Publishing Myths Debunked: Insights with Terry Whalin

Timothy00:00:04

Create Art Podcast Interview Terry Whalen. Hello, friends.This is Timothy Keem O'Brien, your head instigator for Create Art Podcast, where I bring my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume. On today's episode, I'm going to be talking with Terry Whelan. Now, Terry is an editor and author of more than 60.That's right, folks, I said 660 books and has written for more than 50 magazines. Several of Terry's books have sold over a hundred thousand copies and he lives in Southern California.I got a chance to speak with him, and before I spoke with him, he sent me out a book that he published a few years ago that is sitting on my shelf. I have at the time of the interview, I hadn't finished it yet. I'd gotten most of the way through it.But the book you sent me was 10 publishing insights every Author Needs to Succeed. And I got to tell you, that book is fantastic. It's one of those books that you'll read and refer back to again and again.It's just packed with some great information, some great stories of his career and what he's done. And he graciously sent that to me for free.So I was really excited to actually get to spend some time with him, virtually, of course, because I'm here in Virginia and he's out there in California. But he was very generous with his talk with me and I definitely appreciate his time, for sure.And just to give you a little bit of a sneak peek, he will present an offer to the listeners of this podcast for a special kind of. A special kind of. A special kind of offer.We'll just leave it at that and make sure that you listen to the entire interview to get details on what that offer is. So without further ado, I'm proud to present to you my conversation with Terry Whalen.

Terry00:02:19

It's my privilege today to introduce everyone here to Terry Whalen. Terry, how is it in California today?

Timothy00:02:27

It's great. The sun's shining and we got that 60 degree weather. It's a great place.

Terry00:02:33

You're doing a lot better than us here in Virginia. We're getting 8 inches of snow on Wednesday, so I won't send you any, I promise.

Timothy00:02:43

That sounds good.

Terry00:02:44

Good deal. Good deal.So you actually have had a really fascinating career spanning writing, editing, publishing, you know, what brought you into the world of books and writing, editing and all that goes with it.

Timothy00:02:59

Yeah, Tim, that's really a great question. I love books. I majored in journalism in college. I thought I was going to be a newspaper reporter.I went to Indiana University and so I joined the Indiana Daily student newspaper. We had about 100 of us on the writing staff back then. And we produced a full size newspaper six days a week.So it was quite a, quite a big job for college students to do that kind of thing. And so I joined a social fraternity. Indiana has a campus of 30,000 there. And blew off my classes.I was really writing stories back then is what I was doing. And I couldn't get my fingers on the right keys. And so I kept muttering to myself. I said, jesus Christ.And this little blonde haired girl that was sitting next to me turned to me and said, oh, Terri, don't say that, because one of these days when you really need Jesus, you'll call out for him and he won't be there. And I thought, what is this? I'm a Christian. I go to church when I'm at home. I read the Bible in church when I'm at home.I knew nothing about Christianity, looking back, Tim. But she encouraged me to go to a little bookstore a couple blocks off the Indiana campus.They had pretty cards and posters and maybe I'd find a book that interested me. So I wandered down there a few days later and I bought this book at a Christian bookstore called Jesus the Revolutionary.I thought, how in the world could Jesus be a revolutionary? I didn't know. So I took that book back to my room, read that book, and it showed me a different side of Jesus than I'd ever seen before.About that time, somebody invited me to a Jesus people gathering in downtown Bloomington. They were sitting on little scraps of carpets with little candles lit and. And those people had something that I didn't have.And so I got a Bible and I've been going the Jesus trail with my life ever since.That book really changed my life and it actually changed the direction of my life because instead of becoming a newspaper reporter, my journalism colleagues thought I was a little crazy. I joined this group called Wycliffe Bible Translators and I spent 10 years of my life in linguistics.I actually have a New Testament in the Southwest Kachikal language in Guatemala that wouldn't have existed if I hadn't made those kind of choices. I wandered back to my writing.After about 10 years in linguistics, I became the editor of our Wycliffe news magazine that we had, that we sent out and I went to a writers conference. That's the thing that I always encourage writers to do. Is go get to a conference.Because you meet people, you learn all kinds of things, you make connections with different editors. So I was at one of these writers conferences. I was out walking with an editor from David C. Cook, and she asked Terri, she said, I have a problem.And I always listen when editors tell me I have a problem. And she said, we've got all these children's books that we publish at David C.Cook, and as a part of our mission, we're supposed to tell kids about the world and how they can go out and do something for Jesus out in the world. We don't have a single book that says anything about that. What kind of ideas do you have?Well, at that time, my kids were little, and so I was reading a lot of children's books.I knew that Steven Lawhead has this fantasy series, but he also had written kids books under the name Steve Lawhead that combined real pictures with a cartoon character. And so they were like, Howard had a spaceship, Howard had a hot air balloon.And so I said to this editor, what if we took our real pictures from Wycliffe Bible translators around the world, we combined them with a cartoon character to show kids different kinds of occupations. She says, oh, that's a good idea. Write that up and send that to me. So I made a little note, I went home, I wrote it up, and I sent it to her.And ultimately, I mean, we went through a number of transitions on that book, but ultimately that became my first book that was published in 1992, A Little Children's book called When I Grow Up, I Can Go Anywhere for Jesus. So that's what kind of launched me into the whole, the whole book area.And since then I've written biographies, co authored books, children's books, all kinds of stuff that I've been able to do through the years.

Terry00:07:23

Which side of this do you like the most? Which brings you the most joy? The fiction books or the non fiction books?Because myself, I've only written fiction books, mainly poetry, but some short stories that are all fiction. So I've never done the nonfiction side of it. But what brings you the most joy?

Timothy00:07:42

Well, being trained as a journalist, my stuff started in the nonfiction area and it's actually started. A lot of my publishing that I've done has been in the magazine area. I've written for more than 50 magazines over the years.And so actually all of my books are nonfiction.I mean, I've published a few short stories over the years, but pretty much most of my stuff is rooted in, in actual things that, that Happen non nonfiction type of things.

Timothy00:08:11

Gotcha, gotcha.

Terry00:08:13

Let's talk about that magazine, writing for magazines. Because when I was going through your book, haven't finished it, as I told you earlier, I'm on chapter seven.

Timothy00:08:22

We're getting close.

Terry00:08:24

But your, your 10 publishing myths book, you talk to writers about writing for magazine articles because when you're a brand new writer, you have no history behind you, you have essentially no resume. But writing for magazine articles, that would have never occurred to me, and I'm 52, I've been writing for years.Never occurred to me to write for a magazine.So can you talk a little bit about how that works and how somebody could kind of break into that to help their writing career or why they would want to?

Timothy00:08:55

Yeah, absolutely, Tim.Part of it is a numbers thing because in the book publishing business, if you sell 5,000 copies of your book during the lifetime of the book, that's a good number for us in book publishing. In the magazine area, it's very easy to reach 100,000, 200,000, half a million people with your stuff. Magazine articles are short.They're like 500 words, a thousand words, 1200 words. So you're dealing with a shorter piece of writing is one of the, one of the really great things.You learn how to write for a particular audience, a particular readership. You learn how to have a good headline, how to have a beginning, a middle and end, how to have a single point.And you can actually reach way more people than you ever could with your books.And at the bottom of that little article, you could say Terry Whalen, author of 10 Publishing Myths, and give a website so it can point people to your stuff. And those of us that are in publishing, we're looking for people that have published in order to be able to publish them some more.So this gets you over that area as well. I think it's a great way. And editors basically tell you what in the world they want for their magazine.They have a thing called guidelines that they put out.And so if you do an online search or even go to your library and use the writer's market or whatever, you can actually see that editor is telling you what he'd like to have from you. So if you. It's like anything else, if you send him what he wants, you're going to be.He's going to be more interested in what you've sent him, and you have a higher chance of him saying yes to that submission that you've had. So those are some basic things that anybody can do. To start writing for magazines. I'm still writing for magazines.I think it's a great tool and great way for people to get their stuff out there for sure.

Terry00:10:57

Just kind of for my own personal thing here, I subscribe to a number of literary journals where they do have like the Paris Review, I just found the Harvard Review and a couple others that, that I read, that I list, that I read to is.Would that be kind of a similar path that somebody could take instead of writing for like Time magazine or, or the New Republic magazine or something like that? Would that be a, a way to do that?

Timothy00:11:24

Sure, you could write for them. You could look at their guidelines, see what kind of people they take for freelance articles.Sometimes those journals are, they have their own set of writers, people that they say don't take freelancers, but many of them do take freelancers. So find the ones that, that really are going to work for you at the end of the day and be pitching those people.I mean, there's all different kinds of ways that you can get started in this business. Write short pieces, you can review books. I mean, there's all different kinds of things that you can do to get some editor's attention.And then he'll say, well, hey, you wrote this. How about writing this for us? They'll be pitching you.

Terry00:12:07

Suddenly, that's excellent. That's.And folks, you need to go get Terry's book because it is, like I said, I'm chapter seven, but I'm learning so much from it that I'm going to read the whole thing first and then I'm going to do the highlighting thing and then the notes thing and all that kind of good stuff. And later on I'll be calling you up going, terry, how do I do this? It's great.One of the things I really enjoy about your book though, is the MBA at the end of each. At the end of each chapter. And that's your myth buster action. How'd you come up with putting that at the end of each chapter?

Timothy00:12:46

Well, one of the things I've learned, Tim, from being in publishing in all these years is that so much of the publishing process is outside of our control as authors. I don't care whether you say self publish or whether you go with a traditional publisher.I mean, a couple of the proposals I've written have got six figure advances, for example, but I have long stories about what actually happened, why those books didn't succeed. But the great.The reason I put Mythbuster action is because I really wanted authors to have practical things that they could actually do to succeed with their book, because, like I say, so much of it is outside of our control. May use LinkedIn or Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or some of those places, but I don't control any of those sites.And matter of fact, I could knowingly or unknowingly violate their terms and get kicked off of them tomorrow. So I don't want to build my stuff over there in some ways, because that's what we call rented space in the business.I want to build my stuff on my own blog, my own website, things that I can control at the end of the day. And so that was very intentional, what I did in these mythbuster actions.I was encouraging people to do things that they could actually do to get the word out about their book at the end of the day.

Terry00:14:11

And I'm glad you brought that up, because you were talking about platforms, and I saw that as one of the Mythbusters, one of the MBAs.And I know in podcasting, it's a similar kind of similar kind of field where, you know, you want to send people to your website, not to Apple, Spotify, and all that kind of good stuff. Can you talk a little bit about, I guess, the ease of it? Because you and I are of a certain age.I'm 52, and it can scare a lot of people to say, well, build a website. I have my own platform. You've obviously done well with it. I'm working on it. How is that for you?

Timothy00:14:55

Well, there are a lot of simple templates, people you can hire for a short period of time to put up your own website. There's a lot of different ways that you can do these things.But platform is important because as authors or as editors, we're looking at your numbers to see if you have anything built. And so. And it's not like, at Morgan James, we publish 200 books a year. But I'm. I'm looking for authors that have something going in the online space.Not that it has to be huge, but they have to have something. Something started or a platform at the end of the day. And all of us start out small. And what we do, you just have to get going on that.I mean, I started blogging in 2004. My blog now has over 1700 entries that are in it. And about a year ago, I found this article.I have this thing that searches for my name out there online, and I found an article about the top 27 content producers out there, and my name was one of those 27 along with Seth Godin and Ryan Holiday and Jeff Goins and people like that. It's because it's not that I've done anything magical here, it's just that I've been consistent over the years. I still blog once a week.I put an article out there and people read it. And so I have a huge volume of material that I've built up over the years. So those are the kind of things that I encourage every author to do.Every author, for example, needs a newsletter start.We all start small, so start a newsletter list, go to ConvertKit or Mailchimp or something and get an account and start sending out a newsletter some somewhere that you can find your readers. And those readers will gather to you, be touching them on a regular basis. Not just once a month.Do it a couple times a month, do it every week if you can because that consistency will really pay off for you in the long run to help draw people to you and build this platform, these connection things that we're talking about.

Terry00:17:07

Absolutely. When you say newsletters, I remember this is way back in the day. I did a.I was working a job for the state of Illinois where I was helping out veterans get jobs, get employment, find training and all that. And I used constant contact.They still may be around, I don't know, but I was able to track how many people opened it up, how many people hit the links. And I was able to really focus on the veterans that really wanted to find a job. I'm a veteran myself, so I was before then I was looking for jobs.But it really helped me in my job to focus on those veterans that really wanted to find a job. And it sounds like with newsletters it can really help you focus on your audience and really kind of curate your audience and make that happen.I know myself right now I use substack, which I find is fantastic.

Timothy00:18:05

But yeah, they're constant contact is still out there. People can use that. So it just, it's. And in. Within the book publishing business we call that like our gold standard is your newsletter list.So if you have 10,000 people on your list, that's one thing. If you have a hundred thousand people, that's something else. As far as the, the readers and people you can get.So you want to grow that, that email list as, as big as you can get it by doing it on a consistent and on a regular basis.

Terry00:18:37

For sure. Now something that I found and I guess I should have known this being a writer, but.And I know people that are editors and publishers locally here in Fredericksburg is that the publisher is not necessarily marketing your work. You're in charge of that.So as a new author, because we have new authors listening to this podcast all the time, how does a writer kind of get over the whole salesy thing about being a marketer? A lot of times artists, they're like, oh, I don't want to be a used car salesman with my stuff.How does somebody get over that and really hit that marketing hard?

Timothy00:19:22

Well, I totally understand that. I don't like to be a real used car salesman or salesy or any of my stuff.I guess one of the ways you easily get over it is by by realizing that if you're not out there as the author talking about the benefits in your book, telling people about it, telling them why in the world they should be interested in your book, then it's basically not going to happen. At the end of the day, I mean, P.T. barnum, the great Circus sales guy, said simply, without promotion, something terrible happens. Nothing.And that's the reality here. It took me a long time, actually, Tim, if I'm honest to learn this. I was writing books for traditional publishers.I was getting advances, they were making pretty books, they were getting them in the bookstore. All kinds of great things were happening for my books.But when you're in publishing like that, once a year, maybe quarterly, the publisher will send you a financial statement about how your books are doing. Well, when I got my financial statements, they were all in the minus category.They weren't earning back their advance, they weren't selling, they weren't making money. And about that time in my life, I was running a little litter agency in North Scottsdale, Arizona.And Mark Victor Hanson, the co author on Chicken Soup for the Soul, had this book or had this book event out in Los Angeles called Mega Book Marketing University. So he invited me to come. So I went out there, took pictures from people during the event, but I also sat there with over 400 people.Listen to all the different speakers. Now, one of the speakers at that event was the other co author on Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfield.Jack has this book called the Success Principles. And he's actually studied people that have been successful out there.And the very first success principle says that I will take 100% responsibility for my own success. Now, none of us want to take 100% responsibility. We want somebody else to do it for. Some editor, some marketer, please, somebody other than us.But during that event, I realized how little I was doing myself to be telling people about my own books. Sure, I had a terrywayland.com website, but I had no newsletter. I had no social media, no blog, none of that stuff.So I decided during that event that I was going to take 100% responsibility for my own success. So I started blogging. When social media came along, I started doing that. So, I mean, today I have over 175,000 followers on X Twitter.I have 19,500 connections on LinkedIn. I have a newsletter that I send out on a regular basis. So I'm trying to model these actions for my own authors and for myself and for my own books.During that Mega Book Marketing University, I learned that Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen faced a lot of rejection for those Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Most people have forgotten that. I mean, they got rejected over 160 times, Tim. That's a lot of rejection.Those guys finally found a little publisher in Florida that was going to publish the first Chicken Soup for the Soul books.Now, they told that publisher that they were going to sell a million books during the first year their publisher laughed at, and they never sold a million copies. Anything that thought that was a ridiculous idea, it took them a year and a half.But those guys talked about how what they practice, what they call the rule of five. So they got up every day, they did five things to be telling people about their book.So they did an event, they did a magazine article, a guest blog post, a newspaper article, a radio show, a podcast. Something to be telling people.And that effort over and over is really what why they sold as many books as they did and why those Chicken Soup for the Soul books are some of the best selling books in the English language. They kicked them off right, for one thing. And that's the kind of action that all of us as authors have to be doing. Sure, you feel funny doing it.Most of us are introverts. We don't like being out there, we don't like being on podcasts. We don't like doing this stuff. But we still have to do it.And it's all part of the journey and the process. I would say that we're on to try to help people learn about our book.I mean, we've pretty much proven in publishing that somebody has to hear about your book maybe a dozen times before they actually reach in their wallet and decide to buy that book.So part of what you're doing on social media is just telling people about the benefits of their book, that you even have a book and why in the world they should be interested in it?

Terry00:24:34

Absolutely. Absolutely. And if they would have bought your book, the Chicken Soup for the Souls guys, maybe they would have sold a million in less than a year.

Timothy00:24:42

You never know.

Terry00:24:43

But that's one thing I like about your book is that you're not I again, chapter seven. That's where I'm at.But I don't get the feeling that you're saying if you follow this to the letter, you're guaranteed to get on the New York Times bestseller list because there's so many other things out there.

Timothy00:25:01

That could influence your book.

Terry00:25:02

And that's one thing I really appreciated about it and just the way it, when I'm reading it and now getting to see you it virtually, I'm going to read it a little bit differently because I'll be like, I'll have his face right there. But you're talking to the reader. You're definitely talking to the reader and you're giving us some straight talk.You're not, you know, calling us lazy or anything like that, but you're letting us know, hey, this is what goes on, this is what you got to do. And I really appreciate that. So thank you for doing that. Definitely appreciate it.

Timothy00:25:36

Well, and Tim, there, there is, I mean all of us are looking for some formula, some three step process, some magic elixir to sell our books and the reality is that doesn't exist. I don't believe, I mean, sure, we're all in this journey and what, what works for you.Maybe it's YouTube, maybe starting a YouTube channel, you grow some huge thing and people are really interested in your topic and watching you that it's different for every author. So that experimentation factor is, it's what we all have to do to try to find our way in this process.It's going to be different for you than it is for me.

Timothy00:26:14

Yep, for sure.

Terry00:26:15

For sure.I like how you brought up in the book self publishing because when I'm talking to people, different editors, publishers and whatnot, there is a little bit of, a little bit of poo pooing of that and it's like, and that's vanity publishing. But you know, self publishing has really grown in the past few years.You give us like maybe one or two items of you have an author that is just doing self publishing right now and they want to take that next step to actually talk with a publisher, talk with an editor and get a, get a chance to have a wider audience with that.

Timothy00:26:59

Yes, yes, self publishing is a great rage. I understand that there's some really nice, well done self publishing books that are out there.There's also some terrible ones that are poorly edited, poorly designed.

Terry00:27:14

I've put on about 2 or 3.

Timothy00:27:15

Of those that are out there. And so there's a range of material. And Amazon, I usually tell authors, Amazon is a big customer.Morgan James, but they're only 24% of her overall business. So the way I look at is if you publish with Amazon, you're missing 76% of what we do for the book out there.I mean, our books are sold at Morgan James into 98% of the bookstores in North America, including the brick and mortar stores. So we sell@target.com for example. So very broad distribution. And I think that's, I think that's an important part of the, of the process.So as you look for a publisher, you have to be wise and careful about that process because there are people that will definitely take your money. Tim but that may or may not help you sell books at the end of the day.I mean, I've met authors that have spent 15, $20,000 and they've self published their book. It's only on Amazon, it's only on online platforms, it's not in any brick and mortar bookstore. I think they've been scammed out of that money.They really.I advise every author, before they sign a contract with anybody to type that publisher name into Google along with the word scam or complaints and see what comes up. I mean, at Morgan James, we've been in business over 20 years. Not everybody loves us. We have some complaints out there.But if you do that step and find pages and pages of people complaining about somebody, that should be a red flag to you that maybe you shouldn't work with those people at the end of the day. So really in publishing there are basically three, three different paths. In some ways there's a self publishing path where you do it all yourself.There's a traditional path where the publisher is in control and they do a lot of the work for you for getting it in the bookstore. You still have to market the book, even if you do in the traditional side. And then there's this middle ground.Independent publishing is what is what I call it, but it's really a sort of a mixture between the self and the traditional.And I think there's great opportunity for authors in that independent publishing area because your book does get distributed, it does get out there into the market. I encourage every author, even if you self publish or whether you go to a traditional house, every author needs to create a document.In publishing, we call it A book proposal. And that's basically your business plan, your idea of what you're going to do, who's your market, how you're going to get that book out there.I, as a frustrated acquisitions editor years ago, I wrote this book called Book proposals that sell 21 secrets to speed you'd Success. I did it basically to try to get better submissions from authors because I wasn't getting the right type of submissions that I really wanted.That book has over 150 five star reviews out there. It's helped people get an advance, get a literary agent, get a publishing deal.But publishing has changed through the years, Tim, from what that original book did. And so a couple years ago I wrote a revised edition of that book that's out there. And I really want authors to get this book.I mean, you can get it for free from me if you go to bookproposals. Dot WS bookproposals. Ws. Now that'll take you to a website where you can see the COVID of the book, a little type about it.There's this big button that says free book. So you can get the book, the whole book for free for me. Now why would I give away the ebook version of the book?I give it away because one of the things that we've learned at Morgan James that if you get that ebook from me and you start to read that ebook, there's a high probability that you're going to turn and buy the print copy of the book. So getting that ebook, giving that away, I lose nothing. Basically, I'm driving print book sales in that process.And that book proposal for you as an author is important. It's your business plan that says what you're going to do, what reader you're trying to reach. What's your plan to get there? What are you going to do?What's your competition? Don't tell me that your book is unique. There's no competition because that's not true. Every book competes in the market.So you got to figure out where your book competes and who those people are and how your book is different. It gives you a business plan so that you know really how to get your book out there and then how to get it out there into the market.

Terry00:32:09

I already know what I'm getting for my, my. I have an anniversary coming up in May, so I'll let my wife know what book she's going to be buying. Absolutely. I can't wait to get that one.That is excellent. So, Terry, you sent me this book, this 10 publishing myths. How can people go and get that book?Because I gotta tell you, this book is something that you need to have by your bed. Read it at night, first thing in the morning, get at it.If you're serious about writing and about being successful at it and getting that book published, where can people grab that book?

Timothy00:32:50

Well, Tim, I really appreciate that.I want people to go to publishing offer.com so if you're listening to this podcast, just those two words, publishing offer.com, that'll take you to a website where you can get the book for me for only $10. It includes the shipping, along with over $200 worth of electronic bonuses that I have in that offer.I really want people to be able to get this book, to read it and to succeed with their book. I mean, people don't realize unless you're in publishing, there are over 11,000 new books that come out every day.I mean, that's a lot of stuff coming out. That includes all the self publishing stuff. So you as an author have to be actively doing something.And that's really what I tried to do in this book, was encourage authors to take action on a regular basis and, and do something with their book so it can really succeed out there in the market.

Terry00:33:50

That's awesome, folks. Definitely go grab that book. I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm.As soon as I'm done with it on Goodreads, I've already got the 5 star rating ready to go because I'm getting.

Timothy00:34:03

This is.

Terry00:34:04

It's one of those books that you read a book once you go, okay, yeah, that's great. I'm putting on your Goodreads and then you never touch it again.This is one of these books that you're going to go back to again and again and again and it's going to be something that I've got twins. I'm probably going to pass it down to them in my will, so that way they can do it as well.Because they're already talking about writing books and I'm like, okay, well, let's learn how to do it first. Because papa did it wrong for a long time. So that is.

Timothy00:34:33

I appreciate that, Tim. And as I was putting together this book, Alice Kreider, who's an acquisitions editor at David C.Cook, when she sent me her endorsement that's in the book, she said, terry, you're missing the 11th myth. I'm like, oh, okay, Alice, what's the 11th myth?She said, well, the 11th myth should be that if I send my book to Oprah Winfrey, she'll book me on her show. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's a great myth. And so what I decided to do, I wrote that chapter, Tim.And so when we designed the book, I designed this extra chapter, the 11th myth that people can get for free from me if they go to terrylinks.com forward slash, 11th myth. Forward slash, 1, 1, 11th myth. So that I. All they do is put in their first name and their email address, and you get that for free from me.And I want people to get this book, get this free 11th myth, basically, because so many people through the years have taught me all these different things. It's not that I came up with anything original here.I've learned from many different people reading their books, taking their online courses, learning all this stuff. And I'm still on the journey, too, Tim. It's not like that. I have it all figured out. I'm still learning new things about publishing all the time.

Terry00:35:55

That's excellent. That is excellent. All right, well, I'm going to do my get out of jail free card.

Timothy00:36:02

Is there any question that I didn't.

Terry00:36:04

Ask that you really wanted me to ask and toss out to my audience?

Timothy00:36:09

Yeah, Tim, I guess the question that I would like to answer is that as authors, we hear the word no a lot in our path.And some people, when they hear that, they go, well, my stuff wasn't going to get published, so they tuck it back in their desk drawer and they don't send it out anymore.What I've learned from being in some of the top literary agencies and top publishers in the country, when I go and meet with those people, they're all asking me, okay, Terry, where's the next bestseller? Where's the next best selling novel? Where's the next best selling nonfiction book, children's book, whatever it is that. You're right.So you may be getting ghosted by these people. They may not may be rejecting your stuff. They may be telling you that their lists are full, they don't have any room for any more clients.But understand that they are reading your information whether they respond or not, because we're all looking for that next diamond in the rough that we can publish ourselves and get it out there into the world and really help people. And I do this work, Tim, as you could tell from that book that I talked about, Jesus, the Revolutionary at the beginning of this.I do this because books change people's lives. I know that personally because years ago, a book that I read changed my life.

Terry00:37:36

That's That's. I think everybody has that one book that has absolutely changed their life. That's for sure. That's for sure. What are you reading right now?What's on your nightstand right now?

Timothy00:37:51

I'm reading. I'm reading a book or two about publishing. I'm reading. I'm reading a new book that. That an author sent me from Wiley Books about Joy.There's a lot of stuff that I continue to read and write. I write reviews on Amazon and write reviews on Goodreads.I think it's a way to give back to other people, but also a way to encourage other people that there's lots of good books that are out there.

Terry00:38:17

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Terry, again, thank you so much for joining us here on Create our podcast.I really appreciate your knowledge and your ability to share it with us and to kind of tell us straight what to expect, what's going on with publishing. So thank you so very much for your time here today. Appreciate it.

Timothy00:38:36

Thank you, Tim, for the opportunity. I actually have my personal email address right there in my X Twitter profile because I want people to be able to reach me.People say that I may be one of the most accessible people in publishing because a lot of these people you can't even reach, but I am one of these people. I read my email, I answer my email, I answer my phone. And so if I can help anybody at all, have them reach out to me, I'd love to help them.

Timothy00:39:04

You heard it here first, folks.

Terry00:39:05

Reach out to Terry. He said it's okay, so definitely reach out to him for sure. Thanks again, Terry. Thank you so much.

Timothy00:39:13

Thank you, Tim. Appreciate it.

Timothy00:39:14

All right, so that was a great conversation that I had with Terry Whalen.I definitely want to thank him for the time he took to talk with me on the show and the generosity that he is sharing with me and with you about his career and what he's learned being on the inside of that whole publishing industry. This book, the 10 publishing myths, insights Every Author Needs to Succeed, is like getting an mba. It is.You're going to take notes on it, you're going to love this book about as much as I do. And I can't recommend it enough to any writer that's out there.Even if you're like, I'm not too sure I'm going to publish, read this book and you'll really open your eyes and it'll help you to.Can't guarantee that you're going to get published because as Terry says, there's a lot of unknowns involved in it, but it's going to give you a better shot at it to get your message out. So definitely, you heard the special offer. Pick up the book.So you're probably asking yourself, this is the end of the show here, but you're probably asking yourself, hey, Tim, how did you get in contact with Terry? Well, I use a service called PodMatch. I have links in the show notes here for all of Terry's, all of Terry's websites and links and whatnot.And for Podmatch. Now, what Pod Match does is it connects podcast hosts with guests and guests with hosts. And I may make a little compensation from these interviews.Trust me, it's nothing I'm going to go to the casino with and win millions of dollars with, but I would not bring on any guest who I.

Terry00:41:06

Didn'T feel that was.

Timothy00:41:07

Wasn't going to bring any value. As you heard, Terry brought you a lot of value here today.So I only bring on the guests that I know are going to really inspire you to go out there and create all the art and to be successful at it, because, let's face it, it's a tough world out there. So Definitely check out PodMatch if you're a podcast host looking for guests or if you're a guest looking to be on podcasts.Again, links to my affiliate are in the show notes there. Now, this next part is for podcast hosts, so if you're not, you can Skip ahead about 30 seconds.I promise I ain't gonna take me that long, but I use a thing called Pod Beacon. Basically, that's a wristband where you can have it programmed to go to your website.So if you're out of business cards, you're at a convention, you're at the grocery store. I've used it at a grocery store. And so you're starting to talk about podcasts and somebody says, well, what's your podcast?Well, all you got to do is stick out your wrist. They put their phone over it, leads them right to the website. I have my affiliate link in the show note there for you. So check that out.If you're a podcast host or if you're thinking about becoming a podcaster, that's going to be a tool in your arsenal that is going to help you succeed. And in that vein of if you think you might be a podcaster, feel like Jeff Foxworthy, you know, he might.

Terry00:42:41

Be a redneck, but if you think.

Timothy00:42:44

You might want to get get into podcasting, you can reach out to me@tkb podcast studios.com that's where I help podcasters and I lead them through all the noise of starting up their own podcast with quiet professionalism.I have a whole podcast network with this show and a couple of other shows and I have my portfolio there and it lists all the services that I can do for you. So give it a look.

Terry00:43:12

See for yourself.

Timothy00:43:14

That's@tkbpodcaststudio.com so I know if you're a writer, you got something out of this show. I know you did. And you benefited from Terry's expertise. So do yourself a favor, do your friends a favor, share it with a friend on your podcast app.There is a share button there somewhere. There's so many different podcast apps out there and I have about 10 of them them that I listen to podcasts on.And the share button is usually just an arrow pointing forward. Share it with that friend. If, if you're a painter or a dancer, but you have a friend that's a writer, share this episode with that friend.They're going to love you for it. Sharing podcasts is the best way to find podcasts. So definitely, if there's one to share, this is the episode to share with other folks.And speaking about sharing podcasts and finding podcasts, I run a podcast called Find a Podcast About. You can find that@findapodcastabout XYZ.And that's where I help all my listeners at that podcast find their next binge worthy podcast and outsmart the algorithm. Give it a spin for yourself and find your next binge worthy podcast. All right, that's all I have for you on today's episode.Again, I want to thank Terry for his generosity and sharing his wisdom with us. I want to thank you for taking a listen to this podcast. And now it's time to get on with the rest of your day.I'm going to get on with the rest of my day. So go out there, tame that inner critic. Create more than you consume. Go buy the book, learn how to publish. Learn all the secrets to publishing.And go out there and write that next great American novel and make some art for somebody you love. Yourself. I'll talk to you next time.