133: The Update Episode: My Book, Business, and ALLLLL the Mindset Stuff

 

It's time for an update episode! We cover updates on my book, the process of being on submission, my program to help writers with the first 50 pages of their book, and the biggest mindset hurdle I recently had to overcome.

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the update episode: my book, business, and alllll the mindset stuff

Hello, welcome back to your big creative life. Thank you so much for listening. I'm excited to do an update episode with y'all. I feel like it's been a while since I've done one of these and just told you what was going on with my book, life, business, just all the things. So let's get into it. I'm back in my pod recording cube, I guess at this co working space, they have these little cubes that you can go into, if you need to take a call or something like that. And it's really nice. I just like bring my microphone with me, I have this Yeti microphone, and I put it in my backpack and bring it to the co working space. And it works well. It's not again, like if you are watching the video, you can see the gray background. It's not super, super aesthetically pleasing.

 

But for some reason, it just feels really easy to do these podcast episodes in this space to bring the microphone and do it. I don't know, it just it feels a lot easier. So I'm rolling with it. I mean, from the beginning, my attitude with the podcast has always been if it's easy, I'm more likely to do it. That's like, actually, that's true with anything. It's true with writing. It's true with content creation. If it's easy, I'm more likely to do it. Because I want to take the path of least resistance right? Don't we all? So? Yeah.

 

Okay, I want to tell you about novel Jumpstart. First of all, we just finished week four of the program. And I feel like the writers who are in this program are really giving it their all they're showing up to the calls, they're asking questions, they're getting support in their writing, which is so freakin cool to see there are some people in the program who have like, wanted to write this book for years, literally years, and it is so cool to see them actually doing it. If you've missed this round of novel jumpstart, I believe, no concrete date yet, but I believe tentatively I want to run it again in the fall. So just keep your eye, you know, keep your eyes out for an announcement about that.

 

And if you didn't get in on this round, but you were thinking about it, or maybe it just wasn't a good time for you. But fall is I'll keep you posted on that, because I think it's gonna be really fun to run again. Yeah, and I like having a small group for this kind of program, I might tweak it a little bit in the fall. But I don't know, we'll just have to see I'm planning to pull other people who are in it right now to see if there's anything they want to change, to see if they have suggestions on how to improve the structure of it. But I think having the calls, having the course, like a combination of self paced work, and then also calls that you 10. Like, I think it's just a really nice hybrid approach. And it's working well.

 

So I love it, I'm really happy with this group of writers and happy that I get to run this kind of program. So more on that to come. If you have been thinking about working with me in some other capacity, like maybe you want to work with me one on one, I have my six month coaching program, which is designed for writers who are either you want to write a book and you haven't started or maybe you've started your novel, but you're not very far into it and you want some coaching, you want some support and some editing along the way to help you definitely check out the six month program. As of right now when I'm recording this, I have one spot that's open the end of June. And then I will have one spot open in August.

 

So you can find the link at the description in the description of this episode that has ways to work with me. And you could check out the six month program. There's a lot that's included in this program like coaching calls Monday through Friday access to me on Voxer, which is app, this app that we use to communicate, you get feedback on your pages along the way. And there are also multiple rounds of editing that you get once your book is done. So definitely check that out if you think that's something you're interested in. And then you can always find my editing availability. In the link as well though, there's a link to editing and you can see I always keep that updated for what I'm looking for, which now I believe I should have checked before I started recording.

 

It's either July or August. I can't remember I might have one July spot left, maybe one August left. So yeah, for copy editing or manuscript evaluation. You can always check to see on the website to see what I'm looking for and fill out that form and reach out to me and we will discuss working together and what you need for your project. Okay, update on my book. Which is to say there's not there's not really an update. I'll just be so fucking real with y'all. It has been really difficult to wait, it has been so difficult to be patient. My book. So this is my second book, I signed with a new agent in the fall of 2022. And we did a lot of revision on the book to get it ready for submission, we went out on submission to publishers, which is where I want to explain this process.

 

If you were listening to the podcast for the first time, you're not familiar with my story, or just you're not sure what that means. When you have an agent, the agent will submit your manuscript your book to editors at different publishers. And it's kind of confusing, because we use the term editors, they're called editors, but they're not just people who edit your book, they're also acquiring books, they want to buy books, so you make a deal. And so the agent submits your book out to different editors at different publishers who they think would be a good fit and the benefit of having an agent in this situation? Well, a lot of times, it's necessary, like a lot of places, most places won't accept your book, unless you have an agent submitting it to them. So it's necessary.

 

But it's also such an advantage to have an agent who knows these people they know who's looking for what type of book, they know who would be interested in your book. So that's a huge benefit. So we sent it out. And right away we had right away, it was like within two weeks, which is pretty fast. In the traditional publishing world, we did have an editor who was interested. But we got some feedback from her. And then from also a number of other editors on that initial list, that there were too many books about podcasts on the market right now. And my book, the main character had a podcast. So and the editor who was interested was not able to get it past acquisitions because of that, because they were like, you know, we're hearing from booksellers there, this is just, there are too many books like this out there.

 

And that was really shitty feedback to hear, because I really liked the podcast angle of the book. But I get it. I mean, what I what I am so grateful didn't happen is, of course, it would have been nice to get a book deal then. But what I'm glad didn't happen is I would hate to get a book deal for the book that had the podcast in it, like that version of it, then a year and a half, two years later, because it takes so long in traditional publishing, once you get the book deal for your book to be published. A year and a half, two years later, the book would come out. And there would be like a million other books about podcasts on the shelves, and my book probably would not sell very well because of that. So in a way I am grateful. I mean, I guess if I'm forcing myself to see like the positive side of it, that is a good thing that that it didn't sell because of that fact.

 

So we decided my agent, and I decided to pull the manuscript. So it was not, it's not sufficient anymore. And we made some changes to it. We meeting, I made some changes to it and sent it to her to for her feedback, we did a few rounds of that. And I just sent an email to her this week to check in to see if we are ready to go back on submission, she had a lot of stuff on her plate that she had to get out first. And so I'm hoping that like any day, now, we will be back on submission. And I'm not sure about our strategy yet, if it's going to be sending it to completely new editors, or if we will send it to some editors that were on that initial list. So we'll see.

 

I'll update y'all as soon as saying I know, but I wanted to share this because it's, it's really difficult to be on submission. And because of that fact, it's not something that people talk about a lot. There are writers who go out submission, their agent sends out their book. And then 10 days later, they have a book deal. And then 30 days later they get to and once the contract is finalized, then they get to announce it to the world. That definitely happens to some people. For a lot of people though, it takes a lot longer than that. Occasionally traditional publishing can move very quickly, like in the case of you know, getting a book deal in 10 days. But more often than not it it moves slowly.

 

So it's hard. It's hard to be in this position. And I've talked a little bit about this before because this is my second time on submission. I was on submission with my first book right before COVID. And we had an editor who was interested COVID Hit the editor got laid off the imprint shut down at this big five publisher. It was an imprint of St. Martin's Press. And that was it. That was the end of the road for my book. Because everything just kind of stopped and in the traditional publishing world and there weren't a lot of book deals for new authors being ate because everyone was scared of the impact that the pandemic would have on publishing.

 

So, this is not my first time being on submission, but this this time is worse because there's not a global pandemic that I can blame for why things. I don't know why things are happening the way that they are. And I just want to be real, I just want to be real and say that it's really, really hard. I declared at the beginning of this year, I was like, all in, I'm gonna have a book deal this year. This is the year. And it's June now. And I'm like, Yes, still putting that desire out there still claiming it. But there's a part of me that just feels like, okay, is this a sign that this? I guess I'm just having some doubt, I'm having some doubt that is this the book like, is this the book? Am I going to have to go through this process a third time? Like, what if this revised draft that I did the revised book without the podcast? What if that still doesn't sell? That's a possibility.

 

And if that happens, then we would have to go through this process again with another book. And I'm not even I'm not even like halfway done writing my next book, I have like 13,000 words written of my next book, it is nowhere close to being ready. Because once I write it, I want to polish it and edit it before I send it to my agent. So we're looking at a long time. I mean, I could get the draft out quickly. And I probably will, if I have a fire under me to do it. But it just sucks. It sucks to be on submission. It's something that not a lot of people talk about, partly because it is so hard. But there's also this sense that a lot of people think that the biggest hurdle in traditional publishing, in the process of getting your book published is finding an agent, because finding an agent is very difficult.

 

I've seen varying statistics on the number of authors who get agents, but even the most optimistic, generous numbers like it's not, there are way more authors who want agents than authors who get agents. And so there's the sense that that's the big hurdle to get through that once you get over that hurdle. Once you get the agent, then it's, yeah, maybe you wait a little bit and whatever. But like, then it's smooth sailing after that, for the most part, because you got the agent. And that's just not true, especially in this publishing world, like things have changed. It's just hard, it's hard to get a book published. And there's also not a lot of transparency in the traditional publishing world about, like how this all works.

 

So I didn't even know before I went through this process, the first time, I didn't understand what it meant to take something to acquisitions. That was not something I had heard people talk about, I thought it was just like you send it out to publishers. And the publishers are like, yes, please, let us buy this. And that's it. But what happens is when an editor reads your manuscript, and they're like, Yes, I really liked this, I want to take the next step towards acquiring this book, they have to bring it to a department meeting. And I don't know a ton about it, I'm still working on a lot of it.

 

But my general understanding is that they take it to this meeting and say, Hey, here's a book that I'm interested in. And they all talk about it, they all discuss it, they run financials, they look at the market, and as a group, they decide if this is something to that they should invest in or not, because it's a big financial investment. And at the end of the day publishers are, it's a business, you know, so they have to make sure that if they're going to front the money and give this author an advance to buy this book, that they think they're going to be able to sell it.

 

So in the case of the editor, who was interested, when we sent out the podcast version, she took it to acquisitions, and they were like, Nope, sorry, can't acquire it. There's just too many books that are similar to this on the market. So that can happen. Yeah, I don't want this episode to be too much of a downer, because I am still optimistic and hopeful that this will sell. You know, like I said, we're taking this new version out, only one editor has seen this new version, that editor who's interested did, should we sent her the revised draft, and she did end up passing on that decided not to offer to buy it.

 

So that's the end of that particular road. But she's the only editor who saw this revised draft. So I'm hopeful still that, you know, we could send it back out. It's an interest. But yeah, and I feel like, I mean, I'm just gonna be honest, and tell y'all that having this be in limbo for so long has affected my life. Mental Health, and it's affected my writing. And I don't want to let it affect my writing. I want to keep working on this book. But it's a struggle. It's a struggle, because well, because of a lot of things, my schedule, you know, I gave birth to a baby in October, I wasn't writing much when I was pregnant, I didn't really write it all the first few months after she was born, for obvious reasons, I was just like getting out of the fog and figuring out how to take care of a baby.

 

But after that, like the last few months, I've slowly been getting back into it. But I haven't been writing very much because I have this feeling like, I don't know. This sounds so depressing to say, but it's like it's hard to keep writing books that don't get published. And of course, the second book is not dead, it has yet to go back on submission like there. I can be optimistic about it. But there is that part of me that's like, should I even bother? So anyways, part of the work that I'm doing is to fall back in love with my story that I'm writing. It's another thriller, it's set at.

 

Actually, you know what, I'm not even gonna share too much about it, because I'm still figuring out one of the pieces of it. Anyways, it's a thriller, it takes place over five days at this conference in Miami. And that's what I'll say. Yeah, it's, it's juicy. It's fun. It's got some really interesting themes and topics that I'm excited to talk about. And to dive into these characters. I feel like I've really done a good job of coming up with these interesting, dynamic, sometimes maniacal, evil characters, and it's really fun. So I need to just fall back in love with the story and continue to write continue to work. I'm also coming off of a few weeks that were really intense with editing projects.

 

So I'm out of that busy period and have some more space. Also launching novel jumpstart, it's always a lot of work to launch something, especially something that's new, and I'm doing it for the first time. So yeah, I'm just easing back into the writing and focusing on that, because it's like, I always talk about this with clients. It's like, what can I control, I can't control the traditional publishing world, I can't control how long things take. I can't control when exactly I get back on submission, like all these things, if the book gets acquired or not. But what I can do, what I can control is making sure like in the past, it was making sure that that book was solid that I did my best on the revisions, I had a draft that I was really proud of.

 

And now it's focusing on this next book. That's what that's what I can control, I can work on that one. So I think he's just reminding myself of that, and getting back to it. Yeah, I sort of feel like I just dumped all of this on y'all. And I really, again, I don't want to be super negative about it. But it's just, I want to be honest about where I'm at with the process. Because it's been over a year and a half since I signed with Molly and I really had hoped that it would be like a few months, and then we'd be on submission, and we get a book deal. And it would be like bam, bam, bam. And it hasn't been the case. So it's it's partly about like adjusting my expectations to. So anyways, that is wearing out with the book that went with all of that. I do want to share something else, too. And this is related to social media. I'm going to do a whole episode on this fear. And what I discovered recently because it it was mind boggling to go through this work in this process and discover this.

 

But maybe a month ago, I had decided, okay, I want to create different types of content, I want to share more of my life, I want to like just be creative with my content, and it feels, I feel like I can't really do that on the main account, the business account. So I'm going to create a separate personal account and that was my plan for tic tock and for Instagram that I would have the business account where I talked about writing and editing and all of that. And then the personal account where I talk about other things my life as a writer, yes, but also being a mom running a business. Being sobered creativity, just like stuff I've learned throughout my life. I don't know, that kind of stuff.

 

And I was getting ready to do that. And the timing is interesting because my mom was in town she came to visit like mid May. And so I wasn't gonna post a lot of content while she was in town because I wanted to be present with her and just enjoy having her visit. So I was like, Okay, once my mom leaves, I guess I'll just like go full steam ahead on this new account. I created a new account, and I posted I think two videos or something. I made two videos and I heard or know, what was the timing? Shit, I'm getting the timing wrong. I guess I heard about this first and then I like it didn't sink in right away. And I didn't really want to look at it.

 

So I went ahead and created the new account and posted a couple of videos. And then it's like, it just hit me like it took a while for for it to sink in. And what I heard that stopped me in my tracks was, there's this woman called Whitney Nuland, who I follow on social media, her one of her videos came across my FYP. And I am going to be very real and say that her video triggered the hell out of me. It was a video that she did. She's a coach. She's like a life coach. Mindset coach for people who artists aren't what is her thing? Artists, creatives and influencers, people who want to be famous?

 

And it was a video she did talking about, like, people who know that they're meant for big things who have this desire for fame. And it triggered the hell out of me because I was like, what people who think they want to be a celebrity, like what a shallow, stupid thing to just like, have people look at you, oh, my, my, my internal reaction to it was just like, oh, this is so gross. And I kept scrolling. Then, because I had watched the whole video, tik tok ept showing me more of her videos. And I started to realize why I got so triggered by her is because part of me wanted that. Like, I am very ambitious, I want big things in my life.

 

And part of that involves people see me It involves just being in public in some sense, or like on social media more, right? I mean, I think we can all agree that if you want to do big things, if you want to be a best selling author, you unless you are already established and have been writing for years and don't need to have a social media presence. Like if you're just starting out, that's part of how you do that is you are in you are online, people can find you people can see you. In order to find out about you, in order to consume your content in order to read your books. Like that's just part of it. You have to get comfortable being perceived by people, if you want to be a successful best selling author.

 

Obviously, the degrees vary to which you feel comfortable sharing and what you want to share. But that's part of it. So when I sat back and thought about it, I was like, Okay, actually, I see what she's saying. This does make sense. It did a deep dive took one of her trainings, and she said something along the lines of she was answering a question from someone who had said, hey, I want to create a separate account. I'm having trouble posting, I think I just want to separate like, the business and the personal stuff, exactly my situation. And she was like, I'm gonna be real with you when people do this is because they're afraid of being seen that there is some part of them that doesn't feel safe, being seen by people.

 

And again, I heard this for the first time. And I was like, Yeah, and I was like doing something else when I was listening to this. And it just like, didn't register fully until, I don't know, a couple days a week later. And then it really hit me what she was saying. And it's like my entire body just froze. It felt like my nervous system was like completely out of whack. And I realized that the reason I had been wanting to create this new account to separate myself to divide myself is because I didn't feel comfortable being perceived.

 

I was scared of being seen. And it was a bombshell moment for me and I thought about this, I looked into it more, I did some some meditation, some journaling and thought about how many decisions I've made over the last few years, because I've been afraid of being perceived. Now I have worked through a lot of this, like it used to be so much worse. And now I'm to the point where I can put out content and social media, I can create a podcast, I can share my thoughts and not feel totally dysregulated and panicky that like what if people don't like me? What if this gets only 20 views or whatever, like I've worked through a lot of that stuff.

 

So it's so much better. But there's there's still that part that's like not comfortable, it not comfortable being perceived, even though I want to be perceived, I want to have success on a big level. So anyways, it was a it was an eye opening thing for me. And I took a couple weeks I didn't really post much social media, I just kind of sat back and was like, stunned by this. So existential crisis, an existential crisis ensued and then I got over it and was like, Okay, I clearly I just need to like do some work to get through this resistance that I have, and work through this fear of being seen and work on becoming the person who is comfortable being seen who's comfortable sharing her opinions and having people witness what she's doing.

 

And I mentioned all of this because I think it's so important. And for anyone who does want to have a big platform who does want to have a lot of success as any type of creative, and I'm going to do a whole separate podcast episode on the spirit being seen that will come out in a couple of weeks, so just stay tuned for that. But yeah, it was eye opening for me. So I guess just kidding on separate accounts, I'm gonna retract that, because it really was a decision made out of fear. Yeah, that's all I can say. It was a decision made out of fear.

 

And now realizing that I just don't know if I can split myself into two like that. So anyways, thank you for listening to that long ramble about my fear and what I've gone through. But I again, I think it's really important for creatives to examine this fear, because I think it's something a lot of us wrestle with, whether it's conscious or subconscious. And it's really important to look at so that it doesn't prevent us from achieving the things that we want to achieve in life and putting ourselves out there. Anyways, I'm gonna I'm gonna go record that fear of being seen podcast episode right now, because I'm ready to talk about it and fired up about it.

 

So again, that episode will come out in a couple of weeks. last announcement, last podcast thing, if you have a question that you would like to submit for the June q&a episode, please do so there's a link in the description of this episode, where it links to a Google form and you can put your question in there every last Tuesday of every month is going to be a q&a episode. You can submit questions on writing, editing, brainstorming, mindset, business, anything personal about me social media content, whatever. And I will answer some questions on the last podcast of the month. So submit those questions if you have them. Thank you for listening to my update episode. I hope to have more news with the book soon. I'll keep y'all posted as much as I can. And cross your fingers for me that we get through this. Alright, thanks for listening and I will catch you all next week.

Katie Wolf