Crys Cain explains how to co-write a novel

Crys Cain explains how to co-write a novel

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Crys Cain explains how to co-write a novel

by Emma Dhesi | Turning Readers Into Writers

Interview with Crys Cain

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Hello, I’m Emma Dhesi and welcome to another episode of turning readers into writers. If you’re brand new here, welcome and here’s what you need to know. This is a community that believes you are never too old to write your first novel, no matter what you’ve been up to until now, if you’re ready to write your book, I’m ready to help you reach the end, I focus on helping you find the time and confidence to begin your writing journey, as well as the craft and skills you need to finish the book.

Each week I interview debut authors, editors and industry experts to keep you motivated, inspired, and educated on all things writing, editing, and publishing. If you want to catch up, head on over to emmadhesi.com, where you’ll find a wealth of information and tools to help you get started.

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Okay, let’s dive in to today’s episode.

After having a kid, losing her job going broke and moving across countries to live with her parents.

Crys Cain started publishing romance under a super secret pen name in 2017. She now shares what she’s learned as a full time, occasionally six figure author on the right away podcast and with the author success mastermind community. So let’s find out a little bit more about Crys and her writing and in particular, why she chooses to co write her stories and the way that she co writes them. It’s something I’ve always been intrigued to learn more about it. And so I’m thrilled to talk to Crys about it today.

Let’s find out more.

Well, Crys, thank you so so much for being here today. I’m really excited to talk to you.

Crys Cain  02:35

Thanks for inviting me.

Emma Dhesi  02:38

Now, one of the first things I often ask people is, you know, what, what was your journey to writing? How did you become a writer?

Crys Cain  02:45

I was one of those people who wanted to be a writer from from very small. So which I think is the majority of writers. It’s not all of them. That is the majority and so I wrote stories throughout school years and rarely finished anything other than, you know, a school assignment.

I remember writing, having to make up some kind of folk tale style story in grade school. But, and then I stopped kind of for college because college takes over University takes over the brain, and you stop reading for fun and you stop doing anything mental for fun, because that’s all gone to schoolwork and after I got out of university and I moved to Nashville, I had a pretty intense bout of depression, I really didn’t have any friends because I’d moved to a new area.

And my best friend did live in the same city technically, but we were at least 45 minutes away from each other. So I started attending writers meetup groups in Nashville and that really got me back into the writing brain having energy because I don’t know how people write without writer friends. I do not know how they do it. I see so many people say oh, I don’t you know, I don’t have any writer friends.

I’m like, how do you write them? Like how do you how do you get to the page without the excitement that talking about writing gives you and that’s me, but and then publishing I knew I wanted to self publish for quite a while once self publishing started and I studied it you know, Amanda Hocking happened and Joe Conrad, and they were making the big bucks and I didn’t expect to be there but I still didn’t finish anything and publish and that was what 2009 that the Kindle came out and all that craziness.

So I just kind of sat on my bum and wrote things but didn’t finish them and then I just happened to write this little romance novella, like paranormal romance novella. I want to say it was a about 2014 – 2015 and then I did finish it was the first thing I didn’t finish is a little over 20,000 words, and I just kind of jumped it on my harddrive and didn’t do anything with it.

Fast forward. I had my son in 2016, lost my job three months later, moved back to New York, from Costa Rica with the last bit of money.

My husband at the time had left in our bank accounts. And a friend of mine happened to say to me that week, oh, I found this little niche on Amazon. And we should write something in it. I was like, Oh, yeah, I’m familiar with that niche from fanfiction, I have something that I can just alter a little bit and publish it.

And I’d been in the business long enough, I’d been in publishing adjacent positions in cover writing and editing, that I knew you didn’t just publish something and then make money. I was like, yeah, we’ll publish, you know, three books or whatever. And then we’ll start marketing. But it just happened that I had the right cover for the right genre, with the right keywords at the right time.

And it sold $20 that first day live in this is in Kindle Unlimited, and I knew that wasn’t normal. So I looked at my then husband, and I was like, yo, if I just go all in on this, because I was a software developer, and I was trying, I was applying for jobs, but not really excited about going into office, if I just go all in on this, this is it.

This is my path, I’d never have to go into an office again. He’s like, well, you have to prove that you can like make $3,000 in a month, which is our baseline of living. Before you can stop looking for software development jobs.

So I was still applying and doing interviews, but writing my butt off and the second month, halfway through the month, it was very clear, I was gonna hit 3000. He’s like, okay, you don’t you can stop applying. Like we can agree on that.

And I have not dropped below that amount per month sense. And that is not normal. 

Emma Dhesi  06:58

No, I was just thinking that you’re a bit of a unicorn in that way, you know, from the first book from the first get go, that not only are you making some money, but actually making livable money as well. So that’s… 

Crys Cain  07:11

Yeah, and I don’t underplay. Yeah, I don’t underplay my hard work, or cuz in that first month, my co writer and I put out three stories. One was 20,000 words, one was 13, or 16,000 words in it. And the other one, I think, was 30,000 words. And then I think we put two out the next month and some of some of them are so low, and some of them were co right.

And I don’t downplay my hard work. But there’s so much luck that went into that other people have come into this little niche since then. And have not had that same luck, because of the writers come into niches and waves. And as in a lot of people are looking for quick money. I didn’t know that this was a genre that like was making good money.

And I happen to come in during Molo, as did my current co writer and dear friend, she came in a few months after me. And so we had during this lull, and we were producing quickly, and we really grabbed people’s attention. And then since then, because there were us and a few others who come in around the same time, we’re very clearly making money.

Other people ran in little gold rush mentality. And it became harder to make money and it just ebbs in and flows in these little genres like that. 

Emma Dhesi  08:32

Oh, so do you find that? And so do you find that now that you’re established in genre that you’re still able to maintain that level of success? Or do you find that it’s taken a dip or it changes because now there’s more people writing in that niche?

Crys Cain  08:49

I think we maintain specifically the series I have with my co writer it for both of us and she is the top earning author in our in our niche. But for the two of us the books that make the most maybe not completely for her. But our series together as the most popular thing we write.

And it is how most people are introduced to us. So that series kind of maintains us when I write solo books, they make quite a bit less. And so and different books in different series earn different levels, with our co written books, they’re all in the same world even if they’re broken into different series. So most readers see them it’s the same series. So we’ve been able to maintain really well over that series.

But we can never guarantee like any particular series is going to make a certain amount. 

Emma Dhesi  09:44

Okay. So interesting. It’s, your right there is a level a level of of luck, but I think there’s also an element of, of so right. I read very traditionally And so I’m kind of not in with any particular very niche genre. So I think there is an element, if you’re the kind of person who’s already looking for something different for something exciting, then you’re already kind of giving yourself a bit of a not Head Start, but a leg up, because you’re willing to be out there and looking for new things.

Whereas I have to admit, I stick to kind of what I see around me rather than seeking out new things. But something that’s always been kind of impressed me about us, and tell me if I’m wrong, but you have to have a very good sense of yourself and what you’re keeping the love and confidence with your writing.

So even thinking about that, that first story that you put out, thinking that you know, like a story that might fit with this genre, let me put that out and see what happens.

I think a lot of us, particularly newbies, would be going Oh, oh, let me forget about this a little bit more don’t have to rewrite the whole thing and, or don’t need to change all up, but feels like you went, I’m gonna give this a go. And you did. 

Crys Cain  11:02

I definitely did with that story. And there are two reasons for it because I’m internally, a default basket case, I have learned a lot of strategies to not be a basket case. But thanks to childhood trauma, anxiety is a default for me.

And I have learned a lot of how to manage that. And, and for it to not be a default mean for me all the time. But with that first book, one, I was publishing an under a pen name, and a shared pen name. So my co writer and I were both writing under the same pen name, whether it was co writes or solos, and two, I didn’t expect anybody to see it at all.

And I think that’s a really good expectation to have when you’re publishing your first book. Most people write a book of their hearts, a book they really want people to see. And that’s the first book they put out there.

And I think mentally, that’s probably not the best thing you can do, the best thing to do is write a book, like it’s an assignment that you kind of don’t care about, but that you want to hit all the marks that the teacher tells you, you have to mark, and then you publish that, like it’s an assignment. I think that’s the best way to start. 

Emma Dhesi  12:17

Just to get over that hole of fear of just getting it done and going through the motions almost. And then you’re absolutely right. Like it’s a good to a good approach. And so you’ve mentioned that a couple of times that you call, right. And it’s certainly one of the things that’s all it does fascinate me.

And, and by nature, I’m a bit of a lone wolf, I think many writers tend to be, but I know that you could write a new J Thorne, who we both kind of in his community.

And he co writes as well. It’s a big advocate of that. So a couple of things I’d love to ask you. And one of the first one is, do you think that co writing is more suited to certain personality types? Or do you think it’s something that we tell ourselves that this is a lone wolf? job, but actually, we could we could all cooperate if we wanted to. 

Crys Cain  13:11

I think that just like anyone can write, anyone can co write, but not everyone’s going to be happy doing so. And that’s okay. Yeah, I think everyone should try it probably once. But you don’t have to like it. And people who go into it thinking like this is a way I’m going to write faster.

Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it is not. There’s this like dictation. Sometimes dictation will be faster for different writers. And sometimes it will actually slow people down. But for some reason for you know, maybe medical reasons, one of the reason I started dictating was pain from sitting at the computer so much.

Sometimes you just have to do things that do make you slow, because that’s what gets the work done.

Emma Dhesi  14:11

Okay, and so you’ve worked with, I think, three different corporations now. So how do you guys get together with kind of thing? Or we’d like to work together? Do you know each other’s work separately?

And like what you’ve read and still think it would be a good union? Or are you friends and then you think it’d be fun to work together? How does it work?

Crys Cain  14:33

Yeah, for me, both of those. So I think I’ve had four co writers that I can think of off the top of my head. And the first one who was like, Oh, we should write this genre. I had been her editor for quite a while.

And so I was very familiar with her style. And it was a very different style from mine. But because I was familiar with that, I was like, Okay, I can absolutely work with this and we can blend That relationships flamed out very brightly over communication issues.

And, and sadly ended that friendship because of broken trust. So that is always a risk with co-writing, if you do not both have the same importance of communication, please, I’ve got massive noise in the background, we have vegetable trucks that drive up three times a day, and we just go buy our veggies from the truck half the time, nice.

And they shut up. Okay, they shut up there I have my filter on but I can’t think I’m, that’s been out to the truck, and just Hey, I’m gonna take this this and this night, of course we have, we have our favorite track. So we make sure it’s all that. But um, my then my next co writer is the one I’ve been writing with the longest.

And that’s where we have over 20 book world with, I think we’re on series number four and five that were writing code currently. And we were both in a really dark place. My dog had passed, I can’t remember what health issues were going on in her family. And I was like, let’s just write something to distract ourselves, we didn’t really expect it to go anywhere. It was very different from anything else that either of us had read more of a soldier group trope, and each soldier finds you know, the love of their life.

And so we went dark, and we went 13 year old boy humor and just completely distracted ourselves from what was going on in our lives. And readers loved it. And so now we are 20 some books later. But after the first series, we were both like, okay, we’re done. Like that was a good experience. But both of us had frustrations that were like, Nah, I don’t really want to do this anymore.

But we came back a couple months later, because we were still really good friends. And we discussed our business moves with each other. And our schedules just bounce back and forth. And I was telling her what was going on with me. And she was telling me what was going on with her. She said why don’t we Why don’t we write another series, because that’ll help us with our schedules and our timeframes.

And I said, Okay, yeah, but I’ve got some stipulations. She’s like, I do too. And, and mine, mine were about scheduling. I didn’t I hate feeling pressed. And I hate running up against getting crunched against deadlines. And hers was it was we were currently publishing everything under my KDP account. But we started our own company, because it had proved that had made enough money to support that and moved it onto its own KDP account, so that she could access it if there was anything that needed to be changed or updated, or Amazon flops that needs to be addressed.

We both have access. And we’ve been going really good since then I we are looking at wrapping up this world, kind of this year, mostly because I want to get out of romance. It was not a genre I intended to write in, ever. And yet. Here I am. And it’s I’m a little exhausted.

It’s been over 50 books, and in less than four years. And I’m like, Okay, let me let me go do something new because one of the hardest things about romance is that it is such a tightly bound in expectations genre. So you have to learn those expectations. But once you learn those expectations, you can write an emotionally satisfying book every time.

And so I’ve gotten to a level of not mastery, I would say but but of understanding and I like tie up a journeyman level in romance. And I’m like, Okay, I’m not interested in going really any farther.

Because I’ve I’ve learned a lot best paid internship of my life. And I want to go do other things. I want to go learn other things because I’m getting bored.

Emma Dhesi  19:19

Yeah, I was gonna ask a little bit about that I, I don’t write in the series, but I do kind of wonder that about people who do Do you ever get fed up with the same world and want to expand your horizons a little bit? So I think you’ve kind of answered that one for me. But I want to kind of delve in a little bit more to the nuts and bolts of co-writing.

So I just kind of was thinking earlier so first of all, you have a if we think of it in terms of IP, you have a joint assets together. And, I’m I have delved into the property world and when people would kind of do a joint venture together. We have a contract that said, This is what you’re bringing to the table. This is what the other person is.

Do you do the same thing with your co writers? Do you have a contract that stipulates? Who’s doing what, who’s responsible for what what the royalty division? Is? That kind of thing? Or have you found it’s actually worked quite well, just being very loosely, loosely done.

Crys Cain  20:21

I should have done contracts. But I was I was too early on and, and devil may care. And so I had to do actually quite a bit of negotiation with the, the, the co-writer that our relationship failed, failed. And we chose to split the books and decided who got what. And because up until that point, I was just paying even shares even after we weren’t talking anymore, still sending the money every month.

And then I was like, hey, like, I would like to take ownership of these two books. Because we had actually written them, there were three of us that had written them. My old co-writer, my current co writer, and me, I was like current co writer, and I would like to take this and finish the series, you can have basically all the other books, which I think it was like six or seven instead.

And we’ll just call it Even Stevens. And so we had went back and forth a bit to get the contract. And like hammered out on that, and then that’s what we did, I pulled the books off handed her all the files that I had, and I kept the rights and uploaded them to my co writers in my account.

And then we’re good. Other than that, my my current co writer, because these books do make quite a bit of money, we keep meaning to to write a contract, especially because her health is is quite not good. Because if something happens to her or if something happens to me, the other one takes control of the account.

And then we’ll take a certain percentage for managing and so like 5-10 percent and then the rest of the the 40 to 45% of the earnings will go to our co writers inheritors. So we need to, we need to write that up for certain. Sure.

And we also have talked, we’ve talked a lot about having, you know, anything that you write further in the world without the other person, the other person gets a certain percentage, because of the intellectual property of the world, but then, but the other person gets the majority of it. 

Crys Cain explains her methods for working with a co-writer.

Emma Dhesi  22:42

Okay. Yeah, that sounds like a good. Yeah. So there can be no, because even what I’ve said, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but certainly just in my own family life, it does the to like you and your your co writer can agree it but it doesn’t mean that the descendants agree. problems can realize that Yeah, yes. 

Crys Cain  23:02

And I’m writing a solo series in our world right now. And with her by her names on the book, and she like our intention has been for her to give it a once over past just to make sure like she’s solid with everything that’s in there before it gets published. And with health and COVID. And everything, she has not been able to two books that have been published.

But I had to argue with her to get her to take a percentage. And, and she’s like you’re writing them, you should take all the money. I was like, Girl, here’s the thing, though. If you don’t take a percentage, you will not feel like you have the right to tell me that something doesn’t work.

And if something doesn’t work, it’s going to affect our entire world.

And you’re going to build resentment. And that’s going to cause big problems for us down the line. I need you to feel like you have ownership over these books. So that you feel like you can tell me like that you don’t want something to happen for the sake of the entire world.

 

 

Emma Dhesi  23:59

Oh, that’s big picture thinking there that same ungenerous thinking too, because it would be you know, I’m sure not everybody would it would be easier to just go Okay, well, this is mine and I’m going to hold on to it. So I applaud you for that.

Crys Cain  24:14

I mean, that just leads to resentment on the line. And I don’t want that.

Emma Dhesi  24:20

So if we think about you and the lady you’re co writing with know, how does it work? So you both know, you’ve got this world, you both know the world. But how does it work in terms of coming up with story ideas, character names, and personality kind of, you know, the character development, let alone the plots?

How does that all kind of come together and work between the two of you?

Crys Cain  24:46

We’ve tried to structure these series pretty similar. It’s kind of you think of the jack Reacher books like they’ve got a fairly similar structure every time. And that’s somewhat how we’ve approached this but just from a romance point of view, so every series has a team. And those are the main characters of our series generally about six because that’s a really good number for our series.

And then in, when we sit down to plot out the first book, we figure out what the team members names are in just some basic characteristics about them and their personality.

And when we first started, because we didn’t have any idea where this was going, we really didn’t plot out an arc that was going to go from first book to last book, we have with our most recent series, we know who the bad like that there’s a hidden bad guy that is going to be revealed and dealt with by the last book.

And then we sit down, and it takes maybe about two hours. Now, we sit down and say, Okay, this book is going to be this many chapters, and it’s generally 12 to 16 for us. And now it’s gotten to the point was like, how many days do we have? How many days do we have to get this book written out? Because it takes us each day per chapter.

And so that’s two chapters per day. And so this last book, we’re like, we went on what write less days, so we’re gonna make it 12 chapters. And so next, I already have first chapter done, we’re writing it next week, we’ll have it done in a week.

And so for each of us, that’s two to 3000 words a day average. And then we sit down and we tell each other the story. We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t necessarily tell it to each other in chronological order. We start with chapter one.

And we start saying, Yeah, this happens, this needs to happen. This needs to happen.

Once we hit a point where like, ah, I don’t really know what needs to happen next, then we go to the end, because we know how it needs to end and we work our way backwards a little bit, and see how many how much room we have between that in the end, and then figure out what needs to go in where in between 

Emma Dhesi  26:45

Develop stages when you sit down for two hours and figure out the plotline. 

Crys Cain  26:49

Yep. And then our, our outlines have been anywhere from 2000 words to 7000 words, they don’t generally get to 7000 words anymore, because we’re Quick quick on it.

And then we just take turns generally writing chapters, one of the things we actually started doing in the last few books, because she’s been having trouble getting into a scene with everything that’s been going on in her life, is I will write the first half of the chapter.

And then she’ll jump in and continue it. Because she’s in the in the mode of writing them, then she can write the first half of the next chapter. And we’ve been writing middle to middle that of chapter front to chapter end.

And that’s been a really interesting and fun tactic as well.

Emma Dhesi  27:36

So do you find them that you’ve got a similar style of writing? Because that would be how do you kind of Mel that so that it’s not obvious that it’s two different writers?

Crys Cain  27:47

Because we read each other’s chapter, and make changes as we go through mostly additions rather than deletions, I discovered. And this is one of those things that differs from corregidor copy writer I discovered.

I think during our second series, I was being a little bit more heavy handed with edits, because I’ve used viewed them as suggestions like, hey, if this works for you take it if not, don’t worry, she viewed them as if I cared enough to make a change.

And I absolutely wanted it there. And so once we had this conversation about her resentment and frustration about this, I actually started making less, I started to stop making less suggestion changes and just more additive, like, Oh, I think this would add to the scene if I did this versus like, hey, instead, like, why don’t we do this.

With another co writer, we would tear each other’s chapters apart, where sometimes it would be just as much edits as it was original draft. But we were both really comfortable with that level, because we trusted the other to make it as strong.

So with both of those styles, though, the style gets pretty melded and I think, on my end, I don’t know about my co writer, I haven’t asked her this, I think I pick up a specific style when I’m writing our books versus when I’m writing other books.

Emma Dhesi  29:12

Okay, so kind of as it sounds like you’re able to kind of mold your style to fit the joint style that you’ve got there and then perhaps more kind of freedom perhaps or you can be more experiment, not experimental, but you can try new things when you’re writing your own stuff.

Crys Cain  29:33

And or even with other co writers, I can be a little bit more loose and free because like we because there’s more back and forth and writing over top of each other like it just will naturally melt there but with our books, I feel like I do Mel just slightly to that particular style, versus when I write other things. 

Emma Dhesi  29:55

Oh, and as it changed me feel over the years that you’ve been writing together and It’s gotten easier, as you know each other but 

Crys Cain  30:03

Yeah. And yeah, and just knowing more what the expectations are. And also, you know, we’ve tripped up over several things. And up, you know, for me one of those things is getting crunched against a deadline.

Right now, we’re not doing pre orders, even though pre orders work wonderfully for us, because between health and emotional things, we have gotten ourselves crunched up against our pre order deadlines, enough that we’re not going to do them, we’re not going to do long pre orders anymore.

We’re not going to put up a pre order until it goes to the editor, because we know exactly how much time we’re going to take once it goes to the editor. 

Emma Dhesi  30:41

Yeah, you know, that’s something I’m too scared to do is have pre orders.

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Crys Cain  30:48

My ideal is to have books done and put, like, you know, years in advance, I don’t know if you know, Rachel amphlett. But she has, I think she’s currently writing her 2022 books, because she’s already got, like, at the end of 2019, she already had all of her 2021 books and half of 2022 books done and so they were just ready to go to their next stage and they were on a calendar.

That’s ideal. Like, I love that. That’s my goal.

Emma Dhesi  31:14

Yeah, that that sounds Yeah, taking the pressure off quite a lot that you know, you’re two years ahead. That’d be lovely.

Crys Cain  31:21

Right now, like if I get sick, it’s fine.

Emma Dhesi  31:23

No breathing room. So So you are a full time writer, you’re a full time mum.

So what does the your the kind of structure of your working day or your working week look like? How do you fit everything in?

Crys Cain  31:37

I actually hired a nanny fairly early on. The original agreement was that my ex was going to be a stay at home dad taking care of the kid that did not work out very well. And so I hired a nanny who’s wonderful.

And she takes the kiddo from eight or nine depending on what there he was at my house or his dad’s house. And then until three or four, again, depending on which parent and so Monday, Wednesday, Friday, My day starts at eight. After he goes off with the nanny, she sometimes comes to the house or she just comes in picks them up and they go run around in the ocean in the sun.

And then those days my workdays can go late as late as I want. But most of the time, I just work here and there and I’ll go off. I can I don’t have a super strict schedule on those days. Tuesdays and Thursdays I get early mornings, which is my prime time for work.

I love early mornings, I’ve been sleeping until six. So I haven’t been getting like my dark hours working time. And when I can start work at four, I can get so much done. By the time eight o’clock rolls around.

But I haven’t been waking up that early. So that hasn’t been happening. And then Thursdays I have my two podcasts recording sessions scheduled. So I do work up until three o’clock on Thursdays but then I get the kiddo and we just hang out in the evenings.

Emma Dhesi  33:13

So what’s the What do you feel it is about the kind of foriegn start that the trim is…

Crys Cain  33:20

I’m just a morning person I’m a morning person there’s no no one else is awake making sounds like right now I mentioned the the truck going by the food truck. That’s a lot of fun.

But trucks go up and down. Motorcycles go up and down. I can hear my neighbor doing construction work. There’s just more noise I think and I that derails my brain a little bit even if I’m not consciously paying attention it because I live in Costa Rica and we don’t have in we just don’t have insulated houses.

The window behind me is very unusual in that it does have glass closing windows, most windows here. And most of the houses I’ve lived at our just screen windows. So you can hear sound all the time coming in and out of them.

And you know, when it’s the howlers in the two cans, that’s lovely. When it is your neighbors having a karaoke night? It’s a little different.

Emma Dhesi  34:21

Yes, I can imagine. Well, you’re painting such a lovely picture, though. You know, I’m in the, you know, dark, cold Europe. And there you are with two cans outside of Costa Rica and the beach and all the rest. Yes. Yeah. Like I don’t feel too sorry for you there.

But no, no. It sounds like as long as you get your two to 3000 words done a day, then you’re that’s you kind of good for the rest of it.

Do you do is the kind of marketing that you do for your books, the sort of admin side of things, or, you know, not to have to do too much of that.

Crys Cain  34:56

I’ll come back to that question. But I just wanted to note for listeners Like, I actually don’t write two to 3000 words a day unless I’m on a co writing book. I spent most of February not writing, because we ran up on those two deadlines at the very end of January, that wiped me out.

And I think I maybe wrote two days of February, which is not my ideal, I don’t like that. But I’m determined to write at least 1000 words a day, this month to try and avoid such a run up against deadlines again. But as far as marketing, the most marketing I do really is my email, which actually hire somebody to do because I hate doing it.

And it’s a weekly email, and I have a very set formula. Because we published monthly, I have basically three weeks of content planned, hey, here’s the pre order. Don’t forget to order it. Hey, the book is out. And then the third week is, Oh, my gosh, you guys, thank you so much for reading the book here. Some great things you’ve said about it.

If you haven’t left a review, go do so. And then the fourth week, I generally have something else going on whether it’s a sale or an audio book is releasing or whatnot. And so I generally have every week covered with something new coming out. And I yeah, I not ideal. It’s a little fast for what my ideal is, but it is what I’ve got right now.

And I’ve got a system that works. Other marketing. Yeah, I’ve lucked out in that my co writer is such a good Facebook marketer, she’s, she’s just really, it’s really natural for her to engage with, with people. And I, it’s not one on one love it small group love it, particularly writers if you’re if you’re if you don’t have one of my special interests for basically writing.

But there’s a few other things that I don’t know how to talk to you. For the most part, I score pretty high on like self diagnosis for autism. So at some point, like that’s going to be a pursuit.

But I’m just like people I don’t understand and mass, I do not understand people. But I need them to live. So. But I’ve lucked out with her being a natural that and she’d been I think in other positions with sales before. So 

Emma Dhesi  37:20

She knows what it’s all about. Now you’ve Well, thank you for sharing that. I you’ve mentioned that you have a podcast called rights away, which I listened to. And I really, really enjoy and do that with JP.

So if you can tell us a little bit about that. And what prompted you to start it.

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Crys Cain  37:40

I don’t want to start a podcast to nerd out about writing for a year or two before I started it, I’m not really sure how much time but I wanted to have a clearer idea of what my focus would be, rather than just popping on and rambling.

And I tried to be an interview show at first, but then I found that was extremely draining for me to one have to schedule interviews, and then to have to do the interviews, because that involves research and deciding on questions.

And, and I was very transparent with my process as I was putting out those beginning episodes being like, Hey, guys, I’m still figuring out what works. And I tried to do some solo episodes. But those I needed to script, I couldn’t just sit in front of a microphone and jabber at it coherently, without long pauses.

So I ended up talking to my friend JP and be like, hey, you wouldn’t be interested by any chance and joining me as co host. And so we just read each other and it’s lovely. We do want to do a few more interviews with folks. We’ve got some stuff saved up. And we’re doing some fun episodes, because we’re Taro geeks as well.

And so we’ve been doing some fun Tarot stuff as far as like planning our business using Tarot or like looking at our year on our substack. And we just this morning recorded an episode on how to write a short story using Taro part one of two. And he’s done that before I haven’t. And so it’s just been so much more energetic to work with him.

And then and for any Clifton strengths geeks out there, he’s high in ideation. So when I was like, hey, if you wouldn’t mind like putting down like a few ideas of things you’d like to talk about, that’d be great. And he’s like, Okay, cool. Here’s 40 I’m like, Wow, amazing.

Excellent. Yeah, so that has been lovely, great addition. And then we have have a monthly Book Club, which is just an excuse to talk with other writers about craft and business books.

And that’s been just a blast as well. 

Emma Dhesi  40:07

Oh, okay, well, I’m definitely gonna link to that in the show notes for people so they can jump aboard and listen. And I have to say, I love the graphic that you’ve got for right away. It’s really clever. I’m looking at..

Crys Cain  40:20

That was JT he did it 

Emma Dhesi  40:22

Oh it is really good. Yeah, check it out. But you’re just before we started recording, you told me that you have started a second podcast want to tell us about that? 

Crys Cain  40:32

Yeah. So I’ve been a member of the author success mastermind for I it’s over two years, I can’t remember exactly when Jay Thorne started it. But it moved into a community format from just a small group of 12 to a larger group on Slack, flew about a year ago, and and you’re a member of this, you’re also a member of the smaller mastermind this year.

And we have, we have had questions that pop up fairly regularly, you know, both in the community. And when we’re just talking to people in general and we thought one of the really good ways for us to delve deep, since it’s hard to type everything up on slack would be to talk to each other about it on a podcast.

And so we have the author success mastermind podcast, which is a mouthful, coming out. I don’t know when this episode goes live, but as of this recording, it’s coming out on Tuesday.

So by the time people hear this, it’ll probably be live. We do have a trailer episode out there just so people can hit subscribe. And it’s it’s been fun. We banked a few episodes to start. And I don’t know we get into some good and juicy things. I like it. 

Emma Dhesi  41:55

Yeah, I’m looking forward to listening to it. Definitely. So I’m conscious of time. But before we wrap things up, I’d love to know a little bit about what you’re working on right now.

But not just your core writing stuff. I’d love to know a little bit more about what your passion project might be at the moment. What are you working on? 

Crys Cain  42:14

Yeah, I my goal is to start releasing fiction, specifically science fiction and fantasy under my actual name, Crys Cain, excuse me. And I found when I tried working on it at the same time as my romance, that I didn’t have energy, I just got distract completely distracted by one project or the other.

And I kept getting frustrated because I would either not have enough energy for the science fiction, fantasy stuff. Or I would put a lot of attention on it, and then have run up against a deadline for the romance stuff and or just be like, Oh, I need to go make money now.

So my goal is to finish up the romance stuff this year, mostly, there’ll be a few other book trailing off books that I do need to finish up in 2022. So that I can talk money way in my in my bank account, to cover me to just focus on writing science fiction and fantasy, I have a co writing science fiction project that is just kind of been meandering.

My co writer is a slow writer, and we’re doing that one differently. With romance. It’s always been alternating chapters. With my co writer, I’m doing the first draft and they will do the editing phase. And they did the outlining phase like I would pop and be like, oh, wouldn’t it be cool if they’re a structure geek. So it’s been wonderful.

And they’re a world building geek. It’s wonderful. I have another sci fi that I started kind of writing into the dark. And I have a Cozy Mystery placed on an island in Georgia.

That is that just makes me laugh every time I pick it up. And so that’s probably the first novel I’ll finish just because it brings me so much joy. And I probably have the most clarity about that one of all the solo projects I have. But yeah, they’re all kind of waiting for me to have energy.

But I plan on writing short stories in between these other romance writing projects to maybe put out there to like, just establish a presence. Maybe submit to some anthologies, and magazines, and just start trying to get myself in the habit of putting myself out there as my real self and not behind a pen name.

Emma Dhesi  44:38

Yeah. And it will be nice kind of what Joanna pen calls a palate cleanser. It’ll be nice to play. Just have like something different. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you’re a busy busy lady. My goodness. Well listen, where can listeners find out more about you online? Or can they?

Crys Cain  44:55

They can, but not the romance super secret, but I Do you have my website CrysCain.com There’s not much there. It needs an overhaul but also right away podcast.com and the author success mastermind.com and tik tok, if you’re Tik tok, it’s Crys Cain. 

Emma Dhesi  45:16

Perfect, lovely. Well, thank you, Crys Cain, very much for your time today. It was lovely speaking to you. 

Crys Cain  45:21

Thank you, Emma. 

Emma Dhesi  45:25

Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

I hope you find that helpful and inspirational. Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, Turning Readers into Writers.

It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel.

If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet they’re called three secret hacks to write with consistency.

So go to emmadhesi.com/turning readers into writers. hit join.

Can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you.

Bye bye.

 

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Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

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Write with confidence with non Fiction author Andrea Glass

Write with confidence with non Fiction author Andrea Glass

by

Write with confidence with non Fiction author Andrea Glass

by Emma Dhesi | Turning Readers Into Writers

Interview with Andrea Glass

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Hello, I’m Emma Dhesi and welcome to another episode of turning readers into writers. If you’re brand new here, welcome. And here’s what you need to know. This is a community that believes you are never too old to write your first novel, no matter what you’ve been up to until now, if you’re ready to write your book, I’m ready to help you reach the end, I focus on helping you find the time and confidence to begin your writing journey, as well as the craft and skills you need to finish the book.

Each week I interview debut authors, editors and industry experts to keep you motivated, inspired, and educated on all things writing, editing, and publishing. If you want to catch up, head on over to emmadhesi.com, where you’ll find a wealth of information and tools to help you get started. Before we dive in, this week’s episode is brought to you by my free cheat sheet 30 Top Tips to find time to write.

In this guide, I give you 30 ways that you can find time to write in the small gaps that appear between the various errands and tasks and responsibilities that you have in your day to day life. Now, you might be thinking that you don’t have any time to spare, but I can guarantee these top tips will give you writing time you didn’t think you had. If you thought writing always involved a pen and paper or a keyboard. Think again.

If you thought you needed at least an hour at a time to write your manuscript. I help you reframe that you won’t be disappointed. Get your free copy of 30 Top Tips to find time to write by going to emmadhesi.com/30TopTips.

Okay, let’s dive in to today’s episode.

Andrea Susan Glass is an award winning ghostwriter and book coach for first time nonfiction authors. For more than 20 years, she’s ghost written dozens of books, and copy edited hundreds of non-fiction books. As a book coach, she’s guided countless new authors to write and publish their book some the bestseller status.

Andrea is a longtime instructor for the University of California, teaching classes in the creative writing and copy editing certificate programs. She wrote the best selling book, your fabulous first book, how to write with clarity, confidence and connection to guarantee that new authors would have all the essential preparation to write their own fabulous first book.

Learn more about Andrea and her book coaching programs at AndreaSusanGlass.com. So let’s find a little bit more about Andrea and her journey to coaching. Well, thank you, Andrea, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m thrilled to have you here. 

Andrea Glass  02:57

 It’s my pleasure. 

Emma Dhesi  02:58

So I wonder if you could start just by telling the listeners and myself how you got started in writing what brought you to the wonderful world of writing?

Andrea Glass  03:08

Gosh, I talk about this in my book that I started when I was about five years old. And I used to write poetry and little songs and I would make little books like craft objects. And I was just told growing up that you can’t make a living as a writer. So I always wrote but I put it on the back burner. And then I took a class an evening class in writing. And I started writing reviews for plays and movies.

And eventually, I submitted that to newspaper and I got paid for it. And the first time I got paid for my writing, I was hooked. And so I started writing articles for magazines and got paid for that too. And then eventually I had a few book ideas. And I spent probably about 10 years writing small books, kind of gift type books, and seeking an agent which I had for a while and seeking publication. And at that time, self publishing wasn’t very popular.

But I did self published a book in the 1990s. And I couldn’t sell it because I didn’t know how to sell it and we didn’t have Amazon. So I said, you know what if I wrote books for other people, and I got paid up front, and I didn’t have to worry about selling the book. So I put out a notice in a newspaper and I got my first ghost writing job and I realized that, hey, I’m still writing and this is fun, but I’m getting paid for it.

And the very first book I ghost wrote I won the San Diego Book Award for the Best structure book and that sort of clinched it that yes, I could write books. I was good at it, I could get paid for it. So I did put aside my own writing dreams for a number of years and started writers way in 2000. And I edit, copy-editing to ghost writing because sometimes a client would come with a book already finished and didn’t need ghostwriting.

And I did the cleaning up, I call it polishing your book to perfection or near perfection. It’s no book ever gets perfect and after that, then I also added book coaching because there were some people who needed hand holding from the beginning of their idea for a book, all the way for to keep them on track and to give them accountability, support, encouragement and feedback. So writers way offers ghost writing, copy editing, and book coaching. 

Emma Dhesi  05:55

So what is writer’s ways that your sort of company? 

Andrea Glass  05:59

That is the name of the company, it’s my service based business, I also do construction, I teach for the University of California. And I have held webinars and live classes when we had live meetings. I’ve taught for several of the local universities where I help live classes. And most I teach people how to write an E-book in 30 to 60 days because people are looking for shorter books and so a short ebook could be anywhere from 10 to 15,000 words, and it gets people a good start a good practice with their first book, so they don’t get overwhelmed thinking I have to write a 200 page book. 

Emma Dhesi  06:51

So I’m interested in your ghost writing. So when you were ghost writing for other people, how did you kind of get into character so to speak, or take on the voice of the person that you’re a ghost writing for? Was that kind of easy to do? Or did you have to spend time with that person getting to know the sound of their voice? You know, getting to know their voice?

Andrea Glass  07:13

Well, that’s a good question. And because every situation is unique, and I’ve never called myself a cookie cutter, writer or ghost writer, I try to customize myself to each situation. So let’s take one situation, the first book that I was ghostwriting, we got together the author and myself, and we had at that time tape recorder, and I would interview him.

And I would get the discussions transcribed so that this was really in his voice. And as I took the transcription and added to it, and modified it, and cleaned it up and pulled it all together into a book, we still had the author’s for us. Because basically, when you’re working with nonfiction, a book and nonfiction is more like a discussion. It’s like a conversation the author has with the reader.

And so I’m talking to you, and I’m telling you about my area of expertise. This particular book was about how to find honest car repair and the gentleman was building a nationwide car repair service and we found that there were many industries such as the legal industry childcare, senior care, and Car Care, where there was a lot of negativity.

So he wanted to share the tricks on finding honest Auto Care. So if I’m talking to let’s say, my target audience is a female, which women definitely have a difficult time talking to a car repair mechanics because they don’t understand cars generally. The author would say, Now, here’s what you’re going to do when you get into your car and the check engine light comes on. And so you basically find that a lot of non-fiction books will have discussions.

So when you interview the author, you’re getting the author sharing his or her expertise with the reader. Now another author I worked with had written a bunch of blogs and newsletters, so I had his voice in those particular writings that he had done and this is very common with those writing projects.

You will take content that has already been written, but isn’t in anything that looks like a book and so what we would do is create an outline for the book, basically your table of contents, your chapters, and then I would take all of this miscellaneous years of blogs and newsletters, and figure out where they went in the table of contents, and then pulled it all together with transitions and we did some more interviewing with this particular author and then of course, you give it back to the author, and then they go through it and they look at it and say,

What do I have to do to make this really sound like me, because even though the author is not a writer, they can see, when I have put something together that looks more like a book, they get a better handle on how they can modify it to, to give it what they really want to make it sound like them.

Another time I had someone do their own recording, they just talked into a digital recorder, sent it off to a transcriptionist and I turned it into a book. I’ve had people who’ve done webinars, and they had the webinars transcribed and they sent them to me, and I turned that into a book.

So it’s basically making your table of contents your chapter outline, then gathering the content, however it is from previously written material, or from interviews, or from a live webinar, and then popping it into the chapters where it goes, and then pulling it all together, weaving it together, it’s kind of like a tapestry, you know, you have to have connecting threads between the chapters, and it is definitely challenging.

For me, it’s an you have to have kind of one of a big perspective, you have to look at the whole thing as one, and then you have to look at everything in detail too. So you have to have these two different perspectives working at the same time. But it’s very rewarding, and it makes so much it gives so much reward to the to the person who wanted to write a book, but knew that they just couldn’t do it. Either. They didn’t have the time, or the talent. That’s what I usually say.

They don’t have the time or the town, or they just don’t have the perseverance. Everyone who’s written a book knows that it takes concentrated effort. Nobody writes a book overnight, no matter how many books say write a book in 30 days or write a book in a weekend? It really doesn’t happen like that. 

Emma Dhesi  12:34

No, no, it Yes, you’re right, It takes sort of consistency of time and effort. You absolutely right. And now you yourself, have written a book to help people write their book, you’ve written in your fabulous first book, how to write with clarity, confidence, and connection. and a lot of my audience certainly tell me that one of the things that they struggle with is how to feel confident about their writing, because often they’re, they’re beginner writers, their first time writers and so that that self belief is still growing, they’re still working on that.

And so what are some of the ways that you suggest to the people you work with? how they can start to build their confidence? and start to feel feel good about what they’re writing puts a putting out into the world?

Andrea Glass  13:22

Well, I’m glad you asked me about that Emma because when I was considering what to write for my first book, and that did take quite a bit of consideration I wound up doing some interviews and asking people who I would consider my target audience what their biggest challenges were, because why not write a book that meets the needs of your typical audience, then just coming up with an idea off the top of my head, and there were so many books on writing out there that I was a little bit intimidated at first,

I’m developing my own confidence in writing a book that would be a little bit different, and that would be helpful. So some of the issues that came up, were about confidence. And in my book, I talk about confidence in your writing confidence on your subject and conference in marketing. So let’s talk first about confidence writing.

First of all, I believe that confidence comes while you’re doing something, not always before, and you could look at many stars in Hollywood. Take Barbra Streisand, for example, who has always said she’s never confident she gets up out on stage. And the book that was written called feel the fear and do it anyway, some people step into what they want to do without the confidence knowing that the confidence will come while they’re doing it. Because it’s hard to be confident in something you’ve never done before.

So if you’ve never written a book, It’s hard to feel confident writing it. So one way you can start to build a confidence, of course, is writing something small, like a blog. And as soon as you get any kind of positive feedback, your confidence will start to grow. I have to tell you that being a copy editor for 20 years, when I had my first beta readers read my book, and give me positive feedback. And even some negative feedback, I was blown away. Because I didn’t have confidence in my book right away.

And when someone said, this is the book I’ve been waiting for, you know, I’ve been wanting to write a book for years. And I just couldn’t get started. And I’m going to follow your book, step by step, it’s going to be my guide. And others said, I didn’t like this, can you fix this? Or can you do that, I was just so thrilled that there were people who, whether they liked it, or didn’t, they read it, and they gave me some good feedback. So that helped to build my confidence that what I was writing was making an impact.

So I suggest people get some early readers. Whether you start off with short blogs or articles to just build, start building a confidence. And then once you start trying to book get some early readers, and don’t take the negative feedback, harshly take it as constructive criticism, because your goal is to write a book that impacts your readers.

And when you ask your readers if it’s working, and they say, No, fix it, and keep fixing it. And don’t lose your confidence, because you did make an impact, you got them to say something whether it was negative or positive. So start building your confidence as you get some positive feedback in your writing.

Now, in terms of gaining confidence in your subject, my initial fears were at some of the clients fears are that Who am I to write about this, I’m not an expert. Nobody knows Andrea Susan Glass, you know, Who is she to write a book on, on how to write your first book? Well, I twisted that a little bit. And I said, I’m writing my first book along with you, the reader and we’re going to learn this together and everything I’m learning I’m going to share with you.

So I created that kind of confidence in my subject, by saying that I can learn it and I can teach you and you can learn along with me. Also, I read voraciously. My Kindle is full of tons of books on writing, I learned, I built my confidence in my subject by striking, and talking to people in my target audiences seeing what they wanted to know and then the third area of building confidence is in marketing.

And I have to tell you, that’s going to take a little bit of time, nobody comes out of the gate, confident marketing their first book, because it’s your first book, and it’s not a service. If you’ve been in a service business, for example, I work with a lot of coaches and speakers, financial planners, service professionals, they’ve been marketing a service, but a book is a product.

So you have to learn the difference. And you have to learn how readers find books. Generally they find books, either by searching and might go into Amazon or Google look up a particular issue or look up if they’re looking for young adult fantasy, if you’re looking for women’s contemporary fiction, and they’re looking for how to get your cat to stop scratching your furniture, whatever it is, you can use the search bar, but the other way people find you is by referral or by your promotion.

So you need to understand these two different methods of marketing. Whereas people search or people get it by referral. And once you study and you and you learn and I have to tell you, there are so many ebooks and so many blogs, and so many webinars on book marketing and I probably studied intensively for two or three months because there’s two levels of marketing with your book anyway.

One is before you launch it, and one is after you launch it. So you can start to build your confidence in marketing by doing a little bit of it before you launch your book and that’s called building a platform and building a platform means getting yourself out there and letting people know about you. If you’re comfortable on social media, go for it, whether it’s Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, just start conversing with people and providing information.

Find the groups if you’re in fiction or non-fiction there are plenty of writers groups and share ideas. Answer questions, ask questions, and get comfortable with promoting yourself in a very low key sort of way and you’ll start to build your confidence when people say, hey, that’s a great idea, or I really appreciated, you’re sharing that information with me and then as you grow more confident being out there in the public, because let’s face it, writers are hiding behind their computers and a lot of writers are very shy and especially now that we’re not out in the public as much.

They may not feel comfortable sharing who they are but I spoke to a friend the other day and author and I said, look, I know you just want to sit and write all day, butyou can just build it and they will come, people want to know who you are. They want to feel a connection to you as the author, so that they’d be interested in your book, people don’t just look for books anymore, they really do like to make a connection with the author and social media is definitely one way to do it and another way is to share with other authors, if you can find five other authors who might like to do a group emailing, you know, some kind of a group promotion together, then that helps you help each other that way.

So slowly, but surely, just learn a little bit about marketing and try a few things and as you get some positive responses, your confidence grows, like I said, you have to step out there and start getting positive results and keep track, you know, find out what works for you, because I had an older client in his 90s. and he didn’t want to do any public speaking.

So I would say don’t get on podcasts and webinars if you don’t want to speak, but do some guest blogging, and get on social media and do things that you’re comfortable with, because you’re never going to shine, and feel confident if you step too far out of your comfort zone. But as you step a little bit more and more your comfort zone will expand.

But I don’t, I don’t ever tell anyone to put themselves in a position where they’re not going to be their best self because they’re so uncomfortable. And there’s going to be some form of marketing that you’re going to find that you’re comfortable with everyone, there’s so many opportunities for marketing nowadays with the everybody being able to reach us where we are in the world, I’m in California and Amazon, Scotland.

So you know, nothing keeps us apart anymore. So find your comfort zone, and build your confidence slowly and, you know, you just have to do it, you have to market your book and your will. I sold one book, I was confident and when I sold two books, I was more confident and when I sold 1000 books, I was really confident.

How to write with Clarity, Confidence and Connection with Andrea Glass

 

 

Emma Dhesi  22:58

There’s so much good stuff in there, Andrea, I think also, I just want to point out to our listeners who might be feeling you know, I’m brand new to this, I have not written my first book yet. But you know, listening to you, you’ve been in the industry for 20 plus years, you’ve ghost written many, many books.

But when it comes to writing your own book, you know, you still have the same, the same feelings that all of us have and so I want the listeners to kind of know, everybody has this to have that kind of initial fear is completely normal and it’s parcel of it and I love the advice that you’ve been giving Andrea about taking it small steps and little by little, and that the confidence comes from from the action from doing and the more that you do, the more confident you become and, you know, particularly then if we think about the marketing side of it,

I love particularly for those who are doing kind of more hopefully books or development books, you can go out and sell without being salesy and as you were saying, it’s about sharing information about being of service to people being helpful to people and that’s what drives that connection and will bring people to you and your book about personal development or professional development and so really good three great ways there of growing confidence.

So thank you for sharing those with us. I know that you have, so I know that as parcel you’re helping writers you have this kind of process that you take them through and so what are some of the steps that someone needs to take when they’re looking to write their their book?

Andrea Glass  24:43

Oh, sure. I put together a checklist that helps people follow the path that they need to take. I find checklists are sort of like a plan and as you check each thing off, I find it’s a real good way to keep be self accountable.

As I said before, writers are on a solo journey for most of the time and unless we can hold ourselves accountable, it’s very difficult to stay the whole course, I have seen writers who have thrown up their hands in the middle and said, I can’t do anymore, I’m facing a blank screen or, you know, somebody challenges that come up.

So the first step that I found is the most important, absolutely the most important is what I call in my book, the author aspiration, that could be the reason that you’re writing the book, a lot of people call it the Y. If your y is not strong enough, any of the challenges that come up, can throw you off and I’ve seen this happen with clients who have hired me and then they disappeared and I’ve tried everything to contact them, and they’ve just sort of snuck back into their little shell of fear or whatever was keeping them.

So if your y has to be strong enough, and your y would be, you have this book inside you that just has to come out, or you you’re ready to build a career as an author, that’s one of my why’s I have waited long enough, and I have a lot of books in man, probably one a year is going to be my, my format and then I’d also like to have passive income, which, ultimately down the road, it’s passive.

Some people want to leave a legacy, some people have some really valuable information to share, I have a list of maybe 20 different y’s in my book, and that y will carry through everything else so if my Y, for example, is I want to create passive income, and something comes up, let’s say, a hardship in my life. I know that I have to deal with that.

And yet, keep going because I have to do what it takes to create their passive income. And I’ve talked to other people, like I said, I was talking to a friend the other day, and she says, Oh, I admire you for doing all that. I said, I’m doing what I have to do, because you write a book and then I know I have to market it. If you write your book and it sits there, I’m sorry, I’m not gonna feel sorry for you because you know that you have to do what it takes and so if my Y is strong enough, I will do what it takes and then the second most important thing is the readers why.

Why is a reader going to buy my book? I think there’s about 4500 books published each month on Amazon, and several million a year. So the reader has a lot of choices, and the reader can get a lot of information for free, as well. So why my book? Well, obviously, there’s a reader result and my result in my book is that I want to help every first time author now how to set themselves up for success before they write the book.

My book that I wrote, my fabulous first book is not a guide on how to write your book, but it’s how to set yourself up beforehand and a lot of people don’t think about that, they might just plunge right in, and then they get stuck. But if they figure out in advance why they’re writing the book, and and why the reader will buy the book and then the third thing is who that reader is? going to write a book that meets those goals, rather than a book when they’re finished with the book, and they say, Oh my God, who is this for?

And you know, when somebody says who you’re marketing, for instance, I don’t know, everyone, anytime someone tells you that their book is for everyone, you’ve got to just kind of step back and say, I’m sorry, but you can’t market to everyone. It doesn’t work that way. It just so well. Yeah, you’ve got. Yeah, and frictions even harder, because who knows that? Me an older adult is reading young adult fiction. You know, and I do like young adult fiction. So it’s, it’s difficult. But if you start off thinking, why am I writing the book? And why is the reader going to buy the book and who is the reader, then you’re, you’re off to a better start and so those are my first three steps.

The fourth step is choosing the right subject that meets those criteria because I had to really niche my subject for my book. I didn’t want to wait another book on how to write a book from start to finish, because there are a lot like that. But there weren’t that many books that set the reader up for success on what to do before they wrote the book. So that’s what my subject was and then the fifth step, which I think is really important, and I wanted to definitely get to this Is your overall vision? If people don’t, or the overall objective, I call it if people don’t look at the big picture, they get stuck.

Because some people say to me, Well, how much should I put in the book? And how long should my book be? And how many pages and how many words? They say, Well, are you planning on writing another book. Because if you are, maybe all of everything that you know about your topic doesn’t belong in one book maybe belongs in two books, or three books or a series of books.

One of my goals down the road is to write a series of 12 books. And they’re short ebooks on different aspects of book writing, so that people can just buy the one that they might need, for example, how to come up with your book title, a whole short ebook just on how to write a book title. So you have to think ahead, and you have to have your overall objective, your overall vision.

So you know how much to put in that book? And where you’re going? Are you going to just write this one book and put it all in there? You’re going to write several books? Are you going to write a book and then a workbook? Like I’m working on a workbook? Are you going to do a course? Are you going to morph into services, do some coaching.

So your overall objective is the fifth step. And it will really help you know how to position the book that you’re working on.

Emma Dhesi  31:20

I love that. 

Andrea Glass  31:22

It’s up to the big picture. 

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Emma Dhesi  31:23

Yeah, but there’s a strategy behind it that either this is a one stop shop, or it’s part of something bigger, and then you know how to write it and then you know how to market it and and who it’s for.

I love that you’re encouraging people to think about that big picture and that’s the strategy that comes behind it. Because often, we can get really excited about an idea and we just want to do it and get it out there and then we don’t really know what to do with it once it’s done to it’s brilliant that you’re putting that in place.

Now I know that there’s a few other steps but rather than give them all the way here today, people can actually find this checklist on your website and and so I’m going to link to that in the show notes so that people can can go and find it but it’s not your website isn’t andreasusanglass.com and I’ll…

Andrea Glass  32:13

Right I call it the write a book checklist and on the first page, you can check off different items as you go through them and then there’s an expanded version of what each of them means.

Because it really is important. If you want to take yourself seriously as an author, to have some planning behind it, and not just sit down and say, I’m going to write a book, and then all of a sudden, you’re finished, and you don’t realize who you wrote it for and how you’re going to find them, a lot of people talk about planning your marketing, even before you start the book.

And I have two opinions on that. Because sometimes it shows an author off and they get all nervous about it. They say well, I don’t know anything about marketing. And it’s, you know, now I’m scared about writing in my book. So if you’re, at least think about it a little bit. But don’t get caught up in the fact that you know nothing about marketing.

But as you’re writing it, still think about the reader still write to that reader, because you are going to have to find that reader when you’re doing your marketing. But don’t get caught up in it. And in a lot of people say oh, for a year before you write your book, start your marketing. If it throws you off, if it distracts you too much, and then don’t do it, just think about it. And maybe keep a few notes.

You know how you plan to market or, or study a little bit about it but don’t let it distract you. Because I have seen that happen with some of my clients and they they got so shell shocked. They just put their manuscripts away and said, I’m sorry, I can’t sell. I can’t mark it, I better not write a book. So you know, don’t let it sidetrack you like that.

But you really do need to think about it in advance because otherwise, you know, you spent a year or however long writing a book and there it is 200 pages for fiction, maybe 150 for nonfiction, and you don’t know what you’re going to do with it. 

Emma Dhesi  34:13

Good advice. Good advice there. Now as well as your your breakers in addition to your first your fabulous first book, you also help writing you’ve mentioned it briefly before but with coaching. And so what do you notice that are some of the common things that your clients need? Need help with? What do they come to you for coaching for?

Andrea Glass  34:37

Well, because I have the steps that I just talked to you about? Very often they will come to me with those issues like who is my target audience for this book? and how can I start the book, so that I’m reaching my goals of what my author aspiration is and what the reader result is, as I call them so the most important thing that we do is discover why this author is writing the book and who they’re writing it for, and what they want the reader to get out of it.

And then we work together to develop a table of contents. I think that’s often one of the hardest steps for new authors when they come to me, is I need an outline, I have all these ideas floating around in my head but if we create, you can call it an outline or table of contents or chapter outline, at least we have a plan.

And then all of this content that’s floating around for them can go into the different chapters. The other thing that they often need help with is a book structure. I call there’s two structures to the book, one is a book structure, and one is a chapter structure. And we all have books on our bookshelf. So I always say go take a look and see what you like, chapters, a book structure would be how you have the front of the book, you might have acknowledgments in the front.

Nowadays, if you’re writing an E book, we don’t like to put too much in the front, because when you’re going to Amazon, and you have that look inside feature, you want readers to get to the book as quickly as possible. So you try to keep your frontmatter very slim, and put as much in the back. But we look at the book structure we’re gonna do, we are going to have a prologue or we’re going to have a foreword, that sort of thing and then we look at a chapter structure, my chapter structure, I love to start my chapters with a quote, I think quotes are very inspirational.

I also like, I also put some photo images in my book, I just, especially with an E book, I just like coloring, and images and then I go into perhaps, a lesson and then I go into a story, my stories and my ghost stories about my ghost writing clients and I have a little ghost there and I thought that was really catchy and then at the end, there’s an action step. So that’s a chapter structure and I think a reader feels comfortable if each chapter is structured the same, so they get a sense of continuity.

So those are some of the issues that I do with book coaching. Another thing is accountability as I said, because we’re on a solo journey, sometimes we have trouble sticking to our schedule, just by ourselves. So with accountability coaching, I will get on the phone or zoom once a week, for 15 minutes or so with a client and check in and see if they reach their goals for the week.

Maybe their goal was to write a chapter that week. Sometimes a coaching wouldn’t involve having them send me the chapter and I would offer feedback. So there’s no different levels of coaching, basically, you know, how many hours a month Do you want to hire me for, to either do a check in or to do feedback and give you feedback, it’s really good in a sense to work with the code from the beginning, because then you’re getting feedback right away, and you’re not writing a whole book, and then find out at the end that it just didn’t work.

And so if I give feedback on the first chapter, and I show them, what’s working, what’s not working, then each subsequent chapter gets better and better, because they’ve had that feedback along the way. And then there’s also group coaching, where we would get on zoom. And I would give a short lesson. And then people could ask questions, and then there would be laser coaching, if people have a specific issue.

So there’s just different levels of coaching at different price points, based on what someone can afford and what they need and I just like to be like I said before, very customizable, and be flexible, and give people what they need to succeed.

That’s my goal. I know the joy of writing a book and I want everybody to experience that. 

If you are trying to write your novel, but lack the confidence or self-belief to see it through to the end, then join me in Unlock Your Creative Block.

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Emma Dhesi  39:09

Yes, it is. It’s life changing. And when you write your first book, it can really change your life in ways you didn’t realize before. 

Andrea Glass  39:17

We use Amazon every day, every day I look at my book cover. I look to see if anybody’s written a review. I look to see my ratings. It’s just exciting. 

Emma Dhesi  39:29

It is it is exciting. That’s exactly the word is I have to admit I I still pop on to Amazon every now and again and have a look as well. But you’re expanding how you how you help rates again, you don’t sit still. And so now you have an upcoming online course as well. Is there anything?

I know it’s Judo to be released later this year, but is there anything you can tell us about it? 

Andrea Glass  39:54

Well, first I’m doing a workbook because I love action steps. I believe that Unless you take action, you’re not going to make any significant changes. So whether you’ve read my book or not, the workbook has fill in the blanks so that you can answer these questions. What is the author aspiration, what is the reader result, cetera.

And there are pages for you to write down how you’re planning out your book, and what’s your overall vision, and, and that sort of thing. So the workbook will be released in April, probably. And then I’ll be working on the course, the course will be an expanded version of the book. What I found and you and I discussed is people learn in different formats.

And we want to make all the different formats available. So however someone needs to learn, it’s available for them. And people do like online courses, because it’s a very sequential thing. If they, for example, they can, they can take most online courses or self study. So they can take it whenever they want. So let’s say you do, let’s say I have six modules. And each week you do one module.

That way you get to build on your learning in an a pace that works for you that you can fit into your lifestyle, especially people who are still working full time and working on their book. So each week, you’ll have a lesson that you can follow, do the work and then the course will most likely have a once a month Q and A live q&a on zoom.

And then anyone who has questions about the course that can answer it, my goal is to create online courses, it’s a little bit more passive, so that people can work on their own time, I find that the live ones take up a lot of time for people, they take up a lot of time for me, and I want to spend more time writing and coaching.

So when you have an online course that people can take on their own time, I think that works best for everyone and then if you have once a month a live q&a, at least they get an interaction with the creator of the course and they feel comfortable knowing that there’s someone that they can talk to if they’re having any challenges and of course, anyone can always contact me by email, or set up a free consultation on my website,

I offer 30 minute free coaching for anyone who wants to interact and get some specific help because it again, you know, we’re talking about relationships here. And there’s so many people doing what we do but you find someone that you feel comfortable with, you know, either relate to someone or not. I’ve had a lot of different teachers over the years, I’ve taken a lot of course and now I’m just working with one, marketing coach Derek Decker.

And I decided he was the one and we get on zoom once a week. And any question I have about my book writing and publishing journey he answers and it’s it’s very helpful. Yeah, yeah, to know that you’re not alone. Again, nobody can do this alone. The book writing and publishing journey is not meant to be solo, you need a copy editor, you need a book coach, need a web designer, you know, you need a lot of different people on your team and maybe you can’t afford them all at once.

But you will have to have several people helping you because if you want to do a professional job, you know, you need to have a team. 

Emma Dhesi  43:42

Yeah, absolutely. Andrea, you have given us so much great stuff in this conversation. Thank you so so much. If listeners want to find out more about you online, what’s the best way to do that?

Andrea Glass  43:56

Well, I would suggest they go to Andreasusanglass.com And they can see my programs that I offer my coaching programs. They can buy my book, they can download my free white book checklist. And they can sign up for a free strategy session or coaching session on my website, I have the calendar program and I love I love to talk to people nowadays.

I used to do it all by phone, but now we’re doing it by zoom and I find that when I talk to clients or potential clients on zoom, it’s just such a difference you know, they want to feel comfortable with who they’re working with you’re giving me your precious words and to know what you’re giving them to is so different than just going on to some anonymous website and hiring an editor coach or a ghostwriter that you’ve never met.

You don’t know if they’re going to do a good job for you and you don’t know where they are in the world. So I will encourage people to set up a consultation before they work with anyone and I’m happy to speak to anyone and even if they don’t want to work with me, at least I can give them some advice. So andreasusanglass.com and find everything you need there.

Emma Dhesi  45:20

Lovely. Well, thank you so much. It’s been a real joy talking to you today. Thank you. 

Andrea Glass  45:25

You too Emma, Delightful.

Emma Dhesi  45:29

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you find that helpful and inspirational. Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, Turning Readers Into Writers.

It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel. If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet there called three secret hacks to write with consistency.

So go to emmadhesi.com/turning readers into writers hit join. Can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you. Bye bye.

 

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emma dhesi

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.

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What is A Book Coach?

What is A Book Coach?

by | coach, coaching, getting help, inspiration

Where has book coaching come from?

Book Coaching is a new field which has emerged in the writing and publishing industry.

As traditional publication has coalesced and financial margins have become tighter, agents and editors don’t have the time or money anymore to invest in new writers, coach them, or guide them in their writing.

I remember reading Diana Athil’s biography Stet, in which she described the nurturing of a new young writer called VS Naipaul. With strong guidance (and even stronger patience) she took him from young writer to literary giant. 

This level of long-term support is now a privilege available to only a chosen few!

With the amalgamation of the big publishing houses and resulting financial pressures, there’s less room for mistakes and publishers want only those books that they feel confident will reach a wide audience and make them a profit.

Agents are by default in the same boat. Agents are looking to pick up a nearly perfect product from the slush pile. They don’t have the luxury of time or budget to coax a great story out of a writer who has potential.

Margins are too tight.

Just as the merging of the big publishing houses has created an open marketplace for formerly in-house editors (good news for indie authors!) so, too has it created a gap in the market for experts and professionals to help aspiring writers finish a first draft (which eludes an estimated 90% of writers) revise and even publish or query their books.

This is wonderful news for writers because it’s slowly but surely breaking down the misconception that novels are written solely by the author in a bubble.

Novels have always been a collaborative project, but previously that project was worked on in-house with the agent or publisher. The co-operative aspect of novel writing is not a new thing.

How does a coach differ from an editor?

A coach works with you throughout the writing process. 

An editor comes in at the end, once the book is finished.

How a book coach can help you

Writing a novel is a long-term and intellectual endeavour. It’s hard work keeping all the moving parts in your head while at the same time maintaining perspective on the story as a whole.

If you’ve experienced coaching in any other part of your life, you know how beneficial the experience is.

Most writers come to a coach knowing the basics, at least in theory. They’ve attended classes, taken part in workshops, read many craft books and scoured the internet for a magic solution to novel writing. It’s not a teacher they need

1. Feedback

A coach really comes into their own when it comes to brainstorming ideas, asking questions about the script at hand, working through a character’s goals and motivations.

Often I’ve got stuck with a plot point, or can’t work out how to get my protagonists out of (or into) trouble.

Because my coach knows the story and the characters, they are best placed to help me come up with ideas on how to solve that particular problem. Oh, the wonderful a-ha! moments I’ve had with my coaches.

2. Moral Support

The most surprising thing I’ve discovered, however, is that the story itself is only part of the coaching. The other half is the support I offer my students. 

There is always a moment (usually about halfway through the novel) in the process where my students doubt themselves and wonder if any of it’s worthwhile and wouldn’t it be better for everyone if they just gave it up?

My job then is to help reframe my student’s state of mind. Their book is absolutely worth pursuing. That’s why it keeps them up at night! It needs to be told. Frustration and self-doubt are a natural part of the process and, with experience, my students come to recognise their own roller coaster of emotions.

3. Transformation

You need a coach who facilitates your transformation from a confused and lonely newbie to a clear-headed and supported author.

A coach is the only person who is as invested in your manuscript as you are. They take the time to read your work, comment on it, ask questions and ensure your novel has all the necessary components.

A novel is more than pretty words, it’s about structure and forward momentum.

Your coach will guide you to write the best book you can by asking questions of the plot, the characters, and writing itself. They will ask just the right questions to unstick your story.

It’s been my experience that the transformation shows itself not only in your writing but your wider life. You’re a happier person because you’re doing what lights you up and this ripples into your professional life, your family life and even your future goals.

Do coaches need to be accredited?

No. It’s not necessary to have a qualification to be a book coach, just as it’s not necessary to have an MFA/MA to be an author.

That said, it is necessary to be a book lover and ideally a writer. It is necessary to study Story and understand its many and varied dynamics.

A qualification can give you reassurance that your prospective coach has invested in themselves and their professional development, but it’s not a prerequisite.

Will they help me write a bestseller?

That is something nobody can guarantee, no agent, publisher or book coach.

Your coach will help you write the best book you can at that moment in time, but they can’t promise book sales.

If you’re looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, this isn’t it. Building a back catalogue and a name takes time.

Do they need to be a bestseller?

Being a bestselling author doesn’t make a person a good coach, so don’t base your decision on that alone.

There are a lot of good writers out there who haven’t hit the bestseller list (you may even be one of them!). That doesn’t mean they don’t have value to share.

How do you choose the right coach?

It’s all about relationships. The most important thing, I believe, is that you like the person you hire.

1. Trust is key

You’re going to have some in-depth conversations with them, so you want to feel safe to discuss almost anything with them. You’ll be amazed at what emerges from the depths of your psyche when you’re writing a novel, and it can leave you feeling vulnerable.

2. Do they understand your goals?

Be sure they understand your goal and will give you actionable steps to achieve them. Ensure they’ll provide constructive feedback (good or bad) to keep you growing.

This is another reason you like the person you work with. They might give you negative feedback and it’s imperative you feel those comments come from a good place.

3. What do others say?

Look for testimonials and if you don’t see any on their website, ask for them. All coaches worth their salt will be happy to do this.

What qualities do you need as a client?

1. Be coachable

The first and most important quality is being ‘coachable’.

There’s no point hiring someone to work with you if you reject everything they say. You must be willing to listen to what they say, and their reasons for saying it. After that you must make up your own mind.

Defensiveness gets you nowhere!

2. Be willing to try

You must also be willing to try new things. Your coach may suggest new ways of writing or approaching your work, things you’ve not tried before.

Before you reject them, try them. You never know, it might just be the solution to your problem.

3. Be committed

The third quality you need is to be ready to write. You want to make the most of your time with your coach. Commit to the novel for the length of time you’re with your coach. Take advantage of their expertise and feedback.

A coach can do many things, but they cannot write your novel for you.

Coaches have their own speciality

As the coaching profession is expanding, so are many coaches are niching down to work with particular writers and stories.

For example, I work with first time novelists. Others work with writers ‌three or four books down the line.

I work across genres, but others specialise in historical fiction or thrillers, literary or children’s. Some work solely on non-fiction books or memoirs.

Some work solely on the first draft with you, others will take you right through to the querying process.

Think about the stage you’re in and what kind of coach will be of most benefit for you.

Coaches have their own frameworks

Each coach has their own way of working and will have their own framework, taking you from initial idea and premise, to outline to finished draft and beyond.

Ask your prospective coach how they like to work and over what timeframe. Some work for a few weeks at a time. Others, like myself, work on a 12 month basis.

Be sure to ask so you understand what’s expected of the relationship and how long it will initially last.

Interested in working with me?

I work with first time novelists. If that’s you and you’d like to join my pod coaching programme, book a call here and let’s have a no obligation chat.

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Never Stop Learning, with Sharon Hughson

Never Stop Learning, with Sharon Hughson

by

Never Stop Learning, with Sharon Hughson

by Emma Dhesi | Turning Readers Into Writers

https://www.buzzsprout.com/971221/9730539

Never stop learning, with Sharon Hughson

Emma Dhesi: 

Well, welcome, Sharon. I’m so glad to have you on the show because we’ve been sort of in each other’s world for a little while now. So it’s lovely to finally get you get you on the podcast.

Sharon Hughson: 

I am so fortunate to be here with you.

Emma Dhesi: 

Well, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind sharing with us all, just about your journey to racing and to where you are? No.

Unknown: 

Okay. Well, I’ve been I feel like I’ve been writing my whole life. I wrote my first book. Yes, that is in quotation marks. When I was in third grade, it was called the horse killer. I wrote it in a spiral notebook. And I still have it, as well as my second and third books that I wrote in spiral notebooks when I was a kid. So I have loved reading and writing pretty much my whole life. And, and I always dreamed of being a published author. But back when I was in school, it was not touted as something realistic. You were well, but what’s your going to be your real job while you pursue that on the side. And of course, the publishing industry, as it was then was very difficult to break into anyway, and not necessarily lucrative. So I mean, it makes sense that your parents and your teachers or whatever want you to have a better plan than that, right.

Sharon Hughson: 

So it’s really exciting to me, that we have this new paradigm for publishing. So you don’t have to wait for the gatekeepers to say yes, you’re good enough. You don’t have to go through all those hoops. I mean, you can you can choose to, or you can choose to Self Publish, and you can, it can be lucrative, not like vanity presses, which was the only way to Self Publish when I first started writing so many years ago. So it’s really to me, I’m excited by it, I have been published by two different, or three actually different small indie presses, as well as it’s doing some self publishing. So I’m kind of familiar with both tracks. And I, I just still love to write I fall into stories and get lost in those worlds, whether I’m reading them or writing them. So.

Emma Dhesi: 

So tell us about your fiction, because you’ve written across a couple of different genres. So tell us about them

Sharon Hughson: 

yes, I have. So myself, I have self published some of the stuff that was previously traditionally published once I got my rights back. But the first thing I self published was a pondering heart in my reflections series, and that’s a biblical fictionalization series. And that story actually, just kind of came to me out of the blue, and I didn’t want to write it. I fought against writing it for a couple years, and then I would write a few scenes and then I’d be like, No, I didn’t. Because I I’ve read biblical fiction. It’s not like my favorite genre or anything. I’ve read it just because I think it gives me an interesting, I told you Yeah. Okay, um, so it’s because I feel like there’s a lot of pressure on that to get it biblically accurate, and that I’m not a scholar of that time. So I also don’t know whether or not to be able to portray life in the first century, Israel in a good manner. So but what I do have is a friend that I graduated from high school with, he has a degree, he’s a doctor, and he is a practicing Jew, but he’s a Messianic Jew. So he does believe that Jesus Christ, Messiah, but he has a degree in his degree is in first century Jewish culture. So he read my books to make sure that they were not out of the world out of the realm on

Emma Dhesi: 

this so interesting that you resisted doing it but still there was this pool. This is like calling say, No, this is

Sharon Hughson: 

what you have to ride it. See, that’s the thing about Sheena rider, the stories won’t if there need to be written, they won’t let you go. I know a lot of people are like, well, if I don’t write this, then I’m going to lose it. And I’m like, well, that hasn’t necessarily been my experience. If the story wants to be read written, it is gonna keep after you until you write it down. So I have three books in that series. And then I have two sweet Christian romances both that were published with sweet promise press originally, but when I got my rights back, I went ahead and republish them. So one is about a middle aged second chances romance. And the other is a kick out a cowboy, and it’s a former soldier and a cowboy. And it was written originally as three novellas that they published together as in a collection and I just put them so you have the whole meet cute through the happily ever after. You know? So anyway, that is what I have for that I do have a few other things on there that might be considered nonfiction. But my passion is really for fiction.

Emma Dhesi: 

Mm hmm. I didn’t know that you’ve gone through a small press as well as it did, is there anything you can sort of spring to mind that was the main difference between working with a small press and being indie, and either good or bad.

Sharon Hughson: 

So the good news is that they have a wider reader base than what I have for myself. So my work was published out or press out and presented to their wider base, for example. So we promised press had a base of 10,000 readers. And so every time they released 10,000, readers would hear about your release. And so I got, you know, quite a few sales there. Most indie presses are really good about they pay you in royalties, only most of them, and you get half of half of the net. So that is also a much better pay rate than you would get from most big traditional publishers who publish or give you quite a bit less than that. And since they require an agent, your agent is taking a cut of all that as well. So um, yeah, it says,

Emma Dhesi: 

but that’s good to know, it’s interesting, you know, just, there’s no right or wrong is there. But it’s interesting to know which what your experience was and your sort of takeaways, and there’s always good and bad. So it’s, yeah, nice to have that kind of immediate exposure without having to do a Facebook ad or something like that. Just to know that the the press already have a readership. And thanks, thanks for sharing that with us. And so I know that you’re not only are you passionate writer, but you’re also passionate about helping other writers. And your website has a fantastic resources page. Can you share with us the the sorts of resources you’ve got up there for aspiring writers?

Sharon Hughson: 

Okay, great. So I need to update it again. Because a lot of a lot of the bulk is posts, my blog posts that I’ve written based on my experiences, or whatever about specific things so that they can find those. So it’s an easy way for them to find something if they’re going to pitch their book to an agent. Well, I have posts about that, or if they’re, you know, trying to find an editor. Well, I have posts about that. So but the other thing I do is I have linked to quite a few other great resources on the web, like one stop for writers and Kristen lamb who is amazing, about how about helping indie writers promote themselves on social media. And so there’s just a lot of resources like that, that I found. As I was starting out, trying to go help me help me I need information. Well, these ones that are just so fantastic that I have linked those as well, because like you said, I want to help writers, and I remember what it felt like to be a newbie, and go, Okay, where do I start? Yeah, yeah. And so

Emma Dhesi: 

it’s it’s an ever changing world, isn’t it? And so this always kind of things to be kept abreast or, and you also have a lovely community and your Facebook group called writes your book, nuc, which is a great title. If anybody wants to join that group, what can what can they expect from from being a member?

Unknown: 

So I post six days a week, something, a lot of times, it might be a motivational quote, or it can be a question. I have given away critiques in the past. And so I like to do that. Because paid critiquer is one of my multiple jobs, freelance jobs that I have to try and make ends meet. Because we all know that offer pay still isn’t necessarily a top notch. And so I do that I have I do weekly lives where I’ve before it’s been courses, which I’m going on sliding that onto a YouTube channel, but I still go live usually and give a tip. And every member is encouraged to post if they have a question. So I’ve had members say, Hey, I’m looking for beta readers. I’ve had members going, here’s my story I did does it sound good? And different things like that. So it’s a place where it’s a safe space for riders to ask questions about whatever they want. Usually, twice a month. I have a post that says, hey, ask me, What are you struggling with? Ask me about it right now. I want to help you. Yeah. So to remind people that I am there as a resource for that and not just me.

Sharon Hughson: 

All the other writers will have varied experiences as well so they can also answer and give feedback about questions that are there. So I really wanted to be that safe space for writers to Just know that they can even come and rant, as long as they were not digging on anyone else, you know, sometimes you just have a bad day or your computer doesn’t back up, and then the the drive fries, and you’re like, I just lost everything I wrote the last two weeks or, you know, no one understands that those struggles and those pains and that anxiety as much as another group of writers will just don’t.

Emma Dhesi: 

yeah, your group is really active. There’s lots of Bessie, lots of comments coming through it, lots of people responding, it’s definitely a very encouraging place. And I agree, when you’ve got a sort of a safe space like that, then it’s a really good place to mind the hive mind and see what other people are doing and brainstorming. And you know, putting a problem out there, because who knows what will come back and it might just be the answer you need. Or it might spark an idea that becomes the answer that you need. So it’s a great group you’ve got so I recommend people dig it out. So it’s them called write your book nuke lovely title. But that’s not all you do. Oh, my goodness, you’re such a busy lady. You are also a book coach. And you’ve been coaching for quite a while now. But you recently invested in yourself. And you became certified with hope raters. So a big congratulations on that. Because I know that that takes a lot of work and a lot of not just financial investment, but a lot of time and energy investment. And this shows that you really care and are passionate about the writers that you help. How was the experience of going through that accreditation?

Sharon Hughson: 

And it was great. I have been coaching since September of last year. So 2020, I guess I don’t know when this podcast goes live. So I guess, two years ago, anyway, so since September 2020, that’s when I took my first client on and I kind of was just, Hey, how can I help you, I’m gonna use my experience type of thing. And my clients were all very pleased with that. But I felt like that’s not really the total of coaching, I have had several different coaches myself, which I just wrote recently about on my blog, because I think that all of us can use coaching in various areas. So it was great to get a format, a methodology and to understand the process from that perspective of what coaching really is. Because according to hope writers ideology of my idea of coaching was kind of a teamwork, like we both are equally into it. And their their thought is that the writer who’s coming to me has all the answers they need for themselves. And my job is just to question them, to help them find those answers to mine. Those answers from within their themselves. And I love that idea is, as a matter of fact, our coaching direct director of coaching called it a thought partnership. And I think that’s, I think that’s an awesome verbiage to use to think about that. So you said a book coach, and my understanding of a book coach is someone who coaches you through the project of a book. So they come to you and they have a project, and they want you to help them through the process. And a lot of those also include critiques. Whereas what hope writers is promoting is just individual sessions where you would have whatever your struggle might be, and you work through it until you work through it. And then you come up with the next one. And so that that’s how they do it. And myself. I kind of visioned myself more as a story, coach, because as you said, I love working with writers. Well, I love talking about stories with writers. I love brainstorming ideas for stories. I love asking them about what Wait, what about that motivation, or the character’s background or all this stuff that’s really important to get a great grasp of if you’re going to have a successful book. Successful fiction story? Yeah, so

Emma Dhesi: 

yeah, yeah, like me, I think. I like that. I like that approach. Similar to hope writers that the answer is there inside the individual, it’s in their brain somewhere. They it’s all kind of there, but you’re asking the right questions, asking the right prompts, even being a bit challenging sometimes so that there’s a sparks a response that then brings out that answer. So yeah, I love that approach. I love seeing it when suddenly, a client or student suddenly has that aha moment and they realize what the answer is and how they need to go forward. And so do you also help in through your coaching, talking about the story, uncovering all of that, do you also help sort of with the structure of the story and helping them get through, you know, all the plot points We need to get through getting that right arc into the climax, that kind of thing.

Sharon Hughson: 

Yes. So, um, the one code the one fight has been with me the longest, we worked through her first draft. And yes, it was very much that we lined out all the beats, she ended up writing the synopsis two different times to get to me because to me, that’s how you can get even if she’s, she does want to go traditionally. So she will need that synopsis for submission submitting. But even if you were going to be indie, it still helps you get a pulse, like, do I have a complete story here. And so that’s kind of what we use to help her through that. And she is signing on with me in January to work through the revision process of that manuscript. So I don’t feel like that’s a pretty good.

Emma Dhesi: 

It’s a good indication, automation that she was, he felt like it was very successful working with me.

Sharon Hughson: 

So I think it depends on what the what the writer wants. But indeed, if they say help me make my story, right, I would definitely be talking about what structure plan they used. So yeah, because there are there. There are different ones, as far as they’re all really the same. But they tend to use different words and different. Whatever.

Emma Dhesi: 

Yeah, yeah. And what so what kind of writers do you like to work with? Or maybe I should ask, first of all, do you? Do you like working with specific genres? Do you work with fiction nonfiction memoir? Do you work with voters across the border, do you specialize?

Sharon Hughson: 

I have, I worked with nonfiction, and memoir, as well as some fiction writers, for my practicum for my 35 practice hours that I needed to get my certification. And I really enjoyed working with all of them. It’s just different the way that you work with each kind. And that depends really on the struggles of the, the writer that they come to you with. So like the memoirs, she was a really a very beginning writer, and she’s still very insecure about her abilities to write. And so it was working through those things, which, Hey, I’ve been published. So for seven years, and I still have those insecurities sometimes. So it’s like, I totally relate and get that. So if I’m going to work on stories, yeah, romance, women’s fiction, fantasy, young adult, those are the genres I read the most. And so I feel like, I would be up front with any writer that came to me to let them know that my, most of my experience would come with those, but is about those genres. Um, but I think the knowledge of structure kind of translates across the board. But you know, genre expectations are a real thing. And so that’s something that self published, writers really need to be cognizant of that their readers have an expectation. And so your story needs to measure up to those expectations that readers have.

Emma Dhesi: 

Yes, absolutely. 100%. I’m just trying to think because you offer so many. You have many offerings for your clients, is there, is there something I haven’t mentioned or forgotten to ask you, I think you do developmental editing, is that right?

Sharon Hughson: 

I do do editing too. And I like developmental editing is my favorite type. I do copy, edit, and proofread as well. I actually have a proofreading job on my desktop right now to do once we finish this call. Um, but I like developmental editing the best because if you don’t get that story, right, I think it goes, it connects in with my love of wanting to be a story coach, that if you don’t have all those pieces in place, your story is not going to satisfy. And so the best place to get that is with your developmental editor to point out those things and help you help you fix all that and strengthen it. So you have the strongest Best Story possible. Yeah, what I will say about my editing is a it’s a lot less expensive than what I paid for my editing. Because I feel like a lot of people who want to be self published don’t have a lot of money to spend, but I want them to be able to still put out a high quality product. And to do that you need an editor. And the other thing is, is that my mindset of it is always about your style, your story, your message and not mine. It’s not about me. But the truth is, is that if you don’t hit those structure points, you’re not going to be able to get the message out your story isn’t going to resonate the way that you want it to. So as a developmental editor, I’m picking up those things about that as well as character development that is such a huge thing. And when I first started writing, that was where I completely was terrible. because I just wanted to tell the story. And I, you don’t realize how much that character motivation and their arc is really tied in with the good, good stories that you love. Yeah. And so that was something that I spent several years do going through craft courses and whatever, to strengthen that aspect of my writing. So yeah,

Interview with Sharon Hughson

Emma Dhesi: 

yeah, I think it’s quite common, isn’t it amongst new writers, we get very hung up, or very focused on the plotline and making sure that we get the plotline. And it can be easy to forget, actually, that character is equally as important. And they they sort of marry with one another. I’m certainly the same, you know, over. So I think I read every kind of plot book out there trying to find the right type of structure that was going to work for me, when really spent a little bit more time on the character, perhaps it might have been slightly easy for that story to move along a bit more organically. It’s interesting. I remember what I did want to ask you, because you’d mentioned that you have used coaching in the past as well or you still do, what do you feel is kind of one of the benefits of working with a coach, as opposed to just going out alone.

Sharon Hughson: 

So going alone is just hard. Finding the right coach is important. I’ve worked with four different coaches. But all of them were for different things. I went to a coaches coach to help me build my coaching business. And I went to a business and a writing business marketing coach to help me with my launches. And then I’ll creativity coaches, that other type of coach I went to because I was kind of in writer’s burnout for a couple years, and I was struggling to try and get my creativity back I was having my well was empty, and I was having a hard time struggling with that. And so it really helps to talk to someone who that is her focus and that she was certified with that, how to work on creativity and build that. So I think that a lot of times we don’t even know what we need or what our story needs or whatever and having an outside person be able to look in, they have a different perspective that can offer us insights. And like you said, that aha moment is the best thing to see on I was a teacher before I was an education for more than a decade before I became a writer. And it was the same with students when they would have that aha moment like I get it. Oh, wow. Okay, this totally makes sense. And it gives you such joy to see that moment happen. And writing is a solitary profession. You write in your office by yourself, all of us do. That’s what we do. We’re encouraged to shut our door and get you know, so you can’t be interrupted so we can get into our story. Okay, great. Except for sometimes you get stuck, sir. And and when you first start out, you don’t know when your writing is good enough. So you really do need someone who’s more experienced who’s farther down the line? Who can help you suss out those answers. And so I guess my thing is, why go it alone, when you don’t have to? I think about me 10 years ago, when I first started, okay, I’m going to get serious. And I’m gonna submit and bumbling along and what I wish there had been writing coaches back then. But there weren’t, it’s a newer thing. You know what I’m saying? And so it’s like, why go it alone? If you don’t have to? Yeah. So yeah,

Emma Dhesi: 

makes the journey so much more fun. Takes a lot of the pressure off, doesn’t it of just feeling like you’ve got the whole weight of the world on you. And only you can do this. And I think in no other profession, even other artistic professions. I don’t think anyone else does this quite so alone. If you think about, you know, songwriters or artists or sculptors there, there’s a community there. Yes, they might have to do the painting and the sculpting alone, but it’s with a teacher with a guide with a mentor. But for some reason, I don’t know where it’s come from. We feel that as writers we should be able to do all by ourselves, even though it’s a really, really difficult intellectual endeavor. But yet, we still think we’ve got to do it all by ourselves. It’s a funny one. It’s a conundrum to me, I have to admit, is it is very strange. But let’s let’s change tack a little bit because I’d like to come back to your own fiction. And I’m wondering, do you have time for your own fiction still? And if you do, what are you what are you writing?

Sharon Hughson: 

Well, I did do National Novel Writing Month and I as I went through it, I decided this probably will be my This was probably my last year doing it. So I did it. The first time I did it was in 2013. I became aware of it even before that, because there was a teacher at the school middle school where I were to did it every year. And he was like, I think you have a novel and you usually Do this data. Um, but I would love to talk about why National Novel Writing Month is beneficial for writers, especially beginning writer, but we don’t have to talk about that here. And I did not write a novel, I wrote short stories. And actually, I wrote two different worlds of connected short stories that I was thinking, Oh, maybe I could do the Kimbo Bella thing with these. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. That’s the new episodic fiction that that you do. And so I talked to one of my friend, author friends who is doing it. And so I was like, Oh, wow, maybe I would use that for that. But where I started, my being published was was short stories. And because I’ve kind of been waffling about what novel idea inspires me or is drawing me in. And that’s a huge undertaking, as you know, as a published novelist, yourself. I thought, you know, I don’t want to write something if it’s not really the the thing I should be writing. So I’ve kind of went back to writing shorts. So I entered a few flash fiction contests. And I’m writing some short stories. And so my goal for 2022 is to submit short, and see if I can get some more short stories out there. But that’s why I started I have five or six anthologies, where I have short stories published in them. So that is where I started. And I the benefit of writing short, is incredible for building your muscles, your writing muscles, because you have to be concise. You have to get it done. And I think that it may actually have impeded my ability to be a novelist that I wrote short, short stories and then novellas burst. Yeah, because I’m so used to condensing my story into a short space. Mm hmm. That it’s difficult then to flesh it out. Like I wrote a women’s fiction book that was really close and dear to my heart. And it was 72,000 words, and I pitched it and everyone I pitched it to at the conference was like, holy like the story I did, but we wouldn’t even look at it until it was 80,000 words or more. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And so it was like, wait, what I had already fleshed it out, because it started out as a short story. That just I couldn’t let go of and I kept flushing, questioning, questioning.

Emma Dhesi: 

So do you think short stories are where your heart is actually, that that’s, that’s your first cold?

Sharon Hughson: 

And I really am leaning toward that I’m going what I, which is something I’m gonna be working through with my writing coach. Is, is there a reason why I think I have to be a novelist. What’s wrong with just writing shorts and being a short story writer? Because yeah, I definitely have always felt that call. And even between novels, there be times when I’d have a short story, I didn’t I just, you know, whip it out. Yes. That’s a great thing about something. That’s five 6000 words. It doesn’t take you very long to write it. And so you can get it out. And you go, yes. All right. Now send me the next one.

Emma Dhesi: 

Nice feeling of completion, like

Sharon Hughson: 

our new ideas, don’t we? And so, when the short story, hey, get to the next new idea a lot quicker.

Emma Dhesi: 

Sharon has been lovely speaking with you. I’ve so enjoyed our conversation today learning more about what you do. And the accreditation. So congratulations again on that. If our listeners want to find out more about you, and what you offer, where’s the best place to do that?

Sharon Hughson: 

So you can find me at Sharon hewson.com There, the resource page you talked about there?

Emma Dhesi: 

Well, Sharon, thank you so, so much for our conversation today. I’ve loved learning more about you and everything that you do. But if our viewers would like to learn more, where can they? Where can they find out?

Sharon Hughson: 

So the best place to find me is on my website, Sharon houston.com. And you can find out everything about me there, my books, my services, and of course, that resource page that you like, and I’ve met other writers say wow, that’s pretty incredible. So that as well, if they are on Facebook, write your book neck, and it is a they can find it. But they will have to ask to join it before they can post your see all the other posts, but no big deal for that. So if that Facebook is the place they like to go, that’s a free coaching resource for them. So those are the two best places to find.

Emma Dhesi: 

Wonderful. I’ll make sure that we have the links to those in the show notes. Sharon, thank you again. It’s been lovely.

Sharon Hughson: 

Yes, have a wonderful day and thanks for having me.

From time to time, I link to products or services I love using with affiliate links. This means that I may receive a small percentage or fee for referring you to any product you may purchase from one of those sites. It does not cost you anything. These small fees help sustain my small business. I truly appreciate your support.

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Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is author mindset coach and bestseller author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer’s block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!

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5 reasons to self publish

5 reasons to self publish

by | indie publishing, inspiration

I’m going to give you 5 reasons to self-publish.

If you’re at the beginning of your writing journey, you most likely have dreams of signing to one of the big five publishers.

You visualise your book advertised on huge billboards, on the side of buses and in train stations across the country.

You imagine your book on the table at the front of Waterstones, along with a prominent window display featuring your face and multiple copies of your book.

That’s certainly the dream I always had, and why not?

1. Amazon

But then along came Amazon, which changed the face of publishing forever and will undoubtedly be the leader in any future changes. But for now, they, and several other platforms, offer writers not only the opportunity to get their books on sale but also the chance to build a business.

I’ve thoroughly researched the pros and cons of both traditional and self-publishing so, if you’ve ever thought about indie-publishing your work, here are five reasons to really consider self-publishing: 

  • Authors traditionally published receive less than 15% profit from their book sales. Agents, publishers and Distributers all take their cut from the sale price. Indies get 70%.
  • Authors lose control of the rights to their work for the duration of the contract. That usually includes paper rights, electronic rights, audio rights and all translation rights. If you’re a debut author with no clout, you don’t get a say.
  • Authors have no control over the editorial of their work, nor the cover design. If you don’t like what the publisher chooses, tough luck.
  • Debut authors get no marketing budget. You still have to publicise your novel.
  • If you are already a business owner, you might as well run this business too!

2. Not an Amazon fan? I’ve got you covered.

Amazon is not the only player online. Scott Allen from selfpublishing.com listed some of the best online publishers:

  • Kindle Direct Publishing
  • Barnes & Noble Press
  • Kobo
  • Apple Books
  • Self-Publishing School
  • Reedsy
  • IngramSpark
  • Publish Drive
  • Draft2Digital
  • Smashwords
  • Streetlib

Allen says in his article that no two publishing platforms are the same and he strongly recommends you do your due diligence to discover which one aligns best with your way of working.

Allen also takes you through who the publishers are and what their role is in your business. He flags up some of the common terminology you should get used to and then takes you through each of these twelve publishers.

3. Self-publishing is not vanity publishing

In addition to all these practical reasons, I also had a mindset shift. Independent publishing (another term for self-publishing) is not the same as vanity publishing. Indie authors worth their salt have their books professionally edited and hire someone to create a professional book cover to rival any covers you’ll see in the bookshops.

The days of throwing any old rubbish onto Amazon and hoping it sells have gone. Competition for sales is fierce and, ultimately, if your book isn’t any good, nobody will buy it!

4. Market your books for you, not for a publisher

Unfortunately, the days of leaving all the promotion and publicity in the hands of the publishers marketing team have gone. Even the likes of Stephen King, JK Rowling and Lee Childs have to do their fair share of marketing. Even if you are published by one of the big houses, you’re still expected to do most of the marketing yourself.

Debut authors get a tiny marketing budget. Your publisher might organise a couple of events for you if you’re lucky, but that won’t be enough to sell all the books you’ll need to sell to recoup your advance.

You’ll still need to arrange publicity for yourself. That means going to local bookshops to do readings, Q&As and signings. That also means going to libraries – and I don’t mean the British Library! – and doing readings in cold, pokey rooms.

You’ll also need an online presence. My blog post Do Fiction Writers Need A Platform, outlines just why this is so important and how you can ‌start building your online presence. Ultimately, it’ll be your job to let readers know you and your book exist.

It’ll be up to you to let people know if your book’s on sale or part of a group offer. You’ll need to find podcasters to interview you and you’ll have to approach newspapers or magazines to do a feature on your book and get it reviewed in the local press.

Mark Dawson is the poster boy for self publishing and in the clip below he shares his own experience of being a debut novelist with a traditional publisher.

5. Global Reach

It took me a while to realise this, but when a book is e-published, it’s sitting on a global bookshelf, not just the bookshelf in my local Waterstones. The US is the biggest English-speaking market, and after the US comes India and China. 

As Isadora Felix writes, if she wants to sell in Japan or Mexico, she can. She doesn’t have to print and send stock, wait years for the publisher to agree a contract and she will retain the bulk of the earnings.

Do you need an author website?

As part of my research into the indie publishing world, I’ve discovered that having an author website is a vital part of your author career. Even if you’re unpublished. Read here to find out how to get started.

This is the right time to self publish

What I’m saying is – the world is your oyster!

Be prepared for change

You’ve already seen just how much the publishing industry has changed in the last ten years or so – and it’s still evolving. Audio is a booming market, with millions of us turning to podcasts and audiobooks, something that is only going to continue as AI becomes commonplace.

When Jericho Writers speculated on the likelihood of the future consolidation of the existing traditional publishing houses, they determined it is 100% likely.

This means it will be even more difficult for new writers to break through into traditional publishing. It will be pot luck as to whether you fit what publishers think readers want. It will be a lightning strike to be their debut novelist who hits upon the zeitgeist and has that breakout novel.

Jericho Writers also speculate that the majority of traditionally published authors will look for hybrid book deals. This isn’t surprising when you learn the average author earns only £10,000 a year. That sum isn’t enough to live on and is one of the reasons why so many authors have a day job and only write in their spare time!

Opportunity knocks

We are so lucky to be writing in the digital age. As an indie author you get to decide the length of your book, its title, the cover design and pricing. You even decide the markets in which you sell. 

You are the boss. You have control.

You’ll be a true Authorpreneur and will build a sustainable income for you and your family. That is something you could not even have dreamed of 30 years ago.

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