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What’s the story you can’t stop telling? Fran and Bethany are here to help you write, sell, and launch it.
Literary agent Bethany Saltman and bookstore owner Fran Hauser—also both critically acclaimed authors—host Bookbound, the podcast for non-fiction writers who want to learn how to transform their ideas, expertise, and obsessions into successful books and publishing deals. Fran and Bethany interview accomplished authors who share the strategies and surprises behind their bookbound journeys. These how-I-did-it conversations will inspire listeners to claim their own “author-ity” mindset and turn the story they can’t stop telling into a book the world needs to read.
To connect with the hosts and more, go to www.bookboundpodcast.com/
[00:00:00] Natalie Nixon: For most of us, our biggest leaps and next chapters have come from being on the precipice of that ambiguity, that gray. Yes. And what's required. When you're in that precipice, you must slow down. You must wrestle with it. You must ask for help, and you must kind of mine your own body of. Expertise, experience to help propel you to the next step into the next step.
[00:00:30] Bethany Saltman: Hi, I'm Bethany Saltman, a literary agent and award-winning author.
[00:00:34] Fran Hauser: And I'm Fran Hauser, a bestselling author and independent bookstore owner.
[00:00:39] Bethany Saltman: And this is the Bookbound podcast.
[00:00:41] Fran Hauser: On this podcast, we talk to women writers about their nonfiction books.
[00:00:46] Bethany Saltman: But instead of talking about what their book is about, we focus on the process of getting their book into the world.
[00:00:52] Fran Hauser: These how I did it, conversations will help you pitch your big idea,
[00:00:56] Bethany Saltman: write killer proposals,
[00:00:58] Fran Hauser: find the right agent and publisher,
[00:01:00] Bethany Saltman: and live an amazing Bookbound life.
[00:01:08] Bethany Saltman: Welcome to the show everyone. I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest, Dr. Natalie Nixon. Natalie known as the Creativity Whisperer to the C-Suite, is the CEO of Figure 8 Thinking, where she helps organizations harness Creativity for Business impact. Natalie's third book is Move, Think, Rest: Redefining Productivity & Our Relationship With Time. This conversation was so special because not only did we get to hear about Natalie's story behind her book, but we also explored how movement Thought and Rest can all play a powerful role in the writing process. We also discussed the importance of asking for help, partnering with the right people and so much more.
[00:01:48] Bethany Saltman: It was such an interesting conversation. We can't wait for you to listen and learn. Hey, Natalie, welcome to Bookbound. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Yay. We're so excited to talk to you. So we'd like to begin our episodes asking everybody a similar question, which is about how you discovered that the book you just wrote was in fact a book.
[00:02:12] Bethany Saltman: This is your second book. You have been in the leadership space for a long time, and so what was it that, that you've. Did you find yourself saying the same thing again and again? Were people asking you certain questions? What was the inflection point when you realized like, oh, this isn't just another conversation.
[00:02:30] Bethany Saltman: This is a book.
[00:02:31] Natalie Nixon: Well, this is actually my third book. My first book is the book I edited, so this is my second solely authored book, which as you guys know, is a different sort of writing journey and process, but Move, Think, Rest really evolved from, from my observation and through my practice as a creativity strategist that a lot of people were kind of silently, silently dying a slow death at work.
[00:02:54] Natalie Nixon: And it was also from my only personal observation of my work habits. Where I formally thought when I was procrastinating, I would step away from my desk. I would empty the dishwasher. I'd go for a walk, have a dance break, return to the work at hand, and find that my work was just a little better. I, my, my brain felt revived.
[00:03:14] Natalie Nixon: The synchronicity of ideas was a bit more seamless. I felt more energized about the work at hand. And, you know, the writing process is, is never a straight line. I had. Successfully launched into the world, The Creativity Leap, and was talking with my developmental editor, a dynamic developmental editor named, named Danielle Goodman.
[00:03:39] Natalie Nixon: And I had all mapped out my next book and I thought my next book was really gonna be a deep dive into Wonder. And Wonder is a whole dimension of creativity in my whole wonder rigor theory, and started pitching it and realized. That wasn't quite it. It wasn't quite hitting in the ways that I had hoped it would.
[00:04:00] Natalie Nixon: So I kind of hit like a dip and I thought, oh, then you know, what is the book? But then I just started paying attention to the ways that I was working and as an entrepreneur. I have some agency and freedom around the ways that I, I design my work days. And notice that, you know, as we'll get into with a lot of the principles of this book, that the ability, first of all, when you're an entrepreneur, I think you have to be a lot more mindful about self-care, self-awareness, mindset, those sorts of things.
[00:04:31] Natalie Nixon: So I'm just dedicating more time to what on paper may not be designated as work and yet. Those activities were actually adding value to my work. So it was this mixture of observing some of my clients kind of complaining off to the side that they were hitting these burnouts. They were just concerned about how was this work of applied creativity gonna stick, and then noticing my work habits.
[00:04:57] Fran Hauser: Interesting. And so did you at that point go back to your developmental editor and bring this up to her and say like, what do you think about this? Or what? Yeah,
[00:05:06] Natalie Nixon: I did. Well, I was working with a developmental editor named Danielle Goodman. I was also working with a, a great kind of book developer person in the industry named Megan Stevenson.
[00:05:14] Natalie Nixon: And between those conversations, that's when I started to really shift the direction of what became this book proposal.
[00:05:23] Fran Hauser: Yeah, and
[00:05:23] Natalie Nixon: what's also interesting is that. Once I realized that I wanted to talk about something, which initially I was calling invisible work, so when I look at the early. Original book proposal.
[00:05:34] Natalie Nixon: I was pitching it as this book called Invisible Work. I was always grappling with that language because I did not wanna conflate what I'm working on writing about as, as what feminists have called, you know, women's Invisible work, the work that women do that goes unaccounted for. So I remember that while I was being patient as invisible work, I knew that at some point I'd have to distinguish and not confuse people that this was not about, this was not like a gendered.
[00:06:02] Natalie Nixon: Sort of a topic that I'm interesting. Yeah.
[00:06:05] Bethany Saltman: Oh, now this is so interesting. You know, our listeners are, we love to get really granular because our listeners are in the process of developing their ideas and working on proposals. So would you mind telling us a little bit more about how did that work?
[00:06:19] Bethany Saltman: Because people always say or ask, if I go out with a proposal and people don't like it. Can I go back? So how did you, and usually the answer is no, because if people have already passed on something, it's really hard. You have to have a completely new idea. So tell us about how you returned to your original proposal and said, okay, I'm not just gonna do a couple tweaks, I'm going to redo this so that I can actually go back out.
[00:06:46] Natalie Nixon: Well, the first thing that was very different about this writing process and experience as distinguished from. Writing The Creativity Leap if I, because I do think that when I reflect back on, I think, I do think that's interesting. Then I, I will more directly answer your question, but the way I wrote The Creativity Leap, I was a total outsider to the publishing industry.
[00:07:06] Natalie Nixon: I did not have a literary agent. I went through 18 months of rejections of no, no, no, no, no. Around The Creativity Leap and I, I remember it was around January. 2018, I think. And I remember saying to John, my husband, I guess my ideas just don't matter. I guess I don't really have any good ideas because the answers I was getting from my proposal were either, yeah, this has already been said, or this is incredible, but we just don't have the bandwidth to take this on.
[00:07:36] Natalie Nixon: So either way, it was still a no. Sure. And my, my husband John, who's like my biggest encourager, he said, no, babe, I think your ideas are great. You already have one book out. I think you should keep trying. I was like. Okay. But I felt, I felt the metaphor I would use is that I felt sometimes like I was the unpopular girl at the party and no one was asking me to dance and no one was asking me if I even knew how to dance.
[00:07:57] Natalie Nixon: Like there was like nothing. Or I felt like I had a long nail manicure and stilettos and I was trying to claw my way up a stone castle wall and like getting nowhere. So, and the last ditch effort, this again, still talking about the creativity leave, I emailed seven people. I knew, when I say knew, I don't think I had ever met any of them in person, like email buds.
[00:08:22] Natalie Nixon: And one of those persons was Jim Gilmore, who was the co-author of the Experience Economy. I, I cited them in my PhD research and the nerd that I am, I emailed them happily, the PDF of my dissertation. I said, you guys, your work is so great and we just stay in touch over the years. Well, Jim got back to me and he said, this looks interesting.
[00:08:40] Natalie Nixon: I'm gonna, my, my email said, hi. You know, I had this proposal about this book. If it feels right for you, I would be so appreciative if you would share this with people in your publishing network. And if you don't, I totally understand that's what the email said. And Jim got back and said, sure, this looks interesting.
[00:08:57] Natalie Nixon: I'll share it. And he shared it with the VP of editorial at Berrett-Koehler and, uh, Neil Maillet and I had a call. He was very enthusiastic about the project and he said, I'll pitch this this week. We have a, a pitch meeting. And I thought, oh, that's so sweet. I, I was so used to getting nos, I was like, this is not gonna go anywhere.
[00:09:17] Natalie Nixon: I said, thank you so much, Neil. And, you know, hung up after a great call for like an hour and he's in San Francisco, I'm in Philly, and he said, if you don't hear anything by, you know, you should hear something from me by 5:00 PM So 5:00 PM that Thursday comes and goes, nothing. So I think, okay, another one bites the dust.
[00:09:32] Natalie Nixon: Forgetting that I'm in Philly. He's in San Francisco. Time difference. I get up Friday morning and there's an email from Neil saying, congratulations, we wanna offer you a book deal. Now, it should not be that hard to get, to get that entree that gate opened if you ha to share ideas. But, but that's currently kind of the way publishing works.
[00:09:51] Natalie Nixon: Fast forward creativity gave me great traction over five year run. I get to this point of, of, you know, figuring out is this a book about wonder? Is this a book about work? I worked with Megan Stevenson to help really polish. This book proposal that led to the introduction to a string of agents and I ended up working with Folio Literary.
[00:10:11] Natalie Nixon: So I now I have a literary agent and that literary agent, they helped to pitch me to like the top five publishers and I signed a deal with Hachette. Amazing. The other thing that I did very differently is I just had the scaffolding and the way that I wrote Move, Think, Rest, which is that. I hired back Danielle Goodman, the developmental editor, who had been introduced to me at the end of writing The Creativity Leap.
[00:10:36] Natalie Nixon: I hired her at the beginning of Move, think Rest. I hired a research assistant. And so when we think about writing as this kind of, I used to think of writing as a, a solo sport. It's really not. It's like when you see a, a track sprinter or a, or Olympiad swimmer, there's a whole team of people. Who helped to support their excellence.
[00:10:57] Natalie Nixon: And so that was a very different way to, to write that where I felt buttressed and I felt supported in really great ways. Wow.
[00:11:06] Fran Hauser: No, that's so wonderful. Did you and I, I really, I love that you shared the story for The Creativity Leap about how you emailed. Jim. Yeah. And just asked him, would you share this with people in your network?
[00:11:20] Fran Hauser: Right? Like when you don't have access to the people in publishing, there may be other people in your world who do. And so I just thought it was so, so smart. We've never heard that on the podcast, Bethany. Right. So I really love that you share that. Yeah,
[00:11:36] Bethany Saltman: no, it's great. And it's such a great reminder and we tell people this all the time, stay connected to people.
[00:11:41] Bethany Saltman: You know, and it's not just about what they can do for you, but you can be in relationship and over many, many, many years. I love that you shared, you know, you know this person because you used his research in your work and then you offered it back saying, Hey, look at how impactful you are. Yeah. That's a generous thing to do.
[00:12:03] Bethany Saltman: And then lo and behold. That's a connection that really helps you later on. So I absolutely love that. That's so important. Yeah. And you know, you said it shouldn't take that long, unfortunately. It often does, and you know, it takes as long as it takes. And I'm, I just love this story so much.
[00:12:19] Fran Hauser: I'm so glad you stuck with it.
[00:12:20] Fran Hauser: Yes. And so hase, did you know, like, tell, tell us about that meeting with them. Did you know like immediately that you wanted to go with them? Like, how did that feel for you?
[00:12:31] Natalie Nixon: Well, you know, I, I didn't know that that's how publishing works and that's how people get these incredible deals. It's a lot like dating, and I remember Megan Stevenson said that, you know, when you meet Steve and Jan, who are my agents at Folio, they're gonna take really good care of you.
[00:12:48] Natalie Nixon: And they're, they're really gone into be your advocates and usher you through. I was like, wow, like this is a, this is a different situation. And, and it really was like being courted. So it was, instead of me pitching and then. I mean, they pitch, you know, why, why this is such a great project, how timely this is.
[00:13:04] Natalie Nixon: But it was really these publishers trying to convince me that, that you really wanna publish this work under our house, under our umbrella. And I had never experienced that before. So it was, it really felt like being courted. And Megan told me, and, and Jan, Steve told me, they, they said, this is gonna feel like.
[00:13:24] Natalie Nixon: Dating and you know, I, I was single until I was 39. I got married when I was 39, and I used to get so bothered when older would say, oh honey, you'll just know when it's the right one. You'll know. I'm like, okay. Everyone keeps saying that, you know, but they, they were right. You know, when, when, when it's the right, when it's your person.
[00:13:41] Natalie Nixon: Kind of do know. Just easy. It's simple. It's that very intuitive nudge. Similarly. With Hachette. It was, and actually I, I, I ended up working with, with, with two editors in this writing process. So the editors kind of shifted midway through the process, which was turned out to be great. It was fine, but it was someone who clearly had read my proposal, was also familiar with my other work, understood why this work made sense.
[00:14:08] Natalie Nixon: Asked me really great questions, had really interesting answers to my questions, and again, at the end of the day. I, I felt like it was right. Come, so I used several data points. I used my intuition. I used the industry knowledge and expertise of my literary agents to kind of like fact check and triangulate how, what I was sensing.
[00:14:31] Natalie Nixon: If you know my work, you know, I'm really big into sense making. I'm really big into intuition combined with rational decision making. So it, it was all of those things combined and when you're, when you date. Dating is collecting data and you begin to be able to have comparisons about how this went and how you felt in this context versus other kind.
[00:14:51] Natalie Nixon: How this person you feel about myself, how much of my authentic self I was with this person. All those sorts of things I found similarly. Those were the signals I was paying attention to.
[00:15:01] Fran Hauser: So good. Oh my god, so, so good. And I'm so in reading. By the time this episode comes out, it will be out in the world.
[00:15:08] Fran Hauser: But Bethany and I received a digital, you know, a PDF. Version, and I really enjoy Natalie. I was reading through it last night. I love this concept so much this, this idea of, of movement and thought and rest and, and, and all of the good, like all of the opportunities that that can come out of those things.
[00:15:30] Fran Hauser: And I'm, I'm really curious to know, how did you apply this concept to your own, like writing process? Like when you think about movement thought rests, how did you apply it to the writing process and to really the whole like. Pitch process, proposal pro, like all of it.
[00:15:45] Natalie Nixon: Yeah, so I am a very kinesthetic learner.
[00:15:49] Natalie Nixon: I'm a lifelong dancer. I move and tinker in order to figure things out. I am a devoted daydreamer, and I wrote about this more much also in creativity leap, and I've talked a lot about how I take daydream breaks, how I really advocate for people to take timed daydream breaks. It can be 60 seconds long, two minutes long if you're feeling luxurious, 15 minutes long, but I already have in my daily habits and practices ways to step away.
[00:16:21] Natalie Nixon: And that's a big part of what I put into the meaning behind thinking about movement and thought and rest in, in my own book, but I book. But in terms of the writing process, I'll zone in on a very specific chapter of my writing experience for Move, Think, Rest. So as I already reflected on. Writing, move.
[00:16:43] Natalie Nixon: Think rest was a very different experience than writing The Creativity Leap. I got this book deal and I was, I was so great. Now write the book. And I was like, okay. And I have four, I had four months and I wrote it and it was a lot of feedback, which was very hard to take in the creativity and that's why they introduced me to Danielle Goodman, my developmental ed editor.
[00:17:01] Natalie Nixon: Fast forward. Now it's, it's time to, I've been doing all this qualitative research, a lot of one-on-one interviews I interviewed almost 60 people for, for Move, Think, Rest. It's time to start stitching it together. Like you have all your pattern pieces laid out or the ingredients for the recipe. Now comes the work of like helping you to make sense, which again, a developmental editor in my case was pivotal in, and John said to me, you know, babe, why don't you think about doing a writing retreat?
[00:17:28] Natalie Nixon: And I was like, oh no, I have, I have a beautiful home office. I wrote the creativity. Leave at home. I can do this. But there was a part of me after I went away from the conversation, I was like, it's not a bad idea. And it's kind of like what I'm writing about. Maybe I should explore doing a writing retreat.
[00:17:42] Natalie Nixon: Had not done that before. Step one was I blocked out. Two weeks on my calendar and it said writing retreat for two weeks in May. This was probably February of 2024, and that was terrifying because I am a global keynote speaker. That meant I was gonna say no to keynote invitations. I was gonna say no to calls, just two weeks of writing.
[00:18:11] Natalie Nixon: Step one was I wrote it down, I blocked out the time. Step number two was. Where am I gonna do this writing retreat? I texted seven different friends, colleagues, and I said, hi. I am taking a writing retreat between May 13th and May 28th, which was true. It was now on my calendar and I am envisioning waking up every day to write between 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM and then going into some turquoise water.
[00:18:39] Natalie Nixon: 'cause I, I'm also love swimming. I, I do a lot of open water swimming. Not by myself with groups, but I love swimming. I says, anyone have any recommendations? And within 45 minutes, one of those friends, my friend Ivy, Ivy Silver, she wrote back and she said, my beach site condo in Miami. I was like, yes, please, thank you.
[00:19:00] Natalie Nixon: And Ivy Lease meet to me at a very reasonable rate. Her beautiful Beachside condo, Miami Beach. So now I had the dates, I had the place. I had the work to do. Step three was I worked with Danielle to give me homework. I, I was a good co-op, a good student. I responded well to homework. I love getting like assignments and like, tick, tick, tick, tick, what to do.
[00:19:26] Natalie Nixon: So, so Danielle helped me to figure out, so my goal was to get three chapters written. I ended up writing two, so not bad. She gave me homework of my goals for each of what I would, uh, how, 'cause she had been working with me on, on the data and the, and the insights. I had all this great secondary research now from my research assistant and, uh, she helped me map out the plan.
[00:19:50] Natalie Nixon: And so I arrived in Miami and. I did a lot of, of, you know, cognitive front load thinking, but I would do, I would take breaks, just take a walk on the beach. I would have a question prompt for what I needed to fill in for this next section of the book. And I would, I, I love Otter, the, the dictation app. And I would, I would have the question, I would just walk along the beach and just like do a brain dump of my ideas and thoughts into the auto app.
[00:20:16] Natalie Nixon: And then I would. Upload it and just tweak it and just write, write, write, write. And then I would sign off at two o'clock and then I would take like a salsa class or have dinner with a friend who was in Miami, or like, go to an art gallery, go to sleep, wake up and do it all again. So in those ways, I was practicing what I preached in a very meta level to make sure I got in movement that I, I was, I was shifting my environment to prompt different sorts of thinking, and I was in a beautiful, restful.
[00:20:46] Natalie Nixon: Environment and made sure I got to sleep at at decent times. For me, between that would be ideally between nine and 10:00 PM to wake up refreshed and begin again. I love that. That
[00:20:57] Fran Hauser: sounds like a dream.
[00:20:58] Natalie Nixon: Yes. I really was able to manifest it. You know what else I think is, is the important thread that I take out of that exercise I.
[00:21:09] Natalie Nixon: Suspended judge judgment and listened to John's suggestion. Secondly, I asked for help when I texted those, those different friends and you know, our friends and angels are everywhere. You ne you never know where your help will come from if you don't ask for the help. You know, to acknowledge I, I don't know how to do this next step.
[00:21:30] Natalie Nixon: I think this could be a good idea. I've never tried this before. I'm just gonna try and. But you know who, who might help me in that process. And, and you know, I think people who write know that there's nothing romantic about writing. Like it's really hard and a lot of times you don't feel like doing it, but it's right.
[00:21:48] Natalie Nixon: The next word and the next word. And sometimes it just starts to flow and sometimes it doesn't. Right. So that process. Was some of the days it was really hard, you know, and I felt stymied and stuck. In other days I was like, okay, I'm feeling I'm getting some traction. Like I said, I didn't meet my full goal, but gosh, I had two good chapters done by the end of that.
[00:22:09] Natalie Nixon: That's amazing.
[00:22:13] Bethany Saltman: Hey there, Bookbound friends, if you're loving this interview, we've got something special for you. Our Read Like A Writer book club is back, and we'd love for you to join us. This isn't your typical book club. Each month we'll gather on Zoom to study one of the books we'll talk about here on the podcast.
[00:22:28] Bethany Saltman: Not just what we liked, but how it's written and why it works. In other words, we'll help you read like a writer, so you can write and publish your own book. It's $179 for five monthly sessions. You'll get the book list, related podcast episodes, a simple reading guide, and then we'll meet to discuss. That's it.
[00:22:47] Bethany Saltman: We're so excited to dive in with you because we love books, we love you, and we really love doing this amazing work with other women like you. Sign up today at bookboundpodcast.com/club. We can't wait to see you there.
[00:23:06] Fran Hauser: I, I actually, I was writing this morning and I got stuck and I said, you know, I'm just gonna go downstairs and. I'll just make a cup of coffee and have a little yogurt. I'll do like a little breakfast break, and I, I do this all the time, by the way. Like as soon as I'm feeling stuck, I'm like, I just gotta get up.
[00:23:20] Fran Hauser: I gotta like, just go do something else. Go for a little walk, go have, you know, and of course, like, while I'm like doing the yogurt and the coffee, like, okay, the unlock like, yeah, right. It comes to you and it's like, okay, alright, great. I can, I can work with that. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:35] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. And I
[00:23:36] Fran Hauser: also like, I really love Natalie, the idea of like the, the movement.
[00:23:42] Fran Hauser: And the rest I, I really get they're very intuitive. The thought part, which like a big part of that is reflecting and it's kind of like giving yourself the right prompts to reflect. I think that's really cool. Like this idea of like, you're walking on the beach and you give yourself a prompt. Yes.
[00:24:01] Fran Hauser: Actually, can you share some, can you share some prompts with us? Like if you're writing, can you share like a couple of prompts that we can ask ourselves to.
[00:24:09] Natalie Nixon: Oh, okay. Well, I can share. Yeah, I'm sorry. I can share. So, so I wanna make sure I don't, I, I wanna make sure we talk about like why physiologically in terms of the ways that our brain is designed, why that happens, right?
[00:24:20] Natalie Nixon: So let's make sure we, we touch on that. Yes,
[00:24:22] Fran Hauser: please. Okay.
[00:24:23] Natalie Nixon: But also the way I'm thinking about thoughts. And move, think rest is, I think of in terms of back casting and forecasting. And what I have found in a lot of our work environments is just about push, push, push, push, push, pushing, work out. And we're not actually given the time or space or we, we don't choose to design the space and time.
[00:24:46] Natalie Nixon: To reflect right, to pause. That is so essential for synthesis of the juicy bits of ideas. We also, not making time for the forecasting, which is about dreaming, imagining possibility, daydreaming, right? And then the present moment is kind of that, in that intuition of sitting with like that discomfort, like, I don't really know where this is going, or I don't it.
[00:25:08] Natalie Nixon: It's that ambiguity that if we're honest for most of us. Our biggest leaps and next chapters have come from being on the precipice of that ambiguity, that gray. Yes. And what's required. When you're in that precipice, you must slow down. You must wrestle with it. You must ask for help, and you must kind of mind your own body of expertise experience to help propel you to the next step, into the next step.
[00:25:40] Natalie Nixon: So. Questions. So I can't, maybe I'll think of a specific question I asked during those walks. I, it is not coming to me right now, but I, I think that more generally speaking, the sorts of questions we can ask is like, juxtapose someone who's totally different from you on the problem. So like, how would a five year-old approach this?
[00:25:59] Natalie Nixon: What would they have, would they think about this? How would an elderly person who like lived through the second World War, you might probably might be deceased, but Yeah. My, my mom, my mom is 85. She was born 1939. She's a little girl then. But like, how do they think about this? Right? So, so juxtaposing a, a person with a very different set of experiences, trying to see through that lens is one way to sort of shake up the way you've been thinking about it.
[00:26:21] Natalie Nixon: Another way to shake up the way you've been thinking about something is. To, it all ends up being deposing different sorts of geography, gender, age. If I were to speed this up, what's like, what's like the tricycle version of this idea? What's the motorcycle version of this idea? I love that. What's the Audi version of this idea?
[00:26:45] Natalie Nixon: And I think like when I work with, with clients and you know, teams to help them build their creative capacity a lot of the time. Where there becomes resistance or slow down and momentum is because we've only been working on the Audi version. Mm-hmm. And then you get a little like disenchanted, like it's gonna take so long and we don't have this and we don't have that.
[00:27:05] Natalie Nixon: What's the tricycle version? The stick figure, like scratch it out, prototype it, like duct tape it, like what's that version? Low hanging fruit. You totally could like, you know, what's that look like? And in writing, that might be a bullet point list, right? Then any sentence or paragraph yet that could be bullet points.
[00:27:25] Natalie Nixon: And then what's the motorcycle version, right? You can attain it, but it's gonna take a little bit more finessing and polishing. So those are the sorts of ways. I equip my brain and mind to exercise how to get out of a stuckness in my mind. That's so
[00:27:40] Bethany Saltman: good. You know, one of the things that I was thinking about as you were talking about your time in Miami, which is where I'm going next week, I cannot wait that I am doing a reading retreat, not a writing retreat.
[00:27:49] Bethany Saltman: But yeah, so you know, we talk a lot to people who are writing books and have. Big jobs, big families, you know, big ideas. And there is an element of grind that just has to be there. Like you have to get up early to do it, or it's not gonna happen, or you have to stay up late, you're gonna be tired, you know, you have to make a commitment.
[00:28:10] Bethany Saltman: And yet within that grind, there has to be that openness, that ability to say, you know what? I'm stuck. I'm gonna go empty the dishwasher. I'm gonna have some yogurt and I'm gonna unlock the thing. So both things are really necessary. And I think we, we think that it's one or the other. So I, I love what you're saying.
[00:28:29] Natalie Nixon: Well, can I, Bethany, just to build on that, that's actually my wonder rigor theory is that which comes from The Creativity Leap in the way I, I define creativity is that it's our ability to toggle between wonder and rigor to solve problems. So what you're calling the grind, I would call rigor. Rigor is not sexy.
[00:28:47] Natalie Nixon: Rigor means that you know the rules. Yes, you complete the task. You are disciplined. You are focused. Here's the thing, wonder is found in the midst of rigor. Absolutely. And rigor cannot be, rigor cannot be sustained without wonder. In other words, if you're only rigorous and only doing the grind, you will burn out.
[00:29:08] Natalie Nixon: Yeah. If you're only in the clouds all the time and it's not anchored in something, it's not gonna go anywhere. It's not gonna give you, you won't get anything done. Right. You won't get anything done. So you absolutely need to toggle between both all creative acts, whether you're an attorney, a farmer, a teacher, a writer, all of them, a scientist.
[00:29:28] Natalie Nixon: All of them need that. Yeah.
[00:29:30] Fran Hauser: I love it. Oh my gosh. So, Natalie, can we, I'd love to hear like we're you're a month out. From launch, which is so exciting. So what does your life look like right now, like with respect to this book? Are you, is the promotion starting for you? Events like te tell us what that looks like for you.
[00:29:48] Natalie Nixon: So, uh, very different from when I wrote The Creativity Leap. So first of all, creativity came in, came out in June of 2020. Yay, COVID. So I remember in March of 2020, I said to John. I mean, it may have been like April or May, I think it was April or May, and I said, you know, maybe I'll ask the publisher if we can like push off the release until September when all of this is over.
[00:30:15] Natalie Nixon: He said, yeah, I don't know. It is what it is. Just go with it, you know? And I was like, okay, I'll just go. So it was June of 2020. I had planned, like I was a big free library kid growing up in Philadelphia. I love libraries and we have a beautiful. Free library in on the parkway in our city, and I was gonna have an event on the rooftop and it's like kind of this kind of full circle moment for me as a Philly girl.
[00:30:41] Natalie Nixon: You know, doing this first solely off book didn't happen. I had to be very creative. It was totally a digital launch. It, it was a lot more global than I would've otherwise thought. This time around, I started back in like March for September launch day. I started back in March. Planning out a pre-ordered book strategy.
[00:31:03] Natalie Nixon: I have some really audacious goals for this book to make a list. You know, I don't really understand the qua of, of, of lists, but I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna swing for the fences. I'm gonna take my shot, right? It looks differently this time in that I am building in copies of the book for every keynote that is booked that, that I get booked, whether or not the keynote topic is specifically on.
[00:31:27] Natalie Nixon: The book and what I'm offering as a gift is a thank you, is a virtual experience later, so it's keynote plus to work with your team on the ideas behind the book. I am sharing out about the book on social media, some of the quotes from the book, people who I interviewed for the book, what they've had to say about the book.
[00:31:46] Natalie Nixon: Sharing out with my, with my email subscriber, he goes, I did none of that. Literally because I didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't know. So the book came when the creativity came out, it was like June. I was like, oh, our books come out. You were like, oh, okay. You know? And miraculously the creativity.
[00:32:03] Natalie Nixon: Made like Amazon, it was like am made. It was like Amazon number one in the creativity category for like three weeks. I don't even know how that happened 'cause I was like, did not know what I was doing. Had no help. Right. I think at that time, ladies, I don't even think I had an assistant. I might have had like a part-time assistant, which is a whole nother topic we could talk about as like.
[00:32:24] Natalie Nixon: Being a, an entrepreneur and a solopreneur and how you kind of begin to staff what you do. So this time I have a virtual assistant. I have a business manager who's been phenomenal. Blair has been phenomenal on helping me figure out my pre-order book strategy 'cause he knows. The keynote speaking industry.
[00:32:44] Natalie Nixon: He knows the publishing industry, so it's just a, a dynamo combination. I have a back pocket graphic designer and copywriter to help me, so like I have learned that the only way. I will be great at what my type of beautiful brain is good at is if I hire people who are really good at what their type of beautiful brain is at, and which, you know, work that I could do, but like, I'm not really great at it and it just detracts from what I am much better at.
[00:33:14] Natalie Nixon: So, so I have kind of this ensemble model is what is how I call it of people who are expert in what they're doing to help me do that. And we have a virtual event that will be in partnership with Creative Mornings. That's gonna happen on September 2nd. I think if we're starting at like 2:00 PM or we're, we're gonna be, you know, advertising that soon.
[00:33:35] Natalie Nixon: So I'm doing more partnerships. Right. We're having an in-person invitation only of it in Philly. I'm at a great place called the Fiddler Club that evening we're doing. A private event that someone has, has volunteered to host for me in New York City later that week doing a virtual event with two women's oriented groups.
[00:33:56] Natalie Nixon: I'm, I'm, I'm a member of later that week, planning something for London later in November 'cause I have to be in London already. So going to sings are conversation with other authors while I'm there. So I'm thinking much more expansively, I'm thinking much more strategically. I'm thinking much more in terms of partnerships.
[00:34:14] Natalie Nixon: In ways that I knew intellectually I should do last time around, but I didn't have the bandwidth to help to figure out how to do that.
[00:34:24] Fran Hauser: I'm so glad you brought up partnerships because you goal, you're
[00:34:27] Natalie Nixon: partner, you guys are partnering with me to help spread you. It's amazing. Totally grateful.
[00:34:32] Fran Hauser: Well, and because then you're tapping into somebody else's list, you know, it's like it's not just on you to be inviting.
[00:34:39] Fran Hauser: The people, but then they're also inviting their people, their network, their community, their organization. So yeah, so whenever you can partner, partner, it's really, yeah, ask for
[00:34:49] Natalie Nixon: help and ask for help. Ask for help and play. Would you, do you wanna collaborate on this? You know, it just, just, you, you have this, this copacetic co-marketing halo effect to, to amplify what each of you do.
[00:35:01] Fran Hauser: Natalie, as we wrap up any just. I don't know. Final advice for our, our listeners who are, you know, they're, they're either thinking about a nonfiction book or they're working on writing their book, or maybe they have a book coming out to the world and they're interested in the marketing piece. But just any la any final thoughts?
[00:35:20] Natalie Nixon: My final thoughts are to not give up if there's a seed of an idea that you have that you want to cultivate. And bring into the world. Do not give up again. I'll share again my failure story of having 18 months of nose, which is really hard, that that does not feel good. Right? Because I, I would speak about these ideas, and these ideas were resonating with people.
[00:35:44] Natalie Nixon: I was like, I. And not crazy like this is, this is sticking with people, but how do I get it? How do I package it as a book, right? So don't give up. Keep asking for help. Read a book that I read when I first left academia called The Art of Asking. That was a great book to help me in my mindset of sitting with knowing what I don't know and asking for help.
[00:36:04] Natalie Nixon: And I, I've always pretty much been good at that. Like I literally have built a career. Of asking, um, forgiveness, not permission. Mm-hmm. I, I've always been pretty diligent about that. So that tho those would be my pieces of advice. Amazing.
[00:36:20] Bethany Saltman: Natalie, thank you so much for sharing this with our listeners. They are in for a treat and, um, we wish you all the best with your book.
[00:36:29] Natalie Nixon: Thank you for your support. Thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure talking with you guys. Thanks.
[00:36:34] Fran Hauser: Thanks, Natalie.
[00:36:38] Fran Hauser: We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving a rating or review to help other writers find us. And don't forget to check out our read like a writer book club and our downloadable Bookbound proposal guide, both designed to support you as you bring your book idea to life.
[00:36:57] Fran Hauser: You can also find us on Instagram @bookbound_podcast. Happy writing.