Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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/
Lisa Marchiano [00:00:00]:
Saying, I'm going to write a book. There is some grandiosity in that. And I think, well, yeah, and you need some grandiosity to undertake something like this.
Bethany Saltman [00:00:11]:
My name is Bethany Saltman and I am an author and a best selling book coach.
Fran Hauser [00:00:17]:
And I'm Fran Hauser. I'm an author, a keynote speaker, and a publishing strategist. These how I did it conversations will inspire listeners to claim their own authority mindset and turn the story they can't stop telling into a book the world needs to read.
Bethany Saltman [00:00:32]:
This is Bookbound, the podcast created in partnership with share your genius. Lisa Marchiano is a jungian analyst and the co-host and creator of the popular podcast This Jungian Life. She's on the faculty of the CG Jung Institute of Philadelphia and lectures and teaches widely. Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself is her first book, and The Vital Spark: Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire is her second book. Her next book, written with her podcast co hosts Deb Stewart and Joseph Lee, is called Dream Wise and will be out in November 2024. In this amazing episode, Lisa walks us through her Bookbound journey of querying 85 agents, then learning how to refine and polish her main idea in order to get an actual deal. She also tells us about her process of writing 300 words a day in order to train the unconscious to write her book.
Bethany Saltman [00:01:30]:
This episode is filled with actionable and fascinating gems, and I can't wait for you all to listen. Hey, Lisa, thanks for joining us.
Lisa Marchiano [00:01:38]:
Glad to be here.
Bethany Saltman [00:01:40]:
So we like to start with this one specific question, and I'm really interested in your take on it because you've written two books now, so you're going to have a little bit of extra expertise here. So how do you know when something is a book, when it's more than an idea, more than an obsession, but it's an actual book?
Lisa Marchiano [00:01:58]:
Well, I suppose there's sort of like, when is it a book? Is there enough material? Which is a kind of content oriented answer? And then there's like, when is it a book that I have the energy to write? So, I mean, I think in terms of material, that's almost just something that you start to learn as you do it. I mean, I didn't have any idea how much material fit in a book when I started writing my first book, motherhood. You know, is it too much? Is it too little? I mean, I probably could have written three volumes of that, but sort of getting it right sized was a process with my most recent book, the Vital Spark. It's interesting, because people say, well, why made you decide to write the book? And literally, it was a podcast episode. So I have a podcast called this jungian life. And we did this podcast. You know, we just, like, pick a topic kind of relatively randomly. So that day we were like, oh, let's talk about, I don't know, female initiation.
Lisa Marchiano [00:02:55]:
So we did this episode called fierce female initiations. And I just was like, I had so many ideas. I didn't know I had that many ideas about that topic, but I had all these ideas, and I had all of these fairy tales. And of course, the motherhood and the vital spark are both kind of draped on these fairy tales. And it's kind of the way I've written the book. I realized, like, oh, my God, I had, like, five or six fairy tales just like that. And then literally finished the podcast episode, and I said to myself, oh, this is a book. This is a book.
Bethany Saltman [00:03:27]:
Wow.
Lisa Marchiano [00:03:28]:
And so, you know, for me, it was that sense. I mean, just, like, seeing the amount of material that I had, like, the amount of ideas. But then there's the second question. Is it a book that I, I want to say, need to write? And like you said, there's, you know, there's the obsession, but it is a sense of, like, it kind of won't leave you alone. So I think sometimes I'm definitely a type of person that has a lot of ideas, and I've tried to develop a conversation with myself around my ideas, where it's sort of like, well, some ideas are going to develop roots and they're going to grow, and some ideas, it's like those seeds that land on the pavement. It's just not going to take root. And that's okay. Like, that's actually fine.
Lisa Marchiano [00:04:13]:
I think I used to feel all this internal pressure. Like, every idea I have, I have to do it. I'm just like, no, you'll sort of know. So now when I get an idea, I'll make notes about it. Like, for a new book or something, I'll make notes about it, and then I'll see, like, I have a notebook, and I'll see if I keep on going back to the notebook and adding more thoughts, like, does it stay alive for me, or does it just sort of peter out? And it's like, no, there's not much there. So it has to do with, like, how much energy your psyche brings to it, which is largely, it's like, what does the unconscious think about it?
Bethany Saltman [00:04:47]:
That's amazing. So we always say it's the story you can't stop telling.
Lisa Marchiano [00:04:51]:
Mm hmm.
Bethany Saltman [00:04:52]:
It just goes and goes.
Lisa Marchiano [00:04:54]:
That sounds right.
Fran Hauser [00:04:55]:
Yeah. Or it also may just not be the right time. You know, like, it may be. It may resurface in the future, and I think just being open to that, too. Right. So, Lisa, I believe you published both of your books with. Sounds true. Is that correct?
Bethany Saltman [00:05:14]:
That is.
Fran Hauser [00:05:14]:
Okay, so tell us a little bit about how you got to them. Do you have an agent that you worked with, or just what did that process look like for you?
Lisa Marchiano [00:05:24]:
Yeah. When I was working on motherhood, and it was like, I just knew I had to write it. And I told myself, I'm going to try to get it published by a traditional publisher first. Then my next tier down was a jungian publisher, because there are several publishing houses, and all they do is publish things by jungian analysts. So I was pretty sure I could do that, at least. But it was a big step down for me because I didn't want to write a book for other jungian analysts. I wanted to write a book for people who maybe didn't know anything about Jung. But the same way I had been introduced to these ideas through wonderful books that were meant for a general audience.
Lisa Marchiano [00:06:07]:
So I knew that's who my audience was. And so I wanted a traditional, just a kind of mainstream publisher. And then I thought to myself, if I can't do a or b, I will self publish. So I had this kind of hierarchy, and then I started querying, and I did all the things you're supposed to do. I went to the bookstore, and I looked at books that were a little bit like mine, and I saw who published them, and, you know, books that I really liked, who the publisher was. And back in the nineties, Shambhala, which is a small independent publisher which publishes a lot. Now, they really focus on Buddhism, but in the nineties, they were doing Buddhism, but they were also doing a lot of jung. And, you know, so I was always like, well, that would be perfect.
Lisa Marchiano [00:06:50]:
Cause a lot of the books that I kind of cut my teeth on were Shambhala, but they're not doing that anymore. They're not like the jungian publisher anymore, but pretty much the kind of independent publisher in that sort of self help spirituality space is Soundstrue. So Soundstrew is always pretty much at the top of my list, but I knew that I would probably need an agent, so I started querying in 2011 or thereabouts, and I did, and I sold my book in 2019.
Bethany Saltman [00:07:25]:
There you go.
Lisa Marchiano [00:07:26]:
And in between. Right in between, there was a lot of revising. There was a lot of, you know, working on the book proposal, like stopping and taking a break, because I wasn't. I was getting feedback that told me it wasn't ready for prime time. But I just got myself an account over at is it called query tracker, I think is the site. And I just did, you know, they have, like, a search, like nonfiction, you know, mother parenting. I just, like, I just got, like, the list right. And then I went through the list, and I kind of said, these are my top choices.
Lisa Marchiano [00:08:01]:
Maybe they'd agent to, you know, this is all the stuff people tell you to do. Maybe they had agented a similar book or whatever. You know, at first, it was just. I was whistling into the wind. But as the proposal started to get better, I was getting some nibbles, but I had pretty much exhausted the list. You know, one of the things that's hard about it is, you know, there was someone that I queried early, early on, and she was immediately kind of interested. But then she didn't really respond to the full proposal very well, and my proposal was rough at that point.
Bethany Saltman [00:08:33]:
Yeah.
Lisa Marchiano [00:08:34]:
And I didn't. And, you know, maybe if I'd sent it to her, or maybe if at that point I'd had, like, the same proposal I wound up having, she would have picked it up right then. But in some sense, the proposal goes through refinement, in part because of what happens as you start querying. But it sort of feels like a high stakes game because you. You can't really submit the same proposal again.
Bethany Saltman [00:08:54]:
Right.
Lisa Marchiano [00:08:55]:
So you have to be very kind of thoughtful about how you let out your line, as it were, with the queries. But I was almost at the end of the list. I had queried, I think, like something like 85 agents, and I just had a few more that I hadn't queried. And I was like, all right, so the next thing is, I'm going to start just sending it directly to publishers. And I did, in fact, send it to sounds true just on my own, because sounds true will take direct submissions. And then Adriana Stamola from Stamola literary studio sent me an email and said, I'd like to talk. And it was interesting because I had queried her because she listed herself like she mostly had done cookbooks, but she said, I still remember this. She sat on her age and profile, interested in unusual takes on motherhood or whatever.
Lisa Marchiano [00:09:44]:
She had two little kids. She was twins, and I was like, oh, okay. So, I mean, that she said that's what she was looking for. And that's what I gave her. So, yeah, so I did have an agent. She sold it to soundstrue within something like six weeks.
Bethany Saltman [00:10:02]:
Wow.
Fran Hauser [00:10:03]:
Well, and it's also, like, the fact that you picked up on that detail, that she's interested. Right. Her focus is cookbooks. I mean, it would've been so easy to just kind of. Okay, not for me. Let me move on to the next one. But the fact that you picked up on that detail, it just also shows, like, when you're looking for an agent, it's like, it takes a lot of work. You gotta do the research.
Fran Hauser [00:10:25]:
You gotta, like, read. You really do.
Lisa Marchiano [00:10:28]:
And you have to feel like that sort of, you know, always hopeful kind of thing. You have to just sort of turn. Like, turn over every stone.
Bethany Saltman [00:10:38]:
Yes.
Lisa Marchiano [00:10:39]:
Instead of looking for, like, the big. The big win. I just want the mother lode. Cause you might find the gem under just that little rock there that you didn't look.
Bethany Saltman [00:10:47]:
Oh, my gosh. I have so many questions. First, I just want to say I'm so grateful for you telling us the story and walking us through the process, because one of the things I love about this work so much is that we all have these dreams of publishing a book, and it seems like it's inaccessible, but it's actually very accessible to the lay person. People respond to cold queries every single day, but you have to do the work. It's very accessible, but you have to really research how to do it. We think that there are gatekeepers and all these black boxes, and there are. But with a little bit of investigation, it's not like you're trying to pitch a film studio on your screenplay, which is really pretty not going to happen to the regular person, no matter how much googling you do or how many things you look up. It's such a wonderful reminder that this is something that you can do.
Bethany Saltman [00:11:46]:
You have to. Might have to pitch 85 people.
Lisa Marchiano [00:11:49]:
Right. But, you know, I remember at one point someone saying something like, it's harder to get an agent than it is to sell your book, because an agent won't pick you up unless they think you can sell your book. So I did kind of know that once I got an agent, it was like, that was the hurdle. Like, I did feel that. And also, in terms of doing. I mean, I will say Adriana said more than once, I can't believe I found you in the slush pile. You know? So I was like, really? You mean that? Like, that's not a common thing. So, I mean, it is.
Lisa Marchiano [00:12:16]:
It is hard but I, at some point, I said to myself, look, I really want to do this. And I realized that the people that do this are the people that just don't give up.
Bethany Saltman [00:12:24]:
Yes. It's so true. It's so true.
Lisa Marchiano [00:12:27]:
It's not like they're necessarily the most talented or the most, you know, it's like, no, the people who publish books are the people who just don't stop trying to publish a book. So there, there was that kind of dogged. And I did, you know, I did have a, I had a plan b and a plan C and to some extent, a plan d, so. Which, which helped, but, yeah, well, you.
Bethany Saltman [00:12:48]:
Have a lot of other things in your life which we're really excited to talk to you about. But for people who are working on proposals, do you think you could tell us a little bit about how your proposal went from getting nothing to getting nibbles to getting taken and then getting sold?
Lisa Marchiano [00:13:04]:
So I started writing the proposal in 2011, and at that point, I bought probably, like, a couple of books because that's what I always do when I want to learn something new. So it's like how to write a nonfiction book proposal. And I did it. I followed the directions, and I looked at, I think maybe I found samples online, and I had a proposal. But it's interesting because one of the things that happened was I was querying and I was getting some nibbles back in 2011, and one agent looked at, she said, I'm going to pass. She said, it's an interesting idea, but you don't have one main idea. And I remember she mentioned women who run with wolves had this one main idea, and yours doesn't have that sharp focus. And I was like, oh, and the thing is, I did have a main idea, but it wasn't an idea that I could, I didn't know how to express it, because the main idea was motherhood is an individuation opportunity.
Lisa Marchiano [00:14:02]:
I never say that anywhere in motherhood. I don't think. Well, maybe I do, but no one knows what individuation is, right? That's jungian jargon. And so it means a lot to me, but it doesn't mean a lot to most people. So I was trying to figure out, how do I convey that to people? And so that really sent me off back working on the proposal again, from an idea perspective, I really appreciated that feedback because it showed me kind of where the weakness was. And I really took a long time off after that, trying to, like, figure out how to just hone the, like, the main idea and the structure and everything. And so I did a lot of that. Oh, and also, I needed a platform.
Lisa Marchiano [00:14:43]:
I needed a platform, so. And in 2011, you didn't need an author platform quite as much as you did later. But, you know, so in all that mix, I was like, well, let me figure out social media, and let me try to, like, publish a few other pieces. And I. I don't know how you get a platform. You know, it's like, I wasn't even on Facebook at that point, I think. So I was like, oh, God, I've got to do all this stuff. But I really wanted to do it, so I did it.
Lisa Marchiano [00:15:11]:
And then what really made a big difference, actually, was in 2015, I took a class with creative nonfiction. Creative nonfiction. The journal, the magazine, used to have online classes, and they had a class called how to write a nonfiction book proposal. And it was such a great class. Waverly Fitzgerald was the teacher, and she has since passed away. And I actually thank her in motherhood because she was just so instrumental. But it was so great because, you know, it was just one of these little online courses. I don't even think there was a live component, but there was just like a.
Lisa Marchiano [00:15:51]:
Here's the first week, and it walked you through it, which that was new. You need this, and then you need this, and the first thing to do is this, and then you do this. It was just so helpful. Plus, you got feedback and encouragement, and there was someone you could ask questions of. So, by the time I finished that process with creative nonfiction, because then I took another. I took it. I already had a few chapters, but I didn't have the first three chapters. And that was one thing that Waverly said.
Lisa Marchiano [00:16:23]:
She goes, now you need the first three.
Bethany Saltman [00:16:25]:
Interesting.
Lisa Marchiano [00:16:26]:
So then I went back, and I wrote three more chapters, and at the end of that, so then I had a full proposal, and then these three chapters, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. I mean, it still went through some refinement, but that was the big leap up, was taking that class.
Bethany Saltman [00:16:44]:
Hey, friends. Sorry for the interruption. But since we know how much you love learning about the path publication, we're so excited to tell you about an ebook we wrote just for you, quite literally. As you might know, in non fiction publishing, authors don't sell full manuscripts. They sell proposals. A proposal is essentially a business plan for your book, helping agents and editors visualize it on the shelves and on the bestseller lists. We've talked to so many people, including the successful authors we interview on this podcast who didn't know where to turn for really detailed advice on how to write that proposal. Sure, there are lots of great templates floating around the Internet, but we wanted to help you go deeper.
Bethany Saltman [00:17:26]:
That's where our book comes in. Bookbound, a tried and true method for turning your great idea into a standout non fiction book proposal, will be available for download soon for just $19.99. Friend and I are obsessed with helping people just like you develop themselves as writers and authors. And we know that not everyone can afford one on one or even group coaching, so we wanted to create something very accessible just for you. So head on over to www.Bookboundpodcast.com ebook to sign up to be the first to know when the ebook is ready again, just go over to www.Bookboundpodcast.com slash ebook to sign up to be the first to know when the ebook is ready for downloading for just $19.99. We hope you love it. Back to the podcast.
Fran Hauser [00:18:19]:
Bethany, I was just going to say, and like, you were open to that feedback, right? You were getting feedback all along. This idea of like sharpening the focus and just having this like one main idea, building your author platform and how important a piece that is, you know, of the proposal. And then you're like, I want to go take this class. I want to just keep getting better at this. I think just being really curious and open to feedback and knowing what you don't know or, you know, like the learning process is something that's just really, it's just such an important part of this. I just want to make sure that our listeners are hearing this. This is such great advice.
Bethany Saltman [00:18:58]:
Really, really, it is. And I love the idea of the focused idea. We talk, when we talk to students about finding your guiding image, metaphor or trope and sometimes archetype, and how can that shape the whole book? And it's probably in your title, the first part of your title, and it will help you find an organizing principle. And, you know, you have to have something where the energy is all, where everything is going into one focused place. So that is, that's really helpful.
Lisa Marchiano [00:19:29]:
Wow. Well, and while I was in that process of trying to find the central idea, I really struggled. I tried this, I tried this thing, I tried that thing. Nothing really quite worked. And then I said, well, let me try a fairy tale because that's my thing. And there were fairy tales throughout the book. And I was talking with a friend and she said, well, take a look at this fairy tale. And she told me about the two caskets, which is the fairy tale that kind of opens the book and provides the structure.
Lisa Marchiano [00:19:55]:
So the working title for motherhood was down the deep well. And that is just like you're saying, Bethany, that's that image. Right. Because the book is in three parts. The first part, you go down the well, then you spend some time down there, and then you come back. And, of course, I mean, this is an archetypal idea. And there's all these other. I could kind of link it to initiation and all these other things, but the image provided the structure, and then it was very easy to kind of convey that.
Lisa Marchiano [00:20:26]:
There are these losses that come with being a mother. There are these things that you grapple with, and then there are these boons that you come back with, these gifts that you come back with.
Bethany Saltman [00:20:35]:
Amazing. So why did the title change?
Lisa Marchiano [00:20:38]:
Well, let's put it this way. I now have another book that's going to be out in November, and all three of these books are by. Sounds true. And every single time there's a working title. And then the marketing team comes back and says, let's call it this. And that process of titling. I always just kind of feel like, look, the marketing people get this better than I do.
Bethany Saltman [00:20:58]:
Yeah, totally.
Fran Hauser [00:20:59]:
You know what they're doing?
Lisa Marchiano [00:21:01]:
I think they do, and I don't.
Fran Hauser [00:21:03]:
So, yeah, don't get attached to the title. We always say that. Don't get attached.
Bethany Saltman [00:21:08]:
Don't get attached to anything.
Fran Hauser [00:21:09]:
Yeah, don't get attached to anything. Really? Not one thing.
Bethany Saltman [00:21:12]:
Well, okay. So you just dropped a little gem there. So we have another book coming out. When?
Lisa Marchiano [00:21:17]:
November 12. It is called Dream Wise, unlocking the meaning of your dreams. And I've written it with Deb Stewart and Joseph Lee from our podcast, this union life. And I'm super excited about it. It is a real kind of dream interpretation handbook.
Bethany Saltman [00:21:36]:
Wow.
Lisa Marchiano [00:21:36]:
That, I think, is both, like, deep and thorough and very accessible and hopefully kind of fun, too.
Bethany Saltman [00:21:44]:
Wow. Congratulations. That's huge.
Lisa Marchiano [00:21:47]:
Thank you.
Fran Hauser [00:21:48]:
Amazing.
Lisa Marchiano [00:21:49]:
Yes.
Fran Hauser [00:21:49]:
Yeah. We had no idea. Breaking news, Bethany.
Bethany Saltman [00:21:53]:
Totally breaking news. Yeah. No, that's amazing. Well, that leads right into another question that I have. You are really, you know, you're an author, you're a writer, you're also a business person. You're a solopreneur. I guess you could say, you have the book, you have the brand, you have the business. The podcast is huge.
Bethany Saltman [00:22:12]:
Congratulations on that. It's gotten so much amazing attention. So how do you understand, like, the role of your writing and your books in the whole big stew of everything that you do, including a private practice.
Lisa Marchiano [00:22:26]:
You know, I mean, I feel so lucky because I do have these different parts of my job, and I do love them all. I love being a clinician. I love being an analyst, and I do spend many hours a week just sitting right here in this chair. Someone else sits that couch behind me. And it's just. It's incredible honor and privilege to be able to participate in people's life stories in that way. And I love the podcast and do have a couple kind of online businesses that are sort of related. But I really love writing.
Lisa Marchiano [00:23:01]:
I really, really love writing. And I've, you know, I'm one of those people that, like, when I was four, I was like, I want to be a writer. So it's something I've always known I wanted to do. It really is like a dream come true to have done it and to be able to do it. I really pretty much love every aspect of it. I don't like getting permissions. That's like one thing I don't like. So the whole process is just really great for me.
Lisa Marchiano [00:23:25]:
And in some ways, the books feed the practice. The practice feed the books, because a lot of what I know, I know because of the work I've done with people, and that feeds me, and that gives me new ideas. And in some sense, the books feel like my legacy. So I'm very aware of when I think about what I want for a book, it's like, well, God, it would be so great if it were still around. Maybe not even in print, but just like one of those books that, I mean, hopefully in print, that would be the best. But if ten years from now, mothers were still telling each other, oh, you got to read this book by Lisa Marchiano, or. Or women were talking about the vital spark, or people were still buying the dream book, it's nice to think about the kind of lasting impact, and you don't know how many people's lives you've touched. And it says a really kind of wide ripple.
Lisa Marchiano [00:24:26]:
And that's really satisfying.
Bethany Saltman [00:24:28]:
Yes, indeed.
Lisa Marchiano [00:24:29]:
The books don't make money, though. I should say that.
Fran Hauser [00:24:33]:
Well, so that's the thing, Lisa. For you, it sounds like your why for these books is legacy and impact. And it's so beautiful. Just like, having that clarity and going into the process, knowing that that's your why, those are your goals. And it's helpful because then every decision that you make along the way, whether it's about the writing, the publishing, the marketing, it can all kind of ladder back to that. Why it just makes the whole decision making process. It brings clarity. So I love hearing that you said, which was really fun to hear that you enjoy the marketing and that you enjoy coming up with creative ideas.
Fran Hauser [00:25:20]:
Could you share one or two creative marketing ideas for any of the three books?
Lisa Marchiano [00:25:25]:
Yeah. So with a vital spark, for example, I mean, this isn't exactly a marketing idea, but it's kind of close. So I just had an inspiration to start an online women's fairy tale community. So community is called spinningstraw.com. and right now we're working through the fairy tales in the book, but when those are finished, we're going to keep on going with fairy tales that kind of have a sort of significance for women's psychological development. And we do a different fairytale every month and we share the tale and there are prompts and there's a live. And, I mean, in the beginning it was like, okay, you know, pre order the book and you can get, you know, I forget how many free months to a spinning star. I forget wasn't, I think it was three months, actually.
Lisa Marchiano [00:26:10]:
So it was like kind of a tie into the book and it was a way to market the book and now it's a way to help people engage with the book. And, you know, the group kind of supports the book and the book kind of supports the group. So that's fun. And then for Dream Wise, I'm really excited because we're going to do two things with it. We're going to start a project that we're calling Dream ography, where every month for twelve months we're going to spend one podcast episode discussing a particular type of dream. And what I mean by that is like dreams about dogs, dreams about weddings and solicit people's dreams. So we get a whole bunch of dog dreams, for example, and then we'll talk about dog dreams on the podcast and then have that be on the website. And, you know, it's like a kind of a standalone blog piece.
Lisa Marchiano [00:26:57]:
And when people submit their dog dreams, they're going to be entered into a drawing for a free copy of Dream Wise. That will go for twelve months. And then once the dust settles a little bit, probably in January, we're going to start a dream telepathy project. So again, you'll sign up, you'll sign up to an email list, you'll be entered into a drawing for the book, but also you'll get an email saying, hey, tonight we're going to be broadcasting and one of the three of us is going to pick an image. We're going to focus on the image. We'll try to take into account time zones, but we'll focus on an image. And you can tune in as a dreamer and see if you have a dream that maybe picks up the image that we were focusing on. And there will be a follow up and a way to rate.
Lisa Marchiano [00:27:42]:
Tell us your dream and rate whether or not how close of a hit it was with the selected image. So I think that's going to be really fun. It was inspired by some research that was actually done at Maimonides and I think the seventies by Montague Ullman, a famous dream researcher.
Bethany Saltman [00:28:00]:
Wow.
Lisa Marchiano [00:28:01]:
So we'll see.
Bethany Saltman [00:28:02]:
Well, you had said, you don't know. This is marketing. This is the best.
Fran Hauser [00:28:06]:
It's definitely marketing.
Bethany Saltman [00:28:07]:
Like, genius, brilliant, wonderful, so human, so authentic, so organic. I mean, this is the best kind of marketing. That's incredible.
Fran Hauser [00:28:17]:
I love the idea of, like, you're building this community, and then you're encouraging people to buy the book to get access to the community. That's cool. That's like, I like how that all kind of it all just feeds into each other, because then the community, they'll end up being your biggest ambassadors. They'll amplify and, you know, promote the book. So I just. I love it.
Bethany Saltman [00:28:39]:
And you get to learn all along the way, which obviously is a top priority for you.
Lisa Marchiano [00:28:44]:
It's so incredible about community. It's really. It's an amazing, amazing group of women who just have so much wisdom. It's fun to spend time over there.
Bethany Saltman [00:28:54]:
So I can't help. I'm thinking, okay, how many hours does Lisa. Lisa have in a day? So can you talk us through your schedule a little bit? And especially your writing practice. When do you write? How do you do it? Because you're doing a lot.
Lisa Marchiano [00:29:09]:
Yeah. Well, and this is another thing that I actually owe to Waverly Fitzgerald and creative nonfiction, because she said, oh, you need the first three chapters. And I was like, but then they offered. She was offering a writer's boot camp, and the goal in the writer's bootcamp was to write 300 words a day. And so I just started writing those first three chapters in that writer's boot camp class, and I found out that, like, if you write 300 words every day, you get a book pretty fast.
Bethany Saltman [00:29:41]:
Yeah.
Lisa Marchiano [00:29:42]:
And it's not that painful. And I realized something that, you know, writing is really painful, and the quality of it isn't good. And I'm obviously speaking about nonfiction, but I'm imagining something is also, something similar is also true for fiction. When you try to go ahead of where your thoughts have been when you're trying to write ahead of your thinking. For me, it is agony, and the quality is never very good, but when you're writing 300 words a day. So this is my metaphor, because I told you I love fairy tales. So do you know the story of the elves and the shoemaker?
Bethany Saltman [00:30:18]:
Maybe.
Lisa Marchiano [00:30:19]:
Okay, so the elves and the shoemaker is a. Is a Grimm's fairy tale. It's a very sweet tale. So here's the story. So there was a shoemaker who had fallen on hard times, and he hardly had enough food to feed his family. And one night he'd run out of enough, you know, he'd run out of money to buy more leather for the shoes. And he just had. He just had enough leather for one pair of shoes.
Lisa Marchiano [00:30:40]:
So he didn't know what to do. But he cut out the leather that night. And then he went to bed, and in the morning, he woke up and there was this beautiful pair of shoes waiting on his workbench. And he didn't know how it happened, but he was able to sell those shoes for so much that the next day he could buy enough leather for two pairs of shoes. And also enough, he had enough money left over to buy food for dinner. So he did the same thing that night. He cut out the leather, and he left on his workbench. And in the morning, there were four beautiful pairs of shoes, and on like that.
Lisa Marchiano [00:31:13]:
So eventually, he's very prosperous, and you can imagine that, you know, it was these little helpful elves that came at night and sewed up these beautiful shoes. So to me, writing 300 words a day is a little bit like being the shoemaker, because I do a little bit of work, and then I set it aside. You know, I get in the shower, I go for a run, I start my day, whatever, and it's like the unconscious has taken that little 300 words. It's like cutting out the leather, right? It's just a little bit. But the unconscious takes it and keeps on working on it all day and all night. So the next morning when I sit down, I know exactly what I need to do. I already have the idea, and I just have to put it into words. And then after about 300 words, I'm mostly done with that idea.
Lisa Marchiano [00:32:04]:
It's not like some people say, I could never do that because I just want to write for hours. Well, that might be true for some people. It's not true for me because in general, I don't know. Excuse me, what the f. I'm going to say next right. Or maybe I have only the vaguest idea. Like, I know. I know what the chapter is about, but I don't know the next.
Lisa Marchiano [00:32:21]:
I don't know the next paragraph, I don't know the next idea, but I write those 300 words, and then I go do my day, and the next morning I'm like, oh, yeah, it's this. So it's a. It's, you know, and it's not like every single day is an aha. But the other thing about writing 300 words a day is you can always do it. It takes about, if you're really steaming along, it could take 15 or 20 minutes, but it usually doesn't take any more than half an hour. Yes, I would set my alarm and get up a little bit earlier, but not that much earlier. It's not like, oh, it's 04:00 in the morning, and I have to get up and write now. It's like, set the alarm for 530 instead of six.
Lisa Marchiano [00:32:59]:
Sit down, put your butt in the chair, write 300 words. Even if they suck, it's okay, you can hammer it out later. But it just. And just little by little, it accrues. So that's how I like to write is just very kind of incrementally, because that's kind of how my ideas develop. My ideas mostly develop incrementally. And the hardest part about writing is the thinking.
Bethany Saltman [00:33:24]:
Yes, yes. There are two kinds of writers, planners and pantsers. As in, like by the seat of your pants. What you're describing is a very intentional way of being a pantser, because what you said is so important. And I can totally relate when I'm trying to write outside of my ideas. It's just. It's painful. I don't know how to do it.
Bethany Saltman [00:33:46]:
So you can have a big outline, have your intention and your vow, if you will, but you're right. You won't necessarily know exactly what you're going to hit or what you think exactly, until get out there and do it. But to do it incrementally and intentionally, you're planning the pantsing.
Lisa Marchiano [00:34:03]:
Yeah. And I'm inviting the unconscious into the process, too. Oh, good.
Bethany Saltman [00:34:07]:
Oh, my gosh. When you start writing down your dreams, and lo and behold, you start remembering.
Fran Hauser [00:34:11]:
Them more so throughout the day. Right. You're inviting your unconscious in and you're accruing and you're iterating and coming up with, you know, different takes or different points of view, or are you noting any of that down? Like, are you doing any voice recordings throughout the day? Are you jotting stuff down, or can you trust that, like, the next morning, it's all still going to be there?
Lisa Marchiano [00:34:38]:
No, it's much better if I can write it down. So, and, of course, when it's, when things are really popping, I might have a thought in the shower, and then I get out of the shower and I go write it down, and then it might be that there's kind of a synchronicity. And one of the, you know, my, my 930 patient is talking about this thing that's, like, exactly what I was thinking about. Or I, this happened a couple times with the vital spark where I was working on some issue and someone brings in a dream, I'm like, that's the perfect dream, you know? So, yeah, no, it really, I really, I need to write it down because it will kind of go. It will go away. So I usually just write it down. I mean, I do have, like, a notebook where I write down ideas, but a lot of times, you know, literally, if you're in the kitchen making dinner and the idea comes to you, I just put it down in the notes app on my phone.
Fran Hauser [00:35:25]:
Yeah.
Bethany Saltman [00:35:26]:
So, good. So if, what would you say to a beginning writer? What would be, like, your top bit of advice?
Lisa Marchiano [00:35:34]:
Well, I mean, I think that it would sort of depend on what that person were writing and where that, you know, there are those people who say, I'm going to write a book, and saying, I'm going to write a book. There is some grandiosity in that. And I think, well, yeah, and you need some grandiosity to undertake something like this. So that kind of sense that, like, well, I'm going to do this amazing thing. So there are people who feel like, I'd really like to do that, but I couldn't ever do it. In other words, they need to kind of cultivate the grandiosity. Well, you might. And then there are people, and I've met many of these, too, who say, well, I'm going to write a book, and it's going to be really, you know, I'm going to write it.
Lisa Marchiano [00:36:14]:
It's going to be the great american novel, and I'm sure I'll sell it to HarperCollins right away. And it's like, well, I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe it's not going to happen like that. But I suppose if you're a new writer and this is really important to you and you have the story you can't stop telling, as you're saying, then just buckle up, because it's a long road. It's so easy to get discouraged. It's easy to get discouraged. So it's sort of like, okay, this is going to be like climbing a mountainous.
Lisa Marchiano [00:36:50]:
It's just going to take a long time, and it's all going to be uphill. But if I just kind of put 1ft in front of the other, I will eventually arrive at the top.
Fran Hauser [00:36:58]:
Yeah. Going into it, eyes wide open with some Sherpa. Yeah. And you're right. Knowing that there are going to be a lot of objections and rejections and that it's part of the process and that, you know, what we hear from a lot of the authors that we talk to, too, is that it's those objections and those rejections that actually make the book even better if you're open to the feedback. Right. So. But Lisa, we're so grateful for you.
Fran Hauser [00:37:26]:
Thank you. Thank you for your time and your energy and your wisdom. And I just feel like I've learned so much from listening to you, not just about the process, the book publishing process, which Bethany and I have been through ourselves many times. And we help others go through the process. But even just hearing about the intentionality, the energy, the way that we show up, like, just all of that has been so incredibly helpful. So thank you. And please let our listeners know what is the best way to stay connected with you. Where can they find you?
Lisa Marchiano [00:38:04]:
You can check me out at lisamarchiano.com and I can read about my books, and you can find out about women's retreats or Spinning Straw. And you can also check out my podcast, which isThis Jungian Life. and there's lots of good stuff over there, too, including dream school, which is our twelve month online learning platform to learn how to interpret your dreams. And you can also sign up for our email newsletter in either spot to find out about the release of Dream Wise, which is coming up in a few months, and all the good stuff that's going to go on with that.
Bethany Saltman [00:38:41]:
Amazing. Congratulations on everything.
Fran Hauser [00:38:43]:
Yes, thank you. Amazing.
Lisa Marchiano [00:38:45]:
Thank you.
Fran Hauser [00:38:47]:
Thank you.
Bethany Saltman [00:38:49]:
Bye. Thank you for joining us on Bookbound.
Fran Hauser [00:38:54]:
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and rate and review us on your favorite podcast listening platform.
Bethany Saltman [00:39:01]:
Please visit us at Bookboundpodcast.com for more on us and how we work with authors.