It’s My Prerogative: Self-publishing, Creativity, and Going Freelance feat. Melanie Ho

It's a Bruin reunion!  This week we welcome fellow Smart Girl and self-published author, Melanie Ho, as we discuss the hidden curriculum of self-publishing.  

We get into the nuts and bolts: hiring a developmental editor who protects your voice, finding seasoned designers and copy editors on Reedsy, and using IngramSpark’s print-on-demand to skip boxes-in-the-garage risk while keeping control of pricing and distribution.

If you’ve wondered whether a big publisher is the only path, or how to turn your story into a sustainable creative business, this conversation is your candid field guide. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s “between seasons,” and leave a review with the one value that’s guiding your next move.

Go here for the Smart Girl experience:

https://www.smartgirlbook.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 UCLA Energy, Guest Intro, Episode Theme
• 4:10 Why Self-Publish vs Traditional Paths
• 10:35 Book Doctors, Hybrids, And Marketing Reality
• 16:40 Costs, Editors, Design, Print-on-Demand
• 23:20 Covers, Genre Norms, And Standing Out
• 28:15 Using Platforms, Readsy, And Freelance Pros
• 34:05 Creativity As Getting Off Autopilot
• 41:30 Ephemera, Playlists, And Building A Narrative
• 47:20 Leaving Academia: Steps, Not Leaps
• 54:10 Careers As Seasons And Shifting Values
• 1:01:20 Community, Networks, And First-Gen Realities
• 1:07:30 Soundtracks, Brand Choices, And Vibes

Transcript

Sam: 0:02

Hey y'all, welcome back. We are here today with another UCLA power episode, I'll call it. We've had we've had a few UCLA runs, and it's awesome.

LT: 0:19

Ruins in the House, right?

Sam: 0:20

Ruins in the House. One day you're gonna see the picture of LT and I in our new matching shirts, and I'll have to ask Melanie about it later. Um which is hello kitty, smart kitty. I'm spoiling it, but there you go. Um so this episode is a requested episode, which I'm so excited about. Shout out for requests. There you go. Um and please keep them coming. Um, but you know, as LT has been on the road with Smart Girl, she's got a lot of questions about how she self-published and what that process is. And as soon as that request came in, LT and I knew we had to bring on Melanie, who is a uh a friend from our larger cohort of Brad School at UCLA. Um and well, first let me tell you the title of the episode. It's my prerogative because we have to have a Bobby Brown reference, right? Self-publishing, creativity, and going freelance, which is exciting. Um, but we're here with Melanie Hose, who is amazing, who is the author of Beyond Leaning In, who is an amazing higher ed consultant, um, who is all about women and diversity in leadership in leading through crisis, self-published her book, broke out on her own from uh the you know biggest, most prestigious educational consulting firm in this country. Um we're all waiting to call her Madam President one day. I feel like may we be so lucky of an institution or of us uh all together. Uh, and I am just so thrilled to see you two in action together today and not just in pictures from Mount Vernon from Alexandria, Virginia, although that was also exciting at the book launch. Um, yes, hi friends.

Melanie: 2:30

Hi. Look, I changed my Zoom background to UCLA quad because I feel like we're just sitting on the quad together.

Speaker: 2:39

Oh my gosh. We're ruining. We're ruining.

Sam: 2:43

Um, it's amazing. Uh when I go back, I'm always just like, oh, like where the lights just the same.

unknown: 2:49

There you go.

Melanie: 2:50

At least we've got introduction. I feel like you've got the like Jason Kelsey where the introduction starts.

Speaker: 2:56

Oh my gosh.

Sam: 3:04

Right. But yes, I just I there there are not, you know, we've had we've had some amazing people on, and usually like uh they're they're they're more like LTs people, and I don't know them as well. And I want her to be the hype woman. And to have both of you on, these two people who have um, I think there are there are no two people who have shaped my relationship to academia, to my relationship to administration, to operations, I'll just call it, in my current mode, um, than the two of you. Uh it's amazing like how much you are both still in my life professionally and personally. Um, and you're just both so so smart about these things while being so ethically and strategically minded. And I'm thrilled to have this conversation because of course that's how you wound up self-publishing and how you can decide to do something like that because you have to have so much ground swell. So I'm gonna jump in with questions. Is that good? Of course. So both of you decided to self-publish, LT with Smart Girl and Melanie with Beyond Leaning In, your professional self-help novel. Tackling sexism and racism in the workplace. Can you both tell us a little bit about your journeys on these decisions? Um, how did you decide um that self-publish was the best choice for your story? And this is something that obviously LT doesn't talk about in the book, so I'm thrilled that we will get like a real full answer from LT as well on this.

LT: 4:49

Yeah. Sim, I'm gonna defer to Melanie first on this one because Melanie did, I was watching Melanie.

Sam: 4:57

Inspiration.

Melanie: 5:00

Yeah, so I'm somebody who's always writing a novel of some sort, and most of them are sitting in a drawer. And after a few novels, I had finished, one was a young adult dystopian that I actually may return to at some point soon. Another was this political novel. I had all these fully drafted novels. And when I started writing Beyond Leaning In, which was a little different, it's a novel, but it's in the business and leadership section. It's meant to be a way of thinking about these issues in the workplace. And I thought, okay, I finished those other books and then I just didn't want to revise them. And so, how do I start this book differently? So I learned that there are wonderful professionals called book doctors. And they can help you at any stage in the process. You've got an idea and you don't know what to do with it yet, or you're fully done with the draft and you want some help turning it into the next step. And so I found these wonderful book doctors, um, Ariel and David X Stute, and talk to them about okay, I've got this idea. And we had this really great conversation about well, if I want to write a book in this way, um, it didn't fit in into an existing categories. Who writes a leadership book as a novel? A few people actually do, but they're really well known and you could consider them sort of famous in the leadership book world. And the advice I got was essentially, and she looked at some of my pages, was, you know, you could either sell, let's talk about what you can sell to a publisher. If you want to go with one of the big traditional publishers, you could sell a novel that is really focused on the issues that women face in the workplace, or you could sell a leadership book. But this blend that you're trying to do, unless you want it to be super formulaic, it's going to be incredibly hard to sell. And not to discourage me, but just to be realistic, she said there were sort of these different paths I could take. One was to try to understand the different formulas and which one would I fit into and where would I imagine it on the bookshelf and what would be the comps, which are books like yours that are out there? Or are you okay if only your 30 best friends are the ones who read it? And not to say that that would happen, but like, do you want to write the story in this way that you are fine with that? And as soon as I said that, I thought, yeah, actually, I'm writing this book for me and my 30 best friends. And if that's all who reads it, that's great. I ended up from there attending a few different writers' conferences that they'd suggested, going to some panels on the state of the industry and different models of publishing. Um, I learned that there are more models than I even knew existed. There's traditional publishing, there's self-publishing, there's all kinds of hybrid models in between. And one of the key points that uh the book talkers made and others was that if you end up, say, you know, the equivalent of winning the lottery, you get an agent, you get a contract with one of the big traditional publishers. Unless you are already famous, it is unlikely that they're going or have a big platform of some sort, is unlikely that they're going to put any marketing dollars towards your book. And so you're gonna have to hire your own marketing people and PR people anyway, and you're barely gonna get any of the profits. And so I think that kind of clenched it. Like, okay, so even if I win the lottery of getting the big publisher, get it published, they often don't do a big print run. They're not marketing for you. It actually doesn't mean that you are likely to sell more books and get your word out there. It just means that you can say you were published with a big publisher. And so I was sort of leaning towards self-publishing anyway. And then I ended up finishing my book. I was about 80% done in 2020 when I ended up quitting my job and wasn't actually sure what my next plan was, except I knew I wanted to finish this book and that I wasn't going to be able to finish it in the job that I was in. Um, I think some of that was logistical, but some of it was just emotional. And at that point, I wanted to finish it and I wanted to be it to be out fast. And I didn't want to also weigh a multi-year time frame. So it was kind of kind of the multi-step decision process that got me there.

LT: 9:20

Oh uh so relatable. So for me, first I I want to say I have published before. I published with Brookless Press and a couple other presses. I think I made a total of $200. Um, and so and this is this is when I say this, I mean, you know, research, scholarship that that I've that I've produced. Um when I made the decision to well, hold hold on. So I had the benefit of seeing Melanie ahead of me. So I knew it was possible. That's really important, knowing that something is is possible, even if I didn't know the details. Um but then when I made the specific decision to write a memoir, which is specific is about my my own stories being first generation in a college, I also had the benefit of seeing another woman of color, and that's Alejandra Campoverdi, who'd written a book called First Gen. And what had happened was at some point before her book came out, she reached out to me because just like you said, Melanie, she had a she was with a traditional press, but she still had to do her, she still had to hustle, right? So she's not in academia. She wanted to get her book in front of first gen audiences, and and she was asking around, and everyone would say, Oh, you need to know LT. LT will introduce you. Um, and it's a uh Alejandra is like a like a sister of mine now. Um uh we have our own relationship and she started telling me just about her own journey and about what it was like to go with a traditional press. Uh yeah, with a traditional press. And then at some point I said to myself, if at the end of the day I gotta talk to schools anyway, why would I give my money to a traditional press? It all comes back to you. I actually do have a platform already, right? People do pay attention to to the types of things that I'm thinking about. So, and Alejandra just put it so beautifully. It's just like it's just like applying for colleges, right? You could go highly selective institution, and then you know, this might in this metaphor be like the traditional route. You could go the regional public school route, you could go the community. There's so many different routes. And there's no wrong. There's no wrong, but it is it is something that one should be intentional about once you are informed, once you are well informed about the process. Most of us are not informed. This is the last thing I'll say, Sam, that ties to what Melanie was saying. The traditional publishing industry is an industry. Um, and it reflects other um structures. And so when we see best sellers, I'm gonna put in quotes, bestsellers, I'm gonna focus on the memoir genre, like Prince Harry, like Beyonce's mother, these are already predetermined bestsellers, y'all. It was already decided that those are gonna be bestsellers. And so it has a consequence of folks regular folks thinking I'm not Tina Knowles, and so therefore my story doesn't matter. And what I love about self-publishing is that that is really about counter stories, right? Or um um accessibility, at least that's the way that I like to think about it. And we could we can critique that, but but when you compare it to a traditional publishing journey, then I would say yes.

Melanie: 13:14

I love that because I'll go on.

Sam: 13:16

Yeah.

Melanie: 13:17

No, I just I was just thinking, I love that on counter stories, and I was thinking about how we both came from this this background where people uh with PhDs in English, which is probably one of the few places where actually everybody knows who published different books, that if you talk to the typical reader, they actually have no idea who published most of the books on their bookshelf. But I don't know if this was true for you. For me, there was this kind of mental journey of feeling like self-publishing was something I could do when so many of the people I've spent my life around professionally are the small number of folks in the readership community who actually know who has published every book they've read.

Sam: 14:02

I really appreciate that reflection and you being able to talk about your like you know, mental or like emotional processes as well of getting right with self-publishing and how like seeing, like on the one hand, actually talking to someone about what it means to get that contract with a major press, right? And like what it would look like. And on the other hand, watching people do it before you and being like, oh right, they did it, right? Because I think self-publishing has this negative, you know, connotation that especially for people that came up in the academy where you like you're trying to get that book contract from this particular academic press, even though you know you will make $37 if you're lucky ever, right? So where you what like like it's not, it's all about the prestige and not about like getting it out there or anyone reading it or anything that you have to go through a process, like you have to unlearn those values, right? About self-publishing. Um, so speaking of that, you all started.

LT: 15:07

Sorry, one more thing. And then as academics, we are socialized to downplay the money part. We're not doing this for money.

Speaker 2: 15:15

Yeah.

LT: 15:15

It doesn't matter what that check. Oh, oh, we got a check. Oh, oh, lovely, right? That's how we're actually socialized when it comes to publishing in traditional spaces. Um, yes, deeply.

Sam: 15:27

And also like that uh uncompensated work is like the labor of love that is about our vocation rather than our job. Again, the ways that the academy, I think, is so deeply structured around the idea that it's not biased when it's completely like it cannot run operationally the way that it does. And yet it does uh largely on the invisibilized labor, right, of people like ourselves, right? And so thinking uh uh outside of that, getting outside of that. But we'll get to that in a moment. Um, but along these lines, um I really think listeners want to know your process then. So you've got told us how you got there, right? To that, to the like, I'm going to self-publish. So then you're there. Tell us some of the nuts and bolts and anything that might surprise our listeners about the practical aspects of self-publishing. And here I am thinking about like, um, LT, I know you worked with an editor, right? Melanie, I know you've talked about the length of time you felt like you could take at that point in your life to work on the manuscript, right? Um, and and I just I think folks really want to know how did you do it once you decide it?

LT: 16:48

Uh sure. I I can jump in, um, Melanie. So uh yes. So um as I was writing, I had uh oftentimes when we hear editor, we're thinking of someone who's checking your grammar. Um that's not what Genesis did. She was my almost like a like a coach and a thought partner. So she was someone who I trusted another woman of color who also was first generation to college. So I knew she would understand my story. Um, and she's someone I'd worked with before. And so the reason why that is important, having that type of editor, because you m will have an with traditional publishing, you have an editor as well, too. But I wanted someone who sort of got it and I trusted in someone who I felt like wouldn't have me lean into like trauma porn, you know what I mean, if that makes sense, especially I'm telling a first generation to college story, and that's those are usually framed in terms of like struggle and all that type of stuff. And Genesis wasn't like that. So that there was that level of trust. I did pay her, so we gotta talk about ex like out-of-pocket expenses that you don't typically incur with a traditional publisher who handles the graphic design, who handles the editing and all that type of stuff. So I paid Genesis out of my pocket. Um, and then when it came to the actual pub like well, I am the publisher, I think what we need to distinguish is the printing of it as well. Um so I went with a company called Ingram Spark and they are they print on demand. But um before I mean you write the book, but then it has to be late, it has to be designed as well. Um so my mom actually designed the book, the inside of the book, like what it actually like the actual layout, and she designed the cover. Um and I'll bet all of my money that I wouldn't have that cover if I went with the traditional press. It would have been some like old picture of me, you know, that's like the look. And I'll I'll remind me to say more about that um at another point. But um so I there was no upfront cost for the actual printing on demand. What ends up happening is that let's say someone orders the book, the company takes let's say my book is $20, it's not, but let's say it's $20 just to make it make it easy. So the company will take it 60% and then months later I get my 40% cut. So I'm not paying for the printing. When people buy the book, they are paying for the printing. Um, and then I get my my check 90 days later. Um so I'll stop there. If there's follow-up questions for sure, and then Melanie, I'm really curious what that was like for you.

Melanie: 19:57

Love that your mom did the cover and interior design. I had no idea, and now I'm sad that when I met her, I'm gonna tell her.

LT: 20:03

I spent the whole time talking to my cousin, which was amazing. But what was it like for you?

Melanie: 20:11

So I'm I'm trying to think through the different steps. Uh, one thing I'll say from earlier in the process and then get to those the nuts and bolts of the self-publishing is that I I did NanoRimo, National Novel Writing Month.

Speaker 2: 20:24

Oh, yeah.

Melanie: 20:25

And that that's how I started the book was that it's uh for folks who aren't familiar, they have a great website. It's people around the world who all commit in the month of November to writing, I can't remember exactly, I think it's 30,000 words across the month. So it's about a thousand words a day. And the idea of NanoRimo is that you're just your goal is to write a draft and a messy draft. You're not going for perfection, you're just going for the word count, and it's your just your messy draft. And so that was the first thing that helped me. Did NanoRimo. I had one of the book doctors look at it, and it was interesting because I was trying to toggle between this. Okay, I'm writing a leadership book as a novel, and I'm trying to figure out how to communicate leadership concepts without it being too preachy or didactic, and there's also characters. And so I went back and forth between these. This messy draft was full of scenes with characters and then full of things that kind of were like a Harvard Business Review article. And um, the the book doctor who read it, she pulled out the point, all the parts that she thought were most compelling to her, and they were all the parts that were based on things that had happened to me personally. And so that, and it was interesting coming from someone who didn't know that. And so that really shifted my direction and how I ended up just structuring the whole book. Probably in the in the main book writing process, I mainly had a few friends who read a few chapters here as I went along just to get a sense of okay, what's compelling, what's not, where do they have questions? And then when it came to actually self-publishing, I used a website called Read Z to locate different professionals. And so that's kind of like um like like the thumbtack or you know, all those sites where you can find gig economy folks, but it's all publishing industry professionals. And it's a wonderful site because there are a lot of folks who work full-time in the publishing industry, but Moonlight on Readsy, or who used to work for the big publishers and are now there as freelancers. And so I picked out um, I can't remember anymore, all the varying levels of editors that one has uh for a book, you know, from copy editing to developmental editing. I picked out the interior designer who does the layout of the paragraphs and all of that. My book cover person has done amazing book covers. She did one of Mindy Kaling's books. She had just done a lot. Yeah, she had just done a lot of books that I really liked. The liked both the books and the covers, and she reads the entire book before she makes the cover. And so I was just able to find all these amazing folks who work in the publishing industry on Readsy. And the the cover was probably the most fun part for me, just being able to like go back and forth with her, and that she came up with ideas I wouldn't have. Um, and then I ended up taking, she gave me three cover concepts originally, and I put them on, I think, just all of my various social media and had people vote on their favorite. And actually, the winner was the one I liked as well. But it was interesting too, just looking at the vote and looking at the votes because I was writing a book about women in the workplace, but it was written in a way that I hoped would appeal to men who are allies. And so it's actually interesting seeing what women voted for and what men voted for, and kind of there were there was you know one cover that women voted for, but no men. There was one that one with the woman and one with the men, and that was the one I liked anyway. So that was kind of an interesting just thing to be able to do that I don't know if I would have been able to with the traditional publisher.

LT: 24:21

Exactly. You don't really get a choice, but question for you about the book doctor like how like Sam wants us to talk about process. So, how much does one budget for or how much did you pay for that the book doctors?

Melanie: 24:37

Oh I'm I'm really bad with remembering things like that. I'll say they're not cheap, at least not the they come in varying price ranges, and I I went with folks who are incredibly experienced. Um, and and 10,000 or less.

LT: 24:52

No, no, no.

Melanie: 24:53

I mean probably a few thousand. Okay.

LT: 24:55

People people want to know, Sam says. People want to know.

Sam: 25:00

And I think it's significant, right, to think about how what resources you all put into this. Because again, I think the impression of self-publishing is like, so I just wrote it and got it printed, right? And both of you are like, no, we need editors, like we need outside folks, let alone for things like layout and cover design that I think are not top of mind necessarily. Correct. Uh and LT, you were you were mentioning, I and because this is a seg between Melanie's cover and yours, that like you know you wouldn't have been able to get your cover, right? That they would have sold it in a particular way. So going back to the choice to self-publish.

LT: 25:43

Yes, thank you for that. So um one of the things that I did was looked at lurked in Facebook groups for women writers and for self-published writers. And one of the things that c commonly came up when people were talking about their covers is look at an existing genre and your cover should look like that. And I was like, fuck no. Well, my cover was already done. My cover was already done, but it is consistent feedback, and that's how I know that if I had gone a traditional route, it would have been that blur, that you know, hazy image of little me, right, with some other kind of graphic. Then I I just didn't want that. And when I mean I'm I'm humble about some things, but this cover is amazing. And when I like I had the opportunity to see my book in a library, it it just stands out. It just it just pops, it's uh attention, you know, you know what I mean? Um, and so but it's really interesting to see hear the feedback that people tell you just over and over again. And so, folks, when you go and you think about romantic comedies, they all got that teal look with the cursive script. There's a reason, right? Or like the the sci-fi stuff, dark, dark, dark and the purple, because it's capitalism. And people want to sell you the same thing over and over again. So that was the one thing I wanted to make sure that I said.

Melanie: 27:24

And I want to go back to what you said about print on demand too, and that you don't have to have a bunch of books sitting in your garage essentially. And and and probably this is where the costs uh have shifted in self-publishing or could or could be in different places than it used to be. That in the past, before print on demand, if you were going to self-publish a book, you were essentially in your garage or your apartment or wherever, keeping boxes of books that you would print and then try to sell on your own. And now with print on demand being able to get into bookstores, um, as well as people being able to buy books online, the you don't have those expenses. And so the expenses can be put, they don't have to be. There are certainly low budget ways to do self-publishing, but can be put towards all the varying types of professionals that can help bring the book to life.

LT: 28:17

That's so smart. It's it's so for some folks, it's like the mixtape idea. You don't have to have your cassettes or your CDs in your in the back of your car. It's online, put it on YouTube. It's on YouTube.

Sam: 28:32

You can just get no one's selling it out of the trunk. No one's selling it out of the trunk. I love it. And that spurred some great songs about putting your mixture out. Right? But what's part of what's amazing is hearing how you have both harnessed social media and the internet and technology, right? To help use it to make your work more accessible and also get that access to a professional network that there's been gatekeepers of for so long. And it's like, oh, actually, I go on reedy and I can get that because that's what you get for getting it doing an underpaid profession. It's like they're all freelancing. I can get great people, or you say, How am I gonna be hemmed in right over here by this story? Right. Like, yes, I want to sell books, but I recognize that only a certain subset are gonna look at it. I'm doing data visualizations uh in class. Um, like they have to make their own. And part of what we do is look up like different models, right? For like what look they want. And again, it like hails a certain kind of look. And we all know that, right? So thinking about that. So this was all amazing. Um so um switching over or or branching out, I want to think more about your creativity. uh in general and in relationship to your books because you've both decided to even even and especially as you've worked in on the administrative and operations and organizing side of things, right? To to be really creative. You're again some of the most insanely creative and self-starting people I've ever known. You're my heroines in all cases, across multiple dimensions and mediums. And I'll ask about more professional stuff later, but could you each reflect more on where your creativity and imagination fit into not just your writing, but also your other professional hats, particularly mentoring and leadership training. So I just really want to hear more about this creativity you're talking about bringing into writing and bringing into publishing. I see it at least in the other professional hats you wear and work that you do. But I don't know that everyone thinks about a lot of us think of those as separate things. Like there's our work life and our creative life. They think about that novel in your drawer, right? And here, you know, you merged it, right? Or NLT, you've built this whole juggernaut professional and otherwise around first gen identity. And here you've done this creative work to narrativize it for yourself. So I'm just curious how you see that coming from or feeding into your your less seemingly on the surface less creative pursuits.

LT: 31:43

More of a Dr.

Melanie: 31:44

Hunt that is such a good question.

LT: 31:46

It is I hate her.

Melanie: 31:48

I know I'm like wait how do I even tackle that I mean I that had me just thinking about how I would even define creativity. Yeah and gosh what I was what I was thinking as you were talking was that for me creativity is anything that gets us out of autopilot. That we live these lives that are so busy and we have so many inherited scripts from childhood and beyond and that are constantly being reinforced by everything out there. And so it's hard to get out of autopilot both in our actions but also in just our automatic thoughts and emotions and all of that. And so I think of creativity as anything that gets us out of autopilot, whether it's in a big way or a small way it's what I love about the imaginative arts of things like fiction which gets us out the the the best novels, films, TV shows I think get us out of autopilot in some way. And in my in my leadership courses and workshops there are some tools I use for that I I've drawn a lot of comics based on scenes from my book that was a pandemic era a hobby. I ended up comics drawing class and just started drawing comics based on scenes in the book but I use a lot of comics in my workshops and keynotes not just having people look at the comics which can be a way of getting out of autopilot because they art helps us see differently but also having the audience draw comics and that even just drawing stick figures and emojis it's so amazing how once people pick up that marker they'll think about a problem in a totally different way just five minutes of drawing stick figures. And so that's one just very tangible way of getting us out of autopilot. But sometimes it's just I don't know sometimes people just hear a snippet hear someone talk about something in a different way that gets at a a deep question they had in their mind they didn't know they had. And to me that's also a type of creativity.

LT: 34:05

Oh man okay I'm gonna answer this in two different ways first is like the personal and then the big picture. So number one it definitely takes a strong sense of self especially to write in the memoir genre because you're saying my story matters. Most of us don't get to that point. Most of us aren't thinking oh the story I tell about myself is one that other people should read right once I did cross that threshold though I really leaned into this idea of self-expression. The printed book is just one of them Sam you mentioned our uh mentioned earlier I have two playlists I have a Pinterest board there's this podcast there's just so many like I just kept it just kept coming out right um until someone had mentioned there's some I don't even know who this person was but I had posted on LinkedIn and they said how impressed they were with the ephemera of Smart Girl and they meant that in in a in a in a good way not in a like a trivial way right um so I'll I'll never forget that so for me it's just like how do I just keep expressing myself in a way that's very very authentic and one of the best pieces of feedback I get from people is when they read the book and they say wow it sounds like me right it feels like I'm telling them this story. That's number one. Number two actually ties back to you Melanie we had conversations you probably don't remember we talked about it like a long ago the book really is the the point really isn't the book at the same time. Um there's gotta be it it helps I should say to have a bigger goal that you're reaching for so whether it's about changing people's perception about women and leadership and corporate structure or changing the way people think about a first generation experience or Gen X or black first gen or bringing to light the problem of student mobility and students going to school, school school there's got to be a bigger goal that's what helps um bring in money because we're not making our money by the number of books we sell. Yes, I'm definitely getting a higher royalty percentage than I would have with the traditional press but really it's about those speaking engagements and things like that where people do pay more money. And I remember it was a hot day I remember calling Melanie on the phone and I was talking to her I was like how much do you charge you know what I mean like you gotta have those kind of conversations as well and then also a trusted community where you can actually ask those questions like how much how much should I charge for this thing? You know what I mean? Because now it's more than the book at that point.

Melanie: 36:59

What you said about ephemera I think that's really important because for a lot of folks who don't know where to find their creativity and and we all have it, I feel like ephemera the things that they're just very specific is a good way to start. And one of the things I love about your book is that it it does what what I think art often does which is connect the specific to the universal. And so I love that metaphor you have of I mean it's a situation but also a metaphor of the difficulty of getting on the escalator. Oh because I struggle with that too I still struggle with with getting on the escalator in that like you don't want to step too fast. You don't want to step too slow.

Speaker 2: 37:40

Yeah.

Melanie: 37:40

And that's such a metaphor for so many different things about life but it's just it's this snippet of life that's very specific that everyone can relate to in some way even if it's not even if they don't have an exact escalator moment can relate to how these small things can have bigger meetings. I've had a number of readers say to me that they like all the scenes where people are just eating in my book. Yeah the discussions of food feels like a very just day-to-day thing that helps connect to bigger themes.

LT: 38:11

Yeah I was so I think I told you this was a long time ago I was so pissed at moments in your book like I couldn't read your book at night because I was constantly marinate over what you were writing and thinking damn this is my life right here. You know I was still in academia I was I was a dean at that point. And it just it was definitely these little moments where I just want to throw that notebook across the room just so you know I totally remember you texting and being like it's too close.

Sam: 38:45

It's too close right like like all the feels not like all the feels in a bad way but in this way that uh it's uncomfortable to feel that scene right the note cards the index cards I'll never forget that oh so many people talk about that scene oh y'all gotta read it definitely yeah it's it's amazing uh and thank you both for weighing in on your multiple forms of creativity because again I feel like it's given me um I I just want to say this as like someone who I do write right for for academic audiences. I often think of that as hack writing. My own writing is hack writing but um the it's given me a way to think about myself and professional settings and what I'm good at as a form of creativity, which I think it is, right? Because I think both of you have always been in all different spaces brave enough to imagine things that other people can't imagine about very stuck institutional processes that you find uh can't people feel like well we can't even think of what's outside of it. And you've always just so brilliantly been able to do that whether that's the classroom space and what you can do in it, right? For both of you or administratively what people can do in universities. Right. And then beyond. And so I want to ask a question about beyond because um I know I know and I speak uh from this you know community um that so many people are thinking about what's called alt act and whether that is um leaving the academy or never not joining the academy, joining a kind of different workforce not a tenderline job sort of push um right outside of a PhD or leaving the academy like even once you have found success, which again both of you have been enormously successful in traditional industries, right? I so I I've been lucky enough to know both of you for a long time when you both made the leap away from traditional academic research paths into various industry worlds, including higher ed admin, right? Which still included research and consulting ed tech and now freelance media strategy and leadership training as well as authorship, obviously, which we're talking about today. Tell us more about what inspired you to take those leaps and different points you've you've left in different places, made different choices, and how you might pass advice on to others considering similar jumps, especially those with humanities degrees and higher ed degrees in humanities in particular what you know tell us about making that leap those leaps for yourself. Tell us I'm sure people flock to you all the time I know in fact that they do be like how do I do this wise one right what are some of the things that that you would you would counsel us to do as we consider those leaps I I can start because it's so funny Melanie you talk about the prologue um inches uh it definitely relates and I tell people you don't even have to read the whole book if you just read the prologue that is the whole story right there right um so because let me address this one thing about jumping right in a in a leap.

LT: 42:37

It may feel like a leap but for many of us it's a step um and that I I wrote that I wrote that prologue I think I was three fourths of the way into the book but I had this memory that came across of me being afraid of an escalator and I we're we're we're literary folks and so it was a it's a metaphor people it is a metaphor yes I actually was afraid but this this as Melanie pointed out it could be about any transition in your life where you're thinking about oh my God when is the right time to put my foot out right and that is how I felt so more directly Sam to this idea of switching transitioning I'll say from um academia in this case it would have been from my dean's role at Menlo College to leaving that space and I went to ed tech um I I my heart was probably had probably transitioned already. But there just came a point where I was just my level of frustration was so high and believe it or not shout out to my little baby girl mentee Lily Chisler who's a student at Menlo College and I would see her almost every morning because she delivered the campus mail and she said to me Dr. LT have you thought about another job? Like seriously because she saw not how unhappy I was just amount of shit I was going through as the dean post COVID literally someone coming in my office every single day and crying staff faculty staff or student by the way not just student and I was just left with all of this emotion um and I I took time for myself and I made some slides and I was like what do I want to be doing not what job do I want I think sometimes many of us might go to a job board or chronicle of higher ed and look for a job and try to find ourselves in this for me it was like what do I want to do every day? I started with that and I didn't know I was like what kind of job is it where I'm talking about first gen students on a national level every single day and there's no there was no job I could apply for so in my case um I had a a connection with someone they created a job for me and I that people might underestimate that that's how most people get jobs honestly um many people get jobs you know someone or something has created for you but that doesn't mean it was easy either because um like traditional spaces are very comforting we know where our salary's coming from like oh my god I'm going into ed tech can you can you afford me you know that that type of thing and I've I've had what three jobs since then crazy right and they're very similar I I really hope I'm I really hope I never have to apply for a single job again that that something is created for me or I do it or I do it myself but those were at least I'll I'll start there Melanie please try chime in but I just wanted to talk about this idea of like a leap it wasn't really a leap for me not true that oh jump it was like hey what do I want to be doing with my time and also um what is my zone of genius not my zone of excellence I love because I think there's this perception often that we have of careers.

Melanie: 46:29

I know I certainly thought this when I was younger that careers were these linear like step one, step two, step three and it's this straight line that always looks the same for everybody on that career path. I tend to think about career journeys as more like seasons and that I've had different seasons and even within I could probably take this metaphor too far so I won't but even or I will anyway even within seasons you have different months. So I I would say that I've taken at least from the outside what would look like three big leaps the first was my my undergraduate I designed my own major but I think for all intents and purposes I was largely a political science major. I was president of the College Democrats for two years. I interned every summer in Washington DC I knew our state legislators they knew by me by name and I think everyone expected me to go work on the hill become you know I think my goal at that point was I want to be a press secretary before I am 25. I had this very clear like this is my political journey then I will run for office. And I think I surprised everybody around me when senior year I said you know actually I want to get a PhD in English and I haven't been an English major and I need to take this crazy GRE so it's be able to answer questions about you know Beowulf to Virginia Wolf. So I gotta figure that out and then got the PhD in literature loved it um I loved my graduate experience I have nothing negative to say about it and yet at the end of it decided I didn't want to do that. Spent 12 years in education consulting at a large firm where I climbed the ladder ended up senior vice president overseeing a large team and then quit that during the pandemic to go out on my own as an author and speaker. And I would say that each big and I say that each season had different months in it because even during my 12 years in the consulting role some of that I was deep doing strategy work with clients. Some of it I was largely operational with my team. So it's not like each of those were just one thing but I think that each of those if I think of them as seasons there were different values that I was prioritizing. And so when politics was the thing that I was into what was really important for me was growing as a leader, finding different ways that people collectively make an impact, understanding the different ways ideology is transmitted. But I was always go go go on the go. And what I loved about my time getting a PhD was that that was a season where I was able to really just deeply study questions that had always fascinated me. And I loved teaching because it was a way of thinking and I think teaching actually has been a constant for me whether it was the college Democrats or teaching in the classroom at DCLA or teaching the people in my teens when I worked on the corporate world or now teaching through things like workshops and keynotes. So that was probably always always a constant uh but teaching in the in the classroom setting I loved that during those seven years but it was it was much more of a okay we're going deep into questions period um my time in the corporate world my values well part of it honestly was I just wanted to be able to pick where I lived and that was that was a value of mine and Sam nicely said I could stay on her couch in DC until I found a job but that was kind of okay what do I value if I'm not going on the academic job market um it's because the things I value now are location the things I value are I've spent my entire academic career at UCLA and I value getting a wider perspective. I got really fascinated with administration while doing service as a graduate student and I value the ability to like understand just why change is so hard in higher ed. How does that happen? And so those were the values of that season. And then when I ended up going out on my own in 2020 it was the values had shifted. I kind of wanted to return to what I had been able to do in graduate school of really spend time going deep on questions in a way that was hard to do in corporate life but also that there were ways that I had noticed I think probably through all those paths beforehand about just why change back to this theme of why is change so difficult? And I think the ability to explore that in on my own with more agility than is often possible in a corporate environment was fascinating to me. And so those were the values of this season and people often ask me well are you going to do this forever are you going to live in DC forever? Are you going to be an independent speaker and facilitator and writer forever like nothing's forever. I don't know this is this season right now and at the point at which there's something else I value and there are different questions that they're fascinating me then maybe I'll do something else.

LT: 51:52

I first of all I love what you said about seasons Melanie and one thing I just wanted to address Sam and I have been focusing on Gen X. You know she's she's on the Gen X border but um for for many folks though who like I'm I'll just say I'm 55 right and so they many folks in my peer group believe you can't make a change right after a certain age. And 55 is not that old y'all at all. But I think there's this notion like oh at this point especially in high working in higher ed I'm just gonna ride it out. I'm just going to collect my I'm gonna retire I'm gonna collect my check I have so much there's so much more life to go and I'm just like just like you said Melanie like I don't know what I'm gonna be doing five years from now you know what I mean like you said I love how you're centralizing values right um and and questions.

Sam: 52:59

I just I folks I just hope you're listening and paying attention I'm super listening uh as someone who you know is in higher ed right now and going through it because it's it's a wild space that's deeply changing and under scrutiny now from outside rather than inside imagination. And uh I've just been thinking about you both so much it's amazing to hear you both talk about the various steps slash jumps slash leaps that you've made and also the way that both of you as a 47 year old uh still Gen X, I'm deeply I feel deeply stuck right in the roles that I've outlined for myself as a career and in an industry that very much defines one way of sort of going through stuff. It's it's really hard for many of us to imagine different um different seasons of our careers and within or breaking from. And so it's been amazing to watch both of you redefine uh and I like you I just love the values based version of speaking of that and obviously I think that as uh uh middle aged women all people who identify as middle aged women or a lot of us find ourselves going through these sort of like but what what do I want? So I LT I love your question as well of being like no but what do I want to be doing every day right not like what's the job and then I'll be like that right because as I always say and I think for many of us who have gone through PhD programs, we love a prompt, right? And we've been fulfilling these prompts right and I do I love a prompt right but you all are talking about moments where you let prompts help you on something you were envisioning that was bigger like using you know the writing a novel in November to like write this thing rather than be like then I will follow these steps to get this novel published by Simon and Schuster and that's the only way it matters. Right. So I I love I love the way you both were talking about like the hustle with your values right I I think that was huge.

LT: 55:26

So what one more one more thing because I think this is a challenge for most of us right and then you also talked about women and middle aged women and then I will add for those of us who were first are first generation of college and or grew up working class it could just be even more compounding because you might be surrounded by family who like what are you doing? Exactly just very used to I get it it's no fault of of our communities for this and they ultimately want us to be safe and and they also want us to be secure. So that could be challenging but and I see this especially with first gen folks who are interested in the art um and like well what can I do with that or I can't you know I can't be the a a creator like we can't leave this we can't leave the future to Mark Zuckerberg or these other folks who get to you know be independent and and create and work in Silicon Valley or work in DC while the rest of us are on this other below tier right so um that's why networking and community is so important.

Sam: 56:37

And that's the other thing I really want to say too about both of your answers to all of these questions but how much you both emphasize networks that either you had or you very consciously and intentionally built. Correct uh and that's obviously a theme throughout Smart Girl it's a theme throughout Beyond Leaning in it's a theme that goes through every episode of this podcast it's a theme that goes through all of the work both of you do, right? Which is really intentionally building networks. And I saw that too. So as content creators we end Melanie always the podcast on a question about music. And uh we I love that I asked this question and then before we started recording just letting everyone know there was a like but what do you mean by this question? So I'll ask the question and then say what I meant. So I said you're now I usually would be like Melanie what's your what was your soundtrack for writing beyond leaning in or something like that. But I thought I would ask a question for my content creators on multiple platforms just tell me how you choose the backing tracks to your insta posts and reels or when something doesn't get a backing track right um why not right and and there was a like but what do you mean by that? And I was like I really mean like when you see that thing and it assigns you a music thing do you shut it off? Do you go up and search for something like I know how I have to do it because it's all Tegan like my 10 year old telling me what she wants me to post at that moment what song is most important. I think we're now coming out of the K-pop demon hunters era and I have to pick other things but for a few months that was her season and everything had to be you know yeah so I want to really know how do you choose because I think again the people want to know when you're building content what's your process right how do you think about shit like that so I'm gonna ask that for the final question about music. How do you choose your backing tracks to your Insta reels and Facebook stories?

Melanie: 58:54

So I'll say for me it's it's mostly mood to begin with and and I have a probably mild auditory processing disorder which is something I didn't know existed until I got diagnosed for ADHD and realized that auditory processing is often part of it. Which means that I literally listened to music all day and I couldn't tell you what I listened to, who was singing it what the words were I picked my playlist on Spotify based on mood. So there's a playlist called dopamine which I like I love how specific their playlists are like songs for going to the farmer's market. So I'm just this mood based person with my Spotify I don't know what I'm listening to. I'm always surprised when I get the un the unwrapped at the end of the year and it'll tell me at one point I was in the top 0.5% of Taylor Swift listeners and I don't think I could have named the Taylor like I couldn't have named the song I couldn't have named the lyrics but apparently the moods that I was going for that's what it was. Um yeah so I I I don't have a sophisticated answer except that I kind of We'll go for mood. Often I will just type moods in in Instagram and see what comes up, or I will go to Chat GPT and I will say I'm looking for a song that has this mood, or a few songs that have this mood, and then I'll listen to them. And almost always when Chat GPT gives me the name of the song and the artist, I don't know what the song is. And then when I listen to it, I say, Oh yeah, I've heard this a million times.

LT: 1:00:28

I think this is the best. Wow. First of all, what a great question. Um and it it it made me think and I'll have a different answer probably in a week or so. But um, so let me say this first of all. Um the the post that I make specifically about Smart Girl, I use the exact same font. If you go back and look, it's the same one as Deco. Um and I picked up on that actually from Alejandra. So it's a brand. It is a brand. So when I post about other things, I actually don't use that same font. But I want so it's a it becomes a recognition for people, like, oh, this is a smart girl post, like just um subtly, right? Um and initially the post that I made regarding Smart Girl came from the Smart Girl playlist. So I was trying to make associations with people. That was early on. Uh I'm not I you so funny to hear your process, Melanie. Um, I tend to know exactly what I want. I because my my songs are use the lyrics are usually commenting on whatever it is that I'm posting. So my lyrics are make you know, it's all part of the narrative, I guess you could say. So more recently, I just posted, I think it was just yesterday, I posted the my fall book tour. And a friend of mine, shout out to Martha, she designed that for me and she said, Okay, I I knew I wanted it to look like a concert tour list. And she said, Okay, well, what bands? I was like, oh, thank you for asking me. Nirvana, please. It was either going to be Nirvana or NSYNC, of course. Um, but I I chose the Nirvana look because of the Gen X theme. I wanted that continuity. So when I posted, I posted um two Nirvana songs, and I did not want to do smells like Teen Spirit because it was too obvious or come as you are, which was also too obvious. So some of my favorite ones, but not um not like the the biggest hit per se. So it was the the drum, it was definitely the mood, but I wanted people to get into the Gen X, the Gen X vibe. So I don't know. That's it, Sam. That's all I could think of.

Sam: 1:02:57

Well I love this, right? Because I think, you know, again, the the teacher of me, which was another moment of connection with the conversation that Melanie had about seasons of her career, and I wanted to connect right to you because I think that's also inherent to who you are, LT, right? Um uh it wants to say, like, it's so great knowing that you could be doing the same thing in really different ways, right? And come at it in different ways and still have meaningful content that's like organic to you, right? And that makes sense. Um, and also we don't talk about how we do this stuff, but and then it mystifies it, right? As like the content just comes out, and here you are saying, well, I didn't design that flyer. My friend Martha did. And she asked me the questions that got me to that, right? And that that kept me going. Or I actually listen to music all day long, but I don't attach a like name and a whatever to it. And so I know it's about a vibe, right? And so I go, I go vibes, right? And like it's it's also I think interesting for us to hear because I think LT and I both know how, and I mean this in the best way, how um exacting you are, Melanie, in your life. So to know that you're like, but about music, I'm about vibes is also awesome because like you're the person who I cite when people like complain about certain styles of teaching. I was like, you need to learn that different styles are like authentic to different people. And I always say my friend Melanie was one of the best teachers I ever saw, and she would bring in her egg timer for like each segment of the class, and it would be brilliant, brilliant. Did you do that, Melanie?

Melanie: 1:04:41

Yes, oh my gosh, I was obsessed with that timer. I mean, I think so many people that we went to grad school with will still call me up and say all the way to use a timer now. Oh recently that's a common ADHD strategy is like every single, and I didn't get diagnosed until my 40s, but that every single advice manual for ADHD talks about the use of timers.

unknown: 1:05:05

Wow.

Melanie: 1:05:06

And that was something in grad school. I just started using timers for everything so that I would, you know, stay focused. But it's so funny because I think that timer and Melanie are intertwined. Or like at times people from that era of my life.

Sam: 1:05:20

I but I love it, but I use it as a way of being like, you know, you people think there's a way of being, right? They tell themselves stories about who they are, and this goes with all of the career stuff as we wrap up, right? Like they we tell ourselves stories about who we are. The world tells us stories about who this kind of person is or this job is or who we are. And you all have chosen through self-publishing, through taking what appear and for many of us would be giant leaps, even if they weren't, didn't actually by the time you made them feel like that, uh, with your careers, with your creativity that just open up so much, even as they're like incredibly intentional. Um, and so I just love the the ability to talk and come to music and content in two very different ways that are both really meaningful to you and what you all are putting out there that go beyond the scripts and branding that other people would put on you if someone else was in control, right? Of these careers and of these roles that you've decided to take on. And I I just love that. I think it's great. Um, I was so happy to have this conversation. Thank you for joining us.

Melanie: 1:06:44

Oh, this is so fun. Yeah, you're so good at synthesizing everything at the end. I just listening to all the episodes. I'm like, how does she do that?

LT: 1:06:52

She does it. I know she does all the questions.

Sam: 1:06:56

You guys are really sweet at a moment where I don't feel hyper competent. I really appreciate, I really appreciate that. Um, we all have gifts, and you all have uh like you have them in in such an array, and also have given them to me and so many people that you know, which is why people would be like, Melanie, timers, I'm gonna call her for advice, which is like when I need anything, I'm basically like Melanie or LT will tell me how to do that or how I should feel about that. Not in a bad way, in a really good way. You ask the best questions and get to the good things. So thank you. Thank you for the to the person who requested this episode and is just keeping us going. Uh, go and get beyond leading in. I hope you already have Smart Girl by now. You should. You better. Um, and check out Melanie's work as well because her comics are amazing. And if you haven't been to her leadership um seminars and workshops, you should. Okay, friends. Bye.