Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 78. 2025 Writing Recap with Suzy Vadori

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78. 2025 Writing Recap with Suzy Vadori · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

• 0:05
  Welcome to the Show, don't Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vadori where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
• 0:13
  Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
• 0:20
  Join me as I share the step by step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away.
• 0:25
  As I host successful writers who share a behind the scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
• 0:38
  Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
• 0:42
  There are real and important skills that you need to learn on this show.
• 0:46
  I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
• 0:49
  I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing.
• 0:57
  Welcome to the 2025 recap episode of Show Don't Tell Writing With me, Suzy Vidori.
• 1:04
  The recap episode in 2024 that I recorded at the end of the year was kind of a whim.
• 1:09
  It was a quick thing where people were like, well, how was your year?
• 1:13
  And I felt like I was repeating myself to both clients and writers and people in the inspired writing community and my colleagues, and I was like, well, people are interested in this.
• 1:22
  Maybe it'll be a great podcast.
• 1:24
  And it turned out, when we looked at it just recently, this past month, that episode that I recorded at the end of 2024 was actually my highest rated or most popular episode with the most downloads on the podcast last year.
• 1:38
  That's where I shared all the things that I got up to in 2024.
• 1:42
  And if you were curious, you weren't alone.
• 1:44
  So I am doing it again.
• 1:47
  Here goes.
• 1:48
  I am about to share the good, the bad, the ugly, and being an author, being an editor, and being a book coach in 2025.
• 1:56
  This is the 2025 year end Roundup recorded last about to hit the holiday circuit of Christmas concert and parties where I'll see people I don't interact with daily in my writerly circles.
• 2:07
  Inevitably they're gonna ask me what I've been up to this year.
• 2:10
  It's been happening already, and I'm not quite sure how to answer because I'm not sure if they really wanna know.
• 2:17
  Many people in my communities know me as a mom, as a former business executive or as a volunteer in my community.
• 2:24
  I know I busy doing something because I travel a lot and I work long hours, and so I'm not always available.
• 2:31
  And I don't make every social gathering, but most have no idea that I actually run a business around writing.
• 2:37
  And not only writers, I actually support along the way.
• 2:41
  Here's the one time a year that I am willing to lay out the behind the scenes.
• 2:45
  Look at my year and it's just for you.
• 2:48
  This fund, December, 2025, marks a decade since I released my first novel, the Fountain in 2015.
• 2:56
  And this week I actually woke up to an unexpected, glowing review of that book on Instagram, and I had to take a moment to appreciate the fact that 10 years later.
• 3:08
  The fountain is still touching hearts and minds of teens, adults, and everyone who reads it.
• 3:15
  And I am so appreciative because even though if I ever was to produce a third edition of that book, there's two editions out.
• 3:23
  If I ever had a third edition, now that I'm a writing coach and I've learned a lot, a decade's changed, there's different trends and things are different in the polishing industry, trends that I share with my clients.
• 3:35
  I change a lot in that book.
• 3:37
  And I don't know, maybe I will, maybe I won't.
• 3:39
  But the point is a decade and it still stands, and even though there are things that I would change or there are things that I would do better.
• 3:48
  That book I am so proud of because it started this journey.
• 3:52
  And if you told me a decade ago that I would be here on a podcast, sharing my journey with other writers and working on twins and tons of books every single year, and helping writers make their dreams come true, I would've said you were nuts.
• 4:04
  But here we are.
• 4:06
  And so I wanna remind you that as you're writing your book.
• 4:10
  It's going to open doors when you finish it, and along the way it's actually gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet.
• 4:18
  I don't know where it's going to lead.
• 4:20
  I can't guarantee that you're gonna sell a million copies.
• 4:22
  Maybe you will.
• 4:23
  Maybe that's not your goal, but it can tell you that it is going to change your life in tons and tons of different ways.
• 4:30
  Because when Fountain was first released, I was actually a business executive and I managed factories in China.
• 4:36
  I was writing on the side.
• 4:37
  I was actually halfway across the world when I got the notification that the fountain was a finalist for an Aurora award, which is Canada's premier science fiction and fantasy award.
• 4:46
  And by the time, book two was also a finalist for that same award writing starting to take over my life.
• 4:52
  And I made the not so difficult decision to quit my day job and go all in.
• 4:57
  I was being asked to speak, teach, and write, and get paid for it, and I didn't have time to work my day job.
• 5:06
  So now I support a community of writers more than 12,000 strong, including you dear reader and dear writer, and I get to read books for a living.
• 5:15
  Here we are and I couldn't be more pleased with where my love of all things writing has led me.
• 5:20
  And I thank you listeners so much for being on this journey with me.
• 5:24
  I work with a small support team.
• 5:26
  All writers who help me administer courses, organize events for our community, and organized in general.
• 5:32
  Without them, I couldn't do half the things that I managed to do in a year.
• 5:36
  They are all writers.
• 5:37
  They are all brilliant.
• 5:39
  They are all positive, and I'm so grateful to have them by my side as I made great strides to helping as many writers as possible get their books out into the world this year.
• 5:49
  Fair warning.
• 5:50
  The reason I share this, if you're listening to this podcast and you think that being a writer means that you have to do all these things, it doesn't.
• 5:58
  As I share, when I teach marketing to writers, choose one thing that feels easy for you and keep showing up consistently.
• 6:08
  My mandate is to bring as many writers along with me as I can, so I've grown my business a little differently than you will.
• 6:16
  If you're writing of life looks different, that's perfectly fine.
• 6:20
  It's your creative life and you get to be creative with how you build it.
• 6:25
  Truth be told, I actually thrive on a little bit of chaos, so I love tackling huge goals and they tend to evolve through my years.
• 6:33
  So what did my team and I get up to this year?
• 6:36
  Okay, I'm gonna start you out with some numbers.
• 6:39
  This year we sent 52 plus newsletters to more than 12,000 subscribers.
• 6:45
  And what I mean by 52 plus is that if you are subscribed to my inspired writing email list, I send out a newsletter every single Thursday, and sometimes I send more if there's events to announce or if I've got something going on that I think you'll be interested in.
• 7:00
  So make sure if you don't already subscribe to it.
• 7:04
  Every single week you'll get a message from me at my inbox.
• 7:07
  It often has stories about my personal life.
• 7:09
  So if you're interested in this kind of thing where you're wondering what's it really like to be a writer, I share a lot of that in this and I also share what's happening in the industry so that you have to keep it, 'cause I'll keep up for you.
• 7:21
  Okay.
• 7:21
  This episode is episode 78 for the year on the Show Don't Tell Podcast.
• 7:28
  And the podcast now gets more than 1000 downloads a month.
• 7:32
  It's in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide in terms of popularity now, I mean not just in the category of writing, it's even higher than that in the category of writing.
• 7:42
  I am so grateful to what's happening with this podcast, and thank you so much for listening.
• 7:48
  This year I got bolder and I started inviting more guests that I know will help you up your game.
• 7:54
  Because when it first started out, I invited some people close to my network, but the podcast was small.
• 8:00
  And now that you're all listening, know that I can tell potential guests, Hey, my podcast is doing great.
• 8:06
  And we have amazing listeners, and they wanna hear from you.
• 8:09
  And I do hear from you, so please, please, please, if you haven't already, go ahead, drop that five star rating for us.
• 8:16
  Give me a review on this podcast, because what that does is it helps me get more and more interesting guests for you to listen to that will share all of their behind the scenes tips.
• 8:27
  So if you love the podcast, please help us find those amazing guests by dropping a review.
• 8:34
  Besides the podcast, I also celebrated the 10th anniversary of One Stopper Writers with Writers Helping Writers, and I signed on for my fourth year as a resident writing coach with them publishing four articles on writing Craft for them, and I celebrated my 50th birthday with all of you.
• 8:51
  Thank you all for the well wishes.
• 8:53
  I feel energized and filled to the brim as I tackle the next 50 years of my life.
• 8:59
  Plaid.
• 9:00
  I was a guest presenter at five in-person conferences for writers and artists.
• 9:05
  This year at eight online summits or conferences for organizations such as Daniel David Wallace's, escape the Plot for us, dabble.com and Tellwell Publishing this year, the invitation coming and I'm so excited to meet writers at each and every event who are keen to learn how to make their books the best they can be.
• 9:23
  My amazing job took me this year to Scottsdale, Arizona, to Niagara Falls, to Sudbury, Ontario, red Deer, Alberta, and even all the way to Portugal, where I met with powerhouse online business women from around the world to plan our year ahead, I know that the word is getting out about how much I love helping writers get their books ready for readers, and I am so, so grateful that my techniques and really practical advice is landing.
• 9:49
  If you have a conference near you for writers and wanna have me come and speak, please, please, please recommend me to the conference organizers.
• 9:56
  I would love to come and meet you, hearing all about your books.
• 9:59
  So far in the first half of 2026, I plan to travel to Cancun, to Kelowna, British Columbia, to Denver, to Phoenix, to Wisconsin, and even to Florence, Italy, which I'm particularly excited about.
• 10:12
  Maybe I'll be headed your way next.
• 10:14
  Talk with writers about the projects actually opens a conversation that I'm always excited to have and I learn as much from each writer who's feeling called to write a book as they learn from me.
• 10:25
  This year I made a concerted effort.
• 10:27
  It was specific, it was one of my goals to show up in person to events wherever possible.
• 10:32
  As meeting writers in the world gives me the most joy, the pandemic sort of robbed us of that, and it was a while before these conferences got going again.
• 10:40
  So I'm really excited to be back.
• 10:42
  This year I even joined a band.
• 10:45
  This is a little bit off topic, but it isn't because it's part of my creative energy.
• 10:49
  We started this band with some colleagues and I got to perform on some of these trips, and if you're wondering, I'm a singer.
• 10:55
  I don't play an instrument and although I own in of instruments, I don't play any of them well enough to think anyone else would wanna listen to them.
• 11:02
  We're a folk band.
• 11:03
  Uh, we sing in two part harmony.
• 11:05
  I sing the desk count along with an acoustic guitar, an amazing flutist who can add to any song we perform and make you wonder how you ever enjoyed the song without a flute solo in it.
• 11:16
  I'm a rare breed of writer who is extroverted, meaning that I get energy from interaction with others.
• 11:22
  So I tend to build my life with lots of activity to keep my batteries charged.
• 11:27
  But if you need to recharge in different ways, and my life sounds exhausting, you may need to add more reflective activities.
• 11:35
  The Route 2025, I worked one-on-one with 28 writers.
• 11:39
  I completed 14 developmental edits.
• 11:42
  That's a complete review and edit of a manuscript, and worked with 14 different writers to plan and complete their books in a coaching relationship's.
• 11:50
  Actually, a few less than I worked with in 2024.
• 11:53
  I didn't have as many spots available to work with writers because of all the presenting and teaching I did.
• 11:58
  So it's a bit of a trade off, but still managed to keep my wait list reasonable.
• 12:03
  These past few years, I can usually start coaching with a writer within a month or two.
• 12:08
  And my wait list for developmental editing averages four months out.
• 12:12
  So if you've been lurking in my community and know that you wanna work with me, when your book is ready, be sure to gimme lots of notice so that I can fit you into my calendar.
• 12:20
  In July, I launched my first ever monthly membership program, the Inner Circle.
• 12:25
  Risks where you can get me as your virtual book coach in a group wanting new techniques for writing, editing, or promoting your books, getting my eyes on your pages and writing in community, which is a beautiful thing.
• 12:37
  There are even opportunities to meet with me one-on-one when you need it to brainstorm or get unstuck when completing your book fast.
• 12:45
  We are six months into the program, but you can join anytime and meet the wonderful writers in there who are absolutely crushing their writing goals.
• 12:53
  I am so, so proud of the work that they're doing.
• 12:57
  This past week, we had a sort of reflective time where we talked about this past year and one writer shared that the smartest decision she made for her writing this year was to join the Inner Circle.
• 13:08
  You can find us at suzy vidori.com/innercircle.
• 13:13
  People also ask me, when I'm on this holiday circuit, the most common question I ask is, what about my own writing?
• 13:20
  Am I writing?
• 13:21
  What am I writing?
• 13:22
  So I'll share that.
• 13:23
  Right now I'm in the process of writing a nonfiction book on writing on my favorite topic.
• 13:29
  Of course, show on Tell.
• 13:30
  It's a little meta I know.
• 13:32
  But that book I had been working on for a little while, but I put it on hold for most of 2025 because when I put together the non-fiction proposal, I actually realized that there were areas I wanted to be stronger before I launched the book.
• 13:46
  Now I've worked on dozens of non-fiction book proposals with clients, so I see a lot of other author platforms and they understand where mine falls.
• 13:55
  When I was putting it together, I just saw some places that I was completely inspired to work on to make sure that when the book comes out, it'll reach as many writers as possible.
• 14:05
  Even if you don't plan to take your nonfiction book or your fiction book for that matter, to the traditional publishing space.
• 14:12
  I highly recommend completing this proposal because it was a really interesting way to show me where my own blind spots were.
• 14:18
  Of course, it's like the shoemakers kids who never have any shoes, right?
• 14:22
  They're prioritized last.
• 14:24
  It's the same thing with a book coach where I don't look at my own things until I have to do this exercise and I was able to see.
• 14:31
  So while part of me wondered was I just procrastinating by putting this book on hold.
• 14:36
  When I started pulling these numbers for you for this episode, I realized I've actually hit all my goals and it's time to update that proposal and get that book out.
• 14:45
  Latest podcast as well as my weekly newsletter and meeting as many writers as possible were my three goals.
• 14:52
  Plus, those are the most fun parts of my job anyway, so it wasn't all work.
• 14:57
  My newsletter this year, my inspired writing newsletter that I mentioned that you need to get, it means 3000 new subscribers this year for a lifetime total of 20,000 writers.
• 15:08
  Subscribe to the newsletter since I launched it in early 2021.
• 15:12
  These writers found me through this podcast through events that I'd done and through free resources that I offer.
• 15:18
  My most popular resources this year were my 30 ways to Promote your book, which had 643 downloads so far in 2025, and my show and Tell Guide with 412 downloads, which I'll link to both of these in the show notes so that you can grab those resources for yourself.
• 15:35
  1,315 writers completed my quiz to let them know if their writing was ready for readers yet.
• 15:42
  Actually share that quiz that much this year, so I'm surprised that many people still took it.
• 15:46
  It was created in 2020 and it has had more than 65,000 writers take it since then.
• 15:53
  I might actually look, now that I see those numbers, it's always worth looking at numbers.
• 15:57
  I might actually look at refreshing this and creating another fun quiz for you in 2026.
• 16:03
  Okay, let's take a look at the podcast.
• 16:06
  This is podcast episode 78, as I mentioned.
• 16:09
  But I recorded and my team produced 53 of these in 2025.
• 16:14
  The podcast launched in 2024.
• 16:16
  We also participated in our very first podcast, Dawn Event in March, 2025, where we supported Dolly Parton's Imagination Library Charity, which provides books to support literacy in preschool children.
• 16:29
  Stats that are tracked by our podcast distributor Buzz Sprout.
• 16:32
  56% of you right now are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.
• 16:37
  15%. Listen on Spotify.
• 16:39
  13% of you are listening directly from your internet browser like Chrome.
• 16:44
  8% of you are listening directly from Sprout.
• 16:47
  And yes, if you are a math wizard, as I am really a geek about numbers, I know these numbers don't add up to a hundred percent, but there's other category, so if you listen somewhere else, can you let me know where, so that I can fill in this gap with some logic?
• 17:02
  'cause I don't know where.
• 17:04
  In a dish to the listeners that Buzz Spout tracks though a matched mount, like the same number of writers again.
• 17:11
  Listen to this audio only podcast on YouTube.
• 17:15
  Kudos to you all who are listening on YouTube and an equal number.
• 17:19
  Again, listen through my substack posts so you can see how this all adds up.
• 17:24
  If you are tired of all these stats, I don't blame you.
• 17:27
  It's a lot of work for my team to get the word out, but it's worth every moment.
• 17:32
  I'll leave you with some behind the scenes stories of client successes.
• 17:36
  In 20 25, 23 writers that I worked with in my membership or one-on-one wrote the end on their first draft of their manuscript, and 16 published their books.
• 17:47
  Some with big traditional publishers and some independently, whether they were fantasy memoirs, science fiction, romance, women's fiction, or nonfiction business books.
• 17:57
  Most writers finish their books.
• 18:01
  And every single writer I worked with took huge strides toward their writing goals to what their books read exactly as they feel called to write them.
• 18:10
  As celebrated clients, you hit the USA Today bestseller list, who signed book deals, who planned launch parties, and who also sold thousands of books.
• 18:20
  But whatever your goals are, I am here to cheer you on at the Show, don't Tell Writing podcast, and I can't wait to see what 2026 rings for you and your writing.
• 18:39
  Thanks for tuning into the Show, don't Tell Writing podcast with me, Susie Vidori.
• 18:44
  It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or the book that you're planning to write.
• 18:50
  Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us.
• 18:54
  You could subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening.
• 19:01
  To show how met you, enjoy the show.
• 19:03
  That's how other listeners will find us.
• 19:06
  Also visit susie vidori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community.
• 19:20
  Want my eyes on your writing?
• 19:22
  Submit a page at your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes.
• 19:27
  I'd love to chat with you about your writing.
• 19:29
  In my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals.
• 19:37
  I'm here to cheer you on.
• 19:39
  Remember that book you're writing is gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
• 19:49
  See you again right here next week.