IN THIS ISSUE
- From the Editor’s Desk: Can being multi-passionate make you prolific?
- On The Wordling: Sara Phillips on environmental journalism
- News & Views: Where is the support for Black authors that was promised in 2020?
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
Happy Thursday, writer friends,
Earlier this week, I woke up with a very clear image in my head. This has been happening a lot lately and I’m thoroughly convinced it’s because I’ve actively been working on releasing a ton of limiting beliefs.
I go to bed each night with questions I need clarity on. Often, I wake up with an answer in the form of images or, in one case, an entire book outline.
Anyway, so this image was of a chess prodigy walking from board to board, playing multiple games with multiple opponents. The ability to hold that much information about these different games and know the next moves is not only a skill, it’s excellence at a level most of us can’t even comprehend. In chess, it’s a gift. A real talent. In writing, it’s seen as a distraction. A weakness. Something you “shouldn’t” do because it divides your focus.
But what if it doesn’t?
I’m the sort of writer who is energized, and not depleted, by multiple projects. This month, for instance, I have 21 deadlines for current freelance clients and I’m also working on two books while preparing for a product launch in September. Some people would find that overwhelming and distressing. I find it invigorating.
I had a call with a potential business coach last year who told me I couldn’t be successful if I kept up this scattered approach. I’m already successful, I said, before informing him I wouldn’t be needing his services after all. The thing is, I recommend a focused approach to some of my clients, too, because it suits their personality. But for people like me? People who need to be working on multiple things at once to feel engaged and avoid boredom? This kind of shaming can be extremely detrimental. (Imagine telling that chess player to focus on one game at a time.)
While nothing anyone has ever said has stopped me from working on 37 projects at once, it has created an insane amount of guilt. I often feel like I’m doing business wrong. Like I’m falling behind because I’m not focused enough. That any success I have is not because of what I’ve done, but what I’ve gotten away with. Logically, I know it’s bullshit. But emotionally, I feel conflict.
Hence the desire to remove that limiting belief. And the ensuing chess image.
As I was writing this email, I got Danielle Steel’s newsletter in which she sent out a link to a Good Morning America interview. She’s celebrating one billion copies of her books sold, and she casually mentioned that she writes 5-6 books at a time. (Okay, Universe, I get it.)
I worked with a mentor years ago, to whom I admitted that I felt envious of writers who had a singular focus. That this sort of multi-passionate approach to my career made me a Jack of All Trades and Master of None. I will love this man forever for what he said.
“What kind of bullshit binary thinking is that?” he said and truly, he looked baffled. “It’s not excellence at one or mediocrity at many. You have the opportunity to be excellent at so many aspects of the craft, because each one allows you to build on the other. Any excellence you’ve achieved with journalism is only adding to your fiction. And that applies to all areas of the work you do.”
“And anyway,” he continued, “You’re not envious of anyone. That’s a lie. You’d be bored out of your mind if you were forced to do only one thing.”
I guess we can agree he wasn’t taking my bullshit.
And now, neither am I.
Because yes, while it may take me longer to finish a single book than it might someone who’s focusing on it exclusively, I’m always finishing something. Often, daily. I’m much more efficient because when I get bored or tired of a project, I don’t stop work for the day, I just move on to something else.
Since I became a writer, I have written, run or created:
- 1,600+ stories for publications in over 30 countries
- 3,200+ blog posts/newsletters
- 12 books (8 currently available, one retired, 3 completed)
- 22 programs for writers
- 3 membership communities
- 100+ group coaching calls
- 400+ videos/audios for my paid writing communities
I don’t want to be good at one thing. I want to be excellent at all of them.
People tell me I can’t be.
But then, I’ve always enjoyed proving people wrong.
Enjoy the issue!
Natasha Khullar Relph
Editor, The Wordling
ON THE WORDLING
Sara Phillips on Environmental Journalism
“What makes a great science and environment story is purely humanity.
“There are so many science and environment stories that will spout facts and figures at you. Climate change has used up 90% of our budget and we’re going to be rising by 1.5 degrees and numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. If you actually tell a story about a person, that’s where the engagement is. All science journalism for me is about narrative and about humans and about engagement. If you’ve not got those bits in your story, then you’re lacking the story.”
NEWS & VIEWS:
How the industry’s support for Black writers fizzled out
It took murders, literal murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and an entire Black Lives Matter movement for Black writers to be acknowledged in media and publishing. In 2020, every newspaper editor, every book publisher, and every agent claimed to support Black writers. Large advances were handed out. Marketing and publicity budgets were provided for Black-authored books. And that support led to books by Black authors hitting bestseller lists like never before.
In 2023, though?
“Expected to go out of business within five years”
“… three years after an unprecedented wave of financial support for racial equity initiatives, Black journalism entrepreneurs like Dana Amihere, [founder and executive director of AfroLA] say they’re struggling to sustain their newsrooms despite corporations’ commitment to a cumulative $35 billion investment in racial equity efforts,” reports The Objective.
It notes that a report by the National Trust for Local News and Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY’s Center for Community Media found that 53% of community media outlets “serving racial, ethnic, or linguistic communities” surveyed said they expected to go out of business within five years if current revenue trends continue.
“Failed to result in the promised broadening of publishing’s output”
The news is not much better for Black authors, a few of whom have privately confirmed being dropped by publishers and agents when they were no longer “trendy.” Indeed, research undertaken by The Bookseller “suggests that the wave of diverse publishing that followed the killing of George Floyd in summer 2020 has failed to result in the promised broadening of publishing’s output.”
A study by WordsRated found that despite an uptick in Black representation in 2020, when there were more Black characters than white characters in children’s bestsellers for the first time ever, the numbers diminished quickly. Between 2020 and 2021, the percentage of black characters in children’s bestsellers decreased by 23%. There was also a 31% decrease in the percentage of children’s bestsellers written by Black authors from 2020 to 2021.
“Bad author care”
Ellah Wakatama, editor at large at Canongate, told The Bookseller: “I don’t see as much going into marketing and sales development for Black authors as there is into giving massive commissions for first-time novelists whose advances will not earn out and their second books will be more difficult. We know this as an industry, yet we keep on doing it. That’s bad author care.”
Sharmaine Lovegrove of Dialogue Books was also quoted in the story. She told the publication: “My perspective as managing director at Dialogue, as well as co-organizer of the Black Writers’ Guild and a member of the Black Agents & Editors’ Group, is that it was really bittersweet to watch so many authors’ work go for such high advances as I feared for the long-term strategy in this short-term investment. I want authors to be paid well for their work, as a business decision, not a political one, but I knew the work behind the scenes to engage audiences wasn’t being done in the majority of cases.”
ALSO SEE
Book festivals are taking a significant hit as popular authors embrace stadium tours.
Here’s a cool story about an author whose 1983 debut novel has been republished and “catapulted him out of retirement.”
Oh, and since the AI news won’t stop coming, media organizations are “grappling with developing AI policies.”
GLOBAL REPORT
FRANCE: “Booksellers along the river Seine say the Olympics threaten to erase a symbol of Paris, after they were told by local authorities that they will have to remove their stalls for the Summer Games opening ceremony in 2024 for security reasons.”
SOUTH KOREA: “Tensions between the Culture Ministry and the Korean Publishers Association, the organizer of the Seoul International Book Fair, reached a boiling point as the two exchanged allegations and criticisms over the association’s earnings disclosure. At the core of the disagreement is whether the KPA, a private organization, has any legal obligation to share the excess profits it earned from the book fair with the ministry, from whom it receives subsidies, as well as give a detailed report of those income earnings.”
BRAZIL: “Women reporters and announcers are gaining ground in sports journalism, and as a result the media is paying more attention to women’s sports. “There is an audience for this market and outlets are finally realizing it,” said [journalist Vanessa Riche]. “TV Globo broke several viewing records by airing the female National League and Libertadores Cup finals.” She also noted how women’s soccer is occupying new spaces in media. One example is Casé TV, one of the most popular YouTube channels in Brazil today, which will be covering the World Cup.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
– Gore Vidal
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