44. REPLAY: The Unfiltered Truth Behind My Author Journey

Inside this (replay) episode I'm sharing an unfiltered look at my author journey over the last decade. After four published novels, I'm sharing the Top 10 things I've learned - everything from working with gatekeepers, understanding market trends, building community, and identifying meaningful author goals.
This episode also marks the end of Season 1 of the Steps to Story podcast. I'm taking a small break, but will be back in 2025 with more!
Happy listening!
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Transcript

STEPS TO STORY EP 44 - The Unfiltered Truth Behind My Author Journey

[00:00:00] Nicole Meier: Well, hi there, Steps to Story listeners. Guess what? We did it! We made it through the first full season of my Steps to Story podcast. I am so excited to celebrate this with you. For anyone who hasn't been following along or is new to this, I launched the podcast in February of 2024, and this episode marks the end of the first full season.

[00:00:24] Nicole Meier: I have really enjoyed doing the podcast, connecting with the writing community, hearing from all of you with your feedback and questions, and amazing reviews. Thank you guys. Wow. I'm so touched and I'm so excited to continue on. What I wanted to let you know is I have some exciting things planned for the podcast in 2025.

[00:00:44] Nicole Meier: But right now, this marks the end of the season, and like all writers and creatives, I need to take a step away and refill my creative well. This will help me to come back fresh and new and inspired in January. So for now, enjoy this replay that I really love, which is the top 10 things I've learned from being an author.

[00:01:05] Nicole Meier: Until 2025, see you in the new year. Happy writing and happy holidays.

[00:01:17] Nicole Meier: Welcome to Steps to Story, a show that helps aspiring authors turn their ideas into action and transform their dream of writing a book into a reality. I'm your host, Nicole Meier, multi published author and certified book coach. I spent the first part of my fiction writing career desperate for guidance that was unavailable to me.

[00:01:39] Nicole Meier: I wrote draft after draft, flying by the seat of my pants, with lots of passion but little guidance. Thankfully, there was a writing community that opened its arms and welcomed me. This community sustained me. But when it came to strengthening my novel writing process, I was determined to find a better way.

[00:02:00] Nicole Meier: One that didn't involve piecemeal strategies. and confusing courses. Now, more than a decade later, I'm serving my younger self who yearned for support while writing a book. If you're an emerging author seeking guidance, this podcast is for you. Are you on the list to get my novel writing guide? I designed this workbook to take you through five essential strategies that will level up your novel writing process.

[00:02:29] Nicole Meier: Grab your free copy at nicolemeier. com forward slash crafting greatness. That's nicolemeier. com forward slash crafting greatness or at the link in the show notes.

[00:02:50] Nicole Meier: Well hi there writers, guess what? Today is my book's birthday. City of Books is now out in the world. And in celebration, I actually want to do something a little different today. I'm going to pull back the curtain and share parts of my author journey with you. And while this episode may start out talking about me, it's most definitely intended for you, the emerging author who is here for all things novel writing.

[00:03:20] Nicole Meier: Because what's exciting about this moment in time isn't just news of a book release. It's the knowing that there are so many more opportunities for novel writers out there today just waiting for you to discover. Let's get into it. So four published books later, I can look back and see how much has actually evolved over the last 10 years in the writing and publishing landscape.

[00:03:47] Nicole Meier: particularly in fiction. I thought I'd share some of these findings with you in an attempt to not only shed some light on author life, but also to remind you that not everything is set in stone. I see a lot of fiction writers out there struggling right now, and it kills me. I want to grab a megaphone and shout from the highest rooftop that where there is a will there most definitely is a way.

[00:04:16] Nicole Meier: It just might not be the exact way that you planned. But there still will be a way. To explain, I'll need to start at the beginning. The first time I walked myself into a big writer's conference, my tote bag stuffed with my trusted laptop, and the first three chapters of a novel, was hands down the most eye opening experience I could have had as an emerging author.

[00:04:44] Nicole Meier: This is because at that conference, not only did I finally connect with the writing community, hello book people, but I learned just how much goes into writing, publishing, and marketing a book. Spoiler alert, it's a lot. On the last day of that conference, after panels, workshops, and meet and greets, I sat in a ballroom with about 300 other eager fiction writers and listened to the program director tell us that only two or three of us were actually ready to try and get published.

[00:05:19] Nicole Meier: That's right, only a couple out of hundreds. I've never seen so many people slump in their chairs simultaneously, and I was one of them. What this director was not so subtly telling us was that passion alone does not equal a successful author career. Most of us needed to go back home, dive deep into story craft, hone our skills, polish our work to the best of our ability, and then go through a pretty specific process of pitching the gatekeepers.

[00:05:54] Nicole Meier: before being invited into the next stage of our career. The writer friend who attended that conference with me pretty much gave up right there and then and sadly never finished her book. I'm guessing there were quite a few like that there that day. So this takes me to my first point in my top 10 list of things I've learned.

[00:06:15] Nicole Meier: Number one, you have to want it bad enough to see it through. You have to care before anyone else does, because no one is going to hold your hand and make your career happen for you. Sure, there will be writer friends, book coaches, and courses to help, but in the end, it's You have to be willing to look that proverbial conference director back in the eye and say, just watch me.

[00:06:45] Nicole Meier: Number two on my list of things I've learned is it's not a race. I'm sharing this because I used to have a pretty big sense of urgency and desperation that fueled my writing process. I really was urgent to finish the manuscript, pitch the agent, get the agent, get the book deal. Get the book sold. Get those big numbers.

[00:07:09] Nicole Meier: Make sure I had enough sales to get the next book contract. Get the author platform going, and so on and so forth. You can imagine how exhausting that was. Because rushing served no one, especially me. If you want an author career, it's about the body of work. It's about getting it right, and it's about doing it at the pace that it demands.

[00:07:31] Nicole Meier: That doesn't mean rushing. Rushing was probably my enemy number one during the first half of my author career. Okay, let's move on to the third thing on my list of things I've learned, and that is it's all about trial and error. Write those practice novels. I certainly did. In fact, my very first manuscript still lives in a drawer because I had to prove to myself that I had what it took to write a full length novel manuscript.

[00:08:01] Nicole Meier: More than that, I had to learn what worked and what didn't in terms of my actual craft and my storytelling ability. Yes, this meant writing, rewriting, and sometimes trashing whole portions of manuscripts before I got it right. But once you tell yourself this is about trial and error, it gives you freedom.

[00:08:22] Nicole Meier: It lets you know that you can play around and experiment, and not everything is set in stone. This idea really helped me to move forward and not to be too hard on myself, especially when it came to perfectionism. Okay, number four on my list is a good one. Writing community is everything. I strongly believe in this.

[00:08:43] Nicole Meier: In fact, it is the number one thing I tell writers when they're just beginning their writing career. Build your community. Seek out others, especially in your niche or your genre or that have the same interests as you. Help each other out, share pages, support one another, become friends in real life or on social media.

[00:09:04] Nicole Meier: These are the people who will sustain you, they will cheer you on, and they will become your tribe. All right, number five on my list of things that I've learned is don't write to market trends. I still see this as a book coach. People come to me and are very concerned about writing what's popular right now.

[00:09:25] Nicole Meier: And I always pause and say, be careful about that because, first of all, are you really writing the story that's on your heart? Or are you writing what you think others need to hear? And second of all, remember once you get that agent and sign the book contract, it could take up to two to three years before your book is actually on the shelves.

[00:09:45] Nicole Meier: In this regard, the trend will either be saturated or die out by that point, so I stand strongly by the fact that it's not going to serve you if you write to market trends. If you have a good premise and you've told the story to the best of your ability, chances are it will definitely stand the test of time, no matter what the trend is in the current market.

[00:10:09] Nicole Meier: Okay, speaking of things changing, this brings me to number six on my list of things that I've learned. And that is, authors switch publishers all the time. In fact, they switch publishing paths. I couldn't have said this 10 years ago when I was first starting out, but now I'm seeing it more and more often.

[00:10:29] Nicole Meier: In fact, many authors are deciding to do, say, the self publishing route for one type of genre they're writing, and then switch genres and do the traditional publishing route for the next. It really is about the body of work, but it's also about knowing that sometimes different titles require different publishing paths.

[00:10:50] Nicole Meier: And that's okay. Don't feel like you have to stay in a box if you don't want to. In this regard, don't feel like you need to stay with a publisher, small press, or even self publishing route if it doesn't feel like it's serving you or meeting your original goals. Take it from me, an author who has switched publishers more than once.

[00:11:12] Nicole Meier: Along these same lines is number seven on my list of things that I've learned, but this one was actually surprising to me. And that is, editors also switch publishers. This can be a little unsettling if you're an author who signed with a big publishing house to suddenly realize your editor will no longer be there.

[00:11:31] Nicole Meier: Sometimes editors decide to switch jobs or even switch to different imprints within the same publishing house. Whatever the case, I think knowing this fact before you go into a contract or into a new deal can be helpful so you won't be taken off guard when it happens. This leads me to number eight on the things that I've learned, especially about things that have evolved in my 10 plus years in the writing and publishing industry.

[00:12:01] Nicole Meier: And that is, there are many publication paths available. Bye for now. This is huge because I couldn't make the statement 10 years ago. There was so much stigma attached to different publishing paths other than traditional, but I can genuinely say this is not the case. I've been to enough writer conferences and talked to enough writer friends, editors, and book coaches to know that people are choosing all kinds of publishing paths based on what serves them.

[00:12:30] Nicole Meier: And this feels good to me because people are listening to their intuition and following it in terms of their path. So very quickly I'll just list out four possible publishing path options that are out there. The first is that of self publishing. The next is that of small presses. This is followed by the idea of a hybrid press, and then the final option is that of a traditional publisher.

[00:12:57] Nicole Meier: I could do a whole podcast episode outlining the ins and outs of each of these four publishing paths. I won't do that today, but I will encourage you, the writer, to do your research when you're deciding which path is right for you, and start by knowing your goal. Know what you want. Identify what part of the creative process you want to keep for yourself and have control versus have someone collaborate or take over for you.

[00:13:26] Nicole Meier: Also do some research on distribution, book covers, marketing, sales. All of this will inform your decision making process, but the number one thing here is to stick to your goals and know what serves you. Not necessarily what serves your writer friend, but what serves you as an individual author. Now let's move on to number nine on the list of things that I've learned in my author career.

[00:13:55] Nicole Meier: And that's very simple. Know your audience. I know as creatives we don't like to think of the business or the marketing side before we really get the story fleshed out and written, but I would encourage you to do a little bit of research at the beginning. When you're building the foundation for your story, know who you're speaking to.

[00:14:14] Nicole Meier: Know your ideal audience, at least get a sense. If you're not sure, do some research, look at comparative titles, look at comparative audiences. Who might you share an audience with? This is likely going to inform your writing process, and it will most definitely inform who you're reaching at the end. And finally, number 10 on the list of things that I've learned in my author career is know your goals and stick to them.

[00:14:43] Nicole Meier: Sure your goals can evolve and even each title in your body of work can have a unique set of goals. But I made a mistake early in my career where I went for something shiny and it didn't match up with the goals I had set for myself. It turned out that process didn't serve me, and I had to revisit what I really wanted and how I thought I would get there in the first place.

[00:15:07] Nicole Meier: So I think it's a great journal exercise to sit down and list out your goals as an author, list out your goals for your specific work in progress, and list out your goals for what you want as an author career. Okay, writers, very quickly, let's recap my top 10 things. Number one, you have to care before anyone else does.

[00:15:32] Nicole Meier: Number two, it's not a race. Number three, it's all about trial and error. Number four, writing community is everything. Number five, don't write to market trends. Number six, authors switch publishers. Number seven, editors switch publishers. Number eight, there are many publication paths available out there.

[00:15:59] Nicole Meier: Number nine, know your audience. And finally, number 10, know your goals. In the end, dear writers, I recommend you be committed, be consistent, and be authentically you and you're already winning. The rest will come in time, I promise. Want help with your novel? I encourage you to visit StepsToStory. com to find out ways I can support you.

[00:16:26] Nicole Meier: Whether it's one of my self-paced courses on plot or character, or my small group novel writing program filled with craft, community, and coaching, I've got you covered. See the show notes for more details. Until next time, writers. Keep writing, keep going for your dreams, and remember, I'm cheering for you.

[00:16:47] Nicole Meier: If

[00:16:51] Nicole Meier: you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers. Visit Nicole meier.com. That's M-E-I-E-R. And if you like this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show and to get going on their writing journey.

[00:17:12] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy riding everyone.