Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
In this week’s episode I interview award-winning author and CEO of Page and Podium Press, Dr Amanda Nell Edgar. Along with chatting about ghostwriting, writing memoirs, and hybrid publishing, some of the topics we discuss include:
- What exactly are hybrid memoirs.
- The key to knowing whether you’re ready to write a memoir.
- Why the truth can be more important than fact.
- The malleability of memory.
- Different options for publishing your book.
- When self-sabotage is most likely to strike, why it chooses to do so, and what to do about it.
If you’ve ever dreamed about writing a memoir, listen to Amanda share advice and inspiration for getting your book written and published, so you too, can change your life!
Visit the Page and Podium Press website here: https://pageandpodium.com/
Grab your copy of the Memoir Method Checklist here: https://pageandpodium.com/checklist
Learn more about the Memoir Method here: https://pageandpodium.com/memoir-method/
Follow Page and Podium Press on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/pageandpodiumpress/
Follow Page and Podium Press on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pageandpodiumpress
Some of the books mentioned in this episode:
- The Summer of 2020: George Floyd & the Resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement by Andre E. Johnson & Amanda Nell Edgar
- The Ignorant Man’s Son by Victor James Hill
- The Fight You Don’t See by Wendy Davis
- Oilman: From Farm Field to Oil Field by Walter Dechant
If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe, rate and review. You can also support the show by buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. Your support helps me keep this podcast going and is greatly appreciated.
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, or a topic suggestion for a future episode, leave a voice message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/AlchemyForAuthors
Follow me on Instagram: @alchemyforauthors and @jobuerauthor.
Join my Alchemy for Authors newsletter and download your FREE copy of Manifestation for Authors here.
If you enjoy Gothic Suspense, you can join my reader’s newsletter and download a FREE copy of my short story collection, Between the Shadows, here. You can find all my books at https://jobuer.com or visit https://Books2Read.com/JoBuer for links to your favourite store.
Find the full transcript of this episode below.
Episode 81: Ghostwriting, Memoirs, & Hybrid Publishing with Amanda Edgar
Jo: Hello, my lovelies, welcome to Episode 81 of Alchemy for Authors.
So I am really excited, as always, to share this week’s episode with you. I have a fantastic guest, Amanda Edgar, and I just had so much fun chatting with her about topics that I haven’t really discussed on this show before. So we are talking about ghostwriting, we’re talking about writing memoirs and also hybrid publishing, which is a lot of fun. Some of the other topics that we’ll be discussing a little bit is again, going back to something that I am preaching all the time, but how important it is to know your “why” whenever you write a book. We are also looking at how to know if you are actually ready to write a memoir, why you don’t need everyone’s or even anyone’s approval to write your memoir, why the truth is often more important than facts. We also discuss the malleability of memory, different options for publishing your book, and when self-sabotage is most likely going to strike and why it chooses to do so. So I thought this was a really informative episode and I’m hoping that you’re really going to enjoy it.
Before we get into the episode, though, I just want to do a shout out to a fellow listener, Alison, who was so very kind enough to support me with Episode 80 by buying me some coffees. So Alison also wrote a quick note to me saying, “Thanks for your positivity, your smile shines through.” So I thought that was really lovely. And in all honesty, whenever I’m recording these episodes, I am smiling. I am having so much fun, and it really doesn’t matter what is going on in the rest of my life, because when I am here doing these episodes, I am just in my happy place. So, I am so very thankful to you, Alison, for your support and for everybody else out there too, who supports me in different ways, whether it is through Buy Me A Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jobuer, or if it’s by sharing my episodes, talking about my episodes with friends and family, reaching out to me through DMs or email or just anything. It is so very, very appreciated. Sometimes it can feel a little bit like speaking into the void, so hearing from my listeners just makes my day. Thank you.
So I’m going to keep this intro really short and we’re just going to get into the show. So when you’re ready, grab a drink, find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy the show.
Hello, my lovelies. Welcome back to another episode of Alchemy for Authors. Today I’m chatting with Dr Amanda Nell Edgar. Amanda is an award-winning author and CEO of Page and Podium Press, a publishing house that offers coaching, writing, and publishing services to self-defined leaders of all types: political leaders, industry thought leaders, and community leaders. In addition to her two award winning books, she just released a new book, she coauthored: The Summer of 2020: George Floyd and the Resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement. So welcome to the show, Amanda. It’s so wonderful to have you join me.
Amanda: Thank you so much for inviting me.
Jo: I would like to start, as I always do, with you sharing a little bit about your author journey and how you became the CEO of a publishing house.
Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. Well, one of the stories that I like to tell, because I know a lot of authors are really nervous about the visibility of becoming an author and what does it mean to put your ideas out there in a way that we have so little control over how they’re received. I like to share that that was a really difficult journey for me, actually. I had gone through, I’ve had a lot of different careers. I kind of like to just see where the world takes me. But I had landed in an academic role. And as part of that, I was doing a lot of writing. It’s always been kind of a natural thing that I’ve always loved to do. And as I was writing, a lot of times in academic writing, you’re writing essays, shorter pieces, journal articles, that kind of thing. But I was helping a lot of people write their books as a ghostwriter. And in that way, it’s a lot safer, right? You get to do the fun thing. You get to organize the story, do all the storytelling, all the writing, but you don’t have to put yourself out in front of people.
So as part of my academic journey, I studied social movements, at how social movement history replays in our current moment. So in 2016, we had a big surge, 2013 through 2016, we had a big surge in Black Lives Matter, racial justice movements. So I had met my coauthor, Andre E. Johnson, and we were working on what I thought was going to be an article. We gather all this data and he says, this is a book. And I laughed. I said, absolutely not. No one cares enough about what I would think to read a book that I wrote. That… don’t be so silly. And he, thank goodness, he kept on me. He said, okay, well, that’s fine. We’ll think about it. But I think it’s a book, but we can keep up with working on the articles. And just every so often he’d say, I really think this is a book. Are you sure it’s not a book? And finally he just wore me down. And I said, you know what, fine. If you help me figure out how to do this, we can do this book together. That’s fine. And I loved it. I never looked back. I wrote a couple other articles after that, but you know, since that time, I’ve written something like 40 or 50 books and I love the book format.
And one thing that I would share with your listeners is it’s not really as scary as you think. I was writing about a very controversial topic. That book was on Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. Nobody ever came after me, you know, knock wood, they still could, I suppose. But nobody has ever, you know, attacked me online or smeared my reputation. So instead, what I’ve heard is people say, thank you so much for helping me understand this issue. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective and for your work. So it has been a very rewarding journey, and I hope all your listeners are really ready to jump out, get visible and get their books out there.
Jo: I really love that because I have to agree that I think we do make writing a book out to be a bigger beast than it actually is. Like, it is hard work, but I do think a lot of us hold ourselves back because of that imposter syndrome or that fear of how it’s going to be received. So I love that you began your journey kind of as a ghostwriter. That’s pretty cool. Can you talk a little bit about what that’s like? Because I don’t think I’ve chatted with ghostwriters yet on the show, so that’s really interesting.
Amanda: Oh yeah, that’s exciting. Well, so I really exclusively do nonfiction. That’s what I’ve always done. But my specialty is the hybrid memoir. So if you’re not familiar, a hybrid memoir is a memoir as we think of it. It’s a piece of someone’s story, a defined kind of moment, as well as their expertise. So when you gave the introduction, I really like to work with leaders, but I let people define themselves as a leader. I think all of us are leaders in some area of our lives.
So in the memoirs that I’ve worked on, we’re telling the person’s story and we’re using the story to get at all of the philosophy, all of the tips, all of the things that they have learned through their story so that they can do things like build up coaching businesses, run for political office. All of these things that books can propel us forward to do, not only because they’re going to put us in the spotlight as authors, but also because they help us get our mindset right and say, okay, what’s it going to mean to put my ideas out here?
So the big part of the process is that, uh, and I’ve been doing this since 2009, is that I just sit with authors usually between six and ten hours. I’m a trained social scientist, so I’m really good at asking questions and getting all the details out of you. We’ll organize that all together, figure out how we can get a nice story arc that also lends itself to that expertise and philosophy. And then it used to be that I would write the books. Now more often I’m working with newer writers that I’m mentoring as ghostwriters so that they can get that experience, and then I serve as the managing editor of the publishing company.
Jo: Amazing. That is so cool. I have always contemplated ghostwriting, but I think there’s a little bit of that, I don’t know what you’d call it, but I’m thinking for the hard work that it takes to write a book, I kind of want my name on it.
Amanda: That’s right. That’s right. I was the opposite. I just like the process of writing, but that is true. And one of the things when I’m working with our, our ghostwriters as they come on board and, you know, work as contractors or full-time employees is you just have to tell yourself over and over: it’s not my book. So sometimes, sometimes authors will disagree with, you know, what I would personally do, or that writer would personally do. It’s not our book. We’re not the ones that have to stand up, stand behind that book, talk about it on stages, go on podcasts. So we will always defer to the author as long as it’s not going to hurt the sellability and the markability and the readability of the book.
Jo: Awesome. I love that. I love that. So who are the kind of people who would come to you wanting to have you ghostwrite a book or have your kind of colleagues and that ghostwrite?
Amanda: We have had a huge range of people. So we have everybody from, uh, one of my kind of my most special projects to my heart, um, this book came out in October. It’s called The Ignorant Man’s Son by Victor James Hill. He was a community leader in the nineties, and he lived in the projects outside of Detroit. And in the eighties and nineties, there was a big crack cocaine epidemic that really swept from the West coast of the US all the way to the East Coast, there in the Midwest. In Detroit they really got a lot of the kind of rival gang violence and a lot of, you know, drug dealers trying to get kids involved in selling drugs and things like that. And he saw that happening and he thought back to his own childhood. And he really had been, um, he’d wished that he had a more active father in his life, and he said, you know what? All these kids want that. Let me see if I can step up and be that for these kids, and help make sure they don’t get sucked into the drug game, and help make sure that they can really live their potential.
So he was, you know, he’s I think he’s in his 60s or 70s. He’s a little bit older. And really his purpose was he wanted to inspire people and say, he’d made some mistakes in his life. You can turn your life around. You can find a new start and you can help other people do better in their lives. So all the way from Victor to, we have had, you know, political candidates, politicians that have come to us who are, you know, quite highly visible. A lot of those of course are under non-disclosure, and we work both ways. Either I would love to promote, you know, promote your book, so people will let me do that. I’d love to, not everybody wants that. But we also, uh, currently I’m coaching a life coach and I, uh, Maggie Jensen, her book is amazing. She works with people who have dealt with alcoholism, but want to overcome it through mindset and find ways that are not stigmatized, that aren’t kind of talking about a disease that they have. Where they can kind of rise up and say, I’m more powerful than alcohol. What do I want my life to be? How do I want to invest? So in her case, this book is meant to really give her tips and advice in philosophy to a much larger audience than she can work with in one on one settings. So that’s another type of person that we work with, and really the whole gamut. As long as you have an idea that you know can help people and you want to use a book to lead whoever your community is, those are the folks who we love to work with.
Jo: See, I love that. Like, it never ceases to amaze me just how powerful words are and our stories. I really believe that everything is a story. Our lives are stories, that we tell ourselves stories about our lives and about ourselves, and everything too. And so there’s real power, I think, in memoir to change other people’s lives as well, when it’s done properly.
So memoir is one of those things, which I know a lot of people can find really tricky on lots of levels, because I think we all believe we have something to say and we have stories to share. But again, unlike fiction, which is scary enough, putting fiction out there, we’re really putting a piece of ourselves out there. So that visibility and that imposter syndrome and that fear of how it’s going to be received, I think is so much stronger in memoir. So how do you help your clients, whether it’s ghostwriting or helping coach them to do it themselves, overcome some of that fear of getting to the good, juicy stuff that can be life changing to put in a book without having them completely freak out?
Amanda: Well, I will let you know when I figure out how to avoid people freaking out. The truth is, it just is scary. There’s no way out, but through. But one of the things that I really emphasize with all of our clients is you have to remember the reason that you’re doing it. So, if you are trying to help people, if it is a purpose that is bigger than yourself, we can go through a lot more fire and flames if we know that in the end, we’re going to be contributing something that, and I believe can change the world. I fully believe all of our clients’ books have changed the world. Because if you change one person’s mindset, you have changed the world. So isn’t that worth putting yourself out there? Really embracing the failures that you’ve had, the mistakes that you’ve made, not as faults or flaws in who you are, but rather as steps that you had to take to learn who you were supposed to become to help all of these people.
So it is easier said than done. That sounds great until, you know, somebody is reading all of your kind of deepest, darkest secrets. But what I find is that immediately, I’ll use Victor as an example, who I mentioned earlier. Within a month of his book being out, he had gotten three or four letters from people in prisons who, we had really been very intentional about getting that book into prisons. And who had said, I, you know, not only were they inspired by the story, but they would say, I just never thought about that someone who came from our neighbourhood, or came from a neighbourhood like mine, could do something like this. Could be an author and could share their story and could change people’s lives.
So it’s still hard. You still feel very vulnerable, kind of naked in front of the room, but really that’s not the thing that I encourage people to hold on to. I encourage people to hold on to what is that story doing?
Jo: Yeah, I think that’s so important because I think the power is in the vulnerability. When we’re writing nonfiction and that or showing up in any kind of form like that, when we show ourselves as real people, the good, the ugly, the flaws, the strengths, you know, all of it, I think that allows us to resonate with our readers and our audience just a little bit more. Because none of us are perfect people, and so I think showing up on the page like that, it takes a lot of strength. Yeah. Very, very powerful. Absolutely.
Now I tend to think everybody thinks that their life is so exciting that it should be written down as a biography or, you know, memoir and that. But is that the case? Have you ever had clients come to you where you’re like, Oh, I just don’t know if you’re ready yet to tell your story.
Amanda: Absolutely. The biggest thing that I look for when we’re talking with clients, and a lot of our clients have been through trauma or, you know, major conflicts. The biggest thing I look for is have you processed it? So this can look all kinds of different ways. I am a big proponent of therapy and life coaching, and I have a therapist. I actually have a therapist and a life coach because really it’s, it’s not so much, you know, as you try to write it, if you haven’t processed it, it’s going to be so painful. That is the case. But also because your life is only as interesting as the meaning that you’ve made out of it. And what I find is if you have not taken the time to process what you’ve been through and what it means and what you’ve learned, you really don’t have a memoir. You have a story. But people don’t buy memoirs just for the story, at least not, you know, from everyday folks. Maybe if you’re Justin Timberlake or something like that. For most of us, we need to be sharing something that’s really going to be moving to people. That means we’ve got to make the meaning out of it.
And the other thing I would say, because this is hard to sort of identify in yourself, but one thing that I always ask people, especially if there’s a conflict or a trauma based background to their book, is there any part of you that wants revenge? Because if you are thinking, I’m going to put this book out and then that ex-boyfriend of mine, everybody’s going to see what he did to me. That is not good. What I, you know, what I see is when people try to set out and do that type of work where they’re really still very angry, is a lot of times by the time you get done writing, you’re actually not as angry. And then you don’t really want to put that book out there because it actually kind of makes you look bad, if you’re writing a whole book and just dogging on somebody. So really ask yourself, you know, am I steady and stable and grounded in what this experience was in what I have to say about it? And if there’s any inkling of you that says, I really don’t know, it’s probably not quite your time. So grab a journal. I even handwrite it because handwriting helps our brain process things. So handwrite out just everything you can think of your story, and keep doing that until you really feel like, all right, I know what I went through and I know that I’ve overcome it.
Jo: Awesome. I love that advice because I do think journaling is so cathartic for processing emotional things and trauma and that, it really can be so beneficial. But I can understand how you don’t want to bring that rawness to the process of writing a book. And yeah, yeah, totally understand that.
Amanda: Yeah. And you might get sued.
Jo: Yeah. Well, so that’s something too. And that’s always been something that’s, you know, always stayed in the back of my mind, is that how do you advise people go about writing about experiences that involve people who are living, that may not necessarily be portrayed in the most prettiest light.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ll use an example of a memoir that we had come out in March by Wendy Davis. It’s called The Fight You Don’t See. So she is a US politician, and her story is wild. This book is so good. Everybody go buy it. Um, she ran as an ex-Mormon, as a woman, as a liberal Democrat, she ran for a state office in Utah, which is a very conservative place, very heavily Mormon, and she was running against an incumbent. She ended up losing by 78 votes, and then, I won’t spoil the end, but a whole, whole bunch of real political manoeuvring kind of came in to make sure that she couldn’t challenge him again. So, of course, this story it’s public knowledge. I mean, all this stuff is public record, but also some of it’s not, right. She had conversations one-on-one with people where, of course, they would expect privacy from that conversation. She’d always wanted to be a politician, so she was writing about her childhood and her teen years and, you know, being a page at the Capitol and, you know, things like that.
And one thing that she did that I loved, was after we’d written her whole book, she went through the book. She found all the scenes where anyone else was in the scene with her. And then she reached out to every single one of them. And either she said, let’s have lunch, let’s have coffee, let’s get on zoom. Or in some cases, she just emailed. And she said, I’m either going to read you what I wrote about you, or I want you to read it and give me feedback. It didn’t mean that she changed everything that people disagreed with. There were people who said, well, I don’t know if I would have said it that way. That’s fine. That’s your memory. This is my memory. Does it feel, you know, it feels true to me? Does it feel true to you? But the other thing that happened from doing that was that she got all of this additional context that I felt was really helpful for her to heal. So she was able to talk to some, in this case, you know, politicians, political clerks and things. We couldn’t put the stuff that they shared in the book all the time. Some of it was, you know, sort of secret stuff. But it was really healing for her to hear kind of what had happened.
So anyway, that is to say, you certainly do not need to have everybody that’s in your book sign off. And that’s a misconception that I think people have sometimes. You want to be careful. And I’m not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. You do want to be careful if you’re accusing anyone of a crime, something highly, highly unethical that, you know, they could get in trouble for and that they shared with you in confidence. Because I think a lot of times people say, well, I, you know, I can’t have a defamation suit because this is all true. You still can be sued for invasion of privacy. So there are famous cases of that, you know, people who even changed all the names of all the family members, but in the end, it wasn’t all that difficult to figure out who they were talking about. And if you’re accusing people of things like child abuse or, you know, neglect, that is actually a pretty solid lawsuit. So you want to be, you really want to be thoughtful. If there’s any chance of that, I really highly recommend seeking out a lawyer just to make sure you’re okay. But for the kind of less legal things, really just reach out to people. I find that most people are really excited to know that you’re writing a book, to know an author. So people are going to work with you for the most part. And if not, then at least, you know that before the book comes out.
Jo: Absolutely. Then at least you’re prepared, right? So, yeah. I find that whole concept of the truth, quite interesting. Because when we’re writing memoir, you know, our truth, what we see, what we remember is from our own lens. And so it can change over time or it can be a little bit biased. Like we don’t always see the full picture, which it sounds like, you know, some of your clients have been in that situation and that. So it is a tricky kind of thing. Do any of your clients bring that up to you, like, this is what I believe happened, however, maybe I’m wrong, or maybe I don’t have all the details. Like, how do you work around that in a memoir?
Amanda: Yes, absolutely. Well, one of the things that we like to say, and particularly in our Memoir Method Program, we say this all the time: the truth is more important than the facts for memoir. This is not a court document. We don’t need, you know, the exact time of day and the weather. And sometimes people will get kind of hung up in that, you know, looking back at the weather archives or the television archives. If that’s helpful, have at it. But really what’s important is the experience of you living that moment.
And I have kind of a, I think, a really cute story that illustrates this so well. A few years ago, we wrote a book called Oil Man. Um, and the, the author is Walter Dechant. He’s sadly passed now. But his adult son had hired us to do his, the, uh, Walter was I think in his nineties at that point, and hired us to just capture all the stories so that the grandkids and the great grandkids would have all of these stories. Well, a lot of them were 70, 80 years ago, so who really remembers these all that clearly? Well, there was one scene where the kids all remembered that there had been a merry-go-round, and I’m not sure if that’s called a merry-go-round in all parts of the world, or, you know, if even younger listeners would know what this very dangerous piece of playground equipment is. But it is essentially a big metal circle on a turning point. So it spins around and you would run next to it, get it going really fast. And then you would jump on it and spinning and you hope you don’t barf.
Jo: Or go flying off.
Amanda: Right. Right. Or get terribly injured. So they had had this merry-go-round. Well, we talked to the kids and we talked to Walter. We talked to the whole family to get the stories, and no one could agree where that merry-go-round came from. And Walter said, I don’t know, somebody just gave it to me. And what his son, Steve said, Oh no, I remember that he welded it from, you know, scrap metal. And one of the girls said like, Oh, it was there when we got the house. They all had different memories of it. And I mean, this is not a huge part of the story, right? It’s just a detail. It got contentious. There were real conversations about how they could possibly resolve this and how we could resolve it. And in the end, and this is always our policy, It’s the author’s book. So we ended up really having to, um, I’m saying this dramatically, but stand up to the kids and say, you know what, it’s Walter’s name that’s on the book. It’s Walter’s memory we’re going to go with.
Now again, that’s a light-hearted kind of fun example, but we know from science that every time we remember something, we’re actually recreating it. We’re not, there’s no kind of solid record that we’re just looking back at. We’re reliving it and recreating it. So it’s very, very likely that parts of your memoir are going to read as though they’re, you know, stretched, you stretch the truth, or they’re a little out of context to other people. But again, it’s the truth is what matters, and you, the author are sharing your truth. And other people can write their own book if they want to write their own book.
Jo: Yes. I totally agree with you there. Absolutely. If they’ve got a problem with it, they can go write their own book. But yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And I think it’s important that, you know, if we don’t necessarily have the facts, you know, a hundred percent in agreeance with everybody else who happened to be there, I think we have to just keep it in the context that it’s the, um, that those kind of physical things, they’re really just grounding for the emotions or the other things that are going on in that part of the story at the time that we’re trying to portray, and yeah, setting up as well. So yeah, it’s not as important.
Amanda: Yeah, exactly. What’s the message? As we were saying earlier, it’s really, it’s what people are taking away. And no one read that book and came away thinking, if that merry-go-round had only been welded from scratch, like, cause that’s not the, it’s not the point of the book, right? It’s just a detail.
Jo: Yeah, exactly. Oh, that’s so funny. So you mentioned it just before, and I’d love if you could talk a little bit about your Memoir Method. Because I know you’ve got Page and Podium Press where you do a whole bunch of different things to help authors and coaching and ghostwriting and all of that. But you also have the Memoir Method as well. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Amanda: Absolutely. So the Memoir Method is a nine month group coaching program. So I run it with my collaborator, Emily Thrash, who has an MFA in fiction, I have a PhD and specialize in nonfiction. So between the two of us, we’re able to bring you that really honed in message, along with those really vivid, visceral details and the, you know, the narrative arc that everyone wants. We can coach you through both sides of that.
So it’s a structured program that takes you all the way from your very first seed of an idea, to developing what is that message that you want to get across. To looking at how are you going to outline your book in a way that you are going to be able to lean on the outline to make sure that your narrative structure is strong. All the way through, we’ll talk you through editing, publishing, and we even have a segment on marketing. So for everyone that is in there, you have access to Emily and I once a week. We also do have a one-on-one upgrade. So for folks that want feedback once a week, we’ll look at 10 pages and meet with you for an hour and go over it, if you want to upgrade to the one-on-one. We also have a whole vault of templates and trainings and tips and tricks. So you can download chapter templates. If you’re thinking about how to do that, we have a video that talks you through how do you do a flashback, which is always a very, very popular one. Um, the marketing videos, the publishing videos.
But really one of the things that I’m most proud about with the Memoir Method is it is a curated group of women. We make sure that the people that we are letting in, women or non-binary, are going to get along are going to have similar goals. Their “whys” are the same, so that we can really all support each other and uplift each other’s journeys, and celebrate the wins along the way, and prop each other up for the losses along the way. Writing always has losses too. So that there is a really supportive community. And we find that then by the end of the 9 months, either your memoir is finished, you’re on your way to publishing it, or you at least feel very, very confident with the next steps you need to take for the whole shebang of getting your book out there.
Jo: See, I think that’s fantastic because so many people just don’t know where to start. And if it’s their first ever book then they don’t really know how to go about writing the book and then even what comes after. And I know you’ve also got lots of advice, I think around that too, in regards to which route to go publishing and things like that. Can you talk a little bit about what some of those options are?
Amanda: Absolutely. Yeah. So we support people in that program if they want to self-publish, if they want to work with a hybrid publisher, or if they want to go for a big book deal. And the differences between those: self-publishing, you’re assembling your own team, of course. So you’re going to be either, you know, looking at a company that can help you kind of assemble a team, or you’re hiring your designer and your layout and your copy editor. So we’ll help you with that. And in fact, your listeners may be interested, we do have a free download called the Memoir Method Checklist, and that takes you through every single step. So obviously these steps, you know, writing there’s a lot to that. But it is really nice, I think, to have a whole timeline of the full process. So if you’re interested in seeing that, you can download that at https://pageandpodium.com/checklist.
Jo: Awesome.
Amanda: But that will talk you through, you know, who do you need on your team if you’re self-publishing.
At the end or other end of the spectrum, if you’re wanting to pitch for a big book deal, you’re going to need a book proposal. You’re going to need a query letter. You’re going to probably need some support in finding the correct agents or appropriate publishers. We have units on that. I have a template for proposal writing. Proposal writing is very intimidating, but it’s not actually as hard as it seems. So we can coach you through that. We’ve got some videos and things like that.
And then, of course, in the middle is hybrid publishing, which is where you are pitching. Sometimes you need a proposal. Often you don’t. You will pay up front to have your book published by a hybrid publisher, but they will take a much smaller share of the royalties. And that, by the way, is what Page and Podium is. We are a hybrid publisher. So we are behind you all the way. We have an awesome team of designers and editors and people that will work with you through the whole process. But then we want to put you in the spotlight. So we want to make sure that you are getting the maximum amount of your royalties back. We want to make sure that you’re building, if you want a speaking career, if you want to speak more in media, we want to support you in doing that as well.
Jo: See, that’s wonderful. And I love that because I’ve had a few different guests on the show who are hybrid published and they’ve raved about it, because being traditionally published, there’s quite a few gatekeepers, and it can take a long time, and you’re not guaranteed that you’re going to get the visibility that you want. I’m indie published and I love it because I’m a control freak. And so I have control over everything. And then I still have like a professional editor and cover designer and, you know, pull on the people that I need to when I need to. But it is a lot of work and for a lot of people just writing the book alone is huge. And so having somebody support them along the way with the other aspects is just gold. It’s absolutely yeah. It works really, really well.
Amanda: Yeah. And if particularly we work, as I said, we work with leaders, so a lot of times, really, the focus is on, I have to delegate this stuff that I don’t know how to do. Yeah. I know how to speak. I know the message I want to share. I know how I work with clients or, you know, whatever it is that they’re doing in their day to day. The time that’s going to be spent trying to find a copy editor, trying to find a proofreader. Oh, we’ve got the developmental edit. It just, as you said, it’s a lot of work. And if you can bring, if you can work with a hybrid publisher, which, by the way, you know, we don’t accept everybody either. But you are going to get a little bit more control. If you are a good fit for us, our people are probably a good fit for you too, because we work on a very particular type of book. So it’s dialled in. You have a trusted partner. You can lean on.
I’m traditionally published myself and I love my editor. They just are so overwhelmed so much of the time, and our presses, we try to keep it pretty small so that we can keep that personal touch. And we can really help make sure our authors have all the support they need from the technical stuff, to the mindset work, to the visibility stuff they need to do.
Jo: Yeah, that is so important. I really love that. I think it’s such a great option for people out there.
So you mentioned mindset and you’ve mentioned it a few times and I personally believe it’s core to writing a book or not writing a book. What are some of the main kind of mindset issues that you see from writers coming to you, either as a publishing company, or writing a memoir, or anything like that? What’s some of the big struggles that you see often?
Amanda: The most common mindset issue I see is with visibility. And it props up usually around three quarters of the way through the writing process. That’s about when the book feels real, more so than when you see your cover. But really the first time is about three quarters of the way through. And at that point, a lot of folks will start to get cold feet. And it doesn’t usually come out like that. People, you know, don’t come in and say like, Oh, I’m nervous, I don’t want to do it. It comes out as, I am so scared that I’ve done this wrong. I am so scared that my message is wrong. I left out this piece and I guess I shouldn’t have, or I made this piece of my life a big component, and now I’m, I don’t know, I’m embarrassed about it. All it comes down to is self-sabotage. If you’ve done any mindset work, you know, you have to deal with that self-sabotage where something that you want is really scary. And that kind of little inner child that’s trying to protect you is going to come out and say, Oh my gosh, no, don’t do it. So that is the mindset work really, is to say, okay, you’re all right, little five-year-old me. You’re okay, stop running around with the scissors. We’re going to do this thing. And it’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be healing. But it is so much work just on your mindset.
People will focus on, I’ve got to write. The writing is the piece, the mindset piece. And you talk about this on your show all the time. The mindset piece is at least as important as the writing piece, because otherwise you end up with a manuscript you never publish. I see that all the time. People come to me and say, I’ve got a manuscript I wrote 10 years ago. That’s mindset. You’ve got the writing done. It’s just that getting over that hump of the fear that what’s going to happen if I put this out there. And only good things, friends. Take the leap and do it.
Jo: Absolutely. From my personal experience, writing a book and putting the book out there, it is life changing in so many ways. And it doesn’t mean you’re going to be rolling around in millions of dollars, but what it does for you as a person, whether that book is nonfiction or fiction, overcoming those kind of fears and putting yourself out there in that way, and committing to such a big, personal project like writing is too, then yeah, it can be quite, quite life changing. Yeah.
Amanda: It’s amazing. And people around you will just rally. It’s my favorite thing to see is the way, you know, when we’re getting ready for launch with all of our authors, whether they’re publishing through us or elsewhere, I always say, put together a list of your top 25 to 50 people that you could call, that would help you out if you had, you know, an emergency or you, you know, you needed something that was in their specialty. And then put together a list of 50 to a hundred people that know your name, but you maybe haven’t talked to, and it’s that list, that second list that people are just, they feel really weird about it. Like, Oh, my high school friend from basketball. Like, does that person know who I am? Yes. And they are going to be so proud of you. I love it so much, because we get as authors, and especially, you know, podcast listeners, folks that listen to writing podcasts, you can go down that rabbit hole and forget that writing a book is something most people never do. When you put out that email or that message or social media post, whatever it is, and say, I have a book coming out and I’m so excited, people will applaud and cheer for you. And it’s so uplifting, but you have to get to that point.
Jo: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think like what I’ve noticed too, is that some of our biggest cheerleaders end up being from that second group of people, the people that we kind of underestimate would care at all. I know for myself, sometimes I’ve been a little bit disappointed by the people closest to me, but those people on the periphery, which I didn’t even really think of or hadn’t talked to in so many years or anything like that, they have kind of come out and been some of my biggest fans, which I find so fascinating and yeah, just really cool. Really cool.
Amanda: Yeah, I do too. I think people like to kind of be in the glow of authorship.
Jo: It’s still got this very like magical vibe about it, doesn’t it?
Amanda: Oh, it absolutely does. And it feels that way when you’re on that launch day or you get those books, you know, you get your author copies and you unbox it. Oh, it feels that way. I’ve written many, many books. You have too. Still, I pull that book out of the box and say, oh, my gosh, did I make this?
Jo: It’s, it’s definitely, it’s pretty special. I like that. That’s cool.
So I saw, I think it was in, oh, I don’t know if it was on your website, it was somewhere anyway, that you have an interesting take on writer’s block, and I think we share an opinion on this, that we don’t really believe in it. Can you talk about what your perspective of writer’s block is?
Amanda: Yes. I think that writer’s block is an over dependence on perfectionism. To my mind and in my experience as a writer, in my experience working as a book coach, people who have writer’s block, number one, have not taken the time to get clear on what they want to say. They’re so focused on the writing that they’re forgetting about the message and or the story. And two, they’re so afraid to make a mistake, that they would rather just not get words on the page at all. It’s such a mistake. Everybody that has gotten, you know, even a couple of chapters in, say you get to chapter five, six, you look back at chapter one and think, oh, what a dodo I was. Why did I go that direction? You’re learning the whole time you’re writing. So you, you are going to write some kind of clunky stuff at first. There’s no, you know, there’s no reason to kind of self-sabotage, undercut yourself by putting it off. So yeah, I suggest I think much like you do, sit down, figure out what it is you want to say. But then just write. Just put the words on the page. The worst-case scenario is down the line. You delete them all and write them again. That’s normal. All of us do that.
Jo: Yeah. I completely agree with that. It took me a while to train myself to be able to write messy, but now it’s just a given. I give myself all the permission that my first draft is going to be messy. I’m not going to edit as I go. As much as I can. I’m going to try not to go back and read what I originally wrote until the whole thing is down on paper. And then I can go through and edit it and find the gold and get rid of the coal. And yeah.
Amanda: And that’s the magic. That’s when the magic happens because you’ve, by the time you’ve gotten to the end, you’ve learned so much about yourself, about the story, what you want to say. Now you go back and I often find, I know immediately where I need to start. I know immediately what needs to happen at the midpoint because I’ve done that whole process of going through. And you’re a different person at the end.
Jo: Absolutely. And I think when we’re writing it, we’re too in it to really get a clear perspective, because I know with myself, when I’m writing a novel or something, I have those moments where I think I’m the absolute worst writer on the planet. And then those moments where I’m like, oh, my gosh, this is awesome. And quite often when you go back, and I do my edit and that, you know, it’s the parts where I was really kind of trash talking myself and I’m like, actually, no, this actually works. And then some of the parts where I had that a bit of an inflated ego about, I’m like, well, we can do a little bit of tweaking. So we’re not always our best clear minded critic when we’re in the process of actually writing. So, yeah.
Amanda: 100%. I always like to print out what I’ve written because I also find just a little change of format makes all the difference in how you look at those words on the page.
Jo: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I tend to read it out loud. I find that makes a big difference for me and I’m like, ooh, yuck. Okay. That doesn’t work. Or, oh yeah, no, this is okay. So yeah, I love that. Well, just to kind of round up, there’s just a couple of things, because you have just put out a book here relatively recently, Summer of 2020, can you just talk a little bit more about it? Because I think, you know, people might be really interested in going to check it out. So I’d love to share that.
Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. So The Summer of 2020 is the follow up book to the book I’d mentioned earlier in the interview where we were talking about Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. In 2016, in the summer of 2020, right before George Floyd was murdered, right before the, the massive uprisings of that summer, my coauthor and I had been saying, we really have to do a follow up on this. Where are all the people that we talked to for this All Lives Matter book? And then of course, George Floyd’s murdered, Breonna Taylor’s murdered. We have Ahmaud Arbery is murdered. And everything shifted. And of course, all of us were in the middle of this pandemic, this unprecedented public health moment where we couldn’t leave our houses. We didn’t really know if it was even safe to be outside at that time, which I think is easy to forget. But there was a time when we even, I even thought, you know, even in a mask, even outside, am I safe? It was hot. There was a lot of with, you know, the protests were in the streets. There was a lot of reports of, you know, activists bringing bottled water and then people coming and just punching holes in all the bottles so that there was nothing for folks to drink to hydrate. People having, you know, heat strokes and other kinds of issues like that. And then, of course, there was this massive uprising on the right that was really going against the social movement. What we were seeing was that this was really one of the more dangerous times to stand up for justice in the entire history of the world.
So my co-author and I, Andre E Johnson, we wanted to talk to a range of people who were participating. That was such a unique moment because of course we had movement leaders that had been doing movement activism, even in Black Lives Matter in many cases, for years. But also, so many people came out who had never stood up for anything publicly before. They’d never been to a protest or on the street or a march. So we talked to a range of folks from around the world and we asked them, what was it like? What was it like in that moment? And people shared such vulnerable stories, stories about, you know, their parents saying, You know, I protested in the 60s, please be careful. This is much more dangerous than you think. Or people saying, I just thought I would go stand on a corner with a sign. I didn’t think anybody would care. And a week later, 50 people were standing there with me, and now we all stay in contact.
So we trouble some of the assumptions because there are assumptions that are overly positive, and there are assumptions that are overly negative. And we really wanted to get into people’s stories and think about again, what is the truth here? How are these folks seeing this moment? How are these folks describing their experience? What did they learn and what do they want to share with other people? So that’s what the book is, we’re taking you through all of these stories of what it meant to live through the summer of 2020, and stand up for racial justice at a time when it mattered more than ever before.
Jo: So powerful. I love that. So what do you have in store for yourself now? Like, do you have another book on the horizon or is there something that you’re working on?
Amanda: I am working on my own memoir right now, which is very exciting because normally I just help other people write their memoirs. But, it’s been a few years. I’ve been processing. But I was formerly an academic, and it’s a very scary industry to leave. You lose a lot of friends, you lose a lot of mentors. So that’s something that I want to write about to really help others in the academy, but also in jobs that, you know, they’ve been in just because it was assumed that that’s where they would be, to see that you can change your life if you want to. You can do whatever you want. So I loved writing. I loved working one-on-one with students. That’s what I created at Page and Podium: a space where we would write other people’s books for them, help them get their story out. Where we could mentor both the writers that we hire, and writers that want to work with us for coaching, either group or one-on-one. And it has been revolutionary for me. It has changed my life. I’m able to travel around the country. I’m able to meet such fascinating people. So I’m working on a memoir really to encourage people to embrace what it is that they see for their lives. No matter how scary it seems. No matter how, you know, unbelievable, no matter how many doubts come from your family and your friends. Oh my gosh, you’re leaving a tenured position? You can do it. It’s scary, but you can do it.
Jo: I love that. That’s fantastic. I think that’s going to be so inspiring. So I’m looking forward to that one. That’s so cool.
Amanda: Thank you.
Jo: How can people connect with you and where can they find you?
Amanda: Well, the best place is just to head over to our website: PageandPodium.com. We’re also available on all the major social media networks. So you can find us on Instagram, Facebook. I do a regular YouTube video that is advice for people that are wanting to publish. Much of it will be useful, whether you’re fiction or nonfiction. I try to keep it pretty broad, so it’ll be valuable. And of course, go sign up for that Memoir Method Checklist https://pageandpodium.com/checklist. When you do, you’ll get a lot of helpful resources from us and be able to stay in touch that way.
Jo: Oh, I love that. And I’ll make sure that all of those links are put in the show notes there for everybody to access. And that’s fantastic. Well, it has been so wonderful chatting with you today, Amanda. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Amanda: Thanks so much for having me.
Jo: Here are some takeaways from today’s show:
1. Writing a book is not as scary as you think.
2. Sharing your story can be life changing, not only for yourself, but for others. If you change one person’s mindset or perspective, you can change the world.
3. There is power in being vulnerable on the page.
4. Processing any trauma first before writing it into a memoir is essential. We are only as interesting as the meaning we’ve made out of it, as Amanda says.
5. Your memoir is your story, your memories. You don’t need people to be okay with what you’re writing. But if you are concerned about what people will say, if they’re included in your book, do discuss it with them or talk with a lawyer.
6. Writer’s block is only a manifestation of perfectionism and a form of self-sabotage.
7. Weigh up your options for publishing and go with what best meets your needs.
So there we are, my friend. I hope you really enjoyed today’s episode. I know I had so much fun chatting with Amanda. I highly encourage you to go check out her Memoir Method Checklist, sign up to her newsletter. That way you can stay in the know of her fantastic programs, and the books that she publishes as well.
So again, I am so very, very thankful for all of your support while I continue with this podcast. I will admit this year, it has been tricky getting these episodes out. I have had a lot going on in my personal life, which is why you might notice that sometimes some of these intros are quite short, and sometimes I have been a little bit sporadic with releasing episodes on time this year. I am hoping that very, very soon things will be back on track with that. And this is really why your support means so much to me and just encourages me to keep going. So thank you so much. Ways that you can support the show, of course, is just by subscribing, rating, reviewing, sharing with a friend, tag me in social media, any of those things are just fantastic and make my day. You can also, if you feel inclined, buy me a coffee through https://buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. That also just helps subsidise the costs that go on with me creating these episodes.
So anyway, my friend, I am so very thankful to have had you join me in today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it, and I’m really just wishing you a wonderful writing, editing, publishing, wherever you’re at with your writing, week ahead. Bye for now.
Ghostwriting, Hybrid Publishing, memoir, Mindset, writers block