39. Author Platform with Nicole Meier

In this week's episode, Suzy sits down with Nicole Meier, Author, Book Coach, and Marketing Genius to talk about the dreaded "Author Platform." Listen to learn what a platform is, why you need one, and how you may be already building one without even knowing it. 

You can find out more about Nicole's services at https://bookworks.co/

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Transcript

0:49

Welcome to Show. Don't Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step. We're gonna explore writing techniques. I'm gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers' careers that you wouldn't have access to otherwise. And I'm also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you are just starting out, you're drafting your first book, you're editing, or you're currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show's gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn't even know you needed, but you definitely do. I'm so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, and you're gonna also have some fun doing it. Let's dive in. Nicole Meier and I sat down together to record this episode, as well as an episode that I appear on for her writing podcast Steps to Story, so you should check that out as well. Nicole is an accomplished writer of four women's fiction and book club novels. The House of Bradbury was chosen as best book in 2016 by Refinery 29. The Girl Made of Clay was named a top book by BookBub readers. The Second Chance Supper Club was named Best New book by PopSugar and her most recent release is City of Books, which came out in 2024. She's also a certified book coach and most recently co-founded bookwork.co with marketing and PR strategist Gretchen Schaefer. This dynamic duo works with emerging authors to build their author platforms and let them shine. One of their writers that they work with described working with Nicole and Gretchen as being like, you've discovered the mentors slash support slash height group that you always wanted but didn't know how to find. And I just love that it describes Nicole's energy to a tee. So when Nicole and I were able to coordinate our schedules, I knew that I wanted her to come on this podcast, the show Don't Tell Writing podcast with you to talk about building author platform. There are hundreds of ways to get the word out about your books and listeners sending questions to us weekly about getting started and what should they do. Nicole breaks this all down for you in this episode. Welcome, Nicole. We are missing happy hour actually, to record this podcast together because it's just that important. Not gonna lie, I may have grabbed a glass of wine. Nicole came straight from recording her own podcast. So yeah, we're, but we're here together and we are going to be talking about. Author platform today. Welcome. Thank you, Suzy. Okay. This is really fun. It might be more fun than happy Hour with a bunch of people because I love talking with you. It's just such a good energy, so, oh, thank you. And I mean, I love talking with you too, but also exactly that, like being able to be around such smart people who have such amazing advice for writers and listeners. I learned so much doing this podcast and I, yeah, this, this is Han. I didn't mean to say that we're missing out. Alright, so Author platform. Yeah. What the heck is it like, I just wanna start with that and I mean, not that I don't know what it is, but I know I, I want maybe for you to share with our listeners, what do you even mean by author platform is kind of scary. Yeah. Well, you and I both work with fiction writers and you know, back in the day, which is like maybe 10 or 12 years ago, fiction writers didn't even really need to think about platform. It was mostly for non-fiction writers, self-help books, prescriptive, you know, how to books. But within the past handful of years. It's kind of expected, you know, we're in the sort of influencer era, and so whether it's a reader, a publisher, an agent, that is kind of a question that comes up pretty quickly after people, you know, learn about your story and get interested is, where can I find you? Do you have a platform? And I think that it scares a lot of writers. You know, it scared me at first too, is how do I even begin? What am I supposed to be thinking about? And that sounds like me doing all the things all at once. Yeah. And so what does having quote unquote having an author platform even mean? Yeah, that's a really good question. And you know, it's not what people think it means. Usually when I bring this up, people get deer in the headlights and they say, please don't make me dance on social media and don't make me do like ridiculous memes and, and videos. And it's not about that. Honestly, 85% of the time an author platform isn't even about social media. And so what it really means is finding your ideal readers where they already are living, where are they getting their education, where are they getting their entertainment. Some of 'em are on substack, some are on podcasts, some are in articles. You know, there's a whole host of ways to do this. Yes, social media can be one way, but it's not the way it's really. Where are your, your readers living and how can I connect with them in an authentic way and start growing my audience? Exactly. I mean, all it really means to have an author platform is that you have a way to access readers and you have a way to communicate Yeah. With readers beyond your book, before your book. Yeah. So true. And I think one thing I'd love to encourage people to do is before you even decide where you're gonna go or where you should be going for your readers. Why do you even wanna do it in the first place? What's your why? Why do we, and what if a writer's like, well, I don't want to Nicole, so let's just skip this whole platform business. Right? Like what? Like what is an example of what you see? I mean, Nicole works with authors all the time on building their platform. Yeah. What is it that you see that people come to you and say, obviously not giving away their exacts. Yeah, but, but what's the most common thing? Like people say, I don't wanna do that. Like they're confused. And again, they go back to please don't make me be on video, or don't make me show my face all the time. And I'll give you an example of a client, and this could be said for novel writing too, but I had a client who wanted to tell kind of dark material, but it was a story of healing. And so her whole message was, laughter is the best medicine. And we said, great. Now where are those readers who are already looking for that kind of message, that kind of content. And she found writing blocks was like great because she was infusing her humor, writing into it. She was reaching people that were looking for ways to heal. She was having fun. And her whole why behind doing it was to say, I wanna connect with people and I wanna help them heal. And so her story is fun and light, but it is about healing and laughter. So that was her why, and I think that's a really good example of, yeah, we write to connect and we wanna connect with that readership. Someone else might come in and say, that's all fine and dandy. I just really wanna build my platform because I wanna attract an agent or a publisher. That's okay too. I. I think knowing your why will form how you go about doing it. Yeah, absolutely. And is, is a platform different from marketing your books or selling like different from marketing and sales, for example? Yeah. Like this is confusing to people. Yeah. I have a marketing degree. I love marketing. I could gee out about this all day long. Yeah. But this is something that people need to know. So what's your hot take on that? Yeah, you're really good at marketing, Susie. I've learned a lot from you, but, oh. It is my friend. I had someone downstairs ask me that just a few minutes ago. Marketing is when the book is done and you need to go sell that thing. Sell that story, sell your author, career, sell whatever it is you're selling your marketing. But I. Your platform is beginning to speak to readers probably before your book is even finished. You know, it's great to start now. It's never too early. People always say like, oh, I'll do my platform when my book is done, and I'm trying to sell it. No, it's too late because you wanna start that readership now and then you're actually bringing something to the table when your book is published because you're bringing some readers along with you. So platforms different from marketing. It's learning how to talk to your audience now. It's not trying to sell the book later. And so when is that right time. Now yesterday. Yesterday, right? Yesterday. So if you're listening to this and you are writing a book, the time to start thinking about author platform is yesterday. And the second best answer is today. Yeah, I mean, when I was first getting started and wanting to write ya, I knew that I needed a platform and it was early days. I'm gonna date myself here. It was early days of social media when Twitter was where writers gathered, right? And now X isn't so much and for lots of different reasons. But yeah, Twitter was where they gathered and they just started. I mean, because of my marketing background, I could see that and I was frustrated. It was taking me a long time to, you know, get query and, and to finish the book. And you listeners, you've heard my story. That first book was four and a half years, right? Yeah. Um, before I found a publisher and I. But in the meantime, I started to talk about ya and I started to talk about books and they started to actually get involved and I was volunteering for a writer's festival and meet people and talking about it. Yeah. And you know what the weirdest thing happened. Call you. Love this. I actually got a call to come and speak at a conference as a YA writer because they asked around and said, who is, you know, who's the best person to come and speak on that? And I wasn't even published. Yeah. And I told them that I was, I said, I, I'm not published yet. And they said, yeah, but you're the one talking, like talking and you're the one out there and this is who the group actually wants to hire. And I went and did that talk and it was, it was amazing. That was one of the first times that I got to present as a writer, and it was before I was published. Yeah. And that is a perfect, beautiful example of building your platform. Go where your readers are, go where your people are, and you did. You went to the festival, people said, oh, she's talking about I wanna learn more from her. And you built your platform whether you intentionally did that or not, you did it well. Yeah. And what actually ended up happening in a backward sort of way. That platform was the reason that I sold my book. Right? Yeah. That's the reason that I met the publisher and that they were willing to take a risk on me. Yeah. And that's what. Sort of it does, is when you get that platform built. Yeah. Then because for, I mean, we have this misconception that when we're out there sending our book out, it's called querying. If you're looking for an agent, it's called submission if you're going directly to a publisher. But we have this misperception that they look at every story and then they decide whether it's good or not, and all the good ones get published and all the bad ones don't. And that isn't, that isn't what happens. Yeah. It's, it's a business decision for the publisher. And or the agent, can I sell this book? Will the author help me sell this book? What does that look like? 100%. And we are starting as book coaches and editors, we're starting to hear that more and more that agents will look at two books submitted that are good, the same genre, and they sometimes go with the one that has more of a platform, more of a following. And I hate to say that, but it is becoming a little more commonplace. Yeah, absolutely. And so, okay, so I think. If you're listening to this, you're, you're gonna get it pretty quickly. Alright. I need this thing called platform. So how do we get started? Yeah, let's start small. Let's start easy. So, if you think that your ideal reader is reading a lot of, you know, fantasy stories, fiction on Substack, great. Start with something easy like notes on Substack, which is like the new Twitter for Substack. I was gonna say, can you tell us what Substack is? Yeah. It's ally new. We have all this jargon, like we know what people in the industry every day. I know what that is. I learned something really cool about Substack from Nicole today, and so by the time this airs. I, I may actually be there, but I hope you are. Let us know what it is. Okay. Well, I'm not the best person to articulate it, but it is like a publishing platform. So it started for readers and writers, and you can read people's works of Fiction on there. You can read people's blog posts, you can read newsletters, you can even listen to, um, podcasts. But what I love on there is there's a feature called notes. If you never wanna read any of the articles on there, you could just go on notes. It's kind of like the Twitter for, for this platform. Writers and readers are engaging with one another, and it is so cool. So a baby step could be like, I'm gonna go on there and write two sentences about what my book's about. And then someone's gonna say, oh, that's interesting. I read that, and they'll follow you. And then so on and so forth. Let's say you say, you know what, my ideal reader's actually still on Instagram. You go on there and you take a tiny little screenshot or a snapshot of your writing desk and then you, your caption could be like what the story is you're writing about. You didn't have to dance, you didn't have to show your face, but it is inviting the reader into your world. It's an invitation, and I would say baby steps if you wanna do that. Once a week. Great. Maybe it's just twice a month that you do something to build a platform. I think that those are really good baby steps you could do. Yeah. And I hear from writers all the time. Well, but Susie, you know, I don't have anything to talk about because my book's not out yet. But you're writing it. Yeah. People we're interested in what that's like. So you know, sharing a slice of life like Nicole just suggested. Yeah. A snapshot of where you write. Books you're loving. Yeah. That was something I did. Yeah. Where I write is, I took an armchair from my cottage and put it on the beach and then like, stuff like that, because I was laughing actually this January in one of the groups that I'm in, in a WhatsApp chat with lots of coaches and writers, uh, they were all posting their, you know, office makeovers or whatever. Where do you, where do you work? What's your office like? I'm like, well, I get the whole main floor and all of the outdoors. Wow. And they also get the coffee shops and my husband gets the basement.'cause he also works from home and he actually has an office and a desk and yeah, I, I mean, there are three desks in the space that I occupy, but I never sit at them unless I, interesting. I mean, you guys might see me at the, what, like I have a few zoom backdrops in the house, but Yeah. But if you were to see what's there, it's not a desks.' cause it's not how I work. Yeah. And that's so interesting to people. Yeah. Whether you're a reader or writer is, what are you writing? Where are you writing? What books are you devouring? I mean, that is all content that brings in the community that's like-minded and suddenly you're like, Hey, these people are like me and they might enjoy my book. Yeah. And remember that. I love what you just said. That is interesting to people. Yeah. It's a glimpse of something and you don't have to share what. You don't want to share, you don't have to get too personal, but Yeah, and, and Substack as, as you were talking about it, I mean it sort of a social media platform, but it's really for publishing works and sharing that and people can subscribe to it, but it's not, it's. It's not as, I mean, you curate your own feeds, at least for now. Yeah, and it's the way that some social media was a long time ago. One of the things I was trying to fix is my own meta feed, which is so broken. All I see is memes and, yeah. And ads. And ads. And I'm like, what is, where are all my people? And. Somebody's like, well, you have to unfollow all of that. And I, so I've spent like hours over the last couple days doing that, and then today I went, I'm like, when is this gonna fix itself? Yeah. Because it tries to recommend stuff. Yeah. And so right now it's a little bit more pure than that on Substack and it's a cool place to be. Yeah. I agree. Cool. Okay, so we're writing and, and one thing that we talk about with writers is like, oh my gosh, like I can't find the time to write. I need to finish. So how do you find the time to do this? Extra thing called platform. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you not get sucked into it? You know, if you read a great substack and you go on to the next, and the next, or Instagram or whatever, and you're on the, it's, you know, the wheel of, oh my gosh, I've been on this for two hours. You don't wanna do that either. I like to tell people, just as you would put a writing date in your calendar, you can treat this building of a platform as the same thing as maybe you put a calendar date twice a month, like I said, or once a week, whatever suits your schedule. Look, I'm just gonna do this for 45 minutes on a Monday and that that's over lunch, and I'm just going to either work on a blog post or work on an Instagram post or whatever it is, and remember, only be one place. At a time. Don't try and be everywhere all at once. It will really burn you out and it doesn't make sense. Your reader isn't everywhere. So just pick one platform or one way of reaching readers. Give yourself a writing date. Show up whether that's, you know, minimal or maximum and be consistent. Yeah, I love that. And, and you know, growing anything and any type of platform that is absolutely right. Pick one thing and be consistent with it. So you know, if you're looking at all the things and thinking that you need to be everywhere all at once. Oh, I just learned about Substack. Oh, I also need to be on all these social media platforms. Oh, I should have a newsletter. Yeah, I should have a podcast. Yeah, I should have a podcast. I should, as Susie did, volunteer for the local writers festival. I mean, all of those things, pick, pick one is, you know, I absolutely resonate with that. I mean, really. For me, even now with my books and promoting it and my platform, I have a huge platform and thank you all. I, I love, love, love to be able to gather people, but. The things that I do consistently are my newsletter. Yeah. And now the podcast. And if I didn't have a team working with me, I wouldn't be able to do the podcast. So don't compare yourself to everyone else and Yeah. And all of that. Okay. So, uh, I'm gonna give you another, but. Susie here.'cause I, okay. I love this. This is what I hear. Um, because Nicole's here as the, like, she's such an expert on this and I just want, want you to share with our listeners, because this is the other one I hear, but Susie, I don't wanna speak and do all those presentations like you do. Yeah. Great. Write a blog. Right. You know, there's so many other ways to do it. Start a newsletter. Even if it's for five people down the block who are in a book club. You know, if those, they are the only people reading the newsletter, guess what? You suddenly have a platform, you suddenly are building an audience. Yeah. If you've got five people or 12 people waiting for that, a book. Yeah. When it comes out, that is way better than zero. Yeah. You'd be shocked at what. Having 20 people buy your book at a local bookstore in the week that it comes out might make you hit the best seller list. Like it's, it's not that deep in terms of what you need to do. And then they tell two friends and they tell two, two friends, right? Yeah. And don't forget that some of our most notable self-published authors gained traction by posting fan fiction. They weren't even sharing anything about their personal lives or about their journey. Their, their platform was posting fanfiction. So it's limitless how you can build a platform, but it should be customized to what you love and what your reader, where your readers live and what they love reading. Yeah. And so fanfiction, for those of you who are new to this, fanfiction, is really when you take a different like world that's already out there and start writing it on your own, in fact. I love the story and how 50 Shades of Gray was actually originally, do you know the story from No, I was thinking of Twilight. Yeah, so, well, but, but it is Twilight. Okay. So 50 Shades of Gray was fan fiction for Twilight. Oh my gosh. I didn't know that. Yeah, and what she did was she actually released a chat and it's, I mean, it's dirty it a product, right? It's spicy. People will say to me all the time, they go, oh, you read that. You know, it's not the best written or whatever. I don't care. It's a best seller and something about it was right and what she actually did. Was she released fan fiction. Yeah. Like a chapter. And she started getting millions of followers and the book was picked up and they just did a fine and replace with Bella and Edward and made it Christian and whatever. Yeah. Anna or whatever. And that was it. That's, that's all it was. It was fan fiction. Yeah. So I love that. Such a cool example. Yeah. Yeah. And there are, I mean, there's, there's series that allow you to do that and there's series that don't. Yeah. But I mean, you can still write it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the point. There's different things, but I love that fan fiction. Yeah. You don't have to be, I mean, my superpower is that I am okay speaking. Right? Like I like that. Yeah. But it's not that common for writers. Right. And so, but if you love to write, you can use your writing to build Totally. A platform, not dancing or speaking or whatever. Yeah. So what about, okay, so I'm, I'm hearing it already. I'm gonna get comments here that say I'm just not ready, or I don't want people care and you know, we call that in the industry imposter syndrome. Yep. What is it that you see about writers and imposter syndrome? What does it mean? What does it look like? Yeah. How do you get through it? It looks, in my world, it looks like procrastination. It looks like a lot of excuses of why you're not ready yet, but you will someday. And that's human. We've all been there, right? That is very common. You're not alone if that's how you feel, but just as we would tell a writer, like, how would your life look like if you never wrote, even though you're, you're deep desire is to be an author. How would your life look like if you never connected with a reader? You know? So think about that. Only thing is risk is your time and energy. We all are constantly evolving. We're all making mistakes, trial and error, but the, we are putting yourself out there and you're connecting with one reader at a time. And that should be, you know, kind of universal of why we're all doing this. So when you wanna procrastinate, when you wanna say, I'm not ready. Ask yourself, will you, when will you be ready to reach a reader? And what if it's just sharing one small piece of your writing journey? There's, that's low stakes in that no one's gonna come and attack you for your messy writing desk. You know, if they are, they're not your ideal reader. Yeah. Right. You know, there's something that you and I have been talking about as well, which is sort of honing your message Yeah. And getting ready for that conversation. Do you wanna say a little bit about that? Because it's, it's, yes. It's about. Wreaking that reader, but also this takes practice. It totally takes practice. My very first job was writing for my town, my Town's Visitors Association blog. I wrote two paragraphs a week. And that was the best thing I could have done because I learned how to speak to an audience and I learned my voice. And you and I have talked about this offline is the more we wrote, the more we realized our voice and who we were. And that is so powerful. And the same thing can be said with author platform. The more you practice, the more you lean into your voice, the more the stronger you'll become as an author. But the more you'll connect with the audience that's out there looking for your message. Well, and, and the more confident. You become? Yeah. Right. I mean, if you find the right people, I mean, if you find the wrong people and trolls and all that stuff, and we can talk about that in a second. Yeah. You know, but, but if you find the right people, you can start to change. You can notice what are people responding to and what I. For me, I don't, I don't know what it is. I mean, my team, you guys are all amazing when you edit this. So, but there is a difference if, if, if I ask for my team to post something Yeah. It doesn't do the same. And sometimes when I just show up in my groups and do things, you guys notice, you know, and that's voice, right? And that's voice. And it's hard to teach, especially my voice because it, it clumps off. I mean, I am cheesy, but it comes off as. I wish you could see the Nicole face. I, I not think you're cheesy, but, but I, but I am in terms of like my positivity and it's all real. Yeah. Like, it's not, it's not forced, but like when somebody else tries to do that in my voice, it's actually, we laugh about it because sometimes it's just like, yeah. Sounds so over the top and I'm like. That's not quite, not quite right, but it's, it's a hard thing to teach and so, yeah. Um, hard thing to mimic. You can't mimic someone else's authenticity. Yeah. And so, you know, you really need to be showing up as you Yeah. It's not something that you can just automate or say, well, I've scheduled Instagram posts. It's going to happen three times a day. And then this is my platform. I promise you. Yeah. I, I don't know what you think. It hasn't worked for me. No. And yeah, you don't wanna go into Chad, GBT, have it, write your caption for you and then automatically post something like you said, three times a week. What you wanna do is come from a, a place of authenticity, but you wanna engage, you want to comment back to whoever's commented to you. You want to like other people, follow other people, whatever. It doesn't have to be social media, but it's engaging. I. That's community, right? Community is a conversation and having, you know, bigger discussions. It's not just an automated system. Yeah, and I love what you were saying earlier. About it being just one person. Right? Mm. And if you think about just trying to connect with that one person Yeah. Um, that authentic, you will be more authentic. Yeah. And it's sounds rewarding. I mean, we've talked about this too with our author friends. The, the amount of sales sometimes don't equal up to that one writer sending you a very personal email and saying how much your book meant to them. That is meaningful. And that's that one person, right? Yeah. But that doesn't just. It, it does happen and I mean I still, the fountain's been out for eight years and I still hear from readers that say, like, that book was the first book I read cover to cover that book. Yeah. Because I shared it with my friends and, and for whatever reason I hear from more teenage boys than girls, even though more girls read it, I don't know what it is, but they, the boys reach out and what is, okay, love. That maybe they don't have their little boy gaggle that wants to talk about the romance book that they just read. Maybe that, maybe I just solved the mystery. I love that. Something out. But it's so meaningful when you get those people reaching out. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So, so meaningful. Okay, so, but what about the opposite? I, I mean, people worry about hosting because trolls. Yeah. Like what's been your experience in coaching writers on how to deal with negativity? Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, another, uh, book coach friend of mine said it really nicely when she said, people are afraid of success. And I said, what do you mean by that? And it's exactly what you're saying. What if I write the thing, publish the thing, and then I get negative feedback? I didn't really think about that in the beginning of that was a layer of success. That means you've reached people, right. But I will also say, stop yourself right here, and don't even get on a platform that you already feel like you won't enjoy. You need to be doing it for the love of it. Like, I wrote this blog because I love blogging, or I took this photo and did a caption because I love imagery. You know, you have to love it first, and if you get some trolls or negative. People following you. You can unfollow, you can hide, you can click the button that has these people, you know, stop following you. But I would also say light attracts light and dark attracts dark. So just keep sharing your message and the right people will find you. And don't give any time and energy into the dark. Yeah. Darkness. And that's something I've had to learn for myself. Yeah. Over. I mean, how do you feel about responding to it? I don't, I don't give it time and energy because that's not why I'm there in the first place. I am there. You're getting a pissing match or something. There's, you're not gonna change someone's mind. You're there to share your message and there's plenty of people following you or reading your letters or whatever they do, because they wanna hear your message. Don't give your time and energy into trolls. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I love that. I mean, I had to learn, I mean, I, I'm actually very fortunate. I, I worried a lot about trolls. Especially opening communities. I thought that we'd have to be policing them and everything else. By the way, I like to call the Inspire Writing Community the most positive writing community on the interweb. Because I just, you know, you see so many groups out there that are negative, but you lead by example. Yeah. Like you said, light. I love that light attracts light. Yeah. I think in the three years that I have had a public Facebook group, we have 1500 members in that public Facebook group. Amazing group of all of y'all. We've removed May like, I'll have to check with my team. I would say two posts. Okay. And they weren't even that bad. They were just buy my book with spam links. Like, like whatever. Yeah. Right. And it's not allowed. And so like it hasn't been an issue. Yeah.'cause it's just so clear. Yeah. What's the purpose? Right. What are we doing? And I'm sorry, but if somebody's out there given their all As we try to do. Yeah. It's pretty tough now on my, you know, when I'm advertising a, a masterclass or something. Yeah. I get trolls and I, it took me a while to learn, but somebody once told me, I. Just hide it. And the the weird thing is hide their comment. Yeah, hide the comment. Because then you know what, you don't even engage. They don't get notified. Yeah. You don't plead it. You don't report it. I mean, it's never bad enough to be reported, but if they're like, oh yeah, sure. What do you know about, you know, they don't even read it. They're just mad that their book hasn't been published and they're taking it out on you. Nobody needs to see that. Totally, and that's actually a really good example of going too wide. You have to, when it's paid ads, but in terms of your platform, you wanna go where your reader lives, your ideal reader lives, and if you're going so wide that it's all people everywhere. Yes, you're gonna track some people that aren't your ideal audience, and that's okay. You knew that going in. But when you're thinking about platform, think about where those people are living that you want to commune with, you wanna be in community with, and you wanna share and engage, and that will really kind of pair out some of that stuff. Well, I love that because community should be a two way street. Yeah. And these are the people that are going to support you. When you think about it, it's not buy my book, buy my book. Oh, I hope they buy my book. Yeah. It's, it's, Hey, you know what people, when you do this and it feels good, and it's alignment, in alignment with your values, people are waiting for your book. Yeah. And they want you to succeed and they want to have this conversation with you, and they are waiting for it. And so it's not about selling to them if you have the right audience. Yeah. It's about you providing a service and helping them. Yes. Will you get paid? Yes. It's not a million dollars to buy your ebook or your book when it comes out, right? Yeah. You're gonna be, you're gonna be helping them. People love books. I love books. Yeah. We had a field trip this afternoon. Oh, I missed it. Some of the gig. I didn't go either, but I just saw all the photos. We've been recording podcasts, so we're at this retreat here in Arizona with some of my favorite people in the world. We call it an unconference. Yeah.'cause we don't really have a lot, other than we just, we love working together online and periodically we just need to be in the same space together. Yeah. A hundred percent supporting each other. Yeah. But that's a really good example. It's part of the. It's part of your platform. So if you've got groups like that in person, these people, I can tell you when my next book comes out, they are going to be my biggest cheerleaders. Yeah. Right. And and likewise I do it for them. Yeah. And Nicole in particular, I mean, I've just been so impressed and known you for a number of years. And your platform is expansive and you've just been able to create those relationships. Nicole and I realized we're actually speaking at the same event tomorrow, and totally unrelated because. We're both experts in our field and we were approached to do this thing. Yeah. And so we're like, oh, cool, we're taking out the same event. Right. But yeah. Event for writers. Yeah. And event for writers and, and it's just amazing. But what would you say was your biggest win when you were creating your own platform? What is it that sort of pushed, like how did you, how did you get out there? I mean, other than just being. Amazing in giving. And maybe that's the answer. I don't know. Yeah, I think the biggest win was the personal stories that came in. You know, I was telling people that I was writing, my very first book was about a real life house in Los Angeles that belonged to a famous author who was Ray Bradbury. And I was starting to talk about this is what I'm writing about. And it was amazing that people came through and said, I'm a fan of his, or I was an old neighbor of his, or, I love the story. I love the thinking about old houses. And it was really good kind of mojo to keep me going. And then I would update them and then they would buy the book and give me reviews or comment. And we still, a lot of those people, we still kept in touch, you know, because we had started that community. So I think just connection was the biggest highlight for me. And I love that because yes, it probably felt hard. Did it feel hard at first for you, or was it always natural? To reach out. It felt hard, and I was second guessing, you know what to share. Because when you're a newbie writer, it's like, well, am I worthy enough to share anything? Yes, you are because you're an artist. And I, you know, even if I'm flipping around on tv, I love watching people, you know, blow glass or create art because it's like, yeah, they're not famous. But I love watching the process. It's exciting to me, so I know it's exciting to other people. Yeah. And I love, I mean, you just shared Exactly. I mean. Let's go back to your why. You wanna create novel platform. I mean, if it's feeding you Yeah. Along the process and you know that people are actually interested in this and it can be really helpful as you're writing as well, right? Like it should serve you as well. Yeah, I agree. Amazing. Okay, so you have a new venture. I do. Which I'm so excited to hear you talk about bookwork. Tell us about what is bookwork. Okay, so in addition to being a book coach and a developmental editor, I have teamed up with a dear friend who is kind of a branding guru because we said, look, we've got all these amazing writers who write a strong manuscript, and then they say, well, now what do I do with it? So we started bookwork.co and it helps writers establish, strategize, and establish an author platform. And then for those that wanna go traditional, we also help them strategize, um, agent queries. So I love the the platform part because everybody's different. It's like, you know, snowflake, everybody's different. It's so exciting to see what they're gonna do with their platform, how they do it. And it's also been super rewarding because we have newbie writers come. They haven't even finished their manuscript, but they've started reaching out and building community and platforms and they've had really good feedback and success so far. So it's been great. Oh yeah, I just love that. What's been the most. Rewarding part about that. Yeah, adventure. I think that the part that's really fun is for those clients we've worked with to forward us, you know, oh my gosh, somebody sent me this message because they read my substack. Or oh my gosh, I got booked on this podcast because I was talking about this theme in my books. And they get so excited that they forward on, you know, the get to us and we're so thrilled for them. I just love that. And to see Nicole's face light. Up. Right? Yeah. Light up. It's just such good. Thank you for doing this work with authors. It's like one of the most gray areas. Um, it's something that I used to have a lot of time for and it's not something I work on with authors a lot anymore, and so I just love that you are able to hold that space for writers and to teach them. How to just, this is scary, right? Like it is, but it doesn't have to be Scary it, sorry. It feels scary. Yeah. But you're not gonna die, I promise you. Um, you're not gonna die. And it's this fight or flight response or resistance. Yeah. Called it procrastination. But yeah, just one, what's the next Right step. One step. One step. Totally. I love that. Yeah. Where can our listeners find you and your new venture and all the things that Yeah. Runners need? Yes. I think the easiest spot is to go to bookwork.co and you can find all the goodness there. Awesome. We'll put that in the shadows. Oh, okay. Are you ready to go back to happy hour? Yeah. Are you? Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you so much, Susie. And you're gonna be on my podcast soon too, so that'll be fun. Awesome. Okay. Thanks. Thanks for tuning in to show Don. Tell Writing with me, Susie Vadori. I can continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening. Also, visit susie Vadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community. If you're feeling brave, check the show notes and send us a page of your writing that isn't quite where you want to be yet for our show notes. Page review episodes. Remember that book and your writing is going to open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make it the absolute best you're feeling called to write that book. Keep going, and I'm gonna be right here cheering you on. See you again next week.