How do you go from writer to author?

Have you always dreamed of being an author? Or maybe, like me, you dreamed of the romance of the so-called author life, and then you were surprised by the reality of being a working (or procrastinating) writer. In this episode we’ll be talking about how to finally go from writer to author.

-What’s the difference between writer and author?

-Which things do you need to do to become a successful author?

-Which one exercise can you do TODAY to start transforming your writer mindset and eliminate excuses?

Join PhD writing coach Karena Akhavein on this first epiosde of the How to be an Author podcast.

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Episode 1, How to be an Author podcast

When I was a kid, maybe I was like you, I used to dream of being an author. 

OK, maybe I'm lying, I think. 

I used to dream of the romance of being an author. 

You know, sitting in that scenic cabin with the always hot cup of hot chocolate. 

That's 'cause I was a kid. 

I didn't like coffee yet. 

Now I kind of fantasize more about, you know tons of coffee and a little bit of wine. 

I used to fantasize about the book signings in some glamorous city and me super popular everybody around me wanting me to sign my new book stacks and stacks of it. 

I'd worry about what my autograph would look like and how long it would take me to sign my name as I was signing it. 

You know when you're a kid, you have that autograph. 

It's a little bit ridiculous, lots of bubbles and maybe a heart and squiggles. 

I used to dream of being featured in those articles you know the ones. 

Best young writers under 20 and then. 

Best young writers under 30... I couldn't even visualize turning as old as 40 yet, so forget about that. 

I used to fantasize about getting revenge on everyone who did me wrong by putting them in my book. 

And having them killed off. 

Don't say you haven't done that. 

But I used to fantasize about being recognized at those chic literary cafes. 

You know, the ones where I'd be hanging out with all my cool author friends. 

And I'd be recognized by people who just happened to be carrying a copy of one of my many bestsellers, and then I'd sign it there and then, and you know, I'd be like, “No photos- come on... no no no. I'm just like you!” 

And I used to dream about being the kind of person who could give out writing advice. 

I guess I'm still doing the writing advice part. 

I didn't dream about the years and years of writing utter and complete crap that actually did happen. 

I did not dream of the rejections. 

All those rejections. 

From all those agents, publishers contests- all of that. 

Which started leading to doubt... Oh my God so many doubts. I did not dream of actually writing other people’s words, being a ghostwriter... that sounded really fun, but then you get frustrated because it's not your name on the cover. 

I didn't dream of being so unsure of myself that I published my work under pen names so that I could hide behind them. 

I didn't dream of doing translations where I had to really look at the nitty gritty of kind of expressing what someone else wanted to say. 

I did not dream of writing article after article in magazines, sometimes even featuring writers whose books I honestly didn't like that much, and that after writing all those articles, which was something I had kind of fantasized about, I did not imagine that I still would see myself as a writer, not an author. 

Even worse, I would tell people that I was an artist, a shopkeeper, an interior decorator. 

I would tell people how I ran multiple businesses, how I taught, and then I would tack on at the end, like an afterthought, “Oh, and I write?” 

Why did I put the writing thing dead last, when truly it was the most important thing to me? 

After all, I'm the girl who, when they awarded me my PhD in literature, I'm the girl who said, “No, I'm not going to be teaching. I'm going to be writing fiction.” 

Well, you should have seen their faces and to be honest if they asked me that today I might be a little bit more diplomatic. 

In fact, maybe I would even be a tenured professor by now, but I was passionate and I'd just given birth the week before, so I was super hormonal, so I guess I just told those people the truth. 

But why didn't I listen to that brash girl? That obnoxious young mom was right. I wanted, and I've always wanted to be an author. 

So why and how did I get so lost along the way? 

 

*INTRO* 

 

Welcome to the first episode of the How To be an Author podcast. 

If you're anything like me or like I was, I really hope that you will consider this your place to get all the inspiration motivation, and information you need to make that jump from aspiring writer to successful author way faster and way more easily than I did. 

And I think that this is a great first thing to talk about: how do you go from writer to author? 

There are quite a few parts of my response to this that may surprise you. 

So we're going to do a deep dive into all of those in this episode, and I hope that this will bring you a little bit more clarity. 

Here's the official definition of an author or the official explanation of the difference between a writer and an author: 

A writer can be anyone who writes anything. 

An author is a distinguished and professional writer who has published and sold their work. 

We're going to dissect all the pieces of that in a little bit, and I have to give you a heads up that I'm not often distinguished, but I do know what they mean about being professional, and we're definitely going to talk about that. The selling for money part is also something that we're going to need to discuss in just a little bit. 

Because in a way do I think that you need to sell your work to be an author. 

How much of your work do you need to sell? 

Not that much, but there is something about respecting the value of your words. 

And we'll talk about that towards the end of this podcast. 

So one of those rules that people give to go from being a writer to becoming an author is that they say write every single day. 

I say this first only because I actually find it a little bit problematic and kind of controversial. 

Some people think that this is an obvious part of being an author. They think it's essential... they think that developing that daily writing habit is the best and only way to hone writing skills and make sure that you kind of keep that creativity flowing. 

People will tell you to treat your writing like a full time job. 

They'll tell you that even if you have a day job, you need to carve time out every day to write. 

The only way to become a better writer and a professional writer is through consistency and a ton of hard work. 

But yes, I understand that this is problematic. 

Because even as a professional author now there are days where I don't write. 

However, this is how I've tweaked that rule is that I say that every day I will do something to further my writing career. 

So if I don't have time or the inclination to write fiction on a particular day, you can be sure that I'll be either adding to my author platform, interacting with readers, teaching something about writing, or just plain old dreaming. 

Because I think that dreaming is such a key ingredient, especially if you end up acting on those dreams. 

Let's go down to what would be my actual number one on the list of how to go from writer to author:  

Be professional. 

Yes, a writer is an artist. Of course, you're an artist. Of course ,you are creative, but a writer is an amateur. An author is a professional. 

So how do professionals do things differently from amateurs? 

They stop the excuses- they show up consistently, even when they don't feel like it. They know that there's a value to their work. 

They protect their reputation and their image. 

They make damn sure that they're competent. 

They make sure that their work is polished and yes, sellable, and they make themselves visible. 

So let's dissect all of these things. 

Just a little. 

But showing up consistently, that's major. 

Just the simple fact of continuing being persistent, showing up, writing more things. 

Sometimes it's true that it's quantity over quality if you write enough things, eventually you're going to have that breakthrough, I think that's so super important. 

The more you show up, the more you become visible. 

In fact, it takes a lot of showing up, both with your writing itself and with your author platform for people to pay any attention to you. 

There's a critical mass of stuff about you and featuring you, and from you that people need to see, to really start to think, “Ah, that writer actually is an author.” 

“Oh, their name is familiar to me.” 

“Oh, I think I've seen this somewhere before.” 

 And that is definitely very helpful. 

Now let's talk about knowing that there's a value to your work. 

Yes, even when you think that your writing is crap, you know that somewhere there's the potential for those words to be gold. 

You know that. 

Somewhere is a reader who can be truly touched by your work, and that is so crucial. 

That's why you must protect your work and protect your creativity, protect your productivity at all costs, I think that's so important. 

And now let's talk about reputation and image. 

Yes, professionals need to protect that. 

If you've gained a fan, you want to nurture that fan. 

If you are standing for something as a writer, you want to make sure that people know it and you want to make sure that you're expressing it in the right way. You don't want to just leave your reputation and your image to chance. 

You are able to mold these and you can do this through your writer platform. 

We're going to have a lot of episodes about writer platforms because it's one of those things that writers kind of hate to do, but it really is what separates the amateur writer from the professional author. 

In terms of being competent, competence can be learned. 

It can be achieved through reading through practice through learning all of those things are always “build-upon-able.” They're “figure-out-able". 

You can do this. 

It's not because you don't know how to do something one day that you will never learn how to do it. 

The other thing I mentioned was that idea of polished. 

Yes, amateur writers are writing for themselves. 

It doesn't matter if it's not perfect because it's just for them. 

Professional writers are writing for a reader. That really actually forces you to polish your work, not just so it's perfect, but so that it is readable, that is such a goal, because if your work is not readable, your message is not getting out there clearly, and therefore you're kind of wasting your time and your reader’s time. 

And nobody wants that. 

So let's move on to the next thing that you can do to actively start to figure out how to be an author when before you were just a writer. 

If you're still a writer and you want to be an author, why aren't you there yet? 

My guess is that there's a combination of reasons and oh, excuses. 

Excuses are the killer of productivity. 

Excuses are the killer of dreams and I would hate for you to look back at the end of your life and see that excuses prevented you from fulfilling your dream. 

So I want you to write down every single excuse that you can think of that you've ever given anyone for why you are still just playing around with this writing thing and you're not a professional author. 

Write each one of them down. 

Do you think that you're not good enough? 

Great, write that down. 

Do you have too many work projects right now? 

Write that down. 

Are you afraid? 

Fair enough, write that down. 

Do you just not have enough time in your day? 

Write it down and now look at each of those excuses and think of ways that you could possibly banish them. 

Look at ways that you could solve those problems. Brainstorm. 

I know that some of these things aren't realistic... but write down every single possible way of making that excuse go away, and eventually I think you'll start to find solutions. 

Next week we're going to be talking more about how to beat all that resistance and that procrastination. 

But for now, taking this small step that you can do right now today will help you commit, and you'll be so glad you did it. 

Now I think that one of the big problems that writers have that bars them from really making the leap in becoming an author is that they believe that there's a single way to become an author. 

They think that the only way to truly be an author is to publish a bestselling novel through a conventional publisher. 

And that's not true. 

So I really challenge you to find some quick, small ways to become an author and increase your authority. 

So yeah, that's the important thing about being an author. 

It’s that an author is someone who has authority. Having authority means that people come to you. 

For your words. They come to you for information. They come to you for inspiration, maybe motivation, but they come to you for something. You become the go to. You become the authority. 

So think of ways that you can do this and in fact writing a bestselling novel and publishing it through that conventional publisher is not your quickest, most direct, easiest way to do this. 

There are infinite other ways of becoming an author. 

For example, if you write a blog and you publish your blog, you are now an author. 

Anyone who goes to that blog to get some kind of inspiration or information is regarding you as an authority. 

So write a blog, write articles and get them published. 

That's going to give you an idea that your words are valuable -that you actually have something to say that people will listen and read. 

In fact, start a podcast. 

Podcasts are amazing ways to get authority. 

They're a great way to get out there and get people listening to you and to reach out and find new audiences who are interested in what you have to say, and that's a really important lesson too, is that we each have our own very specific message. 

You don't need to be like everybody else. 

You can micro niche. 

You can have a podcast that sounds incredibly weird subject wise, but you will find those people who are passionate about your interest as well. 

Find any opportunity to speak. 

Find opportunities to teach, even if it's to kids or dogs. 

It doesn't matter if you're not running the most exclusive writing retreat, but if you are trying to communicate and teach it's super super valuable, it's going to help you in your writing career. 

I've been teaching my whole life, pretty much, and I have to say that that's probably the biggest factor of any level of success that I've ever encountered in my whole author life- it's been through teaching. 

Another really crucial thing that you can do, and you're probably going to hate this, but we'll be talking about this as well, is: get comfortable in front of the camera and make videos because videos are the medium of the future. 

Videos are a great way of emotionally touching your audience- of reaching out to them, being there as a person and as a personality, and I think that being comfortable in front of the camera and making videos that inspire and entertain is mega important for your author platform. 

On that subject, if you're looking for a way to feel more comfortable on camera to learn how to hone your message and be able to teach and entertain on camera on video as an author, as a storyteller, you may want to check out my Udemy course, which is all about media training for storytellers. 

So I encourage you to look at my website spalmorum.com or creativeandwritingcoach.com and you'll be able to find that course on the Udemy website and it's not very expensive and a great value to you if you feel petrified when you see a video camera. 

Now, here's another great way- kind of a shortcut really, in that whole road from writer to author. 

Get support. 

That's right, find people who can help you- find people who are at the same point in their writing career and meet up with them, whether it's virtual or whether it's in person, read each other's work. Give each other feedback, cultivate that community of peers of writers. Join a writers’ group. 

All of that. 

Is so important when you're trying to complete some kind of really challenging project. 

Whether it's a book of poetry, a screenplay or a novel. 

Having a group of people that can keep you honest, that can encourage you. 

That's going to be such a gift to you. 

That is such a support I have found that I've learned so much from peers, almost more than from instructors who are ahead of me or above me. 

I've learned so much from other writers. 

Even writers that are unpublished. Once in a while, there's just this bolt of energy and creativity that comes out. And it's like, “whoa!!” and it's always an amazing breakthrough. 

I love it. 

And in my writing group, I've found people who can be my beta readers. I found people who can edit my work. 

It's just a really incredible place to be. 

So I encourage you to join a writers’ group. 

I also have one of those, but you can feel free to join one that resonates with you. 

If you're a romance writer, why don't you join a romance writers’ group? 

Or if you're a fantasy writer I'm sure you can find subgroups of people that can really help you to dive deep down into the craft of writing in your specific genre. 

I know a lot of memoirists, who get together as well, or screenwriters ...and I really applaud that. 

I think that is so very cool, and I think that you can easily find one of these groups and get involved. 

I mentioned how having a group you're learning from your peers. 

And how sometimes it's even better than having a teacher, but definitely I think a mentor is always a good thing to have. 

If you have some kind of published author that you know, and again, this doesn't have to be a conventionally published author. This can be just somebody that you look up to because of their connection to the written word. Maybe they're just an excellent reader. 

Maybe there's somebody who can give you advice on your particular work or in general, and they don't have to be so far ahead of you in terms of what they've achieved. 

They can just be a little bit further down the road. 

And I think that that makes a really great mentor and often I think that when it comes to the business of writing and publishing, there are a lot of unknowns and things are changing fast. That whole industry changes a lot and it can be a little bit scary. It can be a little bit intimidating to try to wade into those waters when you really have no idea, and I think that a mentor can really help you to take the mystery and the fear out of it. 

And I highly, highly recommend that. 

They can definitely look at things like your synopsis or your query letter or anything in between. 

Any little question you have. 

If you have someone you can reach out to and just kind of throw out a question or two once in a while, I think it feels really great to have. 

Another step that I think really is imperative when it comes to being an author as opposed to just a writer who writes for themselves is I think you really do need to love to read. 

A lot of writers I know actually say, “well, I don't have time to read,” and I have to say that sometimes I don't mind scaling back on my own writing so that I can read a few really diverse books as well as books that are firmly within the genre that I really write in and enjoy, but I think it's really important to see what's out there. 

Not only because you're going to see a lot of ways of telling a story and expressing yourself -you're going to come up with these cool little turns of phrase and tricks and things like that. I'm not saying you have to copy any author’s style, but I think that sometimes it can be so inspiring and I think that also when you read, it's going to show you what's necessary for you to do so that your writing can be good and polished and published. 

People, all of that's really crucial because too many times when you're in your own head, you're going to be writing something that isn't really that marketable. 

And yes, if you're self publishing, maybe that's not as much of an issue. 

But seeing what is marketable and what is selling is sometimes a really strong education. 

I think that that's something that you really, really want to know, and learning through consuming and observing is easier than just trying to read a whole collection of rules and dictates that don't really inspire you because there's no real example. 

And definitely, you need to stay informed about what the market is like. 

I talked about asking your mentor about this, but you owe it to yourself to read the articles about what's happening in the publishing world, how Self Publishing has massively overtaken conventional publishing, how people are marketing their books, how people are consuming the written word or consuming stories these days. 

What new options we have for storytelling and for getting our story out there? Because that is always changing. 

There are websites, there are places where we can convert our stories into scripts. There are contests going on, and all of these things are so exciting and can make the difference between you being frustrated and being stuck and you being inspired to try a whole new project. 

Another crucial step in becoming a professional successful author is build that online presence. 

You have to have a robust online presence. 

You cannot hope to “write the book and they will come,” it doesn't work that way. 

And yes, if you find the exception to that rule, that's cool. It's still the exception. The successful author has an online presence. They self-market, even if they're conventionally published. Even if they have the best agent on Earth and a marketing strategy behind them. They still have a part in their marketing, they're still there with their up to date website ,with a list of events that they're going to, and samples of their work. They're still appearing on podcasts to reach out to even more potential readers. 

If you're a Blogger, I definitely think you should try to post as often as possible, especially on things that have to do a little bit with your book, and especially when you've got a book that you're about to promote. 

Often, having a great online presence is going to be the thing that's going to convince an agent or a publisher to take you on because we're going to see that you already have a huge platform- you already have people who care about what you're doing. 

Even better if you have a mailing list. 

We'll be having some episodes about your mailing list, but for now, suffice it to say that starting a mailing list can be the most valuable thing that you can possibly do. 

Imagine having a ready made mailing list that's unique to you, not some mailing list that you bought or that you stole from somewhere, but a mailing list of people who actually reached out to you 'cause they cared about what you were doing. 

That is gold when it comes to selling books or when it comes to advertising things that you are doing. 

Another thing that you need to do is you definitely need to stop worrying about what others will think of you. 

I bet that when you were hearing about this whole online presence thing and this whole marketing yourself thing, and this whole being on video thing, you probably at least for a moment, had a thought of going, “Oh my God. But what will other people think? What will my friends think? What will my family think when I put myself out there? Is it going to feel cringey and embarrassing? Will I be judged?” 

Listen, anybody who's judging you negatively for being there and doing the thing that you are passionate about, well, that's not a real friend, and that's not a supportive reader. 

So oftentimes I hear writers saying, “Oh my family, it isn't reading my books.” 

Well, no. They're not your reader, so don't worry about that. 

Don't worry about people thinking about you too much, people. 

Are busy thinking about themselves. 

And also quite honestly, it takes quite a few exposures to you, your promotions, your videos for people to even register that they're there. 

So don't worry about people thinking less of you 'cause they see too much of you. 

On the contrary, I think that you will start to build that vision of yourself as an actual author as an actual presence as somebody that people should be paying attention to. 

I once had a frenemy call me up and have the gall to say, “Oh my God, I just am seeing your book promotion everywhere. Can you please lighten up? I'm so sick of seeing this on all my social media everywhere. It's all I see in my feed.” 

And I said to that, “well, baby, that's just the algorithm. You got to stop hate watching my videos and hate stalking me because you're going to keep seeing more and more of it.” 

So anybody who says that they see only you is 'cause they secretly care, so don't worry about that. 

The final element in this whole equation of going from amateur to professional- this is the one you were probably dreading- is make money from your work. 

I know. I'm not saying you have to have the bestselling book right away and that that's the only way to consider yourself a professional author, but I really think that making money from your work in some way- and it doesn't have to be this specific work in progress, it can be from some other storytelling skill or from some other writing related thing that you do- but I think that you making money from your work helps you to see that there is value in your words. 

There is value in your ideas and once you start doing this it gets easier to do. 

And we'll of course have some episodes about how to make money from your writing sooner than you thought possible, but in the meantime just realize that once you start making money from your words and from your ideas, you are an author and you are now a professional, and I think it's a great mindset shift. 

It really helps. 

And honestly, let me tell you a story my turn around. It was absolutely not when I started writing for magazines. I was writing for magazines and I was getting paid for it, but I still felt like a phony. 

For you, actually writing an article for a magazine might be that moment where you're like "Poof! Now I'm a professional author!” but for me it didn't happen for me. 

I still thought to myself “I'm just a big fake. I don't know why I'm getting paid for this, and anyway I'm not getting paid much.” 

By the way, magazine writing doesn't pay that great. 

If you're a magazine that pays well, thank you. 

But the time that I had my actual turn around when I actually started thinking, “You know what? I can make money from my creativity, and I should and can make money from my writing and I can invest in it.” 

It was when I opened my own store. I know that sounds weird. But what happened was, it felt a lot safer than making money from my writing, which was feeling like it was pulled out of my guts. 

You know when you write something, it really feels like it's part of you and it feels embarrassing to sell it. 

So when I had my store, I was selling products and I was thinking to myself, “Well. This is easier. It's a product.” And I had no difficulty merchandising that product marketing that product displaying that product, telling people about that product and how it would like make their life better. 

And now I've learned how to do that with my writing. 

Now I'm confident that by writing to make somebody's life better, it can inspire them. It can make them happy. It can make them dream. So now I don't have that big problem with seeing that there's value to my words. 

I also learned from having the store that in order to make money from my store, I actually had to invest in it. 

Yes, it was a risk. 

I had to get a stock of things. I had to pay for displays. I had to pay for ads. 

And I did it because I knew that it was an equation: I needed to pay that money in order to get people in to buy my stuff and to make money. 

Well it's the same thing with writing. 

You need to invest in your writing career. 

You need to buy the computer. You need to buy the course if you need it, you need to invest the time in going to writing group and in writing every day. You need to pay for an editor. You need to pay for a cover design. 

All of those things are investments in your writing career, and you will get the payback once you start really getting that critical mass. 

Once you believe in yourself and you keep investing in the right places, you're going to get paid back a ton, believe me. 

Ao those are the things that I think are the most crucial steps in going from aspiring writer to successful author. 

I hope you got inspired by all of these and as a reminder next week we'll be talking about how to stop procrastinating. 

How to finally really make that jump and stop believing in the stories that we tell ourselves how to stop feeling that resistance that keeps us from writing, we're going to be talking about all of that. 

In the meantime, you can absolutely check me out. 

I am @writingcoach on TikTok. I'm @writing.coach on Instagram and I am on my website at CreativeAndWritingCoach.com. You can sign up for my writing group. You can check out all my courses including that media training course on Udemy, and I'm going to be having a huge signature writing course that's going to be opening up soon that can really make a huge difference in your writing career. 

Thank you so much for joining me on How to be an Author, and I look forward to next time and to every time so that we can take you from aspiring writer to successful author and beyond. 

See you next time if you have any pressing writing related questions or would like to be featured on the how to be an author podcast please feel free to reach out on my website http://www.creativeandwritingcoach.com.