Episode 015 - Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Published with Wendy Tyson
February 9, 2020
From listener Grace T: "Terrific interview, Matty and Wendy. It's valuable for writers, especially young writers just starting out, to hear the things you covered. You gain far more from helping to promote other writers than always promoting yourself."
Wendy Tyson, bestselling author of three mystery series, shares her lessons on "Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Published." Wendy Tyson is a writer, lawyer, and former therapist whose background has inspired her mysteries and thrillers. Wendy writes the bestselling Greenhouse Mystery series, the Allison Campbell Mystery series, and the Delilah Percy Powers crime series. Wendy's short stories have appeared in literary journals and she has short fiction in two anthologies: The Night of the Flood and Betrayed. Wendy and her family live in Vermont.
Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author podcast. Today my guest is Wendy Tyson. Wendy, how are you doing?
Wendy: I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me.
Matty: It is my pleasure, and I just want to say I'm so glad this finally worked out because we were contending with schedules and holidays and ill-health and power outages and technical difficulties, so I'm a very, very happy that we finally were able to make it work out.
Wendy: Yeah, me too.
Matty: So just to give everyone a little background on you, Wendy Tyson is a writer, lawyer, and former therapist whose background has inspired her mysteries and thrillers. Wendy writes three mystery series: the bestselling Greenhouse Mystery Series, and the popular Allison Campbell Mystery Series from Henery Press, and the Delilah Percy Powers Crime Series from Down and Out Books. Her short stories have appeared in literary journals and she has short fiction in two anthologies: The Night of the Flood and Betrayed. Wendy and her family live in Vermont … in a house that doesn't always have electricity.
I had the pleasure of hearing Wendy speak at the Philadelphia Writing Workshop on the topic "Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Published," and I loved the message she had to share and wanted to share it with the listeners of the podcast.
But Wendy, before we dive into the five things, just share a little bit about your background as an author, and specifically, what experiences did you have that led you to want to capture your thoughts about the five things you wish you had known.
Wendy: You know, I've been writing for a long time, since I was a child, probably like many of your listeners. And it wasn't until I was in my forties that my first novel was published. In looking back on that journey, there was probably 10 to 15 years of finding myself as an author, first a short story writer and then a novelist, and then finally breaking into the publishing field with a smaller publisher.
And so when I was preparing for the conference, I thought about, what do I wish I had known prior to this journey, and that's where the ideas came about. So I think just working my way up, getting to know myself as an author and as a person, inspired the five things.
Matty: Let's dive in! I will give you the lesson from your presentation and then you can elaborate on it. And the first one is writing is hard.
Wendy: Your audience is saying, yeah, we know that part.
You know, writing is hard. As I mentioned, I've been writing since I was a little kid, and it wasn't really until I was in my thirties that I decided I wanted to write a novel. And at that point, I just finished law school, I was working for a large law firm in Philadelphia, and I had just given birth to twins. It was before I went back to work and I had short stories published. And I remember telling my husband, “I really want to write a novel … I want to write a novel.” And finally one day he just looked at me—he’s an engineer, very practical—and he said, "Well, Wendy, then write a novel." And for me, I was angry at him for a while. but the realization dawned, “Okay, what is keeping me from writing a novel?” Unlike so many things with writing, you don't need anything necessarily. Right? You need a pen and paper, you need a computer, some time to write. But it's not like we need a lot of assets or overhead.
And so I think in some ways that makes it harder. It's almost this existential feeling that you have when you're faced with a blank page and trying to figure out what to put on there. We resist. So I think from that standpoint, just fundamentally writing is hard.
I think it's also hard because the rules don't apply. In law, I knew if I went to law school and I did well, I would get a good job. If I worked hard at my job, I would move up the food chain. I had a career trajectory that made sense. With writing, talent doesn't necessarily mean success.
Hard work doesn't always mean sales. And so for many authors, there's just a frustration level with how things work. And the fact that it can feel very random at times. I think writing is also hard because as writers, we face rejection all the time. They say you need to grow a thick skin, and I think it's true, but there's a balance.
So you have to grow a thick skin, but at the same time, you need to remain vulnerable and open enough to influence and inform your writing. It's that balance, and learning to deal with rejection. And guess what? Rejection doesn't end when your book is published. There's the reviews. there's the next book. And so it's that ever-evolving need to deal with rejection. I think those are just a few of the reasons that writing is hard.
Today sometimes it feels like everybody wants to be an author. There are some things you can do if you truly want to write and want to recognize that it is difficult, but keep going—things like honing craft, maintaining a learning mindset, remembering why you write in the first place. One of the things I see so often with people is forgetting how to cultivate creativity, digging deep and really nurturing that side of yourself through the process.
Matty: In the second episode of this podcast, I spoke with Wade Walton, who was a full time video producer and manager of video producers, and we had a discussion about how do you maintain your creativity, especially when you're at a nine to five job and then you come home and there is another creative outlet that you want to take advantage of. I'm going to link to that episode in the notes for this, because I think it's applicable to what you're talking about.
What got you over the point of being mad at your husband for saying "just write the novel" and then writing the novel?
Wendy: I just realized he was right, and when I looked back at my writing trajectory at that point, I realized the thing that was missing was discipline. I wrote when I felt like writing, I wrote when inspiration hit me, but the truth of the matter was I had worked hard for that law degree. I needed to go back to work, and so I had two choices.
I could give it up. Or I could find a way to make it work. And so I decided to do the latter. I wrote every morning from about four o'clock until the twins woke up. It took me a year to draft the book. it was called Running for the Train, and unfortunately although I did get an agent, I did not get a publishing deal with that book.
And it sits on my shelf, which is okay—it’s probably where it should be—but it taught me something very important, and that's that there is an aspect, as much as it may be a right brain activity from a creative standpoint, there is a discipline and a process that is important. And so just carving that time out, my brain was still too fuzzy, my censor—you know, that one that sits on your shoulder and tells you everything you write is terrible—was still asleep at four in the morning, so I think it worked out well. I know I no longer get up quite that early.
Matty: In terms of, being able to accept rejection, you may be planning to talk about this during one of your later points, but if not, talk a little bit about whether you read your reviews and if you do, how you approach them.
Wendy: I was at Malice Domestic, and for those who aren't familiar, it's a major convention for mystery authors. And I had the opportunity to meet Harlan Coben. He was there for an award and I asked him for a piece of advice. And one of the pieces of advice he gave me was don't read your reviews online.
At the time I laughed and I thought, "Oh, I can never do that." And I probably spent the first three years of my publishing career reading absolutely every review on Goodreads, Amazon. I don't as much anymore. I do peruse them and every once in a while go on and read them. But I read them with perspective.
I work very hard to remember that not everyone has to like my work and that's fine. You put it out there and once you put it out in the world, it's for someone else to perceive it and do with it what they will from that standpoint. And there's a letting go in that process.
Matty: Moving on to number two, the second thing you wish you knew before you were published, that writing is hard, but the business of writing is harder. Talk about that a little bit.
Wendy: Yes. I think anyone who's dabbled in this at all knows that that's probably very much the case. I was talking to a woman not too long ago who had been in the business of publishing for a long time, and she was shifting to writing and she said she was looking forward to getting away from the marketing aspect of that. Oh, I hope for you that that's the case. The truth of the matter is that you really can't get away from the marketing piece.
I work with an organization called International Thriller Writers, and I write for them as a columnist, and I have some friends who are authors all over the crime writing community, they run the spectrum from a genre perspective and from a publisher perspective—some are with larger publishers—and everyone, when I asked them what they thought, wished they had known before they were published, every single one of them mentioned that marketing was this important and that the business of writing was this important.
I definitely had that on my list as well. It's not just marketing, it's understanding your audience. It's knowing how to present yourself. It's building a platform on social media. I know a lot of authors who are somewhat introverted. They love the activity writing, but they don't necessarily want to be doing in public or virtual events.
Unfortunately, that's all part of it. It's important to do a couple of things, and I can mention them. One is work with a publisher, ask them for their marketing plan. So many authors are so excited to be published that they forget to do some very important things like see what the publisher's going to do to help them get that book out there, create their own publishing plan. Understand where they fit in the market, understand what their goals are, understand who their potential audience is. understand what social media they're good at and willing to do. I know some authors who try to be on every social media platform, and that's extremely draining, and unless you're a full-time author who has the time on their hands and really enjoys it. I think that that can really be a detriment ultimately.
Matty: Even if you are full time, it's a detriment because it's an energy drain, and obviously it's a time drain too, and for every half hour you spend on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and this and that, it’s half an hour you're not spending writing. So I'm a huge proponent of pick the one or two and stick with it.
Wendy: Pick one or two, pick what you're good at, you enjoy, and where your audience is. Where do they live? That's important. And then also in person. You know, when I went into this, I thought, “Oh, it'll be very easy to schedule bookstore signings.” It's not always, even if you're with a larger publisher, sometimes they want someone with a big name who's going to draw a larger crowd. And that's not to say you can't do it, but I think going in with a mindset and understanding that and understanding how you're going to approach those sorts of things—libraries, bookstores—and also thinking outside the box.
One of the best events that I did was Bryant Park in New York City. My agent set it up and it was a cross-over opportunity. I write a cozy series that deals with organic gardening and cooking and the people with whom I did the event do a food blog for New York City, and they highlight a lot of organic products and local farmers, et cetera. And so we had a food and wine journalist come and interview us at Bryant Park during lunchtime, and they sold our books and we did a panel discussion and it was all about food and crime writing and was outside the box of what you would normally do. That is really important.
So the business of writing is hard. I wish I had really realized that beforehand and I wish I had realized some of the parameters of things that I should have been thinking about. The other thing I'll say, and I'll touch upon this in the next one too, it's never too early. There are so many authors, myself included, who felt disingenuous starting to do some of this before their first book was published, but I think thinking about it in the early stages is important.
Matty: One piece of advice I like to give people is that even if you're setting up a public facing Facebook presence, let's say, and the only people are following you are your mom and your sister, you should still pretend like you're posting for an audience of thousands. Because at some point you're going to have an audience of thousands and someone's going to look back at those first posts. And if they were clearly written for your mom and your sister, it's not going to present the professional image you want. And so, even if you're a posting for a tiny audience, bring that mindset that it's for a larger audience because that will give you a more professional presentation and enable you to expand better as your audience does become larger.
Wendy: You're so right. The other piece of that is not to sell all the time. New authors oftentimes get on there and every post is about our book or a review that we've gotten it. It's okay here and there to do that. But have the mindset of entertaining and educating: if you're writing romance novels, highlight other romance novels, highlight book lists and inform your audience on other materials that are out there. If you are sharing not just information about your books, you can reach a broader audience as well.
Matty: Absolutely. I've heard people say the 80/20 rule, that 80% of what you share should be not a sales pitch, or even 90/10. The idea is to build a relationship, not to force the people who are following you to purchase because they're not going to be following you very long if you do that.
Wendy: Right.
Matty: I thought it was interesting when I finished my first book in 2013 and I was trying to make the decision about whether to submit it to publishers or whether to publish it myself, and I talked to people who had gone the traditional publishing route and asked them what their publishers did for them. It was clear that the distinction on the marketing side of what you have to do if you're indy or what you have to do if you're traditional was pretty small. For the vast, vast majority of traditional authors, you have to take as much ownership and drive that as much as if you're publishing from an indy imprint. So that’s a good lesson, regardless of what route you plan to take with your own book.
Wendy: I think you said something really important there. It's ownership. It's an ownership mindset. As part of this, sometimes there's a lot of hat changing. You write with one hat, and sometimes we're shy about the work that we've done, or we're modest or we're insecure. When you're wearing the owner's mindset, when you have your business hat on, you have to be your own best advocate. And so that takes a whole different skill set that you have to hone. But I do think in this business, fortunately or unfortunately, and whether you're traditionally published or with a small publisher or independently published, it comes into play.
The other piece that I would be remiss if I didn't mention is return on investment and that's something I've learned along the way with this as well. In the beginning, Matty, I said yes to everything. I mean, financially, time wise, I put so many resources into the selling aspect and it really probably took me a year or two to realize that I needed to look at the return on investment for things and learn to say no, not just to balance, so that I had the time to do the actual writing, but because not everything works.
There's a progression that you'll learn, like what works for you, what works with your readers. And sometimes you have to be willing to try new things, but you know, there are definitely things that I've realized I won't do anymore because they either cost too much money or they take up too much time.
Matty: The time thing is key. I actually left my corporate job of several decades last year and I'm writing full time now. I'm writing both fiction and nonfiction and doing related activities and I found that rather than suddenly expanding the scope of things I did, I actually got even more selective and I was trying to be disciplined to say no to things that weren't going to help me make a living wage from the work I was doing. I've heard the phrase "for everything you choose to do, you are choosing not to do something else," and to weigh that considering what your goals are. If your goal is to, just have a good time with it, then you pick different things than if your goal is make a living wage out of it.
Wendy: Great point.
Matty: So, on to number three, which is find your people.
Wendy: This is probably the number one thing I wish that I had known well before I was published. I mentioned building a platform before your book comes out. I think this part is so important. I know when I did the writers’ conference, I mentioned a friend of mine who spent probably a decade really finding her people. She got involved with various organizations in leadership roles and volunteer roles. She was involved in writers' groups in the crime writing world. We have the Guppies of Sisters in Crime, who are aspiring to be published.
And she wasn't just involved, she was great about sharing. Every time somebody got their book published, she was out there cheerleading for them, sharing that information. I mentioned, share things on your platform. She was supporting other authors. When her book came out, she made the USA Today best sellers list. I'm sure it was because it was a fabulous book, but there are other factors at play. I think she would say that some aspect of that was that she had found her tribe, she'd found her group, and they really helped her at her launch.
Compared to me … I pretty much wrote in a vacuum. I had three children. I was working full time. I wrote, and then I really didn't start a whole lot of networking until after my first book came out, and it was really hard to build that community and build that platform. Once I had a publication date, I very much wish I had done that beforehand.
I get asked often when I speak at festivals and conferences how do you go about doing that? Writers' conventions and conferences are a great way to meet people. Volunteering is a great way. Using your platform to promote other authors and to help other authors. Those are all ways giving back and are all ways that you can build that community.
Matty: Are you finding your people both among fellow authors and among your readers? Is there a “find your people” aspect of finding readers as well?
Wendy: For sure. When I wrote that I was thinking more of authors, but I will say that I have a group of just dedicated, phenomenal readers who are very supportive and that's grown over time. But I think the piece that you can do before you're published is find that raving community of fellow authors.
Matty: So now we're moving on to number four, which is maintain perspective. We touched on this a little bit already but tell us a bit about your recommendations in terms of maintaining perspective.
Wendy: This was one that I had to dig a little bit more deeply for. You know, when your book first comes out, I think it's a time for me, at least, when I felt both very alone and it was a time of highs and lows because, on one hand, I did eventually develop that writing community and I felt like the only people in that first six months to a year who really understood what I was going through were my author friends. And so that made my world feel very small. And while they were supportive and fabulous, I went through a period where I felt like my husband doesn't really get it or my family members don't get it, or why aren't they supporting me more?
On the other hand, the world felt very large. Your work is out there. Something you've been holding close to the chest, maybe for years, is suddenly out there for everyone to criticize and scrutinize and judge, and that can be a little overwhelming.
I remember I got a particularly good review for my first book, and I put it up on Facebook, and a very kind reader sent me a message and she said, "Congratulations. That's fabulous. But remember not to get too excited over the good reviews or too upset over the bad reviews," and it really resonated with me and I've taken it to heart. Don't ride the highs too high or the lows too low and maintain perspective.
A hard truth is that my book is super important to me and my agent, my publisher. But you know, the world goes on. It's not the most important thing to my neighbor or necessarily even my spouse, or my family members, and while they're incredibly supportive, I've had to remind myself that there are other priorities that happened.
At the same time, there are a lot of people who will downplay writing as not real work. And those of us in the field know very well that it is very much real work. And so there's a matter of retaining that will to create the discipline, maintain the discipline. You'll have people say, “Well, you know, you're not doing anything anyway—can you do X?” And reminding yourself of why you write, and the fact that you have a right to retain that time. That's your job. That's what you do. So it's that balance. It's that maintaining perspective, both seeing the writing and your writing career for what it is, but at the same time, recognizing that there is a bigger picture to be had.
And for me that was a tough journey, possibly because I had wanted it for so long.
Matty: I think that something that's helpful if you do read reviews, is that I look back on reviews I wrote for books before I wrote a book myself, and sometimes I was complimentary and sometimes I was not complimentary, but I was writing the review in the interest of helping other readers decide whether this book was for them or not.
I was not writing the review as a personal attack on the author. I think a lot of people who write reviews don't even think about the author actually reading them. And so sometimes I think it's helpful to bring that perspective that they're writing it for someone else. It's not like they're sending you a personal note telling you that they thought that this character was unlikable or that the middle was boring or whatever they happen to say.
And the other thing I found is that sometimes reviews can be a good source of market research. The one action that I've taken on the basis of reviews is when I published my first book, I really had no idea who the audience was going to be. And then as it was out there and I saw how people were reacting to it, it became clearer who my audience was, and my audience was mainly people who don't like a lot of profanity in their books. I had a couple of of reviewers comment that the one thing they didn't like about the book is that one of the characters swears a lot. I thought, "Oh, that's interesting," and I searched for the F word and it was in there like 17 times. I thought, “Okay, well, maybe that's excessive.” I went back and read through all 17 instances, and some of them are like, “No, that's what he would say. That's the kind of guy he is.” But some of them I thought, "Well, maybe not here." And so I didn't take them all out, but I, in an updated version, I scaled back a tiny bit.
But it is interesting to see how people are reacting and if you do see a trend like that—if one person posted, then it's just somebody's opinion, but if you start seeing a trend, especially if you're independently published and that's something you want to do something about—there’s that option to act on it if you choose to.
Wendy: I think that's really good advice. Going back to this concept of writing is hard—one of the very hard things is reading your own work critically and learning whose opinions, feedback to listen to and what not to, and one of the aspects for me has always been that trend point.
If I'm hearing the same thing from multiple people, I need to pay attention. I may ultimately decide that I'm going to go forward with how I want to do it. That's a choice, but go in it with open eyes. So from that standpoint, yeah, I would agree. I think reviews can be helpful.
I have found across the multiple books that I have out so far that most people write reviews in exactly the way that you've said with an eye toward, you know, who might enjoy this? And that's great. There are people who can be mean. International Thriller Writers had a fun bit for a while where they had famous authors read their worst reviews on that, and some of them were horrible—I mean just awful—and that's where you need to maintain perspective.
In my view, don't react. I make a point of not reacting to negative reviews, but I like your idea. I think if you can approach it from that standpoint—learning something and recognizing where it's coming from—then it helps you definitely maintain that balance.
Matty: And it probably is therapeutic to go pick your favorite author—I love J. K. Rowling—and go read all her one star reviews, and you could say, “okay, if people are saying they hate J. K. Rowling, then you know, if I get a one star review, I think I can live with it.
Wendy: Yeah. And everyone's telling you, you get the funny review.Like I gave them one star because I thought I was buying Beverly Cleary you're like, “Ooh, I'm not sure why that warranted a one star review.”
As authors, we worry so much about the algorithms, and that one star review wasn't even for my book and now it's going to pull it down. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and maintain perspective.
Matty: So that brings us to number five, which is, remember to celebrate.
Wendy: This I think is my shortest, but it's important. In all of this, you forget to celebrate the milestones, right? Whether it's the very first chapter you've ever written, the very first draft of your first book, getting a publishing deal or publishing your book and having it out there, celebrate the little milestones.
But I think it's just as important to celebrate other people's successes. And, again, along the way, that's been a lesson for me. Sometimes you watch other people's successes and think, “Why not me? I've worked hard for this.” I'm going back to writing is hard and it doesn't always have a linear path.
I think if we can truly, as authors, find joy in other people's successes, in the fact that we're all in it for reading and for books, it really helps to remind you of why you do this. And for me, it's been one of the aspects that has really helped me find joy in the process.
Matty: What a nice way to phrase it: "finding joy in the process."
I like the comment about celebrating the early, achievements like finishing your first chapter, finishing your first draft, because that could be fodder for that “finding your people” aspect, if you're thinking of it as finding readers as well as finding your author community. Because if you start out sharing those kinds of celebrations with your small pool—your mom and your sister, whoever your small pool of followers is—that's something they're going to get really bought into, and by the time they've seen the stages you've gone through and your book is out there, then you have a ready-made audience there.
Wendy: You do. I said this at the outset: I've met a lot of authors along the way, and I think one of the things that many of the successful authors, and I'll use the word successful, not in the sense necessarily being super wealthy or being a bestseller, but who have found their place in this writing world. One of the things they have in common is a learning mentality and the realization that craft is always developing, that their understanding of the business is always developing, that their ability to help others and to give back to the community is always developing.
And that in and of itself can be a celebration as well, whether it's going to a writers’ retreat or taking a course or teaching a class in a school or working with kids. And so recognizing it as a much bigger endeavor, but that it's made up of all these smaller parts and celebrating those smaller parts as well can be helpful.
Matty: That's great. Well, Wendy, thank you so much for sharing your five things. I know that this is going to be hugely helpful not only to people who are just starting out but also a great reminder even if people who have been doing this for a while, just to hear those, those very important lessons.
Wendy: Thank you, and thank you for inviting me on the, on the podcast. I'm very excited to be here, and I wish your listeners the best.
Wendy: I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me.
Matty: It is my pleasure, and I just want to say I'm so glad this finally worked out because we were contending with schedules and holidays and ill-health and power outages and technical difficulties, so I'm a very, very happy that we finally were able to make it work out.
Wendy: Yeah, me too.
Matty: So just to give everyone a little background on you, Wendy Tyson is a writer, lawyer, and former therapist whose background has inspired her mysteries and thrillers. Wendy writes three mystery series: the bestselling Greenhouse Mystery Series, and the popular Allison Campbell Mystery Series from Henery Press, and the Delilah Percy Powers Crime Series from Down and Out Books. Her short stories have appeared in literary journals and she has short fiction in two anthologies: The Night of the Flood and Betrayed. Wendy and her family live in Vermont … in a house that doesn't always have electricity.
I had the pleasure of hearing Wendy speak at the Philadelphia Writing Workshop on the topic "Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Published," and I loved the message she had to share and wanted to share it with the listeners of the podcast.
But Wendy, before we dive into the five things, just share a little bit about your background as an author, and specifically, what experiences did you have that led you to want to capture your thoughts about the five things you wish you had known.
Wendy: You know, I've been writing for a long time, since I was a child, probably like many of your listeners. And it wasn't until I was in my forties that my first novel was published. In looking back on that journey, there was probably 10 to 15 years of finding myself as an author, first a short story writer and then a novelist, and then finally breaking into the publishing field with a smaller publisher.
And so when I was preparing for the conference, I thought about, what do I wish I had known prior to this journey, and that's where the ideas came about. So I think just working my way up, getting to know myself as an author and as a person, inspired the five things.
Matty: Let's dive in! I will give you the lesson from your presentation and then you can elaborate on it. And the first one is writing is hard.
Wendy: Your audience is saying, yeah, we know that part.
You know, writing is hard. As I mentioned, I've been writing since I was a little kid, and it wasn't really until I was in my thirties that I decided I wanted to write a novel. And at that point, I just finished law school, I was working for a large law firm in Philadelphia, and I had just given birth to twins. It was before I went back to work and I had short stories published. And I remember telling my husband, “I really want to write a novel … I want to write a novel.” And finally one day he just looked at me—he’s an engineer, very practical—and he said, "Well, Wendy, then write a novel." And for me, I was angry at him for a while. but the realization dawned, “Okay, what is keeping me from writing a novel?” Unlike so many things with writing, you don't need anything necessarily. Right? You need a pen and paper, you need a computer, some time to write. But it's not like we need a lot of assets or overhead.
And so I think in some ways that makes it harder. It's almost this existential feeling that you have when you're faced with a blank page and trying to figure out what to put on there. We resist. So I think from that standpoint, just fundamentally writing is hard.
I think it's also hard because the rules don't apply. In law, I knew if I went to law school and I did well, I would get a good job. If I worked hard at my job, I would move up the food chain. I had a career trajectory that made sense. With writing, talent doesn't necessarily mean success.
Hard work doesn't always mean sales. And so for many authors, there's just a frustration level with how things work. And the fact that it can feel very random at times. I think writing is also hard because as writers, we face rejection all the time. They say you need to grow a thick skin, and I think it's true, but there's a balance.
So you have to grow a thick skin, but at the same time, you need to remain vulnerable and open enough to influence and inform your writing. It's that balance, and learning to deal with rejection. And guess what? Rejection doesn't end when your book is published. There's the reviews. there's the next book. And so it's that ever-evolving need to deal with rejection. I think those are just a few of the reasons that writing is hard.
Today sometimes it feels like everybody wants to be an author. There are some things you can do if you truly want to write and want to recognize that it is difficult, but keep going—things like honing craft, maintaining a learning mindset, remembering why you write in the first place. One of the things I see so often with people is forgetting how to cultivate creativity, digging deep and really nurturing that side of yourself through the process.
Matty: In the second episode of this podcast, I spoke with Wade Walton, who was a full time video producer and manager of video producers, and we had a discussion about how do you maintain your creativity, especially when you're at a nine to five job and then you come home and there is another creative outlet that you want to take advantage of. I'm going to link to that episode in the notes for this, because I think it's applicable to what you're talking about.
What got you over the point of being mad at your husband for saying "just write the novel" and then writing the novel?
Wendy: I just realized he was right, and when I looked back at my writing trajectory at that point, I realized the thing that was missing was discipline. I wrote when I felt like writing, I wrote when inspiration hit me, but the truth of the matter was I had worked hard for that law degree. I needed to go back to work, and so I had two choices.
I could give it up. Or I could find a way to make it work. And so I decided to do the latter. I wrote every morning from about four o'clock until the twins woke up. It took me a year to draft the book. it was called Running for the Train, and unfortunately although I did get an agent, I did not get a publishing deal with that book.
And it sits on my shelf, which is okay—it’s probably where it should be—but it taught me something very important, and that's that there is an aspect, as much as it may be a right brain activity from a creative standpoint, there is a discipline and a process that is important. And so just carving that time out, my brain was still too fuzzy, my censor—you know, that one that sits on your shoulder and tells you everything you write is terrible—was still asleep at four in the morning, so I think it worked out well. I know I no longer get up quite that early.
Matty: In terms of, being able to accept rejection, you may be planning to talk about this during one of your later points, but if not, talk a little bit about whether you read your reviews and if you do, how you approach them.
Wendy: I was at Malice Domestic, and for those who aren't familiar, it's a major convention for mystery authors. And I had the opportunity to meet Harlan Coben. He was there for an award and I asked him for a piece of advice. And one of the pieces of advice he gave me was don't read your reviews online.
At the time I laughed and I thought, "Oh, I can never do that." And I probably spent the first three years of my publishing career reading absolutely every review on Goodreads, Amazon. I don't as much anymore. I do peruse them and every once in a while go on and read them. But I read them with perspective.
I work very hard to remember that not everyone has to like my work and that's fine. You put it out there and once you put it out in the world, it's for someone else to perceive it and do with it what they will from that standpoint. And there's a letting go in that process.
Matty: Moving on to number two, the second thing you wish you knew before you were published, that writing is hard, but the business of writing is harder. Talk about that a little bit.
Wendy: Yes. I think anyone who's dabbled in this at all knows that that's probably very much the case. I was talking to a woman not too long ago who had been in the business of publishing for a long time, and she was shifting to writing and she said she was looking forward to getting away from the marketing aspect of that. Oh, I hope for you that that's the case. The truth of the matter is that you really can't get away from the marketing piece.
I work with an organization called International Thriller Writers, and I write for them as a columnist, and I have some friends who are authors all over the crime writing community, they run the spectrum from a genre perspective and from a publisher perspective—some are with larger publishers—and everyone, when I asked them what they thought, wished they had known before they were published, every single one of them mentioned that marketing was this important and that the business of writing was this important.
I definitely had that on my list as well. It's not just marketing, it's understanding your audience. It's knowing how to present yourself. It's building a platform on social media. I know a lot of authors who are somewhat introverted. They love the activity writing, but they don't necessarily want to be doing in public or virtual events.
Unfortunately, that's all part of it. It's important to do a couple of things, and I can mention them. One is work with a publisher, ask them for their marketing plan. So many authors are so excited to be published that they forget to do some very important things like see what the publisher's going to do to help them get that book out there, create their own publishing plan. Understand where they fit in the market, understand what their goals are, understand who their potential audience is. understand what social media they're good at and willing to do. I know some authors who try to be on every social media platform, and that's extremely draining, and unless you're a full-time author who has the time on their hands and really enjoys it. I think that that can really be a detriment ultimately.
Matty: Even if you are full time, it's a detriment because it's an energy drain, and obviously it's a time drain too, and for every half hour you spend on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and this and that, it’s half an hour you're not spending writing. So I'm a huge proponent of pick the one or two and stick with it.
Wendy: Pick one or two, pick what you're good at, you enjoy, and where your audience is. Where do they live? That's important. And then also in person. You know, when I went into this, I thought, “Oh, it'll be very easy to schedule bookstore signings.” It's not always, even if you're with a larger publisher, sometimes they want someone with a big name who's going to draw a larger crowd. And that's not to say you can't do it, but I think going in with a mindset and understanding that and understanding how you're going to approach those sorts of things—libraries, bookstores—and also thinking outside the box.
One of the best events that I did was Bryant Park in New York City. My agent set it up and it was a cross-over opportunity. I write a cozy series that deals with organic gardening and cooking and the people with whom I did the event do a food blog for New York City, and they highlight a lot of organic products and local farmers, et cetera. And so we had a food and wine journalist come and interview us at Bryant Park during lunchtime, and they sold our books and we did a panel discussion and it was all about food and crime writing and was outside the box of what you would normally do. That is really important.
So the business of writing is hard. I wish I had really realized that beforehand and I wish I had realized some of the parameters of things that I should have been thinking about. The other thing I'll say, and I'll touch upon this in the next one too, it's never too early. There are so many authors, myself included, who felt disingenuous starting to do some of this before their first book was published, but I think thinking about it in the early stages is important.
Matty: One piece of advice I like to give people is that even if you're setting up a public facing Facebook presence, let's say, and the only people are following you are your mom and your sister, you should still pretend like you're posting for an audience of thousands. Because at some point you're going to have an audience of thousands and someone's going to look back at those first posts. And if they were clearly written for your mom and your sister, it's not going to present the professional image you want. And so, even if you're a posting for a tiny audience, bring that mindset that it's for a larger audience because that will give you a more professional presentation and enable you to expand better as your audience does become larger.
Wendy: You're so right. The other piece of that is not to sell all the time. New authors oftentimes get on there and every post is about our book or a review that we've gotten it. It's okay here and there to do that. But have the mindset of entertaining and educating: if you're writing romance novels, highlight other romance novels, highlight book lists and inform your audience on other materials that are out there. If you are sharing not just information about your books, you can reach a broader audience as well.
Matty: Absolutely. I've heard people say the 80/20 rule, that 80% of what you share should be not a sales pitch, or even 90/10. The idea is to build a relationship, not to force the people who are following you to purchase because they're not going to be following you very long if you do that.
Wendy: Right.
Matty: I thought it was interesting when I finished my first book in 2013 and I was trying to make the decision about whether to submit it to publishers or whether to publish it myself, and I talked to people who had gone the traditional publishing route and asked them what their publishers did for them. It was clear that the distinction on the marketing side of what you have to do if you're indy or what you have to do if you're traditional was pretty small. For the vast, vast majority of traditional authors, you have to take as much ownership and drive that as much as if you're publishing from an indy imprint. So that’s a good lesson, regardless of what route you plan to take with your own book.
Wendy: I think you said something really important there. It's ownership. It's an ownership mindset. As part of this, sometimes there's a lot of hat changing. You write with one hat, and sometimes we're shy about the work that we've done, or we're modest or we're insecure. When you're wearing the owner's mindset, when you have your business hat on, you have to be your own best advocate. And so that takes a whole different skill set that you have to hone. But I do think in this business, fortunately or unfortunately, and whether you're traditionally published or with a small publisher or independently published, it comes into play.
The other piece that I would be remiss if I didn't mention is return on investment and that's something I've learned along the way with this as well. In the beginning, Matty, I said yes to everything. I mean, financially, time wise, I put so many resources into the selling aspect and it really probably took me a year or two to realize that I needed to look at the return on investment for things and learn to say no, not just to balance, so that I had the time to do the actual writing, but because not everything works.
There's a progression that you'll learn, like what works for you, what works with your readers. And sometimes you have to be willing to try new things, but you know, there are definitely things that I've realized I won't do anymore because they either cost too much money or they take up too much time.
Matty: The time thing is key. I actually left my corporate job of several decades last year and I'm writing full time now. I'm writing both fiction and nonfiction and doing related activities and I found that rather than suddenly expanding the scope of things I did, I actually got even more selective and I was trying to be disciplined to say no to things that weren't going to help me make a living wage from the work I was doing. I've heard the phrase "for everything you choose to do, you are choosing not to do something else," and to weigh that considering what your goals are. If your goal is to, just have a good time with it, then you pick different things than if your goal is make a living wage out of it.
Wendy: Great point.
Matty: So, on to number three, which is find your people.
Wendy: This is probably the number one thing I wish that I had known well before I was published. I mentioned building a platform before your book comes out. I think this part is so important. I know when I did the writers’ conference, I mentioned a friend of mine who spent probably a decade really finding her people. She got involved with various organizations in leadership roles and volunteer roles. She was involved in writers' groups in the crime writing world. We have the Guppies of Sisters in Crime, who are aspiring to be published.
And she wasn't just involved, she was great about sharing. Every time somebody got their book published, she was out there cheerleading for them, sharing that information. I mentioned, share things on your platform. She was supporting other authors. When her book came out, she made the USA Today best sellers list. I'm sure it was because it was a fabulous book, but there are other factors at play. I think she would say that some aspect of that was that she had found her tribe, she'd found her group, and they really helped her at her launch.
Compared to me … I pretty much wrote in a vacuum. I had three children. I was working full time. I wrote, and then I really didn't start a whole lot of networking until after my first book came out, and it was really hard to build that community and build that platform. Once I had a publication date, I very much wish I had done that beforehand.
I get asked often when I speak at festivals and conferences how do you go about doing that? Writers' conventions and conferences are a great way to meet people. Volunteering is a great way. Using your platform to promote other authors and to help other authors. Those are all ways giving back and are all ways that you can build that community.
Matty: Are you finding your people both among fellow authors and among your readers? Is there a “find your people” aspect of finding readers as well?
Wendy: For sure. When I wrote that I was thinking more of authors, but I will say that I have a group of just dedicated, phenomenal readers who are very supportive and that's grown over time. But I think the piece that you can do before you're published is find that raving community of fellow authors.
Matty: So now we're moving on to number four, which is maintain perspective. We touched on this a little bit already but tell us a bit about your recommendations in terms of maintaining perspective.
Wendy: This was one that I had to dig a little bit more deeply for. You know, when your book first comes out, I think it's a time for me, at least, when I felt both very alone and it was a time of highs and lows because, on one hand, I did eventually develop that writing community and I felt like the only people in that first six months to a year who really understood what I was going through were my author friends. And so that made my world feel very small. And while they were supportive and fabulous, I went through a period where I felt like my husband doesn't really get it or my family members don't get it, or why aren't they supporting me more?
On the other hand, the world felt very large. Your work is out there. Something you've been holding close to the chest, maybe for years, is suddenly out there for everyone to criticize and scrutinize and judge, and that can be a little overwhelming.
I remember I got a particularly good review for my first book, and I put it up on Facebook, and a very kind reader sent me a message and she said, "Congratulations. That's fabulous. But remember not to get too excited over the good reviews or too upset over the bad reviews," and it really resonated with me and I've taken it to heart. Don't ride the highs too high or the lows too low and maintain perspective.
A hard truth is that my book is super important to me and my agent, my publisher. But you know, the world goes on. It's not the most important thing to my neighbor or necessarily even my spouse, or my family members, and while they're incredibly supportive, I've had to remind myself that there are other priorities that happened.
At the same time, there are a lot of people who will downplay writing as not real work. And those of us in the field know very well that it is very much real work. And so there's a matter of retaining that will to create the discipline, maintain the discipline. You'll have people say, “Well, you know, you're not doing anything anyway—can you do X?” And reminding yourself of why you write, and the fact that you have a right to retain that time. That's your job. That's what you do. So it's that balance. It's that maintaining perspective, both seeing the writing and your writing career for what it is, but at the same time, recognizing that there is a bigger picture to be had.
And for me that was a tough journey, possibly because I had wanted it for so long.
Matty: I think that something that's helpful if you do read reviews, is that I look back on reviews I wrote for books before I wrote a book myself, and sometimes I was complimentary and sometimes I was not complimentary, but I was writing the review in the interest of helping other readers decide whether this book was for them or not.
I was not writing the review as a personal attack on the author. I think a lot of people who write reviews don't even think about the author actually reading them. And so sometimes I think it's helpful to bring that perspective that they're writing it for someone else. It's not like they're sending you a personal note telling you that they thought that this character was unlikable or that the middle was boring or whatever they happen to say.
And the other thing I found is that sometimes reviews can be a good source of market research. The one action that I've taken on the basis of reviews is when I published my first book, I really had no idea who the audience was going to be. And then as it was out there and I saw how people were reacting to it, it became clearer who my audience was, and my audience was mainly people who don't like a lot of profanity in their books. I had a couple of of reviewers comment that the one thing they didn't like about the book is that one of the characters swears a lot. I thought, "Oh, that's interesting," and I searched for the F word and it was in there like 17 times. I thought, “Okay, well, maybe that's excessive.” I went back and read through all 17 instances, and some of them are like, “No, that's what he would say. That's the kind of guy he is.” But some of them I thought, "Well, maybe not here." And so I didn't take them all out, but I, in an updated version, I scaled back a tiny bit.
But it is interesting to see how people are reacting and if you do see a trend like that—if one person posted, then it's just somebody's opinion, but if you start seeing a trend, especially if you're independently published and that's something you want to do something about—there’s that option to act on it if you choose to.
Wendy: I think that's really good advice. Going back to this concept of writing is hard—one of the very hard things is reading your own work critically and learning whose opinions, feedback to listen to and what not to, and one of the aspects for me has always been that trend point.
If I'm hearing the same thing from multiple people, I need to pay attention. I may ultimately decide that I'm going to go forward with how I want to do it. That's a choice, but go in it with open eyes. So from that standpoint, yeah, I would agree. I think reviews can be helpful.
I have found across the multiple books that I have out so far that most people write reviews in exactly the way that you've said with an eye toward, you know, who might enjoy this? And that's great. There are people who can be mean. International Thriller Writers had a fun bit for a while where they had famous authors read their worst reviews on that, and some of them were horrible—I mean just awful—and that's where you need to maintain perspective.
In my view, don't react. I make a point of not reacting to negative reviews, but I like your idea. I think if you can approach it from that standpoint—learning something and recognizing where it's coming from—then it helps you definitely maintain that balance.
Matty: And it probably is therapeutic to go pick your favorite author—I love J. K. Rowling—and go read all her one star reviews, and you could say, “okay, if people are saying they hate J. K. Rowling, then you know, if I get a one star review, I think I can live with it.
Wendy: Yeah. And everyone's telling you, you get the funny review.Like I gave them one star because I thought I was buying Beverly Cleary you're like, “Ooh, I'm not sure why that warranted a one star review.”
As authors, we worry so much about the algorithms, and that one star review wasn't even for my book and now it's going to pull it down. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and maintain perspective.
Matty: So that brings us to number five, which is, remember to celebrate.
Wendy: This I think is my shortest, but it's important. In all of this, you forget to celebrate the milestones, right? Whether it's the very first chapter you've ever written, the very first draft of your first book, getting a publishing deal or publishing your book and having it out there, celebrate the little milestones.
But I think it's just as important to celebrate other people's successes. And, again, along the way, that's been a lesson for me. Sometimes you watch other people's successes and think, “Why not me? I've worked hard for this.” I'm going back to writing is hard and it doesn't always have a linear path.
I think if we can truly, as authors, find joy in other people's successes, in the fact that we're all in it for reading and for books, it really helps to remind you of why you do this. And for me, it's been one of the aspects that has really helped me find joy in the process.
Matty: What a nice way to phrase it: "finding joy in the process."
I like the comment about celebrating the early, achievements like finishing your first chapter, finishing your first draft, because that could be fodder for that “finding your people” aspect, if you're thinking of it as finding readers as well as finding your author community. Because if you start out sharing those kinds of celebrations with your small pool—your mom and your sister, whoever your small pool of followers is—that's something they're going to get really bought into, and by the time they've seen the stages you've gone through and your book is out there, then you have a ready-made audience there.
Wendy: You do. I said this at the outset: I've met a lot of authors along the way, and I think one of the things that many of the successful authors, and I'll use the word successful, not in the sense necessarily being super wealthy or being a bestseller, but who have found their place in this writing world. One of the things they have in common is a learning mentality and the realization that craft is always developing, that their understanding of the business is always developing, that their ability to help others and to give back to the community is always developing.
And that in and of itself can be a celebration as well, whether it's going to a writers’ retreat or taking a course or teaching a class in a school or working with kids. And so recognizing it as a much bigger endeavor, but that it's made up of all these smaller parts and celebrating those smaller parts as well can be helpful.
Matty: That's great. Well, Wendy, thank you so much for sharing your five things. I know that this is going to be hugely helpful not only to people who are just starting out but also a great reminder even if people who have been doing this for a while, just to hear those, those very important lessons.
Wendy: Thank you, and thank you for inviting me on the, on the podcast. I'm very excited to be here, and I wish your listeners the best.
Links
Follow Wendy at:
Twitter - @WendyTyson
Facebook @WendyTysonAuthor
wendytyson.com
Episode 002 - Creativity Tips with Wade Walton
Twitter - @WendyTyson
Facebook @WendyTysonAuthor
wendytyson.com
Episode 002 - Creativity Tips with Wade Walton
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