some like Hot spicy fairy thing, but it's not her. And so is it going to come across? Is it going to seem genuine? Is it going to work? And is it going to have legs? Is it going to have longevity? My guess is no.

Megan: Even if the book itself initially does well with readers, if it hits the market just right, you've analyzed things properly or whatever for your go to market strategy, if you don't love that book, you're not going to want to promote it. You're not going to want to build that long term. And so for me, again, going back to my story, it's more important for me to put my heart and soul in those books and take my time and tell the story the way I want to tell it.

And if I need to go back and revise it a few times than so be it. Or if I adjust my, my, not that I outlined, but my plot points or whatever. You know, a few times, that satisfies that artistic piece of my soul, and then once that book comes out, I know I'm going to love it, and I'm going to be able to keep pushing that series.

And so, even my debut series, right now I'm actually in the process as we record this of, putting together a Kickstarter for a special edition of my debut novel, because I still love that story! Even though it came out originally in 2015, it's almost a decade old! But, but I still love that story, because I wrote it from the heart, and not from the market.

Writing with a goal of marketability

Megan: And that works for me. Now, other people, some people come to writing, and this is, you know, this is not a negative thing. Some people come to writing going, I'm a good writer. I can do this. I can tell stories. I can make money doing this. And they can write really fast, and they come at it from that perspective essentially from day one and that works for them.

And I think that's just a different business model. It's a different strategy. But knowing that about them versus knowing what I know about me changes how you approach this business.

Matty: also think it depends on if you've established, a relationship with a piece of work. And so, you know, I was, I started my first book in 2011, so, you know, I've learned a lot, both from a business and a creative point of view since then. But I had set that series on a trajectory that I wanted to stick with because I enjoyed it.

But I have now six books in my one series, I'm. By the end of this time next year, I'll probably have six books in my other series. It's like a nice little package of two series, and I can imagine writing a standalone and doing it much more Intentionally, from a marketability point of view than I did with my other books, because both of those series were just kind of like the books of my heart, but saying, you can see “Save the Cat Writes a Novel” on my table back here, studying that carefully and saying, you know what, I'm going to, step through this and I'm going to see what it, you know, where it takes me because it's not that I creatively object to that approach, it's just that I can't now apply that to books that already have their own personality.

So I feel like I could shift my author purpose for a completely new product, but I can't shift in mid series for something that's already established in my mind and heart.

Megan: think that makes a lot of sense. I also think doing that process of going through the Save the Cat book is such great practice. I mean, being able to do that for a standalone one book project because you want to learn and because you want to do more, try something different, totally valuable experience, but a very different experience than, as you said, the series from the heart.

Matty: Yeah, I was talking with somebody about that, and they said, oh, you're going to go back and apply that structure. as a study to your early books, and I was like, oh God, I don't think so, because I don't want to find out that, you know, oh, I only have seven beats or, you know, in whatever way I'm deviating from whatever the best practices are.

And I said, no, that's like a, that's a done thing. I'm going to set that aside. I'm going to let it, you know, let it live on its own. It's popular with readers, so I'm not going to mess with that. But going forward, from some point going forward, it would be an interesting study.

Your evolution as an author

Greta: Well, also, as Megan said, going through this kind of, process, you do change, you know, like who you are as a, as an author in your first couple of books is not probably who you are as an author today. And also your, your goals, your motivations and all those things will change over time. And it's funny that, we'll talk about this later, I'm sure, but we have a free course on our website, about this.

What stays consistent over time

Greta: And. A lot of the questions we ask are things that even go back to childhood, because you'll, you, I think that most of us have certain themes that are just in our hearts. Those are the themes that we are the most, that resonate with us, that we really, you know, so If you have certain themes in your heart, chances are even if you changed genres, like even if I said to myself, I'm not going to, I want to try writing something that isn't mystery thriller, you know, I want to try writing a sci fi.

I do love sci fi. I bet you it would still have a lot of those themes that were in my mystery thrillers because I can't help myself. That's where I, this is where I come from. And so those are some of those are the kinds of things that we do explore in that little course because I think understanding yourself also can help you to find those reader connections so that, say, I have people who love my one series which is, more humorous mystery.

How many of those readers can I move over to my more psychological suspense that isn't funny? Not all of them, but if they understand the things that are near and dear to my heart as a writer, I bet you a lot more of them are going to come over so I can highlight those things. You know, the things that attract people to a Greta Boris book.

It's still a Greta Boris book over here, even though it's a slightly different genre. So understanding those things about yourself can even help you, put your best foot forward with readers.

Matty: Well, that's a really nice harking back to an episode I did recently with Pamela Fagan Hutchins, where she was talking about moving from indie publishing, her books to, getting a deal with Bookouture. And she was talking very explicitly about this idea of having to kind of mount a campaign with her followers saying, everybody just calm down.

It's still me out here. it's going to be a little bit different, the, like she was moving from, from more of a, like an amateur. Sleuth kind of scenario to a, or a thriller scenario to a police procedural scenario. And being very intentional about saying to her readers, you know, yes, it's a different cast of characters. Yes, it's a different genre, but it's still, I'm still here. I think she even said that it's still me behind the pen.

Megan: I think that's exactly right. I think there are elements that carry through all of our stories. It kind of has to be that way. And in fact, I’ll tell another little story on myself too. I didn't realize I wrote Portal Fantasy until a year or two ago when a friend pointed it out and he was like, yeah, you realize all your books are portal fantasy, right?

And I was like, no, I've got like this, like more epic thing and I've got this action adventure, secondary world thing, and I've got this contemporary. Urban, paranormal thing, it's like no no no, but they all travel between worlds okay, yes, you're right,

Greta: We, we have a mutual friend who writes in all different genres. I mean, she's got young adult, she's got romance, she's got time travel, she's all over the map. And, she was like on her, I don't know, ninth book or something, and one of her friends said, It's so interesting how you manage to explore the concept of life after death in every single one of these genres.

And she goes, I do? She was like, really? And then she went and looked at her own books and she was like, gobsmacked. Yes, I do. And it's so funny. Sometimes we don't even realize what we're doing because so much of the story's telling is coming from our subconscious.

Matty: I do think that there are, those are all great examples of things that, the author themselves is probably going to be the last one to realize.

Mine your fiction preferences for clarity about your author purpose

Matty: A couple of times we've mentioned this idea of how the things you like to read match or are different from the things you like to write. And I know one of your theories is that you can mine your fiction preferences for clarity about author purpose.

Megan: um, yeah, no, I think that's so key, and I think sometimes that's why the go to market strategy doesn't work for some authors, because, we are drawn to writing typically for most people because we're drawn to reading. We're drawn to story. And what kind of story we enjoy reading is generally going to be the kind of story that we enjoy writing.

So, you know, if you're like, as a kid, I read fantasy, like from, I think my dad gave me, The Hobbit originally in like fourth grade. And from that point forward, if I had a free book, you know, fun reading book. It was. 90 percent of the time, it was a fantasy book. And so I went through all of Tolkien, I went through Anne McCaffrey, I went through Anne Rice, all these different authors, and the thing that ultimately, starting probably in high school through college and everything, again, for the fun, enjoyable reading, not school reading, which is entirely different, but for that fun stuff, It was that action adventure, female led protagonist, okay, Tolkien aside, that got me in, but after that, but the female, you know, the female led story, the kick ass heroine, the, adventure across different realms and quests that escape into other lives and lifestyles and all of that, that was what I loved to read.

And what's interesting is that When I went to go write my epic, I really struggled because I actually, even though it's still fantasy, epic is not the thing that I really enjoy reading. I like a faster pace. I like a little bit less description. I like something that's a little bit more, contained and, A little bit more thrilleresque, right?

That's what I enjoy reading. So I had to come back to that style to be satisfied in my own writing. And so I think that's true for most people when they're writing. Like if you're going in saying, I'm going to write, I've never read a romance in my entire life, I'm going to go write a romance--

Greta: Because that's what's selling.

Megan: Yeah, because I can make seven figures selling spicy romance. Maybe you will, but is that, again, going to satisfy that artistic piece of your soul? Which, this is an art, you know, we sometimes forget that, I think, but it is an art, and so finding that satisfaction is kind of key. So I think looking back at how you progressed through your own reading, what genres, what styles, what tropes you've enjoyed as a reader will really lend itself to that sustainability in your author career.

The roll of tropes

Matty: So, we've been talking, a lot about, personal preferences and genre and so on, but I, but you just mentioned something that I think is very important, which is tropes, and,

but the other thing that I'm going to do, in addition to using the, Save the Cat or whatever, structure thing I land on, is that I'm going to go through and I'm going to highlight all the tropes that I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, I love that.

And then see if I can figure out a way to work that in. Am I working against the whole author purpose concept, or is this all legit stuff?

Greta: No, it's legit because, I also, we do talk about this in our, course on genre, is that, Often, if you were to just try to write a staple standard story, like you took the beats, the romance beats, and you went, okay, first you have the meet cute, and then you have the this, and then you have the, and you did all that, that could be an AI book.

I mean, that's pretty dang formulaic, right? What makes a book more unique, or writing more unique, is the whole idea that I love. A lot of tropes that come from horror, but they don't write horror. But hey, I got some pretty scary stories, bits in my stories, because those horror things can come through those tropes that I'm kind of pulling.

Also, I love post-apocalyptic fiction, but I don't write it. But there are tropes in post-apocalyptic fiction that I might pull, probably not even consciously, but subconsciously, and inject them into my stories, that are humorous mysteries. So, and that's what can really make a story, uniquely yours because Megan and I like to teach in that, in those courses that what readers really love is they love something familiar with a twist. If you're too out there, you're not going to get a whole lot of, at least readers who aren't stoned.

Megan: If you're too out there, it's more a problem of not being able to market it, quite honestly, because you have to be able to explain It's this balancing act. You have to be able to explain what you're writing, what your story is about, and you have to make that familiar, because the familiarity is what people will resonate with.

That's what's going to, they know what to expect, right? But at the same time, you have to twist it. And so you have to add in some other things. So if you go too far out, it just seems like it's all over the place. Like, this is, there are too many mismatched things, and I don't know what this is. I'm not going to read this.

I'm not going to buy it. Even if it's a fabulous story, I don't know what it is, so I'm not going to spend money on it. so I think that's really important, too, is understanding, what those You know, yes, like having those tropes in your story, making the familiar with a twist, but being able to sell it is where the, where, that's where the go to market strategy goes for me.

Having a unifying theme as a "hub"

Matty: I have a wheel metaphor that you guys have probably already come up with, but, it's new for me, so I'm going to share it, and you can tell me if it's in line with the author wheel concept, and that is that I think as long as there's the unifying hub, and so, the way I've thought about this in the past is, Outfit, putting together an outfit.

So you can, let's say you got a new shirt. Just bear with me. And you say, I really want to wear this new shirt. And you know what I this scarf would look really good with a shirt. And you know what would look really good with a scarf, this pair of pants, and I love it. The shoes that go with this pair of pants are great.

And then that I, when I wear these shoes, I always want to wear this hat. And then you stand back, and you think, what have I done? Because I have this, now I have this completely sort of discombobulated outfit where the hat has no connection to the shirt that started it all off. But if you say, I like the, I love the shirt, and I want to have a scarf to wear with it.

Okay, now I'm going to go back to the shirt, I'm going to say, what pants do I want with it? Now I'm going to go back to the shirt and say, what shoes do I want to wear with it? And then you have a unified look. And in the same way, if you have some kind of driving theme, like for me, a driving theme in my books is what happens when an extraordinary ability transforms an ordinary life?

Because I like that. I'm just going to tweak one thing. I'm going to take a world that's largely realistic. I'm going to tweak one thing in it. But you know what? I really love this horror trope and I'm going to see how that relates to this idea of the extraordinary ability. Oh, I love this, this romance trope.

I'm going to see how that relates. so you have the spokes, you have the hub idea, but you have the spokes that, are all connected to the hub. What do you author feelers think about that?

Greta: Love it. We have not used that analogy, but we're going to steal it! That's a good one. It's true in decorating too. if you're going to redo a room often they say to choose an inspiration piece, so sometimes it's a piece of art, and sometimes it's a piece of furniture, sometimes it's whatever it is, and then you kind of build a harmonious whole around that inspiration piece, and I had never thought about that with writing before, but I love it. A good way of looking at things.

Megan: and I think, to take this back to an earlier point in our conversation as well, that hub, that, that central piece is going to be the element that has drawn you to reading, has drawn you to fiction your entire life. So that's going to be, that's where that mining the history and then layering on the fun tropes, it all comes together.

Matty: I do think that my, Lizzy Ballard book, I'm working on the fifth book now. I think I will wrap up the Lizzy Ballard storyline largely in six books. And then I have an idea for a spinoff, a spinoff character that I could build another series on. And I think it would be fairly easy to make it more, you know, Center of genre, as, Sasha Black talks about, that if you're center of genre, then it's a more easily marketable work because people understand what they're signing up for, and that this would be a super cool way, this idea of the driving idea, and these other things we've been talking about would be, I'm all excited about jumping ahead to that.

The danger of shiny thing syndrome

Greta: I know. That's so, that's one of the hard things about this writing life is that books take a long time to write, and we get so many fun and exciting ideas and things we want to do. And we have to, whoa, Nellie, slow down, because you got to finish what you started which is also a point. I'm in favor of this whole under, you know, know thyself, understand your author mission, your author purpose, because we are most writers that I know are very creative, you know, very, it's the most fascinating people in the world.

I love writers. Because of that, they're interested in so many things, they really fall prey to Shiny Thing Syndrome. And that's when, especially writers who can write really fast, sometimes you can see a big fat hot mess in their backlist like nobody knows what they're doing. And I do think that there is a point for that, for understanding your I love your author purpose and mission because, you know, it'll help you choose which of those shiny things actually are going to help you further your goals and your purposes.

Like a spinoff on your Lizzy Ballard series that makes perfect sense. But if you all of a sudden decided to write Ukrainian cookbooks, it might not help your purpose. Backlist that all, you know.

Matty: Yes, exactly. Well, my terror, it's always that, somebody’s going to expect me to write romance and I'm like, oh my god, nobody, no, nobody needs to read that, it'd be the world's worst.

Megan: I keep getting a lot of that from people too, oh, you should just write, just get it steamy and it'll sell.

Matty: I had a scene in one of my Ann Kinnear books, everybody always wants Ann Kinnear to you know, have a romantic relationship with someone. I was like, okay, fine, but, you know, it's all going to happen off the page. But there's a scene in one of my books where the scene starts out and Ann is lying in bed and she hears this other character, you know, one of the male characters that everybody wants her to get together with, she hears his voice a couple of feet away and my editor said he was reading it, he was like, a couple of feet away, that seems weird, and as it turns out, spoiler alert, he's not in bed with her, he's, there's someone stalking her and he, who is, he's a police officer and he's sitting in the room with her so that when the stalker arrives, he'll be there to protect her.

Greta: That's pretty funny. We were talking to an audiobook narrator. who, I can't remember if it was a book she wrote or a book she was just narrating, but it had steamy stuff and she thought she was going to be fine with it. And she said she had to keep stopping and giggling and then get back into narrating. It was like she was really struggling with it. She's yeah, maybe this isn't my genre, you know,

Matty: Yeah, that would be tough. I always want to ask somebody who writes steamy romance, I'm such a teenager, because what I want to ask them is, do your parents read this? So how do they think about it? Because that's all I could think of. If my parents were still around and I was writing steamy stuff, I'd just be like, oh god, I hope mom and dad aren't reading this.

Greta: or worse to your, are your children reading this? Yeah. Now that my kids are adults.

Matty: Yeah. Okay. Well, then we're just, I'm just reflecting my own personal, deep-seated issues with this discussion.

Creating a reader-focused tagline

Matty: But the last topic that we had agreed to talk about was, turning everything we've talked about into a reader focused tagline. And I think this is an interesting way to bring together the idea of understanding your author purpose from a creative point of view and understanding your author purpose from a business point of view.

that this is the, you know, the reader focused tagline is what you're putting out there to hopefully attract readers and make your book financially successful. So, Is this in fact a way, like, how do you reconcile those two things if perhaps you feel like your author purpose, your creative and your business author purposes are not in alignment and maybe that shows up as you start thinking about more reader focused things like the tagline.
Megan, I'm going to throw that out to you.

The importance of alignment between your creative and business focuses

Megan: Sure. So first off, I would say get that into alignment. I mean, that's really the core point of our seven days to what it's seven days to clarity. How to build your mission statement course. It's once you understand where you're coming from, your past, what you're doing now, what you, what your goals are, what you want to, you know, achieve for readers, those, what kinds of readers you want to attract, that's, that should lead into what you're writing.

And then that writing should lead into a tagline. So my tagline, for example, is escape into myth, magic, and mayhem. All my books have myth, they all have magic, and they all have mayhem. They're action, fantasy, adventure. Right? That's what I write. And so if you can say that quickly and express that to readers, you're more likely to be able to have that Comprehensive or unified backlist or future list as you continue to write.

So I think that's, one of the things that we've seen from some of our other author friends. We're talking about, you know, fast writers who have this massive backlist and it's just all over the place. Finding that unifying theme and then packaging your books in a way to Identify that theme for, you know, for your readers and bring that all together and package it all up into a single tagline.

It might be really hard to do, but we believe there will be a way to do that. That there will be a unifying element or theme or concept within your backlist that you can find and bring to light into your own tagline.

Different pen names for different purposes

Greta: And sometimes it's pen names. Sometimes that helps people recognize, like if you absolutely can't, and you've got six books over here that do one thing, and then you've got four books over here that do another thing, maybe. You need two pen names. And then you could have a purpose for each, for each version of yourself and a tagline for each version of yourself.

So that's another thing that we do talk about a little bit in that course. It's if you can't pull it all together, can you separate it into one or two pen names? You know, is that, will that help the process? You know, my tagline is murders that hit home and it's because I tend, even my suspense or more domestic suspense, I don't have police procedurals.

I don't have, you know, Navy SEALs or global espionage or it's all. Tucked here in Southern California, which is where I live, and they all kind of revolve around personalities and relationships because that's what fascinates me. So I think that, and then I realized, you know, that tagline works for my mortician mysteries, which are cozier, cozyesque, paranormal, funnier.

And then my almost true crime series that's coming out, which is It's almost true crime, which is not that funny and it's not as cozy, but they're both still murders that hit home. They have those common themes, which are, you know, I like to explore the psychology and the relationships and why do people commit crimes and those kinds of things. That's going to come out in all my books.

Megan: And they all have dead bodies.

Greta: Oh, absolutely.

Matty: Yeah, and I think that it's nice because you've both picked taglines where you are sending a very clear, message to the reader and that if someone, you know, reads Murders and Home in the same sentence or you, they read, Myths of Mayhem in the same sentence then it's going to give a very clear, and helpful idea to them of whether your books are for them or not.

Megan: I've been thinking about, I'm going to have a standalone coming out probably later this year that is not, you know, both my existing series, there is this, The Extraordinary Ability that Transforms the Ordinary Life, it's a different Extraordinary Ability in each series, but that's the common theme, but I'm thinking I almost need to tweak the tagline for that one very explicitly to be, What happens when an ordinary person is faced with extraordinary circumstances, or some flavor of that, because I like that juxtaposition of the ordinary and the extraordinary, but in this it's a little bit, you know, It's the idea of an ordinary person stepping up to, to deal with an extraordinary situation.

Matty: So, but there's still consistency there, I think.

Different taglines for the author and the books

Greta: with which your tagline, your, and so this is something too that we teach in the courses that a book tagline is different than an author tagline. And an author tagline is more all-encompassing. Whereas a book like, you know, the mortician mystery is I've been playing around with different taglines for the different titles, but it's usually like a paranormal mortician murder or, something like that's very targeted to that series.

But like an author mission, like yours could be something like where the extraordinary meets the ordinary or where the ordinary meets the extraordinary, because then it would work whichever way you wanted to play with that. Yeah. I won't even charge you for that one.

Matty: We're trading for the clothing and hub thing in exchange for the tagline.

Greta: Exactly. But we do have a little fill in the, several little fill in the blanks kind of things to help people build their tagline. So it's not just now come up with this, it's like you're doing these fill in the blank sentences and then you're editing them and you're, so we do have some steps to that to make it easier.

Matty: Well and I know that you guys have resources to help us out. Can you describe what those are and, where people can go to find them? Megan, I'll throw it out to you.

Megan: sure. So, if you go to authorwheel.com slash stuff, that's where we have all of our current freebies. when you know, subscribe to our list, you get, you can get all of them or download all of them. The one that we are talking about the most in this podcast is the Seven Days to Clarity Uncover your author purpose, and it is a seven-day free little email mini course. we are actually currently as we record this in the process of converting it from like strict email to a more online course where you'll just get a new lesson every day. But you'll still just go over to authorwheel.com slash stuff to sign up and check that out.

Matty: So cool. And I want to uh, give you both a chance to just, direct people to your, fiction writing as well. So, Greta, why don't you, let us know where people can go to find that?

Greta: Yeah. Well, everything that I'm doing is at GretaBoris.com. And I also have, of course, a novella in the mortician mystery world, mortician murder world there for you. It's called Mortuary School. And you can find out what happens when Imogene Lynch goes to Mortuary School.

Matty: Excellent. And Megan, how about you? Where can people find out more about your fiction work?

Megan: Sure, so I'm at MeganHaskell. com, and for mine, you can actually download, I sell all my books in all formats that I have available on my website directly, but the first book, in the Sanyari Chronicles, The Last Descendant, is available for free on my website in ebook form, so you can just go there and download that for free, and then I have some other short stories and things that are available as well.

Matty: So cool. Well, thank you so much, you guys. Always lovely to chat with you. And, thank you for, shedding some light on the author purpose.

Megan: Absolutely, anytime.

Greta: Thanks for having us on, Matty.

Matty Dalrymple 5/21/24 Matty Dalrymple 5/21/24

Episode 239 - Moving the Needle to a Different Track with Johnny B. Truant

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Johnny B. Truant discusses MOVING THE NEEDLE TO A DIFFERENT TRACK, including the impetus for him starting his podcast, "The Art of Noticing" and what drove his creative pivot; the importance of not missing the magic that's happening around you; supporting the artisan writer; the age of the iconoclast writer; the power of being authentically you; the necessity to segregate your audiences; and the power of stepping back.

Johnny B. Truant is the bestselling author of Fat Vampire, adapted by SyFy as "Reginald the Vampire" starring Spider-Man's Jacob Batalon. His other books include PRETTY KILLER, PATTERN BLACK, INVASION, THE BEAM, DEAD CITY, and over 100 other titles across many genres. Originally from Ohio, Johnny and his family now live in Austin, Texas, where he’s finally surrounded by creative types as weird as he is.

Episode Links

https://johnnybtruant.com

Summary

This episode of "The Indy Author Podcast" featuring Johnny B. Truant covers a wide range of topics, focusing primarily on Truant's career, his perspective on writing and creativity, and the concept of "The Art of Noticing." Truant, a bestselling author known for "Fat Vampire" and other titles, discusses his journey in the writing world, his move to a more artisan, true fan-oriented approach, and his latest project, a podcast about noticing the unnoticed in our daily lives.

Truant's conversation starts with the background of his name, inspired by "House of Leaves," and his venture into writing across various genres. He talks about his transition from a public to a more private figure in the writing community, motivated by the desire to focus on his craft rather than the business side of writing. This shift led to the creation of his podcast, "The Art of Noticing," where he shares weekly (now daily) insights drawn from everyday observations, aiming to inspire and inform the creative community.

The podcast is a reaction to the changing landscape of the writing industry, where the pressure to rapidly produce content can overshadow the artistry and personal connection to writing. Truant emphasizes the importance of authenticity and connection with a dedicated readership over mass appeal. He advocates for an artisanal approach to writing, producing content that is true to the author's vision and resonates with a core audience, even if it means deviating from mainstream expectations.

Throughout the conversation, Truant stresses the value of noticing—the act of observing and finding inspiration in the mundane or overlooked aspects of daily life. This process not only serves as a creative exercise but also as a means to remain grounded and present in a fast-paced world. He shares anecdotes and examples from his podcast, illustrating how simple observations can lead to profound insights and reflections on personal and artistic life.

Truant's dialogue with the host, Matty Dalrymple, also touches on the challenges and rewards of maintaining a distinct voice and vision in the writing industry. He discusses the balance between producing content that satisfies creative aspirations and meeting the expectations and demands of the market. Truant's approach is characterized by a focus on depth and quality, fostering a close-knit community of readers who appreciate his unique style and perspective.

The episode encapsulates Truant's journey from a prolific author to a thoughtful observer and commentator on the creative process. It highlights his commitment to authenticity, the joy of discovery through noticing, and the importance of nurturing a genuine connection with one's audience. The discussion concludes with Truant encouraging writers to find their own path, prioritize meaningful engagement over quantity, and embrace the nuances of their creative journey.

In essence, the conversation with Johnny B. Truant on "The Indy Author Podcast" provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of writing and publishing, underscoring the significance of authenticity, observation, and personal connection in the creative endeavor.

Transcript

Matty: Hello, and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today, my guest is Johnny B. Truant. Hey, Johnny, how are you doing?

Johnny: Hey, thanks for having me!

Matty: I am pleased to have you here.

Meet Johnny B. Truant

Matty: To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Johnny B. Truant is the bestselling author of "Fat Vampire," adapted by Sci-Fi as an original movie, starring Spider-Man's Jacob Batalon. His other books include "Pretty Killer," "Pattern Johnny," "Invasion," "The Beam," "Dead City," and over 100 other titles across many genres. Originally from Ohio, Johnny and his family now live in Austin, Texas, where he's finally surrounded by the creative types as weird as he is. And, Johnny, you can tell me if I'm the last person to figure this out, but I think I now know where you got the inspiration for your public-facing name because I've been reading “House of Leaves.”

Johnny: Boom. Yeah, you are not the first person to figure that out, but you are the first person to directly figure it out and bring it to me. So, there are people who've kind of asked, or there are people I've mentioned it to, or there are people who've been like, "Do you know that there's also a Johnny Truant in 'House of Leaves'?" But you're the first person to nail it like that.

Matty: Oh, good! Do you want to talk a little bit about who Johnny Truant is for people who maybe aren't familiar with "House of Leaves," and why you chose that name?

Johnny: Oh, there's no grand thought behind it. I was reading it at the time, and I liked it as a name, I guess. And it turns out that there's a UK metal band called Johnny Truant, which is a direct homage, I suppose. And so that's where the B came from because I was like, well, I'll look for a Twitter handle. At the time, this was back when Twitter was Twitter, and it was back when Twitter didn't make me want to kill myself. So, I was on Twitter, and I needed a name and I said, "Let me stick a B in there." So yeah, that's the story, for what it's worth.

Matty: Yeah, well, I enjoyed having known that name first through your author-related appearances and then seeing it in "House of Leaves" was great.

Johnny: That's hilarious.

Matty: So, I invited you on the podcast to talk about "The Art of Noticing," which I believe is a fairly recent podcast you're working on. We’ll discuss the podcast itself in a little bit, but I love the idea of you framing a whole set of messages around the art of noticing. So why did you decide to do that? What were you seeing in the creative community that led you to feel an emphasis on the art of noticing was important?

Johnny: Well, I enjoy doing podcasts. Since I'm talking to you, I assume you do too. It's a form of communication I like. Obviously, I enjoy writing as well, but I prefer to talk when discussing my work rather than writing it out. That's where it started: "What if I did something new?" Just a bit of background, this is after a self-imposed—well, I don't want to use terms that are too strong—it's not a hiatus or isolation, but I was much less public-facing because we used to do the Self-Publishing Podcast, our Smarter Artist Summit, Masterminds. I decided to just be an author. Then, due to certain events that are too extensive to get into, I decided to re-engage publicly. So what to do? A podcast seemed right. I tossed around a few ideas that didn't stick because they were overcomplicated. I needed something bite-sized, interesting, that would help the community, and that writers struggle with, where I would have a never-ending source of topics. Having done many podcasts and blog post series, you can run out of ideas. So originally, it was about sharing something I learned weekly—it's practically daily now. I’m a curious person, and I love to learn. One of the first ideas before it was about noticing, and more about learning, was inspired by "A Quiet Place." Do you remember seeing that?

Matty: Yes, I did see that.

Johnny: So, the character has a hearing aid that, where it attaches, there's a thing attached to her head, her skull. And I saw someone in real life with a similar one, and I thought, I knew it was a hearing aid, but I didn't know what it was. So I decided to look it up.

It turns out it's called a bone-anchored hearing system. It's for a certain kind of hearing loss where sound can telegraph through bone, and they can enhance it. And I thought, oh, that's interesting. I like learning little tidbits.

But the problem is, do people want to know about random things that are unassociated with one another? My mother had a branding firm, so I understand the importance of having a coherent theme and a container for everything. It just slowly evolved into, well, what if I noticed something that is inconsequential?

Not that the hearing aid thing is inconsequential—that's more trivia. But if I could notice something that just feels like I've never thought about that before, it's right there, but I just never noticed it before. And some of them are learnings. I asked myself, what creative lessons can I take from this? And that's kind of how it was born.

Matty: So did you land on the noticing aspect because you felt it was something that other creative people were not paying sufficient attention to?

Johnny: No, it's really more because I wanted more inspiration for myself. And this is maybe a little bit more global, but I think there's a lot of magic that happens around us that we're blind to because we get into our own little silos of attention and we're just aware that like somebody hasn't liked our post on Instagram enough.
I'm not on Instagram, so that might not be the right term. But you know, you obsess about something and you're unaware of all the amazing things that are going on. So that's less about artistic inspiration. It's less about a particular thing that you would notice, but it's more about, let's get out of our usual entrenched ways of being and take the blinders off.

So it was about me at first. I wanted a way to keep coming up with ideas for myself, especially since I don't—I'm a good articulator, I'm not always a great imaginer. Like, it's difficult for me to come up with something out of the blue. I tend to be like, give me an idea and then I can run with it, and I can find new aspects of it.

But as far as starting fresh, so that to me was like, this can also be a wellspring of inspiration. And hey, if I can do a short-form podcast—cause just to be clear, these are nine minutes of content and then I got a bumper that's like, you know, makes it ten minutes—that's sustainable for me. I can just make a quick note and then I can just, I ramble, you know, for ten minutes in a way that is hopefully coherent.

And so it hit that perfect Venn diagram circle intersection of something I wanted to do, something I felt I could do well, something that would be useful to me, and hopefully something that would be useful to other creatives as well.

Matty: That's really interesting because it was not the answer I was expecting. I was expecting the answer to be that you saw creatives were getting too deep in their Instagram post likes or whatever, and that was the driver rather than the desire to spin up a podcast. But I think I thought that because I definitely saw myself in that pool of people who I imagined you were targeting, suffering as a result of not noticing.

And I really like the aspect of the podcast where you make these tie-ins from the thing you're noticing to the creative life. It's less about the trivia that might be shared; it's more the exercise of, "Oh, I can be doing that too." And I find it very refreshing. Unlike other writing and creative-related podcasts I listen to, where I always leave with an action item, this one feels like a mindset change because it encourages me to pay attention to things I would otherwise overlook. So I find it very valuable, like a mental palate cleanser for me.

Like, you know, I'll be taking a break from writing or my Instagram posts, and it's just a nice little shot of, "Let's just step back for a minute and think about this or look around us."

Johnny: Yeah, well thank you for bringing that up because the intro does say something about how I take something mundane and how you can do the same, and it was meant to be sort of like a word of the day calendar approach. It is daily now, and so every single day if somebody has a 10-minute commute or they go on a walk, they can get that quick hit.

And that was important, but I also wanted to train people. For those who aren't looking for ideas from me, maybe they're looking for that mindset shift.

Johnny: And just if I could go on just a small diversion that's kind of related to this whole thing is that I used to sell to authors. Like, I used to have a business that in some way, shape, or form, I was offering some form of services. Either we had our events, or we had the self-publishing podcast — really just wanted people, but it did feed that business. Like, there was a business aim. And I don't have that anymore.

And I don't want it anymore. So the only thing that I have for sale for authors right now is a 7-month sub stack membership. Right? So it's just like, it's just barely there. And, but the reason that I'm still in this space, like talking to authors, is because, and I've written some really long posts on this, is that the way, the trends that I'm seeing in the space, I feel are discouraging to a lot of new authors and that bugs me.

And what I'm referring to is, you know, our book, "Write, Publish, Repeat," helped to extort some of this, but that rapid release churn and burn, nothing against it. Like, I just want to be clear, the people that it works for, wonderful, but I think of this new person coming in and saying, okay, I just attended my first writer's conference.

You're telling me I need to write a book every two weeks to survive, and I just want to tell my story. Or, you know, I just heard about this author over here who's using AI to, you know, throw in, like, plot lines, and they're generating whole books, and they're going to do a thousand books this year.

Like, you hear those stories. Now, again, that's them. It's not me. I'm more of an artisan approach. And so, I have this global feeling of wanting to intercede on behalf of that author who either is established and still figuring things out, is established and feels run over by that, and just wants to kind of slow down and make their art and tell their story, or especially the new person who's like, I got into this because this was my dream.

Like, I wanted to share my story, I wanted to live an artistic life, and crap, right? This isn't what I signed up for. So "The Art of Noticing" and the whole, like when I write for authors now, that is the main goal, is I just, there's not a lot in it for me anymore, monetarily speaking. So that's part of what this is an attempt to say, look, if I can inspire you in any way, that's what I want to do.

Matty: I really like that idea of sending out a message that's different than the churn and burn message, because I've mentioned this a couple of times on the podcast—my author friends are going to laugh that I'm saying it again—but I'm trying to banish the word "just" in the context of, you know, "I just have four books" or "I just have 50 people on my email list" and whenever that happens it makes me sad because I think somebody who's written four books, four freaking books, they're saying "just four books," like, it just makes me sad, and if you have 50 people on your email list, it doesn't mean you don't want 5,000, but let's celebrate the 50, while we still have the goal of getting to 500, and I think that kind of thing is really what you're saying is very supportive of that.

Johnny: Yeah. I mean, it's a whole rabbit hole, but I'm a "thousand true fans" guy. I don't necessarily want to chart on Amazon through that anymore. I want my thousand true fans and I think that's the way the smaller author who prefers to take their time and wants to really put craftsmanship into their work, I think that's the way to go.

What drove Johnny's pivot?

Matty: Well, there, I'm going to take this conversation a little bit in a different direction than I originally thought. But you said a couple of things that I think are very interesting. One is that you started the podcast and you said, "It was about me at first," and also the fact that you weren't going into this as another stream of income in your author business.

Can you just talk about that? And you're also talking about ways that your approach has changed, maybe from the churn and burn to the more artisan approach, and things like that. Can you just describe a little bit about how your general gestalt about the creative process has changed and in what ways it's stayed the same?

Johnny: Yeah. Again, I'd like to repeat at the top of this—this soapbox sermon, which I hope it isn't—is that I am in no way disparaging anybody who chooses to do things differently than me because that's the way it can sound. So even the thing, the words that I used, and you just repeated them, churn and burn.

I'm sorry to those of you who are Rapid Release authors; I don't mean that to be pejorative. That's what it feels like to me because I am the kind of person—and this despite getting a reputation as a person who produced a lot of books, and that's what "Write, Publish, Repeat," our book... So I get it. But I also believe that you can pivot as a creative person.

And I think that you should. I think that you should look at the world around you, your current situation, where you want to go. And that's not flip-flopping; that's changing your mind and being a creative person who is doing it.

I've never been able to do anything that felt mercenary. It's kind of a shame because I think I would have been good at it. At mercenary. I have that mind, but I just can't do it. I can't do something that doesn't really speak to me.

Matty: I can imagine there are many people who are listening to this, and they're seeing their own experience in what you're saying. So that maybe they went into this thinking that rapid release was what they wanted to do and they're feeling angsty about it, but they feel like, well, no, I committed to this direction.

Like, I've got to keep pursuing it because this is the right way. And I'm just wondering, like, what markers did you see in your own life that made you say, now's the time for me to take a step back and look at something different?

Johnny: Yeah. I, the universe seems to need to push me in a new direction. So I am a creature of momentum and habit to some degree. So if things were working, if things about the old way that I was doing things were working, then I think I would probably still be doing it, possibly to my detriment. But the thing is, I write odd books.

And at the beginning, for some reason, I was able to, I don't know, hit certain tropes, or we presented our books in certain ways, or we did hit that algorithmic thing just right. And so I was able to sell a lot of my odd books. So for instance, my most well-known book is "Fat Vampire," which is already weird.

It's not really a vampire book. It's like this, it's maybe like a "Shaun of the Dead" sort of thing. But anyway, that's "Fat Vampire." Compare that to "Twilight," "Interview with a Vampire," or "Vampire Diaries" like these mainstream vampire things that stick with just vampirism do much better than these little cult things.

So I've always had these niches, even our big series "Invasion," which is this alien invasion action epic. The first book is very much two tropes. It, you know, they're fleeing an invasion, but then not to spoil it, but the ending was unsatisfying to some people because we took it in a really different direction.

And then the rest of the series gets all weird and philosophical. So those are the kind of books that I write. And I'm not able to not do that. I mean, I have tried. I've tried to say, "I'm going to write this book that will do really well." And it's not going to happen. So somehow the market... You know, I had to figure something out, and I just, I mentioned that five-year quiet time.

And what happened during that was I was working with some friends at Sterling and Stone Story Studio, and they're the ones who did the Smarter Artist Summit and all that. So that's Sean Platt, my co-writer and everything. And they were handling everything for me. So I didn't have to do anything other than write.

And so it was really easy to say, I'm just going to keep writing. Well, fast forward. It's a long string of events and it doesn't matter, but I ended up negotiating with them to get back the rights to most of my books because I just, I don't know, I wanted to try it on my own. I went to the last 20 Books, and I said, boy, I could be doing this cool stuff, but only if I have all the control.

And when I got out there, I very quickly realized that, kind of KDP Select whale readers, rapid release, all the stuff that we helped roll the ball forward in terms of talking about that had gotten so much farther down the pipe because again, I was out of that for five years I didn't pay attention and it I was my weird books were no longer tenable and they hadn't really been all the while either, like for the people who were doing it, it wasn't.

So this was a move of necessity, but it was also a heart space move because I've always wanted to make the books, stories, however I wanted to tell them, not what was tropey or not what was successful right now. I just wanted to do that. And it was just a move of necessity where I realized that I was not, if I wanted to sell any books, I was going to have to find my true fans.

Johnny: Now, I will give you some further reading on this for your listeners. So I wrote two posts on Russell Nolte’s Substack called "The Author Stack," and it's at authorstack.substack.com. I wrote a guest post called "We're Entering the Age of the Iconoclast Writer," which I said the author of.

And then the second one is called "Exposing Yourself for Fun and Profit." And the first one is about the shift that I'm talking about where if you want to go down what I'm calling this artisan author path—because there's a fork in the road. So as things get more systematized, more rapid release, more conforming to a genre, and more fast books, there's a contingent of authors and writers who are like, "Whoa, I was okay when it was in the middle, but look at how far it's gone. I want to be over here." So writers and authors, and I talked to a bunch of them at 20 books, and they're like, "I'm not playing that game anymore. I was willing to play it for a while, but now it's become so incredibly not me that I need to do something else." And luckily the readers, there are a contingent of readers who feel the same way, that they're like, "I don't want to read the KDP Select books. I want to read something that's unique and interesting." And so if you go all-in on this kind of artisan thing where I'm making beautiful physical editions of my books as much as I can now. I'm leaning fully and completely into the weirdness and the weird types of books that I'm, that are me. And I launched my web store, and it very much is me and my weirdness.

And so that's what that first post is about, is about this option for another way of doing things, which I would call the artist and author approach.

Being authentically you

Johnny: And that's the post called "We're Entering the Age of the Iconoclast Writer." The other one, which is called "Exposing Yourself for Fun and Profit," is kind of a sequel to it.

And exposing yourself, in this case, is obviously tongue-in-cheek. It's the idea that, in order to attract true fans, you need to expose who you are. You need to be yourself. You need to take personal and emotional risks because that is how true fans connect with you. They don't connect with you if you're bland and "let me be professional and let me show you my professional author headshot.

And so those two posts together kind of sum up everything that I think. I think that if you're going to be the artist and author, that means you're no longer playing the "as cheap as possible but as many books as possible" game, and you're stepping over here into like, if you go into a really nice coffee shop, you're paying a lot more for coffee.

But it's made with care and artistry and the best ingredients. And that's the way I see this book thing is, and again, I have to watch because I don't want to speak ill of the competition, but it is an artisan approach. I mean, I'm making hardbacks. Who makes hardbacks? But the people who want that artisan thing want hardbacks.

I'm putting more care into my internal formatting. I'm putting more, I'm not backing off the intricacies in my stories that tend to drive people away, but that works best if you get your thousand true fans rather than as many sales as possible on Amazon or Kobo or Barnes & Noble. And so that's what the second post is about—how to fully attract those fans by being the most authentically you because only you can be you.

Matty: I can imagine a nice simpatico relationship, and I'm not sure if I'm seeing it, what you're describing, but you can tell me if this is playing out for you, but that someone who had decided to follow that path of, "I want a small, deep pool of fans, not a broad, shallow pool of fans," and that the idea of putting something out there frequently, like a daily 10-minute podcast, could be very appealing, both to telegraph the kind of persona that you want to telegraph to and to find the people that you want to find.

Now I'm saying, I'm not sure I'm seeing it play out because there's a weirdness aspect of the Art of Noticing, but it's not deeply weird. But, if you were doing a 10-minute video on something related to the offshoot of vampires that you're following in your own work, then I could see a direct correlation there of sort of like, market research and reader outreach, but are you finding a connection there between building that pool of readers you through the podcast?

Johnny: No, not at all. Thank you for bringing that back around though, because I was thinking like, wow, we're really not talking about the Art of Noticing.

The necessity of segregating your audiences

Johnny: No, I used to throw everybody into one pool, and I think that a lot of authors do this. I think that a lot of authors have a tendency to write their books, and then to, I mean, you're doing it, right?

And then speak to authors about what they're doing, right? So you write your books, and then you talk to other authors, and a lot of people kind of throw that together. As did I. It's not a great idea, in my opinion, so I now keep the hot side hot and the cool side cool, like the old McB.L.T. So I have "The Art of Noticing" which is very much for authors, and I've made sure that the authors know that I have this reader side over here because some of them are dual allegiance.

But plenty are not. And the authors just want author stuff, and the readers just want reader stuff, and they don't want to hear the author stuff. So I basically kept that author side alive with this podcast. It really is close to, I don't know, giving back in a weird way? Like, I hate to sound overly noble, that's not really the intention.

But I can't think of another reason to do it because with like 20 or 30 people paying me on Substack, there's not... I have no desire or intention to ever offer any other author-facing stuff or charge for a course. Like, I'm not doing that anymore. So the only thing I can think is, I don't know, I guess I just must like helping authors.

But you're right because they're different audiences. So, and weird is probably overstating it, I would say just quirky. And if you were to be on my reader list, then I think you would probably see that I just kind of let me be me. But it's not weird, but it is, it's not censored.

I'm not trying to be anything I'm not.

Matty: Well, I'm seeing all sorts of lessons for myself from the podcast point of view because I do sometimes, for example, at the beginning of a podcast episode, if I have a book that's on sale, I will mention it. Although as you're saying, probably the people who are listening to my podcast are not necessarily the people who are reading my books.

I'm doing it almost as a way to prove that I'm in the trenches with you. You know, I'm just not talking about this stuff. I'm also experiencing it, which I think has some value, but maybe not as much value as I had hoped. But the other thing that I really like is you had said early on about offering something that was very simple.

And it is a very simple podcast. It's you, as you had said, you talking for like minutes and 30 seconds and then a very brief intro and outro. And I can imagine that, to generalize this beyond just a selfish question for my own podcast, it's sort of like the minimum viable product of a podcast, not content-wise, but format-wise.

So how did you decide what you wanted to include there and not include there?

Like, did it start out bigger and you thought, no, no, that's not really necessary? Or did it start out longer and you decided that 10 minutes was sufficient?

Johnny: Yeah. I mean, I have a philosophy degree and so I tend to think too much. And so I had, I don't even remember what it was, but there was something that I tried out and I recorded a test episode of some big question that I had about life or existence. I don't even know.

But like, I don't know how you work, but for me, if I record something and then I can't make myself listen back to it, I'm like, oh, that's a problem. Like, I know that is not good and nobody's going to care. So it did take me time to winnow down to this idea of something that was hopefully just really consumable, and I like the ubiquity of it.

The idea is, and it's funny that we haven't actually talked about any of the specific noticings, I'm realizing this now, is, you know, people think, well, I need to go to a scenic overlook to be inspired, or I need to go out in the ocean or something like that. And the idea is not really, it's all around you.

We're just blind to what's around us. And I don't know, I mean, I think that felt to me very accessible because anybody can do that. Any creative can do that. Anybody who's sit, even if you're like a shut in, if you're an author who doesn't want to leave at all, then there's things around that you can notice the, you know, the wood grain in your table.

You can notice the way that the clock ticks very loudly and you hadn't noticed it before. Those are all things that can be drawn, that inspiration can be drawn from,

Matty: There was, there was one other thing I wanted to talk about, and then I'm going to mention a couple of, art of noticing titles, because I do want to give people a little flavor for the kinds of things that you share there.

The Power of Stepping Back

Matty: But one of the things you had mentioned was this idea that you had taken a sabbatical, or whatever the non-dramatic term is that, one would want to use to that for, you know, five years, and it sounds as if by doing that you were able to step back and get that, a different perspective on your career that maybe took you in a different direction.

And there may be people who say, I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to take five years off, but do you feel like there's a way that people can experience the benefit of what you learned in your sabbatical, in a way that's practical for, maybe a greater majority of writers?

Johnny: Yeah, sure. I mean, if, let me first just knock down the, I realized that I didn't give you much to work with, but let me just knock down sabbatical because it sounds like I, it sounds like a rich person thing to like, I'm going to go travel the world. It was just that I didn't want to do anything involved with writing other than writing.

And I stopped doing all the public-facing stuff. So I was still writing books, but I was, that was all I was doing. And I think that when I came up out of that and I said, okay, now I need to, now I want to. Sell these books because by the way, and don't let me lose the track here, is I realized that for me, the art is not just storytelling for me. The art is everything around it. It's communicating with people It's building kind of a world and curiosity. It's building a brand a visual and spoken and articulated brand is very interesting to me. That's part of my art.

Moving the needle to a different track

Johnny: But for me, this process, hey, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you an odd answer, so let's see what you think about this. Is, I think I've grown very introspective. I don't know that I always was, but I think I'm very curious about why I think the ways that I do and why I'm doing what I'm doing.

And I've got this metaphor that I've kind of developed for those of you who are into vinyl or have, you know, are old enough to remember when records were all there was, the idea of, if you wanted to skip to a different song, you picked up the needle and you put it down in a new place.

And I think that so many of us go through life just playing the same track and you're just letting it play forward and I think every once in a while I think of that as a reset. It might not be a perfect metaphor. So I see this with my kids. So my kids are almost 16 and 19 and they're changing so fast that the only way that I can kind of like stay current with them in terms of this is the person I'm relating with now, rather than this is the person that I used to be relating with, and I'm still hanging on to that old image, is that metaphor of like, I'm going to disconnect from where I am right now, scramble, scratch everything, and I think of this as like lifting up the needle and putting it back down to where they actually are today.

So with my kids, it's like, Oh! Okay, I shouldn't be treating my daughter like she's 12 anymore because now she's almost 16 and I get to know that new person and I think I do that with a lot. I think I've developed a habit of trying to pick up the needle, trying to disconnect from what is currently happening, and then question my own assumptions.

And when I do that, then I find, oh, there's no reason to do what I'm doing. Or, why am I doing that? That used to be something that I did back when this was true, but that's no longer true, but out of momentum, I did that. So, my actual specific advice, which I think is a little weird for this, is, I meditate, and I spend a lot of time trying to be quiet. I take a lot of walks, I do spend a lot of time thinking, it's metacognition, it's thinking about thinking, I want to understand the ways that I think, the reasons that I do what I do, and not just do anything just because it's always been done, and I think if you do that, then you start to say, so I'll give you an example.

So I was doing a lot of stuff that was author-facing once I got back into this, in addition to the "Art of Noticing" podcast, and it's a lot of work, and that's fine, but there was this moment where I said, "Wait a minute. I'm not going to do another seminar. I'm not going to hold a boot camp. I'm not going to sell. I'm not going to write more nonfiction books for authors. Why do I feel that this is something I need to do?" Because by the way, the parts that I let go of, I wasn't enjoying doing. So why would I do that? But it was a genuine epiphany. It was like, "Oh my god, how did I not notice that there's no purpose to this?"

Oh, by the way, it also wasn't effective. So it also wasn't growing. So why was I doing it? But I think that we have all sorts of things like that in our creative careers, where we're either doing something because somebody told us once, or because we did it yesterday, or because we don't want to do it again.

We think that it looks like quitting if we stop it, or we think we'll be criticized if we do something weird. And I think if you try to just wipe the slate clean as much as you can and think about your own thought process from as objective a standpoint as you can, I think that's the key.

Matty: I love that. And it's a message that I love hearing myself because I'm a very organized person. I spent many, many years in the corporate world as a project manager. And so I have everything in a list and I try to be very intentional about, you know, when I get up, I get my tea, I sit down at the computer, I open up my list and I try to be very intentional about saying, "Okay, what has bubbled to the top of the list is, update my BookBub ads. Do I really want to be doing that? Is that how I want to be spending my time? Hey, do I even want to be selling BookBub ads?" And so my attempt to be very intentional about it, but it's very difficult because it's super easy to just get sucked into that, "BookBub ads has bubbled to the top of the list, that's what I'm going to be doing this morning."

And I really like that idea of stepping back and noticing other things, as a way of not letting yourself get sucked into that rut. Yeah, please.

Johnny: I think that we tend to have a to-do list mentality that says, this is on my list, so I'm going to do it. And what I kind of like to do, and I learned this mentality from some Tony Robbins thing that I listened to years and years ago, and it was the idea of starting with your outcome. So for instance, BookBub ads.

So by the way, a lot of times for me, that sort of thing is procrastination. I'm like, well, this, I can just do this, and I don't have to come up with a story. Right. Which is way harder, but sometimes it's like, you genuinely want to do it, but what you're trying to do is, I guess, sell more books, but I would really say just grow.

Like, get it as vague as you can. What do I want to do? I want to grow. I want to, in whatever way that means to you. And then once you know where you're trying to go with a given set of to-dos, to then go back and say, okay, what's the best way to grow? And sometimes it's, do your BookBub ads.

But sometimes you might go, well, wait a minute. No, there's a much better way to do it that I've completely forgotten about. So I kind of like that thinking as well.

Matty: Yeah, absolutely.

The art of noticing

Matty: And I'm glad we had that conversation because I was thinking, I really can't call this episode "The Art of Noticing" anymore. And when you said, moving the needle to a different track,

Johnny: There you go. Okay. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I was like, you had me on to talk about the art of noticing and look where I'm going.

Matty: Oh, I think this is great, not getting stuck in the rut of what the assigned topic was, I think is perfect. So I do want to give you a chance to just share an example of the kind of things you talk about on the podcast. And I came up with some topics.

So, one that I really enjoyed was the "sticks and vines are good enough." Do you remember what the background of that one was?

Johnny: Yeah, I do. So, this was during a sequence where we went for Thanksgiving break. We usually take just a small local car trip with another family and we were out in South Texas. And, I was just driving down the road and there were, and we've all seen this, by the way. If somebody's listening to this and is like, well, that's obvious, that's the point.

The point is that they're obvious. So I noticed that instead of fence posts, that a lot of the people that had long fence runs just used random hunks of wood or big thick vines. And to me, that lesson spoke of—so that's the noticing. The noticing is, oh, they're not fence posts, they're whatever. Which functionally, like, who cares?

Because when you have that big of a fence front, unless you have really aggressive animals, they just need a barrier. So who cares? And the idea, if I remember right, the episode, I tried to draw two to three creative lessons that could apply directly to writing. And they're probably things like, consider options you haven't considered before, in terms of your creativity.

Don't feel that you need to do things because they're the quote unquote right way to do them. So, it's kind of the picking up the needle thing. Like, why are you, why do you think you need to use fence posts? Why do you think, so, not to pick on you because I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but why do you think you need to use BookBub ads?

You know, there may be other more creative ways to do it. There may be ways that would work better there may be ways that save you money or require less management, but also having unconventional characters.

I know that I did one on when it was Halloween and I noticed that. So the last Halloween was 2023. And if you go back, you know, just three years from that, it was 2020. And our neighborhood did do Halloween, but they did 'em at a distance. They were throwing candy to the kids or something like that. And there weren't a lot of people. And so by 2023 I know it was like, oh, I just noticed Halloween is back.

I'm in one of those neighborhoods where like, everybody drives to, so it's like Mardi Gras, and you can't get through the crowds, but I noticed that it had diminished quite a bit because of COVID, and I noticed that this year it's back, and so the lesson there was the resilience of traditions and routines that give people a sense of comfort, and I believe that one of the lessons that I pulled out of that one was about imbuing that, imbuing characters with that attribute, because you'll see a lot of times people who are in dire straits, either financially or socially or whatever, they have strong community ties or family ties or spiritual beliefs or rituals that they do.

And they cling maybe a little more tightly to those things than people who don't have to worry about anything. And so taking characters and saying, well, what if you gave them, there was another one about superstitions and those sorts of things, I think, make characters pop in a way that we don't normally think of.

Matty: Well, this was so much fun. This is one of the most wide-ranging conversations I've had, and certainly one of the most inspirational, so thank you for being willing to entertain my wide-ranging questions.

Johnny: Well, the readers didn't hear our preamble, which was, I don't prepare, I just talk off the cuff. So this is what happens when I talk off the cuff.

Matty: I count on that, I count on that. So, Johnny, thank you so much. This has been so much fun, and please let everyone know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you are doing online.

Johnny: I have finally gotten my head together and just put it all in one place. And it's just johnnybtruant.com. Everything you would care about is there.

Matty: Cool. Thank you so much.

Johnny: Thanks.

Matty Dalrymple 5/7/24 Matty Dalrymple 5/7/24

Episode 237 - Creating Your Own Community with Jessie Kwak

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Jessie Kwak discusses CREATING YOUR OWN COMMUNITY. Our conversation was triggered by the fact that Jessie recently hosted the first Author Alchemy Summit, and I wanted to find out what had made her decide to dive into this huge community-building undertaking. But even if organizing your own conference isn’t on your bucket list, the best practices she shares are generalizable to all sorts of other big projects that might be on your wish list: testing your commitment to a major undertaking, the importance of engaging a team of helpers, the challenge of delegation, battling imposter syndrome, gathering supporters and offering them opportunities (rather than asking for favors), achieving balance with the rest of your work, the importance of avoiding task-switching, and following the flow of your energy. I also think that hearing about what is involved in being a conference organizer can help us be better (and more empathetic) conference attendees, but Jessie also offers some great practical tips for us as attendees, including how to find the conferences that best meet our goals and networking for introverts.

Jessie Kwak is an author and business book ghostwriter living in Portland, Oregon. When she’s not writing, she can be found sewing, mountain biking, or out exploring new worlds both at home and abroad. She is the author of a supernatural thriller, two series of space scoundrel sci-fi crime novels, and a handful of productivity books including From Chaos to Creativity and From Big Idea to Book.

Episode Links

Jessie's Links:
https://www.jessiekwak.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kwakjessie/
https://bsky.app/profile/kwakjessie.bsky.social
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC29MGqlb0BZ7eDOxcd0-ENA

Jessie's Previous Podcast Appearances:
Episode 132 - From Big Idea to Book with Jessie Kwak
Episode 179 - Is Freelance Copywriting for You? with Jessie Kwak

Companion Episodes:Episode 155 - The Benefits (and Costs) of Membership with Roland Denzel
Inbetweenisode 116 - Creating Community, Content, and Creative Energy with Jeff Elkins
Episode 039 - Building a Writer Community with Connie Johnson Hambley

Summary

The episode features a conversation between Matty Dalrymple, the host of The Indy Author Podcast, and Jessie Kwak, an author and conference organizer. Jessie discusses her experiences in organizing the Author Alchemy Summit, a conference focused on the business side of writing, particularly on connecting directly with readers. The summit was described as a small, intimate gathering in Portland, Oregon, designed to foster community and networking among writers.

Jessie's motivation for organizing her own conference stemmed from her dissatisfaction with existing events, which she found either too large and impersonal or too narrowly focused on craft rather than business. She aimed to fill this gap with a conference that balanced community, networking, and educational content, specifically tailored to authors interested in the business aspects of their career.

One key theme of the conversation is the importance of understanding your goals when selecting or creating a conference. Jessie emphasizes that knowing what you want to get out of a conference can guide you in choosing or organizing one that meets your needs. This clarity of purpose helps in creating a focused and valuable experience for attendees.

Jessie shares the challenges she faced in organizing the summit, including dealing with imposter syndrome, the difficulty of delegation, and the intricacies of marketing and logistics. She underscores the value of community support and feedback in refining her ideas and gaining the confidence to proceed. Jessie's narrative illustrates the iterative process of organizing a successful event, highlighting how each conversation and piece of feedback helped her to refine her vision and execution.

The discussion also touches on the practical aspects of conference organization, like the selection of speakers and sponsors. Jessie's approach to gathering speakers was rooted in her existing network, prioritizing individuals likely to contribute meaningfully to the conference theme. She candidly discusses her struggle with approaching sponsors, eventually realizing that she was offering valuable advertising opportunities rather than merely seeking financial support.

Balancing the demands of organizing the conference with her other professional responsibilities was another significant challenge. Jessie's strategy involved focused blocks of time dedicated to different tasks, which helped manage her workload and maintain productivity. This approach also helped her manage the psychological demands of switching between tasks and roles.

Networking for introverts is highlighted, with Jessie sharing strategies to create an environment conducive to natural, comfortable interactions. She stresses the importance of structured yet relaxed settings that encourage engagement among attendees.

In conclusion, the conversation encapsulates the multifaceted nature of organizing a conference, from conceptualization to execution. It reflects on the personal growth and community building inherent in such endeavors, offering insights and advice for others considering similar projects. Jessie’s experiences illustrate the complexities of creating an event that balances educational content with networking opportunities, all while managing the logistical and emotional challenges involved.

Transcript

Matty: Hello, and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today, my guest is Jessie Kwak. Hey Jessie, how are you doing?

Jessie: Hey, I'm doing great.

Matty: I am pleased to have you back and to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Jessie Kwak is an author and business book ghostwriter living in Portland, Oregon. When she’s not writing, she can be found sewing, mountain biking, or out exploring new worlds both at home and abroad. She is the author of a supernatural thriller, two series of space scoundrel sci-fi crime novels, and a handful of productivity books including “From Chaos to Creativity” and “From Big Idea to Book.” In fact, Jessie was a guest back in episode 132, talking about "From Big Idea to Book." She has also been on episode 179, "Is Freelance Copywriting for You?"

And to that biography, we can now add Conference Organizer. That's what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to be talking about creating your own community. I had two reasons behind inviting Jessie here. One was that I think it would be interesting for conference attendees to see what goes into creating a conference. But I also think that this whole idea of taking that step to create your own community is really generalizable beyond the specifics of conferences. So we're going to be covering both those aspects, some that are more conference organizational specific, and some that are more generalizable to creating one's own community in general.

The background of Jessie's conference, the Author Alchemy Summit

Matty: So, Jessie, let's start with a description of the conference that you organized.

Jessie: Yeah, the Author Alchemy Summit was held here in Portland, Oregon about three weeks ago from when we're recording this. It was the end of February. It was a small, kind of intimate conference. There were about 60 people there, including speakers and staff. The focus was entirely on the business of writing, specifically on how to connect directly with your readers. I used that question as a focal point because we could have talked about anything from ads to newsletters to craft. I thought, if we have a single track of programming in a small community, we really need a focus. To me, connecting directly with your readers is a question that many authors are trying to figure out these days.

What made Jessie decide to organize a new conference?

Matty: What made you decide to start your own conference versus looking through the available suite of conferences for one you could attend as an attendee?

Jessie: Yeah, I attend a lot of conferences and I really enjoy it. I love the community, I love networking, and I've been to a lot of the bigger ones. I've been to 20 Books in Vegas, which is, of course, probably about the biggest conference you can get into as a writer. Then I've been to some very small ones, like local writing retreats or craft-focused critique group sorts of things. I didn't find a lot that was really in this middle ground, under a hundred people, really focused tightly on networking and community as well as having a high level of educational content. It's been very hard for me to find one that's so business focused.

A lot of conferences, at least in the Pacific Northwest, tend to be more focused on craft and writing, or they're very genre-oriented, like we have some great local sci-fi cons and horror cons. But as far as something that was of that size, focused on community and really on the business aspect, there just wasn't anything like that in the Pacific Northwest.

How can attendees find the conferences that best meet their goals?

Matty: This is a good opportunity to talk about how conference attendees can benefit from this conversation. When you were researching conferences, you were looking for what you just described and weren't finding it. When people are looking for conferences that are a good match for what they want, do you have any transferable advice?

Jessie: Knowing what your goal is the first step. Are you looking to pitch to agents? You won't find that at an indie conference; you'll want to look for a more traditionally focused conference. Are you looking for a wide variety of topics? You won't find that at a small conference, but you might not find as much networking opportunity at a bigger conference as you would at a smaller one. So, know your goals, and then talk to people who have attended in the past. That's a great way to get an idea of whether a conference is for you, whether it's going to be valuable for your genre or career path, whether you're indie or traditional.

What is the vibe like? Some conferences have been around for a while and can be a little hard to break into as a new person. Everyone already knows each other, and it's hard to know who to talk to. Talking to past attendees can be really valuable to get a sense of the vibe.

Testing your commitment to a big undertaking

Matty: Let's talk through the logistics of setting this up. Describe how you went from not finding what you needed to deciding to put on a show.

Jessie: I tapped into my network and started asking anyone I knew who had conference organizing experience to talk me through the steps and try to talk me out of it. I wanted to be talked out of it. I'd say, "Let me tell you my idea, and please poke as many holes as you can in it." I hoped to leave these conversations relieved that I didn't have to organize a conference and could just keep writing my books. But with every conversation, I kept clarifying my idea and thinking, "No, this sounds great; this sounds doable, actually."

And in the end, after talking to enough people, I decided to put down a payment on this event space. Once I did that, I was committed.

Matty: Yeah, I think that's obviously generalizable advice. Anytime you're considering a big leap that's going to require a lot of time, money, effort, or any significant resource, it's a good idea to go to knowledgeable people and ask them to talk you out of it. Going in with the mindset to be persuaded not to do it can be revealing. For certain personalities, the first reason not to proceed might deter them. But this process can really solidify your commitment if you decide to go ahead.

So, what was it like to take that step where you were completely committed?

Jessie: Oh, it was scary. The hardest part was just getting to the point where I was ready to sign the contract. I had to be mindful of potential pitfalls in the contract. Fortunately, I had a local friend who organizes a more traditional writers conference, and I asked them to review the hotel contract to ensure there were no hidden clauses. That was incredibly valuable and confidence-building. But once I paid the deposit, I felt like I had to learn how to market a conference. So, it was very much a process of building the conference as I went along.

Engaging a team of helpers

Matty: And obviously, you weren't doing this on your own. You've mentioned tapping into experts. Did it boil down to you being the sole organizer and consulting experts, or did you assemble a more active team of helpers?

Jessie: Essentially, I was the sole organizer seeking expertise. My husband contributed quite a bit, especially toward the end. He was also my sounding board throughout the process, but he acted as the logistic coordinator during the event, which allowed me to focus on networking, moderating panels, and taking care of the speakers. If someone had a question about the schedule, Rob was there to handle it, which was great.

Another person I brought onto my team was my next-door neighbor, Lydia, who managed the catering for us. She's very organized and considerate, paying attention to details like allergies and dietary restrictions. When I asked her to be the catering director, she accepted, and a few days later, she came over with spreadsheets and a Pinterest board full of ideas for food presentation. I knew then that I had chosen the right person.

The challenge of delegation

Matty: It seems like you lucked into two good helpers there. Did delegating that kind of work come naturally to you, or was it something you struggled with?

Jessie: Delegating is really hard for me, especially in this case because I often didn't know what I needed. People would ask, "What can I help you with?" and I didn't know what to tell them since I was figuring things out as I went. For the second event in 2025, it'll be easier to delegate because I now understand the tasks involved in each project. But the first time around, it was very difficult to delegate when I was still feeling my way through the process.

Matty: There are analogies here for a writer getting ready to publish a book; they have to understand book cover design or the editorial world. You've got to get your feet wet to fully understand what's involved and what you can and cannot comfortably delegate.

Jessie: Exactly, once you've played around with something for a bit, you can decide what you no longer need to do yourself, like updating a website, and can hire a virtual assistant. But until you've done it once, you don't know how to explain it to someone else. Once you do, and you find yourself repeating the task, that's the time to delegate.

Battling imposter syndrome

Matty: Were there any parts in the planning process that were more or less difficult than you expected?

Jessie: Setting up the schedule was emotionally fraught for me. I had a great lineup of speakers, but deciding on the panels and schedule was tough. I suffered from imposter syndrome, questioning my authority to make these decisions. I mentioned this to my husband, and he reminded me that as the conference organizer, I am indeed the one to make these decisions. That helped, but it still took me a while to finalize the schedule because I was caught up in my own doubts for some time.

Matty: Yeah, I can imagine for any of these big endeavors, like organizing a conference, it would be helpful for people to rehearse ahead of time. For instance, "I'm going to be talking to this big-name author, and then I will have to tell them, ask them, or insist on something." Do I feel comfortable about that? Both intellectually comfortable — I guess I am the organizer — and also psychically comfortable, just like what you were saying.

Jessie: Yeah, I read something the other day in a newsletter from a copywriter whose newsletter I subscribe to. He was talking about how ego can really get in your way of putting yourself out there. Normally, we think of ego in terms of, "I think I'm so great," which is more of the hubris side of ego. But he said what often trips people up is the flip side of ego, which is you thinking about yourself and worrying about what people think of you, when really everyone is thinking about themselves and not about you. So when you're going to a conference, many people worry, "What will I say if somebody asks me this?" or "What will people think about this?" Honestly, nobody's really thinking that much about you. I was so tripped up on my own ego, worrying about what people would think of my decisions when, in reality, people were just excited about the conference. They weren't concerned about the specifics of my decision-making.

Matty: Where does she get off?

Jessie: Yeah.

Gathering speakers

Matty: I was also curious about how you ended up with the speakers. In other situations, there might be two ways of going about it. One is "I've developed this network of people who know a lot about X, and I'd love to get them together to do a conference about X." The other is "I want to do a conference about X, and now I'm looking among my network of people to see who could contribute to that." Does one of those sound more like what you did for your conference?

Jessie: My approach was definitely more the first one. I looked at my network and thought about who I could ask that would probably say yes or at least entertain the idea. So, I started with whom I knew, compiled those people, and then built the conference around them. One thing I will do differently next year is think more about the schedule and the topics I want to cover and then find the people to fill those roles. Now that I've established this event, I can point to it and say, "Here, I did this thing, here are some rave reviews. Would you like to come?" Some people have reached out, saying, "Oh, I'd love to be invited next year," which is a really great place to be in. But yes, I definitely started with who I knew that might say yes.

Matty: And did you have to adjust your ego in order to approach those people you wanted to involve?

Jessie: Oh my gosh, yes. That was one of the scariest parts — that and emailing sponsors to ask about sponsorships. I would put off those emails for hours, even days. I'd be in cold sweats just thinking about emailing someone to invite them to my conference. Again, like you said, that was my ego getting in the way, making me worry about what they would think of the invitation.

And my husband's in sales, so he was just like, "People get these kinds of requests a lot. They move on and don't think about you again. They're not upset with you." He was like, "Why are you so worried about asking sponsors for money? That's what they do."

Matty: Did you have to take a different approach between organizations you were requesting sponsorships from and speakers you were expressing interest in as speakers?

Offering opportunities (not asking for favors)

Jessie: Definitely, I think the sponsorship was harder for me because it was straight-up asking for money. I'm thinking, "Who am I, what am I offering you?" But with the speakers, I felt a bit more like I was inviting them to an opportunity, and we were all going to get something out of it. I had to adjust my mindset with sponsors as well because I wasn't asking for a handout; I was selling advertising. Once I reframed it as selling advertising instead of asking for money, it felt very different, and that's what helped me get over that hurdle.

Matty: Yeah, that's clearly very generalizable. I know promotional work isn't super comfortable for anyone, but if you think of it as getting what you have to offer in front of people who could benefit from it, it not only makes it easier to see the value on both sides but also helps you identify your target audience. If you're mentally preparing a pitch and can't clearly define the benefit to them, then maybe you're not pitching to the right group. The same goes for presenting your book to an audience; if it feels like a mismatch, then it might actually be one.

Jessie: Right, whether it's a partnership or a book sale, it should be about the benefit to your audience, not asking for favors. People get hung up because they feel like they're asking for favors when they're not. You're a business owner providing a service. That service is entertaining and educational books. If your message isn't resonating with your audience, there's a mismatch. It's not about begging more; it's about selling. It's a mindset shift.

Achieving balance with a huge project

Matty: One thing people can empathize with is what happens when you take on a huge project and you don't have 20 spare hours a week. You're having to balance this with everything else on your plate. How did you do that, especially since you have a ghostwriting, copywriting business, and you're doing work for yourself and others?

Jessie: Yeah, that was tough to balance. I definitely didn't get as much writing done last year as I wanted to, which... Yeah. So, that was something I had to ask myself from time to time, especially when I had an injury last year and had a rough patch. I knew going back to things, I only had room for one project. Was it organizing this conference? People would understand if I called it off. Or was it writing the next book in my series? The value of bringing all these people together and doing something for the community, which supported me during that rough patch, won out over finishing the book. So, I didn't do it all. It's been a year since I finished my last book, and I'm still on act two of my current one. It's about setting priorities and figuring out what is the most important draw for you and why it is so valuable.

Avoid task-switching

Jessie: But in terms of actual productivity and balance, I tried to focus. I'd be like, "Okay, today is a conference day. Tomorrow, I'll work on this one client project." I work better when I'm not bouncing around and instead focusing on one project at a time. So, with the conference, I'd segment it out by days, as much as I could. For example, I only took meetings on Tuesdays and worked on my fiction on Fridays, setting myself that schedule.

Matty: I'm definitely a proponent of avoiding task-switching as much as possible. Looking back at my corporate life, I realize how inefficient it is to switch tasks every 15 minutes. Once I started working for myself and could segment my time as I wanted, I became much more efficient. Now, I'm always experimenting with the perfect duration for chunks of time. Is it an hour? Half a day? A whole day? A week? I'm currently juggling a nonfiction book I didn't plan to have take up all my time, but I got into a situation where the words were coming easily. Every morning, I would get my tea and think, "Do I go back to my fiction book, which I'm excited about, or do I continue with this nonfiction because it's flowing easily?" Those decisions about how to allocate and then chunk out time are crucial. As you said, today might be just for conference stuff, but tomorrow will be for fiction writing.

Jessie: Yeah, to your point about following the flow of your energy, that's one of the most productive things you can do, especially if you have control over your schedule and don't have to switch tasks abruptly. While I set myself schedules, aside from only taking meetings one or two days a week, I keep things flexible. If I wake up brimming with ideas for essays for my newsletter, I prioritize writing them. It's most efficient to let the words out when they're eager to come. Following the energy flow is key, but it's also important to balance that. Sometimes I might neglect emails while riding that energy wave, so I have to remind myself to dedicate time to clearing my inbox.

Networking for introverts

Matty: Another thing I know you planned carefully for your conference was emphasizing community building for a group that included many introverts. How did you make the environment comfortable for them?

Jessie: Networking for introverts is a topic I'm often asked about. I'm an introvert but have trained myself to network effectively. I understand it can be daunting for people who are new to networking or introverted. At the conference, I wanted to foster an environment where conversations could spark naturally. We had a happy hour before the conference where people could socialize and pick up their packets. I had a few outgoing individuals tasked with engaging anyone who was alone, and I did a lot of that myself. My husband and Lydia handled logistics, so I could focus on mingling and introducing attendees to each other, facilitating connections based on common interests.

For meals, I know how isolating it can be to look for someone to lunch with at a conference. To avoid this, we catered breakfast and lunch right in the event space.

Jessie: People could show up early, grab a bagel or yogurt, and often they'd sit in the same place at the table, getting a chance to talk with their tablemates or meet someone new. After the breakout sessions before lunch, discussions could continue over food, which was ready to go. This eliminated the need for attendees to figure out where to go for lunch or deal with reservations. Making meals convenient and in the event space was critical.

Matty: There are two lessons here beyond conferences. One is finding helpers to manage logistics, allowing you to focus on strategic aspects like introductions and pairing people up. This is similar to indie authors delegating tasks like book cover design to professionals so they can focus on their strengths. The second lesson is the importance of experience. Just as you have to read a lot of books to write one, attending many conferences gives you insights into organizing your own. If you hadn't had those experiences as an attendee, you wouldn't know what to consider for your conference.

Jessie: Right. When I started organizing, I asked everyone I knew who had organized a conference. I quizzed people about their conference experiences and sent out surveys. When someone joined the marketing list for the conference, they received a survey about their preferences and experiences at other conferences. I continually sought other people's experiences. As writers, especially in fiction, we provide readers with new experiences and perspectives. Similarly, if you're unfamiliar with something, like finding an editor or writing a certain character, there are many resources available. You can tap into your network, email experts, or follow them for insights. There are ways to learn how to do something if you listen and seek out information.

Matty: I wanted to circle back to the idea of community. You went into this with a robust community, as evidenced by your ability to tap into them for speakers and attendees, and now you probably have an even bigger network. Do you have any tips for capitalizing on that expanded community for your own benefit and for the benefit of the new people in your community? Maybe it's paving the way for the next conference or helping out in other ways. Are there tips you can share about how to keep those relationships vital after an event?

Jessie: One of the things people often don't do after an event is follow up with the people they met. You might exchange business cards or emails, but many don't send that follow-up email. I often tell people at conferences, if you ever have questions or want to chat, I'm happy to Zoom with you, and very few actually take me up on that offer. We tend to get home from an event and think everyone is busy or they were just being polite. My advice for expanding your community after an event is to actually follow up. Take people at their word. If they say they’d love to meet for coffee or answer questions via email, take advantage of it. Email them.

Matty: That’s great advice. You and I, along with some other attendees of 20 Books, have kept in touch, which has been very valuable to me for a number of reasons. So, I'm a big fan of that. Jessie, thank you so much for sharing all those perspectives. Please let the listeners and viewers know where they can find out more about you, your upcoming conference, and everything else you do online.

Jessie: Thank you so much, this has been a great conversation. You can find more about me at jessiekwak.com. That's J-E-S-S-I-E-K-W-A-K.com. That will have links to the Author Alchemy Summit website. The dates for next year are now set: February 14th through 16th, 2025.

Matty: Great, thank you so much.

Jessie: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Matty Dalrymple 3/26/24 Matty Dalrymple 3/26/24

Episode 231 - Aim Lower - The Secret to Hitting Big Goals Is Targets So Easy You Can't Miss Them with Roland Denzel

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Roland Denzel discusses AIM LOWER - THE SECRET TO HITTING BIG GOALS IS TARGETS SO EASY YOU CAN'T MISS THEM, including how big goals teach bad habits, how tiny dopamine hits mean the world to your habits, how habits need slack and an expiration date, and his advice: One at a time, please.

Roland Denzel created The Indestructible Author in 2015 to help authors just like him be more productive and write more books, all while staying healthy, happy, and sane. You might know Roland as the author of numerous health, fitness, and nutrition books, a health coach, and a restorative exercise specialist, but the truth is Roland has always been an author first. He has written over ten books, dozens of short stories, hundreds of blog posts and articles, and at least one poem, all while raising a family and working a sixty-hour a week day job.

Episode Links

Roland's Links:
https://indestructibleauthor.com
instagram.com/indestructibleauthor/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/IndestructibleAuthorGroup/
https://www.youtube.com/@rolanddenzel-authorcoach

Roland's Previous Podcast Appearance:
Episode 155 - The Benefits (and Costs) of Membership with Roland Denzel

Summary

The main topic discussed was Roland Denzel's philosophy of setting small, achievable goals to build positive writing habits, rather than aiming for overly ambitious targets that can lead to failure and burnout.

Denzel argued that big writing challenges like NaNoWriMo teach bad habits by requiring unsustainable word counts and grueling writing schedules. This can make writing feel miserable and result in associating it with negative emotions. Instead of 50,000 words in a month, he advocated for much smaller daily goals, like writing for just 1 hour per day 5 days a week. The key is making the targets so easy that you simply cannot fail to meet them.

This provides frequent small "dopamine hits" and rewards for accomplishing achievable tasks, reinforcing the habit in a positive way. Denzel emphasized the power of things like checking off to-do items, calendar markings, or little celebrations to provide psychological satisfaction. He also stressed giving yourself "slack" - permission to be imperfect and making goals flexible enough to account for disruptions.

Trying to stack too many new habits at once is a recipe for failure according to Denzel. He recommended introducing just one new positive habit at a time, mastering it through repetition until it feels easy, and then layering in the next habit. This helps avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Habits should also have defined expiration dates, like a 7 or 10 day "test run", to evaluate if they are truly serving you well before committing long-term. If not, you can adjust or scrap the habit without it feeling like a failure.

The ultimate aim is to find an enjoyable, sustainable process for writing and accomplishing goals, rather than resorting to white-knuckle grit and ultimately burning out. Tiny successes and dopamine hits build positive momentum over time.

Denzel's own experiences illustrated these principles. He built a writing career around the constraints of a day job and family by carving out 30-60 minute sessions whenever possible rather than trying to force long dedicated blocks. The key was shaping his process around his life, not the other way around.

In summary, Denzel advocated setting tiny, easy-to-achieve goals that provide frequent positive reinforcement as the secrets to building productive, sustainable writing habits over the long-term. His overarching philosophy centered on an enjoyable, low-stress approach to slowly layering in success after success.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Matty: Hello, and welcome to "The Indy Author Podcast." Today, my guest is Roland Denzel. Hey, Roland, how are you doing?

[00:00:06] Roland: Hey, good morning, Matty. I'm doing great.

[00:00:08] Matty: That's great to hear.

Meet Roland Denzel

[00:00:09] Matty: To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Roland Denzel created "The Indestructible Author" in 2015 to help authors just like him be more productive and write more books, all while staying healthy, happy, and sane.

You might know Roland as the author of numerous health, fitness, and nutrition books, a health coach, and a restorative exercise specialist. But the truth is, Roland has always been an author for us. He has written over 10 books, dozens of short stories, hundreds of blog posts and articles, and at least one poem, all while raising a family and working a 60-hour-a-week day job.

And Roland previously joined me in Episode 155, which was "The Benefits and Costs of Membership."

The Power of Aiming Lower

[00:00:42] Matty: This was a while ago. I can't remember the context where this came up, but I heard Roland talking about something and invited him on the podcast to recap it. This is great because normally now I'm playing with ChatGPT to come up with an intriguing title, and you did this for me.

So the title of what we're going to be talking about is "Aim Lower: The Secret to Hitting Big Goals Is Targets So Easy You Can't Miss Them." Roland even gave me a little teaser for what we're going to be talking about. Whether it's writing a book in a month or setting the same resolutions year after year, the big goals we set for ourselves often come with unsustainable habits.

But what if the secret to reaching your big goals is to build habits so small you simply can't fail? I just love this. Roland was also kind enough to send me some bullet points for what he wanted to cover with this topic. He did all the work for me; this is so great.

Big Goals Teach Bad Habits

[00:01:30] Matty: The first one we want to talk about is big goals teach bad habits.

Talk a little bit about that.

[00:01:38] Roland: As an author, we've probably all tried to do NaNoWriMo, for instance, National Novel Writing Month, and you get all mentally prepared for it. You say, "I'm going to get up in the morning, or work at lunch, or all of the above," and you aim to write 1,666 words per day. It's 30 days, so you just knuckle through, and you get it done.

What happens is it's such a challenge. There are good things about challenges like this; it can prove to you that you can do it, but the downside is that it doesn't teach you any good habits. In fact, it probably teaches you some bad habits because if you have to knuckle through something, that's not sustainable.

If you have to force yourself to do all these things, and then you're dreading it or regretting it, then at the end of that month, it's very unlikely you will continue the same way. You're going to tone it down or you're going to change your process. So many people crash at the end of National Novel Writing Month and take the next month or two or three off, and they don't look at that book again or any book for a long period of time.

So what did that teach you? It taught you that you can do something hard. You can physically do something hard, but it also taught you that writing is hard and it's miserable on a subconscious level because we have to give our subconscious minds a lot of credit for doing things to help us and also to hurt us.

Our subconscious is there to protect us, and it's not always the protection we want.

[00:03:16] Matty: Yeah. I have never done NaNoWriMo, nor have I ever used word count as a measure of my writing because my fear is that if I had to write 1,666 words a day, I would get to 1,500 and then just write 166 words of nonsense, because I would feel like I had to. It's like when the assembly line starts moving too fast and you're just slapping the pieces on because the goal becomes more important than the quality.

[00:03:49] Roland: Exactly. Is that a bad habit? Yes, it's like, do you want to write words just for the sake of words? What's the point of that, right? You're just going to have to delete those words the next time or when you're editing you'll be like, "What was I thinking here? This is nonsense." So that's definitely a big part of it. There's also the thing where, let's say, you take a day off and there are all these fancy spreadsheets that people use for National Novel Writing Month. So you get to a certain point, and it's Thanksgiving. You're traveling that day, dealing with family, and traveling back. No writing that day, which should be fine, right? But the spreadsheet auto-adjusts. So now, the next day, you have to write, say, 1,754 words, and it feels overwhelming.

If you're sick, or there's an emergency, or your laptop crashes, and it takes a while to get it back, then the next day, you're up to 1,900 words. Pretty soon, all of this pressure mounts because you have a goal of meeting this arbitrary 50,000 words in a month, right? Hopefully, you finish it because then you'll get a dopamine hit knowing you can do something hard when it comes to writing. But if you fail, you get the opposite effect. You've told your conscious and subconscious mind that you've failed before.

So next November, or the next time you decide to write a lot in a month, even if you consciously think you can do it, subconsciously, there's a part of you that's reminding you it didn't work out last time. Last time it was really hard, wasn't it? You felt your body tense up so many times. Is it really worth it? Then you either decide it's worth it and make it harder on yourself, thinking, "I'll be more strict this time, so I know I'll succeed." Which, if you fail, it's even worse. You're really piling it on yourself. Or you think the solution is to work harder, which isn't true. What you need is a sustainable, enjoyable way to write, one that continuously gives you little rewards, little successes. You want those kinds of positive outcomes to build habits and to tell yourself you're on the right track.

[00:06:52] Matty: Yeah, if I were in charge of the world, the two changes I would make to NaNoWriMo are not to do it in November because the only worse month they could have picked would be December. Why not do it in January when nothing else is going on? And the other thing is, I think it would be cool to aim for thirty 1,500-word short stories because then at least at the end of the month, you could say, "Well, I didn't get thirty 1,500-word short stories, but I got fifteen 1,500-word short stories." You have an actual finished thing. Even if your schedule totally goes out the window, you might have three substantial stories, and at least you can say, "Look, I finished these three things," not, "I didn't finish this one ginormous thing."

[00:07:43] Roland: But for people new to short stories, it could take hours of mental thought and energy to come up with the idea for a short story, right? So now, if you have to do that every day, you might be even more exhausted by the end of the thirty days. Some people might do better, but some could be like, "Oh, I could never write a short story," and that could just ruin them.

Goals Should Be So Small You Can't Fail

[00:08:08] Roland: So, the next bullet I gave you is that goals should be so small you can't fail, fail-proof, right? Think of a goal that you want to do, like writing short stories. Your goal should not be to write thirty short stories. That's like a long-term goal and it's very arbitrary, just like 50,000 words. Your goal is to write a novel, right? Great. So put that off in the distance. Then you say, "What are the things I need to do? What are the habits or what are the systems I need to put in place to write a novel or to write these short stories?" Then drill them down to the very smallest elements.

These are the things you can set your daily little goals or your daily little systems in place for, but they need to be easy. Let's take National Novel Writing Month. We'll pretend it doesn't exist, but someone says, "I want to write a novel," which is the same goal as NaNoWriMo.

So I want to write a novel. So you can say, "Well, I need to write more. I need to write regularly. I need to keep my story moving." So what can I do that I think is sustainable, that I can absolutely accomplish every day or most days, and that I will feel good about once I'm doing it?

For me, I would say, back before I did NaNoWriMo, I generally have about an hour a day where I can spend some time writing. It's broken up throughout the day. So I would say, "You know what, I think I can write for an hour a day."

Then think about how likely you are to accomplish that on a scale from 1 to 10. If it's a 6, that's a 60 percent chance. No, that's not very good. It's too hard. The goal needs to be smaller. Think of an even smaller goal that you know you can achieve. So say, "Can I do an hour total throughout the day?" Okay, that's better. Instead of an hour in the morning, I can spread my hour throughout the day. Maybe that's a 70 or 80 percent chance, 7 or 8 out of 10. Then ask, "Does it have to be every day?"

[00:12:34] Matty: Well, no, but it has to be maybe five days a week. Six days a week is too hard. So it's only like a seven. Five days a week, an hour a day of writing, and I'm going to qualify writing as sitting in front of my computer and doing nothing else but putting words on my digital page.

I think that's a nine. I think that's pretty achievable. A nine or ten. Because I can find a way to get that, you know, five days a week. That's the kind of goal you need to have, right? And for short stories, if you're really good at them, you might think, okay, I want to work on a short story every day.

It doesn't have to be the same short story because especially at the beginning, if you haven't written one, it could take a lot of not just time thinking. Whenever you're learning something new, it not only takes mental energy but also what I call emotional energy. Because if something frustrates you, it's not just a matter of, "Oh, it's frustrating and my CPU is spinning." It's frustrating, and I feel it viscerally in my body. Like, "This is so frustrating." And then these subconscious things, "I can do it, I can't do it," all these things come up. It's like emotional energy. And for authors, especially, that can be so draining that they burn themselves out very quickly.

So you might want to think, "I'm going to work on my short story for an hour a day." And then list off or make the tiny little things that make up creating a short story—coming up with an idea, a character, a setting, sitting in front of my computer and typing, outlining—it doesn't really matter what it is, as long as you, in your agreement with yourself, know that those are the little things required to meet your goal.

Tiny Dopamine Hits Mean the World to Your Habits

[00:12:54] Roland: Exactly. So, you probably know who Jerry Seinfeld is, the comedian. He had a challenge for himself to write a joke a day. It didn't have to be a good joke, a long joke, or a great joke. Just a joke. He had to spend time writing a joke per day. Sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes it's an hour. But when he got it done, he would just put an X on his calendar. It doesn't sound like much, but an X on your calendar creates a dopamine hit. Just like if you have a to-do list and you check it off, it feels good. You should always put things on your to-do list that you know you can do. It gets you started, right? And then as your list goes up, you feel those dopamine hits every day. Those are positive reinforcements that you're doing the right things with your habits. And the reverse is true.

If you can't meet those things, if you can't get that little hit, you don't get that dopamine hit, then you have a slump that day. So that's why it's important to find something that you know you can do, that you feel very confident that you can achieve. And there's a little bit more to that.

[00:15:13] Matty: There are more protective measures we can put in place that will mitigate the effects of missing a day, like I talked about before, maybe five days out of seven, not necessarily every day per week. That's one way. That's common.

These tiny little dopamine hits can be like a check on the calendar or like when little kids use happy face stickers, right? You could make your own to-do list, you could make your own chart. Like Austin Kleon—I don't know if you know who Austin Kleon is—he writes books like "Steal Like an Artist," "Show Your Work," right?

He has a thing on his website with a form you can print off, and it's like a 31-day calendar, right? It's just a fun calendar in his special handwriting, and he says do whatever you want. Type at the top, write at the top, and put like a sticker, draw something.

It just gives you something that gives you that little feeling, that little hit that feels good every day. They're super tiny, but don't underestimate how powerful something small can be.

[00:15:13] Matty: In your experience, is there a difference between making those kinds of checkoffs physically on a document versus in an online task management thing or a spreadsheet or something like that?

[00:15:25] Roland: There probably is. For a while, I used a to-do app, and all of my apps on my phone have the sounds turned off.

So when I click a to-do, nothing happens. It doesn't vibrate, it doesn't do anything, right? So there's something to be said for that ding, for that noise, right? So you have to find what works for you. Does it feel satisfying? Like, does your to-do list make a flash, or does it make a ding, or does it vibrate in your hand?

Does it send you a message or a notification that feels good? Because that's another thing, like, I think it's Microsoft To Do, every time you check it off, it'll send you an email, or something at the end of the day saying you've done something. So that could be enough to get that email. So, unless you're sure that the digital works for you and makes you feel good when you click it, find something here in the real world, tangible, like those little silver bells that hotels and restaurants used to have, right? Ding, ding, ding, right? Get one of those and keep it on your desk or next to your door, so like when you see it and you get there like, "Oh, I did that today," ding, and hit it.

But it's something, so that's why, I mean, other things like that, stickers are inexpensive. You can have a calendar, like I have a big whiteboard calendar over here, and just checking it off with a different color pen is really nice.

[00:16:54] Matty: I realized that the task management software I use is Trello, and in Trello, if you can put a checklist attached to an item, and so I have one, like my daily tasks, the things that I do every day, check scribe count and check my promotion calendar and things like that. And I've added an automation so that on my daily calendar, once I've checked everything off, first of all, if you check everything off, when you check off the last thing, all the little checkboxes vibrate in a happy way.

[00:17:24] Roland: Oh, that's good.

[00:17:25] Matty: And then it clears out all the checkmarks and it moves the task to the next day. So it is sort of like what you're saying about the stickers. It is oddly satisfying to have a little happy dance from the checkboxes.

[00:17:37] Roland: Isn't it? Yeah.

[00:17:41] Roland: Yes, other things you can do is, if you have... this doesn't really work if you're not very active on social media because you can post things on social media. For example, "Hey, I achieved my goal for the day." It might be super annoying to your Facebook friends if you post every day that you achieved your goal, but if you have, maybe, one thing like, "Here's my goal for the week," and every day you update that post to say you've done it that day, that could be different. You have to see if that is satisfying for you, and if you have enough friends or followers who are engaged, you're going to get responses, people saying "good job," and things like that. So that could be another way to do it.

Habits Need Slack

[00:18:22] Matty: I want to move on to the next bullet, which is "Habits need slack."

[00:18:26] Roland: Yes. So, I learned that not everyone knows what the term "slack" means. You have to have slack, which is just like relaxing. It's like you give yourself a break. That's why I think it's funny. But habits need slack too. I already talked about one type of slack, but I didn't use the term at the time. It's like, instead of committing to seven days per week, I'll aim for five days a week. That's one way of building slack into the habit you're trying to form because it's unsustainable to do something seven days a week forever. Something can happen. So, you either have to make the task easier, or you have to cut yourself some slack and say, "Hey, I'm not going to be super strict with myself."

The key here, with all of these things, is you have to give yourself slack, make the goals small, and define the rewards before you start building the new habit. You have to set these rules before you begin, because if you adjust them later, even for a good reason, I guarantee somewhere deep down, in your soul and in your bones, you'll feel the tiniest bit like a failure. For example, "Oh, I've gone 12 days and I realize that I can't do this seven days a week, so I'm going to do five days a week." That's good, it's good that you're flexible, but having set that expectation ahead of time would have been much more positive. Because now you're not changing the rules. When you change the rules, you subconsciously feel a bit like a failure, and that's what you want to avoid. You want to continue moving forward with positives and not have to take a step back with negatives. So, cutting yourself some slack is crucial.

[00:21:38] Matty: That feels more comfortable to me based on my writing style.

[00:21:41] Roland: Yes, so that's a different kind of slack. Slack can be anything, but it essentially goes with giving yourself permission to not be perfect. The key is to ensure that you grant yourself this permission ahead of time.

[00:21:57] Matty: I like the idea of setting goals ahead of time, not only because it sets you up to feel good when you achieve them, but also because it's a method of triaging what you think you want to accomplish. You might be considering participating in NaNoWriMo, and as you plan out how you'll manage your time and allocate your attention, you may conclude that there's only a 20 percent likelihood of following through. Deciding whether you truly want to commit to NaNoWriMo ahead of time allows you to thoroughly consider your decision. However, I did have a question about slack. There's the slack of, "I intended to write for an hour a day, but I'm just not feeling it," or "I was going to write for an hour today, but my car broke down and I'm dealing with that." These are instances where you need to accept that writing seven days a week isn't feasible, and aiming for five days a week is much more realistic.

Then there are times when you're ill and can't write at all for a week. Do you manage these kinds of emergency situations differently?

[00:23:04] Roland: That's a great point because there are definitely unexpected events that can disrupt your routine. The good news, if it's significant—like your car breaking down or falling ill, as I did with COVID a couple of weeks ago, which prevented me from writing for a few days—is that you know you had a valid reason for missing those days. It's also beneficial to remind yourself that if something drastic occurs, it's understandable, and it's not a point of failure. There are simply times when you cannot do what you planned.

[00:25:28] Matty: I think another way to handle those catastrophic moments is to set such small goals that you can't fail. Habits need slack because, let's say, you start feeling unwell on a Monday and you think, "Okay, this is a catastrophic moment for my writing goals. I'm going to feel terrible today, I'll try to get back to it tomorrow." Then, if the next day you still feel bad, you might think, "Today is another catastrophic day. I'll get back to it tomorrow." However, if you realize you're getting sick and you know it will last a week, you could say, "I'm going to take a week off because I know that's how long it takes." And then, if you get back to it on day five, you feel good about returning to your habit sooner. The key is not to plan too aggressively after a setback, which could further a sense of failure.

[00:26:24] Roland: This is one of the barriers. That's a great point, but it also reminds me of the issue where we tend to start things on New Year's Day, the first of the month, Mondays, or our birthdays. These are real days on the calendar, and I understand why we choose them, but they're quite arbitrary in the grand scheme of things, even saying "I'm going to do this for the month of November." It's also arbitrary. So you could say, "I'm going to do it for 30 days," and if you need a sabbatical, you pick up where you left off after you're well. Right? So, do you feel like you have to start over a little? You can either start over again or pick up where you left off, depending on what's better for you. If you were already in the groove, give yourself some slack and say, "Hey, it's going to take a couple of days to ramp back up to where I was."

[00:27:57] Matty: But I just want to continue. It's going to feel good for me to pick up where I left off and say, "Hey, I did 30 days of this." Yes, there was a sickness there. I had some sick days in between. When you link it to November or December or January, right? You can't get that back. You can't say, "Well, I'm going to finish NaNoWriMo in December," because that's not NaNoWriMo anymore. NaNoWriMo is an official thing, and it's in November, so even though you mean well, part of you is going to say, "Well, it's not quite NaNoWriMo."

[00:28:18] Matty: Well, every time NaNoWriMo comes up, I explain why I don't do it. I feel like to give equal time, I'm going to have to get a NaNoWriMo person on the podcast to represent the other view, but maybe not in October because I'm sure they're all booked up with podcast interviews in October. But, it obviously works well for some people, just consider whether it works well for you or not. Habits need to have an expiration date.

[00:28:24] Roland: Yeah, this one's big. This is all part of Slack, if you think about it. When you're trying to build a new habit, if you say, "I'm going to do this forever," and you don't like it, then eventually you're going to feel bad because you're abandoning it. So, if I'm trying to write 1,666 words per day and I don't like it, at the end of the month, whether I did it or not, if I hated it, I've learned nothing. All I've learned is that I don't like it, but I haven't learned that positive habits can help me. So, if you give yourself an expiration date, usually shorter than a long-term goal, let's say seven days, most people can do something for seven days, and seven days is a good taste test.

I'm going to try this for seven days and see, reevaluate. Do I like it? Is it working for me? And here's the language that I prefer: Is it serving me? If I continue with this habit, is it serving me well? Because if it's not, if I have to cringe and force myself, then I'm not going to be able to continue it forever, and I'm wasting my time.

So, giving it that seven days, for instance, as an expiration date, and saying, "Hey, at the end of seven days, if I reevaluate and I don't like it, I can either make it easier, change the rules, or stop doing it and replace it with something I do want to do." Because who here hasn't tried something for 21 days to build a habit, which is totally fabricated? There's no science in that at all.

[00:30:18] Matty: But you should know within a few days whether you like something or not. And giving yourself an expiration date means that you do not have to abandon it. A realistic expiration date, it's hard to say, so yeah, for seven days, ten days, whatever, if you realize, "Oh, it's not working for me," it's part of that slack and it also saves you from wasting time.

[00:30:47] Matty: Yeah, I like that idea of asking if it's serving you because I think that there's also the less common but still possible problem where you've successfully incorporated a habit into your life. It was serving you well for a while and now you're doing it without really thinking about it.

[00:31:17] Roland: Yeah, exactly. And if you have both an expiration date and a check-in date to say, "Okay, I've been doing this for a month, a year, two years, or a decade," you can assess whether it's still a valuable way to spend your time and if it's providing the benefits you were looking for.

One at a time, please

[00:31:19] Matty: And, the sixth bullet you suggested was "one at a time, please."

[00:31:24] Roland: Yeah. We have a tendency to dive right in. "I'm going to write my novel, so I'm going to write 1,666 words, I'm going to write for an hour, I'm going to get up early, I'm not going to watch Netflix." You pile all these things on at once, which all sound really good. "This is what it would take for me to finish my novel. I'm going to do all of these things." Well, that's a lot to try at once, and it's a lot to process mentally and emotionally. Giving yourself the space to try something new is important. So when you're trying five or six new things at a time, or even three, each one becomes more difficult to experience, to try, and to test, to see whether you like it.

If I try all those things at once and after a week I hate my life, my new life that I've built for myself as an author—no more Netflix, getting up early, writing an hour every day—I don't want that, right? But if you try one at a time, each one is more likely to succeed, and each can be fine-tuned to be a habit that you'll not only keep up but hopefully enjoy. You've heard of habit stacking, right? I prefer the term habit layering. Habit stacking is like piling everything on at once—Netflix, getting up early, etc. But habit layering is when you've semi-mastered a habit, it's on cruise control, like writing for an hour a week for seven to ten days, and you have the mental and emotional space to add a new one on top of it, to layer it. Something that doesn't conflict. Not writing for an hour and a half, but keeping that one and building on it. Habits take 21, 30, 90 days to build, so you keep going with that one. Then you say, "I feel I could write better if I got up a little earlier," and now you try that. You have to start small again, asking, "How much earlier can I realistically get up?" And then you consider all the factors—will I disturb my family, do I need to grind my coffee beans, etc. Then, once you're on a really good track with that second habit, you can consider layering the next one, and so on. We don't have the emotional strength to compartmentalize multiple habits at once, especially when they're all directed towards one goal. When we fail, it feels like we've failed at everything, which can be overwhelming. This is like what happens when people decide, "On Monday, I'm going to start the keto diet and go to the gym five days a week."

And, I need to start going to bed earlier because I know that's going to help me go to the gym. They do all of these things, and then after two or three weeks, they look back and realize they've stopped doing all these things. What a failure. So they give up everything, and because it was all tied together, it was one thing that they were doing.

They give up everything, and then, how long does it take to start again? Because every time you have a failure, it's that much harder to start again. No matter what it is. If you've ever been on a diet, you think, "I was on a diet last year. It didn't really work. I'm going to try it again." But you could try it right now, you could try it on Monday, but you just keep putting it off because consciously and subconsciously, last time you tried, you failed, and this time, it's probably going to be the same. So the way to mitigate that is to go through these steps: smaller dopamine hits, cutting yourself some slack, give yourself an expiration date, and do one thing at a time, and then layer them as every time you succeed.

[00:35:47] Matty: It's interesting because, as we've discussed before, I have a challenge with getting enough movement in my life, and I've talked to many guests about this. A couple of months ago, I was at a book club, and this topic came up. Someone asked me what my day was like as a full-time author, publisher, and podcaster, and I described it, mentioning how it was a very sedentary lifestyle.

Afterwards, one of the women in the book club introduced herself as the executive director of the local YMCA. She said, "I don't know if you've ever been to the YMCA, but here's my card. If you'd like a tour, give me a call, and I'd be happy to take you through it." I thought, why not? I hadn't been to the YMCA, even though it's six minutes from my house, because I had a probably decades-out-of-date idea of what they were like. But I went for a tour, and it was a very nice place with a lot of appealing features.

So, I signed up and started going. One of the things I really liked about it, illustrating many of the points we've discussed, was the app that allowed you to sign up for classes the day before. I loved that I wasn't committing to 10 weeks of yoga. It was like, "I'll do aqua aerobics, and then when I go out to the car, I'll open the app and think, 'Oh, chair yoga, that sounds like fun, I'll do that tomorrow.'" So, I had a lot of flexibility in what I was signing up for, and if I decided I didn't like aqua aerobics, I didn't have to go, and I wasn't wasting any money.

I was sticking with it and found that on the days when I went to the YMCA, I was also more likely to take the dogs for an extra walk because I was already out and about. So, one good thing led to another good thing. Then at the end of December, I got the flu and obviously didn't go to the YMCA.

[00:38:59] Matty: And then after I was over the flu, I still had this chronic cough, and nobody wants to be around someone who's coughing a lot these days. So I wasn't going to the YMCA then. And then I was on vacation, so I wasn't going to the YMCA, and I got back from vacation about a week ago. The earlier part of the story is, I used to have an item on my calendar from 10 to 11:30, which was when I blocked off time for going to the YMCA. But when I got into the habit, I took the calendar entry off because I thought I didn't need the reminder anymore. However, when I got back from vacation, it had sort of fallen off my mental radar. It wasn't that I was thinking about going to the YMCA and deciding not to, it had just disappeared from my conscious mind as something I needed to include in my day.

I realized that I should have put it back on my calendar as a reminder and kept it there until I no longer needed it as a reminder. That illustrates, in my own life, all those things about goals being small, like "yes, tomorrow I'm going to go to the YMCA," and the dopamine hit of saying "today I went to the YMCA," and all those good things. So, this is a good reminder to me to get that back on my calendar and on my actual schedule.

[00:38:59] Roland: Oh, good. I mean, there is some benefit to changing that reminder on your calendar too, because after a while, it just becomes another calendar reminder every day. You sort of tune it out.

[00:39:11] Matty: I think the benefit is that it blocked my time. So, like, I do have events that get scheduled automatically through Calendly, and it was a reminder to me, but it also prevented other things from showing up in that time block, which was important.

[00:39:25] Roland: Yeah. I like that.

[00:39:27] Matty: So, I do have to say, when I was reading over these notes ahead of time, and you were talking about the power of small and things like that, and then I look back over your bio, which ends with raising a family and working a 60-hour week day job. So, in closing, I just want to ask, personally, as someone who has achieved the things described in your bio, is there any contradiction there that we need to discuss? Like, did you say "I am going to not only raise a family but I'm going to work a 60-hour week day job, and then I'm also going to do all the things you're doing on top of that"? How does that all mesh together? How does that work logically together?

[00:40:03] Roland: Well, my goal is not to be a full-time author. My goal is just to write books that people enjoy. Yes, I do want to make some money from my books, but that's not my primary goal. Making money from my books is a good goal, right, and it's a strong part of my goals. But I have no illusions about being a full-time author. I wrote books that I really wanted to, mostly they're health and fitness books. I have some urban fantasy coming up, but right now, they're health and fitness, and I had a message that I wanted to get out there. So putting it out there, I knew that I had a family, which was important, and sometimes I've had a full-time job, and sometimes I've had jobs that, you sort of... I was a health coach and an author coach, and I did consulting for printing and publishing companies.

[00:41:58] Roland: So, it all adds up to those things, but that was where I was primarily making my money. So I had to say, "Here's what I'm doing. This is my life. I have a family. I can't neglect my family, right?" And I also have these jobs, this work. So I looked at how I could build a writing career around that foundation. That's where I came up with the idea that I could write for an hour a day. Luckily, I've trained myself over time to be able to write without needing a solid block of time. Sometimes I can write in the morning, or if I have a longer lunch break, I can take half an hour of my lunch and write then. If I have the energy after work, I can write a little bit there. So over time, it's become like sometimes it's an hour and a half of writing, sometimes it's half an hour, but it's built around my life, rather than my life being formed by it. Yeah.

[00:41:58] Matty: That's so cool. It's always lovely to speak with you and so helpful to be reminded of these things that make so much sense when you describe them but are sometimes hard to remember in the moment when you get all caught up in whatever the latest thing is that you want to do.

[00:42:11] Roland: I do have a freebie that people can download if they go to indestructibleauthor.com/habits. They can download this thing; it's got a poster you can print off, stick on your fridge or your desk, and it will give you all these habits. It goes into a bit more detail on how to set your goals, how to set your habits, and all the ways to get your little dopamine hits. And I think signing up for my email list is a dopamine hit in and of itself.

[00:42:37] Matty: Perfect. Thank you so much, Roland.

[00:42:39] Roland: You're very welcome.

Matty Dalrymple 1/2/24 Matty Dalrymple 1/2/24

Episode 219 - The Productive Power of Organization and Procrastination with John DeDakis

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John DeDakis discusses The Productive Power of Organization and Procrastination, including organizing content and research material and the value of compartmentalizing; organizational approaches with Excel, MS Word, and Scrivener (and alternatives to each), including pairing a draft document with a journal document; creating a synopsis as you write; tapping into AI for synopses and sales descriptions (a nice follow-on to last week's discussion with Kaylin Tristano about STORY BIBLES AND HOW AI CAN HELP); managing your writer business relationships, including a Dropbox tool for obtaining virtual signatures; not letting the (organizational) tail wag the (writing) dog; the power of percolation; and the value of procrastination.

John DeDakis is an award-winning author of five mystery-suspense-thriller novels, a writing coach and instructor, a manuscript editor, a former editor on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," and a former White House correspondent. In his spare time he’s an amateur jazz drummer. John is also the host of the video podcast ONE-TO-ONE. His latest book is FAKE. In fact I got to talk about FAKE with John on my video series WHAT I LEARNED.

Episode Links

https://www.johndedakis.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@JohnDeDakis
https://www.facebook.com/john.dedakis
https://twitter.com/johnDeDakis
https://www.instagram.com/dedakisjohn/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-dedakis-4b09a34/

Mentioned in the Interview:
John's conversation about his book FAKE in my WHAT I LEARNED video series
"Tools Cruise" with PLOTTR

Summary

The Indie Author Podcast hosted a riveting session with the versatile and award-winning writer, John DeDakis, shedding light on how he handles organization for his writing. As the host of the show, I had the chance of delving into John's writing journey, discussing his organization techniques, and exploring the value of procrastination in the writing world.

Practical Organization for Writers

One of the main topics of our conversation was how writers can maintain an effective organizational regime. John shared his experiences from working in "The Situation Room" at CNN, discussing the importance of organization in such large-scale, information-rich environments.

In his writing life, John applies the principles of file organization he learned at CNN to his working approach. Each of his six novels has its dedicated folder on his computer, which are further divided into drafts and research sub-folders.

John emphasized the importance of having a dedicated draft folder, as every writer will go through multiple draft stages during the writing process. He also maintained a 'journal of the book', tracking the progress and history of each of his works. This practice came in handy, notably when he returned to his fourth novel, "Bullet in the Chamber," after a break of three or four years.

Understanding Your Writing Approach

Our discussion also revolved around understanding one's writing style. As John revealed, he doesn't maintain files of ideas, as his are typically embedded in his subconscious, always at the ready when he needs them. This approach may vary from writer to writer. The goal of an organizational system is to aid, not hinder, your productivity and creativity.

John also highlighted the effectiveness of keeping project-specific research folders. For his upcoming political thriller, John maintained research folders on various topics, housing extensive information on subjects from abortion to White Christian nationalism.

The Issue of Procrastination

A crucial aspect we touched upon is regarding procrastination and organization. As John noted, procrastination can be beneficial to writers as it allows ideas to ruminate and mature before they are put on paper. An immediate response or output isn't always necessary, where taking time to ponder and allow your subconscious to process things can lead to better, more refined outcomes.

Conclusion

Every writer has a unique organization style that works best for them. Whether it's keeping meticulous files and folders, as John does, or using advanced software and AI tools, mastering your organization process can significantly boost your efficiency and productivity, leaving you more time for what matters the most – the writing. As John DeDakis succinctly puts it, these tools and techniques ultimately serve the purpose of amplifying your creativity and helping you tell your story.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is John DeDakis. Hey John, how are you doing?

[00:00:05] John: Hi, Matty.

Meet John DeDakis

[00:00:06] Matty: To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, John DeDakis is an award-winning author of five mystery suspense thriller novels, a writing coach and instructor, a manuscript editor, a former editor on CNN's the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, and a former White House correspondent. In his spare time, he's an amateur jazz drummer, and he's also the host of the video podcast One to One, which is very fun. I had the honor of being a guest on John's podcast, and his latest book is FAKE. And in fact, in another connection, I got to talk about FAKE with John on my video series, What I Learned, and I'll include a link to that conversation in the show notes.

[00:00:43] Matty: And so, John and I are going to be talking today about organization for writers. This is a topic I nerd out on a lot. And I thought it would be fun to start out, John, asking you what, from your experience on The Situation Room, did you carry forward to your organizational approach to being an author?

[00:01:02] John: Whoa, I don't know if I did. I mean, CNN is huge, and so they're just normally organized to begin with. And so it was always easy to find what I needed to find to do my job as an editor. I mean, getting to the wires, being able to find video, but it's all about filing. It's all about file systems, I guess you could say. Even though I don't think I took anything consciously from my CNN experience, that is what actually is the similarity, and that's having folders and files where you can find them.

[00:01:41] Matty: So did you bring anything forward in the sense of it being like a downsized version of the enormous version that CNN had at its disposal?

[00:01:51] John: I think you could probably say that, as I say, though unconsciously. I think any organization that's successful is well organized. And I think that that is what I try to transfer over to my own career as a novelist, writing coach, and manuscript editor. If you've got so many balls in the air, you really need to be able to compartmentalize, which is what a file and a folder, what those things are. You need to be able to compartmentalize so that you can jump from one thing to the next, and as soon as you get there, you're oriented.

[00:02:30] Matty: And is your organizational approach mainly around content? As opposed to like your calendar or other organizational things?

[00:02:37] John: Got it. Yeah, my calendar is on my phone, and I don't do it on my computer or anything like that. And the phone is, I mean, the phone is my brain, basically my external drive. And so yeah, the writing stuff and all of that, the content, the creative stuff, that's all on the computer, compartmentalized in folders for whatever project I'm working on.

[00:03:02] Matty: So let's start with organizing information for fiction, because I'm going to have to go back and look. I just had this conversation with someone on the podcast, but I'm always interested in getting different perspectives. Oh, I think it was Art Taylor. And when I think of information related to fiction, I think that there are kind of three categories of information. One is, it would be cool to write a book about storm chasing. We were just talking about that a little bit before we hit record. Then there's the, here's a really cool way to describe clouds. Here's a verb, an adjective I want to use someday. And then there's, well, I said there were three, but there's kind of an infinite number. Then there are all the ideas that pop into your head that one might want to capture between those two extremes. Do you have approaches for segmenting that out so it's manageable?

[00:03:49] John: The things that you were mentioning are not things that I do. When I was at the very beginning of starting to write fiction, I had a notebook. It was a spiral notebook, and I called it a writing notebook. It's now my journal, and it was in longhand. Whenever I had an idea, I would write it in all caps, IDEA, and then I'd write whatever it was. I've gone back and looked at some of my old writing notebooks, and I look at some of the ideas and I go, I have no idea what I was thinking.

I really don't have idea files, but that's okay because I think it really depends on the writer and what it is they need. For me, ideas, if they're really worth anything, won't let me go. They just embed in my subconscious or in my thoughts and ruminations, and that's where I work with them. If I write them down and put them aside, they're usually gone, and I'll never be able to do anything with them.

Plus, I'm not a writer. I don't write a lot. I write long-form novels, and lately, they've been every four years. It's not like I just crank them out because the novels that I'm working on, I'm wrestling through something. The big idea has been with me. The other things that pop up happen during the writing process. So in that case, I'm not really trying to organize anything in terms of ideas and things like that.

So I guess the answer to your question is that the things that you use, the things that you want to capture and save are different from the things I want to capture and save, but what works for you is great, what works for me is fine, and I think that's sort of the takeaway, is that whatever organizational system you use, it needs to serve you, and it need not be something artificial, like, oh, I must do this, or I have to do this.

And I'm certainly interested in your perspective because this is your career, your organization.

[00:06:06] Matty: Well, I'd like to tap into your career because I just think that any platform called the Situation Room by definition is going to require organization, and I want to make sure that we get that. So what is the thing that identifies a piece of information or a piece of whatever you want to organize that signals that it is something that you want to make sure that you're handling in an organized way?

Organizing research material

[00:06:28] John: Well, one of the things that comes to mind is research. So whenever I've got a project that's going on, I have a research folder. And as the story is coming into view, and as I'm working through it, I come across issues that I don't know a lot about, and so within the research folder, I'll create other folders for the topics that I want to know more about. I've got a political thriller coming out next summer, and so abortion is a major storyline. So I have a folder on abortion, and in that folder, I've got links to all kinds of different news stories and other resources that I'll be able to access and I can go back to. And that's true for any number of other topics in the book. White Christian nationalism, mental illness, a lot of the QAnon. These are issues that are going to be playing out in my next novel, and so I have research folders, topic folders, for each one of those topics.

[00:07:34] Matty: And where are you keeping those? Are they just documents that you have in your computer's file manager? Are you using an app for that?

[00:07:41] John: It's a Word document, and each project has its own folder. So, I've written six novels. Each folder is book one, book two. And then within that folder is everything else. Sometimes it's just loose files, but more often than not, I'm creating folders within that project so that I'll be able to go to wherever I need.

Pairing a draft document with a journal document

[00:08:09] John: Probably the most important folder is the draft folder because any novelist or writer will tell you that you're going to do more than one draft, and so each draft remains separate. And I also keep a journal of the project that migrates from one draft to the other, giving me a sense of what's happening creatively in that particular project because in my novel, "Bullet in the Chamber," my fourth novel, I went away from it for four years or three and a half years. When I went back to it, I knew where I left off and what I needed to do, and I was able to pick up and go from there.

[00:08:55] Matty: So can you describe what would be in your draft document and what would be in your journal document? Like you're getting up, you've had your coffee, you sit down at your desk, you open the draft document and the journal document, and can you describe what would be the equivalent entries in each of those so we can better understand how you differentiate those?

[00:09:13] John: Yes, the journal document, which is basically the project document, I call it Journal of the Book. It has two components to it, and it's the very first thing I open up when I'm going to be working on it for the day. So the very first thing I do is, I do a word search for "dedakis." That's my last name. And, and as soon as I do that, it takes me to, I hit, I do the word search, and it goes to the last journal entry. This is a document, by the time the project is finished, it could be 175 pages if you were to print it out. But if you keep it in your computer, you're not killing trees, and it's easily accessible.

Organizing with MS Word

[00:09:54] John: So, as soon as I do the, "DeDakis stopped here," and that gets me to the next journal entry. And because I'm a journalist, I dateline it. I do the date, the day of the week, where I am, and the time. I don't know why. I just, it's history. Maybe the Smithsonian will care about it. And then I just do a little thumbnail of what's going on in my life. It's not my journal journal. It's just the context of what's going on either in the world, my life, or whatever, and what I hope to accomplish. Then let's say that I have a work in progress.

So I go to the draft file, and in the draft folder within that folder are a stack of files. Each one is a chapter, and I give the very first, the way you title it is 1, and then give it a name so that you know what's in it, and 2, Word knows how to count. So if you're doing it 1, 2, 3, 4, it's going to order it so each chapter is in its right order. And so then I do my work. And by the end of the session, I go back to the journal and do another time reference of this is what I did. And if there's a long session where I'm doing several chapters or if I'm doing a rewrite or something, every time I finish a particular piece of the puzzle, I'll note that in the journal entry, another time hack, and then this is what I did.

And then when I'm done for the day, you tie it up, file it back, and it's waiting for you the next time. The other thing that happens in the journal is that I create the scene outline. This is helpful when an agent says, I'd like the synopsis. You're building the synopsis as you write the book. And it basically gives the chapter number, whatever title I give it, just for the sake of being able to find things. I do. Because novels often cover a certain amount of time, either a week or a month or however long, you give it, you have a timeline in there so that you know what is happening on what day in the story, and then just a little thumbnail of what's happened, what happens in that chapter. So again, you can get a bird's eye view of your novel as it's coming together.

And I also mentioned, note, the date that I started the draft, or the, the date. I started at this date that I worked on the second draft so that you can see the evolution of the, of the project. It's history, I guess you could say. And, and so those are the, those are really the two main things. The journal, which is the project, and then whatever it is that you're working on in the draft folder.

Organizing with Scrivener

[00:12:53] Matty: I use Scrivener, and I think that between Word and Scrivener, we probably cover a lot of what our listeners are using. and I'm interpreting what you're accomplishing to what I, use Scrivener to do. So, for example, one of the things I truly love about Scrivener, and I, yes, I know there are other writing apps that do this, but I started out with Scrivener, is that you're capturing every component, however you want to, define component as a separate little thing in a nav in the left.

And so, if I have all the chapters and then I realize I want one chapter to be, in a different place, I just have to drag it up to the place where I want it to be, rather than like having to copy and paste, in, in one big, longer document. And the way I've used that is, in general, each of my components is a scene or a chapter, but I have one called notes.

And I'll use that to mark where I am in the story, because the way I write is, I write like an outline, then I write a more complete outline, then I write a more complete outline, then pretty soon it starts turning into a manuscript and I just keep running through it until it's all polished up.

[00:14:02] John: Is it one big, is it one big document or is each chapter a separate file for you?

[00:14:08] Matty: well, in Scrivener, there is a project that's the entire book. And then there are, scenes, they're called scenes in Scrivener, that are components within it. So it's almost like if you were in Word and you had the outline view on. It's like the outline view that you would see on the left in Word.

but the components more easily draggable and manipulatable than they would be in the outline view of word. And then I have this notes entry, which is all the things that I need to keep in mind in general across the book. If there are certain things like double check the timing of the scene or something.

I just put a note about that in that scene. component itself. But if there are things like, be sure to keep reminding the reader that it's spring or don't forget that,the primary motivation of this character is whatever, and then I use that component as, like, the marker between what I've, what I've already, worked through during that pass and what I still need to work through.

And the benefit there is that, before I start in on editing the next scene, I can reread that notes, component and remind myself of all those things that I need to be keeping an eye out for.

[00:15:12] John: did you discover that, learning Scrivener though, that the learning curve is almost vertical? I mean, you really need to spend a lot of time in order to master it.

[00:15:23] Matty: yeah, I, I don't think Scrivener, the, the tool is very expensive, but I did have to spend hundreds of dollars on classes. And also, I found someone named Gwen Hernandez. If anybody's looking for Scrivener help, that I had a couple of like one-on-one consulting sessions because it is hard, but at this point, I've identified the parts of Scrivener that I use, and I now know to ignore the ones that I don't.

So I'm obviously using just a tiny fraction of its possible utility, but I think that there are, if I were starting out today, I don't know that I would recommend Scrivener to people. I would recommend them to look at other things. But at this point, I've customized it so much that I've loathed to move off it because now I know how to tweak all the levers to make it do what I want to.

Don't let the (organizational) tail wag the (writing) dog

[00:16:08] John: Exactly. And that's why I haven't gotten Scrivener because of the amount of time you and apparently money you need to invest in order to master it. What I've discovered is by keeping my, my organizational system simple, it's not the tail wagging the dog, and I'm able to concentrate on my writing and not be preoccupied with maintaining my organizational system.

Alternatives to Word and Scrivener

[00:16:34] John: Yeah, if I were advising someone now, I would probably advise them to look at either Atticus or Dibbly Create, which are two newer and more streamlined, word, word processing, that sounds so old fashioned, but you know what I'm trying to, writing apps. What about Plottr? Are you familiar with that?

[00:16:53] Matty: well, Plottr, as far as I know from my last look at it, and there's actually on my YouTube channel, there's a playlist called Tools Cruise. And Troy Lambert from Plottr came on and gave a little demo of Plottr. And Plottr is great, but I don't think even Plottr would recommend it as something that you do, you're writing it. Plotting in it. and so it's functionalities optimized to, like tracking character profiles and, multiple storylines and things like that. I apologize, Troy and Ryan, if I'm downplaying what Plottr can achieve, but, I think it's aiming for something a little different.

But something like Atticus, which is from, Kindlepreneur, which, Dave Chesson is, the guy behind. is not only, I think, providing a nice, streamlined version of what I'm achieving with Scrivener, but also, the other big plus of something like Atticus is that you're, you can, do both your writing and your formatting in the same tool. So, back in the day, when I was buying my tools, I got Scrivener and I got Vellum, which I used for formatting,

So I can export a document from Scrivener into Word and then I can import it from Word into Vellum and then with a push of a button I can make beautiful ebooks for all the retail platforms and print, which is great. And again, I wouldn't move off it because I've optimized both of those tools for myself, but Atticus does that all in one place. And so you don't have to be moving documents from, one thing to the other.

[00:18:30] John: how do you spell, how do you spell Atticus?

[00:18:32] Matty: A T T I C U S. And then the other one that I've explored a little bit, but not in a great amount of detail, is Dibbly Create, and I think Dibbly Create's plug is that, among other things, it is more It's explicitly tapped into AI so people can use it more easily if they want to use AI to help brainstorm, or it's also tapped into a marketplace, so if you're done with your work in Dibbly Create and then you're looking for an editor, then you can easily actually from the app, Explore a marketplace of editors and book cover designers and so on.

[00:19:08] John: So, yeah, those are the things that I would recommend to people if they were starting out now. And I imagine that both Dibbly Create and, Atticus as well as Plottr would have this ability to more easily drag components around. But the thing that's the most interesting to me is the formatting.

[00:19:25] Matty: Yeah, I tried. There are ways, theoretically, in Scrivener to, create the epubs and the PDFs you need, but I don't think anybody uses them. I haven't tried using them for years, but they were horrible when I tried to use them.

[00:19:47] Matty: And all these things are evolving so quickly that, here we are in December 2023 recording this, and, I maybe haven't looked at these things for months, so if I'm saying something outdated, I apologize, but that's the kind of suite of tools that I would look into.

Creating a synopsis as you write

[00:20:00] Matty: But I don't want to get too far afield from your organizational approach, and I really liked what you were saying about maintaining a synopsis at the same time, because going back and writing a synopsis is just, is just a big pain.

[00:20:14] John: Yeah, it is. It, it's much, it's very hard because it's like, you've, you've been, all of the moving parts of this, of this book. How do you synthesize it? And make it, valuable for an agent to know that you know how to tell a story. And, so yeah, writing a synopsis can be really tricky.

Tapping into AI for synopses and sales descriptions

[00:20:37] Matty: Yeah, this kind of thing is exactly what I'm hoping AI will provide because I actually just had the experience of, finishing a novella that was about 18, 000 words and plugging it into Claude and asking Claude to give me not a synopsis but, like back cover sales text. And it did a really good job. I would not have used it as is, but

[00:20:59] John: are you saying that you, in a sense, copied the 18,000-word document, put it in like something like chat GPT and said, write a synopsis or write a dust cover blurb? And it did?

[00:21:12] Matty: Yeah, it was, Claude. So, ChatGPT, and again, every time I say something like this, I'm sure somebody's going to say, You just didn't use it right. But, my experience with ChatGPT is that it's more limited in the terms of the inputs you can provide. But Claude actually lets you attach a file, and I haven't tried it with a longer word than this 18,000-word novella. but yeah, I just attached the, the document that had the novella in it. And I said, I'm trying to think how I worded it, a sales description for this thriller. And it was very good.

And it was useful in the sense that it, it called out three characters, the protagonist of the story and two of her sidekicks, but they were not the two sidekicks I would have guessed. And I realized when I read that that the two sidekicks it had picked to mention in the blurb actually made more sense than the two sidekicks I would have picked if I had been writing it. And so things like that, I think any of those things where you put something into AI comes out and you go, Huh!

[00:22:25] Matty: And, on the, this is going a little far afield from organization, but I am starting to, recreate transcripts for the podcast using ChatGPT. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, you can only put in 4, 000 characters at a time. So because my transcripts are quite long, my transcripts are being Automatically generated from Descript, which is the tool I use for the audio and video editing.

But, and they're like, pretty good, but not great. However, I find that if I take chunks of 4,000 words at a time, put it into ChatGPT, and say, "Correct typos and grammatical errors in this," it does a great job. I'm sure that the 4000-character limit is going to go away. However, I found that ChatGPT was much better for those things that are like just correct stuff, and Claude was better for the more imaginative stuff. Because if I tried to fix the transcript in Claude, it would write an article or something.

I couldn't come up with a prompt that would say, "No, I just want you to fix the typos and the grammatical errors." So, again, another topic that everything is evolving so quickly that this is just a guideline. This is a point in time of how these things are behaving in December of 2023.

[00:23:40] John: Right? It's evolving.

[00:23:42] Matty: Yeah. So, we've talked a little bit about how we both organize fiction work. How else are you applying organization in your life as a writer that our listeners might benefit from?

Documenting your writer business relationships

[00:23:55] John: I think that the approach that I take is pretty similar for nonfiction as well. I do some ghostwriting, and again, I keep the project separate. With ghostwriting, you're going to need contracts. You're going to need to be able to deal with a client who you want to make sure you're on the same page with and avoid misunderstandings. So, having a ghostwriting contract is important.

I'm a manuscript editor, so I have a file, or I have a folder for manuscript editing. Each one of my clients has their own folder, and within that folder, there are the different projects that they've hired me to do. If someone hires me to be a coach, I have a log file so that the relationship is documented. Usually, people hire me for like a five-hour retainer of encouragement. I keep track of what I've been doing, how much time is left on the coaching clock, and they use the time strategically.

There are some clients who I've been working with for a couple of years, and they haven't depleted the five hours yet. Someone will surface after a year and it's going, "Whoa, what's going on?" I have to go back into my file. Being organized that way has really helped me stay up to date. Maintaining that log is just something, as soon as the conversation is over or as soon as the project is over, I update it. It's not something you want to put off because if you put it off, there are so many other things that can get in the way.

You don't need to spend much time updating the log. Just get it out of the way, file it, and you can move on with your life. But it's invaluable when someone resurfaces and says, "Hey, let's pick up where we left off." And you're going, "Who are you again?"
[00:25:53] Matty: Yeah, I think that's great advice, even for people who don't have clients. If you have an interaction with, I don't know, let's say a designer, editor, or something like that, make that kind of note and separate out the notes you're going to share with the person. What I do is, whenever I have—it's especially handy on something like Zoom or any kind of virtual meeting—I'll open a Word document. Then I'll have it be like "John DeDakis," and I'll say, "Oh, John and I met today and we chatted about such and such." I can use that if I actually want to send minutes. There are things that I want to share with the person, and then there are things that you might not want to share. For example, if you find that a cover designer is doing some kind of weird thing that's not what you're looking for, you could make your private note that says, "Remember to remind him that I don't want bloodstains on my cover" or whatever. Then you'd have the public, "This is what we agreed to do" kind of document.

Managing sign-offs

[00:26:54] Matty: You know, your comment about the contracts made me also think of another handy tool that I recently discovered. I needed to have a contract signed, and I always struggle with managing whole e-signatures thing. I have a Dropbox account, as I think many people do, and I discovered that there's an app called HelloSign, H E L L O S I G N. I think it probably used to be a separate app, but if you have a Dropbox account, at least a certain kind of Dropbox account, and you look in the left nav, there's a signatures option, and it's a very nice basic e-signature request and tracking app. With my account, I get like three signatures a month, which is more than I need, but I like that HelloSign on Dropbox.

[00:27:41] John: Okay, that's good to know. Wouldn't PDFs do the same? You can sign a PDF.

[00:27:48] Matty: Well, I don't think that I have the level of Adobe or whatever that enables me to make a signable field in an online document. So the nice thing about HelloSign is that you upload the PDF, list the signers, and then you drag a signature block over the PDF where you want each person to sign. It's just defined like, "This is where Matty's going to sign. This is where John's going to sign." You can designate the order in which you want people to sign. You enter an email address, then you hit send. HelloSign cycles it through the signers in order, and then the person just has to click into that sign on the PDF and type out their name or sign it with their mouse or whatever they want to do. I always tried doing that with a PDF, and it was probably user error, but I could never get it to work for me.

[00:28:43] John: Yeah, because I had to update my laptop and, on the old one, a PDF you could sign and everything was great. With the new laptop, it's like, you gotta buy this, buy that, and it gets a little discouraging.

[00:28:56] Matty: Yeah, I was definitely out for the free option. I didn't want to add yet another tool to my list of things that I would have to organize.

[00:29:04] John: Exactly.

Organizing with Excel... or not

[00:29:05] Matty: You know, I was thinking another organizational tool that I use is, I would recommend everybody keep an eye out for anything you have to access repetitively. I'm a huge Excel fan. But I have giant spreadsheets. Well, I have one super giant spreadsheet called William Kingsfield Publishers Pub Information, and over time it's expanded to include even more things.

But as an example, for every book, you're going to have an ISBN. And you might have an ISBN you've purchased through Bowker, or you might have—I won't get into a description of the pros and cons, but if you're publishing on Draft2Digital, you might have a Draft2Digital assigned ISBN, and then you might have, like, a Barnes and Noble assigned ISBN. There are also URLs on all your sales platforms for each of your books, like, anything like that that is repetitive. Just go ahead and stick it in a spreadsheet because if I want to post something online pointing people with links to my, let's say, my first book on my direct sales platform and on my Books to Read universal link, all I have to do is open up my pub info spreadsheet and filter on the book name, and there they are right there.

I do the same thing with book descriptions. I do the same thing with testimonials, so don't force yourself to go look for the same information over and over again. Just bite the bullet and put it in a spreadsheet. And I really haven't found anything better than a spreadsheet. If you want to use sheets or whatever, that's fine. I think that if people are willing to learn sorting and filtering, then the spreadsheet is the way to go.

So when you are looking for, like, let's say you have to provide a URL or an ISBN to somebody, how do you, how do you access that information? Do you have a non-spreadsheet alternative?

[00:31:02] John: Yeah. I go searching. I have in my AOL files. I hadn't really thought about that, but there are some draft files so that when people are looking for ISBN numbers and things like that, I've got a file where all of my books are listed with the ISBN numbers. And so I can go there. Usually when I'm pitching a writing workshop, I have a file that has all the blurbs for the writing classes that I teach so that I can pluck from there and create a class that will combine a couple of things. There's a file I have for bios because every writing workshop or writing conference, they want your bio, but they have different standards. Some want 50 words, some want 100 words. And so I've got a bio file that has all kinds of different lengths of bios that I've written and adapt. And that's just one file. And I can go and go, Oh, this is one and just copy and paste it from there. But again, that's Word again.

[00:32:11] Matty: Well, years ago, in my corporate life, I facilitated a kind of like a new employee orientation, and one of the modules was about behavioral styles. I think they were analyzing, supporting, controlling, and another one that's escaping me at the moment. But I really thought there were perfect analogies to Microsoft Office applications. Like there's just the Word personality, there's the Excel personality, there's the PowerPoint personality, and heaven help us, there's the Microsoft Access personality. So I think that, I think it's just an equivalent behavioral styles assessment.

[00:32:45] John: Yeah, exactly. It really, I think organization is a personal, these are personal choices that you make. And it's an evolutionary thing. I think I've learned a few things from you today, even, on how to maybe adjust and adapt and evolve my own organizational style. It's definitely been trial and error as I've gone.

The relationship between organization and procrastination

[00:33:11] Matty: Yeah, for sure, for every person, I think that's the case. And so, I thought it would be fun to close out with a question, and I think this is one we discussed earlier, but if not, it'll be a little surprise for you. So, I have the question here, what is the relationship between organization and procrastination? Is that a question you had proposed?

[00:33:32] John: I don't know if I proposed it or not, but I know I have procrastination nailed. I mean, I'm a master procrastinator. But the, but it's useful. Because what I tell my writing students is that, unlike what Stephen King tells you, you’ve got to write a thousand words a day or you're not a serious writer. I don't buy that. I think if you're ruminating, you're writing. And, you don't have to be moving your fingers on the keyboard in order to be a writer.

Granted, there comes a time when you really do have to get your butt in the chair and the fingers on the laptop. But, I think procrastination is incredibly useful because it's allowing your subconscious to process things, and so that when you do sit down, things have bubbled to the surface, and it's more likely that it's going to flow onto the page. So, it's not necessarily organization, but it is part of, I think, the creative process, and both procrastination and organization serve the same end, and that's to be creative and get something down on paper, or eventually it'll be on paper, so that others, you'll be able to connect with others with whatever your story is.

The value of procrastination

[00:34:53] Matty: Yeah, what you're saying reminds me of two things. One is that, this is something I always have to remind myself of, but I have found real value in procrastination in replying to emails. So, normally, my goal is always the zero inbox. My default mode is, reply to everything immediately because that's how you keep a zero inbox. But I realized, and this is a lesson that I learned and then had to relearn and relearn and relearn in my corporate life, that if you just wait, and I don't mean days, I mean like 12 hours, 24 hours, a little bit of time, oftentimes either your answer is different because you've had more time to think about it or, the problem takes care of itself.

[00:35:43] John: That, you've really tapped into something that I think is worth talking about. This is my to-do list, and it's handwritten, it evolves, there are some crossouts on it, and, some of the things that are on this list are based on emails that I've, that I have yet to answer. And some of them go back a month. I'm so sorry, anybody who's still waiting for an email, it's coming. And some of it is just they don't really need a quick response. Here's another thing that I'm doing that I've discovered. When I get an email from somebody and I look at it on my phone, my iPhone, I'm able to open it and then I'm able to mark it as unread. So that'll at least give me a first glance at it so that I can ruminate about it, as you mentioned. But then when I file it, when I go to my laptop, it's still highlighted as if it's brand new.

And that reminds me, okay, I need to pay attention to this, but I've already been thinking about, about an answer. And I've discovered too, that, a lot of people are surprised when I answer right away, and, and so I think we are at a point with email where you don't have to answer instantly, especially if it's an important topic or a potential conflict or whatever, or someone is asking for a lot of information, you can have some time to kind of think about it so that when you compose your answer, it's already been percolating a little bit and the answer itself then becomes easier.

And then again, anybody I've had communication with, I create a folder in my AOL file. Yes, it's AOL. Get over it. I have a folder in my AOL file of everyone that I'm in communication with and I file their email and my response, and everything just goes into that file. So the inbox indeed gets cleaned out. Well, I've got 9000 emails still in my inbox. A lot of it's junk, but, the important ones are getting answered and the relationship main is maintained. In its own folder, in its own email folder, with that person so that I'm able to keep track of the relationship. Do I go back and, and, and go through those? No, but they're there in case I need them.

Search or folders?

[00:38:09] Matty: Yeah, I think that another way to think about it, and I think this is a generational thing because I think you and I grew up in the age of creating folders in AOL, for example. but something that, a younger coworker pointed out to me when I was still in the corporate world is, search in many cases is just as efficient, if not more efficient, than filing things in a folder. Because let's say, you have an email that's related to me and Fred, then do you, do you put that in the me folder? Do you put it in the Fred folder? Do you copy and put it in both? But if you search for my name and Fred's name or my email address and Fred's email address, then you can find it. And I have found that I, in fact, I don't think I put anything in a folder anymore in email because I just find that a search is more likely to bring back what I'm looking for than looking through a folder of information. So again, just another perspective.

[00:39:01] John: I would amend that by saying, yes, definitely do the search because often the search has, has shown me things, has, has widened the net a bit. To show me other things, I think that your suggestion or your coworker's suggestion is probably more relevant in a corporate environment where you're just getting this gush of emails and, and so maintaining your own filing system, can be a full-time job in and of itself. But on, so that then means that a search, will do it. But my concern would be a search might also cause things to fall through the cracks. Whereas if you do file it in that particular relationship folder, then you really know you have it. It's not, you're not relying on the server in the sky, to keep track for you.

[00:39:57] Matty: Yeah, all just things for people to tweak as appropriate for their own circumstances.

The power of percolation

[00:40:02] Matty: And the other thing that your earlier comment reminded me of, and then you gave me the perfect segue by talking about percolating on an email, is that that idea of procrastination in the sense of, pondering what you're working on in your fiction writing, for example, or your nonfiction writing too, I'm sure, is, percolating being the third, to plotting and pantsing, and I credit that to Art Taylor, who had mentioned that, that he was a percolator, and I was like, yes, yes, I've never, I've never heard that term used in that circumstance, but I'm definitely a percolator.

[00:40:38] John: Well, and it fits with the coffee-fueled, all writers and journalists, mainline coffee. So, yes, I Percolate is a, is a perfect word. And it works for art because he's very successful as a writer and, and quite talented. So, that's a. That's a wonderful word to use. he's probably got her copyrighted now though.

[00:41:01] Matty: that's why he got on the podcast, because I was at a conference, and he was speaking, and he said percolator, and I wrote down, Art Taylor, percolator, invite him to the podcast. We talked about other things too, but the percolator thing is what, what caught my attention because it was, it sounded exactly right to my own experience.

Well, John, this has been so much fun. Thank you for sharing, your tips on organization. Thank you for being willing to, debate some of the pros and cons of, oh, let's say Excel. so please let the listeners and viewers know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.

[00:41:31] John: Well, and thank you, Matty. I mean, it's always fun talking to you and I think I learned a few things today too. People can get in touch. I'm John DeDakis. it's Greek. You can probably best get me through my website, which is my name, johndedakis.com.

[00:41:56] Matty: Great. Thank you so much.

[00:41:58] John: Thank you, Matty.

Matty Dalrymple 10/10/23 Matty Dalrymple 10/10/23

Episode 207 - Six Ways to Collaborate with Your Fellow Writers with Michael Bradley

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Michael Bradley discusses SIX WAYS TO COLLABORATE WITH YOUR FELLOW WRITERS, including sharing your expertise, inviting other writers to writers' groups that match their needs, sharing information about opportunities, organizing a group sales table at a book fair, inviting other authors to participate in your events, and sharing and promoting other authors on social media. We talk about how this is not only a matter of being a supportive member of the author community, but also a vital part of a successful author business. We also discuss the importance of weighing the ways in which you collaborate against your creative and business goals to make sure they're aligned.

Michael Bradley is a Delaware-based mystery and suspense author. He started life as a radio DJ, spending eight years "on-the-air" before realizing that he needed to get a real job. His broadcasting experience came in handy for his award-winning third book, DEAD AIR. His latest novel, NONE WITHOUT SIN has been called "an intriguing, fast-paced mystery" and "his best novel yet."

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Author website: www.mbradleyonline.com
Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/mjbradley88
Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/mjbradley88/

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On The Indy Author Podcast, we discuss the writing craft, the publishing voyage, and how we can navigate our way to the readers who will love our books. Click the links below for the show notes for episodes since 200, including summaries and transcripts.

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!

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