Latest / The Two Authors’ Podcast / The Wheel of Life with Adrienne Giordano

Transcript

The Wheel of Life with Adrienne Giordano · The Two Authors’ Podcast

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  I think we all have a two-year-old inside of us that we just have to...
• 0:03
  I've got twin two-year-olds inside of us.
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  Welcome to the Two Authors podcast, an entertaining chat show hosted by best-selling mystery and
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  thriller authors Douglas Pratt and Nicholas Harvey in lively, humorous and informative
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  conversation with distinguished guests who share their thoughts and experience about
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  forging a successful author career.
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  Welcome to the show, everyone.
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  Hope you're doing fabulous, just like my co-host, Mr. Douglas Pratt.
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  I'm always doing fabulous.
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  I can't help it.
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  I live in a constant state of fabulosity.
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  Fabulosity.
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  That is it.
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  That is the word of the week.
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  Fabulosity.
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  People use it liberally.
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  Yes, everybody should put that in a book.
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  So.
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  Yeah.
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  As you run across people you haven't seen in a while, say,
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  how's your fabulosity today?
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  My fabulosity level, like you've got like all sorts of levels.
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  I'm gonna just have me a little level of fabulosity and we should just rank everybody.
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  Well, you're 11 out of 10 every day.
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  Oh, you're so sweet.
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  I put you at a solid seven.
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  How's that?
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  I think I'd barely eat above a four, but you're generous.
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  All right.
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  The show brought to you as always by the fabulosity impaled.
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  No, that's the wrong word.
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  It's not impaled.
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  - And vellum is filled with fabulosity.
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  That's what you're looking for.
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  - There it is, boom!
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  - You have levels of fabulosity and vellum
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  that hit like 15 out of 10.
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  So it's an amazing, yeah.
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  So they got some cool stuff.
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  We talked about like the,
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  I don't have a sub stack,
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  but you don't have a sub stack.
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  But you could put like your sub stack
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  and your other social media in there with it.
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  - Sub stack's a new one with one of the updates
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  they did at the end of last year.
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  And I didn't know that actually,
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  and just recently found out.
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  I have my Facebook, Instagram, Bookbub and Blue Sky.
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  - Are you and the seven other people on Blue Sky?
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  (laughs)
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  - Well, no, there's actually tons of people on there.
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  I just don't think they're doing very much with it.
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  It sort of came out and it was like,
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  okay, is this gonna be a thing?
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  Is this gonna be a place?
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  And it's, so I grabbed it
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  and I don't wanna be on some of the other ones.
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  So I was like, okay.
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  So anyway, yeah, it's lingering in the back.
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  - I'm thinking about putting my MySpace on there.
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  So I may do that.
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  - You should. - I should have it
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  MySpace making a big comeback.
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  - It could, I bet the music that I had set on MySpace
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  is still playing 'cause I haven't gone in there.
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  - Still playing there.
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  - Yeah. - Anything with it
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  in 30 years, so.
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  Also though, big thank you to all of our
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  Patreon supporters out there.
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  Thank you so much for popping in and joining us.
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  And if you find you guys get any value out of the show,
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  please jump on there.
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  It's like $3 a month and you get the just extra pictures
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  of me and Nick just hanging out our other guests
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  as we come in, nothing overly fun.
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  - There's no pictures on there.
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  There's videos of us with the extra questions.
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  - It's perfect, yeah.
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  - Somebody might want to just look at us
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  and throw us up as their screens saver.
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  - Fabulosity is worth $3 a month.
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  That's your $3 justified this month.
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  - You should do the word of the day on there,
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  that'd be perfect.
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  - Boom, I've been doing kind of one of those
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  on some of my social media posts having interesting words.
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  Yeah, we could do that.
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  And of course, your subscription is tax deductible.
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  Absolutely it is.
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  It's education, and all.
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  - I'm not sure that that is.
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  I don't know that we would take our tax advice from us.
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  (laughs)
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  - Well, you are correct.
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  I would not take tax advice from us,
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  but I'm pretty damn sure that's tax deductible.
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  - Okay, well, if Nick says it,
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  he doesn't live in the US anymore,
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  So take your chances.
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  - Exactly, yeah.
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  I live in a tax-free country now.
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  So anyway, if you have any questions about it,
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  Doug at DouglasPractice.com and ask him.
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  All right, so let's move on.
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  Our guest today is the fabulous Adrienne Giordano.
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  She's a USA Today bestselling author
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  of over 40 romantic suspense and mystery novels
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  who also pulls from our vast experience in this biz
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  to provide author and life coaching.
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  So we'll chat with Adrienne shortly here,
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  But first, I'll listen to a question from our recent guest, the wonderful Jane Friedman.
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  Jane Friedman, you're a glutton to stick around a little longer, and you have a listener question
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  for us.
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  I'm a little scared here.
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  I'm a little scared.
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  I do.
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  I have been asking a lot of authors recently, self-publishing authors, how they are doing
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  with direct sales.
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  And if they haven't tried direct sales yet, why not?
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  And one of the reasons I want to ask you both is because if you're in KU or Reliant on KU,
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  I've found that some are, they might do a Kickstarter, they might do some type of pre-order
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  process where it's available to everyone regardless of how they shop or where they prefer to read
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  and then they will move into KU after that.
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  So really, I'm just asking you, how are your direct sales doing and what's your take?
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  Because it's such the popular thing to talk about right now.
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  but I find it very hard to do.
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  Like there are a lot of moving pieces to it.
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  - There are, totally.
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  Okay, so I do have in the last year
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  started doing my pre-orders all wide.
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  And thankfully I use Drafted Digital.
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  They're super great about just launching everything at once.
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  And then I know it's gotta go and turn it off.
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  And so I'll do a pre-order wide.
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  My pre-orders generally run,
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  as soon as I put the next book out,
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  I'll set it a year out, but they'll run six months.
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  And then the day the book comes out,
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  I go in and turn it off on Drafted Digital,
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  flip on that KU button. And I do, for my last two, I've actually done them pre-orders on
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  my direct store. So I've had a direct store, but because I was in KU and it's such a balancing
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  act to sell versus not, I haven't really taken advantage of my direct store. So I've started
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  coming up with new strategies in the last two months and pretty pleased with what my
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  sales are been at on my direct store. They're not anywhere near scraping the bottom of the
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  Barrel where I am on Amazon, but it is something because to me I wanted to build multiple avenues of revenue for that same reason
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  I've I've we talked about patreon. I've started a patreon last year. It is slowly building up
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  We have a patreon for the podcast as well
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  But I have my own and I'm trying to build other areas and using direct sales
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  Kind of as that purpose. So I am seeing some some use for it is a slow burn
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  I'm trying not to get discouraged by it because I see it as an opportunity to continue to build an audience that I don't already have so
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  So for me I live in the Cayman Islands. So I'm not going to be shipping any books to anybody
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  It's cost prohibitive. I do have a VA in the States who's marvelous and she's wonderful
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  But it's another layer of expense
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  I would have to have in there and the same if I use the fulfillment
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  So I have a merchandise store which I do steady stuff through and works out great
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  but it's full fill print on demand so i did i don't have to touch it.
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  i'm so i could do that and i've been thinking about options of doing maybe a kickstarter maybe some special editions.
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  But as we were talking about in another in another section because i built my audience off of primarily kindle unlimited the audience tends to be.
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  fix the limited income that's why they're in k you because they get value out of being in k u and they're not spending this extra money especially while we're in the uncertain environment that we've been in for a while now.
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  So there's lots of people just killing it on special editions and doing extra stuff i did a version of that based on one of my books recently and had some vinyl lp record album.
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  made and pressed i love it it's brilliant i haven't sold very many so i've sold some but not many so my v_a_
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  big box of vinyl l_p_ that she sends one out every week or so so i'm very cautious about venturing into that
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  realm because i just right now i don't think i've
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  built my audience around the kind of people that are gonna spend money on extra stuff like that
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  I want to expand into that and that's why you know the dogs ahead of the curve on ahead of me on this that he's venturing into different areas and trying to broaden that audience but i think it's something that's very very much we've talked about a lot.
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  Trying to expand our audience out in towards that wide audience that is going to spend on more of the special editions and stuff.
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  It's tricky and also worth or thrillers and less special editions don't do as well i'll think yet as far as the.
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  That realm there's some that mean like the freedom McFadden thrillers for sure can do that but you know there's more different than action thrillers like we write so.
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  Yeah you don't see deluxe editions of nonfiction books just being put out all the time.
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  Yeah yeah yeah great edges of house of moe.
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  We cool if you could get like lawn clippings on the side of it.
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  See, look at that.
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  We're thinking like, you know, I don't know who's going to read a book about cutting your
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  lawn, but you know.
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  Especially AI.
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  Look it up now.
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  All right.
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  That's a good place to end.
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  Jay, great question.
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  Thank you so much.
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  Hey, Joanne.
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  Welcome to the show.
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  Thank you so much for joining us.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  Absolutely.
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  You've been on our shortlist for a long time from an author point of view, but also the
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  coaching stuff that we're going to sort of focus on today.
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  But give the listeners a bit of background on when you first got into writing and when
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  you were first published.
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  So I think like probably many of us, I have been writing since I was a kid, you know,
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  creating my little stories.
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  And I always had the dream of being a published author, you know, but life gets in the way,
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  right?
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  And you get your, you know, you get out of school and you get your big boy, big girl job
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  and all that.
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  But I was always writing and I actually, when my dad got sick, I had taken a leave of absence
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  from work and I found myself, I was traveling back and forth.
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  I live in the Midwest now, but I'm from the East Coast.
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  So I was traveling back and forth, spending a couple of weeks there, a couple of weeks
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  here, and I was bored.
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  I hadn't had my son yet, so I was bored.
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  It was, my husband said to me, you know, like,
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  why don't you just work on this writing gig
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  and see, you know, you have the time.
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  So I literally wrote my first book sitting beside my dad
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  in a hospital room, which is,
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  it's kind of a bittersweet memory,
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  but it probably all told to be five years to write that book
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  because, you know, you just keep going back over it
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  and you're learning the hard lessons and all that.
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  So I probably, my first book came out in 2010.
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  And I'm primarily known for my romantic suspense,
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  but I do some funny mysteries.
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  We have, I have a co-written series with Misty Evans.
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  That's a serial killer, like cold case mystery series.
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  That was a ton of fun.
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  And I just dipped my toe into women's fiction recently
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  under a pen name.
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  So that was different.
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  - Wow, you're covering some gamuts there
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  - Go from psychological thrillers to kind of cosies with a dog.
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  - Yeah, oh yeah, my dog collar crime stuff.
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  I love those books.
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  - Way to break you into some sci-fi next, huh?
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  - Oh gosh, never, never.
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  I could never write sci-fi.
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  I like, I give sci-fi writers so much credit
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  because just the world building all of that,
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  you know, I could never do that.
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  I just don't have the brain power for it.
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  (laughs)
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  - There's a lot.
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  Fascinating to me in fantasy and science fiction.
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  All that world building seems really cool.
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  Building it would be fascinating and fun
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  and then actually maintaining and sticking to it.
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  - I try to remember it. - And the folks would be
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  a great man. - I try to remember it.
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  (laughing)
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  - All right, so when did you start branching out
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  into doing coaching with other authors?
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  - So I have always been involved in, you know,
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  different writing organizations and, you know,
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  In the beginning, I got a lot of help from some really well established authors.
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  So it was always kind of a, I'm going to pass this on, right?
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  Because they gave me time.
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  So I've always worked with authors informally.
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  And then I kind of got into coaching.
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  It was sort of a backdoor thing because during COVID, like most of us, I had gained some weight
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  and I joined Weight Watchers.
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  And I would go to, after COVID was over, I would go to the weekly workshops and I had
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  a really awesome coach in my workshop.
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  And they were hiring coaches and I thought, you know, this would be kind of a fun gig
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  that I could do, you know, once a week, whatever.
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  So I got the job, I applied and I got the job and I still work for them.
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  And that's what got me into coaching and they give, they give training with coaching.
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  But I wanted to take it a step further because I really saw how this could help authors.
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  I mean, it helped me just in my personal life.
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  So I went back to school.
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  I went to coaching school.
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  Yeah, I got my certification, I think, two years ago now.
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  As you've kind of approached this now, what are some of the challenges that you're seeing
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  authors coming to you that are hoping to solve?
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  So if I've got tons of challenges, I just need to know which ones I need to come to you
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  with, I guess, is my question.
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  Well, and I think that's what's so interesting is we all, it's so different for all of us,
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  right?
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  Some folks, it's time management.
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  Some folks, it's just this business is so brutal and it has such a high rate of failure
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  and it's managing our expectations and just figuring out, you know, how we move forward,
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  whether it's traditional publishing,
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  whether it's the rejection,
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  whether it's your indie publishing
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  and you published a book and it didn't sell.
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  And, you know, just trying to figure out how you move forward.
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  - Yeah, yeah.
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  And you use, I think called the wheel of life,
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  when I was doing a bit of research here,
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  and I thought that was the Lion King.
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  I didn't know what it was talking about.
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  So I had to actually search it.
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  And it brought up this, that's the circle of life.
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  - Could have been the Wheel of Time,
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  that was like the Robert Jordan book, there you go.
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  - I watched that series, yeah, that was like Netflix.
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  Okay, so the Wheel of Life is--
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  - He digress.
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  - Yeah, I do digress, we digress a lot.
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  So tell us about the Wheel of Life, what is it?
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  - So the Wheel of Life is a coaching tool
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  that it looks at different areas of your life, right?
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  So, you know, your family, your career, money,
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  your significant other, your health.
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  And it's a kind of a life balance tool, I call it,
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  where you look at this wheel,
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  I'm happy to give you a free download of it
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  if your readers want to--
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  - Great, we'll put it in the show notes, perfect, yeah.
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  - I can give you a PDF of it.
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  And what it does is it helps you kind of categorize
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  where you are, you go from,
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  you rate yourself from zero to 10 in each category.
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  So if you're working too much,
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  if you feel totally overwhelmed by work,
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  maybe it's a very high number.
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  And it helps you, it gives you just a visual snapshot
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  of maybe where you need to be paying a little more attention.
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  Are you having enough fun in your life?
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  And it really gives you a quick down and dirty.
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  - Yeah, pretty much everyone's gonna go no.
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  - Exactly.
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  - I really do have a lot of fun.
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  I'm just kidding.
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  I feel like you could always have more fun, right?
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  - Oh, absolutely.
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  And that's where, you know, you rate it a one
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  if you're dissatisfied and it's a 10
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  if you're knocking it out of the park.
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  So it just gives you, and we're never totally imbalanced,
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  right? Life balance.
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  It's never going to be a 50/50 thing with work and life balance, right?
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  Because if we're on a deadline and we're pushing whatever.
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  So what it tells you is just in that snapshot, in that moment of time, where are you?
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  And it can kind of help you figure out, like if you're really feeling tired or exhausted or whatever, it's like, oh, well, it's
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  because I'm spending so much time at my desk and not making time for my family or to have fun, whatever.
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  So yeah, I do it a few times a year. Every time I get cranky, I pull it out and I do it because it just helps me.
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  Yeah, you know, it's a self check. Yeah.
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  It's difficult sometimes for us as authors, especially we work for ourselves, we work at home, isolated for the most part, to get that
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  work-life balance, you know, and like that's something Nick and I have talked about on a regular basis, you know,
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  or, you know, we joke not too long ago that Nick's like, "I'll keep working because, you know, instead of getting up to
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  go to the bathroom, I'm just gonna keep working all the way through because that's his mentality is I gotta keep working at it
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  because this is what we do." And so we forget sometimes that we gotta balance that out a little bit, so.
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  Yeah, and figuring out what you need to put in place to get out of the office, you know, whether it's treating it like a corporate job where you,
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  you know, you go home at night, right?
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  You close the door to the office
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  because if you were working in a corporate setting,
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  you wouldn't necessarily have access to that office, right?
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  So it's just figuring out the little tricks
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  that help you separate yourself from that
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  because it is super easy to do,
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  especially when you're an indie pub author
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  because there is always something more to do.
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  - That covers a couple of things
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  that we were gonna talk to you about.
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  For a lot of us, it's a home office.
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  For me, my home office is actually
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  in a corner of our bedroom.
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  So there is no escaping.
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  My commute is three steps.
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  So the good and the bad of that.
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  So when you're talking with authors
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  that are in that sort of situation,
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  and as you mentioned, and we've talked about this before,
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  in this business, we're never done,
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  because you're working for yourself,
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  And in most businesses, you're working for yourself.
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  It's kind of you're never done.
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  And when you do work for somebody else and you go to an office, there are a lot of jobs
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  that require stuff after hours.
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  But for most, you leave, you go home, and you have a personal life, and then you return
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  to work within those hours.
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  But we don't really do that.
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  So what do you suggest for guardrails to help the authors with their timing?
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  Again, this is a totally individualized thing, right?
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  It's about sitting down and figuring out what your habits are.
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  are and what things you can put in place.
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  Right? So if you were a client and we were in a session,
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  I would say to you, okay,
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  so your office is in the bedroom,
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  are you happy with that setup?
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  First of all, if you're not happy with it,
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  what are the things you can put in place to help you
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  separate that from your personal life to your work life?
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  Right? Because, and the thing with coaching is like, I could sit here and give advice all day long, right?
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  But it's not necessarily going to resonate with you because that's not your habits, right?
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  It has to be based on the individual and what works with four of them, right?
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  So that's where the work really comes in is digging into how you feel about it being in the bedroom
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  And what are some tricks and things that you can put in place that will help you to A, feel better about it if you are unhappy about it and will help you to separate yourself from it?
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  For me, it's tricky because the other option is the living room and my wife has her office in the corner of the living room. So we can trade.
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  Are you saying you can't share an office? Is that what you're saying, Nick? Or Cheryl can't share an office?
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  We live in a small place.
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  I get it.
• 20:52
  There's no room to be actually side by side.
• 20:55
  Yeah.
• 20:55
  So for you, it might be something like, OK, you can't physically change it because of
• 21:01
  the setup, but what can you put a screen in there or something?
• 21:07
  I'm going to give myself 10 minutes out of the room, however often.
• 21:14
  So if you're not able to physically move from that space, what else can you put in place
• 21:20
  that helps you to separate yourself from it?
• 21:24
  And that doesn't mean putting screens in the bathroom, Nick, so you can work in there too.
• 21:28
  So yeah.
• 21:31
  We have a little half bath.
• 21:32
  I actually looked at it when we first moved in, I'm like, this is a waste.
• 21:35
  You only need one loo in the house.
• 21:37
  How could I convert this basically cupboard sized space?
• 21:42
  - Even came with its own seat.
• 21:43
  You don't even have to bring in an office chair.
• 21:45
  You can bring in a table and bam, you're ready to go.
• 21:49
  - Be a great little podcast booths, but.
• 21:52
  - But I mean, I have had authors say that they'd go out
• 21:55
  and they buy some kind of a partition
• 21:58
  because at night when they go to bed,
• 22:01
  it's they're looking at the desk
• 22:03
  and they're thinking about all the things
• 22:05
  that they need to do and it's disrupting their sleep.
• 22:10
  So sometimes it's as simple as just blocking the view of the desk so you can't see it.
• 22:17
  I'll face the other wall when I go to sleep.
• 22:19
  That might help.
• 22:19
  Yeah, there you go.
• 22:23
  Push it.
• 22:23
  You know, when you need a little Murphy desk, that way it'll fold up and be out of the way.
• 22:26
  A Murphy desk instead of having a Murphy bed.
• 22:29
  A Murphy desk.
• 22:31
  And then it's out of the way and you're like, oh, and I'm not even thinking as if, like, I like that idea because as if I need to look at the, the desk to be thinking about all the stuff
• 22:40
  that I'm thinking about anyway.
• 22:41
  - No, no, we just lay there and look at the ceiling
• 22:43
  and think about all the--
• 22:44
  - I mean, you know, we're laughing about it.
• 22:47
  Yeah, we're laughing about it,
• 22:48
  but I mean, think about how your brain
• 22:52
  would react to that, right?
• 22:53
  You're physically putting the desk up, right?
• 22:57
  It's signaling your brain that the workday is over,
• 23:00
  the desk is up, right?
• 23:02
  It's putting in, like as you said, a guardrail,
• 23:06
  that, okay, workday is over.
• 23:08
  You know, for me, when I leave my home office,
• 23:10
  I close the doors, right?
• 23:12
  For me, that's enough for me that the door is closed
• 23:16
  and I don't come in anymore at night.
• 23:19
  Like that to me is enough to signal it.
• 23:21
  So it, again, it depends on all of us as individuals.
• 23:26
  What's that thing that's going to click in our brain
• 23:29
  that work day is over, time to focus on whatever,
• 23:33
  my family, having fun.
• 23:36
  - So I'm gonna back up a little,
• 23:37
  Maybe back up side track just a little bit though, because I'm curious about something else.
• 23:41
  And it's something that I see all the time, especially with emerging authors and newer authors who are seeing, you know, the, who, whose self worth is suddenly tied to their sales or rankings, that any of that outside validation, what are some things you suggest for authors to do to set goals that they can actually control?
• 24:00
  And I think I think that's sometimes we look at that like I don't have any reviews and I don't have the ranking is not quite
• 24:06
  We're you know, and we start especially some of us who haven't been around for a while
• 24:11
  Some of us who've been around for already know that where we're at we just don't worry about it
• 24:14
  But what are some goals we can do to kind of set that a little bit more manageable?
• 24:19
  Absolutely, and this is like this is a big thing for me. I actually do a goal-setting workshop because
• 24:26
  You know when you set these goals, right? We have different types of goals. Some of them are called outcome goals
• 24:33
  So your outcome goals are okay. I want to write a book, right?
• 24:37
  That's the big goal. Then you have what you call there. They're also called result goals, right?
• 24:43
  They can be outcome or result goals
• 24:46
  Then you have what's called a process goal
• 24:48
  So the process goal if you think of like just a regular ladder
• 24:53
  Your big goal is at the top of the ladder, right?
• 24:56
  But you're at the bottom of the ladder and you have to try and figure out, okay
• 24:59
  How do I get to the top?
• 25:01
  The process goals are the rungs on the ladder
• 25:05
  So if you have a ladder that has a lot of rungs, it's going to be easier to climb, right?
• 25:12
  So the process goals are all the little things you need to do to get that book written
• 25:19
  so, you know
• 25:21
  maybe wrong one is coming up with an idea.
• 25:26
  You know, maybe wrong two is setting yourself a word count.
• 25:31
  And it's setting these smaller doable goals because
• 25:37
  if you're just looking at, I have to write a, and you know, some books are 150,000 words, right?
• 25:44
  Like, you know, in my genre, they're generally 95,000 words, right?
• 25:48
  So if you're looking at a 95,000 word book, that can be very overwhelming, especially
• 25:54
  if you're a newer writer and don't necessarily know how to get to that end.
• 26:00
  But if you set those smaller goals and you're hitting those smaller goals, it helps you
• 26:06
  build confidence and moves you to the next spot, right?
• 26:10
  So it's all about figuring out what the end goal is and then figuring out what you have
• 26:17
  to do to get there. What feels doable and not overwhelming.
• 26:21
  Right. That's good. I love the ladder analogy. My biggest problem is I keep adding rungs to the top.
• 26:27
  So my ladder is getting longer.
• 26:31
  You're losing your hold, isn't that the case at that point?
• 26:35
  Absolutely. That's exactly what it is. We tend to do that as well. You accomplish one thing
• 26:41
  and then you just bump the goal out a little bit further and it's finding something that'll...
• 26:46
  Is that the same thing?
• 26:49
  Is if you know, hey, I'm thinking of it like running I want to learn how to run
• 26:54
  Because that sounds terrible, but I'm gonna start off right
• 26:56
  I just want to run to the end of the street and then that that's my first goal
• 26:59
  But then because I made that goal
• 27:01
  I think that's the other thing that like Nick saying he moves that goal
• 27:04
  But it's it's also just a new goal together. I've made that first goal
• 27:07
  So now I build the next goal, which is I want to make it a mile, you know, or I've never made it a mile
• 27:13
  But I want to make it a quarter mile then I make it you know that far
• 27:16
  You know so it's kind of move it a little bit as opposed to the idea that you're moving the goal
• 27:21
  You're just creating new goals. So
• 27:23
  Yeah, and what it does for you too is going back to the mindset stuff. It's about oh my
• 27:31
  Original goal like is to run whatever the marathon, right?
• 27:35
  So my first goal was to run to the end of the block. I did that, right? And then it's oh
• 27:41
  Let me keep going I can run to you know rather than saying I will never be able to run a marathon
• 27:49
  It's hey, I made it to the end of the block
• 27:53
  You know, it's just it's a subtle shift, but it's
• 27:57
  it's looking at it in a more positive light because we are like
• 28:04
  80% and their science behind this 80% of our thoughts in a day are negative
• 28:10
  So we are just yeah, we are built to think negative thoughts.
• 28:17
  So we have to come up with ways to kind of combat that so we don't get mired down in it.
• 28:23
  So let me ask you this because also we can talk about this a lot of new authors feel that way as you're kind of going into this whole goal setting and trying to keep that healthy.
• 28:33
  but also experienced authors like us who've been around for a while have a, I mean, is there a way to,
• 28:40
  we keep adding not just new goals, but additional goals on top of that. And that's where I think
• 28:45
  sometimes we start finding ourselves becoming overwhelmed, at least I find myself, because I've,
• 28:51
  I've like, well, let me add this on, I want to do this too now, because I've heard about
• 28:56
  Facebook ads, and I've also heard about Pinterest, and I want to write letters like David Virgates,
• 29:00
  and I'm just nuts. So, yeah, so what is the way for us been around for a little bit more? We've got a lot more on our plate, we feel
• 29:07
  like we keep adding it to it.
• 29:09
  So it's about prioritization, right? And picking anywhere from say three to six goals, right? Three to six outcome goals. So
• 29:21
  three to six big goals. And then what that does is it helps you just to narrow down, okay, what am I working on?
• 29:30
  right now. It's about what feels doable.
• 29:34
  You know, and that's the thing like when I'm sitting down because I, you know,
• 29:37
  and as crazy as it is as much as I love talking about goal setting,
• 29:41
  I don't love goal setting because it gets
• 29:44
  overwhelming to me, right? So I will stick to,
• 29:48
  okay, these are the three things I am working on
• 29:51
  right now. Then I determine, okay, when do I want to have this done by?
• 29:56
  is this a one month goal, three month goal, six month goal?
• 30:02
  Like what is this?
• 30:04
  And then it's just about does this feel doable?
• 30:07
  Because we can set all of these lofty goals for ourselves,
• 30:12
  but then what happens when we can't hit the goal?
• 30:17
  We start to feel crummy about it,
• 30:19
  and then that's when our mindset takes a hit.
• 30:23
  So it's just about figuring out, is this doable for me?
• 30:28
  Can I physically write 5,000 words a day?
• 30:32
  If the answer is no, you need to adjust that goal
• 30:35
  because if you're not hitting 5,000 words,
• 30:37
  you're just gonna be like, oh, I can't do this,
• 30:41
  I'm just gonna quit.
• 30:42
  - Right, setting yourself up for failure, right?
• 30:44
  Yeah, and the word count thing is such a big deal
• 30:49
  in this industry, 'cause there's people
• 30:51
  that genuinely can sit down and mash out incredible word counts in short periods of time.
• 30:58
  And there's some that can do it for a relatively sustained period as well.
• 31:02
  And there's others that just don't work that way.
• 31:05
  And I think it's super important to find what works for you and understand that works for
• 31:10
  you because it's super easy if you're plotting stuff out.
• 31:13
  And I know this because I'm a guy with an Excel sheet that plans out my writing for
• 31:17
  a year.
• 31:18
  super easy to put on that spreadsheet. You know what? I'm going to do an extra this or an extra
• 31:24
  that number of words. And you plan this out. And next minute, your schedule that could be
• 31:29
  based around pre-orders is locked into this thing that's unrealistic. Right? And that, you know,
• 31:35
  again, if depending on if you're traditionally pubbed or independently pubbed, right? Because
• 31:41
  with indie pubbing, you're a small business owner, right? There's all these other, you know,
• 31:47
  You have to get your cover done.
• 31:49
  You have to line up your editors, right?
• 31:51
  There's all these things that need to be done.
• 31:54
  So it does get overwhelming.
• 31:57
  And figuring out what's doable, just asking the question,
• 32:01
  is this doable for me?
• 32:03
  And it just helps you--
• 32:05
  I can remember when I first started,
• 32:09
  I was part of an RWA chapter here in Chicago.
• 32:13
  And one of the more established authors
• 32:16
  gave a presentation and she said, "You need to protect your process."
• 32:20
  That has always stuck with me because first you have to figure out what the
• 32:24
  process is that works for you.
• 32:26
  And then when you do figure it out, you have to really stick to it.
• 32:31
  Like for me, I know I have to do my pages first thing in the morning because if I
• 32:37
  don't, all the other stuff that goes on in my brain is just going to hijack my
• 32:43
  brain and I'm toast.
• 32:45
  So I'm usually done with my pages by 10, 10, 30.
• 32:50
  And I literally schedule my days around that
• 32:53
  because that's my process.
• 32:54
  - I think the majority of writers kind of operate that way,
• 32:58
  but that's not the same for everyone.
• 32:59
  I've spoken to some people that have to get the business
• 33:03
  stuff cleared out.
• 33:04
  Like it's, they clear the slate so their mind's open
• 33:07
  to the creative side of things, which is,
• 33:10
  my brain doesn't work that way.
• 33:12
  It kind of works like, it sounds like yours does,
• 33:14
  But but it's interesting how everybody is different and you've got to recognize that well
• 33:18
  Yeah, and there's people who are gonna say there's people who are gonna who are who are gonna you don't want to fit
• 33:24
  I don't want to think just cuz hey writing first in the morning works for you guys means I should have to do it too
• 33:30
  Because that may not be me
• 33:31
  I may not I may be a it's midnight and I can write midnight to two in the morning
• 33:36
  And that's when my brain is the best could be that's if that's your process like you said
• 33:40
  I think that that's something that that we oftentimes say well, you know
• 33:44
  So-and-so said he's walking on the beach and dictating a thousand words every 15 minutes.
• 33:50
  So I need to do that.
• 33:51
  Well, that doesn't always work for you.
• 33:53
  So that may not be your mindset.
• 33:55
  So yeah.
• 33:56
  And, you know, yeah, you can try it.
• 33:58
  And then if it feels good, okay, I'll add this to my, you know, my process.
• 34:02
  If it doesn't feel good, you, you know, move on to something else.
• 34:06
  But, you know, I think it's just having that confidence to lean into what works for us
• 34:11
  and what doesn't work for us.
• 34:14
  We all kind of fall foul of the comparison it is right so that has to be something you spend a lot of time talking about with the folks you coach.
• 34:24
  And it really comes down to what's doable for us does it feel doable does it feel good i think a lot of times to.
• 34:35
  We don't pay attention to the signals our bodies give us right when something just doesn't feel good.
• 34:41
  We tend to just oh i can push through it i can push through it right but there's a lot to be said for you know when our instincts.
• 34:49
  Are telling us something yeah that's the reason that we have those we need to kind of start listening to him.
• 34:56
  My son play baseball all through college right so talk about a game of failure.
• 35:02
  And I often say to him, you know, baseball and publishing are similar games in that they're both games of failure, right?
• 35:09
  So he's a college coach now, but I had developed a mindset workshop for baseball players.
• 35:16
  And one of the exercises that I make them do in the workshop is I make them think about somebody that they admire and respect.
• 35:28
  And then I have them say, you know, whoever that person is,
• 35:34
  that person doesn't like me.
• 35:36
  Coach doesn't like me.
• 35:37
  Coach hates me.
• 35:39
  And I make them like really pay attention
• 35:42
  to how that feels in the body.
• 35:45
  It blows their mind every time, you know,
• 35:47
  because they're taking that moment to just pay attention
• 35:51
  to how their body is responding to the negativity.
• 35:56
  And I just, I think it's such an important part
• 35:58
  of all of this mindset is just paying attention
• 36:02
  to how we feel about certain things.
• 36:04
  - One of the other things we've talked about a lot
• 36:06
  and we always talk with our author friends a lot is,
• 36:09
  we laugh about FOMO, that fear of missing out.
• 36:12
  And one of the things that 10 years ago,
• 36:16
  there weren't many resources,
• 36:18
  especially for an indie author to pull from
• 36:20
  to know how to go.
• 36:21
  The tools were less, now we've got these brilliant things
• 36:24
  like Vellum and all these kinds of things that make our jobs so much easier.
• 36:27
  But what comes with all these resources we can tap into is FOMO.
• 36:32
  There's so much.
• 36:33
  You can be inundated and there's experts everywhere in every subject.
• 36:37
  Do you have any advice for helping especially emerging authors filter some of that?
• 36:43
  Well, and again, it's about prioritizing and figuring out a plan.
• 36:49
  you are totally overwhelmed, what's the first next best thing I can do? Because if you can
• 36:58
  break it down into smaller doable chunks, it doesn't feel so overwhelming. So if you're
• 37:05
  faced with whatever 10 different workshops to take or 10 different classes on Facebook
• 37:14
  ads, right? It's about, okay, of these 10, can I break it down to five? And then can
• 37:22
  I break it down to three? And then can I break it down to two, right? Just a step at a time,
• 37:29
  just making it more manageable.
• 37:31
  Let me ask you this though. What is something you're seeing, like, that's one major blind
• 37:35
  spot that you see authors make or these mistakes that they make again and again, both newer
• 37:41
  and experienced authors, it's kind of nice to know what blind spot I need to be watching out for too.
• 37:46
  So I don't know that it's necessarily mistakes. It's figuring out the things that trigger us
• 37:56
  into negative thinking, right? The habits that we have that may not be serving us. And again,
• 38:06
  It's going to be different for all of us, right?
• 38:09
  And I'm just using this as an example, right?
• 38:12
  You know, maybe we get feedback from an editor and maybe the feedback is a little negative
• 38:19
  and it trips us into that, oh my gosh, I'm never going to be a good writer because of this.
• 38:24
  Instead of like looking at it from the standpoint of, well, okay, maybe this will make me a better writer.
• 38:34
  And this is where the hard work really, because this stuff is not easy to do because for a lot of us, the negative thinking and the habits we have around negative thinking have been ingrained since childhood.
• 38:47
  It's about figuring out what those triggers are and how we can deal with them.
• 38:53
  One of the things, you know, I taught my former life was race cars and race car driving and for a long time I coached and taught in that then it has its day.
• 39:03
  But one of the things i can't came away with overall is is especially in teaching is your teaching a process you're teaching the person a process to get from a to b.
• 39:13
  So you're not necessary you know there's a lot of things you can do to teach especially in a sport like that and use baseball analogies you know you can teach people the techniques of swinging or pitching or what have you.
• 39:25
  But the most important lesson that everyone has to learn is how they personally.
• 39:30
  Build a process to get from a to b and i found that's one way of looking at it that you can start if you believe.
• 39:38
  That you have the skills to put in place a process to learn and improve then it kind of gets you away from going well man i can't do a lap as fast as that guy.
• 39:48
  Well, you didn't today and you might not be able to tomorrow, but do you think you can analyze the data and work on yourself to get there?
• 39:57
  I have a quick question, Nick. If you're a racetrack, wouldn't that just be from Ada?
• 40:02
  I worked in rallying too, so no.
• 40:04
  Oh, okay, sorry.
• 40:05
  Oh my gosh. Wow.
• 40:09
  Okay, Adrian, please continue with something sensible to say.
• 40:13
  Well, to your point, that's where it comes into the, "What's the next best thing I can
• 40:19
  do right now?"
• 40:20
  Right?
• 40:20
  It's figuring out what is that one small doable step.
• 40:24
  And then you do that one small doable step, and then you figure out what's the next small
• 40:28
  doable step.
• 40:30
  It just helps to take some of the overwhelm out of it, especially when you're looking
• 40:34
  at writing a book that's 150,000 words.
• 40:37
  Well, if I can't get 250 words down, how am I going to get to 150,000?
• 40:44
  Right? So then the goal becomes, let me just write 100 words.
• 40:49
  Yeah, rungs of the ladder. That's great. I love that analogy.
• 40:52
  So let me ask you this. Let's put you on the spot here.
• 40:54
  What's your personal biggest challenge that you find that you have to
• 41:00
  constantly work on to overcome as an author?
• 41:02
  Without question, am I good enough?
• 41:05
  Is it good enough? Is the work good enough? And it will probably be a lifelong challenge for me.
• 41:13
  You know, I've learned some, you know, I use the tools, I use the goal setting,
• 41:20
  but it is, it's, and I don't know if it's just something that's inherent with a creative career.
• 41:28
  I just did an article for Nink because I turned in a book. I'm a hybrid author. I have a
• 41:36
  traditionally published books and I have my own stuff that I do with indie pubbing. And I turned
• 41:42
  in a book around the holidays and I was on deadline and I was pushing and I was just exhausted when
• 41:50
  I turned in the book. And then after I turned in the book, instead of having that feeling of like,
• 41:56
  "Oh, I did that. I was, you know, wow, I'm done. I got it turned in." I went into full panic mode.
• 42:02
  It was like, "What if she hates it? What do I have?" Like, you know, and I just spiraled because I was
• 42:09
  so exhausted. And I learned something about myself that, "Okay, I need to watch out for this now.
• 42:16
  Next time, to have a conversation with the two-year-old inside me that says, "Take a minute."
• 42:25
  Relax like you're freaking out over nothing.
• 42:30
  I have that conversation, my two year old self all the time. It's usually.
• 42:35
  I think we all have a two year old inside of us that we just have to
• 42:38
  I've got twin two year olds inside of us.
• 42:42
  We just have to have a conversation with the two year old.
• 42:46
  So if we have an author listening today who,
• 42:49
  who might be feeling like their two year olds kind of scattered discourage,
• 42:53
  maybe unsure about what they're doing or what to focus on,
• 42:55
  What's a game planner?
• 42:56
  What's something you would tell them to do over say just the next seven days to get themselves kind of on the right mindset path?
• 43:04
  I think too, it depends on what the situation is, right?
• 43:07
  If it's if it's bad editor feedback, if they're, you know, having a writer's block or whatever, it's again, figuring out what's the thing that's going to get me moving, right?
• 43:21
  So when things are going really well
• 43:24
  and you're rocking along,
• 43:26
  what is in place for you that is making it work?
• 43:31
  And can you replicate that, right?
• 43:33
  So it's about just that moment of mindfulness,
• 43:37
  of thinking back to, okay, when things are really going well,
• 43:41
  what's happening around me?
• 43:43
  And figuring out, okay, well, this is why
• 43:47
  this is not working for me.
• 43:49
  maybe there is something that's not in place
• 43:52
  that needs to be in place.
• 43:55
  - Well, this has been outstanding.
• 43:57
  Thank you so much for giving us some time
• 43:59
  and we'll put the links to the Wheel of Life
• 44:02
  in the show notes and to your coaching and your books
• 44:06
  and all that good stuff.
• 44:07
  And we've got one more question for you here.
• 44:10
  We have a wheel of questions.
• 44:11
  - I'm ready.
• 44:12
  (laughs)
• 44:13
  - Doug's gonna spin the wheel.
• 44:15
  - Oh my gosh, I love the wheel.
• 44:17
  (wheel clicking)
• 44:18
  wheels. Amazing.
• 44:19
  Have I mentioned how much I love to play roulette? So like, I love
• 44:23
  roulette.
• 44:25
  Black, black, black. Okay. Well, you kind of already answered it,
• 44:28
  but we're going to ask what's the first thing you do in the
• 44:30
  morning?
• 44:31
  Actually, the first thing I do is I have 110 pound shepherd mix
• 44:37
  that he and I go for a walk first thing in the morning.
• 44:40
  Before I have coffee, you know, we come downstairs, we put our
• 44:44
  shoes on and we go. And I do that even we trump through snow. It's, uh, for me,
• 44:52
  it's just the fresh air. It's, I think it's the thing that triggers my brain to
• 44:59
  know, you know, this is the start of the day. So yeah, we go for a walk every
• 45:03
  morning.
• 45:04
  Besides P that's usually the very first thing, but, uh,
• 45:07
  Yeah, well, yeah,
• 45:08
  that's, that's your contribution.
• 45:10
  I mean, I'm just gonna say, but, uh, coffee, I'm going to start my coffee and
• 45:13
  and then go like generally what I do first thing is if I don't have to walk a dog, which
• 45:17
  sometimes I do, but if I don't then I do, we'll just get up and I do my wordle first
• 45:22
  thing in the morning and do my wordle and my little, and my wife, Ashley and I will
• 45:27
  do our little puzzles together and then I do do olingo and then I jump into whatever I'm
• 45:31
  working on that day.
• 45:32
  So Nicholas, what are you up to?
• 45:34
  Well, I was just going to suggest what you might want to do is get out of bed then P that's
• 45:38
  going to probably improve the start of your day.
• 45:41
  No, no.
• 45:41
  - Yeah, I'm gonna set up.
• 45:42
  I've got a little vacuum system, it's all perfect.
• 45:44
  I don't have to move.
• 45:46
  - That's more than we all wanted to know.
• 45:48
  Now I'm coffee.
• 45:49
  - As much as we laugh about it, again,
• 45:52
  we have these neural pathways in our brains, right?
• 45:54
  So these little habits that we have
• 45:58
  can sometimes trigger us to know,
• 46:01
  oh, it's time to start working now.
• 46:03
  - Yeah, yeah, those routines can really help.
• 46:06
  Adrienne, thank you so much for spending the time with us.
• 46:08
  We'd really appreciate it.
• 46:10
  Oh, you're quite welcome.
• 46:17
  Big thanks to Adrian.
• 46:18
  That was cool.
• 46:19
  Oh, yeah, man.
• 46:20
  Good conversation.
• 46:22
  Important conversation, right?
• 46:24
  I think that's something we do.
• 46:26
  And we've talked about this a lot, mindset, just being
• 46:29
  overwhelmed by everything, because there's so much that
• 46:31
  you have to do in this business to keep up with what's going on.
• 46:34
  Just to put a book out.
• 46:36
  You know, you got to get, you know, got to get the words down.
• 46:38
  Like she said, you have so many different goals.
• 46:40
  One to finish the book, one to get through all the stuff done to get edited and then get it
• 46:45
  ready to publish. And it can be a long thing and we can often just be inundated by it. So I don't
• 46:51
  know, you and I both talked about this before. So it can be a lot. Yeah. And I think we've got a
• 46:56
  few shows come in, have come out and will come out about this mental approach to the game and
• 47:01
  staying the course and staying strong in the course and using the support that's available.
• 47:05
  There are a lot of seasoned authors who have gotten out of it because it's just become too much too much of overwhelming.
• 47:12
  This is, you know, it's what you said and it's any job can be that way. You've got to be able to work balance everything.
• 47:18
  You know, imposter syndrome. That's another thing that.
• 47:21
  To boat just sink?
• 47:22
  No, but if it just rocked the side and everything went to one side.
• 47:30
  I thought we lost Doug there for a second.
• 47:31
  No, everything just kind of shifted all at once. It was like, huh?
• 47:35
  Recorded live folks, recorded live. No doubt.
• 47:37
  Couldn't get the video of it, but that's perfect.
• 47:39
  The video would have been gold, man, because the look on your face was like, oh, shit.
• 47:44
  All right. Well, this was a good one.
• 47:46
  Big thanks to our Patreon subscribers. Lovely bonus from Adrian that's in that bonus.
• 47:52
  So if you think you get belly from the show, guys, just nip on over to Patreon.
• 47:56
  The two authors podcast is the extension and subscribe. There's a free level.
• 48:01
  You can check out some stuff and for only $3 a month.
• 48:05
  $3 a month.
• 48:06
  $3 a month.
• 48:06
  You can keep Nick and Doug fed and housed.
• 48:10
  You can keep us in fabulosity.
• 48:12
  Fabulosity, that's right.
• 48:14
  Absolutely.
• 48:14
  Big thanks to our friends at Valom.
• 48:16
  Thank you guys for their support.
• 48:18
  If you're looking for your formatting solution, Valom is the one.
• 48:22
  Nothing better out there, people.
• 48:24
  The best.
• 48:24
  The best.
• 48:25
  It is fabulosity emboldened.
• 48:28
  Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
• 48:31
  And I told and I said something even worse than that in the beginning. You said that's badly using that word
• 48:37
  No, I still made it. It's your words. You're the judge of the word
• 48:41
  Fabulosity is who okay. That's that's not what you said, but that's good. I like that one. That's a catchphrase
• 48:46
  Well, no earlier. It's fabulosity comma emboldened
• 48:50
  But this time I said emboldened fabulosity. It means the same thing. It's just I I just rearranged the wording
• 48:57
  So thank you vellum. Anyway
• 49:01
  Yeah, until next time, be cool to each other.
• 49:04
  Sorry, I'm still adjusting from the boat.
• 49:06
  Fair wins in following the seas.
• 49:08
  You've been listening to the Two Authors podcast with Nicholas Harvey and Douglas Pratt.
• 49:14
  Subscribe on your favourite platform for new shows coming every week.
• 49:19
  (upbeat music)