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This week I am reassessing so many things. My life is filled with writers, artists, and creators. Their work has always felt magical to me because they create something from nothing. They use their gifts to create the stories that need to be told. To ensure the world is filled with the messages we most need to hear.

Yet so many people — myself included — can find their creative vision clouded. What we want is to feel a compelling sense of creative clarity. To know what we want to create, and how to make it a priority.

I’ve been thinking a lot about a resource I developed a few years ago called Clarity Cards. This is a tool I’ve used to assess where to put creative energy. It’s a simple process, requiring a bunch of index cards (or scraps of paper). But the outcome of it can be powerful.

Creative clarity leads to actions and experiences that allow us to grow as writers and individuals. I think it is important to consider what drives you to create. I’ve always liked the phrase “going back to the well” — returning to the source of your own inspiration that gives you the inner resources to create.

What are Clarity Cards? It is an exercise where you get clarity on what you create and why, and you prioritize this amidst the rest of your busy life. At the end of the 5-step process, they look like this, a pyramid of 10 cards:

They look simple, but they have a powerful way of reframing not just your creative goals, but your entire life. I have taken hundreds of people through this process, and have used it myself for years. I have seen this exercise lead to profound breakthroughs for people, as well as practical ways to find more time and energy to write.

Clarity Cards changed my life. More than a decade ago, I sat down on the floor of my old apartment and took out a stack of index cards. The floors were crooked, and whoever installed the carpet in the living room did it wrong — there was this harsh ridge running diagonally across the floor. There I sat, on one side of the carpet ridge, and on each index card I wrote down a goal for my life.

After I had around 10 cards, I organized them into a pyramid where the single biggest goal was at the top. This became the Clarity Card process.

Not long ago, I found my original Clarity Cards. They included a mix of intentions, but one card jumped out at me:

At the time, my wife and I did not yet have kids. I was working a job at a large publishing company, commuting about an hour and a half each way to work.

With these index cards I was reassessing the distance between my daily reality and the life I hoped to lead.

The “stay at home dad” thing was my way of saying that I wanted to be present in the lives of my family once we had kids. To not always be on a train, or in an office 30 miles away from my wife and kids.

The second part of that card included a frantic question: “Earn money from home. How?!”

Since that time, I left my corporate job in publishing, and have run my own business for a decade. I work from home (or a private studio a mile away) and see my family regularly throughout the day.

It’s astounding to look at this index card and consider the moment I wrote it, and then look at my life today which has answered that question, and lived up to the intention of that goal. I’m thankful for this every moment of every day.

I have been thinking a lot about what the next version of my Clarity Cards will look like. One’s Clarity Cards can change and evolve over time to reflect where that person is today, or where they want to grow now.

So I thought it was a good time to share that process. Let’s dig in…

The Brain Dump

The first step is to capture all of the things that you are responsible for, care about, and dream of. On each index card, write down one responsibility or thing that you care about on each card. This should encapsulate your entire life, not just your creative goals.

Some of this is a process of cataloging your current life. Other aspects may be about brainstorming things you want to focus on more of in your life.

You may have cards that read “finish writing my novel,” “family,” “take care of mom,” “work out,” “get more involved with my community,” “housework,” “my job,” “find an agent,” or so much else. This process should feel cathartic — to actually recognize all that you are responsible for.

This is what it looks like — imagine each of these as separate index cards with one thing written on each that you care deeply about:

The Sort

Now sort all of the cards into three different priority levels:

1. High priority
2. Medium priority
3. Low priority

Items in the high priority level can include items that are your biggest responsibilities. But you should also include things that light you up inside — your writing and other goals. Within these can be the biggest changes you hope to make in your life as well.

After you do the initial sort, set aside the low priority items. We won’t be including them in the rest of this exercise. The purpose of Clarity Cards is to devote more energy and resources to the few things that matter most to you. You can’t do that if you are juggling 1,000 things at once.

This is what it looks like:

The Square

Now, take your high priority cards and arrange them in a square on a large table or the floor. The items on the top of the square should be that which you care about most. In the middle will be things that feel slightly secondary. And on the bottom, they are the lower end of what you care most about.

Where needed, mix in some medium priority cards. At this stage, you should have 12 cards in a large square. It may be difficult for you to select exactly which cards go in your square because of competing priorities.

This is what it looks like:

The Battle

Our end goal is to get to 10 cards. So at this stage, you may feel conflicted over which cards to keep in your square, which to remove. You may feel that some medium priority cards should be elevated and some high priority demoted. Try to get down to 10 cards which all feel high priority.

In this process you may feel a sense of loss or even guilt at cards that you are leaving out. Likely, you are trying to shove too many cards at the absolute highest priority levels. To help you make choices, battle two cards against each other. Ask yourself, “which of these cards will lead me to the fulfilling life that I dream of.”

When one card “wins” it doesn’t mean that the other card is unimportant. Instead, you are developing the skill to choose what matters most to you, instead of becoming distracted by things that will not lead you to where you want to go. Likewise, which of these cards is more foundational to help support the other. For instance: you may choose to put “meditation” above “family” because the more calm and centered you feel, the better of a parent you can be.

This is a process for you to choose your focus with intention. This is what it looks like:

The Pyramid

Now, take your square and turn it into a pyramid. This is the final form of Clarity Cards, where you choose one priority at the very top, two at the next level, three at the level beneath that, and four at the final level. All other cards should be set aside.

Play with the ordering of the cards on the pyramid. Move cards around to see what it feels like when different cards are at the top. No one is looking over your shoulder making judgements. Perhaps for a moment, you swap out the “family” card at the very top with a card that reads “finish my memoir.” How does that make you feel? Does it give you a sense of motivation or does it make you feel scattered? You want to feel that the final selection feels both exciting and fulfilling. Like you are living up to your biggest responsibilities, but also able to focus on things that truly light you up inside.

When finished, your pyramid should give you a sense of clarity of your priorities, including where your writing and creative work fits in. This is a decision-making tool that will allow you to say “no” to tasks and obligations which are absent from the pyramid, in order to give more time, energy, and resources to that which you care about most.

This is what it looks like:

Turn Clarity Into Action

With your Clarity Cards, you can now:

• Use this simple system to remind yourself of your creative goals
• Make decisions for where to put your energy
• Communicate with those around you about what’s important to you

What to do next? This:

1. If you create your own Clarity Cards, please consider emailing me a photo of them. If you don’t want to share the words on them, just flip them over so I can only see the backs of the cards.
2. Tape your Clarity Cards to a sheet of paper and place them somewhere that you will be reminded of them often. 

3. Then identify the single habit you need to establish that will lead you to honoring your biggest priorities. That habit can be ridiculously simple.

Thank you.
-Dan

Last night I received a text from a friend that said: “Your interview with Jarrett Lerner may have just changed my life.”

My friend is the author of several books, who has had the career of “author” for many years. What resonated with her so deeply? The idea of her books being a part of a bigger mission. Where the goal is not just to sell another book, but instead see the book a part of a larger process of how she helps and inspires people.

This is how Jarrett put it:

“My goal is not to sell a book or be remembered for a book. I want to inspire kids. I want to get them excited about their own creativity and their own abilities.”

Oh, wait… where are my manners? Let me introduce you to Jarrett Lerner. Here he is, living his mission:

This week he and I chatted for my podcast, The Creative Shift, and what he shared was an inspiring take on what it means to live the life of a writer. Today I want to explore some of the highlights that I think may help you make writing a more central part of your life, and make connecting your work to others a process filled with a deep sense of fulfillment.

Jarrett’s first book came out in 2017, with the follow up this year. In the next two years, he has NINE more books coming out. That’s an astounding number, right? In addition to that, I’ve watched him grow his social media following in the past couple of years from hundreds to more than 20,000 Twitter followers and 5,000 Instagram followers. How does he do all of that? Let’s dig in…

Know Your Mission as a Writer

Again and again, Jarrett kept talking his work as a deeper mission:

“I want my books to energize the next generation to use their creativity. Connecting with those kids and breaking down the barriers that traditionally separate people who are creating content, from the consumers, that is a big part of it for me. I didn’t know I could be a professional author until I was in college. I had no idea. It was because I never met a fiction author, or someone who made a living with the dreams in their heads and putting it down on paper. What if I can give kids that little bit of connection and insight and information so that they know that they can do this if they want? To let them know that really it is just a whole bunch of hard work, no shortcuts or magic tricks. That’s just as important as part of my goal as publishing a book or professional recognition.”

Yes, it begins with his craft as a writer and illustrator. But it also fuels so much more: “I drive myself absolutely nuts making my books as close to perfect as possible. But I also taught myself to step back and see it as a brick in something larger that I’m trying to build. A part of that book is non-book stuff.”

Knowing his mission doesn’t just inform what he creates, but also how he shares it: “Doing school visits is not taking me away from my work [of creating my next book], it is part of it.”

Because of his clarity of his mission, he is constantly inventing new ways to live it. That means that during the pandemic, he has been creating loads of free resources for kids and sharing them via social media. I counted well more than 100 worksheets and activities that he is constantly creating and making available to kids, like these:

Fill Your Social Media With Generosity

I first became aware of Jarrett through social media, and noticed how incredibly generous he was. How does he justify spending so much time on social media? Like this:

“Social media has helped me reach so so so many more kids than I would have, if I was just at home working on the books. I started to see the connections that could happen and what I could do: First talk to a teacher about my book, then getting my book to them, then getting to introduce their students to it, and then using that as a launchpad to do so much other amazing things. My book is just the foot in the door. Once I’m working with kids, it’s like, “Let’s inspire you!” When I saw social media could be such a big tool to do my work and achieve my goals better, more productively, and more efficiently, I was like, this has to be part of my life.”

Here is a Tweet Jarrett shared recently that is like thousands of others he has shared, supporting others who share his mission:

If you want to see what this looks like in action, go scroll through years and years of what he has shared on Twitter.

When I see things like this, it forces me to consider the question, “How can I be more generous to those whose work I love? How can I do something right now that would help, that would truly make someone’s day?”

The answer is often simple: sending an email saying ‘thank you,’ or recommending their work on social media.

You Need a Support System

When I asked Jarrett when he really began the journey to be an author/illustrator, he said:

“I’ve been writing and illustrating stories and making “books” and comic books (with paper, cardboard, and staples, etc.) since elementary school. It wasn’t until the end of college, or even really in the years after, that I believed in myself enough to think I could do it as a career. That was always a dream — but it always felt like an improbable, if not impossible, one. Really, I think, it was my wife — who I first met back in 2011 — who helped convince me I could really, truly do it, and that I should.”

“I have been lucky to have people in my life who encouraged me. Parents, siblings, and then in high school, college, post-college I had a few people who were super encouraging to the point of being forceful. They would say, “You are good at this, you love it, go for it!” Now I can self-sustain myself in terms of momentum and belief in myself to continue. But I don’t think that without those people I ever would have gotten over that first hurdle of internally saying “I can do this and want to do it,” and then externally taking a risk and trying to get an agent, and going on submission.”

“I wouldn’t have had the wherewithall to do it if I didn’t have these people encouraging me and pushing me on days when it was rough, keeping me going.”

I talk about the value of having a support system a lot. If you are a writer or creator, I strongly encourage you to reach out to other authors and those who love the kind of creative work you do. Take small steps to encourage connections. Fill your life with those who can inspire you to create more, and work through the difficult times in the creative process. Don’t assume that if you don’t have supportive people in your life, it is just bad luck. Make the effort to go out and find those people.

Invest in Your Creative Process

When Jarrett and I spoke, it was late afternoon. He mentioned he had been up since 5am working on some illustrations. He talked about how he has really honed his creative process over the years to

“I work extremely hard. I don’t think there is a shortcut. I will wake up at 4:30 or 5, do a day of work, then have a couple of Zoom calls with classrooms, then spend time with my daughter and put her to bed, then relax with my wife and put on a movie. Often I will have my iPad out and I’ll be drawing or taking notes for something while we watch. I work a lot, but I think over the years I have learned to be a smart worker. I have gotten good at juggling projects. I’m in-tune with my creativity. I’m working on a bunch of different books now. I’ve gotten good at switching gears. I have learned how to get work done even when I’m not in the zone. If you want to be a professional at this and produce a lot, you can’t wait for the ideal conditions, you can’t wait to be in the zone. You have to get your work done.”

He shared this photo recently saying, “A year’s worth of sketchbooks. Pretty much every good idea I’ve ever had has originated in the pages of a sketchbook, and many of the books I have coming out in the next couple years began and developed in THESE pages.”

There are more than 10 sketchbooks from 2019, and six already for 2020. This takes time he said: “It was probably 20 years before I came to a point where I embraced the creative process truly and fully.” His advice for other writers and creators was to “get in tune with your creative that is authentically you.” He said this takes time… years and years. But it is a worthwhile investment.

Know That Failure is a Part of Success

I liked the honesty with which he talks about the creative process. So many writers I speak to talk about how a roadblock in their creative process has stopped them. They can barely create because something feels off. But Jarrett talks about how this has become central to his creative process:

“I now tell kids I wake up every day excited to write “bad” sentences and draw “bad” pictures because I know that is the first step. I know that I will learn from that “bad” thing and reach my goal that much faster. I used to sit in front of blank computer screens and blank notebooks for hours, and be upset with it and tear it out. It took me a long time but I finally just embraced the messiness of the creative process. The mistake making, the detours, the setbacks. I fell in love with it and took it for what it is, and now I just throw myself in neck-deep, wade around in it, and don’t worry about it. 90% of what I create is crap.”

When he was starting out, Jarrett’s first two books went out on submission to publishers and failed to sell. I say that not to highlight a false start, but to remind you that the creative process requires failure. The business of publishing is filled with it. Don’t let it stop you. When Jarrett talked about this, he emphasized how much energy and time went into each of those books and the process of trying to find a publisher. Years. But it was his third book that sold.

I’ve often shared the quote from Dani Shapiro, because it resonates so deeply about the work of being a writer and creator:

“Not only doesn’t it get easier, it actually gets harder.”

Jarrett shared his own version of this:

“I was talking to a group of authors the other night, and someone asked “When does impostor’s syndrome end?” This is a group of New York Times bestsellers and elite creators. And they said: “Oh, never. That doesn’t go away.”

There are so many excuses any of us can come up with to not create. To not share. What inspires me most about Jarrett is how many different things he tries in order to fill his life with creativity and to live his mission of inspiring kids.

No one knows what will work. But we know that trying different things and investing in your creative process will help you find the path that works best for you.

You can listen to my entire conversation with Jarrett here.

Thanks!
-Dan

How can you create and share your writing amidst times of uncertainty? When more is asked of you than ever before. When you aren’t sure what tomorrow or the future brings. When you simply feel overwhelmed?

Last week I shared a case study on authors launching their books this spring, and how they are finding success, even as much of the world is shut down. So many writers I speak with struggle to find the capacity and margin in their lives to create. To even consider how they can share.

Today I want to explore possible options that may work for you, giving you a sense of momentum and fulfillment in not only creating what matters most to you, but sharing it with those who will appreciate it. Let’s dig in…

Oh, but first I want to say, it’s okay not to create and share. Your personal circumstances are unique to you. I know many people are working a full-time job from home, while now having to homeschool a few kids, prepare meals, and maintain a home that suddenly has 5+ people there 24hours a day. That’s a lot of dishes, laundry, garbage, and clean up.

You don’t have to create.
You don’t have to share.

Period. You can stop reading if you like. Zero guilt. Zero need for explanation. That is 100% your choice for what feels right for you.

But… (still reading?)

… what I do ask is that you make that choice for yourself. Regardless of which way you choose. Don’t just default to a vague justification of “Gosh, the world is so nuts right now, how can I create?” Or “I’m so busy, it’s overwhelming. Best to not create or share now.”

Be proactive in your choice here. Consider the cost of not creating and sharing.

If your dream is to finally finish that book you have been working on, there is a cost when you choose to delay working on it. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me “I can’t work on X now, I’ll have time in the Fall!” Then, three years later I hear from them that they are only now moving forward. “Time just got away from me.”

It’s tempting to think that one day, everything in our lives will magically just give you the space to create and share. That you will feel less pressure, less responsibility, have more time, more space, and maybe even more clarity and focus.

What I find in speaking with hundreds of successful writers and creators is that all of them make that time. They find ways to focus amidst a busy schedule.

How did they do it? Well, here are some ideas:

Take Tiny Frequent Steps

Most creative work is done slowly, in small increments, in less than ideal circumstances.

When I interviewed author Stacy McAnulty, she explained how she started writing by giving herself permission to write. This was more than 15 years ago, when she wrote her first book one-handed, without punctuation or capitalization, because she wrote while breastfeeding her first child using her other hand.

Since then, she has written dozens of books, with 3 coming out this year, 3 last year, 6 the year before that, and 6 the year before that…

This is how she starts her bio:

“In no particular order… I’m a wife, mother of 3 kids and 3 dogs, author, daughter, sister and stepsister, aunt, friend, Twitter addict, mechanical engineer (currently inactive), inconsistent blogger, Packers fan, two-finger typist, concerned citizen, book-buying enthusiast, reluctant volunteer, minivan driver, pancake flipper, snooze-button hitter, and coupon clipper.”

A couple years ago, when I decided to finally learn how to play guitar, I gave myself a simple rule:

“I must practice each and every day for at least one minute.”

That is exactly what I did for a year. The one minute rule was meant to make it ridiculously easy for me to find success. There isn’t a single day where I couldn’t justify picking up the guitar and strumming a G chord for 60 seconds. Some days, that is honestly all I did.

After the first year, I upped that to a minimum of 1 hour of playing per day. This is what it looks like in chart form:

For your own work, consider what can be gained if you approached your creative work in tiny ways, frequently.

This applies to sharing as well as creating. I created a social media case study feating author Rachel Hollis earlier this year, that tried to showcase how she went from zero to 1.8 million followers on Instagram.

Whenever I research someone successful online, I like to go back to see their first social media post. Why? Because I always find the same thing: they started as we all do: they worked for a long time with little recognition, and it took years to find an indication of “success.” Rachel’s first post on Instagram was August 25, 2012. Her early posts look like a lot of people’s posts do, everyday images with 10-30 Likes each:

It took her years to grow her following, day by day, after an astounding amount of work. She showed up each day and took tiny actions to create and share. The results? Her first book has 16,523 reviews on Amazon. Her second has 4,710.

If you look at what Rachel or Stacy have created in total, and think “I can’t do all of that, it’s too much,” I can assure you that they didn’t do it all at once. They woke up each day amidst a complex life, and took one action a day. Then the next. And the next. If you are unsure of how you can possibly find the time and focus to create and share, consider what is the smallest action you can take today to attend to it?

Ask Yourself, “What can I create?”

This week I shared a podcast interview with author Jenny Blake. When everything shut down in March, her entire speaking and workshop business got “wiped out.” To find a plan through it, she asked herself a simple question: “What can I create?” In that process, she moved her weekly podcast to daily. Is that the perfect decision? Who knows. Jenny focused on what she can create right now, and is using creativity to invest in herself.

In our chat, we had an honest conversation not just about managing the strategy of having a creative career, but how to manage the emotions of it as well. So many people delay creating and sharing because they have too many ideas and don’t know which to pick. They delay and delay, vetting ideas, waiting for one to magically be proclaimed as “the perfect idea.”

Instead of waiting, why not just focus on what you can create and share now? This is how momentum begins.

If we think of dieting as a metaphor, this is akin to simply making a healthier choice tomorrow, instead of waiting months researching “the perfect diet.” Each day we have the choice to be 1% healthier. Likewise, we can take one action to create and share what matters to us.

Not Creating is Part of Creating

I am a huge believe in the power of rest. Sometimes the best way to infuse your life with creativity and sharing is by taking breaks. Some options:

• Sleep! Yes, sleep. Beautiful, magical sleep. I’m not someone who will ever tell you to “Wake up an hour earlier to fit your writing in.” I believe sleep is essential, and that if you feel stuck in your creativity, sometimes the answer is more rest.
• Naps. I’ve taken a nap every day for more than a decade. My 3 year old and 9 year old expect me to take a nap each day. The 3 year old gave up naps years ago. Daddy hasn’t. Why do I do it? Not because research studies show the incredible health benefits (though, they do), it’s because it gives me a creative reset in the middle of each day. If I lie down for even just 10 or 20 minutes, I get back up feeling refreshed.
• Take breaks. I schedule unstructured time into my day. Getting out of your normal routine and place of work can help you reset and be more likely to embrace creative ideas. This can be taking a walk in nature, or just getting out in the yard. It can even include listening to music and reading books.

Find Your Clarity

Author Rachel Davidson asked me this week: “What has been the one consistently successful tactic you have used to get yourself to your desk and being present every day?”

Some of how I do it includes the tactics above. But probably the biggest way I am able to create and share so often is because of clarity.

A decade ago, I sat down on the floor of my old apartment and took out a stack of index cards. The floors were crooked, and whoever installed the carpet in the living room did it wrong — there was this harsh ridge running diagonally across the floor. There I sat, on one side of the carpet ridge, and on each index card I wrote down a goal for my life.

After I had around 10 cards, I organized them into a pyramid where the single biggest goal was at the top. Since that time, I have turned this process into an exercise I call “Clarity Cards,” and I’ve had hundreds of writers go through it with me. This is what they look like:

Finding clarity in what you create and why can give you that daily focus that is sometimes elusive. You can start by simply writing down why you create. Why it matters to you. Why you think it could brighten someone else’s day.

Then tape that to your bathroom mirror so you see it each day.

Do you have any questions about how you can find more time and energy to create and share? Email me and let me know. Happy to help.
Thanks!
-Dan

Today I want to share two book launch case studies: one a novel, the other a nonfiction book. Both authors are tackling the same question: how to share the work that matters most to you in a world that is changing so fast, making it impossible to plan ahead?

The answer is resounding: with creativity and human-connection at the heart of the book launch.

A few months ago, I shared part 1 of my book launch case study with author Leigh Stein. She and I worked together last year to develop a launch strategy for her new book: Self Care: A Novel. I shared some advice in that post:

• Develop Your Marketing Plan Early. Much Earlier Than You Think. The book won’t be out until the end of June, yet we were diligently working on the strategy nearly a year ahead of launch.
• Spend the Time to Identify Your Ideal Readers. We developed two reader personas that she uses as a decision-making tool to identify the best marketing strategies to reach her ideal readers.
• Don’t Confuse Platform With Marketing. We looked beyond social media and newsletters, to create specific marketing campaigns meant to attract and engage people who may love Leigh’s book, even if they haven’t heard of Leigh before.
• Seek Out Collaborators. This is her fourth book, yet she hired me because she has deep experience in publishing. She knew she needed a co-pilot in the launch because not all publishers can offer the kinds of hands-on help that many authors want. This extends into the launch plan itself: every element is infused with outreach, connection, collaboration, and what I call human-centered marketing.

So how is Leigh adjusting her initial strategy in a world that is nearly entirely shut down? Well, with poetry, of course.
🙂

In early March, Leigh started writing poems again for the first time in a decade. One of her earlier books was poetry. She loved the new poems she was creating, and wanted to share them. She reached out to her agent and editor, and pitched them to different media outlets.

Leight ended up launching her own newsletter for the poems. She was also a guest on a popular daily podcast, where she read the poems. That alone got her 100 new subscribers.

Do I think poetry is the right answer for you and your book launch? Nope.

But I want to pause and make a critical point. So often in “book marketing best practices” I see the same vanilla ideas promoted again and again. The problem with it is that since everyone is copying the same ideas out of a sense of obligation, then tend to not work. So it leaves the author frustrated and confused.

But Leigh did something different here. She started with creativity. She started with her own vision as a writer. She shared it boldly. She got inventive.

What that means is that it is working for her on multiple levels. I’m a huge believer that marketing should be an extension of your creativity. That how you create and how you share are connected to the ways that writing and art binds us on a human-level.

Beyond the poems, Leigh has been very busy on the rest of her book launch strategy. She said she is constantly sending out new pitches, and sharing every idea she has. Her biggest piece of advice is this: “focus on what you can control.” With so much changing around us, it can be easy to question if you should bother. You should. Focus on why you write. On what you can create. On who you can connect with. On how it creates the magic we hope for when someone reads your work.

You can listen to part 2 of my case study with Leigh here, where we dig into more details on how she is approaching the book launch of her novel.

For our second case study, I want to revisit a conversation I had with Jennifer Louden. Three weeks ago, she released her new book: Why Bother: Discover the Desire for What’s Next. It currently has 216 reviews on Amazon, every one of them a 5-start rating. She’s also been featured on many podcasts and really connecting her book to readers.

It’s worth noting that Jen does a lot of speaking and live events, that is a huge strength of hers. When everything shut down, that meant that she couldn’t use these skills in the way she had planned. In the 1990’s, for the launch of her first book she traveled around the country speaking and doing events, and she said that is one of the reasons it became a word-of-mouth bestseller. She wanted to recreate that for this book.

When recent events forced her to cancel her book tour and other plans, she said “Everything fell apart, and I got really depressed. Then I said to myself ‘read your own book.'” So she returned to her core message in order to navigate this.

She said: “I had to find my commitment to the book again.”

So she started a street team. This would basically be a group of people who sign up to help her spread the word about the book. She said her email list is around 18,000 people. At first her fear was that she would have to restrict the number of people who could sign up for the street team, but said, “We actually had a hard time getting people. I think we had around 180 people, I thought we would have to cut people off at 300.”

So even with a big mailing list, with the incredible trust that Jen had created with subscribers over the years, the conversion rate of people signing up to actively support the book was smaller than she thought by more than 1/3.

Let’s talk about conversion rates for a moment. 180 people from 18,000 is a conversion rate of 1%. I think a lot of writers would be surprised at how low that number is. I can see writers thinking to themselves “If I had a list of 18,000 subscribers, I’d bet that easily 20-40% of those people would sign up to shout about my book when it comes out.”

Nope. 1%.

Actually, it is amazing that 180 people raised their hands to support Jen’s book launch. But I simply want to note that conversion rates are often lower than people expect. So don’t bank you entire book launch on having some huge conversion rate to one marketing tactic.

Then Jen admitted that the street team wasn’t as active as she hoped they would be. She built a Facebook Group for them, and said “It was crickets a lot.”

She realized, “The easiest thing to ask a street team to do is one thing.” In other words: don’t expect them to do 10 or 20 actions to support your book, instead focus them on one key action.

The one thing she really focused them on was to post reviews for her book on Amazon. When I asked how she got 200+ 5-star reviews, she said: “I just heckled people. During the online book launch party, I asked people 17 times to post reviews. I was a broken record. And I’ll have to keep doing that. We are creative people, we don’t want to do this, right?” She is preparing another email to the 400+ people who attended the book launch party, asking them again to post a review on Amazon.

This is something seasoned authors know: you have to ask. For instance, if you hold an in-person book launch party at a bookstore, you can’t assume that your friends, family, and supporters know that they have to actually buy the book in order to support the bookstore. I mean, that is why they are hosting you — to sell books. You have to tell people that, even if they already received a free book. You have to tell them to buy a copy (or three!) at the bookstore during the launch party. Otherwise, the bookstore will lose money on the event, and feel it was a failure.

In addition to all of this, Jen is doing a lot of teaching around the book, is a guest on a lot of podcasts, and is pursuing Facebook ads. She will also be reaching out to other big name authors and influencers she knows, asking if they would host a joint webinar or call where Jen is featured. Here again, she talked about how she was surprised by the results. She knows a lot of very successful people, and she said that some have immediately said “yes” to do something with her. But she said, “[others have] ignored me completely. There are people who I thought would really be there to support me, and they have ignored me completely.”

This is something that author Audrey Monke shared when I spoke to her and did a book launch case study. She said: “Some of the people I was 100% sure would be on board (with supporting and promoting my book), weren’t.”

When she and I talked about this, she mentioned that there were people who she was generous to for years. She provided as many resources to them as possible to help them out, and 100% assumed they would be on board to support her book. They weren’t.

Why? I think those reasons are always complex and personal.

The point I want to make is that you can’t assume that everything you plan will happen as you hope it will. At times during your book launch you will be shocked that something you expected to happen, just doesn’t work out. Don’t let that throw you off balance.

Jen strongly encouraged authors to really focus on just a couple of things. Don’t overwhelm yourself trying to do 1,000 book launch tasks. Choose ideas that you can follow through on all the way.

She ended by saying this: “The thing I see with other author’s books is that they devote so much time during launch to promotion, then they give up. They stop. I will not be giving up. I am going to be devoting a chunk of my life for at least the rest of this year to this book.”

That stamina is inspiring to me. It is something I think about all the time, how the books and music and art I love was not usually discovered the day it was released. What we create can inspire and help someone at any time. We each have a choice how we create and share our work with the world.

Thanks!
-Dan

All I do is talk to writers and creators. The work we do is about creating and sharing. But sometimes I hear writers justify why they can’t do that. They make conclusions such as:

• “The world is in crisis, it would be selfish of me to talk about my writing now.”
• “Who can write when there is so much to worry about? Now is not the time.”
• “It’s not even worth it to query agents now, I heard it’s best to wait 6 months at the earliest.”
• “Self-publishing? Do people even read self-published books? I don’t know anyone that does, I’m not wasting my time with it.”
• “Social media doesn’t sell books, so I’m not bothering.”

These conclusions are sometimes closely tied to personal experience too:

• “I had a big break 15 years ago with my first book, but then my editor left the publisher just before it was published. The new editor didn’t love my book, so I don’t feel it got much support. The book didn’t do well. I mean, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and mine got messed up. Honestly, why bother at this point?”
• “I worked for years on a book, and then like 5 other authors published books with the same themes. The market was flooded, and they got all the recognition. It would be embarrassing to publish it now and look like a copycat.”

Each narrative above is meant to be a conclusion that says a version of: “And this is why I can’t….”

The question I always ask as I consider these things is: does this limit your potential? Must it?

Earlier this week I spoke with Shannon Connery, PhD about this topic. About how our narratives can limit our potential to create and share. Shannon is a psychologist, and spent a portion of her career working with first responders after traumatic incidents. What was her take on the topic of how writers can use narratives to stop creating and sharing? She put it this way:

“They are giving away their power.”

That phrase blew my mind. Why? Because it recognizes this amazing power that all writers have. That you are not a cog in a machine of publishing or the marketplace. You have the power to create. To write. To connect. To teach. To inspire. To grow as a person through your craft. To help others grow through what you share.

This means that any narrative that limits that potential is a choice to give away that power. Remember that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark where they hide the crate amongst thousands of other boxes?

I would encourage you to not do that with your own creative power. Don’t hide it away.

In my conversation with Shannon, we dug into the narratives that tend to limit our potential, leaving us with excuses instead of creative actions. Shannon shared several stories to illustrate the point, digs into the psychology of what is going on, and most importantly, shares how to fix it!

Her advice: lead with your goals and values.

You can listen to our entire conversation on my podcast, The Creative Shift.

This power extends to our ability to reach out to others as well. I recently interviewed author Jenny Blake for an upcoming episode of my podcast. As we ended the interview, she paused and thanked me — not just for reaching out, but for reaching out now, amidst the pandemic. She appreciated that I emailed her in the middle of this crisis, when her business is changing dramatically and when so much is uncertain. It meant even more to her that I wanted to reconnect at this time and feature her on my podcast.

When you connect with someone, you change the potential of what is possible. For them. And for you together.

In my consulting and programs, I often encourage writers to reach out and say “thank you” to other writers they admire. A simple email will suffice.

Usually, the writer strongly resists this idea. They explain to me how “big” this writer is, how busy they must be, how emailing them would be bothering them.

Yet, 9 out of 10 times that I have someone do it, the other person gets back to them quickly, replying, “Thank you, you made my day!” I mean, what else are these authors doing on a random Tuesday afternoon where they don’t want to be told that their writing matters?

I would encourage you to connect with people you admire, regularly.

These can be simple emails sent to different people a few times a week. You can reconnect with old colleagues and acquaintances, or to establish new connections with those you admire or would like to meet.

You don’t need to pitch anything or promote yourself. Just say hello, thank them, and explain why their work matters to you.

That is an incredible creative power you have. And one that establishes the most critical parts of an author platform: communication and trust.

Who can you email today to do exactly this?
Thanks.
-Dan