Many Little Irons In The Fire - Diversifying Your Writing Income With Beth Revis

Mindy:   Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.

Mindy: We are here with Beth Revis who has a rather long and really interesting career in the writing world, and I love talking to Beth. Number one, she's interesting and she's funny. But number two, she has moved across all these different arenas in publishing. And I think she just has a really interesting story and has a lot of different things that she can talk about in terms of diversifying and writing outside of that traditional publishing box. So, if you could actually just start talking a little bit about your career because your career started with this huge bang. I remember I was not published yet, I was a YA librarian, and your first book Across The Universe came out and basically everyone was losing their minds. And that was even before it was released. I remember the publishing world being like, "everyone has to read this book." And even among educators and librarians, there was this humongous buzz for your first traditionally published series. So, if you could talk a little bit about what that is like - about coming out of the gate so hard right at the beginning.

Beth: It is freaking weird, man. I very distinctly remember that my publisher, before the book came out actually - this was before the book was out. One of the members of the team in the publishing department was speaking at the SCBWI. I think it was a national conference. It was something like that. And he kept talking about how much of an overnight success this book was going to be. He talked about it as if he had plucked me from obscurity, and there was this overnight success happening. I wasn't even at the conference. My friend texted to tell me about it, and I just couldn't stop laughing because I had been writing books for 10 years. I wrote 10 books over the course of 10 years. None of them were published. It wasn't an overnight success to me. It was a decade-long success before I saw anything at all in any return on it, and actually Across The Universe was the book that I was going to give up on. It was my hail Mary, last ditch effort. I just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick, and I didn't limit myself. I didn't try to think about markets or tropes. I was just like, "I just gotta do something," and it really was my last shot. And if that one hadn't sold, I do think that I would have quit writing. But fortunately, it did and everything changed. And it really was a perspective turn around to discover that sometimes dreams actually do come true.

Mindy: Yeah, they do. But one of the things that I think is so cool... Yes, it seemed like an overnight success to everyone else. You'd been working for a decade. I remember reading, I think, the first chapter of Across The Universe. Arcs weren't really that big of a deal yet. Somehow it was out digitally, maybe through a librarian outreach thing because I was at work and my boss was like, "Have you heard of this book? Have you heard of this person? That's all anyone is talking about." And at that point in my life, I had also been doing this for a decade, and I did not have an agent. And I did not have any success in any venue whatsoever. Didn't have short stories published. Had no agent. Had just been doing this for a decade and hurting. My boss knew this and she was like, "Oh my gosh, have you heard of this person and this book. Everyone is talking about it," and I was basically like, "No. I haven't. I don't wanna hear about someone else being so freaking successful." And then she was like, "No. Mindy, I think you need to read this." And I sat down bitter and angry, and I was just like, "Oh shit, this is really good." And it was really cool because all of my bitter grapes just got over-written entirely by my enthusiasm as a reader. This person deserves all of this. This person deserves all of the laurels and all of the credit. I think that that 10 years that you put in before you got any recognition is so clear and so obvious. It wasn't a trend. It wasn't a black swan. It wasn't something that just blew up and burned for 15 minutes and died. Your actual core talent was so obvious to me as someone that was also operating in those same worlds as both a writer and a reader.

Beth: I like to think that. But, I mean, there's a lot of talent in the world, and the more I'm in this industry, the more I'm realizing how much of this is also luck. And one of the reasons why the book reached the large audience that it did was 'cause I got really lucky in terms of opening at the start of the Sci-Fi trend and being there at the right time and having the right people support me. And there was just such a huge amount of luck involved in making that book work that I don't think I fully appreciated it until I got a little older and look around at the industry. 'Cause there's a lot of talent in this world, and it doesn't always get recognized, and that's the soul-crushing part of publishing. The writing is the art, but the publishing is the business. And sometimes in the business side of it, you just gotta end up lucky.

Mindy: I agree with that completely. And when I tell other people that, people that are outside of the industry, I think it comes off as false modesty and it's like... No. I know I'm a good writer. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, I'm aware that I'm good at what I do, but I also am very highly conscious of the fact that luck is such a huge player. I think it helps keep you humble, but also you have to recognize that you're absolutely right. I, and of course you as well, have been moving through the publishing industry for a long time now, and I encounter so many people that I will read their stuff, and no one has ever heard of them. And no one is aware of them. And I'm like, "This person is amazing. This person is a better writer than I am. This person should be hitting NYT." I think of it as both, again, as a reader and a writer, where I'm like, I want everyone to read about this book. I want everyone to know this book as a reader. I'm gonna share it with everyone I can think of. And there's that joy in that but then there's also, as a writer, that little, like for me, it's kind of like a fish hook buried inside of your donut - where it's like, I'm really enjoying this donut, but this is also reminding me that it doesn't matter how good you are. That's a horrible thing to realize.

Beth: It's the kind of thing that if somebody had told me that before I was published, I would have just brushed it off and completely ignored it. And honestly, if somebody had told me that when I was in the high of my debut year, which I debuted very well in terms of publishing as a business - that was a fantastic debut - and if somebody was like, "Oh yeah, but don't forget that there's a huge amount of luck involved," I would have just been like, "Oh, ha, ha ha. I get to be here." Since then, and having experienced a lot more and seeing the way things are... Yeah, there is a huge amount of luck. I absolutely thought that, especially after having written for a decade, that once I made it, that I would never have to worry about that again. But I have had books rejected by my agent. I have had books rejected by publishers. I've had books go on submission and not sell. Whole books that didn't sell all over again, and that just threw me back to those days before I was published. And I've had books that got published that were much quieter and they didn't make a stir. And there's a lot of people who don't even know they exist. And I've had some that just came out of left field that hit the right audience at the right time.

Mindy: Absolutely. That is the experience in a nutshell. I have, I believe, 13 books out at this point. Typically, when people talk to me, there's two titles that they talk to me about. They talk to me about The Female of the Species or they talk to me about A Madness So Discreet, and that's pretty much it. And I don't mind that. I absolutely love that people, number one, are reading my books and wanna come to my signings and show up and talk to me. But the two books that people talk to me about the most came out in 2014 and 2015. You worry. You're like, "Oh man, did I peak?"

Beth: Or did book marketing peak and no book marketer knows what to do anymore?

Mindy: That's true. Everything changed, didn't it?

Beth: I think it's not that much of a coincidence that YA hit like a hey day at a certain time period, in part, because of the books that came before. We had the blockbuster hits of Hunger Games, Twilight, and Harry Potter that boosted YA in a very significant way. But book publishing never knew what to do with social media, and when they started making marketing plans based on author social media presences, that was not a wise move on book marketing. And we've never really been able to recover from that, because book marketing continuously wants to have these free spaces where they can make a book become a hit. And what we're seeing now, especially with TikTok, is that what makes a book a hit is the readers. And if we can get the books to the readers as opposed to getting the books on social media, that's the key.

Mindy: You and I have talked off mic a lot about social media - and particularly TikTok. One of the things I think is so interesting about TikTok - and I'm giving you tons of compliments, and I know you may not necessarily want them - but you do a great job of making content, of putting things out there, and being active, especially in the TikTok space. I have talked to you plenty about the fact that I have just kind of fallen off of social media. There's multiple reasons for that. Right before the pandemic, I went through a break up that was really, really bad. And I was just kind of non-functional for about three months. I wasn't interested in anything. I was having a hard time with mental health and everything. And social media was very much like "talk about how great you are, and how great your books are, and how happy you are, and how successful everything is." I can't do that. So I just stopped posting.

Beth: But there's a point where that's what has to happen, and you should never, ever, ever, ever feel guilty about that. And anyone listening, also, don't feel guilty if you're not doing social media. Starting in 2018, my husband went into heart failure and he actually ended up needing a transplant. And I remember being in the hospital and having these conversations with hospice workers, and when you get to that level that's when they don't say, "Oh yeah. We'll do the surgery, and there's risks." They're like, "Well, what about the quality of life after surgery? Maybe you don't want it." I mean, that's the kind of conversations we were having with doctors. I remember getting a text from a friend who was like, "I know you're going through a lot. Do you want me to just take over your social media for you so it doesn't die?" And I was like, I could not give less of a care about social media at that point. I just completely didn't care about it. And my friend, who was coming from a really good place, and she knew that I like social media. I enjoy playing with the algorithms. I enjoy trying to make it work, but that was a point in my life where it did not matter. It absolutely did not matter to me, and I think that the key take away from that experience and from that memory is that social media actually doesn't matter. And you can always pick it up back later, if you want to. Like, your job is a writer. Your job is not a social media influencer.

Mindy: I had the exact same experience. I walked away for about three months. I just dropped and no one noticed. Nobody noticed. My sales were not affected in any way, and I did not lose followers. People were not like, "Oh, she hasn't posted in three days. Boring. Unfollow." No. None of those things happened, and so, like you, it made me really rethink, why am I spending two hours... And I would. I would spend about two hours every morning on social media interacting and reacting to other people's posts and making my own and doing all the things you're supposed to do. And I was like, Man, I'm spending two hours a day doing this. And when I stopped cold turkey, there was no effect.

Beth: None. Yeah. Doesn't really matter. It does matter that you can reach readers in some way when you are capable of doing so. Just because you write a book doesn't mean you have to open your life to anybody. But if you wanna reach readers, like social media is a good tool for that. I look at it as a good tool for this network where you might not subscribe to my newsletter but maybe you'll see this tweet or something like that. And I do kinda look at social media as this fun little gamble game where I try to outwit the algorithm. I absolutely am not going to invest my life behind the mask of social media. That's not where my art is. My art is in my book.

Mindy: I agree. I agree completely, and my art is not in front of a camera - in front of my laptop without the camera on. See, it's funny because I said that and then I realized just at that moment that I have one knuckle halfway up my nose as I scratch my own. And I was just like, "Man, it's a damn good thing the camera isn't on." Following back up real quick on TikTok, 'cause that is the social media that everyone's talking about right now, especially in the book world. I mean, you know, I've told you multiple times. I just hate it. And I have a hard time finding any success, but also just like everything about it makes me feel slightly woozy. One of the things that I do appreciate and like about it, as you said, it really is driven by the readers more than anything. The readers are the ones that are creating the content that tends to go viral or really break somebody out. I think writers can move that needle if they're doing the work and putting themselves out there like you do. Colleen Hoover, for example.

Beth: Oh yeah.

Mindy: You know, that's all driven by readers. Those are other people using that platform to talk about what books that they love, and for me, that's organic. And if for some reason BookTok were to take off for me, there's a feeling inside of me that it's like... Maybe I'm not necessarily missing out on this because for me what seems to actually work is the readers creating the content.

Beth: Oh, absolutely. To me, social media is where I build a community, because that's where I can talk to readers. That's where I can tell them things. It's not about selling books. It's about building the community, and if some people who like being in my little circle of community, also wanna support you with books, that's awesome. Any major book sales are not going to come from me getting on Twitter and doing a little song and dance. What I do on social media is much more about just reaching out and talking and being a part of a community than like "buy my book! Buy my book!"

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Mindy: Going back to the trajectory of your career. You had your Across The Universe trilogy come out to, as we were saying, just amazing acclaim. It did so well. And then I wanna talk about The Body Electric. It came out in 2014. At that point in the realm of publishing, the self-publishing and indie publishing world was still very much at that point, I think, considered a second rate shot. Considered something that you do if you can't get something into trad. This is where lesser than books land. So I remember when The Body Electric came out, and it was self-published. And I was just like, "Wait a minute." As someone that moves in the industry, I was like, "Beth Revis is incredibly talented and really smart and knows what she's doing, and she's a great writer. And she self-published a book." And it really was a book that made me go, "Oh, wait a minute." This is a legitimate option, number one. And number two, the quality of that book, and I don't just mean the writing - the cover, the design... I remember seeing it on the shelves at SE-YA, which is the Southeastern Young Adult Book Festival, and no part of me looked at that and thought that is a self-published book. Everything about it looked like a trad book, and I was just like, "I thought that was self-published. It can't be. It looks too professional." So if you could talk a little bit about The Body Electric, which was, I believe, your first foray outside of the trad world, and why The Body Electric and why the route you took and how you managed to make it look so professional.

Beth: Talking about timing from before... When Across The Universe came out, it was a good timing in that the market really wanted sci-fi and it really had a lot of publisher support for it, and there was a mini trend of sci-fi. This was also close to the same time. Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner's book came out very soon after that. There was a grounding for sci-fi, but, just to tell you how quickly trends change... Three years later, by the time Shades of Earth, the last book in the trilogy, came out, my publisher was like, "Oh, by the way. Now, sci-fi is dead." Had to be news to me because I still like it. I still wanted to write it. And I actually had already written The Body Electric and I was working with my publisher. They started off as a three-book deal. There were going to be three books following The Body Electric, and it was what was happening on Earth while Amy and Elder were in space in Across The Universe. I thought it was a good pitch. It was linked to the series. I thought it was good. My publisher thought it was good when they bought it, and by the time I sold it as a pitch to here's the complete book - and by which I mean we went through line edits, developmental edits. We were at the copy editing stage when my publisher was like, "Oh, we just don't think sci-fi's gonna sell anymore." So they were still gonna honor my book deal. They wanted three books from me still. They just didn't want that book or that series.

I remember very distinctly when I got the call from my agent about it because this was also the time period where I was trying to get pregnant. And I was in the parking lot after having an acupuncture session to prep me for IVF after having realized that I was still not pregnant which, anyone who's been through that, is not a happy time period. And then my agent cause and they're like, "they want any book from you but that one." But it's done. It was done forever. I was expecting copy edits, and instead I got the book basically being canceled. The book deal wasn't canceled, which was good for my finances, but the book itself was not gonna go anywhere. And so I had here this complete book that had been professionally edited and no where to go with it. I was locked into a contract, so I couldn't sell it to another publisher until the other three books of the contract were fulfilled, but I could self-publish it. And I had already self-published the Paper Hearts books, which were writing advice. That one started off as blog posts that I turned into a book because readers kept asking me for a format that they can highlight and take notes in. And so I kind of knew the system, and I was like, "Well, I might as well try it." And you're right. There was a lot of stigma. I remember I had people flat out ask me, they're like, "You're failing now. So now you're self-publishing. Oh, so you're just washed up and you failed." Regardless, I just wanted to take a shot. I wanted to see if I could do it. And I had this book done and I loved the book. And I just wanted to see if it was possible. So I invested a lot of time and money to learn the system. I hired professionals to finish the editing process - the graphic design, the cover, everything. And I love that little book, and it did pretty well for a self-published title. And looking back now, I wish I had kept that momentum going. I wish I had continued to always self-publish on the side.

Mindy: I've talked before on the blog about the fact that I also write underneath a pen name and have self-published underneath that pen name. You mentioned the Paper Hearts series, and I said earlier I wanted to talk about how you have diversified in so many ways. And I realize that your Paper Hearts series and your writing advice books likely aren't pulling in a ton of money for you, but it is still something that you have out there that is a venue for you that you can promote to people, if you need to. You have all kinds of workbooks as well as just publishing advice there. And so just for listeners as well, the Paper Hearts books are just fantastic. And they're very, very helpful. You had said that that was something that came out of re-purposing blog posts and putting some writing advice out there. This might sound a little bit heartless, but when I'm at a conference or a signing and there's someone that's like, "Hey, can you give me some writing advice?"

Beth: Yeah.

Mindy: That's like, "Hey, can you explain the cosmos?" Just real quick here. 12 minutes while I'm in line. Whenever this happens, I just like, "Hey, I've got a blog and I got a podcast, and just go hit those up. And this is the website." When you decided to do the Paper Hearts, was it kindness of your heart? Was it now I have somewhere to direct people that want that advice? Or were you thinking, maybe I can make some money too?

Beth: Everything really. I originally started on my blog because I had the long publishing career. I was doing blogs for years before I got my book deal. I was on submission for things, but I hadn't gotten the book deal yet. As my first book came out, as I went through edits, I recorded everything on the blog, and I really wasn't going to publish it until I had people asking me for it. And then I realized, "Oh, people do want it, and that would be the kind of thing I would want." It's like a super chatty, but very realistic, factual, not holding things back and sugar coating things, way of explaining the industry and the process and the craft of writing and the process of publishing, and even marketing a little bit. The blogs are all still up there. So you're more than welcome to go through it, anybody who wants to search through the Internet. I just compiled them into one format, and what I was really focusing on at the time, as I was developing them, was this idea that was forming of how I still really wanted to teach. 

I started my career as a teacher. I worked for six years as a high school English teacher. I loved the teaching process. I hated the education system, but I loved the teaching process and being in the classroom with students. We had a creative writing club. We had a literary journal. It was a wonderful time. I truly enjoy teaching, and I feel like I learn something better when I teach it. And so fortunately, at the same time that people were asking for the print book of Paper Hearts, a friend of mine, Cristin Terrill, said that she had done some workshop retreats when she lived in England, and she was in America now. And she wanted to sort of re-create that atmosphere here. And I was like, "Oh. Well, I've been sort of thinking about teaching and writing this non-fiction book and making workshops." And those two ideas all melded together. It was Paper Hearts and the Wordsmith Workshop Retreats. So we started doing the retreats. The very first retreat, we kinda did it in my backyard. We did it in Asheville, and I brought the first printed copies of Paper Hearts and gave them out to everybody who attended. That's how closely tied those two ventures were, and we just started teaching workshops. We expanded to do online things, especially during the pandemic. Giving back to the community, but also integrating everything into a workshop, educational symposium-style type thing.

Mindy: Those... Having that hook as well that you're able to teach and that writers can come to you as well as readers, it opens up venues for you in terms of teaching gigs, but also just appearances and writing workshops where you can get paid. It's another feather in your cap.

Beth: Yeah. I also I think it's kind of nice when I'm teaching a workshop to be like, "Oh, and here's this workbook and you get to write in it and keep it and everything's organized."

Mindy: So I wanna talk more about just your career in general. I wanna mention all your books because they're all so great. You went on... You wrote the Give the Dark My Love series. You wrote A World Without You. You've written many, many short stories that are in anthologies - different anthologies. You were able to do some IP work with Star Wars, which is just so awesome. But what I wanna talk about next is the Museum of Magic, which is a book that is available now, and this started as a Kindle Vella. You were an early adopter of Vella. Talk a little bit about Vella and what it is and how you utilized it as a writer.

Beth: Vella came about at the perfect time for me, because I was sort of in-between books. I was questioning what genre I wanted to focus in on. I had done the IP work. I didn't quite know where I wanted to go. And when Vella was announced, I had actually been looking at an old book of mine I had written called Blood and Feathers. It was a fantasy novel that I adored and I spent years working on and building the world and building the magic system. And it never found a publishing home. And I was thinking of self-publishing it, but really doubting whether I had the chops to dive back into self-publishing. And then Kindle Vella was announced and I thought, well, that might be a good place for this book that I already have written. But I knew I wanted to rewrite it because I'd originally intended it to be like a series. I was like, I just wanna make it a stand alone. And so as I was re-writing it chapter by chapter, I was uploading it on Kindle Vella and giving readers a chance to vote... Very much inspired by Susan Dennard and the Twitter voting poll she did for Luminaries. Which character the main character should trust and things like that. That one did okay, and I really liked that interaction. And I wanted to find a way to take that interaction to the next level. And I've still really enjoyed doing Vella, and I decided I was going to write something specifically for Vella where every single chapter would be determined by reader votes. And to kinda take it even to a more chaotic level, I was going to write every chapter as if I were in a D&D session, and I would roll dice and flip coins and do other chance-like things to determine what would happen in the chapter. And I filmed that and put it on my Patreon for my patreon readers to see how the chaos happens. Then I let them all vote on like a major decision. It's not just like, what color t-shirt should she wear? It's, should she fight this guy or hide? Should she go down this path or that path? And the story evolved so much as I was writing it. My original plan for this was just like a girl kind of questing for these items so that she could fix a broken spell, and it became like this deep dive into history and feminism and politics and fairy lore and so much more. It is just sort of spun out of control in the best possible way.

Mindy: That's wonderful. And I know that you have had continued success with Vella. We talked quite a bit about Vella, and the serial world can be very hit or miss. I think that discoverability is a problem everywhere. It's getting your book visible - your Vella visible. It's more integral to your success. When we're talking about serials, it is marketing to a different audience, because my readers that wanna read my books, my physical books and hold them, I have not had much luck getting them to jump over to serial. So what's your experience been like with that?

Beth: Yeah, it's a totally different platform. It's something, especially in Kindle Vella, it kind of requires you to read either on your computer or your laptop or your Kindle device, if you have one of those. A lot of young adult readers right now tend to really value print books. I actually don't know how well the serials would have done, if it was just one. I think that's one reason why Blood and Feathers kind of struggled to find a home because I intended it to be a stand-alone. But as I was writing Museum of Magic, the fact that I could draw it out longer, but I split it up into books. So now I have a print book version of it, which I'm hoping my print readers will enjoy, but they could dive straight into the sequel and see the sequel happening as it comes, as opposed to waiting a year for it to happen. You can see the process, and I kinda hope that this is showing some of my readers that I'm working all the time. You only get a book from me once or twice a year, but I'm working all the time. And maybe now people can see that the fruits of my labor, as opposed to intermittently through the years, is happening literally every day.

Mindy: Absolutely, and that's something that people don't necessarily realize how much of a hustle - which is really one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you, is that hustle. You are constantly doing something. And I used to be that driven. I'm hoping to get back to it. You mentioned your Patreon, and you obviously do a lot of stuff with that and you're finding new and different ways to reach readers. The whole idea of absolute chance and flipping a coin and rolling the dice and videoing that and putting that material up for your Patreon. That is all so outside of the box of anything that I learned coming up 15 years ago, and I think it's just really wonderful that you have diversified yourself to the point where you've got a presence in all these different little avenues.

Beth: I mean, to be clear, if I were independently wealthy, you guys would never heard from me again. I mean, I love you guys, and I love writing. And writing is my art, but the hustle is really exhausting, and I am tired all the time. I'm currently chugging a green tea as I talk to you. I mean, part of this diversification absolutely comes from desperation. And I do wanna reiterate that it's not like I'm some super woman who has all the time in the world, and I'm just playing and flipping coins for fun. Part of this is from desperation. I had to find ways where I could write more books and reach more readers.

I mentioned my husband had a heart transplant, and I am still literally paying for a human heart. And they are expensive, especially when you don't get them off the black market, and it's just ridiculous. And I'm also the soul bread winner, and taking care of my son and my husband, and I did have several hard moments. I'm even gonna say it's one, it was many times, when I'm like, "Okay, can I even make this career continue to work for my family, or do I need to just literally do anything else with a salary?" And the freelance world is hard, and it is about diversification. And it's one reason why I wish I had continued self-publishing after The Body Electric. It's one reason why I'm doing all these different revenue streams. I describe it as having lots of little irons in the fire. With Across The Universe, despite the fact that I wrote it while I was teaching, I only really had two irons in that fire. I was teaching and getting my day job money. And then I was working on this one novel, and that was the only creative pursuit I had going. I cannot afford to just have one or two irons in the fire. I have to have a dozen irons in the fire and constantly be stoking the flames and trying to beat them into a livable income for my family. That also forced me to be creative in ways that I actually really have grown to love and like. With writing a serial novel, one reason why I do the coin flips and the dice rolls and things like that is because it keeps it interesting for me. I hope it's fun for the reader, but it's also very fun for me. And I don't have to carry the whole book in my head. I just have to carry some dice in my pocket and then see where the story will take me and kind of explore that. So it keeps it fresh and entertaining and something that I can do, because if I was writing just straight up three and five novels all at one time, I would get burnt out. I can think just a dice roll ahead for Museum of Magic, and that enables me to keep writing it.

Mindy: I agree so much about the hustle and how exhausting it is. People ask me all the time, "How do you do everything that you do?" And the answer is, "I don't have a choice."

Beth: Yeah, right.

Mindy: I make a living off of speaking appearances and signings and library visits, school visits. Obviously book sales come into that, but I can't control book sales. So much of what I do is me just trying to figure out something else, something else, something else. What else can I do? What is different? What is new? And you do get tired of chasing that. What is new? Because what is new may not always be successful or work. You hear so many things blossom and then die on the vine. I have been involved in projects that were the hot thing going and then six months later, by the time we had something available, it was no longer something people were interested in, and things would release and it just didn't really matter. But you never know what is gonna actually stick around for the long term or where you should invest your time, and you're literally rolling the dice and that's what we do. You were talking about... You remember when you were working and writing. I remember that as well. I was a librarian. I didn't make a lot of money because I was an aid, but I was working in a school full-time. So I had retirement. I had health insurance. Yes, it was weirdly a more restful time when I was working full-time and writing. And now I am scattered, but not in a bad way. Like you're saying, I'm diversified is the better word.

Beth: I think it's interesting that you brought up control though. Because with traditional book deals, we have control over our art, but we don't have control over whether or not it sells.

Mindy: Absolutely.

Beth: And that's the thing that can kill a freelance career. It only takes one or two books not selling for you to not have income for years. That lack of control is really the reason why I have leaned so heavily into this determined idea of always having something self-published as well as traditional published. 'Cause I make a lot more money with a traditional published book, and I know this is not true for everyone, but it's true for me - is that I make my money with traditional publishing. But if I can self-publish and get a set amount of money per month that is somewhat reliable, that is the bridge between those, and that is something that I control. I took November off for the first time in two years. I took some time off from writing all the time constantly, and I did not get any income. And I had to factor in my budget to realize that for the month of November and most of December, I was not gonna have any income. But outside of those times when I choose to take off, having some element of control of how much I'll get paid, or at least knowing something's coming, is actually a big help that traditional publishing can't give me.

Mindy: I explain to people very often that I get paid from that traditional gig, which is the main bread and butter, when you're on a book a year contract - once a year. And if you are working towards the future, if you're turning in a book on that year or if you have a contract come in, you might get paid twice a year. Then you're just... Well, gee. I hope I have enough money to make it until I get paid again. Anything that has to do with traditional life, like you were saying... You very suddenly had a health emergency. And that's something that just, quite frankly, we're fucked when something like that happens.

Beth: Oh yeah. The GoFundMe that somebody made, a friend of mine made it for me, but that's the only reason why I could continue to be a writer. It wasn't even that much comparatively, but quite frankly, the GoFundMe saved my career.

Mindy: Yeah. Yeah, and those are the kinds of things that we do have to rely on sometimes in order to keep us going. Thank God for readers and fans and supporters. Lord knows, I have been fortunate enough to not have any health emergencies in my life. But like you, I am self-employed, and I think about that all the time because I travel so much. Last fall, I was driving for three weeks. I was across the entire West doing school visits, and the whole time I was like, "Don't get in a goddamn car crash." It's like, do not crash your car because every cent that you made on this trip will go towards fixing you and more than likely, way more than that. So yeah, it's scary. You really are counting on the universe to look out for you when you choose this path.

Beth: Especially after the emergency of the health crisis, it made it fundamentally apparent that we only have an illusion of a safety net underneath us. Just like when Across The Universe came out and I thought, "Oh, I've made it. I'll never have to worry about this again. Surely, I will always be able to sell a book." Actually, that's just false, and our safety nets are made out of spider silk. And they're not gonna hold us up under necessarily big emergencies. And really the only thing we have left is our community and our art and hoping that can be enough.

Mindy: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. Last thing, why don't you let readers know where they can find you online. I know that as we said, you've got so many different irons in the fire. So go ahead and talk about those and where people can find them and support you.

Beth: Yeah, I'm kind of everywhere. On most social media, you can easily find me by just searching my name - Beth Revis. I'm on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. I have a newsletter at Substack - Beth Revis dot Substack dot com, and I send that out monthly, and that is the most reliable place to always keep up with everything I do. You can find me at Beth Revis dot com, and my Patreon is patreon dot-com slash Beth Revis. I'm obsessed with making sure that the Patreon is worthwhile. So every Sunday, I upload a new chapter of the novel. Every Tuesday, I show you how I outlined the next chapter of the novel. Every Thursday, there is a writing post which can include a 30-minute video writing or Round Table critiques or just general writing advice and... Oh, I think that might be it.

Mindy: That's incredible.

Mindy:     Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.

Non-Fiction Writer Stacy Ennis On Writing to Make Money

Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.

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Mindy: We're here with Stacy Ennis, who is an author and an entrepreneur, who describes herself as a location independent entrepreneur - meaning that she has moved her business and worked as a freelancer independently in four different countries at this point. So she's gonna talk to us a little bit today about different things that authors can do to find success. Everything from branding to marketing, to all different kinds of avenues of success for authors. So why don't we just start out by you telling us a little bit about what you do and what it means to be location independent.

Stacy: First of all, I am super excited about our conversation 'cause I don't get to talk shop very often. So I've been really looking forward to this. I've been in business for 13 years. I started my business back when I lived in the Dominican Republic. I was a teacher. I taught high school Language Arts, and then continued building that business when we moved to Vietnam and then to Ohio where I got my master's in writing. And then to Idaho where I'm from, and then to Thailand, and now we're in Portugal. Nobody's story is linear. As writers, we're trying to find a path that will let us do the thing that we love most in the world, and we have to be really creative with that. So my first business iteration was called Freelance Expat. I had this brilliant idea that I was going to go around to all the restaurants and businesses and help them have better signs and menus. Turns out that nobody wanted to hire me. I worked in the magazine world for a long time. As we do, we try different things until we find something that sticks, and eventually I got into ghostwriting and I worked in the magazine world for a while - ran Sam's Club's magazine, Healthy Living Made Simple. And then I worked with a Nobel Prize winner for four years as a ghostwriter, and that was so educational, so interesting. And I think both of those things were really catalyst for what I do now, which is I have a team of writers, editors, just phenomenal people that help bring ideas into the world via books. So I get to be like a book sherpa in some ways. So it's pretty cool.

Mindy: You're so right about how we find our way to what we do through circuitous routes sometimes. They never know what is gonna come up next, and it's something that people that work in jobs that are a little more traditional or a little more focused... Sometimes when I talk about my career, how I operate... Like right now, for example, I've been on the road for a little over two weeks. I drove from Ohio to Kansas two weeks ago with my car, probably un-safely loaded with books. And I have a series of school visits out here across Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. So I have just been living out of my car and living in hotels for two weeks, and I got another week left. Obviously, I had these school visits planned. I have no idea how many books I'm going to sell, how lucrative it may or may not be on that end. And I just put every single book I owned of my own into the car, and I drove out here and I'm like, "Well, I hope I make some money." When I talk about that and how I operate as a freelancer - you don't know how much money you're gonna make year to year. And as a writer, you don't know if you're gonna get the next idea. If your editor is gonna like the idea. If your publishing house will buy the idea. You don't know. And there's just not a lot of security, obviously. No insurance. No... I have insurance, but I have to pay for it. They don't have retirement. I don't have a 401K. And when I talk about these things, all of my friends that have a traditional job just like break out in hives.

Stacy: Sure. Yeah, 'cause it's scary, right? Having an unknown path, unknown destiny, but it's also thrilling at the same time. 'Cause there's so much adventure ahead of you.

Mindy: Absolutely. I enjoy taking risks and try my best to curve my expenses when I'm on the road. And I was telling my friend last night, when you're traveling like this you end up with these weird windows of not having anywhere to go. So it's like, I gotta check out of this hotel in about 45 minutes and I can't get into my next one until 4 o'clock. And I just kinda got six hours to knock around in my car, and my next hotel is only 20 minutes away. And so it's like, "What shall I do with myself today?" It can wear you down, but generally, I just enjoy being a little bit more free, a little bit unstructured. So talk to me a little bit about someone who wants to be a writer who might be scared of that kind of approach to life.

Stacy: I would say that I have less of an appetite for the uncertainty. I love risk. I'm actually a big risk-taker, but I also have a family that I support. My husband's a stay-at-home dad, and so actually a big focus of mine has been on stabilizing my business and ensuring that I'm growing year over year. Also, we've made some location decisions that take off some of the burden that we had in the US. You mentioned healthcare, right?

Mindy: Yes.

Stacy: So that's one of the great things about the lifestyle that we built is that you actually can make decisions that are supportive of the life and the business that you want, that can also lend some of that stability, but also adventure and fun. So I fell in love, probably like many of the listeners did, with books when I was very young, and at age 7, I knew I wanted to be a writer. What's interesting is that going into that career field, I felt like I always had this message that I was just gonna be like a starving artist. And that was the only path that was available to me. And it was a really limiting mindset, and then I went into teaching just as a post bachelor's "I don't know what to do, but I wanna travel," and quickly realized that working 80 hours a week and making what I was making just was not gonna fly in my life long term. And I read this book, The Well-Fed Writer, by Peter Bowerman. It's gotta be like 2006. It's gotta be really old by now. Really important mindset shift for me. So, the whole point of this book is to make $60,000 a year as a writer. That's the goal that he sets forward for you. You know, to me, that was a crazy amount of money 'cause I was a teacher at the time, and that just seemed like, "Wow, if I could do that, I have arrived."

Mindy: Right.

Stacy: But one of the things that I thought was so internally shifting for me was this idea of utilizing my craft, of my talent, my love, in a way that actually makes money. Not feeling like guilt for using that to earn my income. I kind of always had this idea that that was bastardizing. You know the craft. If I used my talent and skill to earn money, there was something wrong with that. And so that was a big shift. And interestingly, later on, when I went to grad school at the University of Cincinnati, I was in a professional writing program. We had a creative writing program. I actually got that from one very vocal colleague of mine that gave me a lot of hate pursuing this path that I could actually make a good living. Thankfully, I was steeled enough in this idea that you could be working at Starbucks suffering for your manuscript at night, or you could actually be making decent money as a writer or editor, and also pursuing your craft. Why does that have to be a problem? For me, that was huge because I started to think about "What if I could actually have a really abundant life and actually really like what I do?" That was a really interesting shift for me.

Mindy: I love the conversation because I am very familiar with the feeling. Selling out, right? Are you going to make art and be that character of the starving artist that's talented and amazing and just getting by and dies at the age of 35 of tuberculosis, right? Or are going to farm yourself out and use your skills and ghostwrite or co-write or churn out material for other people or for a company and actually make some damn money. I know. I too, when I was younger, was all "do it for the art and be a pure artist and write what you want and don't force things that you don't like." And now I'm just like, "You'll pay me to write a non-fiction proposal about something that I think is utterly ludicrous? Yes. Tell me how much you pay me. I'll make it work." At the end of the day, we might be creatives, but we're also human beings with bodies. And those bodies need to be fed and they need to be sheltered, and we have to pay the bills somehow. So I'm very familiar with this argument. I've had it with myself multiple times. I have been a starving artist, and I have also found ways to make money. I've mentioned multiple times on the podcast, I also write underneath a pen name. And my pen name is absolutely ridiculous silly, silly fluff. When I started doing it, part of me was just like, "Oh man, is this really something you wanna do with your time?" And it makes money. And it's fun. I'm just churning silliness. And it works. You know, I write dark stuff, hard stuff, difficult things, hard topics. That can really drag me down sometimes, and so I'm writing that under my real name. And then I go and I write ridiculous things under my pen name, and it's a relief and I can make money doing both. And I don't have to have a sense of absolute pride in my creativity in this monument to art that I have produced underneath my pen name. I'm like, "Nope, that pays the bills, and I'm good with it."

Stacy: Yes, yes, yes. And well, there's two points there that I'd love to touch on. One is that mindset shift and also that joy that you get that actually feeds your creativity, and that's so important. But then also to build on our earlier discussion on mindset, there's also another level mindset that I found along my journey, and I'd be curious to know if this is true for you too. So first, I had to come around to this idea that - oh, I could actually make a living using my talent and skill and actually something I really enjoy, and it could be more money than I'm actually making now. And potentially, I could have a more abundant life than I have right now. But then there was, I would say maybe... 'cause I've been in business for 13 years, so I'd say maybe the first five, six years where I kind of accepted that I was still not gonna do that well. I'm doing pretty well and maybe I should just be okay with that. And then there was a point when I kinda lifted my head up and was able to kind of anchor in the value that I bring to the clients that I was working with, and I would say this holds really true today.

You know, you mentioned your proposal. I'll talk about non-fiction ghostwriting. When you bring this skill to another human who has something that is so deeply meaningful to them, and you're able to bring this skill and collaborate with them to bring to fruition that they never could have done on their own. So together, you're making something that neither of you could have created. This is beautiful collaboration. That is so valuable. It's more valuable than X dollars an hour. It's more valuable than like, Oh, I could never charge more than X dollars on this type of project. And so I started to recognize that in myself and the value that I bring in the world, and I actually started to divorce myself from market rates. So I actually don't even look at them anymore. That was a huge shift for me, and I think I would be in a very different place if I had always made my pricing decisions based on what other people were dictating my value as.

Mindy: Well, and that's the other thing. When you have a skill, and I run into this a lot with other writers too that offer editorial services or ghostwriting services, even writers that are doing Zoom calls and school visits - people don't want to charge what they're worth. But, often also in the area of the literary world that I move in, it is highly populated by women and women often will not ask what they're worth. It's something that I have started to realize that I wasn't charging enough for a school visit, for a Zoom call, for a library visit, for my editorial rates, I wasn't charging enough. Over the course of the past, maybe, three to five years I have started to raise my rates and people will still pay for it because they recognize the value. Now, at the same time, I will add that when it comes to my school visits and my library visits, I try really, really hard to make myself available. 'Cause I grew up in the middle of nowhere, and I try really hard to make myself available to school districts and libraries that don't have the opportunity to bring somebody in. So for example, like I said, right now, I'm on the road, and there was a really tiny community library in Arkansas that wanted to get me, and I gave him a price and they're like, we can't afford that. And I cut it in half and they were like, "Let us talk to our board. We can't give you anything." Well then, another library 15 minutes away from that one was like, "Hey, we heard you're gonna be here. Will you come?" And I was like, "Yeah," and I gave them my rate, and they were like, "Yeah, no problem." So I emailed the first little library back and I was like, "Listen, I'm gonna be right down the road. I'll do this visit for them. They're gonna pay me. I'm in the area. I'll pop over to yours, and I'll do yours for free."

Stacy: I love that.

Mindy: They were so excited, and it was a wonderful visit. Like it was lovely. And so I always try to have that little balance of, if you can afford me, I am going to ask for what I am worth and what you can afford. And if you can't afford me, I am going to work with you. I do try to move through the world aware of one thing - of the privilege that I have now. That people even want to pay me to show up, right? That is a balance of what I'm worth versus what people can afford, and occasionally finding a space in between.

Stacy: Yes. I love that so much. And it's interesting, since I niche in business and leadership, they see books partially as a marketing investment. So they're coming with an expectation to pay. Like you, I look for opportunities to invest my time freely in other places that I can be giving. That is enabled by charging what I'm worth in other settings, right? 'Cause if I wasn't doing that, I would be so frantic looking for the next gig and not have enough time. Really deeply believe that when you charge what you're worth and then add 20%, 'cause it's probably... Especially if you're a female listening, that really allows you to show up with generosity in other communities.

Mindy: Absolutely, I agree with that. Showing up with generosity because I can. Because this library has plenty of money, and they didn't even blink when I gave them my rate, I'll just show up for you for free. And I love that feeling of being able to do that. I get to do both. Like, I get to make money today, and I get to give back. It's a lovely feeling.

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Mindy: So moving on then into talking about writing as a job and writing as a business. Tell me about some ways that writers... Finding little ways that they can try to make some money apart from their own creative endeavors, their own works of the heart.

Stacy: One of my top pieces of advice for anybody that's getting into writing, maybe it's a second career or maybe they're younger and they're getting into this field, is to pick a professional niche. So pick something where people actually have money and they are expecting to spend money with you. This is part of why I find it can be really difficult editing fiction. Brand new fiction authors often have no budget. It's difficult. It's not that you shouldn't follow that calling, if that's where you're feeling called. But I have found that if you really wanna build a business that is consistently bringing in solid cash flow, that's supporting not just an okay lifestyle but a great lifestyle, pick a professional niche. So for a long time, I worked within health and nutrition. And so I mentioned that Healthy Living Made Simple magazine that I worked with. I mentioned the Noble Prize winner I worked with. And then I also worked - actually, my grad degree - I had a funding through working at a research journal. So I worked at a scientific journal during grad school as well. That was a great niche because again, people that wanna work with, at the time I was mostly editing eventually got into ghostwriting, they have budgets. And that's important. You don't wanna have to convince people of the fact that they need to spend money on you. I know early on I used to get a lot of emails that I bet you've gotten Mindy, and lots of people, where people wanna quote unquote "partner with you." They'll share the royalty at the end of the project if only you'll come in and edit the book. And I feel for those authors because the process of writing and publishing a book is like a baby, and I'm not being dismissive of that.

It's just that I also, again, I'm a sole earner of my family. I have things that I have to pay for. That has been one thing that was a really great decision that I made early on, not really understanding that I was making it. I started working with a lot of business and leadership books, and I really enjoyed that because it's like birthing big ideas. A lot of the time you're helping these really intelligent people make their ideas, pull them together, build frameworks around it, and then that book is a launching pad for so many other things for them. So for me, that was just a really fascinating area to get into. Find something that interests you. I'm also still really interested in science and medicine, so that made it in nutrition. So that was fun. I was always learning, and I was getting paid to do the thing that I'm great at within that niche. But it needs to be something where people have money. They're expecting to pay you something.

Mindy: When it comes to putting yourself out there as a writer that will offer those kinds of services, how do you go about building those skills in the first place?

Stacy: All through even high school, I took extra classes. I was submitting for publication even in high school, and then got a Bachelor's in writing and a Master's in writing and editing. And so I feel like I went this path that most people don't take and that is a long journey. But I've seen some of my colleagues... And actually there's a woman that I worked with for over 10 years now on various projects, and she went a little bit of a different path. And she started with an editing certification which I thought was such a smart way to go about getting also some validity so you can go to potential clients and have this certification. But then, I imagine we'll agree on this one too Mindy, is read. Read. Be a student of the genre that you wanna work in. Absorb what's out there. It doesn't have to be books. I started with articles, and I had really consistent work writing 8 to 12 articles a month for a certain client and doing other content for them too. So I create their social. I would create content strategy. So if maybe going to write books like I'm talking about is freaking somebody out right now, there's other things that you can do. I would also think about, "how do I make that very stable?" Let's say that you work to develop that skill set. You're reading within that genre. You're also ordering other books that you can study from on craft, on developing your writing. Going in a writing, short form content can be very unstable. So I'm always encouraging people to look for when they get a potential client that comes in, getting them on a 6 to 12 month contract versus doing an hourly rate or a per article because that's just a really quick route to being cash poor and stressed out.

Mindy: I remember trying to find ways to freelance and make money and looking at those little jobs, those little content production, getting paid per article and seeing how small they were and realizing how much work I would have to put into writing those and just little throw away things. It was difficult, but it did also help me build some skills, learn how to put myself out there, approach clients, and learn how to do some of that content writing. So I do think that, yes, like getting those larger projects and landing those people that are more likely to pay you is a step towards that financial stability. Having those little jobs, those little gigs, that can be really hard. But they do add up. One of the things that I do on the side, obviously, I run this podcast, and I have the blog of the same name. And the blog's been going for like gosh, 12 years now, the podcast for maybe four or five, and they do make a little money. They don't make a ton, but they make a little bit of money, and so it's something that... It's just, I keep moving forward with it because I have other ideas, things that I'm going to build off of it. And so I started a blog in 2010 and then that turned into a podcast, and now my next step is going to be starting online classes and downloadable courses that people can buy and use and interact with me as a coach or a mentor or an editor, or however they wanna look at it. Sometimes you take that first step a long time ago. That first step was that I started a blog, and now it's a podcast. And hopefully it'll also become an income source for teaching courses, and so those things can build. And as the world changes, you don't know what's gonna come out of it. So obviously when I started the blog, everyone was blogging. Everybody cared about blogs. And now everyone has a podcast, and so it's like, "Okay, I will start a podcast and build off of this." And next I'm gonna do courses, and I don't know what comes after that. You have to stay nimble, I think.

Stacy: Yeah, you're building a foundation. And what's cool is you have so many possibilities ahead of you. I think you make such a great point, just about the building. You triggered this memory. When I was building my business, I went through different phases where I was just like grasping at anything trying to figure out how do I make this work. And I took this gig at a travel company, which by the way, is the worst niche. Don't try to make money travel writing. I tried that. I tried really hard, and nobody wants to pay you. The woman who was essentially functioning as my boss... My Spanish was not great, and I still remember she wanted me to make all these phone calls in Spanish to gather information for some things that I needed to write. And I was just fumbling, a hot mess on all of these calls. My, again, Spanish was very poor at that point. And I remember her being really angry with me and telling me I wasn't trying hard enough to speak Spanish. And then after that, I remember leaving and being like, "Wow, this is not what I was trying to sign up for." I set a goal of sending out 30 query letters to 30 publications in 30 days, which I'm sure you know is a huge undertaking. It was like three to four hours a day of work, and finally, one, one, replied to me. A publisher. And they gave me part of a book for a course at a university, and then that turned into my first book. You just have to keep moving forward until something starts to click and the doors start to open, and you get to build amazing things like you're building.

Mindy: Absolutely. I agree with that completely. Last thing, let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can look at your services that you offer.

Stacy: Sure. So I'm at Stacy Ennis dot com. I also have a podcast, it's called Beyond Better, and I have a blog that I've been running for a long time, just like you, Mindy. I'm on Instagram at Stacy Ennis. I'm on LinkedIn as Stacy Ennis. Those are the places I show up the most frequently. And then I also have a program for aspiring non-fiction authors. It's called Nonfiction Book School, and you can find that at nonfiction book school dot com. I also have a self-study version I just released. So, I feel like you and I are working in tandem on a lot of stuff, Mindy, on putting more things out into the world. The self-study version of this is nonfiction book school dot com slash self study.

Mindy:     Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.

Lorie Langdon On The Long Haul & Hard Grind of A Writing Career

Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.

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Mindy: We're here with Lorie Langdon, who is the author of The Happily Never After Disney Villains series. I've known you for a long time. You're a fellow Ohio author. We've been hitting the same locations and the same audience and the same festivals since 2013. You were just saying right before we started recording that you actually have not had a US release since 2018, even though you have been working back to back to back to back. So, why don't you explain that statement.

Lorie: It's actually an interesting story, I think, for writers out there who may be going through a lull in their career because that's exactly what happened to me. 2018, Olivia Twist came out to all this fanfare. It was in Target stores in the US. I got a film production deal, and then it just didn't sell. It didn't sell the way that my publisher had anticipated that it would or hoped that it would. So they said, 'Okay, we can't publish any more books with you. Sorry." So then I kind of took a break. Reassessed. You know, what do I wanna do? During that time, I taught writing workshops in Ireland and China, and did a lot of soul searching. Came back from China and decided I needed to write fantasy. I need to step into the genre that I actually love to read. I finished a book called The Princess Trials, which is kind of a romantic fantasy young adult. I was really proud of it. Went out on sub and got rejection after rejection after rejection. Part of it, I think, was the timing. Romantic fantasy wasn't as big as it is now, and also I think because my sales from my previous book were killing me. This is something that a lot of people outside of the industry don't realize. That if you have a previous book that doesn't sell, that it can actually tank your career. So probably about a year and a half I was just kind of spinning my wheels. Out of the blue, my agent emails me and she was like, "Hey, would you be interested in writing a Disney villain series?" I about screamed when I saw it, and I said, "Yes, I would." Come to find out they had been searching for an author to write this Disney villain origin love story series. It's about the younger version of the Disney villains. The editor at Disney Publishing Worldwide read Olivia Twist and thought I would be perfect for it. So we talked and they offered me the series within a week. It was a super fast turnaround, under the caveat that these books are to release internationally. They'll be releasing in countries all over the world, but not in the US. And that is because there are two other Disney villain series that are being released on a regular schedule in the US, and they didn't wanna compete with those other series.

Mindy: Different threads in my life have coalesced lately. And you're talking about Olivia Twist, and I remember when Olivia Twist came out. It was a big deal, and there was this huge canvas across the Internet. Everywhere I went, I saw it, and it was everywhere. And your name was everywhere, and you had gotten a film deal. And it was just like, "Oh my god, Lorie hit it. Like Lorie's doing great." And then it's like, "No, actually, that was almost the end of me." Things can look amazing and just simply not be the case. I was actually having a conversation with Beth Revis, I hope she doesn't mind me name-dropping her, but Beth Revis wrote Across the Universe, which came out, I think in 2012. Huge deal, right? She writes for Star Wars now. She has a Star Wars book. I was having a conversation with Beth just about different things in the publishing industry, and we were talking about non-traditional ways to go out and make money. Anything that you can in order to keep some money coming in. Like you were saying, you went overseas and taught. Beth and I were talking about these things and she was like, she said, "you know, I hope you don't mind me asking," but she's like, "You know, you're talking about how you are always trying to quilt pieces together in order to make something happen, and I'm not naïve. I know the industry, but looking online, I would imagine that you're fucking killing it." And I'm like, "No."

Lorie: Yeah. Not at all.

Mindy: I am not killing it. So if you could talk a little bit about how there is a little bit of an Instagram filter on that.

Lorie: Yeah, I think it is the perception, and we have been taught to make sure that the perception is that our books are doing well in order to make readers want to jump on board. I don't think I've ever seen an author come out on social media and say, "Guys, my books just aren't selling. You know, they're tanking. You probably don't wanna read them." I think that we just really try everything we can, and we do love our own books, right? So it's genuine. The passion comes from our hearts. It's not that we're being fake. We do want everyone to read our stories, so we put that out there and we hope that it comes back to us. But something else I forgot, talking about non-traditional routes. In between when I finished The Princess Trials and I got the Disney contract, I took a write-for-hire job. And it was a woman who had a story that she had told her children all the years they were growing up, and she wanted to turn it into a young adult book. And so we worked together and created a plot, and I wrote that book. They paid me to write it, of course. It hasn't been published as of yet, but that kind of also opened the door to Disney because when they found out that I had already worked with someone in a write-for-hire scenario, they were 100 percent on board. I do encourage people to look for those non-traditional paths, and a lot of times they can end up taking us exactly where we wanna go.

Mindy: Absolutely. They can bolster some skills that you never expected to need, and then you have them, and it is another tool in your work belt. So I write underneath a pen name... enjoy doing it, but it is a grind. You and I were talking earlier before we started recording about the grind which I definitely wanna come back to. But I write underneath a pen name. I do have an editorial service that I run underneath my own name. But I also hire out underneath a different name where I work as a freelancer for an agency. I also do collaborative writing through them as well. I also work extensively in writing non-fiction book proposals. It is something that I found completely boring and had no skills for and was just like this is a part of publishing that I do not care about. And this agency head-hunted me, and they contacted me, they were like, "Hey, we think that you would be good at this, and we'll teach you how. You get the clients, and the money gets split." And I was like, "sure, I'll give it a try." And I like it. Once I've got a template - it's like I understand how a non-fiction book proposal works now. I can put one together with someone else's material fairly easily, and it's just really kind of cool to have this...

Lorie: Yeah. That's an amazing skill to have.

Mindy: Yeah. I can't advertise it because I do it underneath a different name. If you aren't NYT and you aren't actually killing it, and even if you are NYT, I know plenty of people that are NYT that also have day jobs. So there is no one indicator for, yes, this person is doing just fine.

Lorie: That is so true.

Mindy: You were talking about that constant drive. The mix of loving what you're doing and loving the work. Like you were saying, you loved your princess book that you wrote that ultimately didn't land anywhere. You end up with these books that you love that, quite frankly, no one else does. So I have a book that I wrote, I mean, shoot, I probably wrote this book in 2005, and I am getting ready to publish it underneath my pen name. I wanna publish it. I care. Nobody else cares, and that's a hard place to be creatively when you have something that you love, and literally no one else does.

Lorie: Yeah, and I'm still hoping that The Princess Trials finds a home now that Disney is becoming more of my brand. And you can tell by the title that even though this is a fantasy, The Princess Trials also... is kind of fairy tale. I think I could fit in with the Disney brand that I'm building. I'm still hoping, and I hope that - you should self-publish that book because it's something that I've thought about many times.

Mindy: Yeah. I am, and that's what I do underneath my pen name. It's all self-pubbed, and that particular racket is its own monster. Everything is different. Nothing that you learn from trad-pub, as far as marketing and finding your audience carries over, and it's always changing. It's so dynamic, and you gotta pay to play. I know people don't wanna hear that, but you got to spend money to make money. You gotta market. You have to pay for ads. Everything's out of your pocket, and it's painful. And there's no guarantees, but that's true of everything. You were talking about the trad world and Olivia Twist getting so much attention and then just not actually performing. I've had that happen too. Not to the extent as far as coverage and marketing. But I tell a lot of people, fellow writers, when we talk, my publisher does a great job of making it seem like I do really well and everyone loves me. Because I always tell fellow writers, if I showed you my royalty statements, you would fall over dead. I don't sell that well.

Lorie: Yeah. That's interesting. It does seem like you're doing amazing, Mindy.

Mindy: I just keep writing.

Lorie: Sometimes it's timing. Like Olivia Twist. If it had released right around the time of Bridgerton, I believe it would have been a huge hit because it is a romantic historical retelling. It's very difficult to compete when... especially when it's not a new release, it's not in bookstores anymore. It's hard to bring it back out of the dark.

Mindy: So hard. I do sell pretty consistently and well within the library and educational markets. General reading public, honestly, I don't think really is very aware of me. Within education and library, I do well. I've been around long enough that I am also just so thankful that I get to do this for a living. I'm continuously grateful for everything that my publisher does for me and that they quite honestly keep me around. But I think that's where the perception of success comes in my world is simply because I produce consistently. It may not ever break out. I've never had a movie deal. I've never had a TV show. I've had rights sold. But as you know, that doesn't really count. But I can write consistently. And I sell pretty consistently.

Lorie: It's the author career. Typically, I know a lot of people who published a book or maybe two, and then they're out. But then if you want to make this your life-long career, I do believe it's consistency, and very few of us have that breakout moment. It's what we all hope for.

Mindy: Yes, it is. It's the pie in the sky.

Lorie: And everyone is like, "Hey, Lorie, you've made it. You're writing for Disney." It is amazing because I've always been a Disney girl. I used to sit in my bedroom and, I'm outing my age right now, but I would listen to those records that you have the book with and dream up additional stories for these characters. That's come full circle for me, and I have been given tremendous creative freedom at Disney. They've said, "Okay, we wanna write a first love story for these villains when they're young." Then they just said, "Go." And so I was able to do that for all of these books, and then they do have to go through levels of approval. So my editor and then Disney Animation Studios, as well as Live Action Studios on some of them, have had to give input. But typically it's very small changes that they ask me to make. There is an exception. So I just finished writing Captain Hook's story. When I submitted that outline Live Action Studios came back and said, "Why isn't Peter Pan in this book?" And, "We wanna see James Hook's first meeting with Peter Pan, and we wanna know why they don't like each other so much." And I about fell over. I'm like, "What? You want me to write this?"

Mindy: That becomes cannon now, correct?

Lorie: I believe so. Now, these books are not releasing in the US. I do have hopes that they will come here some day, but they are releasing all over the place. I just got word yesterday that Vanessa, which is Ursula/Vanessa, the first book in the series, is releasing in India, which that hadn't previously been part of the plan. They're coming out in Japan, in Australia, in New Zealand, France, the UK, Turkey. My US readers are like, "Why?" They're crying. They're like, "Why can't I get these?"

Mindy: Is there a way for them to get them?

Lorie: They can order Vanessa from Book Depository. The English version is on there, and it's around $23, but that includes the shipping from Australia.

Mindy: We were talking before we started recording about the grind, and about how you can hit a point where you are just working. The magic is a little bit gone. There may not be love in your heart. Very few of us are running towards our laptops first thing in the morning - bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and like I am gonna write today. There have been times when I felt like that, but it is rare. Especially lately. You and I are both talking about how we supplement our traditional income through different routes - teaching and non-traditional publishing routes. You hit a point where it is just a grind, and it is emotionally and mentally exhausting.

Lorie: I wrote four books for Disney back to back. I had six months to write each book. They're fantasy. They're not just little romance books. They all have fantasy magic. Huge plots. And especially with Captain Hook, he was one of my dream characters to write. And I wrote an origin story about him and Peter Pan, as I talked about, but it's mainly about him. And I feel like I poured everything into that book, my whole heart and soul into that book, and then I didn't even take a day off before I started the next one - which is the evil queen. I don't feel as connected. And I wanna feel connected. I wanna feel excited because this is a privilege to be able to do this, and I really am excited to be able to do it. But at the same time, I can't fight that burnout. I'm gonna get 600 words down. I'm gonna get 800 words down, or I'm gonna get a 1,000. If I get a 1,000, that's a good day. It's just not flowing out of me because I've kind of hit that creative wall. When you're on back-to-back deadlines, you just don't have that luxury. It's like, I feel as if, as a creative person, I really would prefer to have time to step back between each book to fill that creative well with nature and great movies and family and friends and experiences. And then when you come back at it, you come back at that next book, you're fresh. This is what I do, but I haven't really had that. And at the same time, when I think, "Do I want that?" Because I went through that long stretch of time where I did not have a book contract. And it was scary and upsetting, and I questioned whether or not I was going to continue in my author career. So having this contract is security. So you kinda have to balance those two things.

Mindy: Emotionally, it is a hell of a weight. I feel the same way. I grew up on a farm. I grew up bailing hay and getting stepped on by animals - throwing manure around. So the fact that I get to write books for a living is ridiculous, right? The fact that I sit down in front of a laptop and move my fingers and I get paid for that is just stupid to me. Sometimes if my publisher sends me on tour, they're like, "We've got you here, here, here and here. You've got two events on this day. Don't have a break in between. You don't have a day off. Is that okay?" And I'm always like, "Yes." You're asking me to put myself in front of people and talk about myself, or my book. This is not hard. Yes, I can do this, guys. And people are always like, “Man, you're such a workhorse.” I am, but I too have hit a point where it's like, man... why aren't words coming? It's not writer's block. I know what needs to happen next. It's not that I don't know what happens next. It's that I literally don't wanna sit down and work because it's hard. I'm tired. I don't have that love anymore. Different projects hit different points emotionally. Right now, I'm on a super tight deadline and it is my own fault. I have to, I absolutely must write today, and I have to write probably 3,000 words every day for the next four weeks, if I am gonna hit this deadline. There aren't options. There isn't... "Oh, you deserve a break. Go get ice cream." No. You're writing. Shut up, right? I did it to myself so this is not poor me. You just get so worn out and you feel it emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Lorie: And I think though, if you want to be an author, you have to put on your big girl panties and you have to do it. And it's like... I think so many people that I've known over the years are just maybe not able to.

Mindy: Yeah.

Lorie: For whatever reason. Whether it's outside influences, their life is too stressful, or they have another job or whatever it may be, internally, they're just not driven. But if you want to be an author that's published consistently, you have to be able to sit down and write. You have to put your butt in the chair and you have to do it, and it's like... sometimes you don't feel it. Sometimes it's not fun. But that's okay. This is what we do.

Mindy: If 43-year-old Mindy was talking to 33-year-old Mindy, and was like, "Hey, guess what. You write for a living now, and you're able to do this consistently. And you've got contracts coming, and you're self-publishing. And you've got these great little side gigs, and everything is going really well. But you're tired." I would be like, "Who fucking cares?"

Lorie: Yeah, right.

Mindy: Oh, poor you. Poor 43-year-old Mindy. Shut up, right?

Lorie: Get it together. Yeah, I mean, writing for Disney, it's like, if I could tell my younger self that I was going to do that, it would have changed my whole perspective on myself and my future. I wish we could go back and whisper that. It would take away so many insecurities and the fact that I grew up thinking I was not good at anything. When you get in a place, you don't wanna ever take it for granted, but I think it's hard not to sometimes. Sometimes when we're in one of these slumps, it's like, the work really is not good. But recently I sent the book I'm writing, The Evil Queen, to some friends and I was like, "Okay, what is wrong with this book? You guys have to help me." And they're like, "It's great. It's wonderful. It's you." You're just... It's me mentally, just not connecting with it, even though the words are coming out and flowing. Emotionally, creatively, I'm just not feeling it.

Mindy: I feel that way with pretty much every book I write. While I'm writing it, I am convinced it is shit. I remember writing The Female of the Species and being like, "This one's getting phoned in. You're not doing it. This is not working. This one's dead in the water. You flubbed it. You're just gonna have to get this one out and then move on to the next thing." And it's my best-selling book. The Female of the Species  is the book that people know me for. So yeah, you don't know it. When you're in it, you have no clue if what you're doing is good or not, and generally, I just think it's terrible.

Lorie: When I was writing Hook, I was so like in it, and I knew it was good. And that feeling is a high. Those books and characters that flow out of us and that we connect to... It's such a rarity these days. That then I go on to something else and I'm like, "Okay, I'm not connecting. This sucks." But it's not the case.

Mindy: Well, and the disparity between how you feel about it at the time, or while you're writing it, and how it performs can be a little bit of a gut punch. When I was writing my fantasy series, Given to the Sea and Given to the Earth, I was like, "Oh dude, you're killing it. These are good. You're a fantasy writer, right?" Literally, no one has read those books - like my mom and my editor and my mom didn't even really like them that much.

Lorie: That's how I feel about Gilt Hollow, which is a murder mystery that I wrote. A young adult suspenseful kind of romantic mystery that everyone in my family and friends, who have read all of my books except for the Disney books, they're like, "This is your best book. This book is amazing. I love this book." And no one read it. No one read it. Didn't go.

Mindy: It isn't a reflection of the quality of the books. You were talking earlier, it's just timing. And I am not a fantasy author, I just happened to have two fantasies in me. So I wrote them and the fantasy market was like, "Who are you?" And my readership was like, "What is this?"

Lorie: Yeah, that's true. It's like me with the contemporary mystery. They're like, "What is this?" Because I just had this mystery in me, and I'm really a fantasy writer.

Mindy: So we were talking about just writing in general, and that burnout feeling. And how sometimes we do feel super connected to something that we're writing, and sometimes we're just not. Sometimes we are just plugging and we are writing words and we are not feeling it. When it comes to what I always call the shiny new idea - the bright, shiny, new idea - those always feel so good when they come, and you're like, "Yes, this is magic." Though once you start trying to write it and you touch it, it does get tarnished a little bit because it's never going to be what you have in your head. You're just getting as close as you can with your words. Can you talk a little bit about where you get your ideas from? 'Cause that's such a common question.

Lorie: That is the most common thing that people ask me who are not authors, obviously, and it's very difficult to answer because inspiration comes from everywhere. For example, I was originally signed to write three books for the Villain series, which was Vanessa, Gaston, and Yzma from Emperor's New Grove, which was hilarious, by the way. It was so fun to write. And as I was finishing up Yzma, I was watching a baking show, and this woman made a cake that was a pirate scavenger hunt cake. There was a little like icing ball that you drop into a tunnel and it opens up a cave that opens up into a waterfall and then the treasure comes out. And for whatever reason, I saw that and I was like, "I'm gonna write Captain Hook's story." I called my editor. I said, "Hey, I know our contract is ending, but I have this amazing idea." And she's like, "Yep, you're gonna do that." And it was like cake. It can be anything. I think when we get that inspiration though, it's so exciting. And it's not, for me these days, not super common. How about you?

Mindy: It is random. I think part of it is just the jaded end of being in the business for so long. I'll have an idea - "cool idea. I like that." But it's not in your market. It's not what you write. The audience is different. Dead on arrival. You don't write that. I had an idea for a middle grade. It would have been in verse and it would have been highly cloaked so that only the person that needed this book would understand. I had an idea about writing a book about a girl that was being abused by her older brother, because it happens, and people don't wanna talk about it. And I had it. I spent like three days walking around cleaning the house, and I'd be like, "Here's a phrase. Here's a phrase. Here's an idea." And I was just living in this little girl's head so completely, and I never wrote a damn word down. I never did anything with it because I've never written anything in verse. There's been chapters in some of my books that are in verse, but I've never written in verse. And my editor has said to me before, "I'm not sure that I would even know how to edit something in verse." Number two, I don't write for middle grade. That would be a big leap. Number three, content. And especially where we are at right now with the general public and schools and the education market, which, as I said before, which is where I sell well, like school and libraries, being heavily watched. And all these eyes on it and watch dogs, and it's like, "Yeah, sure, you're gonna write a book about a fifth grader being sexually assaulted. That's gonna get published." So it was like there were three things. There was market. There was a format, and there was public perception at the time. And I was like, "This is what I wanna write. I am on fire. This is in my head, and it won't get out and I wanna write this." And I never even bothered to write a single thing down because...

Lorie: That's so hard.

Mindy: I know. I knew it was pointless. I knew it was a waste of my time.

Lorie: It does feel like though something like that could come back and the timing could be right, even though middle grades, something that your readership would latch on to.

Mindy: I agree, and I had all of these thoughts. And it was like I had this thing that I was just kind of living for three or four days, and it really had a hold of me, you know how that goes.

Lorie: And it could be important. It could be a really important story to tell.

Mindy: But at the same time, it's like I have actual deadlines. I've got things I'm writing under this pen name. I got online classes that I wanna put together. I've got editorial work waiting on me. You can make money on this, this, and this. But right now, your time is better spent doing the things that you know can work.

Lorie: A similar thing is when there's something that you did pour your heart and soul into. It was a great idea. You wrote it, and then something similar is out in the market, like the same time. That actually is happening with Hook because there is a book that just came out with Disney, and it's part of the Villain series where the movie is told from the villain's perspective in a book. I knew that Hook had a version of that coming out this year. I have not read it, but the blurb says that it is James Hook's origin story, which is completely out of format for that series. And it's exactly what I wrote and exactly what I was told to write. So I wonder, what is the future of this? And it was a little heartbreaking. You know, those things are like our babies, right? The books are really part of me, I feel like.

Mindy: There are only so many ideas. There are only so many ideas, and there are only so many plot lines. Publishers Marketplace will be like so and so sold this, and it's a gender flipped Count of Monte Cristo. And you're just like, "Well, okay. I guess I'm not writing that."

Lorie: Yeah. Well, I have kind of a similar situation with Doon, which is my first series that I co-write with Carey Corp. And it's a re-imagining of Brigadoon, and it's set in Scotland. Fantasy. It's not time travel, but the girls do travel to a mystical land. The portal only opens once every hundred years. But right when those books were coming out, Outlander started releasing their television series. Well, I had read Outlander back in the early 90s, and it was an inspiration for me. But it was so old, like nobody cared about Outlander anymore. I named my prince Jamie, as an homage to Jamie Fraser, because he's one of my favorite characters of all time. But my character was worlds different than Jamie Fraser. But I still to this day get people saying, "This is just a knock-off of Outlander." And if the TV series hadn't come out, this never would have been an issue. And it's so dissimilar, but that's kind of what happens.

Mindy: I know. When The Female of the Species came out, you know how many people were like, "Oh my God, have you seen Hard Candy?" No, I haven't seen Hard Candy, and they're like, "Well, because that's what your book is." I'll never watch it because I'm tired of hearing about it. So last thing, why don't you let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can get some of your books. I know that your recent releases aren't necessarily available in the US, but you definitely have other things available.

Lorie: Yeah, you can find me on Amazon, and all of my books, that are not the Disney Series, are available on Amazon still. And actually there's a promotion right now that the first book in the Doon series is free. So the e-book is free right now. Our publisher decided to bring it back out because it's something we feel is a classic. So that is a free option for you to read one of my books. And then Vanessa, as I said, can be found on Book Depository and probably Gaston soon as well. You can find on Instagram at Lori Langdon underscore author, and that's basically where I hang out.

Mindy:     Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.