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How To Outline A Non-Fiction Book So Readers Can’t Put It Down

November 13, 2019 by Creative Guest Leave a Comment

By their very nature, many non-fiction books have the clear intention of helping their readers. Author and ghostwriter, Joshua Lisec, shares tips on how to meet that goal so that your book is widely read and recommended.

The Official Steps to Non-Fiction Author Success:

Write.
Edit.
Publish.

If you’ve read any non-fiction advice articles recently, you probably got some version of that advice. It makes sense in theory. You’re an expert in your field. When you decide it’s time to write your book, shouldn’t you just starting writing, then keep writing until you’ve exhausted your mental library?

Well…

No.

What if simply sitting down and typing whatever comes to mind is the worst way to write your non-fiction book?

What if brainstorming what you would like to write about leaves you with a manuscript that only your parents and pals want to read?

As a Professional Ghostwriter of over forty books, I’ve learned (and taught) a thing or two about how to write a page-turning, mind-opening non-fiction book. The difference between a book that sells a few dozen copies and one that gets word-of-mouth marketed across the world is all about the way the author outlined the book. I’ll explain.

I want you to think about a non-fiction book you cherish. The one you bought extra copies of so you can share with colleagues and clients. Got it? Of course you do! You’ve highlighted and sticky noted so many of the book’s pages you’d you’re studying for an exam. You’ve downloaded quote cards from the book as reminders of how you should live, move, and be in the world.

Now I want you to think about the last book you didn’t finish. Takes a few moments to think of it, doesn’t it? The book wasn’t terrible. Just…forgettable.

Based on my and my authors’ lived experience, I can tell you why your fave book holds your attention to this day while that “blah” book disappeared behind the bookshelf when your cat hopped up there one day.

The world’s best non-fiction authors write their book for you—not for them.

Yes, an author pens a manuscript based on their background, ideas, and true-to-life experiences. Yet their ego is not the intended audience—your heart, mind, and soul are.

This insight brings us back to the number one mistake I see aspiring non-fiction authors make on their first draft (and all too often the final draft). These enthusiastic writers consult their mental library of experiences, ideas, and understandings, throw everything onto the page, and try to make heads and tails of what goes where in the book.

It’s a tough task. It’s also unnecessary.

The non-fiction books you’re going to recommend to family and friends for the rest of their life could not be further from these mosaic manuscripts. The authors you admire wrote their book at the intersection of what they wanted to write about and what people like you wanted to read.

Imagine a Venn diagram. In one set is everything the author could have written. In the other is everything readers in their chosen book category desire from future books.

The most emotionally compelling books exist at that intersection.

And that’s exactly what you will take away from this article—how to outline a non-fiction book so the final draft is something you can be proud of because readers can’t put the thing down.

Step 1: Mind Map

Now is the time to get out your favorite coloured pens and journals or your laptop and let your mind roam. Feel free to freewrite.

What you won’t do is stare at page after page of notes and wonder where the book starts or ends.

Instead, use a free mind mapping software like MindMeister to organize the topics, subtopics, examples, and calls-to-action that could make an appearance in your non-fiction book.

Let’s say you’re a self-improvement expert. Take your notes over to MindMeister and type your book idea in a circle. Next surround your idea with specific topics you could cover in the book. For example, if you’re writing a productivity book, your topics could include routines, diet, exercise, and time management.

Go back to your notes and look for subtopics, sub-subtopics, and even sub-sub-subtopics. Everything goes in your mind map. For example, your routines topic could eventually be two chapters, one covering a morning routine and the other your evening routine.

Then the evening routine chapter talks about getting ready for tomorrow, journaling away your worries, enjoying a quick meditation, and optimising your sleep. The sleep section could go on about tips to fall asleep quick, stay asleep all night, and wake up on time and refreshed without an alarm clock.

As you can see, your mind map is fast becoming a first draft outline!

Just like that, disorganized, disjointed notes become the makings of a real book. That said, you can expect to feel an eensy-weensy bit overwhelmed upon finishing your MindMeister map. How can you possibly go from a mind map and a journal to a first draft? Well, you won’t. Not yet at least.

Before an entrepreneur develops a new product, they do their homework first. What do customers want? Where are the unmet needs right now? How are existing products failing to satisfy consumers?

In the next step, you’re going to think like an “authorpreneur.” You’re going to do your research to find out how you can turn your mind map into a manuscript that makes people wonder, Where have you been all my life?!

Step 2: Research

In step one, we found out what all is in your set of the Venn diagram—that is, everything you could write about. Here in step two, we’re going to discover what your future readers want from books like yours. This way you’re authoring a book with broad appeal, a book you know for certain that people want to read.

Let’s head on over to our friends at Google. In keeping with our productivity author example, let’s google “amazon bestselling productivity books.” The top search result directs you to the Amazon bestseller list for that category.

Click four the highest ranked Amazon bestsellers in your category and scroll down to their reviews. Why four? Because if you go the traditional publishing route with your non-fiction book, you’ll be expected to present an industry standard book proposal to a literary agent, an acquisitions editor, or both. Your book proposal will include a section on competing titles where you must explain how your book compares to four popular books in your category.

One of my ghostwriting clients as a CEO of a top European reputation management company. In the authentic reviews and ratings industry, it’s common knowledge that very good (five star) and very bad (one star) reviews are not perceived to be as credible as middle-of-the-road reviews (four, three, and two star). Entrepreneur and The New York Times have both published research supporting this hypothesis. When consumers scroll down a page of positive reviews, they wonder if perhaps they’re too good to be true.

Of course I don’t mean to imply that you should assume every five star and one star review is paid promotion. They’re not. For aspiring authors who’d rather be writing than reading reviews all day long, this tip is merely the shorthand way to find the reader feedback you need to write a marketable book.

Step 3: Exclude (Or Include)

“I know exactly what readers want.”

Not a sentence a first-time non-fiction author should ever be heard uttering. Even the most experienced and astute writers may mis-guess which topics their book should cover and which it shouldn’t. That’s why third-party feedback from your future readers is a better standard for judging what to include in your book.

And who knows! Perhaps you’ll find out that readers in your category are begging for a book on a topic you know a lot about but hadn’t considered. Happens all the time with my authors.

Author: “Really? People want me to talk about that in my book?”

Ghostwriter: “Yep, over two hundred and fifty reviews say the exact same thing: ‘I bought these other books hoping they would cover Topic X but they never did.’”

What’s your Topic X?
The idea, method, or approach your future readers are hankering to read about that you are uniquely suited and qualified to discuss? Let’s find out! Comb through the four, three, and two star reviews on the top four bestselling books in your category. Search for two specific sentiments:

“Hoped they would’ve’s”

“Wish they hadn’t’s”

When I go to a top productivity book, I find these reviews:

See the pattern? “Disappointing,” “nothing new,” “some useful advice.” These readers all feel like the productivity book overpromised and underdelivered. One reviewer explains how the author brushed over too many topics. Other reviewers felt like the book contained too many personal accounts from the author without having a “how-to” system or framework.

For your book project, copy and paste all relevant reviews word-for-word into your favorite word processing program (mine’s Google Docs). Once you’ve scoured reader reviews for the top four bestselling books on Amazon, it’s time to open your mind map again.

Based on customer feedback, which topics should you exclude from the book?

What topics do readers want to see you discuss that haven’t made it into your mind map yet?

For example, several productivity book reviewers expressed disappointment that bestselling books did not present a productivity system. Lo and behold, a system does not make an appearance in our mind map! We’d better structure the topics so the book is step-by-step, not here’s-a-tip-there’s-a-tip.

What else do we find in the reviews? One reader did not seem too pleased that the productivity book they purchased went on and on about time management. What topic is in the mind map? Yep, it’s time management.

If we want to ultimately write a non-fiction book that readers like these blokes can’t put down, what must we do? Strike that topic from the mind map—and from the ensuing outline—or include time management as part of a how-to productivity system.

Oh, what was that word I just used? Outline? Yes, the outline! After you’ve completed this process of elimination (and inclusion!), you have yourself a marketable, salable book. Well, its outline at least.

These three steps to outline your book may take up your next few writing sessions. Trust me—and my international bestselling authors. It’s so worth it to allot a few hours now to customer research so you can write a smashing book…than to skip this step, crank out a so-so book nobody buys, and wonder what the heck happened.

Because when you outline, write, and publish a book that people want to read, something strange and magical happens.

They buy your book.

Have you thought of using mind maps to thoroughly outline a non-fiction book? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Every day Joshua Lisec helps authors manifest the mission behind their voice. He is the founder of The Entrepreneur’s Wordsmith LLC, Ohio’s first Certified Professional Ghostwriter, a multiple-time #1 International Bestselling Ghostwriter, a Forbes Contributor ghostwriter, a TEDx speaker, and a two-time published novelist.

Since 2011, Joshua has ghostwritten forty books and has been featured in TED, TEDx, BBC Radio London, Foundr, American Express, Yahoo!, Fatherly, The Huffington Post, the Nonfiction Authors Association, and numerous other outlets. During a recent podcast, Dilbert comic creator and New York Times bestselling author Scott Adams recommended Joshua to aspiring authors who need help writing and publishing a book.

[Mind map image in sharing graphic from BigStockPhoto. All other images copyright Joshua Lisec.]

[For more tips on writing non-fiction, check out How to Write Non-Fiction: Turn your Knowledge into Words by Joanna Penn.]

Book Marketing: Engineer Your Book Launch Success With A DIY Strategy

November 6, 2019 by Creative Guest 1 Comment

When it comes to selling books, authors have two choices: hire someone to help or apply a do-it-yourself approach. As Boni Wagner-Stafford outlines in this post, there are several reasons why doing our own book marketing is worth the extra effort.

Those who want to write a book believe that writing the book is the hardest part. Those who have written a book soon discover that marketing the book is actually the bigger challenge.

There are a host of reasons for this, including that many writers prefer the intimate, one-on-one relationship with their keyboard over shouting anything about themselves or their book to anyone… However, your success is entirely in your hands and forethought and pre-planning your book marketing strategy will go a long way to achieving your goals.

What’s a Book Marketing Strategy?

Your book marketing strategy addresses:

why you’ve written your book
why the marketing strategy exists, and
what you’re going to do to market your book.

It provides the answer to the question, “What should I be doing today to market my book?”

Hire Help or DIY Your Book Marketing Strategy?

Before you run out and hire someone else to craft a book marketing strategy for you, here are four big reasons to do this yourself.

1. Knowledge

The research, rationale, and foundational knowledge you build through creating your book marketing strategy yourself is empowering. You’ll build an intimate knowledge of your target reader, where they buy books and what format they consume.

You’ll learn much more about the market into which you are launching your book and specifically how you’ll reach your audience. You’ll understand the broader environment into which you are launching your book, including the socio-economic factors at play with your audience. You’ll understand your methods, messages, and the mechanics of getting the word out about your book.

You’ll know precisely which promotional products you want to produce and where you’re going to use them. You’ll know which events you want to speak at and attend.

This will not happen to the same degree if you hire someone else to do the work.

2. Confidence

You’ll have an easier time speaking to others about your book and engaging with potential readers and influencers.

You already know your own content: creating your own book marketing strategy will build confidence about how to speak to your readers and influencers, how to engage in conversations about peripheral topics, and how to naturally insert the topic of your book into those conversations.

3. Clarity

You’ll know exactly where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. You’ll have created for yourself a marketing roadmap that you can follow from the beginning. No more driving in the dark without headlights.

And this is a map you’ll keep on referencing, over and over. It will steer your marketing approach, your content, your timing, your social media. You’ll be better equipped to deal with the challenge of volume: there is so much that it is possible to do. You’ll cut through the clutter by aligning what you will actually do with the objectives you want to achieve with your marketing.

It’s the best way to choose the marketing activities that are right for you and your book.

4. Cost

These strategies are big, long, and detailed, and hiring someone to produce a really good one can be pricey. Save your money on the front end so you can invest some of it on other marketing activities that you have researched — and because you have done the research you can make that investment knowing it will get you closer to your goals, whether those goals include selling 2,000 copies, reaching one million readers, or achieving bestseller status in one or more categories.

One Caveat

By creating your own book marketing strategy, you’ll see, understand, and connect the dots in the big picture first. You’ll end up with a plan of action that aligns with your purpose for writing the book.

What a book marketing strategy will not do — no matter who creates it and how innovative, good, or thorough it is — is make up for an inferior product. Your manuscript must be the best it can possibly be, which means professionally edited and proofread. (Your neighbor or best friend who loves to read does not count.) Your book cover must be professionally designed, meaning unless you are a designer you do not want a do-it-yourself cover.

Before you invest your precious time in building a marketing strategy, be sure you’ve invested the right amount of time and money into these foundational elements of your book.

[You can find more ideas for book marketing here.]

Have you given some thought to what your marketing strategy will look like for your next book launch? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Boni Wagner-Stafford is author of One Million Readers: The Definitive Guide to a Nonfiction Book Marketing Strategy that Saves Time, Money, and Sells More Books. She’s a writer, ghostwriter, and editor specializing in nonfiction and she manages communications and media relations for the Alliance of Independent Authors. She is also co-founder of Ingenium Books, where she coaches nonfiction authors writing in the genres of business, self-help, personal development, memoir, and journalistic nonfiction.

Boni, who has lived in more than fifty towns and cities in Canada, Mexico, and France, is currently residing in La Paz, Mexico.

Writing Tips: 6 Ways To Give Perfectionism The Boot

October 30, 2019 by Creative Guest 4 Comments

Perfectionism is a common issue for writers but successful, productive authors know how to deal with critical voice and work despite its presence. In this post, T. Thorn Coyle offers six ways to defeat the perfectionism that may be holding you back.

What does the word “perfect” mean to you?

How does perfectionism affect your creative process?

For some of us, perfectionism means we just never finish that story, or essay, or novel, or poem.

For others of us, perfectionism traps us in endless cycles of revision.

And for still others of us? Perfectionism leaves us riddled with self-doubt and paralyzed with the fear that we aren’t good enough. It can lead to comparison-itis, too.

So how do we deal with it? There are many ways, but here are six simple strategies to help us. Pick one or two to begin, and just try:

1. Name Your Critics

This may seem counterintuitive at first. Why would you want to name your critics?

Naming something helps us deal with it. Instead of some free-floating, critical anxiety getting us down, this helps us say, “Oh, right, that’s my Aunt Marge’s voice. She never likes anything.”

Whether we are naming our inner critics or that one-star reviewer on Amazon, sometimes the simple act of naming can help calm those voices down. It also helps us recognize that the whole world isn’t waiting for us to fail.

2. Banish Your Critics

Banishing our critical voices is often easier said than done. But starting with naming can help us pinpoint their agendas. Often these voices are trying to keep us small, or even safe. They might also be the voices of old friends or jealous colleagues that really would like nothing more than to see us crash and burn.

Both sets of these voices can constrict your creativity and stop your writing flow. So banish them. Tell them they are not welcome in your workspace, at your notebook, voice recorder, or computer.

They need to go somewhere else.

When you set out to write, take a breath, and imagine pushing those voices outside the circle of your workspace on one, big, long exhalation.

Then, claim your space and write.

3. Finish What You Write

Sometimes stalling out on a project is a sign that we need a different viewpoint, or a short break, or to do a specific piece of research.

However, often, stalling out on a project is a sign that we’ve given in to perfectionism. Our critical voice has been driving the bus.

We want to know the right way for the novel or essay or poem to go. We want to not waste time following some random intuition on what comes next. Or we’re bored and decide our whole manuscript is boring.

It’s important to finish what we write, because otherwise, perfectionism—and those critics—always wins. Finishing what we start allows us to practice. And practicing helps us become more skilled.

Find a thread that interests you and follow it until you’re ready to type “the end.”

[Note from Joanna: for more on defeating perfectionism, check out my book The Successful Author Mindset.]

4. Hold Your Creativity Lightly

Speaking of allowing ourselves to practice: As soon as we tense up around our writing, trying to make it perfect, the creative flow slows down and sometimes grinds to a halt.

Our stories—and essays, and blog posts, and poems—need not be perfect. They simply need to be the pieces of writing that they are. When we make our writing too precious, its importance looms, and the task becomes too heavy and too large.

Remember: creativity is fun! If your writing feels too much like a chore rather than a thing you look forward to, give yourself a break. Stop writing what you think you ought to be writing. Give yourself a day—or a week, or a month—to play. Write wild songs. Make up limericks. Get back to doing Morning Pages.*

Write for the sake of writing, because it’s something that you like to do.

5. Write the Next Sentence

One of my writing mentors, Dean Wesley Smith, advises us to always “write the next sentence.”

If your brain locks up, or you want to figure out what that right direction is? Just take a breath, drop back into the character’s point of view, and write the next sentence. And then the sentence after that.

Do you write non-fiction? The technique is similar. Take a breath. Release your attachment to what’s right and drop back into your topic. What’s the thread? Write the next sentence. And then the sentence after that.

6. Write and Release

This means you write the story that wants or needs to be written and—whether or not you think it’s any good—send it out into the world.

Sure, give it an edit first, but then post it to your website. Send it out for publication. Make a cover and blurb for it and upload it to all platforms for sale.

You might be surprised at the response. Someone out there will read what you’ve written. Your writing may give them a chance to think or offer one moment of enjoyment. It may even change their life.

And what if there is no response at all?

Well, you’re allowing yourself to practice, aren’t you?

And practice helps us continue to kick out our need for perfection.

Practicing keeps us in process. And the process of creativity? It’s a beautiful, messy, thing.

*The concept of Morning Pages comes from writer Julia Cameron. Three handwritten pages of whatever you want. I also like Natalie Goldberg’s version: set a timer for 5-10 minutes and don’t stop writing until it’s done. No cross-outs, no censoring. Just flow.

What strategies do you use to avoid letting perfectionism stop you from writing? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

T. Thorn Coyle is the author of two contemporary fantasy series—The Witches of Portland and The Panther Chronicles—and has written six books of non-fiction, plus countless stories, essays, and poems. Thorn also teaches creativity courses online—including Kicking Out Perfection— at Lifelong Creative. Check out their work at www.thorncoyle.com.

12 Book Translation Tips For Authors

October 25, 2019 by Creative Guest 9 Comments

Once authors have started to sell in their native language, many turn to new markets and translation is becoming more popular among indie authors as digital sales expand in other territories. I first translated books in 2014 but found the lack of marketing tools made sales almost impossible, so I pulled out in 2016.

But in recent months, I have gone back into translation, first in German, with an eye on other markets. We now have marketing options like auto-targeted Amazon Ads in some countries and digital sales are expanding. In this article, Ofer Tirosh offers some tips on what to consider if you are interested in translation.

Writing a book is hard enough in one language. But now that your blood, sweat, and tears have dried with the ink on your pages, you are probably thinking about maximizing the number of readers who can read what you wrote.

After completing your book and marketing in your native tongue, the natural next step is to translate your book for additional markets. Here are some questions and answers to get you started on this multilingual journey and offer some best practices and tips.

This article is intended primarily for authors who have published in one language and seek to expand their reach. The easiest way is by reaching beyond their local language and home markets to additional ones. But non-authors may find some valuable tidbits as well: translators or publishers who are considering expanding to new markets.

1. Is translation worth the extra effort and expense?

The first obvious question when considering book translation is this: Should I even bother?

The answer to this one is equally self-evident, IF (1) you have shown you can attract readers to your writing in your native tongue and country, and (2) want to reach more readers, and (3) the content of your book is of relevance to someone outside your homeland and home language, THEN the effort in terms of time and money of translation is low — relative to authoring new content. But read on….

[Note from Joanna: I would also add that you must have an ability to market your book in that language. Either you have to work with marketing partners, or you can use established methods of marketing like KU + Amazon Ads or Facebook Advertising. Without book marketing, you won't sell any books!]

2. Which foreign markets give you the biggest bang for your translation buck?

Obviously, the answer to this question will vary from book to book and market to market. Do your homework, and ask yourself the following sub-questions:

Which markets will find my book most interesting or relevant?
Which of these have the most readers?
Can I reach these readers through Amazon or do I need help with distribution and other platforms?
How much will each of these markets cost me to enter?
And are there ways to translate into multiple languages at once to get the best return on my investment?

All these questions require serious research. Don’t skimp. Weak research can cost you big time later. Once you decide where you want to go, the next question is how.

Who Will Translate Your Book for You?

There are two basic ways to do a professional book translation: with freelancers or translation agencies. Let’s consider both options, in that order.

3. Auditing the book translation process: How do you get a second opinion?

The usual way is with one translator per language, but we have learned that this approach is fraught with risk and can impact quality. Just like in medicine, it’s always a good idea to look around for several offers.

Even after you decide on one, do a small sample and then get a second opinion from another linguist in that language to check the work of the first. Then send the proofed work back to the translator and do a final round. Prepare all parties for this process in communications and in contracts. The incremental expense is an excellent investment to ensure the quality of your translation.

4. What are the pros and cons of working directly with freelance translators?

There are armies of freelance translators on offer for every language, and there are freelance platforms like Upwork, Freelancer and Fiverr from which to choose them. These platforms give you profiles for each, containing ratings and reviews.

So you can more easily and confidently make a selection, with that said, do an intensive vetting, as described in the answer just above and at the very end of the process, save something in your budget for an independent proofing round of the translation work.

[Note from Joanna: Other translation options are dedicated portals like Proz or TranslatorsCafe. LinkedIn is another place to search for translators, as is your national translators association.]

5. What are the advantages of working with professional translation agencies?

If you are not hard-pressed for cash, this is a no-brainer. A professional agency, with experience in books, is the fastest and easiest way to get a quality translation. The incremental cost you pay to a translation company would likely pay for itself with reduced time and aggravation.

Instead of vetting individual freelancers, and supervising their work, you have a professional translation management team, with already-vetted translators, with the translation agency assuming responsibility for the accuracy and meeting deadlines.

Typically, translation agencies will do a sample translation free or charge or at a nominal cost. An agency will also be able to more efficiently handle multiple languages at the same time or advise you about sequencing multilingual translations.

6. What are book translation services likely to cost?

Kindlepreneur assembled an excellent survey of dedicated book translation services. Babelcube will translate your book for free but take a hefty 15% from your royalties.

Most high-end book translation agencies will offer you a free quote for your job, while others provide per-word translation rates, starting for 2 or 3 cents per word for machine translation up to $0.15/word for human editing and translation.

Is Machine Translation a Viable Option for Authors or Translation Agencies?

7. Are there “do it yourself” translation tools for authors?

Faced with those sobering costs, there are freelancers and even authors who opt to work with machine translation software like Google Translate or DeepL and do it themselves. While book translation software or a book translation app may appear cheaper than working with an agency on a per-word basis – assuming that your time has no value — the result is likely to be gobbledygook in places.

You can ameliorate the situation if you work with an editor or proofreader in the target tongue, but then you can expect to pay rates of a freelancer on the low-end, or an agency on the high-end.

[Note from Joanna: I am in the final stages of producing 3 books in German. I used www.Deepl.com for the first draft and then worked with editors and proofreaders in German to perfect the manuscript. It has certainly cut down my translation costs but machine translation is definitely only a first draft!]

8. Which translation software services are used by translation agencies?

There’s an entire class of translation tools that support professional translation services. Software, as a service translation tool, like MemoQ, Smartling and SmartCat are targeted more towards translation companies, rather than individual authors. For the individual author, considering the acquisition of such software would be overkill.

How to go into a book translation project with eyes wide open

9. Do your homework

Look before you leap. Solicit multiple bids, get clear quotes from multiple freelance translators or book translation agencies, then collect (free) sample translation from your final candidates.

See if the candidate has experience working with books like yours in the target language. Check the ratings and reviews of the candidate’s book translation agency or translator. Review the contract for potential hidden costs or extra fees.

10. Understand the interaction

Check if you will have direct access to the translator or a project manager. Ascertain how much input and interaction you can have in the process, and whether you reserve the right to reject a translation without penalty or give feedback and corrections. Make sure you retain full ownership over your translations. Get a clear schedule, get a guarantee, and establish penalties for slippage.

11. Do the math

Given the word count of your original, what will be the total price of your translation project? How does the expected cost of translation compare with projected royalties?

Ultimately, book translation services costs that have an intelligent human agent are likely to average around $0.10 and go to twice that much, all in. You can expect a typical 60,000-word book to set you back at least $6000.

Look at the bottom line

Calculate how many foreign book units should be sold before you can break even with the cost for translation. Based on your research of the target market, you can project how likely it is that you will be making a profit. These are sobering considerations, but better to know now than to know later — that is, too late.

Have you considered translating your books into other languages? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Ofer Tirosh is CEO of Tomedes, a professional translation services and localization company that specializes in helping authors translate their books. Tomedes offers free, no-obligation quotes, supports more than 90 languages, and guarantees to fix without cost any error found in its translations for a full year.

Author Mindset: 4 Practices For Overcoming Self-Doubt

October 23, 2019 by Creative Guest 2 Comments

Every writer grapples with self-doubt, but how we deal with those thoughts and feelings can make the difference between a completed book and an unfulfilled dream. Psychotherapist Philip Kenney shares the practices that he and his clients use to enable them to keep writing.

The great novelist and short story writer, Flannery O’Connor once said,

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.”

Why is the great Flannery O’Connor losing her hair? And why do so many authors go through periods of despair or consider abandoning their vocation? Because writing is tough. It subjects perfectly capable people to bouts of insecurity, self-doubt and enough encounters with demoralizing rejections to last a dozen lifetimes.

Six months into the search for an agent and publisher for my first book, I found myself in a negative tailspin that is familiar to most writers: “You can’t write. Who are you kidding?”

Sound familiar? I considered stuffing the manuscript into the lower drawer of my desk. Writers die a thousand deaths in this way.

Writing is also exhilarating. A wonderful feeling of aliveness accompanies the work when we are in the flow.

The trouble is, at one time or another most authors are burdened by emotions that interfere with the magic of the creative process.

In thirty years of practicing psychotherapy, I have worked with countless authors suffering from the spell of self-reproach. These are talented people who struggle with persistent feelings of inadequacy. In nearly as many years as a writer, I have faced my own dark hours feeling the pain of the internal narrative that shouts, “You aren’t good enough!”

Even our most successful writers are subject to troubling insecurity and episodes of self-doubt, ultimately undermining their creativity. These pronouncements are terribly convincing and utterly false. We live many hours and days in a trance state. These spells of confusion come from deeply embedded feelings of shame that result in the kinds of negative self-talk we are all familiar with.

Shame may be the worst of our emotional distress. It is what causes us to shrink from exposure and inflate ourselves in search of recognition. Shame is like blueberry stains on a white t-shirt. We strive every day to rid ourselves of the stain that won’t go away by hiding our real self, straining to write a best-selling book and demanding the impossible of ourselves.

[Note from Joanna: For more on dealing with self-doubt check out my book The Successful Author Mindset.]

The Good Enough Approach

It takes a concerted effort to break these powerful trance states. What is bewildering to me, and my patients, is the passivity with which smart and otherwise proactive people allow these accusations to dominate their mood.

Every day, I am surprised by the helplessness my patients exhibit in the face of these attacks. Every day, I am surprised by my unquestioning acceptance of the opportunistic voice in me that takes advantage of any misstep to make me feel bad. It is dumbfounding. What can we do to help ourselves? How can we break the trance?

We are vulnerable beings. Vulnerable to the turbulent emotions that are part of a creative life. This should not be taken to mean that something is wrong. Sensitivity is at the heart of what connects us to the creative impulse. Though we are susceptible to these insecurities, we are not helpless.

And one of the great gifts of writing is that it affords us the possibility of waking up to our real self and the world. There is an approach we can develop that supports this opening and knowing, “I am good enough.”

This approach should not be mistaken for resignation to a shameful state of mediocrity. Far from it. To embody the sense of good enough is to experience self-support and grounding in one’s basic goodness. That grounding allows us to ride the waves of the creative journey with equilibrium and recognize the real value of our work.

These methods do not promise perfect stability; they are not a one-and-done solution, but they do suggest ways of empowering yourself in an ongoing relationship with your emotional life and the disruptive negativity of the mind.

The Practices

My approach involves three primary aspects of what I consider one force pulsing through our lives. The three energies that move us are the mind/body, the creative and the spiritual. Each has a particular quality that can be used to relate to vulnerability and cultivate a solid sense of yourself and your work.

1. The Mind

Working with highly charged negative self-talk. I call this the “Shame Brain.” We have seen the power of taking to the streets in protest and yet we have not recognized the possibility of using internal protest to stand up to self-talk. The next time you are besieged by the berating voice in your head, try confronting the Shame Brain.

The Mamma Bear Approach:

Stand up and say STOP. Say it firmly. Don’t be mad at yourself, just say STOP.
Say it firmly like you would to a child about to run into the street.
Say it like a Mamma Bear. Growl if you need to. It takes practice, but it works.
After you have said stop, and you feel a shift in your mind, use your senses to ground yourself to the present, to what is real around you.
Look, and see five objects in your surroundings. Really look at trees or clouds.
Listen, and hear five sounds. Really listen for birdsong, the wind in leaves.
Do this for all your senses. Be as fully engaged as you can. Get out of your head!

2. The Body: Connecting with your emotional world

Many writers live in their heads. They often feel overwhelmed by emotion and run away. The way to connect with the creative spirit goes through the heart.

This requires learning to tolerate discomfort and pain. Sorry, but moving away from feelings means severing the tie with yourself that enables the deepest connection with the core self and creative impulse.

Every day for five minutes, sit and feel into your body. Breath easily and try to experience as fully as possible the sensations, and emotions moving in your body.
When you encounter difficult feelings like disappointment or shame, do your best to stand in the experience. Breath deep and try to allow the emotion to be.
Know that these difficult states of being pass. They have a life of their own. If you have experienced trauma, you may think otherwise. They will pass.
Feel your feet! This will help to ground you, be in your body and stay with your feelings.

3. The Creative: Working with the “not good enough” internal narrative.

Time to edit and revise these stories! It is remarkable how one-dimensional the internal narratives become. Rewrite them as you would a good story. Revise, revise, revise. But first some editing.

The Socratic Approach: Question the unchallenged conclusions of your story.
For example: When negative narratives arise ask, “Why are these thoughts coming up right now?”
Asking this question, “How do you know that?” disempowers the negative voice of the trance state.
Asking of self-reproach, “Whose voice is this?” helps reverse the process of internalized judgement and creates distance from the shaming voice.
The Colbert Approach: What better ally than humor? Try Colbert’s method and flush out the absurdity of the inner critic. With a wry grin and a raised eyebrow, tickle that nasty voice, find the funny bone. Expose the ridiculous nature of these accusations: “Oh, so you’re saying that if I sit down and turn out an 80,000-word novel with no typos or mixed metaphors, THEN, I’ll be good enough.”
Now you are ready to revise. Challenge the stories. Use your creative brain to add complexity and nuance.
Include the multiple influences of history that go back generations.
Transform the story of your lacking into the story of empathy and self-recognition.

4. The Spiritual: Connecting with Being

I consider this pivotal to emotional equilibrium. I also consider it an existential reality.

Many of our great writers like Emerson and Whitman were inspired by the spiritual wisdom of Vedantic Literature. This is the perfect antidote to the state of mind that is preoccupied with proving its worth. Instead, this wisdom connects us directly with our basic goodness and the creative source. It allows us to simply be.

Meditation: Meditation is a fancy word for sitting with yourself just as you are.

Meditate on the simple presence that is you.
See if you can experience what T.S. Elliot named, “the still point.”
See if you can feel the awe in being as Toni Morrison does when she sits quietly each morning before beginning her writing practice.

Dedications: Give recognition and thanks to your ancestors. All the great writers who came before you. Know that you are touched by the same creative spirit. You belong.

Get out of your way: Dedicate the day’s writing to someone you love, or someone in trouble, rather than your cleverness.

Last Words

I suggest you meditate daily before beginning to write. Just sit and be still. Give your attention to your inner being, the simple inner presence that is you. This will ground you to that ineffable source that moves you to join it in creating.

Portland’s beloved poet, William Stafford, once beseeched us to pay careful attention because, “The darkness around us is deep.” How true.

The good enough approach goes a long way toward releasing writers from constricted emotions brought on by the cultural and psychological demands of a writer’s life. This approach helps liberate us from the psychological “Catch-22” of satisfying the ever-shifting criteria of enough.

Shift your attention instead to all the words and images coming through you that are remarkable. Start your day sitting with the quiet of yourself and experience “going on being.” Celebrate your connection with the creative spark that is bigger than any one of us and is the source of our inspiration.

How could that not be good enough?

What are your favorite methods for dealing with negative self-talk and the other types of thinking that get in the way of doing your work? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Philip Kenney is an author and psychotherapist living in Portland. His book, The Writer’s Crucible: Meditations on Emotion, Being and Creativity, was a finalist for The Red City Review 2018 Non-Fiction Book of the Year. His work is intended to support writers with the emotional vulnerabilities they face living a creative life.

Mr. Kenney is author of the novel, Radiance and a collection of poetry entitled, Where Roses Grow. In 2018 his essay, The Rebirth of Masculinity: What We Can Learn From Harvey Weinstein and Co. was published in issue #7 of The Timberline Review. Other essays, The Story of an Unlikely Writer and Revising the Not Good Enough Narrative can be found in The Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association’s Author Magazine.

To learn more about Philip please visit his website.

[Laptop image by Corinne Kutz and Unsplash.]