TRANSCRIPTION 🔗
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Hello and welcome to the CoachWrite podcast where we explore how to turn coaching
expertise into published pages.
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I'm your host Helen O'Neill, portfolio career specialist, author and creator of
CoachWrite, the writing space and program specifically designed for coaches.
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You can get the episode show notes and your free guide to publishing options at
coachwrite.co.uk.
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It's time for the next chapter.
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Welcome to the Coach White Podcast.
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I'm your host, Helen O'Neill, and this is episode 27.
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In today's episode of the footnotes, I'm going to be sharing my reflections from the
self-publishing show Live 2026.
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SPS is the largest independent author conference held in Europe, and it's two days of
plenary sessions, networking, deep dives into advanced topics, and those all-important
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connections.
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It's the third time I've attended and each one's been slightly different as the industry
and the organizers have evolved.
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And of course my own publishing career has also evolved.
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My network is more established and I have more books published.
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The event was held at a new venue this year, County Hall on the South Bank.
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There were spectacular views to be seen of the Houses of Parliament as we walked past into
the event space.
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Which of course I completely ignored because I'm from London and you tend to take these
things for granted when you see them regularly.
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Day one was the plenary day, so a single track where everybody attended the same talks.
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It was a blend of motivational speakers and panel conversations.
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The day opened with Tom Donnelly talking about process.
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And I always think it's curious that there are so many books.
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About writing craft, but only a handful about the writing process.
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Yet it's the process that people are often interested in.
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You'll hear when I interview guests that I always ask them about how they find the time to
write, how they stay motivated, and even things like the tools they use to support them.
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Tom comes from a screenwriting background and has been involved in an
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Awful lot of films with names you would recognize.
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He only really turned to authorship during the screenwriters' strike a few years ago, and
today is incredibly generous in sharing his expertise with the community.
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He talked about the difference between your creative processes and your critical
processes, which I think is very important and actually a topic that we cover in
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CoachWrite 90.
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We all know as coaches that we have a logical part of the brain.
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And a creative part of the brain.
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And there's obviously a lot of neuroscience that sits behind that.
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Tom talked about the fact that one of the biggest problems we have when we're trying to
write is we try and do both of these things at the same time.
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So, for example, how often have you sat down to write only to find yourself halfway down a
page when you think, oh,
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Who was it that said that thing that I want to talk about here?
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What was the paper called and when was it published?
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and before you know it, you've reread the paper, fallen down the internet rabbit hole,
possibly bought a couple of new books, and an hour has passed.
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Flow is a distant memory, and all because you've allowed your logical brain to take over
your creative process.
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Whereas actually what you needed to do was pop a little note in where you were writing to
say, look up more about this later.
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He talked about the epiphany incubator.
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Isn't that a wonderful term?
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And that this is where we get our relaxation endorphins.
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In a world where we're so often chasing the cheap dopamine hit, going to a green space for
a walk, having a bath, and allowing yourself the slower experience of joy is so incredibly
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powerful.
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I know that the more I walk, the more I think, and the better I write.
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Again,
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There's a whole load of science behind that, and we already know it.
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And we need to be reminded.
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Tom did that brilliantly in a wonderfully entertaining way.
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My standout talks from both days were from Becca Syme, which probably won't surprise you
because she is a coach who writes books.
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She is Gallup certified and a strengths coach who is incredibly wise and has coached.
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thousands and thousands of writers during her career.
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I am one of them.
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She's the person that introduced me to strengths, which
Load full transcript
changed how I approached my
personal development.
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So she did two talks.
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Her talk on day one focused on challenging perceived wisdom.
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She calls this questioning the premise.
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As coaches we see this with our clients all the time, yet when we're looking at our own
working practices
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were just as fallible as they are.
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So for example, you should write every day is a common piece of writing advice.
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Over the years I've learned that is not for me.
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Well it is, but not quite how you expect.
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I have a strength called intellection, which means that I need to think about things in
order to process them.
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I need to reflect.
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Handy as a coach.
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So I can work on the same manuscript for up
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To about four days consecutively before my productivity starts to decline.
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I can fix this by having two projects on the go at the same time.
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They have to have a completely separate focus, i.e., one fiction, one non-fiction.
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And then when I hit the intellection wall, I simply switch projects.
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We use strengths a lot in coaching,
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And I particularly like Gallup as a structure, and I'll always be grateful to Becca for
introducing them to me.
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But what brings a smile to my face as I say this is her talk on the topic of fandom, which
she gave on day two.
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Beforehand, I knew I was a fan of Becca.
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Now I know what kind of fan I am.
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Before I get into that.
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A fandom is a group of followers.
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These are people who connect with you, engage with you, and follow you.
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Fandom is active, and these are our clients and customers today and in the future.
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She ran through eight different types of fans, what they need and want, and how we can
support and interact with them.
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The first was the evangelist.
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Now, evangelists kind of do what they say on the tin, right?
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These are the people that think that everything you do is amazing and they talk to other
people about how amazing they think that you are and recommend that you go and find out
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for yourself.
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So I smile as I say this because clearly this is me.
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I'm a huge advocate for Becca and have the utmost respect for her work.
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And I tell people that on a regular basis.
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Her talk made me consider who in my community.
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fits into this category and most importantly how I can serve them.
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Loyalty is lovely and deserves to be recognised.
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Becca is such a genuine person.
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In the independent author space, she is a huge name, yet she was incredibly approachable
and so genuine in wanting to connect with other authors, which has obviously only cemented
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me in the evangelist category.
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But isn't that interesting?
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So consider if you have evangelists for your coaching practice.
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You might like to think about how you can give them some special attention.
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This could be some sort of referral scheme.
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Maybe they refer somebody to you and you give them a free coaching session or a signed
copy of your latest book, for example.
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I won't go through all eight types of fandom because time.
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But the other type of fandom that I thought was really interesting was the last one we
talked about.
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And one that's possibly overlooked sometimes, that's the friend.
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The way Becca described this was being the welcome mat of the fan base.
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I know how daunting it is, joining a new community, attending a new event, starting a new
job.
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The friend in this context is the first person to say hello, to ask about you in that
genuine and non intrusive way.
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They show you around either digitally or
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or physically, they hold their hand out for you and make you feel like that community is
warm and a welcoming space to be.
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One of my values is connection and this shows up for me in wanting people to feel
important, welcome, and safe.
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The friend is a facilitator of that.
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If you want to find out more about Becca, she runs the Better Faster Academy and hosts a
brilliant podcast called The Quick Cast.
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and of course her books on writing are fantastic too.
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I will leave the links in the show notes.
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I mentioned in last week's show very briefly that I've been considering doing a
Kickstarter.
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So
another standout session for me
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was from Oriana Leckert, who gave an introduction on how Kickstarter works as a platform
and how to think about planning a campaign.
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I'm still going back and forth on this and would welcome your feedback as to whether or
not you think it's a good idea.
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So for the past two years I have created a business planner.
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Originally I did this because I couldn't find a planner that supported a portfolio career.
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So I created one because I needed it.
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Then year two came around and I needed a new one, so I updated it based on how I'd found
using the previous edition.
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Since then, Amazon's rules on what they call low content books have changed.
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This is probably AI driven, as things like notebooks are easy to content from.
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Now my planner does have a fair bit of guidance in it, but it also has plenty of space for
writing, as you'd expect, and it takes ages for the book to get approved on Amazon.
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And as I still can't find what I need, I do intend to make another one.
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But what I'd really like to do is have it ring bound with little dividers so that it's
easier to use.
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And you simply can't do that with Amazon Print on Demand.
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You can, however, do it with specialist printers.
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assuming people would be interested in buying one.
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Enter Kickstarter.
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This is where people are able to support the project before you do a large print run.
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So it would be perfect for this kind of project.
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It would be a way of being able to produce something really useful with lovely quality.
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And the project structure appeals to me.
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Surprising no one.
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I am still debating, so I'd love to know what you think.
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Shall I investigate further or do you think it's a terrible idea?
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Drop me a note back, Helen at coachwrite.co.uk.
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Another session that really stuck with me was on story craft, and it was actually a panel
conversation right towards the end of the first day.
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Now you might be wondering what on earth a panel about craft has to do with those of us
that are writing predominantly non-fiction.
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But actually, it was one particular attendee on that panel who goes her own way.
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She explained her drafting process, which involved.
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Seven stages.
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In each one, she focuses on one particular element and layers the work on top of itself.
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In one round, she'll look at emotion, for example.
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In the next, she'll look at grounding and so on and so forth.
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What she does is effectively drawing an outline in pencil and then adding paint and then
colouring in and then layering and then adding detail.
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And during the process, the book emerges.
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The reason that I call attention to this is that when we're thinking about our coaching
practices or our writing journeys, there is so much advice out there and so many rules
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that are defined as the way to be successful, the way to do things correctly in inverted
commas.
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And actually, sometimes it's okay just to say, do you know what, I've tried that and it
doesn't work for me.
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I'm gonna do it like this instead, because it does.
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The other thing that came out of that session was a reminder of one of my favourite
sayings when it comes to writing, to really remember whether you are a publisher who
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writes or a writer who publishes.
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And they are two very different mindsets.
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I know that when I'm working on fiction, I do it for fun.
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I have no lofty aspirations of making a gazillion pounds with my books and turning them
into a Netflix series.
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I don't even have Netflix.
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Other streaming services are available.
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And at the same time, my non-fiction titles are very much part of my business.
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And so my mindset on how I approach those projects is different too.
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This is important for you.
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And
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We talk about this a lot in Coach Write 90 about starting with the end in mind.
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Considering whether you want to leave a legacy, have a business card, position yourself as
a thought leader, or whether you want to revenue generate directly or indirectly through
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opportunities to speak, and so on and so forth.
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These are really important decisions.
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And then once you have your goal in mind, you can work back and lean into the process
that's right for you.
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Just last week I was working with a client who needed to approach the beginning of their
project in a slightly different way.
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And so that's exactly what we did.
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We didn't do what I've done.
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We took a step back, we had a conversation, and we did what was right for them to help
them move forward.
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This is the epitome of meeting our clients where they are and giving them what they need.
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When it comes to writing your book, you are your client.
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So lean in to what you need.
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Another session on day two was about Amazon ads, led by Ricardo Fayette, who runs Reedsy
and his now wife, Sara Usera.
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They explored an analytical approach to Amazon ads, which is absolutely impossible to
summarise and share on a podcast.
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But I do want to talk about it because it was a very strategic session
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And a great reminder when we're being bombarded with all the different ways to run a
business to focus on the data to drive our decisions.
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They talked about campaign management, thinking about that all-important in return on
investment, and as I say, leveraging data to make choices.
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The other thing I really liked about this session was that they talked about trigger
points for those decisions.
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So for those of you that are less familiar with how advertising works.
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Every time someone clicks on an advert that you've produced, you pay.
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It's literally called pay per click.
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Not everyone that clicks that button will purchase something.
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So the data isn't ever going to be a hundred percent accurate.
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So for example, you might see an advert for something, click on it, have a look, but not
buy it right at that moment.
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Maybe you need to wait for payday, So you come back and buy it another day.
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The click data is lost.
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Similarly, you might click on it, go to a platform that you decide that you don't want to
give your money to, and actually have a little Google search and see if you can buy it
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somewhere else.
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So there's no direct correlation between the click data and the sale.
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But there is going to be a correlation if you're getting a lot of clicks and no sales.
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So what they were talking about is thinking about the investment you're making in those
adverts,
or more specifically, the clicks that those adverts are generating and the return
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that you're getting.
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With fiction, there's an added complexity because a lot of fiction is written in series.
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And so having an entry point that is a lower return on investment isn't necessarily a bad
thing if it's driving through sales.
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Non-fiction is often standalone, so it's a slightly different playing field.
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There's also a higher price point.
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So if somebody does buy, the likelihood is that you're earning more royalties than you
would if it was a fiction title.
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So the data points are slightly different.
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I have taken a ton of notes about this and have had to block out some serious time to
reflect and implement.
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Sacha Black, who writes as Ruby Roe was another standout for me.
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I joined Sacha's community back in 2020, before I published my first book.
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She was the person that brought me into the independent author space.
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And since that time, her career has exploded.
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She's a TikTok sensation and uses a direct selling model to make rather a lot of money.
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She also writes brilliant books, which doesn't hurt, creates high-quality products,
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And I absolutely loved her talk because she's brilliant and completely honest about the
pros and cons of authorship as an e-commerce business.
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I can't ever imagine that I'm going to have a warehouse and ship books internationally.
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But you know, never say never.
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But it was one of those talks that was inspiring because of her journey.
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Her success is a result because of her talent, her business acumen, and her grit.
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And that is what's got her here today.
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and we can all learn from that.
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The event was closed by Rachel McLean.
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Rachel is a phenomenally successful crime writer and a true inspiration.
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She is not immune to the energy challenges that face so many of us that run our own
business.
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She closed the event by talking very personally about her experiences of burnout and
sharing how she recovered and the changes she's made in order to be able to live a life
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that brings her joy in a sustainable way.
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Surprising no one, that includes a lot of simplification, downscaling, and slowing down.
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She talked about a metaphor of a fox that's running around doing all of the things and
getting themselves exhausted.
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And the hedgehog, who's really, really great at rolling up into a ball and being spiky.
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They pick one thing and do it brilliantly.
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How many of us can resonate with that?
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It's so tempting, isn't it, to run around trying to do all the things, develop the
signature programme, write the book, develop the course, deliver the workshop, chase the
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one to one.
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Look at the one to many, do all of the socials, post every day, reply to everyone, email
campaigns, PR podcast, all of the things, all of the time, trying to coach everybody.
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Whereas actually we know logically that if we pick a niche, focus on it, And deliver
excellence to our clients consistently.
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That simplicity will bring us the life that we need.
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My word of the year this year is simplicity.
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So this was a very timely reminder.
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The other thing to factor in here is being really clear on what's enough.
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Do you need more money, more clients, or do you want more time?
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She talked about evaluating opportunities in terms of the money they might generate for
your business, the skill you have in doing those things, and the joy they bring you.
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Those mechanisms are a brilliant way to decide whether or not to pursue something.
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I really like that.
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And it was the perfect way to close the conference.
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As I record this, I've written up my notes, I've completed the low hanging fruit, the
quick actions that will make a difference in my business.
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And I continue to reflect on some of those more strategic points like the Kickstarter and
evaluate whether or not they'll be appropriate for my business this year, or not at all.
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Because actually, my last takeaway was from a conversation with a friend on the way home.
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They'd attended a session on translations, and with advancements in AI,
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These are absolutely exploding at the moment.
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He's also nearing the end of a fiction series.
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He's in the process of launching his audiobooks.
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He has a job.
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He has a life.
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And so he came away with something not to do.
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He chose focus.
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And I, for one, count that as a win So as we continue through conference season, if you
are attending an event, remember to go with an intention.
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Protect your energy.
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Think about what you will do, think about what you won't do, and enjoy connecting with
other people.
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The knowledge can normally be learned somewhere else.
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It's the energy and the motivation along with the connection that are unique to in-person
events.
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Go, enjoy, and remember a little bit of time to rest afterwards.
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If anything from today has resonated with you, or if you've got a question that you'd like
me to answer in the footnotes, please drop me a note and let me know.
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Next week I am joined by Dr.
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Fatima Syed.
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We'll be talking all about her book,
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Yaqeen Stitch from Sorrows a Tapestry of Poems I'll see you for the next chapter.
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Thank you for joining me today.
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You can get the show notes and your free guide to publishing options at coachwright.co.uk.
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Remember to subscribe and leave a review on your podcatcher of choice.
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Your words can make a difference.
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A review can too.
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If you'd like to connect, find me on LinkedIn, O'Neill Helen.
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That's O'Neill O N E I double L or on Instagram at Coach _ Write I'll see you for the next
chapter.