Podcast: Play in new window
Subscribe: RSS
Download the Transcript here!
Jenn T Grace – Ep 77 – The Top 5 Fears New LGBT Authors Have and How to Conquer Them!
Thank you for tuning in to episode 77 of the podcast. In this episode I’m tackling the top 5 fears new LGBT authors have and the best ways to conquer them. If you’ve ever thought about writing a book then you know how daunting it can be. There are so many questions that run through your mind. Is my voice important enough? Can I find the focus? Do I want to put myself out there? In today’s episode I give you tips on how to tackle some of these things, find your focus and succeed! Have a listen and comment below if you’ve encountered any other fears and how you’ve conquered them.
To join the mailing list to have these podcasts sent to you, click here, that way you’ll never have to remember! One less thing to worry about! 🙂
Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below!
Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below.
Jenn T Grace: You are listening to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast, episode 77.
Intro: Welcome to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast, where you’ll learn how to do business with and market to the LGBT community in an authentic and transparent way. We’re talking about an $884 billion lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. We’ll help you grow your business, gain market share, and impact your bottom line. And now your host; she teaches straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. Your professional lesbian, Jenn- with two N’s, T. Grace.
Jenn T Grace: Hello and welcome to episode number 77 of the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and today I want to share with you the top five fears that new LGBT authors have, and provide some tips on how to conquer them. So the reason I am doing this particular topic in today’s episode is that just the other day- so this is launching on a Thursday, this podcast, and on Tuesday night I had my first class of seven people who are soon to be authors. I know that I mentioned this a little bit in the last podcast, and probably a couple of podcasts now, that I have launched an LGBT author program; and I do want to put the caveat with that, is that not all of the authors in the program are a part of the LGBT community. There are a couple of really amazing allies as well. So if you are an ally and you’re listening to this, you are not excluded from any of this conversation by any means. But so as I mentioned, I started it on February 1st and today as this is being released is February 4th, and I’m so excited, I wanted to get between eight and twelve people for the first class. I wasn’t really sure how it was going go and I ended up getting seven, so I did originally have eight but one of the people ended up moving to the June program that I’m launching as well. So for those of you who are listening, and you’re interested in hearing more, or possibly joining the June class, please let me know because that will be starting on June 6th and I believe- let me look at my calendar, it will go to September 2nd. So June 6th to September 2nd I believe are the course dates for that. I am really excited because again it’s only going to be between eight and twelve people, and I already have close to have of the class already filled. So that’s pretty amazing, I’m pretty excited, this is obviously resonating with a lot of people. But I already am working with my first seven authors. I seriously- and I said this to them in our first class the other night, that I’m sure they’re going to be sick of me saying how excited I am because I’ve said I’m excited probably four dozen times in the last couple of days, because it’s just so true. I’m so, so pleased to be working with seven really amazing people, and this particular class happens to be seven women. I do have men signed up for the next class in June as I mentioned, and everyone has this really cool advocacy component to what they’re doing. Everyone is really there to share their stories, to better the broader community of which they’re a part of. So it may or may not actually be the LGBT community, of course though there’s definitely a heavy concentration on that too. So it’s just really exciting, it truly, truly is, I’m so happy to be doing this, and I want to be providing just some kind of insights, and tips, and tidbits throughout their process because their class is from February 1st to April 30th, so it’s over the next three months, and I want to provide things that I think could help you if you yourself are thinking about becoming an author whether it’s this year in 2016, or maybe it’s in a future year.
So the first thing that I really wanted to talk about is the top five fears that LGBT authors have, because- and this could easily be the top five fears new authors have. It doesn’t really have to be LGBT, although I guess there’s a couple of them in here that seem like they could be specific to LGBT, but what I’m finding is that for me anyway, the process of writing itself is- for seems to be the easier part of the process, but it requires you to just be really organized, have a really clear focus on what you’re trying to accomplish, what you want your end result to be, and there’s a lot of mind-set stuff that gets kind of caught up in this whole conversation that actually stops people from getting the writing done. So I have a list of five fears that came out of the conversation I had with this first group the other day, and for now I’m going to make sure that everyone remains anonymous, and at some point if they want their- if they’re okay with me talking about them personally, and likely I think once we get closer to their books being published and launched, probably towards April or even further along this year, I would love to have them on and kind of talk about their experience, and all that kind of stuff. But for now everybody’s really just getting their feet wet, and I don’t want to be making anyone uncomfortable, so for the sake of marketing I am going to just keep everyone kind of nameless right now. But it’s interesting because the fears that came up, I have worked on eight other books, and I’ve helped a handful of people in creating those books, including my own of course. And these fears are so prominent regardless of who you’re working with.
So the first fear is really an interesting one, and it may or may not be one that you’ve thought of, but the first fear is the fear of success. So it’s interesting that this is something that came up the other night, is that people are afraid of succeeding. And I know that this episode is the top five fears and how to conquer them; I think some of these are a little bit easier to conquer than others, but I do believe this is all around mind-set changes, and how to just frame yourself to be in a better frame of mind to afford yourself the opportunity to succeed. So the first one being success.
So if we think about what is it that makes people afraid to succeed, I think that this is a big business fear, a big concern for a lot of people, or even in employment situations. Like a lot of people have a really genuine fear of succeeding. I think for conquering this fear, I think just by being able to voice the fact that that is a fear, that’s kind of the first step in terms of how do I kind of navigate this space, and how do I move through this fear? So I know that that’s not really a tangible takeaway of how to conquer it, but I would want to challenge you to really sit and think deep, and ask yourself why you’re afraid of succeeding. Are you afraid of succeeding because if by doing so you think you’re going to alienate those around you? Or do you think it’s going to turn you into a different person? So there’s a lot of I guess ‘or’s’ that you could put here. So what is the root of why you might be afraid of succeeding? And once you start to unpack that, then I think you can start taking steps to say you know what, when that voice creeps up and says- and a client of mine calls it his gremlins, when one of the gremlins kind of creeps up and starts talking, he can acknowledge that it’s a gremlin, and it’s kind of part of the process, and to trust the process, and to just say, ‘Alright I hear you but I’m not listening to you.’ So it’s just a really interesting way to just kind of acknowledge that you have this fear, and find a way to move beyond that fear. So I would really start to- step one is just really unpack why that fear of succeeding might be there.
So that is number one. And number two is another interesting one- I guess they’re all interesting, I can’t say that none of them aren’t. But number two is the question of is my voice important enough? And I cannot say this nearly as many times as I would love to, but yes, yes, yes, yes, yes your voice is important enough. So if you are listening to today’s episode, and you’re thinking, ‘You know, I wouldn’t mind writing a book. I think that I do have a story to tell. Yeah, I’m actually a little bit afraid of succeeding at this, but I’m more worried about is my voice important enough? Do I have a good enough story to tell? Do I have a platform? Do I have-‘ I don’t even know. What is it about your voice that you think isn’t important enough? So again, a lot of this is mind-set, a lot of it’s psychology, really just kind of unravelling the way you’re thinking, or why you have these beliefs, and really just kind of level setting yourself and saying, ‘Listen, I have this belief, I’m not allowing it to control me, I have to get beyond that belief.’ But I truly mean this when I say this, I think anyone- anyone can write a book. Everyone has a story, and a voice that is important enough, because there are bound to be people who are in maybe a similar situation that you are, that need to hear your voice, your unique voice. So if you go on Amazon, or go into a bookstore, and maybe you’re wanting to write a self-help book. You’re going to find millions of self-help books, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room in that self-help section for your book, and your voice, and your story. So especially if you’re listening to this and you’re an LGBT person and considering writing a book, what is it about your life that has been different, that may or may not have been impacted by being part of the LGBT community, and how can you actually leverage that? And I use that phrase a lot about leveraging your status as an LGBT person, but how can you use that as your unique advantage? So if I’m a- let’s think, if I’m a teacher in a suburban area in Connecticut, and I am out in my personal life but I can’t be out as a teacher because of all the politics involved, and because of the fact that I’m teaching children, and all of these different variables. There are other people. So you might think, ‘You know I’m just a small town teacher, I teach K through 2 at a local elementary school,’ and you might really be putting yourself down saying, ‘I don’t really have- my voice isn’t important enough, my voice doesn’t really matter here, I have nothing to share, I have nothing to talk about.’ When in reality there are many, many, many others like yourself who might be small town teachers too, who are struggling with this identity, struggling with the fact that they’re part of the LGBT community, but can’t bring their full selves to the workplace because of that; because they’re teaching in a school environment, and there’s a lot of politics around that. So that means that you have a unique voice, you have a unique vantage point that other people who are in a similar boat as you can have a place of comfort. They can say, ‘You know what? Wow that’s great. Andrea wrote this book, and it really just talks about how she’s navigating being a lesbian in a school setting, and how rough it is for her.’ There are other lesbians in school settings who have the exact same experience, and they need to hear your voice. So I really, really firmly believe that your voice is important enough.
The other thing that kind of goes along with that is that you don’t need to be an expert on the topic that you’re writing about. That’s another really big thing. And I was debating whether or not I would share this with you on today’s podcast because it’s not something that I am too vocal about sharing because I- in addition to being a professional lesbian and all, and doing this for a living, and coaching and consulting, and working on large marketing projects for companies, I have a whole other side of my life as everyone does. You have your business side of things, and then you have a personal life and all that kind of stuff. Fortunately for me, I feel really firm that my worlds are all blended pretty well. Like I’m not going to say that I have anybody in silos, and if you run into me at the grocery store, or if we ran into each other at the conference, I’m always the same person, like it’s never- you’re never going to catch like a Jekyll and Hyde type of scenario, like I’m always the same person. However I do have this whole other part of my life where my wife and I are struggling in many, many ways trying to raise a child with a mental health disability. So from that standpoint we realized probably- it was actually around Thanksgiving, and I might have shared a little bit of this on the podcast, and honestly I can’t remember what I may or may not have shared at this point. So for new listeners this will all be new information. Anyway, but around Thanksgiving it occurred to me that there is no book that exists that can help me, like it just does not exist. And so we found a support group because it’s a very specific type of mental health disability, so we found this great support group that’s got close to 5,000 people in it, it’s online, and we realized that we’re not the only ones that don’t have- we don’t have a book, we don’t have a resource, we don’t have a guide that says, ‘This is how you could get through your day.’ So what I decided to do was create it myself. And I am the least of an expert around mental health disabilities that you could possibly get. I actually did work on a really large contract all throughout 2015 that was around physical and health disabilities which was really fascinating, but that certainly does not make me an expert in any way. So my point here is even though in the grand scheme of things, there are probably 100,000 mental health experts, probably more than that, I am not one of them. However I know that there is no book out there that speaks to me as a parent in this situation, and I did a survey of many of the other people in this particular group, and they don’t have it either. So I said you know what, the hell with it, I’m going to create the book myself. So my wife and I are working on that, and she actually is a special ed teacher, so she does have a strong background in a lot of this. I don’t, I just happen to know how to write a book, I know how to assemble one, I know how to bring in other people’s stories, and make sure that this book isn’t just about our journey, but it’s about the journey of many others. So the point being that your voice is important enough, and I even had to work myself through this too thinking like, ‘Am I really going to write a book on mental health? Is that really what I’m supposed to be doing?’ And I feel so strongly that this is absolutely a calling of mine, and I’m freely stating it very, very up front like I am not an expert. I am a parent who is suffering and dealing with it just like all of these other parents are, and I need to bring our collective voices to the table so someone can hear our cries, and someone out there can come up with some kind of solutions for the issues that we’re dealing with. So I know that was a very long winded example, but I think it’s a really strong example to show you that yes, I would say I would consider myself an expert in the LGBT space, specifically marketing and business. But that is my core expertise. I have a lot of other things that I love doing, I have a lot of other things that I’m good at doing, but my expertise is squarely within the LGBT business and marketing space. It is not in mental health, but I have a higher calling strong enough to say my voice is important enough to tackle this.
So my challenge to you would be what is it about your voice that you think might not be important enough? And then think of me and this of this situation; if I’m taking this leap into a very crowded place, everyone’s talking about mental health, it’s a very, very big topic these days. If I’m throwing myself into that mix because I can see that there’s a place for it, I’m certain that that’s going to be the case for you, especially if you do have something around LGBT, there’s still- and I wish I actually had some data around this, actually I’m going to make myself a note, I’m going to write it down while I’m recording and I’m not going to pause this. So some LGBT data on how many books exist that are LGBT themed, or focused on LGBT in some way or another. If it’s anything like the population statistics of 3% then I’m certain it very well might be that minimal. So that just shows that there’s even more of a market opportunity if your book does have some sort of LGBT type of focus to it. So that’s my long winded way of saying yes, your voice is important enough.
Now number three is putting yourself out there and being really personal. So this is something that many new authors struggle with, and not just the seven people in this particular group, but I’m working with three authors right now- I’m in the throes of a very, very intense traditionally published book right now with a client of mine, and intense is probably an understatement. It’s just a lot of work. It’s about- I don’t even know how many words, I think it’s like a 40,000 word book at this point, so it’s a pretty sizable book. And it’s really, really about putting yourself out there, and my advice over and over again as we’ve been working on the process has been I need to hear more of your voice. Your voice is so strong, it’s so amazing, you are so passionate, but I don’t hear it enough if you have to put it out there. And I know 100% that this was really, really difficult for this person to do. I know that being really vulnerable, and really exposed was just such a- something really outside their comfort zone because we’re talking about writing for an audience that’s not looking for a memoir. It’s a little bit of a tactical type of book, and it was just very difficult, very difficult to really get that personal story in there. And I know for a lot of people, a lot of LGBT people in particular, a lot of us tend to be guarded with our information. A lot of us, we’re not overly- we don’t overly share a lot of information, and of course this is a generalization, please don’t take this as gospel. But if we’re looking at- even if you’re thinking about LGBT people in the workplace, so if you’re not a business owner, and you’re in the workplace, there is still a very high rate of people who are covering, and the interview I did with Dorie Clark which was episode number 76, she and I talked about covering in a little bit of detail in that episode, and it’s really just when you are covering a piece of your identity. In this case I’m talking about your LGBT identity, but you might be covering your religious identity in the workplace, or you might be covering your ethnic identity; whatever it happens to be, there’s a lot of ways that you can be covering for something in the workplace. And if we’re thinking about LGBT covering in the workplace, and I’ve written about this actually in my first book, is when that happens is that you’re not as productive, but you’re leaving out a lot about yourself, so you’re not being personal because you’re not telling your co-workers what you did over the weekend, or you’re not talking about how great your significant other is, or spouse, or fiancé, or whatever you’re calling them but you’re not saying your wife if you’re a female, or husband if you’re a male. So when we’re looking at that, we’re taking like a monumental leap from going from, ‘Okay I can’t even talk about my wife at work, and now I’m going to write this book and put myself out there and just expose everything.’ That is a really big fear, and I think it’s a completely justified fear. It’s very warranted, not to say any of these fears are unjustified, but it’s a strong fear which I totally, totally understand. And one of the things that I will share is in my first book- and both of my books are interwoven with really personal stories, some of them are really just kind of family stories that are more entertaining than anything. I really try to bring a light-hearted sense of humor to some of these more complex topics. But one of the things that I remember so vividly being a little bit stressed about, was in my first book, right in- it’s either the first chapter or the second chapter, I start talking about race and LGBT. And I, going back to not being an expert on things; again I’m an expert on LGBT but by no means on race issues. However, I was trying to draw a couple of comparisons, and the only way I was really able to do that was to call out my family for being a bunch of bigots. And now when you think about that, and I was always very vocal from the time I was thirteen being really disgusted by my grandparents and a lot of my- one side of my family’s family. They were just terrible people, and I’m saying this publicly on air now, like they were just terrible people. And they were just so filled with hate, and rage, and they were racist and bigots, and they were just terrible people. And as I was writing about this I’m like, ‘I have to include this vantage point because I can’t say that I have a sense- or I feel a sense of activism toward the whole concept of black lives matter, for example.’ And I wrote this book in 2013 before- not to say of course race issues were happening then, but before the big, big spark of black lives matter. But I felt the need that I had to include that then to really make my point of why I have such a sense of ‘I need to help be a part of the solution.’ And in order to do that, I had to publicly declare that my family were a bunch of racists in my book, which I then ended up giving a copy to several of my family members. No one ever said anything to me about it, I don’t know if I hurt anyone’s feelings, but to some degree it is what it is. So like I call things like they are, I will call people out on it, I know that everyone is not as okay with that, or as comfortable with that, but you have to put yourself out there. So again, I’m giving you an extreme example of if I could call my family a bunch of racists in a book and then actually hand that book to them, then I feel that you can also put your story out there, and put your voice out there, and really get personal. Because I know that’s a hardcore fear, and I think it’s a fear for anybody, even if you’re just writing a blog and you’re writing some personal stories. I remember when I first started my blog which was back in 2012, and I remember writing stories then thinking, ‘Oh God if the person that I just had coffee with knows that I’m writing about them, are they going to feel bad about it?’ But it’s always- my angle has always been people come from a place of good intention, and I just want to highlight how they could have done something differently that might have impacted their outcomes a little bit better. But even that was putting myself out there.
So maybe it’s just a matter of taking some baby steps. So maybe you can’t conquer that today, but I bet you can start taking baby steps and start putting one foot in front of the other, and just start talking about putting yourself out there a little bit more. Just talk about it, just give people a little bit more information. Going back to that other client that I was telling you about, for that particular person, and now we’re in the throes of this very massive book, but for her I said, “You know I think you should start with social media. I think you need to start letting people see who you are.” And this conversation started about three years ago, and it was just post something occasionally about you and your spouse on Facebook. Like let people see that there’s more than just this persona and this business you that they see; let them see the other side, let them see a little bit more about your personality, and what your interests are. And it took a little bit of time, it was certainly a slow build, and she had a lot of reservations around it, but she slowly kind of chipped away at it over the last couple of years, and it’s been really, really positive because now she’s kind of opened up this space for people to connect with her on a lot of different levels other than that business level that they expected to connect with her on. So all in all, I think putting yourself out there is very scary, but if you take some baby steps, you can really start to do it because you will find that there’s probably a lot more people who are accepting of what that message is than you previously either gave them credit for, or realized. And I can say this with 100% certainty that that was the case for me. So I was keeping our mental health struggles with our child very much in a silo and not talking about it, and I’ve begun to become very much more vocal about it, and as that’s been happening I’m noticing that so many people in my life have some kind of struggle that they’re dealing with that may have similarities, may not, but now they’re talking to me about it too. So it’s really interesting to see. And these are people that I just kind of casted off of like they’re not going to get it, they’re not going to understand. And it’s really surprising at how many people do understand when you let them in, and you get personal. So that’s probably another long winded answer to- or another long wined fear, number three there.
Number four is a little more tactical. Number four is I don’t have the discipline to just sit down and do it. That’s a big one, and so for that fear, that’s one of the reasons why I came up with this program, was I don’t have the discipline to sit down and do it. I happen to be what my friends and some family members are now calling me, a dark lord. And a dark lord- and it’s meant in jest, and something to be funny not actual sinister and evil, but really just getting shit done in the cover of night is what they jokingly say. So when everyone else is sleeping, somehow I manage to churn out a book. And I actually have written a book in a weekend before- written and published, it’s a little bit crazy, I know this. But it didn’t always come natural to me, it really is learning the art of self-discipline to sit down and do it. And now I am probably on an extreme that no one wants to be on in terms of how strict and structured my days are, exactly what I’m doing, when I’m doing it, what I’m going to focus on, who’s doing what; like it’s really, really routined. But if I look at how I was running my business even two years ago, it was a totally different story. Totally different. So it’s something that’s totally learnable, and my program I’m really excited, is really going to dig deep into the discipline piece, and really just give tips and tricks of how to write more faster, how to think quicker if I can even call it that- thinking quicker, getting to your ideas faster, getting them out on paper faster, really just being efficient with your time, blocking out time, all that kind of great stuff. So I’m really looking forward to tackling that one head on with this particular group of people now, because there’s just so, so much that can happen if you’re just really disciplined. And it doesn’t take a lot. So for those listening, just think about what’s one thing you could do every day that would get you closer to that goal? So what’s just one step, and it could just be simply writing, or maybe it’s research, or maybe it’s learning how to publish on Amazon, or if you just say, ‘I’m going to spend one hour a day for every week this year, and in that hour I’m going to focus on getting my book out.’ What does that look like? Does that look like writing? Does that look like research? Does it look like figuring out how to do something that might have a steep learning curve? Whatever it is, just focus on that one thing a day. There’s actually a book, pretty certain it’s called ‘The One Thing’ by Gary Keller, I think, of Keller Williams Realty. That book is amazing because it seriously is one- like what is the one thing that you can do today that all other things become unnecessary? I think there’s a whole like second half of the statement, which of course I didn’t research before talking about. So go check out the book for sure. I listened to it on Audible a couple of- I don’t even know when, it was probably a couple of years ago. But it’s just really important on focusing. So focus on one thing that is going to get you to sit down and have that discipline to do it. And actually one of the other fears that came up was finding focus. So finding the focus and having the discipline to sit down and do it, those two absolutely go hand in hand. So I think that there are a lot of tactics and tips that you can do of just sitting down and doing it, which starts with focus, focus, focus. Even if you don’t think you have focus, there’s some focus in there somewhere in you, you just have to be patient and kind of let it come to you, which I know is not a concrete, concrete statement, but you’ll find it, you will absolutely find it.
And then number five is this is going to consume my life. So a big fear for new LGBT authors is this is going to consume my life. Yeah, you could absolutely let it consume your life, it’s just kind of the nature of the beast. If you allow it to, it totally will. So one of the things that I had shared, and I’ve talked about- I talk about all the time, not even just with my group the other day, is the idea of Parkinson’s Law, and I’ve probably talked about it on the podcast before, too. But Parkinson’s Law is really just saying that something is going to take the amount of time that you’ve given it to take. So if it should take you five minutes- I used the example the other night of making the bed. If you give yourself an hour to do some chores around the house, and that just includes maybe throwing a load of laundry in and making the bed, it’s going to take you an hour to get that done. It’s just Parkinson’s Law. If you have four minutes to do it before you need to run out of the house, somehow it will get done in that four minutes, won’t it? So you can allow something to consume your life because it’s compelling right now, and it’s really exciting, you want to do it, but you need to be mindful of balance and make sure that you’re not taking away from other things like billable hours, or taking on new consulting projects, or getting your work done, whatever it might be. But what I would advise is pick a timeframe. So in this case with this group, it’s ninety days. So we’re saying ninety days to write a book, ninety days, that is a very concrete period of time to get a book written. So that is going to make sure that it’s not going to take you nine years to do. So I’m sure some of you listening here have had maybe that rough draft that you’ve written that’s just kind of sitting on your shelf, and it’s been sitting there for so many years. You haven’t had a deadline on it, you haven’t had a timeline on it, so of course it’s going to take you a long time because you never gave it an expiration date, like I had to do this by then. So that I think is really important to allow it to not consume your life is to say, ‘You know what, by the end of 2016 I’m going to have a book published.’ And then you work your timeline backward from there. So starting with if you want it published by December 15th, then you’re going to have to have your draft completed by November 15th. Which means you need to have- if you have ten chapters you have to work your way back ten weeks from November 15th, allow time for an edit, allow time for reviews, all that kind of stuff. It’s really a matter of just being really diligent and organized with a timeline, and making it not consume your life. Making it the ability for you to say, “I’m going to write 1,000 words a week over the next 52 weeks,” for example. That’s 52,000 words, that’s way more than you need for a book. You could probably do 20,000 words. So you can say 1,000 words a week for twenty weeks. So that’s what, five months or so? That’s totally attainable. Totally attainable. 1,000 words a week is actually really a small number. So let’s think about how you compact that into ninety days. So focusing sixty of them on writing. So if you’re doing a 20,000 word book, divide it by the sixty days, that’s how many words you can be writing to be focused on getting it done in a shorter period of time. And somebody the other night on our call said, “Done is better than perfect,” and I think that that is a brilliant statement. And the beauty of publishing through Amazon is that done is better than perfect can totally be fixed later. You don’t have to print 5,000 books and cringe every time you hand one out because there’s some kind of typo in it that you missed in the proofreading process. You can fix it on demand. So Amazon has this whole on demand printing function, which is seriously amazing. Like amazing on levels that it’s hard to describe. And I will share this with you, I have not shared this with others because it was embarrassing, but in my first book I was making a reference to Ninja Turtles, which is a hilarious story that I include in the book to just kind of show my own humanity and the ridiculousness of how I was growing up as a child, and being obsessed with Ninja Turtles, which my seven year old son is actually now obsessed with too, so it’s fun to see it come full circle. But I’m writing a story about Ninja Turtles that’s completely relevant to what I was talking about, and somehow in the proofreading process- mind you I paid an editor, I paid a proof-reader, and somehow it was still missed. And it’s nothing against them, but this is just what happens in the process, is that something always gets missed, it just happens, it’s just the way of the world. And I’m sure there’s been other errors that have been in my books, but this one just stands out so much. So in the book I’m talking about Ninja Turtles, and it’s written as the ‘Nina’ Turtles, so it’s missing the ‘J’ in Ninja. So needless to say I was not pleased when it wasn’t even me who caught it, it was somebody who had bought it, and then sent me a picture saying, ‘Hey just want to let you know your story is hilarious but I’m pretty certain you meant to say the Ninja Turtles.’ So it’s one of those things that yes, done is better than perfect, and I was promptly able to go into Amazon, fix the book layout, change it, add the ‘J’ to it, and for all future printing have it say ‘Ninja’ and not ‘Nina.’ So that’s kind of the beauty of Amazon, and I’m sure I’ll talk about the beauty of Amazon at a later date in a different podcast. But as it relates to something consuming your life because it’s really compelling right now, it’s really just finding the time, making it happen, not allowing it to consume your life, being mindful that it’s not going to consume your life, and know that done is better than perfect. So if you’re going to try to attain perfection on this, it will take you ten years to do when it could take you ten months or ten weeks. Like you can really crank out a book fast if you are of the mind-set that done can’t be better than perfect.
So that wraps up the top five fears that I am seeing that new LGBT authors have, and a little bit around how to conquer them. I know that there were a bunch of other things that came up on our call the other night, but additionally there’s just a bunch of other fears that have surfaced in working with the other authors that I’ve worked with before, of being afraid of being bogged down in the mundane, or will my friends and family support me while I’m doing this? There’s a lot of legitimate concerns that people have, but I think the number one thing is knowing that your story matters, and it’s important for you to tell your story. So if you have that deep feeling, and that calling that says, ‘I need to get my story out there,’ you absolutely can do it, and there are simple ways that you can make this process so much less daunting than it needs to be. So I would strongly encourage you if you are interested in writing a book this year, to head over to my website at www.JennTGrace.com and on the homepage on the left hand side it says something like, ‘Tell your story,’ ‘Tell your LGBT story.’ If you click on that link there’s information about the June course. So it will be in June and then there will be another one in October. So if I do get more interest than the twelve cap I have, I’ll probably run two courses at the same time, and based on the interest already it looks like that’s quite possible. So if you’re interested, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and get yourself in the queue now for our June program. But if you’re not interested in the course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I’m still going to be talking about all things LGBT, talking about being a new author, all that kind of stuff, I’m going to be putting out a ton of free content via the podcast, via my blog all throughout 2016. So if you’re just sitting on the periphery want some tactics and some tips here and there, you will absolutely get that as I’ve built my entire business on giving away free content, and it works really well, and it makes me happy and feel like I’m helping you, and when I’m giving as much of it away to you as I can. So hopefully this episode helped you.
As always I would love to hear from you, so find me on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook; those are the three places that I’m super active. I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn. If you want to connect with anyone that I know, feel free to just poke and say, “Hey heard you on the podcast, could you introduce me to so-and-so?” I’d be more than happy to help, honestly. And yeah I love having conversations on Twitter, and Facebook is where I’m at too. So anyway, yeah I am pleased to bring you this episode, number 77, and I hope to see you in episode number 78. Until then, have a great one. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to today’s podcast. If there are any links from today’s show that you are interested in finding, save yourself a step and head on over to www.JennTGrace.com/thepodcast and there you will find a backlog of all of the past podcast episodes, including transcripts, links to articles, reviews, books, you name it, it is all there on the website for your convenience. Additionally if you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can head on over to the website and click the contact form, send me a message, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, all at Jenn T Grace, and as always I really appreciate you as a listener, and I highly encourage you to reach out to me whenever you can. Have a great one and I will talk to you in the next episode.
