Roseanne Cheng of Evergreen Authors talks about the myth of the successful author, and how to adjust expectations to enjoy the author journey much more.
Roseanne Cheng is an author, writing coach, ghostwriter, and book marketing consultant. She's the co-founder of Evergreen Authors, an online school teaching creatives how to get their work out into the world.
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Amy Hallberg 0:01
I always love talking with Roseanne Cheng because she is the person who helps me to look at what it is to be an author. And make sense of that in my real everyday life. There are those pipe dreams we all have about fame and fortune and hitting it big as a writer. And then there's the reality of what success means for most of us writers. So let's talk about that. You're listening to Courageous Wordsmith, Episode 51. This podcast presents conversation with and for real life creatives on how we find and keep walking our unique path. I'm your host, Amy Hallberg, welcome to my world.
Today, I'm talking with my friend and mentor Roseanne Cheng, who has some really good advice about what it looks like to be a successful author. So I'm here with my good friend Roseanne. And today we are going to talk about successful authorship and what that looks like.
Roseanne Cheng 1:16
You know, you and I have been connected to many authors over the years, ourselves included. And I think that, there's just there's such, the whole writer journey is convoluted and messy, and it involves a lot of reflection and a lot of work. So now we know a few things after going through it.
Amy Hallberg 1:43
Well, and I think that people look at the author journey, and they want to be, you know, I think of myself, Isabel Allende, I love her or Elizabeth Gilbert or Louise Erdrich because I love her books. Like we all have our influences, people we want to be like, and we want those people to read it. And we want somehow to be catapulted to the bestsellers on the New York Times and go on a speaking tour. That's, that's how it works, right. And Oprah, Oprah will personally choose you
Roseanne Cheng 2:14
I mean, who doesn't want that? We all want that, I mean, and how many times have especially as you know, such voracious readers, as you and I are. Like, you put down a book, this just happened to me, I finished the book, A Tale for the Time Being, I don't know if you've read that book before. It is by, oh, I'm forgetting her name. Anyway, it was such a beautiful book that I put it down and I, I was sad, because I was like, I will never be as talented as this woman, like, I can't do this. And I hate myself. And you know, all this kind of stuff. Because the creative process is like that, you know, it's full of self doubt. And then at the same time, you can pick up a trashy novel, and read that and be like, how did this guy get a career being a writer, and my book is better than this. And I know that. So you know, it's one of the things we talk about at Evergreen Authors all the time. And this is like, the first reckoning that every author and creative person needs to have is that the quality of the book, the quality of the words, is less important than you realize. I mean, it's important, you have to have a quality book. But quality books are published every day, multiple times a day, how many books have I not even read yet that are going to blow my mind, there's not enough time in the day to read them all. And I have no doubt that your book is among those amazing stories that are out there. So the difference is, the difference between those career writers is not that they have somehow created a superior book, it's that they have put in the work to put that book and themselves out there in a way that's meaningful to them.
Amy Hallberg 4:10
You know, you mentioned that and I think about well, first of all, I think about sort of the anks that I have sometimes experienced walking into Barnes and Noble. And going, there are so many books here. And just like I want to walk back out as an author, right, like even even as a reader sometimes like, how do I decide. But as an author, like, how will I ever find a space to even be in this world? But then there's something like, so I've just read Sue Monk Kidd. I'm now reading Dance of the Dissonant Daughter, that's been recommended to me. Okay, the other one was the Book of Longing, right? But that's an Oprah book. But how many books did she write before she became an Oprah book. It's a really good book. It's also nowhere near the quality of writing, of the Book of Longing. The Book of Longing is incredible wordsmithery. But she would never have gotten to that point had she not written all the other things that got her to that. And even I think the Secret Life of Bees was her breakout novel. But how many others...
Roseanne Cheng 5:13
Oh, she's a great example, because she talks at the end of the Book of Longings about, first of all, how long that book took her to write, of course, but she wasn't published. As you know, The Secret Life of Bees came out, which I believe when she was in her 50s. So, you know, it's not like anybody who... no one's just picking up a pen and starting to write when they're, you know, 20 years old and publishing their first I mean, that does happen, I guess, occasionally. Those are the exception and not the rule. And so you really have to enjoy the process. And none of the, none of the work of getting the book out there. Particularly now, when you know, anyone can go to Amazon at any time and write "historical fiction" and get, you know, 10,000 titles that they can choose from, you know, there's, there's no easier time to be a writer. So if you think that you just have to create a really great book, and put it on Amazon, and then maybe post on Facebook, "Hey, guys, I wrote a book, maybe you should think about buying it." That is absolutely the worst way to publish a book.
Amy Hallberg 6:28
And you can't count on even. And I say this, not with any malice or bitterness at all, you can't count on this
Roseanne Cheng 6:36
This is why when I worked at Why inc, I would call myself an author therapist, because this was a conversation I would have to have over and over again, you guys, your extended family is not all going to buy your book. And they're certainly not going to buy boxes of it to give to every person they know. That's not the way this works.
Amy Hallberg 7:00
The people in my family are probably not very objective about what I wrote
Roseanne Cheng 7:04
Oh, gosh, especially if you're talking about real life happenings. But like, you know, this, we talked about this at Evergreen Authors all the time, stop selling your book to people who don't want it. I mean, this, this is crazy. This is right. This is what drives me absolutely up the wall is like we have authors come to us all the time who are like, you know, I really, I need to, I need help with my Facebook page. I feel like I need to be just pushing more on my Facebook page. And if I did that, and we just keep thinking, who are you selling to on Facebook? Like you're, you, these people don't want your book. So you have to use these search engines sites like Amazon, like Pinterest, for what they are like, that's how people are searching for what you're selling. We worked with an author recently who wrote a book on how to build a treehouse. You know, it was like a very specific niche book, right? So this person could go on Facebook, multiple times a day and be like, "don't forget, I wrote this book about how to build a treehouse."
Amy Hallberg 7:12
Excellent. If you have a tree
Roseanne Cheng 7:27
I don't want to build a treehouse. I have no doubt it's a great book for someone who wants to build a treehouse, but I don't. So why are you wasting your time doing that instead of, you know, trying to find out, you know, where are the people who are looking for books about how to build treehouses, like, where do they search for things? How do I find those people? And that's the, that's the bottom line. But I think what you and I have talked about so many times, especially as creative writers, that can be much more challenging because you're, you know, you have, there's a lot of competition, and how do you put yourself out there? Well, the thing that I know you and I have talked about is... is remaining open minded about what this process can look like for you as a creative person. You know, stop fixating on Oprah's couch. Oprah, it is wonderful but there are so many other ways to put yourself out there that are going to be fulfilling and financially lucrative. So why are you focused on being famous instead of focus on creating a sustainable career?
Amy Hallberg 9:16
You know, you talk about that and there's, I mean, so first of all, I sell books to people because they get to know me as a writing person. And then they're like, "and I want to read Amy's book." So my book is not I mean, like, my book is its own thing, but it's also it's my portfolio. Right? It's why do you want to work with me? Because oh, I wrote something and you can actually look at my words and see if you like how I write. And I think, I don't want to skim over this: It's so important to figure out who your audience is not. And I'm so grateful to you for hammering that in and there's been other people too, like I, I've made a point of surrounding myself with people who helped me because I really struggled with this. So I went to a community that you used to live in. And I gave a talk there. And it's a rather conservative community that that my grandmother used to live in too. So like I have some feelings about said community. And I went to the community and I decided, Nope, I'm going to talk politics, because my book is about Germany. And I can't see what's happening in the wider world and not acknowledge that my book about Germany is, I mean, one of my biggest pet peeves is Americans who go look over there and don't acknowledge, like, and so I had a bunch of people show up that were all interested in Germany, their German roots, I mean, like, there's a definite connection for my book with people who want to know about Germany in the 20th century. That, right? there's this elderly white man comes up with his nice obedient white haired wife. And he was the one who asked me this question, in fact, this is going in my second book, this is absolutely going in my second book. So I said in the talk that I've never been in a concentration camp, not once, I've never visited one. And that was a conscious decision I made. Having gone through a lot of experience that I would rather like, I know what I need to know about Germany, I would rather focus on my own country. And then I gave a talk about how I had encountered, I had a close encounter with Donald Trump. And I talked about it and how horrifying that experience was for me. And this man came up to me, you know, so first, he said, his first question was, "so when you did go to a concentration camp, though, Which one did you go to?" And I was like, I didn't, I didn't. Afterwards, he comes up. And he says, "you know, your talk was so nice. But why did you put politics into it? That was such a shame." You know, that he started telling me what a great President Donald Trump is, and how good he is for the black people. And he said, "so I didn't buy your book." And he said, "Have you ever listened to Fox News?" And I said, hell no. And he said, "Excuse me?" And I said, "hell no. And thank you for your opinion. But now I have other people who do want to talk to me. And so thank you have a nice day. Thank you for coming. But I'm going to talk to these other people." And it was because I had been prepared. Look. The people that aren't your people, aren't your people. I don't know how many books I sold that day. But I know that I had amazing conversations because I wasn't willing to do the What-about-ism with a guy who was never gonna like my book anyway, because he wasn't invested in what I'm selling. And the second that I let an audience member dictate to me what my voice needs to be. I've sold out as a writer.
Roseanne Cheng 12:47
I want to tattoo that on my arm. That is exactly what we're talking about. And I think, I mean, that is a really revealing story and you are in, yeah, that's a, that's a large degree of having to do some like serious boundaries and understanding who you are as a writer and author. But I think even the, even an author who is an accountant by day and writes sci fi at night, and just is trying to sell ebooks on Amazon can learn from that exact same lesson. It's like, listen, for every guy that's, you know, that that is just not interested in reading science fiction, there are going to be 10 people who are really interested in what you have to sell. You know, and, this is the way it is with creative work. And this is, these are the chances that we take when you put yourself out there, you have this added bonus of your book being a memoir, and something that's very close to your heart. I as a fiction writer, am able to put up walls that I'm very much enjoy having. But at the end of the day, any energy I spend trying to persuade people to buy my book is wasted energy that I could have been spending, trying to meet people who are already looking for that topic. So you know, that's where when we talk about advertising, right, with authors, usually with creative people it's such a yucky word. They're like, "ugh, advertise, I don't want to advertise, that's so gross. My work should stand alone. It's a beautiful creation." But we're not talking about advertising it to people who don't want it. We're talking about creating ways for people who are already looking for that content. They love historical fiction. If they love memoirs that take place in Minnesota and Germany, they're gonna love your book. So find those people who are already searching for it.
Amy Hallberg 14:54
You know, on a tangent for that, you and I have talked about how as a writing professional, we don't work with people that aren't a good fit for us, and we will be happy to send them to other people. For example, I was, you know, talking with a man who wanted to write about, he wanted to write a fiction war book. Well, I'm not his person to work with, I'm not. Right. And I don't think I would probably send that person to you, either. So what do you say to people when they're looking for, you know, "I know this person and they're in writing. So, therefore, I should work with them." When people are looking for who to work with, on the path to being a writer, to help them to be a successful writer?
Roseanne Cheng 15:36
I love that question, Amy, I would say that the, the key word there is relationship, whether you are just looking for an editor for your book, or a publishing partner, or an agent for a traditionally published book or a big publisher. If you're talking about ghostwriting, or marketing, anything, you are talking about either your creative work, which is your baby, or someone else's creative work, which is their baby. And at the root of creating something really great, is a trusting relationship. And so I have seen many times, we've certainly, I have fallen into this trap as well, where I'm like, oh, there's this really great opportunity, so-and-so wants me to ghostwrite his book, and it's gonna be good money. And, gosh, you know, being a writer is hard. And I can just do this, I'll just crank it out, no problem. But if there is not a trusting relationship there, that will blow up in your face, whether at the very beginning in chapter one, or in chapter 10, or when a bill is not paid, or when a cover design falls apart. All of this is about relationship.
Amy Hallberg 16:47
And those things do happen. Things do fall apart, they will fall apart. It's gonna happen.
Roseanne Cheng 16:53
And there's hard conversations involved too, as you know, right? Like one of my favorite stories to tell with my first book is my coverages. I had gotten this cover design done by this guy who lived in Australia. And I showed it to Dara Beavis. And she was like, "oh, honey, this is a terrible cover." And I have my expertise. And you know, this happens with as we get older, and as we make our mistakes, we learn from them, right? Well, one thing I learned when I was about 35, it should have taken me a lot sooner than that. But it was about 35 when this happened, I learned I am a terrible visual artist. I don't decorate my house. I have no taste when it comes to matching clothes or, you know, it's just not my jam. Like I don't even wear makeup. Like this is not a thing I do. And so part of the creative is like wrapping your head around what you're good at, and what you're not good at. And so I had created this very trusting relationship with Dara. Who knew she could be vulnerable with me and be like, oh, no, honey, no, this is a really terrible and of course it was I sad, yeah. But she connected me with this book cover designer who made me an amazing book cover. Thank God, she was able to be that honest with me. So the trusting relationship isn't about always about Kumbaya all the time. It's about some tough love too
Amy Hallberg 18:13
Oh, you definitely have handed out tough love to me, that's because I love you. Well, and I want that because you know what, if you are a good enough writer, you will find people who tell you that your stuff is perfect, they wouldn't change a thing. And that's not what you want. I mean, you know, okay, perfectionism, you will never achieve perfect, but you want somebody who can tell you what you need. And the other thing is, and this is a painful lesson, sometimes somebody worked with for part of the journey won't stay with you for the whole journey. I mean, one of the saddest things is like in my acknowledgments, there are people that I'm not on speaking terms with, but they're in the acknowledgments of my book, because life changed, we moved on, it's not really any even, it's not even acrimonious. It's just that purpose was fulfilled, and then we move on. And so just because somebody is useful to you, you know, in part of your career, you may need to move different directions, and things still remain a bedrock part of your foundations.
Roseanne Cheng 19:15
Oh, and this, Amy, this is exactly what we talk about. At Evergreen Authors, we have a book coming out called the Evergreen Author, we talk about this. Sooner you understand and stop talking about your creative work, as though it's just some cute little side hobby that is just something fun and cute that you do. And the sooner you stop talking about it that way and start talking about it as the business that it is, the sooner you can actually start doing some of this work because then all of a sudden, you're creating a clear boundary between what is right for you in the moment and what is right for you the next time. We use this analogy in the book, it's like buying lunch, right? Like, one day, Mexican is going to be really great for lunch. And you're going to make that purchase, and it's going to be great. And you're going to be so happy you made that purchase. And you're going to recommend that restaurant anytime someone says, I really have a hankering for Mexican food. But then in the next week, when you're like, gosh, I would love some Japanese food today. You know, why should you feel bad about not going to the Mexican place? And like, that is such a silly analogy. But it's true. Like even the way that we deal with art in general, our tastes change, like, you know, I just moved, right. So we're looking to buy a house. And we keep saying this, you know, we purchased our house 11 years ago, before we had kids. And so we looked at houses completely differently than we do now with two kids who are growing up, we live in a totally different climate in a different state. Now, the way that we're looking at things is different, our priorities have changed. There's nothing wrong with that, it doesn't discount our old house, our old house was magical and wonderful. But now we're looking for something different. And that's fine.
Amy Hallberg 21:06
So if, let me get this straight, if a writing career is not about writing the perfect book and landing on Oprah, if that's not the only way to be a successful writer, then what are some of the other ways that it can look like?
Roseanne Cheng 21:22
Yes, I love this question. And this is where helping authors market their work, it gets really fun. Because we feel at Evergreen Authors that there's, we can always tell the authors that are going to take off and be successful, and the ones that aren't. And the way that we do that is not by the quality of the book. And it's not, sometimes not even by the quality of the book, cover design, although that's important. It always has to do with the ability of the author to be open minded, and flexible. In the publishing and marketing process. I know that marketing is kind of a, kind of a yucky word like advertising. So you can replace that with whatever euphemism you want. But at the end of the day, you are putting yourself and your work out there in a way that is fulfilling to you. So a lot of times authors when they finish their first draft of their book, they think, yeah, I'm done with my first draft, I'm done. And like you have certainly created, you know, you've certainly met a milestone. And that's really important. But there are so many more milestones that will happen. And so usually, when people come to us with a draft of a book, or even their book has just come out and just been published, they're sort of ready to sit back and let the dream come true. You know, like, okay, ready for those royalty checks to come in. And that author is setting themselves up for failure, whereas I remember talking with you early on in the publishing process, and in the marketing process, I talked to you about the importance of just like kind of being open minded and curious. It's like any conversation that you're having with somebody who's interesting, right, like, so where could this path lead me? And you know, what, what creative solutions might I apply to this problem? Oftentimes, authors will come to us at Evergreen Authors at a crisis point of their publishing process. They're like, I have 5000 books sitting in storage, and I can't sell them. Right? Ouch. That's painful, and expensive, right. And nothing breaks our heart more than that, right. And so what we tell authors is, let's get creative around this. Let's let's put on our lab coats and our science goggles and get scientific about this instead of emotional, right. So yep, that sucks. Do you need to cry for an afternoon? Sure, go ahead. That's fine. But after that, let's get serious. And then let's look at what has worked for you and what hasn't worked for you. And this is the thing, right? Everybody at this point? And we work with publishers too, who are like, can you guys just come up with like a checklist of author, you know, things that authors should do to sell their books? That doesn't exist, that the checklist isn't there, because the cost of doing things is not the same for every author. So, I could say to someone like you, Amy, you know what, the way that you sell books, is I want you to run retreats throughout the world. I want you to take people on trips to Germany, I want you to translate for them. And once you show them sites and then bring them back and here's how much money you could make off of that. It'll be great. The problem with that is that you have two kids at home, you have a husband to think about. So I could have that same conversation with someone who loves traveling and has no family obligations, and they're like cash flows. And that's a great idea. I should totally do that. And that person might go off and make $20,000 a month selling books and it's great, but knowing you and your family situation. What you prioritize in your life, that's not the same thing that I would suggest to you. I've talked to you about this before, but I, you know, especially with women creatives, you know, this is a whole separate podcast episode, but like women tend to a discount their worth a lot quicker than men and not value their time in ways that men do, and I see it all the time, and I do it myself. Before you know, for example, they'll give away their skills for free. And I just think to myself, you know, you just published a book about, you know, say it's a cookbook, for example, right? And someone calls them and says, Oh, well, will you? Will you do a demo of one of your cooking demonstrations? You know, one of your recipes, that would be really great. Now, does it mean that you have to charge an arm and a leg for your services? Of course not, you're going to do things fairly. But this, but the same author might get really interested and creative and say, gosh, you know what, that's the third person this month, to ask me to demo some of my cooking, you know, what I should do, I should go to the community center. And you know, Saturday mornings are open for me. So I'll do a Saturday morning, cooking, you know, once a month cooking, or once a week or every holiday or whatever, like, you can get so creative around this and then create a career around it. I think that's very similar to what you have done with your work.
Amy Hallberg 26:24
Well and it's stepping stones, right? It's, I mean, so like that Germany trip thing. That sounds awesome. And once we can travel around the world freely and all that, that sounds great. But that's out here, right and closer in, like, when I launched my book, I didn't even have 100 people on my mailing list, I still don't have like, I like, I don't have a huge mailing list. But my books get sold because I went over here and taught a class. And then once I started teaching classes, other places started figuring out what it is I wanted to do. And pretty soon you know what, I don't actually need these other alternative venues to do it. I can do it here for myself. Right. But so now I have this online writing community. Well, that was not even a possibility. When I published the book, right? It wasn't even, we had never talked about that.
Roseanne Cheng 27:15
No, well, it wouldn't have even crossed my mind either. But what happened for you is that you just remained open minded about the process. And so you know, you have shared with me certainly that you've done things that you probably wouldn't do it again, that wasn't a good move. I wouldn't do that again. But this worked. And so that's what happens when you get more unemotionalable? ...unemotional about the writing process. And that's hard to do, especially for someone like you, Amy, who wrote, you know, a memoir, something that's very close to your heart is hard to be unemotional about the books that we write, but you have to, if you want to really create a career around it, and just understand, just like in anything in life, you're going to screw up, you're going to put money towards something that you thought was a really good idea. And then it wasn't, and then you have to forgive yourself when that happens, and move on to the next thing and not allow it to just, you know, paralyze you creatively for the rest of your life. And so again, there's, you know, we're not talking about the quality of the book here, we're not talking about the quality of your editor. We're talking about you just remaining curious. And I will say that there are plenty of authors that I've coached over the years, especially in the last year or so, especially in the last few months of COVID, where authors have called them in like, you know, what can I do? What can I do in these times to sell my work, my creative work. And I have to have a conversation with them, that helps them realize how they can get creative, I will have conversations with people who I see are posting 789 times on Facebook, they love Facebook. So I'll say to them, you know, you should do, you should create a Facebook group. And I want you to learn how to use Facebook ads. And I want you to get really like excited about using Facebook, because you're on there already and you love it. So just do more of that. If I had the exact same book, and the author said to me, I hate social media, and I never want to be on it again. I would give them completely different advice. And so that's what it's all about. It's like you're a creative person, you have a unique book, I have no doubt that your book is beautiful and wonderful, and lovely. But part of this creative writing process is also understanding what you're capable of. Just like for me, understanding that I am not a cover designer. And please don't ever allow me to design your cover. That was an important part of, you know, understanding what I'm good at. And then like verbalizing what I am good at. You know what, Amy? I'm a really good ghostwriter. I am super good at listening to people and organizing their thoughts in a way that makes sense. So I, you know, and I don't diminish that I don't hide behind some like false humility behind it, I'm really good at that. And I will own that in the same way that I will own the things that I'm not good at. And I think creative people, particularly creative women.
Amy Hallberg 30:14
Yes, you don't have to do all the things, but those things that you do well, own it.
Roseanne Cheng 30:19
Own it! verbalize it, get proud of it. People are always just waiting for someone else to be proud of them. You know what I mean? I see that with creative work all the time. And it does. It's not an age thing I see. You know, I see it with 20 year olds, and I see it with 75 year olds, like, they're waiting for this. Well, if I get on Oprah's couch, then I'll be good. Then Oprah will validate me. Exactly. And like we don't need validation from Oprah these days. What we need is to find the people that are already looking for our work, the people that we can connect with, the guy that you met, when he asked you that question. Like you said, he's not your person. There. Yeah. But there's so many more of your people to find, and how joyful is that for you when you find them. And so therefore, the marketing work isn't work. It's just like chasing the next joy that you can find. And those are the career writers. Those are the ones you know, the teachers who love teaching this, do make that career happen. If you hate teaching, don't teach. You know, if you hate social media, get off social media. Oh my god, like, life is too short to be doing anything that's not giving you joy, especially in a creative process.
Amy Hallberg 31:41
Thanks for listening to Courageous Wordsmith. Today's episode featured Roseanne Cheng of Evergreen Authors. You can read about her and find links in the show notes, and my editor is the talented Will Queen. If you enjoy this podcast, you can help it thrive and grow organically. Please subscribe right on this page and share with your friends and sign up for true lines, my letter for real life creatives and that will help you to stay current on future podcast episodes. As a gift I will also send you my free eBook shiny objects 101, key tools to access muses face inner trolls and find powerful stories so that you can write and publish books your audience and you will love. It's also in the show notes. You can learn more about me and my work with creative writers at Courageouswordsmith.com. I'm Amy Hallberg and until we meet again, travel safely