Your Path to Becoming an Author

Paula: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Chatting With The Experts, the TV show in which I showcase women from Africa, women from the Caribbean, and women in the diaspora. Sometimes men are included in this, and you know, we love it when we have the men, but for the most part, it’s women. And the mission of this show is to have these women, or my guess, because sometimes we have men, the mission is to empower women globally, inspire women globally, and to educate women globally. Our topic today is called Telling Your Story- You Can Write Your Book. And we’ll be talking about when you want to write a book, the three things that you need to know. One of them is the idea of writing and publishing, because books do seem overwhelming to write and publish.
Another [00:01:00] question, what we would talk about is when you don’t know where to begin. And a big part, because I struggled with this and I still do, is devaluing our own wisdom and experience. And with me to do that is Donna Knutson, who is a writing coach. And she helps people finish their books they’ve always wanted to write.
She says whether the story is a completed draft or still in the writer’s head, Donna helps writers solidify their ideas, create a blueprint for their project, and work through content and flow issues. There’s a lot more I can say with that, but that’s why I have this show, so that my guests can talk more about what they do.
And so with that, I want to welcome Donna to the show. Thank you Donna. Hi. Thank you for saying yes, and thank you for being a guest on Chatting With The Experts. So I [00:02:00] know I said a bit about you. I didn’t say a lot because I always like my guests to talk a bit more about you apart from being a writer, a writing course. There’s so many other things you told me you’ve done. You’ve been a teacher. You told stories. I mean you helped people tell stories because you’ve been a news writer and a producer, but yeah, the rest is, let me let you say it.
Donna: Thank you so much and thanks for having me on your show. I started out right out of college, I knew that I wanted to work in television news. I’ve always had a desire to help people tell their stories and to relay information to one another. So I always knew that that’s what I wanted to do. When I started in the business, it was very different than it is now, but so much fun. We basically just were able to get into all of the neighborhoods in the local neighborhoods and tell people’s stories, which is [00:03:00] what I loved to do. Eventually, it became a little bit more corporate. Things were really easily shared between places. So you didn’t need as many human beings in the newsroom, which meant you could still fill the newscast, but there weren’t as local. So at that point, I started to do a little change over and I worked with high school students.
The station was gracious enough to run a show for them and give them the half hour that they could put on their own newscast. And I helped them do that. And after that, I transitioned into teaching. I taught English as an associate professor. And then I started my own business. And right now what I do is I help people write their books. I call it helping people telling their stories, mostly because when I run into people, they’ll say, yeah, you know, people always [00:04:00] say I should write a book. And if that’s on your heart, but you don’t know how to get started. That is what I love to help people do.
Paula: Yes, because before we came on camera, I told you that I have written a book, but I have written a book. That’s where it ended. I never got it published. I do have a publisher, and she’s been behind me to finish it, but I wrote that book and I think writing it was therapeutic for me. After that, it was like, I’m done. And so I know that one of the things you do is help people take that book from their head or take their unfinished draft or even the finished draft and make it a book. So let’s talk more about that.
Donna: So publishing is a big industry and I always tell people I am not a publisher. My job as a writing coach is to help the person get a beautiful manuscript that they can then present to a publisher. However, Everyone who is writing who wants to become [00:05:00] published needs to learn about what that big business is of publishing. And I find a lot of times, what’s exciting, I should say, what’s exciting about right now is that the gatekeepers are gone. What do I mean by that?
Paula: Yes.
Donna: Used to be you. Before the way that publishing has gone and you can do it on demand and it doesn’t cost that much. If you wanted to publish your own book, you had to run like 10, 000, 15, 000 copies from a printer. You get a hard copy book and then you had to sell all those copies. It’s a really big investment for people. Now that they can publish on demand, you order a book, they print that one book. That really reduces the cost. It’s allowed people to be able to publish themselves and afford it. If you couldn’t do that before, you would have to go through a publishing house, which would mean you’d have to have, send your work in, someone would read it, usually some sort of [00:06:00] intern or, you know, entry level person in that office, and then they’d pass it on.
And if that person thought it would be okay, then they’d pass it on. It’s the gatekeeping system. That means the person who’s reading is valuing whether or not your work is important to you. As opposed to you knowing from your own experience that your experience is of value and your wisdom is of value. And if the people reading are not people who understand your journey, they might not value your journey and your wisdom because it doesn’t connect with what they’ve known. They might think that that journey doesn’t resonate with other people. The reason you do your show with women from the Caribbean and from the African diaspora is because there’s so many people out there with so many [00:07:00] experiences culturally, emotionally, all the different things that happen. If you don’t have that one person read that piece, are they going to say that this, you know, who would want to read this? So many people.
Paula: And, you know, many of us have come up from a background where storytelling was, you know, it’s thrilling and I’m so happy that, you know, in my generation, storytelling was for when you were nine, 10. When you reach, you know, puberty, it was like, that’s for the babies. That’s for the younger one. But I’m so happy that it’s been reintroduced, even the businesses because, you know, deep down, everybody wants to hear a story. You know, we want to hear about people. We want to know more about people. And so, yeah, I’m so happy that you can help people do that. Share a story.
Donna: And, you know, a lot of times the first thing to do is just to have people [00:08:00] realize that their story is value. It’s a value to someone else who needs to hear your journey. And I wouldn’t force anyone to do it, but if it’s on your heart to do it, and you don’t, a lot of people just don’t know where to get started. They then tell themselves, I don’t know really how to write and I really wouldn’t know how to put this together or all of the different excuses that can come up. And what I know is now there are so many things that can help people through all of those stumbling blocks that come along. And so I try and help them through that process to be able to write their story.
Paula: So, we talked about the publishing gatekeepers gone. So now they’re gone. That has brought people like you into our world. So where do we start?
Donna: So usually, if I run into someone and they say, I’ve written a book, but I don’t know what to do with it. Or I have an [00:09:00] idea to write a book, but I’m not really sure what to do. I started, I can’t finish. I usually start by asking them what’s the dream. What is their dream for that thing they’re writing? Are they writing a story they want their family to have? Are they writing a story they want their business community to have? Are they writing a story they want customers to have? Students, what’s the story? What’s the dream that you want for that story? Sometimes they’ll say, you know, I want it to be a bestseller. Great! Whatever the dream is, that’s kind of where I like to start. Because if you are writing a piece and you want your family to have it, you can do that on your own. You don’t need to pay lots of people to help you with that.
And so that’s one journey. We can start giving you the tools to do that. And if they want something a little [00:10:00] bit more, if they want to go, if it’s something to publish for schools or something to publish for businesses, then we have another process. Question number one is always, who are you writing this book for? Who is your ideal reader? That is the number one question. Once we know who that ideal reader is, we can start. And I wouldn’t believe but I get so much hesitation about picking just one. I want everyone to read it. That’s not what I said. I didn’t say no one will read it. I said who’s your ideal reader, but I want everyone to read it. Yes. So I try and give examples. So that they can understand why it’s important to know who your ideal reader is. If you are writing a children’s book, what age group are we writing it for 6 year olds? Is it for 12 year olds? Is it for 18 [00:11:00] year olds? You’re going to write a different story. That’s not hard for people to understand.
Oh, okay, get it. Well, it’s no different. Are you writing this book for 20 year old women or 40 year old women? Both of them can read that story and understand. But the access to the story, what point you’re coming from, is going to differ a little bit if you’re writing for a 20 year old or you’re writing for a 40 year old. They have different life experiences. You have different things you need to explain or not explain. Doesn’t mean that that person won’t have access to the book, but they’re able to understand, Oh, this is written for this. I really loved it. I had to look some things up. Which is fine. You can have a glossary then to help them out.
These are the kind of things that I try and get through to people. When you have that idea, it helps you with what to put in, what not to put in, what language we’re using, what level of vocabulary, what do we need [00:12:00] to explain. If you’re writing a book for people who grew up in a Caribbean island, there are some things you don’t need to explain. They know. It’s cultural. It’s built in. You should just write it. And if you want other people to access it, you can say in the back, there’s a little glossary that will explain the words that are common. It would be silly for you to explain a common word to someone who’s from that culture. So this allows other people to read it and access it, but we keep the story focus clean.
Paula: That’s really helpful to know. So you should stop in your why and know who your target reader will be. That’s helpful. It makes me think about the book I wrote. I think I wrote that book for me.
Donna: And that often happens. And the thing is even if you write for you, that’s even better because then we really know what you want to see. And [00:13:00] it helps on the marketing end as well. I could ask you, where do you shop? Where do you, you know, go to get your books? Where can we place this book when you’re done? We would know because you would be able to tell me in a very detailed way, all of these things about what catches your eye. So I’ll know what colors to use on the book cover. All of these things are very important and they can be very helpful to the process of getting the book together.
Paula: Wooww! My motto every day is to learn something new. I’ve learned a lot from you and we are not even halfway through the show yet. I’ve learned so much. Hmm. Because for me it was almost like a revelation. I wrote that book for me. Hmm. And now you tell me what I can do with the book that I wrote for me.
Donna: Right. It’s so often we run out into the world and we run into someone from somewhere else. who has so many experiences that we can relate to. So you can write a [00:14:00] book for you that other people can access. The best example of this would be like the Bible. It was written thousands of years ago for Jewish Christians. And then the Old Testament was written even more thousands of years ago for the Jews, Jewish population. We still access all the wisdom of that book.
What’s not written for us? does not mean you can’t access it, does not devalue the stories that are told in the book, but you do have to, when you read it, then understand you’re reading about cultures that happened a long time ago, and they might have a different way of saying things, or a different way of doing things. It doesn’t change the power of the story. And so that’s, it’s just very important to, to keep your setting to your audience for them to understand it.
Paula: That’s such a great example. [00:15:00] Really makes it, you know, easier to understand, you know, about sometimes when you write without even thinking of what you’re writing or who you’re writing for. Sometimes it is for other people, and they don’t have to be part of the story, but they still can gain from it. Love that example. So, I mean, still on the same topic about publishing gatekeepers being gone. So, and you mentioned you’re not a publisher you’re a coach, a writing coach. So, We know when we write in a book, and most people should know this, there will be someone who can edit and someone who will publish it. So, can we talk a little bit about who does what and why they do it?
Donna: Absolutely. There are many different kinds of editors, and editing is, if you really want your book to to shine, you want to have your editing process complete. So someone like [00:16:00] me, I’m going to be in hopefully early on the ride, help with the engineering. If you think of an architect or engineering with a building, you want to make sure that the stair to go from the first floor to the second floor and the second floor to the third floor. You want to make sure that that flow is correct. Is it enough for the people who will be in the building?
Do you have enough bathrooms? Like all of those kinds of things. That’s kind of the work that I help the author do with the book, so that it makes sense all the way through, that things are connected. You didn’t leave something out, there, oh, there’s no staircase between level 10 and 11, right, or you skipped a whole chapter that needs to be in there, you went from floor number 9 to floor 11. That’s something that I would be able to help. So I try and explain it in that way that and what I do is what we would call developmental editing. So the [00:17:00] developmental editor is going to help you with that structure of your book, make sure everything flows together, that you didn’t leave any parts out.
So if your reader can seamlessly go from one end to the other and have all the tools that they need and understand all the parts, all the characters, if there’s fiction, you know, all of those things coming together. Once that’s done, I would be the last. I can make the work clean and pretty, but then you’re going to want someone to do what we would call a copy edit.
Paula: A what, sorry?
Donna: A copy edit.
Paula: Oh, copy edit. Okay.
Donna: So a developmental edit is going to get your book together. They’re not going to give you your manuscript back with huge grammatical errors, spelling errors, and stuff like that. But, it’s not going to be perfectly swept up. Well, I should say, I shouldn’t use the word perfect, because there is no perfect. There’s no book on earth that has no errors, no [00:18:00] things that could be done a different way. Not one book. Because even grammarians don’t agree on exactly how to do all the different things. Having said that, usually since I’ve been with the book from the beginning, you want a fresh set of eyes on it and you want someone who is an expert at grammar and punctuation and that’s their thing. Like they just love that and they can’t wait to look at the book and find all those little things to fix. That’s your copy edit. You want that person to go through and give you that fresh look.
Paula: Okay. And write your notes. That’s why you see me looking to the side.
Donna: Absolutely. The other thing that you can do along this process is have an alpha and a beta team of writers and readers, I’m sorry, alpha and beta team of readers.
Paula: Of readers. Okay.
Donna: So your alpha readers, you’re going [00:19:00] to select them, they’re going to be the first set of human beings, we’re going to look at your finished draft. This is after you’ve done edits and everything, they’re going to read your finished draft and give you feedback. So we want them to be your target reader. If you give your alpha reader, if you give your book to an alpha reader, it’s not your target audience and they don’t understand it. This would be okay because they’re not your target audience.
Paula: Wow.
Donna: So you want to make sense. Right? You want to, so many people like, yeah, yeah. Well, my mother in law is going to read it. Great. Is she a target audience? No, she liked it. Great. Is she a target audience? So you want your alpha reader to be one, two, not more than three people because human beings are always, you can only read with your own experience. Yeah. So they’re going to bring their own [00:20:00] experience to the book and they’re going to give you feedback based on their experience.
That does not mean that you take the feedback. It means that you now understand how someone has understood what you said. So you can read over it again now and you can say, hmm, did I want them to take it this way? Is it okay that they took it this way or does that need to be changed and that will give you a sense of how you want to evaluate whether or not to make a change or not but just because someone gives you feedback they didn’t understand. If one person didn’t understand it and the other two understood it, there are more questions to ask. Is that something that internally that you didn’t have as an experience and so you didn’t understand it. Did you not understand it because it wasn’t written clearly? We would want to know what’s going in there. So I always [00:21:00] tell my readers once their alphas come back don’t go changing everything. Try and find out what’s at the root of the discord.
Paula: So your alpha readers should be more than one. They should be your target audience and at least minimum of two people.
Donna: Correct.
Paula: Okay. All right. Makes sense. Even alpha the first. They’re interested. Okay, then the beta. Beta readers.
Donna: So you’re going to then decide to freshen things up, change, maybe do some revisions. People should really keep themselves open for the revision process. Here’s the thing, you could write forever. You could revise forever. At some point you need to say, we’re done. But this is your opportunity to get some voices in the door and reflect on your work so that [00:22:00] you can see how it hits someone else. Because when we write, we write alone. And so we’re not always, we know what we wanted to say. Did we make what we wanted to say clear to someone else?
Your beta reader is kind of the same as your alpha reader. Same thing. I would just go with one or two. You just want to get an idea if the changes that you made are still hitting in the fashion. Did you make re revisions that changed the way? Whatever your discords did you get rid of those? Sometimes they might bring up a new element and once again, I would say. If that’s a new element, no one else had seen before. It doesn’t mean it’s not something you want to change, but you really do need to step back. And ask yourself, why did this come up for this group of people? And is it really a larger issue that needs to be addressed?
Paula: Okay.
Donna: [00:23:00] So at the end of that part of the editing process, you have had a developmental edit. You have alpha and beta readers. And then you had your copy edit that’s going to clean everything up and make it gorgeous. The next set of edits would be proof and that’s after the printer has returned what the book is supposed to be laid out and looks like. You would have a proof to read through that that’s what we call that mock up of your book is called a proof.
So proof reading is actually reading that mock up of the book every time it changes made it changes something else. Proofreading could actually, in that process of getting it printed, there could be a double word because the printer did something weird. So you’re once again, you’re combing through this thing to see if it’s turned out as you intended. If [00:24:00] sometimes if people have said they’ve had things, in the proof it’s come back and there have been missing paragraphs or we don’t want that to happen very often. Clearly you want a reputable person, but it can happen. And the proof is the time to catch that.
Paula: All right. And this is after the print. After it’s been printed.
Donna: This is not a print for the world.
Paula: Okay, this is your personal.
Donna: This is your personal. It’s a first run. of what the book would look like if it goes. So they’re giving you a chance to look at it to find any errors that have happened in this. Because what’s missing in this process here is the design phase. I’m just really going through the editing phase.
Paula: Yes.
Donna: Once you’ve finished your copy edit, your publisher, and you have decided you’re ready to go to print, you’re going to have a designer come in to make the book [00:25:00] pretty.
Paula: So after your proof, then you now bring in the publisher who will make that book look pretty.
Donna: No.
Paula: Oh, I missed it.
Donna: Actually, after the copyedit.
Paula: Okay.
Donna: After the copy edit, you have a clean manuscript that’s been gone over by your alpha and beta readers. You’re technically done with the book at this point.
Paula: Okay.
Donna: This is when you want the design phase of the book to happen.
Paula: Okay.
Donna: A book designer there’s several different parts. Usually a book designer is going to make the inside of the book look pleasing. You have many options. You have different options with fonts. You know, you’ve seen books that have little scrolls around the numbers. You’ve seen books that have [00:26:00] title pages that are elaborate or clean. You’ve seen the numbers at the top and the corner at the bottom. You’ve seen the page layout where sometimes starts the top that, you know, all of those decisions are going to be through your designer.
Paula: Mmmm. Gotcha.
Donna: So now the inside of the book starts to take place, that gets a beautiful look to it as well. You have table contents, all those kinds of things, the book designer is going to make all that uniform for you. And at the end of that, there would be a cover design and the cover design is like a billboard on the highway. You are driving by, you see it. It’s got to tell you everything. It has to catch your eye, has to give you all the information you need to want to call the number on the billboard. The front of your book is the billboard. It has [00:27:00] to catch your eye while you’re walking by the shelf. And make that person want to pick it up.
Paula: Oh, right. And then the publisher.
Donna: Then, well, the publishing is going to depend upon whether you go through a… We should do that after. Because this is kind of the trail through the journey of the words after, as they’re written, then edited. Then once you’re done with your copy editor, we would be hopefully you’re done writing the book at that point. Then the design comes and it’s all pretty. Now it goes to print. That first. Here’s what it’s going to look like when it’s printed. That’s your proof.
Paula: Okay.
Donna: That comes back to you and you go, Oh, I don’t like the cover design. I want it this way. Or you go, Oh, the opening pages look fabulous. Okay. I see that chapter three is out of order with chapter four. We [00:28:00] need to flip that. Whatever those, that’s when you’re going through and you’re looking for, there’s two words, there’s two dots on this page, all of that. That’s that nitpicky. What has happened between when your copy editor turned in and it got laid out for print through with all the design? What has changed? How do we fix that?
Paula: Okay. All right.
Donna: Okay. Then once all that’s done, that’s your proofread. When you’re done there, then it’s going to print. And whatever you said yes to, that’s what’s going to come out as your book.
Paula: Oh, you know, we’ve been talking for almost 30 minutes. Can you believe it? That this is a 30 minute show? All right. So tell us how we get to the publishing then.
Donna: So publishing really, again, depends upon what that dream is.
Paula: Okay.
Donna: So if your dream is that you’re writing a children’s book, you want your grandchildren have, you’re going to publish that book yourself. [00:29:00] You’re the publisher. You’re going to go through some self publishing program or maybe a hybrid program where they kind of help you a little bit, but mostly it’s on you. And then you’re going to publish that book. You’re responsible for everything about it. And every time somebody orders a book, it gets printed. That’s the easiest way to go. Hybrid publishers or would be what they call boutiques. Those are really good for people who are self publishing and need a little help. The next phase up from that would be a small publisher. They’re usually going to do a particular genre. They’re really strong. They have a really good hold in the market in that particular genre.
So let’s say memoir is your genre. That’s their thing that they do at this small publishing house. They would have to accept your work in and if they accept your work in, then the publisher would probably [00:30:00] provide you with your copy editor. The publisher would provide you with your book designer.
The publisher would do the proofing and then there would be a contractual arrangement about royalties and how those are split. Then there’s the big publishing houses. You don’t go to them. You fire someone who is your agent. The agent pitches your work to the publishing house. And then if they agree, then a contract is set up and they will take over that process of alpha and beta readers and so they take it over a lot sooner, and they cover more of that process.
Paula: Oh, that’s really been an eye opener, because these days we see so many people are authors, you know, so many people have written books. So many people are number one authors on Amazon and I ask [00:31:00] myself how did they get through all of that? So you’ve really broken it down for me to know the process that’s involved. Yeah, very helpful. All right. So, of course, we would love to talk more, but we are limited in time. So anyone who needs to talk more with you, of course, we’ll talk with you during the Q& A session. But for people who may will listen to this or view it later on. How can they get in touch with you online?
Donna: The best way to get in touch with me is through my website at my business. There’s a button there that you can click on and make an appointment to speak with me. And that’s write journeys. Like you’re writing.
Paula: I love it. I love the name.
Donna: writejourneys.com. If you go to writejourneys.com, you’ll see about me and all the different things that I offer and you can make an appointment to talk to me.
Paula: Okay. Oh, [00:32:00] what about email? Can they email you or you rather they just go…
Donna: They can. The best way to get my email and everything if you’re on LinkedIn all of my contact information is on LinkedIn. I have my email address, the link to my website. You can always email direct message through LinkedIn as well. It’s my primary social media course. So that’s also another great way to reach me.
Paula: Me too. LinkedIn is my primary social media platform. I love it. And so folks, as I promised you, you will learn something new because I did. That was Donna Knutson. And if you would like to be a guest on my show, just as she has been, please reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.Com. I’m also on LinkedIn, my primary social media platform, as Paula Okonneh . On [00:33:00] Instagram, my page there is at chat_experts_podcast, and I’m on Facebook as Paula Okonneh. Donna, this has been good. I’ve taken so many notes. And, you know, but I still feel there’s so much more to talk about, we may need you to come on again. And…
Donna: It would be my pleasure.
Paula: Yes. So I’m formally inviting you. Well, you can hear you’re my witness, but those who have listened, she has said yes. Thank you so much, Donna.
Donna: Thank you as well.