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Indie publishing success with Heather Grace Stewart
37 Plays4 years ago
Heather Grace Stewart, author of “The Ticket” is my guest this week. We discuss the challenges of indie publishing in Canada, her success with Self Publishing Formula and our shared belief that kindness is an essential quality of Canadians.
This has been an exciting week as an entrepreneur so it’s a good time to discuss independent publishing with my fantasy romance writer buddy.
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Transcript
Introduction and Jared Advertisement
00:00:01
Speaker
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Tracey Ariel's Business Challenges
00:00:16
Speaker
My name is Tracey Ariel and I am an apologetically Canadian.
00:00:29
Speaker
So this is such an exciting week. There are so many things going on and it's a little bit frazzling actually. Even when good things happen, you sort of get this sense of overwhelmed and everything is too cool and you get, you start going ahead 10 years and how things at least, right, this is what I do.
00:00:49
Speaker
We are, with one of my businesses, we're applying for credit because we have a big opportunity to expand the operation next year. And so on one hand, we're really excited because this shows that people around us are in
00:01:07
Speaker
are believing that the company has a good future and they're investing in us. On the other hand, we have the extra pressure of feeling like we have to justify these investments. And so then, all of that feeling of, I'm not good enough and whatever you can't do it, and all of those things come much more to the surface than they normally are.
00:01:30
Speaker
things are going really really well or really really bad, you still have to deal with your mindset and your capability of being resilient and we're also waiting for a few approvals and if those approvals don't come through then the other things are going to be harder to do.
00:01:49
Speaker
And it's all a turn and that's how any business goes.
Interview with Heather Grace Stewart
00:01:55
Speaker
You'll know today I'm presenting an interview from Heather Grace Stewart and this is an author who is a good buddy of mine and she has just created a really fun series of
00:02:09
Speaker
they're really humorous, humorous romances of all sorts. There's fantasy romances, there's regular romances, well what she calls second chance romances and it's really really, she has a series of books that are really fun but she's been working on it for 10 years now and things are only just starting to happen in terms of expansion for her career and so we talk about basically how you have to be
00:02:39
Speaker
just keep going. And we also talk a little bit about balance and her belief that you don't necessarily have to write every day if you're a writer. Your projects can move forward as long as you're intentional about them. And so that's the other theme of this week. We've got flexibility and intention because when you put an intention into something, you do more than your, at least in my case, when I put intention in something, I do more than I would normally do.
00:03:09
Speaker
because I've basically said I'm going to do it, and so it's a challenge. And that leads to my NaNoWriMo. I'll just update you on how that's going. I'm at 19,000 words. I should be, if I were right on track right now, I should be at about 24 or 25,000 words and on my way to 30. Instead, I'm still on my way to 25, but I'm really happy because I'm still moving forward. I got through
00:03:35
Speaker
last weekend I had to take off four days because I had a really huge deadline to do instead and but I got through that and now I'm on track again and the schedule is going well and I'm still confident they'll be able to do the 50,000 words, but I guess we'll see you next week. I hope everything's going well with you and here's my interview ahead.
00:03:55
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And Heather and I have been buddies for a long time because we were members of the same Writers Association.
The Ticket: Translation and Production Interest
00:04:00
Speaker
Hi, Heather. Hi. It's great to talk with you again. Yeah, I know. It's been so long. Can you tell me, I mean, the reason I asked you because I saw all of the excitement about ticket. Can you talk a little bit about what you've been doing lately and why the things are getting exciting with the ticket? Yeah, that's just a writer's life thing. I mean, nothing happens. Nothing happens for months. And then
00:04:23
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all at once, which is great, but I'm a little overwhelmed right now. Because we just put out a French version of The Ticket. The Ticket is a contemporary romance novel that I self-published in 2016. And then it went on Kindle and paperback worldwide.
00:04:42
Speaker
And, uh, and then in the summer, you know, fast forward to the summer and people were, um, having lots of time because of coronavirus. So this reader who really loved it, I didn't even know she was doing this. She read it. She loved it. She wanted a friend to, um, read it and the friend only spoke French, so she translated the whole thing. Wow. Isn't that sweet? Oh my gosh, that's fabulous. And then I've been on the internet for a long time.
00:05:13
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So I've learned that you can make friends and it can be safe, but there's also some strange scams and stuff happening. So she wrote me an email and said, I've translated this and it sounded from her broken English that she was going to publish it. So I went into author mode, like you can't do that politely, of course, but you can't do that. You don't have the rights. And then she goes, no, no, I just thought I'd give it to you and you could publish it. Wow.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, so we that was the first Excitement was it late August. She's basically the keema friend. Her name is Melody Portland. She's adorable and so kind and so talented. She's a great translator and That just came out just last week and at the same time last week I get notification from my agent and
00:06:04
Speaker
that the ticket's been optioned by a production company in LA. That's so exciting. Congratulations. It's really exciting. I mean, option doesn't mean produced yet, but still, it means that people are looking at producing it, which is really
Self-Publishing and Writing Insights
00:06:20
Speaker
cool. Yeah, well, I know I was going to be talking with you. And also, you know, eventually my readers in my mailing list like to hear, I kind of have people sign up to my mailing list to hear
00:06:30
Speaker
a lot of news, whereas on social media, you keep it to a minimum. And that's kind of the bonus on my mailing list. Sometimes they get pictures of my cat and stuff like that. So I thought, how am I going to phrase this? Because
00:06:44
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Not everybody knows that when, especially people who aren't in the industry, they just don't know that when you get optioned, it could fall apart and not happen. And then I decided what I've done as a self-publisher the last few years is just to always believe that every step gets you ahead and you have to be positive and you have to just keep going. So I'm just looking at this as like, what's another step? And it's way better than I was four years ago. Yeah.
00:07:10
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Exactly, it's another step in where you want to go and mindset is so positive, mindset is so important because you just never, you just can't count on so many things. You better at least be able to count on yourself being positive all the time.
00:07:25
Speaker
Well, there's been a lot of setbacks. When I wrote it, I saw it as a movie in my mind. All the books that I've done, all the commercial fiction books, my poetry is different. And I just do that knowing I probably won't make much of a living out of it, but I just do it for the passion. And with The Ticket, it was based on a true news story that happened in Canada. And I thought, OK, I'm going to fictionalize it to make it more appealing for
00:07:54
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the greater public and also to be safe because I couldn't reach the people involved. So I just completely made it grab from the headlines. But after that, after the headline, it's fictionalized. But when I saw the news story back in 2016 and I told my daughter, who was then 10, I said, oh my gosh, that's my next novel. And she goes, well, you better get cracking on that, Mommy.
00:08:17
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Because she's such a clever kid and smarter than me now. And she knew that possibly someone else would take it and make it more of a like biographic type or documentary about this guy who had a ticket to go around the world and his girlfriend broke up with him at the last minute and he had to find someone with the same name to go on the passport to go and use the ticket because he didn't want to waste it. Right. Yeah, I remember that story.
00:08:44
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So she, you know, in her wisdom is like, well, don't just, you know, kind of lollygag and do a little bit, just go full on. So I've been going full on with this one since 2016. Wow. And what does full on mean to you? Because I mean, this is a podcast about Canadian identity, so not everybody listens that knows the industry either. So.
00:09:07
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full-on uh yeah that's interesting i said that because my personality is like that and i have to actually pull myself in and take rests and um this summer was good for that because we were forced to be home so um i wasn't full on this summer isn't that interesting i was going to say that to you too that when you're i mean you're going to be asking what writers advice i give and a lot of people say
00:09:30
Speaker
write every day and I have learned in the last decade that that's not necessarily good for a writer, especially if they have lower back problems like I do or risk problems or just, you know, just being overwhelmed and needing to just kind of do the work-life balance thing. That it's okay to just think about your project every day and just thinking about it as something or just taking one step towards it but it doesn't have to necessarily be writing 3,000 words.
00:09:58
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So full on for me, I guess I meant it's been the one project at the top of my mind that could be a movie.
Transition from Poetry to Fiction
00:10:05
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Everything else, I've had some nibbles and people interested. Strangely Incredibly Good is actually my first novel and it's actually my agent shopping it around too. And there's been a few interests from producers asking to read it and stuff. Yeah, fabulous.
00:10:25
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Okay, so basically what we are now at the stage where you have the ticket in production, you have someone who basically gave you a translation. And now, so what about your other books? Because you have other books as well. What's happening with those? And tell me, give our listeners a little bit of an idea of what books you have and the process of becoming, because you're an author, you're a poet, and you're a fiction author. But what made you decide to do, what do you call it, second chance romances?
00:10:56
Speaker
I just fell into it. I think I I I'd always been a poet and actually some people from the periodical Writers Association, which is how I met you came to one of my poetry readings and signings for carry on dancing my first published book with a publisher because I'm a hybrid author and published and
00:11:15
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traditionally with a few books, about four books, and then I grabbed all the rights with a very kind publisher named Morning Rain Publishing, who published my first novel, who after two years decided that they were finding it a struggle for all of their authors, and a lot of us asked for the rights back after two years, and they became a service to help us authors.
00:11:38
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Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So we all worked together after the fact with the rights and ended up doing design and putting the books out. So it was all very friendly. And in fact, one of the editors is now my editor for all my books. Fabulous.
00:11:58
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So basically, I asked why I went into that, and it's just because they said, you should write something longer. And I was like, oh, no, I just do poetry. And at the time, I was just doing journalism.
00:12:08
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And then I went home, and I thought, what? I say, no. If they think I can do it, maybe I should write something longer. So I wrote Strangely Incredibly Good, and that's a fantasy romance.
Fantasy and Romance Writing
00:12:18
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And I don't know why. That's the beginning of how I got into second chance romance, because she is a woman whose the lead cat is overweight and frustrated with life.
00:12:28
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and just going through the rut after a divorce and she goes to try the wee machine to lose some weight and it's a very curve positive book but she's just trying to get herself to feel better about life again and a genie comes out of the wee machine and so don't ask me like that just happened I had the idea in my in my mind when I was doing wee and and he was
00:12:54
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like the guy, the actual guy for me, he wasn't synced up when he was telling me that I was shaky. And I'm like, no, like you're shaky and you're not even synced up with your mouth with what you're saying. And I heard myself talking to him, right? And I'm like, oh my God, I've lost it. This is like six years ago.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then I just stopped doing the exercise and ran up to my computer. I'm like, this would be funny. This would be really funny. Like, I wasn't sure what I was doing. And in the end now, I sell it as a mashup. Oh, okay. It's fantasy, romance, humor, and there's some tragic moments in it, too. But you know, that movie, what was that movie about the fish that was a mashup that did so well and won an Oscar? The fish called Wanda?
00:13:35
Speaker
No, it's just recently. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't know. It's a love story. It's yeah, so and I was like, yes, it's a movie about a woman who falls in love with a fish. And I'm like, if I want an Oscar, you know, strangely, incredibly good, maybe it's not so odd. And it's gotten, it's gotten great reviews. People really like the fact that she's just an ordinary woman trying to make a life for herself. And, and some magic kind of comes into play for her.
00:14:01
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Well, I mean, Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood was about that, like an ordinary woman had her daily life. So it's definitely a subject matter that can appeal to a lot of people.
00:14:15
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Yeah. So how I fell into that, I guess that was the first one and then people wanted a sequel. And then I decided to get away from the fantasy a little bit. Not that I will never go back, but I just thought, well, maybe I can just think they'll appeal to an even wider audience because not everybody wants fantasy and magic and genies in their books. Right. Yeah, I do. Well, there's nothing stopping you from going back there for sure. It's a
00:14:42
Speaker
But you were saying that that one as well has been optioned or is that true? It hasn't been optioned. My agent is shopping it and a producer just asked to read it. So we're not there yet, but it's exciting when a producer reaches out.
00:15:00
Speaker
and asked to read it. There's so much competition, and for me, I just want to find the right home. It's not really about anything but more people, because a lot of people have written me, especially with that one. She's abused in her first marriage, and she gets out of that, and she was bullied as a high schooler.
00:15:21
Speaker
So there's a lot of pain that she has to move away from in order to find her best self and her best life. And a lot of people have written me saying one girl left an abusive relationship. And she actually asked about a year and a half to two years later, she got remarried and she asked to to have some of the poetry that I'd written read at her wedding to poems.
Impact of Heather's Poetry
00:15:45
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And I'm sure I'm tearing up now as I remember that.
00:15:48
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You know, this is the stuff I need to remember more in my journey because there's days when you get a one-star review and you want to cry and you try not to take it personally because not everybody's going to like my work. I get that. Yeah. That's what life is like. I mean, if everybody was the same and everybody liked everything, we'd be in a really awful world.
00:16:08
Speaker
But it was a good fit for your work. But yeah, there was a scientific experiment where they saw that people remembered the negative about about their work, usually their work, the negative comments and stuff much more than the positive. It's just kind of human nature. So it's nice to remember that that girl did ask for that at the wedding.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah. And so did you do it? And how did you do it? Like, did you just give her the rights for that day? Or what
Technology and Romance Themes
00:16:35
Speaker
did you do? Oh, I just gave her rights to, yeah, I just said, sure, yeah, take pictures. That's all. I love when that kind of stuff happens. And that's kind of what happened with Melody Portlett, with the French book.
00:16:52
Speaker
But I paid her in the end. She didn't want payment. And I'm like, are you kidding me? You translated an entire book. We're going into business together. And she's working on Good Nights now, which is the second in the series. Oh, she is. Oh my gosh, that's fabulous.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah, so there's this fantasy series that I've done when you're asking what I've done as far as fiction. And there's the fantasy series and that's two books because there's a sequel to Kat's life with the genie. He disappears for a while and she has to find him again in the second book.
00:17:24
Speaker
And then the four other books are, again, Second Chance Romance. And what ties those together is just technology going awry, and it's how technology
00:17:40
Speaker
Because the four books are not necessarily, you don't have, you can read them in any order. But what links them is that it's a person who's getting a second chance romance. And also technology goes awry or it bonds them together like in good night. Like is it to our detriment or is it to our helping us?
00:18:00
Speaker
when technology is in our life and our love lives. So I look at that and I actually I can't wait for you know more of my books to be discovered so that a book club can look at that how I've done that in each book because I was speaking to a few readers in Instagram recently and they were like oh I just noticed that like they didn't really quite
00:18:20
Speaker
clue in that it's always it's an app and good night's an app an app has an error and they end up being booked into the same bed and breakfast basically at the same time and they wanted their own free time and so they're not very happy about it first. You do have a way of pulling the what happens in life and making it the center of a story it's really fun.
00:18:48
Speaker
Thank you. And actually I'm thinking we had a few little technical problems with this at the beginning and that's just probably because of me because...
00:18:57
Speaker
She doesn't work all the time. No, and that's something that I pick up on always, and I find it a really interesting theme, that we can either run with it or we can fight it. And sometimes technology does help us in our relationships, but sometimes it can make people distant from each other, like if you're always on your phone. And in fact, remarkably great, I had one of the characters, Kat's sister, is addicted to
00:19:25
Speaker
her phone. And it was interesting, because I wrote that in 2015. And it's even worse with all of us now, right? Yeah, she threw it into the CN River in France, because she finally realized and she just threw it. Wow. That was a that's a cool moment. So we've been talking about some of that. So which of those would you say is your highlight? Is the ticket the highlight? Or is there
00:19:58
Speaker
No, I had to kind of take a break. I mean, I'm open to opportunities and stuff, but I'm just so busy with the fiction writing. And then it's more than half a day now with marketing. I'm right in the morning, still about noon, and then I'm usually marketing and doing businesses and podcasts like this and stuff like that till separate times. And you said you're a Kindle Unlimited writer, like all of your books are?
00:20:15
Speaker
I think, the highlight.
Self-Publishing Success and Strategies
00:20:24
Speaker
They're all on Kindle Unlimited, and now all of them have been published with another publisher. So I'm not self-publishing the audiobooks. They've been picked up, which was another highlight. So I think when you asked me what the highlight is, and I think it's just that I persisted as a self-published author.
00:20:41
Speaker
because I could have walked away and given up a long time ago. And it's been five solid years since Strangely Incredibly Good came out where I started to realize I wanted to kind of take it on as my own business, Graceful Publications, and look after each of my books on my own. And I did look for a publisher for a while, but I think it would have been a mistake because they're kind of
00:21:10
Speaker
I'm getting a lot more opportunities this way. Right. And well, the thing about self-publishing too, I mean, in many ways it's the new trendy, right? Everybody knows that you can, first of all, you can make more and second of all, you can actually lead your career in a different way. And you know what the possibilities are for that story because you came up with it.
00:21:33
Speaker
I think so, but I think it's still a bit of a stigma attached to a certain extent, but I'm okay with it now. It took me a while because I really tried in 2015, 2016, I tried to get the publisher. In every case, they said they loved how it was written, they loved the story, but it wasn't what they were going to be publishing that year, that kind of story. It was just not a fit.
00:21:58
Speaker
And I didn't want to waste any more time. Life is short is basically why I just go ahead with stuff. So I've been listening to Joanna Penn's podcast and also Mark Dawson's podcast. They're sort of famous self publishers and it's making me a lot more positive about the whole independent author journey.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, well, Mark Dawson was a highlight for me because they came to visit, sadly not Mark, he wasn't able to, but his crew, his second-hand guy who does the podcast, James Watt. Oh, I love him. They came to my house in 20... They did? When? Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
So, I mean, yes, you're right, the ticket, because they realized the ticket was selling so well and it became number one on Kindle in a category number one on Canada and the UK and in the States. 2017, I think? I lose track now. I mean, I try not to look at those numbers and stuff anymore. Now it's just actually, like I said, reader mail.
00:22:59
Speaker
And so they came and did an episode so I need to go back and listen to that episode. Well if you go on YouTube they did a kind of a promo for self-publishing because I took the self-publishing formula and then the ads for authors and I did that when I got the rights in 2016 back from these kind
00:23:21
Speaker
Okay, and I thought why not take a course because I did okay for myself for a little bit in the summer of 2016 and then by Christmas 2016 I thought I want to take this course and by February or March of 2017 the ticket was taking off in the charts Wow I'd only done like four weeks Four four to five weeks of the course started implementing stuff by week six after implementing the stuff I was seeing
00:23:47
Speaker
incredible changes. And basically, you're like an advertising segment for them. That's great. I am and I still I still talk about them. We don't have any kind of arrangement at all. I just I love what Mark has to teach the whole community there. Yeah, it's really supportive community. Well, I just love their podcast. I mean, and and I love I mean, they do some great interviews. They really are inspiring.
00:24:14
Speaker
But I think, you know, it's been a journey since 2016, that time, four years of just kind of, you know, push you, pull me, like me fighting with myself, okay, do I just keep aiming to get a publisher, because it's more money, or, you know, and it's not necessarily so, but usually you get a bigger, you get this huge advance, usually, with a traditional publisher, whereas self-publishing your
00:24:39
Speaker
basically paying for yourself with advertising and design and proofreading and all that. And you see the results, let's hope six months to a year later.
00:24:49
Speaker
So you have to put out money upfront. So I was always fighting with myself and I think I started to see a change in everything more like 2018 when I was like, no, okay, I'm just gonna do this on my own, keep doing it on my own, but with a lot of help from people like Mark Dawson. And then I found Tail Flick online, which is a company that helps authors get their books produced.
00:25:13
Speaker
Okay, and so that and so you work with them now I work with them I was I was hesitant about tactile flick when I first saw them I thought what is this I've never heard of this but like I said with everything with technology I do jump in and and I love you know like I was one of the first people to put things on Kindle and
00:25:32
Speaker
My e-book, my first e-book was actually ever, was in 2000, way back then, and it was a CD-ROM, and it was published by Electric E-book Publishing in 2000. It was a children's book. Oh, isn't that fun? That's so cool. What a great story.
00:25:49
Speaker
See, I have a lot of great stories, but you have to kind of stand back. When you were making me talk about this, I'm like, oh, yeah. You see how all the puzzle pieces fit when you talk about it like that. I haven't really delved into what happened to me, but I've always been interested. My father is an engineer, and maybe it's that. And he kind of went into being an entrepreneur for himself.
00:26:13
Speaker
too. And perhaps it's that, but I just like to see what technology, how it can work for us. Yeah. So I was one of the first people to put things on Kindle too, and an electric ebook. And so when I saw Tailflick, I was like, well, it hasn't failed me yet. I tried these things, I have a few little failures, and then I figured them out. So Tailflick is a curation service where you upload your book,
00:26:37
Speaker
pay a small fee. I mean, it's less than the cost of my annual fee for my website, much less. And it's just for them to have it on the site so that producers can kind of flip through like a library, like a digital library. Oh, very cool. Okay. And so then that's how these producers have maybe have copped, I mean, in addition to your agent's work.
00:27:00
Speaker
Well, this one, for the ticket, the tail flick was the one who a producer came and found it. So FJ Productions went through tail flick and found the ticket. So my agent is my cheerleader and looks through all the contracts. And she's also working on, right now, on some work for Strange Land Cribly Good.
00:27:23
Speaker
Oh, very good. Oh my gosh. We've talked about the positive side, which is, and some of those stories that you hadn't even remembered, which I think is so inspiring. But what about the downsides? I mean, is there a, what's, what's your biggest failure or what, when you think about, like, what have you recovered from, went through all that journey?
Learning from Mistakes in Publishing
00:27:46
Speaker
I make mistakes every day, but I just try to look at them. I hope you don't call them all biggest failures. No, I don't call them mistakes. Like now I've started looking at them as stepping stones to my next.
00:27:58
Speaker
success because you have to fall down and then get yourself back up and figure out what went wrong and you learn from it and so you come back stronger. But again, I didn't look at that that way until I started working for myself because you can I mean I work for myself so I'm my own boss and I can really I can fire myself every day I have. I'm not doing this again and the next morning like okay I'll go back to work.
00:28:27
Speaker
So I had to shift, too. The four years of being a self-publisher is a whole growth period, I think, for me, of looking at myself and what I'm capable of. And so I do mess up. But I look at every time I mess up as, OK, it's a learning experience.
00:28:46
Speaker
Can you give me one example? Yeah, yeah. And I have nothing against them. A lot of people love Ingram Sparks for printing their books, but it didn't work out for me at all. I had Caged, which is my anthology of poetry, and I really wanted to do a hardcover.
00:29:03
Speaker
in 2016 with photographs and Ingram Sprux was the only way to do a hardcover at that time. Now I think on Amazon you can do it through KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing with color photos. So I put it out and it was a pretty expensive book, 36 bucks because it's hardcover, but a lot of people really wanted to have it as a treasury of 25 years of my work as a poet.
00:29:27
Speaker
And I really just saw it as something for family and friends. But what happened is it was sold through IngramSparks. And I didn't know. And I know now because my friend at Morning Rain Publishing was helping me and said, after the fact, oh, God, like you've clicked on
00:29:47
Speaker
returns allowing returns allowing returns because I I Thought that's not very nice. The person can't return the book me being we're talking about Canadians, right? Yes we are
00:30:01
Speaker
I was being polite. I was being polite. I was like, let them return if they're not happy with it. They'll be happy with it. But somebody, one of my big fans in the UK, I still don't, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure because it happened in the UK. Cause I sourced it, like I figured out where this, the store ordered 40 books.
00:30:19
Speaker
And I'm not in the UK, Tracy, so how can I fly over there? And I've sold like 50 books in a day at a bookstore by being there and shaking hands and talking about the book. But if I'm over here in Pankour, Quebec, and the book was shipped to that bookstore, they allowed a reader to order 40 books, I guess.
00:30:43
Speaker
This is what I figured out. My husband and I tried to piece it together because what happened with the company, Ingram wouldn't even talk to me hardly at all. And they billed me $1,200 US. They wouldn't talk to you? No. Oh, no. I mean, I tried and tried and tried. And I guess I could sue them. Maybe I'll sue them when I'm a big movie producer. No. I mean, I just let it go. It was one of those things I just let it go. It was about six months of trying to figure out what happened and tell them this is new. And they just, yeah, they charged me.
00:31:14
Speaker
Wow, that's very sad. I talked to them on the phone several times and they said, well, you just should have clicked. I knew that they'd be destroyed too. I didn't want books being destroyed. And I'm really happy with... I mean, I know Amazon has a big reputation for right now, especially that was a documentary, for not being environmentally friendly. But I think they are trying because I traced one of my books that I've returned on purpose and managed to order it again. Because I thought, well, maybe they'll be able to... I know that
00:31:43
Speaker
the manufacturer is right here. And sure enough, there's a little tiny mark in the back. So they just sent it back to me from the returns department when I ordered a new one. Right? So they do... At least something worked. That's good. They do returns. And I'm not charged. That's the beauty of that. So those returns, when they came back, they were all destroyed?
00:32:10
Speaker
I think the worst part of the story is they're floating around now because there's copies of that book being sold by third seller parties that I can't get paid for at all. I don't get any kind of royalty. And I've seen them for 185 pounds. Like they're really expensive. Yeah. I'm just, so when you, I mean, I don't like thinking about it. Oh, because it's true because with returns with bookstores, you can just take off the cover and send it back. You don't send the whole thing back.
00:32:40
Speaker
Right. Oh, man. Wow. So that was a huge mistake. And I just basically learned, you know, be careful with this fine print, I guess.
Mindset and Daily Habits
00:32:51
Speaker
And I think, I think also, like, it's not any, any, any one mistake. It's more like an attitude. I've had to work on my attitude because I'm, I'm part of myself. And I think every artist is.
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's the creative side of our business, I guess. It's like when you're a creative entrepreneur, the entrepreneur side is really, really good or really, really bad sometimes. Yeah, and I lighten up on myself lately. I think yoga has helped a lot. Yoga has given me a lot of grounding. I took that up a year ago and I've been doing it like three to four times a week for a year. Wow.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah. I don't always do a full hour. Sometimes I just do 20 minutes. But something about that has made me just kind of see, well, I'm in the moment, right? When I do that, I'm just living in the moment. And I think as an artist with a lot of ideas for creative projects, you can be constantly planning future work and forget to just live in the now. And like you were saying, what's your greatest success? Well,
00:33:59
Speaker
or highlight. And I often forget to pay attention to the current highlight, if that makes any sense. Yeah, so you don't celebrate enough with these kinds of successes.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah. My husband's like that too. We're two peas in a pod that way. It's good to remember to celebrate, you know, because I've been doing a gratitude journal and writing down three things, basically starting the day with three things you're grateful for. And it's amazing how much it improves your mindset.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, I try to also say to myself, you don't have to do a thousand things today. Just one thing that either you're scared of, or that's new to you, or that you might be proud of. That could be Windexing the bathroom mirror properly, so it doesn't have to spit all over it because I often...
00:34:55
Speaker
I often don't get to that because I go right down to my desk to write, and I was disgusted for a year. I was like, God, I never get the bathroom cleaned. My family helps out. They're good helpers, but I'm the one who's home all the time. I look at it, and it's there in front of me, the mess. I could spend the whole day cleaning, but I don't want to. I want to do creative stuff. That one thing, I try to practice small habits now too.
00:35:24
Speaker
That's a good idea, too, in terms of mindset. One of my other questions was if you had advice for people who are trying to create this kind of a career for independent writers. I mean, I know there is an independent writers association that's very popular in Britain and in the US, but there isn't, as far as I know, except in Ottawa, one in Canada, independent writing is not celebrated as much here yet.
00:35:52
Speaker
No, my friends and colleagues are mostly from the Mark Dawson self-publishing formula, as far as career-wise goes. And then people I've met online, a lot of people on Instagram, there's a lot of writers there, and Twitter, we all support each other. And my agency now, because a lot of the writers from there, we all cheer each other on.
00:36:21
Speaker
advice. I mean there's so much I could offer and I try to do that. Every day I mention stuff in my IGTV, well not every day but I was for a while, for writers and I had a YouTube channel. I have the channel still but I haven't really been uploading lately but I did a series once a week called The Wealthy Writer
00:36:46
Speaker
which isn't just about wealth, it's about living a rich life so that you find the balance and it was all about self-publishing and ways to stay healthy too, healthy and wealthy. Yeah, well I mean wealth is multi-sided, it's not just money, it's not just, but to be fair when you're a creator, actually concentrating on making a good living is important because if you can't make a good living with your work you can't keep doing it.
Balancing Writing and Life
00:37:17
Speaker
Exactly. So I think I gave a lot of advice in those two forums. So people can actually, if they're listening to this and want to go look, a lot of my tips are there. But I think one of the most popular ones was just people ask, like, how do I
00:37:34
Speaker
how do I kind of do this every day? How do you get the books written? A lot of people ask, how do you set aside the time if you have a job? A lot of people who want to self-publish or even find a publisher later on, it doesn't matter. They just have to get that book written, but how do they find the time? And I think it's just monumental if you look at it, like how much you have to do, you know, 60,000 words.
00:37:59
Speaker
if you look at it like that but if you break it down into pieces and you just say well even if I just start doing 500 words a day you know and find that window for that and for me with my the first time I wrote something longer than poetry was the screenplay that I wrote called The Friends I Never Met which I ended up um putting in my series because it's a love again story also and yeah so so oh
00:38:26
Speaker
Could you hear that? Sort of, but not very much. Okay, if you end up hearing that, that was my email singing and it's one of the reminders that I have for my daughter. She's singing as a toddler.
00:38:43
Speaker
Oh, wonderful. So I'm distracted now because it distracted me. It was in my ears. But she's singing You Are My Sunshine. And it was one of the things I set up a long time ago. She could kill me right now because she's 15. And she'd die that everybody heard that. But it's a reminder to not always be at my desk at 7, 7.30, 8 PM, because I've got a family and they're really important to me. So when I hear that, because my email goes off every 15 minutes,
00:39:12
Speaker
It just kind of reminds me, okay, you don't have to check that tonight. You can go back to that tomorrow. That's good advice. It's important because you need to actually have life is full of more than just work. Oh, exactly. I wish my phone had something like that.
00:39:34
Speaker
I try not to have a lot of notifications popping up so I can have a good conversation with somebody and it isn't pinging at me. I often turn the sound off and then somebody says, you didn't hear me phoning. So I haven't found the balance for that yet because I don't want to miss important calls, but nothing's more important than having lunch with my daughter and we're really at the crux of a conversation. It's an important conversation and then you get a ping or
00:39:59
Speaker
I don't like that. I hate it. Yeah. I want to be in the moment with the person, you know? And so that's one of my tips for, you know, okay, well, how are you going to write? How are you going to get that writing done if all those things matter to you too as a person? And it's just setting up a window just for you and your writing. For me, it's every morning.
00:40:20
Speaker
And with friends I've never met, like I said, I got up at 4.30 in the morning. My daughter was much younger then, and she would be up by 6.30, so. Right, so that would give you two hours. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm still, actually, my kids now are older. They're always sleeping in. But I still get up really early. I'm at my desk between 6 and 9 is my writing time.
00:40:42
Speaker
That's awesome because it's um, it's guaranteed and then because I don't need to eat breakfast yet Like I can eat breakfast at nine and I'm quite comfortable that way. So
00:40:53
Speaker
I've done that here and there lately with the sixth novel I'm working on. But there's been all this other excitement that we just talked about and I've been so distracted. So I needed sleep and I've just haven't, and I've needed the mornings to work on negotiations and stuff like that. Oh my gosh, you poor deer. You're working on negotiations. Isn't that fun? Oh my God. But that's a season, right? How long is that going to last? Yeah. No, it's fun. It's just I'm not getting writing done. But it's also important.
00:41:23
Speaker
anyways that's when I was saying to writers like you don't have to write every day well it also kind of
00:41:30
Speaker
Like what's happening right now is making me not rethink what I'm writing, but kind of go, okay, my audience could actually be Netflix now. Like maybe for this book, that's what I'm doing right now. Who knows? Like some of the opportunities have opened up. So I'm just, it's not shifting too much. Cause I've always had the same style and I, I love in this one too, there's a technology issue. Perfect. So that's your thing.
00:41:57
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, it just kind of informs the writing a little bit differently. Isn't that fun? That's really fun. I love that tip. But I mean, it's funny when you're talking about not writing now, but you're celebrating and you were just saying earlier that you wanted to celebrate more. I need to call you every day to remind me all this stuff.
00:42:19
Speaker
Therapy with Tracy. This is therapy. Oh my gosh. Well, we do have to talk more often. We haven't talked often enough. It's for sure.
Canadian Identity in Writing
00:42:28
Speaker
But now, you know, we're heading towards our, you did hint a little bit about Canadian and the fact that we are Canadian creative entrepreneurs. And can you talk about, do you consider yourself a Canadian? And what does that mean to you? How do you define it?
00:42:44
Speaker
For sure, I am a Canadian, eh? Even as I said, for sure, I'm like, oh gosh, that sounds Canadian. I am. I'm really proud Canadian. I have Tim Horton celebrating 150 years mug that I drink my coffee from every morning. And I try to take Canadian pictures for my readers on my Instagram to give them a feel for what the seasons are.
00:43:10
Speaker
I have pictures of me in my Canadian hat from Canada that are still on the internet. And again, to my daughter's dismay because she's like giving the peace sign behind me. I think Google chooses what's in your page for finding you and like searching, finding you. Well, same thing. And I said to Keila, oh my gosh, they've got like you and you were like, I don't know, seven years old.
00:43:36
Speaker
That was on the internet forever, doesn't it? It does. It does. But that's a fun moment. She won't care as much later. I mean, 15 is hard. Yeah. 15 is a hard year. It is fun. And I am. And I've always wished that I could do a bit more with my books here. I always put a lot of Canadian content in them. But what I mean is they're taking off in the States. I mean, I think when I look at my numbers, 90% of my readers are from the States.
00:44:05
Speaker
Oh, isn't that interesting? Yeah, well, I did advertising there and I wasn't able to advertise as much through Amazon in Canada, but they are opening up advertising in Amazon Canada now. Ah, so that will probably help.
00:44:21
Speaker
So yeah, that'll probably help. But I think maybe there's more of a market. Plus a lot of readers just use amazon.com as their base, not .ca. So maybe I have Canadian readers and it's logging them in at .com. You know what I mean? Maybe you don't even know that you have Canadian readers. It's true.
00:44:39
Speaker
Yeah, through my mailing list, I can tell, and I do. And on social media, they'll say, hey, I'm in Canada. So it's great. And there's that real connection when you meet another Canadian, isn't there? Yeah. Well, it's interesting because it depends on, like you said, Canadian for you is seasons. That's one of the things. Yes. Are there other aspects to being Canadian for you?
00:45:11
Speaker
Do we get into politics? It's nothing there. I just said it, yeah. I think right now, let's face it right now, we're happier with the country. We're not divided as much. There's lots to improve in Canada, but we're not as divided. And I think I speak to some of the problems that do exist.
00:45:39
Speaker
And a very smaller theme of Lauren from last night, which is my most recent novel It's set in in a fictional Kingston, Ontario where I went to Queens and I called it Ewen Cove I like to fictionalize the town so that it's not it's because it's not gonna be exact right and then you can get reviewers saying oh this is exactly what I remember and well, I'm saying well, it's a fictional town and I
00:46:04
Speaker
I have different cultures living there in Canada. His parents are Cuban, but he was born and raised there. She's actually a Brit who comes as an exchange student to Kingston. I just love playing with different cultures. I always make sure that I'm using my own voice.
00:46:29
Speaker
for lesser, not main characters. It's like the sub characters to just have flavor in spite, like it just adds more interest for me. And that's something about being Canadian because I grew up, I grew up in a pretty white town, but then as I grew older and got to go places in Kingston, Toronto, then here in Montreal, my social circle became so multicultural and I loved it and I learned so much
00:46:58
Speaker
Although actually I have to defend Queens because it did I did happen with some international students I met a lot of them and I remember meeting some some people from Africa and And learning so much from them and I one of them His name was Christmas, which is why I named that town Christmas because his name was Christmas Noel his Noel. Oh Yeah, and so Pete, you know
00:47:24
Speaker
multiculturalism is really a big part of my life. I have Chinese neighbors here. One of my good friends who's always cheered me on as a writer is actually from Trinidad and Tobago. And she lived in the States for a while and then she moved here. So I think when I think about being Canadian, I do think about how we're a diverse nation.
00:47:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, and it's fascinating the opportunities that you can make for cross-cultural learning, as you were talking about.
00:48:03
Speaker
Yeah, well that's that's what's happened is that I'm really proud of living here But yet logging on every day I'm I'm meeting people around the world and and that's what's happened is that the producer that's optioned The ticket is from Brazil. He lives in LA now, but originally from Brazil. So he's Brazilian American and My my my translator is from gosh. I want to go there. She's from the south of France and
00:48:32
Speaker
I have to go meet her. I have a vacation there when this is all over. And what else? I mean, I work with Americans because my agency is Metamorphosis Literary Agency in the States.
00:48:48
Speaker
And then you're part of Mark Dawson's community, so you have the UK connection too. But that's also very Canadian to work with others well, right? Yeah. You've sort of covered all the bases, like season, multicultural, collaboration. It's like we've got all the tickets. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you were hoping to talk about?
00:49:12
Speaker
Oh, no, you caught me off guard on some stuff that like I said, I hadn't thought about before. Great, which is fun. And I'm so happy to catch up with you and congratulations again on your success with the ticket and with your entire fiction career. It's really fun to see you succeed. Well, thank you so much for all of the support and for asking me here. It's been lots of fun. Thank you. Okay. Bye.
00:49:41
Speaker
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00:50:04
Speaker
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