Lenore Hirsch is the Owner of Laughing Oak Publications, where she self-publishes blogs on travel and restaurants, poetry, short stories, and books, including My Leash on Life and Laugh and Live. She was instrumental in founding the Napa Valley branch of the California Writers Club and has written columns and features for the Napa Valley Register. As a retired educator, Lenore taught middle schoolers with disabilities before becoming an administrator.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[3:17] Why Lenore Hirsch moved to Napa Valley, California
[7:02] Lenore’s background as a teacher and administrator — and advice for aspiring teachers
[14:21] Lenore talks about writing and publishing her first books
[24:21] The value of joining writer’s clubs
[28:07] How to pitch your work for critique sessions
[33:54] Advice for marketing your books
[38:54] Avoiding common author mistakes
[47:58] Lenore’s recommended technology for writers
In this episode…
Writing and storytelling can be a powerful way to connect with others, share experiences, and make sense of life's challenges. How can you showcase your work to become a published author?
As an experienced, self-published author, Lenore Hirsch maintains that participating in critique groups and writer’s clubs allowed her to receive constructive feedback and connect with other writers. These sessions allow aspiring authors to participate in public readings to refine the storytelling process and clarify hidden meanings. When engaging in these readings, you must choose impactful excerpts and practice delivery methods to engage your audience. Lenore advocates for participating in intimate writer’s groups rather than marketing your work through conventional promotional tactics.
In this episode of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, Mark Hiddleson sits down with Lenore Hirsch, the Owner of Laughing Oak Publications, to discuss how she became a published writer after retiring from a career in education. Lenore shares advice for aspiring teachers and writers, her recommended technology for authors, and how she published her first book.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc. contact phone: 707-732-3892
Mark Hiddleson's email: markhiddleson@aol.com
My Leash on Life: Foxy's View of the World from A Foot Off the Ground by Lenore Hirsch
Schooled: Confessions of a Rookie Vice Principal by Lenore Hirsch
“Transforming Agriculture: Overcoming Industry Challenges With Yvonne Sams” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast
Quotable Moments:
"If you ever want to be published, working with a critique group offers invaluable feedback."
"Being mean does not motivate anyone to learn."
"If the kids sense that you're at all insecure, they will walk all over you."
"Some people think if they put their book on Amazon overnight, thousands of people will find it and buy it."
"Read it over aloud, over and over again, to make sure that it works."
Action Steps:
Join a writers' critique group: Engaging with a critique group provides invaluable feedback that helps refine your writing voice and narrative clarity. By sharing your work regularly, you develop resilience to constructive criticism and enhance your storytelling skills.
Practice public reading of your work: Reading your writing aloud allows you to identify awkward phrasings and improve the delivery of your narrative. This practice boosts your confidence in public speaking and ensures your written work resonates well with an audience, which is crucial for effective communication.
Network with other writers and attend writing events: Networking at events like the California Writers Club can offer insights into publishing, finding editors, and sharing best practices. These interactions can open doors to publishing opportunities and provide guidance from experienced peers.
Embrace constructive feedback: Learning to accept and utilize feedback is essential in the writing process, helping you see your work from different perspectives. This conveys your message clearly to your audience, enhancing the overall impact of your writing.
Use technology wisely in your writing process: Incorporating tools like Grammarly or AI editing assistants can help polish your writing while maintaining your unique voice. However, it’s crucial to ensure these tools don't override your personal style.
Sponsor for this episode:
This episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions Inc.
Listen...
I have been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades. I know I don’t look that old, but it's true.
We provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide.
So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs Rack, Shelving, Carts, Conveyors, or Mezzanines, we help with....design engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs to help clients optimize their logistics operations.
Sometimes people don’t even realize that we can actually help with permit acquisition services.
We take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually improving your operation.
To learn more, visit specialracks.com or give us a call at (707) 732-3892. One of the best ways to learn more about our products and services is to follow us on Instagram. And there’s a link on our website to do that.
I will even give you my personal email address for podcast listeners, so email me at markhiddleson@aol.com if you’re ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level.
Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:01
Welcome to The Tao of Pizza, where we feature top logistics leaders, entrepreneurs and supply chain innovators and share their inspiring stories with a holistic twist.
Mark Hiddleson 0:14
Mark Hiddleson Here host of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, where I talk with top industry innovators in the warehousing, logistics and supply chain business with a holistic twist. Before I introduce today's guest author, Lenore Hirsch, this episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions. Listen, I've been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades, and it's still hard for me to believe, but it's true, we provide industry leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide. So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs rack shelving, cards, conveyors or mezzanines, we help with the design, engineering, installation, inspections and repairs to help our clients optimize their logistics operations and the NOR is funny, sometimes people don't even realize we can actually help with the permit acquisition services. We take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually proving your operation. To learn more. Visit specialracks.com or give us a call at 707-732-3892. And I even give out my personal email address for podcast listeners. So email me at markhiddleson@aol.com if you're ready to take your warehouse, storage and retrieval systems to the next level. And I want to give one more shout out to Yvonne Sams. She was an awesome guest a few weeks back. She shared her remarkable story and some true supply chain transformation examples on a very large scale, but today we're joined by Lenore Hirsch. Lenore is a retired educator who writes poetry, essays and fiction. Lenore was instrumental in founding the Napa Valley branch of the California writers club. She's written a column and features for the Napa Valley register, a doggie blog called my leash on life, a restaurant blog, lunch encounter, poetry and travel pieces. She's been published in Napa Valley life, uu world and various journals and anthologies. Her books include my leash on life leavings laugh and live advice for aging boomers, schooled Confessions of a rookie vice principal and connection stories she lives in Napa Valley with her canine buddy, chewy Lenore, welcome to The Tao of Pizza. Oh, there's Julie.
Lenore Hirsch 2:43
Always seems to know when my attention is captured somewhere else. Isn't that awesome? Hopefully he'll behave himself.
Mark Hiddleson 2:52
And kids are born with that Knack too. I think mom, yeah, yeah. Well, he looks like he he appreciated the attention, and he's knows how to behave too, so that's awesome. So Lenore, share a little bit about your background, and have you always lived in Napa? I always love to hear
Lenore Hirsch 3:17
no, this is a hard question for me to answer, so I'll give you the quick rundown. I was born in Connecticut, spent my first 10 years outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Then my dad had his midlife crisis, and we went to Indiana for two years, two different towns, then back to New York, where I went to high school in Queens, and then I did college in Albany, New York, Amherst, Massachusetts, moved to California, then back to Chicago for grad school, and I've basically been in the Bay Area since 1969 when I was just a child,
Mark Hiddleson 4:05
I was, you know what? I arrived in the Bay Area in 1969 too. We have that in common at a little hospital called Alta Bates in Berkeley. Oh, and that's where I arrived on the planet. And it's funny, whenever I talk to somebody, I love your story, because I've never lived like more than 50 or 60 miles from Berkeley. I've lived in the Central Valley, Stockton, Modesto rippin is where I went to school and I went to college in Sacramento. I moved here. I've been here for 26 years. But what's interesting, I haven't gone very far away, but those are like three major different cultures, like the Central Valley is like the Midwest, and
Lenore Hirsch 4:47
I did, I did a lot of moving around in the Bay Area for my so I started out, well, no, I didn't start out as a teacher, but once I became a teacher, then I kept jumping around to different jobs, and then I. Came in administrator. So I've lived in San Francisco, not in this order, San Francisco, Albany, Castro Valley, Danville, Fremont, what did I leave out? Maybe that's it before, oh and Novato in Marin County, before I came to Napa in 1992
Mark Hiddleson 5:26
awesome. So even I came here in 98 so similar, about a similar background, but I always feel like a newcomer. Because seems like every time I talk to somebody in Napa their second or third January, people ask me, have you been here for a long time? And I'm like, relatively, not only about lost my life so
Lenore Hirsch 5:45
it but, you know, Napa has changed a lot, even in the time that you have been here. So the old timers really have a, you know, they can talk about prune orchards, yeah. And it's still changing, maybe too much, I don't know. It is
Mark Hiddleson 6:05
it? Is I love, I love living here, and it is interesting to see. I mean, the downtown has been, I mean, completely revitalized, but it's not the same like we met. It's we met at Norman rose tavern. I love it because it's such a cool there's so many cool places we have to give a shout out to Marmon rose. But before we get into I was going to ask you about some other places where, like the Jessup gallery, but tell share a little bit about the the one that makes me giggle is school Confessions of a rookie vice principal. My daughter wants to get into she's getting her master's degree in education right now at the University of San Diego, and she wants to be a teacher. She wants to work with children, but administration is on her goals. You know, of of two to five year plan or five to 10 year plan? Who knows? So share a little bit I love, I love the title
Lenore Hirsch 7:02
well. And I have, I have been interview and I have written a lot of stuff for people who are interested in being a teacher and and what I owe. And I always tell them, Don't go into teaching because you want to be an administrator and make a lot of money, because you won't survive as a teacher, unless you love teaching. So my story, you know, my I came to it in a strange way, because when, as when I was growing up, like when I was in high school, I must have tutored kids. I don't remember how this came about, but people were always telling me, you should be a teacher. You should, you'd be really a good teacher. And I was like, I don't want to have anything to do with being a teacher. And in one of my first jobs, I had the my assignment was to create training materials for telephone operators. And in that process, and it was programmed training. Do you remember that stuff? It had a lot of fun doing it. And I had, like, an unlimited budget, you know? I remember saying to my boss, it'd be really great if these pages could be in three colors. And she said, Okay, anyway, in the process of doing that job, I got to try out my draft materials on real people, and discovered I liked teaching. So a year later, I went back to school to get a master's in teaching so I could do that. And so what can I tell you about that? Yeah, you have to really like kids. You have to be dedicated. It is not an easy job. And you have to the, I think the hardest thing for many people, not everyone. Some people have the knack, naturally, to take control. That was not me. So for those of us who might be a little bit intimidated by 30 children staring us down, whether they're 17 or seven, you have to fake it till you make it. Because if the kids and I had this experience, if the kids sense that you're at all insecure, they will walk all over you, and I had some very unfortunate circumstances where I didn't get the kind of support that I needed as a new teacher. And fortunately, and I've been retired for a while now, but I think California still has this great program that has a name I don't remember, but where brand new teachers are, are in a special program their first year through the school district, and are paired with a mentor. So when then they're having their problems, they have somebody they can talk to and somebody who can help them resolve all those initial in. Securities, if they have them. Some people are natural. They just walk in and they take over. But you have to be the one who's in charge and do it in a nice way. You can't being mean does not motivate anyone to learn. So anyway, people who love kids and are willing to work really hard. It's a very rewarding profession.
Mark Hiddleson 10:26
Yeah, and Serena is a natural. I mean, she's a natural with kids. She always has been and and she loves it. It wasn't her career idea, but when she was getting her master's degree, she worked with a coach, and they had a list of questions about your passions and what would you how would you score yourself? One of the questions was of Mary Poppins, Rate yourself with Mary Poppins on a one to 10. And my my daughter, was like, I'm Mary Poppins. That's funny, and that was kind of a no brainer for her, that she's always been passionate about teaching and the and the taking control. I mean, she's 24 she's been running our house for 20 years. I have two sons too, and my wife and Serena, has always been the the ringleader. And my mom was a teacher. My dad was a teacher. So I love I was really my heart was warm, because I think it's, it's the most you know, beautiful, most important, whatever you want to call it, calling, you know, to and especially young children. She wants to work with second graders, third, first, second, third grade. And she has such a gift that I'm glad she's not. I mean, I love my attorney, and I love psychologists and everything else like that, that she could have been, but the teacher was really heartwarming. Yeah, so
Lenore Hirsch 11:43
not to get frustrated if she's got any initial challenges. I mean, the best teachers I have known somehow manage to know what every child in that room needs, and that is a very, very special skill, but so let me tell you how I got into administration. I was hired in my first job, I was hired to teach kids with learning disabilities, even though I had no preparation for that, of course. So I eventually did get the credentials to be a resource specialist and work with kids with learning disabilities, which is a great way to make sure you always will have a job, but a large part of that job is administrative. You know, it's writing individual educational plans, talking to parents, having meetings, testing and analyzing test scores. So after doing that for a number of years, I kind of said, you know, I'm doing so much administrative stuff, maybe I should take administrative classes. So I did that. And when I went and then my first year doing it, maybe this is more than you want to hear about. So tell me to stop if you want me to. But I was hired at this elementary school to teach half the day and be the vice principal the other half the day. So what that meant was I spent half my day dealing with student discipline problems and administrative stuff, and then I would have to go home and correct lessons and write lesson plans. Oh, my God, it was so hard. So then I said, Well, I might as well be a full time administrator anyway. So I worked my way up and eventually got to the point where I felt I had enough experience that I could get a job somewhere I really wanted to live, which was one country. So that's how I came to Napa. Awesome, awesome.
Mark Hiddleson 13:55
I was lucky that I fell in love with somebody who lived here already, and I lived in Sacramento at the time, and it was a toss up, like we moved to Sacramento or Napa. It was pretty easy, yeah, decision. So where did the idea to start writing come from? And then also not really writing, but publishing, I mean, which, to me, it's two different I think we're all writers, but publishing is a different
Lenore Hirsch 14:21
sport. Yeah, well, there's, there's a whole thing about, there are a whole, whole lot of people who write and write and write but don't want anyone else to see it. Um, so writing since I was young, has always been easy for me. And I, you know, I think in high school, I was on the school literary magazine wrote some bad poetry. But then, you know, it never occurred to me that that could be like a career. If I were doing it over again, I might look at becoming a journal. A list or doing something like that, anyway. So when did I get into I guess, as I approached retirement, I started, oh, I had this idea about writing this book from the dog's point of view. And I had, oh, I had been through terrible grief with the loss of my husband, and the dog was there for all of that. So I wrote the, the doggy memoir, my leash on life with the did I made up, you know, where the dog came from. He was a rescue. But I kind of made up a story because he was telling it. But I had the dog tell the story of the few years in our life while my husband was ill and his eventual demise. And of course, from the dog's point of view, he doesn't really understand what's going on. So it's kind of makes it more, a more palatable story. A friend of mine actually read the book to her fifth grade class, and they loved it. And it was very therapeutic for me writing that. And it's, it's a cute it's a fun little book, because dogs have thoughts like, how do they stand on two legs all day long. And I really, I really got into, you know, what is going on to this little guy's head. So that was,
Mark Hiddleson 16:29
I have the postcard right here. The
Lenore Hirsch 16:32
first project, that book is now 10 years old. You can still get it on Amazon, and
Mark Hiddleson 16:37
you'll be able to get it on our show notes. So I want everybody know that we have on our website, we put the show notes, so any book we mentioned or resource, so all your books, they'll be able to buy all your books from the from the show and so, and I'm going to buy a copy of that. That's a beautiful story, because my my dad passed away a little over two years ago, and they had a rescue dog. And for my dad, there's things that he wrote, like, who rescued who? And then my dad shared with me, yeah, and then that dog, I have to be careful. I get too emotional. I won't be able to finish the interview, but, but Bernie just passed away, and my stepmom, my dad, asked me to look after I think she would get a lot out of that book, and that there's a, it's a, it's a beautiful relationship, that the three of them had that, and we've had we're it's funny, we're not. I had dogs as a kid. My wife and I were really not dog people, but my son was a super dog. I mean, he was just like, if my daughter is a child whisperer, he was a dog whisperer from the time he was five or six, our friend's dog. He would just play with him. He would lay with him. He would sleep with him. He could talk to him. So we did get two labs we had for close to 15 years. So the dog and we just lost lady about three months ago or six months ago. So it's an awesome I didn't even think I thought it was cute, and I also think it's a great how hard is it or what? How much of a skill is it to see things from a different perspective? I think it's just a genius, because we need to see things from each other's perspective, but from the dogs. It's a great practice. So
Lenore Hirsch 18:15
yeah, and there are, of course, some great, best selling books out there that are written from the dog's point of view, but I think that they like, what is it racing in the rain? Get that dog knows too understands too much about human culture in life. But anyway, so around when I retired, and I guess I did this book after I retired, but I had been working on it when I retired, I started taking a class here in Napa Valley, create a writing class that was for seniors. And, you know, just basically started exploring a lot of different things. So I still remember how excited I was when I got I had written a little it was just a paragraph. I don't even know what you'd call it, comparing somehow chocolate and disappointment in romance. I don't, I don't remember what it was, but and I sent it somewhere, and someone published it online, and I was, like, so excited to be a published writer, so I took that class for maybe three, four years, like weekly and that was how I got involved in the California writers club. And through the California writers club, I got involved in what we call a critique group. I've been in a number of them over the years. I'm currently in a group that meets once a week, and that means you have to have some writing to share, and you're going to get feedback on it. And so for any of your viewers who are interested in writing, or for you, getting that feedback, learning how to take feedback, is really a very important. Part of the process, if you ever want to be published, and working with the being with the same group of people week after week, it has its pluses and minuses, because eventually you become friends, and then maybe the feedback becomes a little bit can become overwhelming, like people telling you, no, don't use this word, use that word, but, but the idea of, you know when, especially with fiction, when you're writing a story, you don't really know what the impact is going to be on the other person. Are they going to get what you meant when you said that sentence? And so by sharing it with other people, you find out that, oh, they didn't understand that at all. So you need to go back and make a change, or no, that was obvious. You didn't need to say it that way. So that's having that kind of regular feedback is very, very powerful, and you learn to not be offended when somebody doesn't like what you wrote, and you learn which of your friends advice you value the most. So that's that. And I've been, I have been in a critique group now for a long of one kind or another, for a long, long time, so it keeps me writing, and and then, you know, once you have written a bunch of stuff, you start sending it places and people publish it. Yeah, it's, you don't necessarily make any money, but you know, other people get to read what you wrote.
Mark Hiddleson 21:37
Yeah, when you when we met, the night we met, I think it was the day after I had just sent a draft manuscript to an editor, and I was ready for it because I had coaching, and I had P I had a lot of people. I never went to the writers club meeting. I actually I thought about it, because there's an accountability part too, because of of producing something or weekly, or by is it weekly or every other week that you meet? It's weekly. And so there's also, for me, I love that accountability piece, and I've always learned in group like, whether you're trying to lose 20 pounds or start a company or start a movement or build anything, it's the group is so powerful to keep you focused, committed, and creating something that you really probably one of my biggest drawbacks that I tried to do too much of this project on my own, and that was kind of one of my learning lessons. So I love that you started this. I'm going to be involved. I'd love to to go to some of those. But so what was it through the adult education that you took the the writers class? Or was it something else? Um,
Lenore Hirsch 22:40
yeah, so I don't know that this program still exists. It was when it's not a school district, a county, some entity in Napa Valley had free classes for older people. Yeah, adults. Was in St Helena, and it met every week. And, you know, the the teacher got paid, and I should give her a shout out, Anna man wearing um, who has herself a published author, uh, taught this class for years. She may still be teaching, and I haven't been involved for for quite a while now. And then at some point it went off the free thing. And I don't know what's it may right now be at in fact, I think there's a group like that that meets at rihanda house in St Helena. That's still a free thing. I think so people could, could check that out if, if they're interested in that class, actually one of my critique group buddies, Brad Sherman team, who is a retired English teacher from he taught at Vintage high, is also teaching a class. And I think his is through the Yountville Community Center, and that's another class for for I think he's, maybe he's doing memoir, but that's another class for people who want to write, to bring what they have and share. There's a lot of that going on in Napa Valley.
Mark Hiddleson 24:11
What are some other ways to Well, first, I want to ask you, so what about the writers club? Do you think gives the most traction and results?
Lenore Hirsch 24:21
Well, getting into a critique group, you know, is a huge plus, and we try to facilitate that. But I think the the most positive feedback that we get from people who come to the writer's block. I mean, we have a speaker every month, and that can be very valuable. But I think one of the most positive aspects is just networking with other people who are also writing. So you know, we have people come to our meetings, who our grandmas who want to write something for their grandchildren and have no idea how to go about getting started. We have people who. Who have done professional writing but want to do fiction. We have people who have written whole books and don't know what to do with them. So by talking to other people there, you can learn who's an editor, who you could use, who isn't going to charge you an arm and a leg, who's a publisher, who might be open to looking at what you have, um, how do you self publish? You know, you want to put your book up on Amazon? How the heck do you do that? Yeah, so there's a lot of knowledge in that group from all the different people's experience about how to learn more. And I think that's and just talking to other people who are writers is is great. One of the things our current president has us doing, which has been very popular, is that every meeting we have, like a 10 minute time where we get into small groups and there's a question for people to answer about what they're working on or what a challenge has been, and that helps people get to know each other better, and also people share information that can be very useful.
Mark Hiddleson 26:16
Yeah, and I might hear or people have the same fears and everything going, Oh, I thought I was the only one.
Lenore Hirsch 26:22
I know it's never and I got it. The other thing I got to tell you is, and I get such a big kick out of this. Of course, I was in a classroom for a bunch of my life, so I have no problem speaking to a group of people, but there are a lot of people who do beautiful writing and have no idea how to read to a group, and actually, I have seen workshops given on how to do that, but a writer's club gives you, well, a critique group as well gives you an opportunity to practice reading your work. Because one of the most valuable things you can do is, even if you're the only one in the room, is to read it out loud, because then you hear the stuff that doesn't work, yeah, the the words that don't go together, because you if they end up being a tongue twister. And I have, I have coached many people on when you're going to do a reading, how you prepare for that. You don't just take your book and open it up and start reading something. And I'm always amazed at the number of people who may be well published, who still do not know how to do a reading. And you know you have you want to engage your listeners, which means you might look up from the manuscript once in a while and make eye contact. You know, all that stuff you learn in whatever that group is that helps people be public speakers, Toastmasters, all that kind of stuff you learn in Toastmasters. You have to be able to do that if you want to be a success at reading your work to people who might then buy it. Yeah.
Mark Hiddleson 28:01
What are some other I love the eye contact. What do you have any other?
Lenore Hirsch 28:07
So you mentioned Jessel earlier. So Jessel salon on Atlas Peak Road in Napa has been for the last it's probably going on two years. Has been doing a quarterly writers salon, and I'm involved in the organization of that. And so what I tell no matter who the people are, who we enlist to read, each time, we have four people, and they each get 15 minutes, and then Jessel sells their books. And what I tell them all is that they need to select a passage, because in 15 minutes, you may not read a whole chapter of your book. Select a passage that stands is good enough to stand alone. You don't want to spend half of your 15 minutes explaining who all these characters are, who you're eventually going to get to. And what I do, I have my books all marked up with different length reading selections, because at some open mics, you only get five minutes. So if you're a prose writer, what the heck can you read in five minutes that will have an impact? So I pull a select a passage that I think you know has some impact, and then I line out like if there's reference to characters who aren't important for this passage, I don't read that part, so I kind of craft the piece. And then I time myself and I read it aloud over and over again to make sure that it works. Say that again. You read it over and over to yourself. Yeah, timing it so because I have also been the timer at open mics, where I've had to cut people off because it occurred to them they needed to know how much they could read in five minutes. Um. Um, so, yeah, so you you want to read with expression? There are a lot of this is a pet peeve of mine. A lot of poets, and I don't understand this at all, who read dead pan, oh, they read with no expression whatsoever. And poetry is hard enough to get when you're only hearing it once, when there's no life behind the reading. I don't understand that. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 30:28
98% of communication is like body language and tone of voice just reading. They're getting 2% and it's very difficult to retain. I
Lenore Hirsch 30:39
love it when I'm doing a reading and people laugh. That is my eye.
Mark Hiddleson 30:43
Awesome, awesome. That's brilliant advice. And the repeating and rehearsing, I've done a lot of things over the years, and I've been teased for, I mean, in sale, it's a lot of it's the same way, if you're going to say so, they're all role play it. And like, role playing, everyone gets embarrassed, and they want to, they want to do role playing, but to practice it over and over and over, it's the only way it's going to be any good. Nobody just fell out of bed and was a natural. That's why I wanted you to say that again. Because sometimes I feel guilty because I want to be sincere. I want to be authentic and but for me, if I go out there and screw it up, but that's not authentic either, you know. Because, oh, hey, I just winged it, you know what I read? I did a blind page and just read it dead pan. I guess I didn't want to seem like a jerk or whatever. I don't know. I love the practice, and the subtitle of mine is the practice of being a pastor. I love anything that involves practicing something to master it. And you're not mastering it just for yourself. You're mastering it for whoever you're sharing with it like honor your audience, that you're there to bring your gift and so, yeah,
Lenore Hirsch 31:46
I love that you said you tell you, from going to a lot of open mics, a mediocre peak of piece of writing well delivered is more effective than a brilliant piece of writer badly delivered. Yeah, I've
Mark Hiddleson 32:01
heard there's a difference between a Best Writing author and a best selling author. It's like the best writing author doesn't sell more books. The
Lenore Hirsch 32:09
whole best selling thing is, well, it's kind of beyond my understanding, but I have read articles about what you should do on M all you have to do to call yourself Self a best seller is like on one particular day to sell more books than anybody else in your category, or something. And so people do all kinds of stuff, lowering the price to nothing, doing all kinds of ways to get a whole bunch of people to buy their book on the same day, so they can then put best seller next to their name. And I think that dishonest to say the least.
Mark Hiddleson 32:50
Yeah, what? So I love that you said that because I am going to do a best seller campaign. It is, I will admit it isn't. It doesn't have to do with the quality of the writing. I do think in mine is gonna have to do with the quality of the network. Because I really, and my passion is to is for the people who know me already, or within my group, or people who know who know me. You know. But what do you think is the best way to to market? I mean, you have several. I only have three here, but I think I read there's five. You have six, five or six, five. So what? What is, I didn't even want my book to be available on Amazon because, like, I really one of my books about my values, my vision for the community, everything I don't think Amazon has, but it's not like there's 300 retailers, and you can do 299 and not have Amazon on that list. That's being a moron, too. So what are we'll speak more about Jes. I mean, I think to me, that sounds one of the more beautiful, honorable, holistic is the word I like to use ways of marketing is actually show up and read something and have it
Lenore Hirsch 33:54
right more and I, and I and Jessel gives prominent visibility to the authors who read there. So I think I told you, I she has a bookshelf where all five of my books are sitting there facing out. That would not be the case in any bookstore on the planet. You know, if my book was in a bookstore, all you'd get to see was, would be the spine. Yeah, um, so yeah, that's, yeah, go going out and reading in public. That's a great way to let people know your book is there. That doesn't mean however they're going to buy it. Some people think that if they put their book on Amazon overnight, 1000s of people will find it and buy it. Does not happen that way. So I mean, I pay Amazon for advertising, and I monitor it daily to make sure I'm not spending more than I'm making. There are occasional months where I do spend more than I make and I'm not getting rich on it. I think this. In December, which is usually my best month, I've sold 29 books, which is not great, but, you know, but I'll make about $100 on my December sales. Amazon is very carefully configured so that they make money. You know, that the people I have heard speak about marketing who do the best are the ones who are every time they do an event, they're getting people's email addresses so that they can have a letter that they send regularly. I have never had any interest in I have an email list that's got maybe 250 names on it, and I send something once a year. So that shows you what my marketing skills are. What else do they do? The people who are really good at marketing, they just they're always blowing their own horn, which does not, you know, I love talking about my writing, but I'm not going to tell you this is the greatest thing, since you know, whatever I mean, you know, if you're interested in dogs, you like my dog book, if you're an old person, you'll probably get a few laughs out of my book about aging. But I would rather write then market. And that's my experience with most of the writers that I know. And you can pay somebody a lot of money to do the marketing for you. I've had some offers made to me to do that, but, you know, I'm not looking if I were 30 years old and looking to make a living as a writing, a writer, maybe it would be different, but I'm, I'm not. I'm just happy when somebody reads my book. Awesome. Yeah, I'm not the marketing guru, for sure. Awesome. Well, how
Mark Hiddleson 36:52
about you've given us some great and I think showing that for me, I'm going to go to industry events, industry conferences, things that I've been involved already have a network of people who know me, and then this book is going to be something that it's kind of a part of my personal passions, of my own holistic way of thinking and solving problems that but I'm like you, my goal is get it in someone's hands and says, Hey, I'm going to do something with this information. I'm going to create something. I'm going to start others want to be a spark. So I hope the book is a spark.
Lenore Hirsch 37:22
So, so I just, I just want to add a caveat that you have. Well, I guess anybody who's selling anything knows this. You have to be careful not to put out money that isn't going to come back to you. I once went. Now this is after the dog book. I went to a conference in Nashville for pet bloggers, thinking, oh, there's going to be a bunch of people you know who write about their animals. Perfect place to make a splash, right? Yeah, oh, it was totally insane. Did I sell any books as a result of that? Maybe one or two. So, I mean, I traveled across the country, I paid for a hotel, I paid for the conference. I did all of that, and the financial gain was a minus. So, and I've you know, sometimes, like, you could go to you could buy a booth at the farmers market. You could rent a spot and set up a table to sell your books. But are you going to sell enough books to make up for what you paid for to be there? So that? I just want to caution people don't be overly optimistic about how many people are going to buy your book, even if they look at it and they think it's great, that doesn't mean they're going to show up the money.
Mark Hiddleson 38:43
Yeah, and so. So I was just, I was just going to ask you, what's a big pitfall or mistake that you learned a lot from they could share with other authors. That's a good one.
Lenore Hirsch 38:54
Well, I will, I will tell you one, one really awful thing that happened. I do not do my own formatting of my books. I always pay somebody to do that because I don't trust myself. I mean, plenty of people do it themselves, but I don't trust myself to have it in the right format and get it up on Amazon. So it's okay, so with the first book. And you know, after you have your draft up there, and then you have to look at it and improve it, and there's always little things you want to tweak. And I still remember the way this happened was I had not given credit to the person who took the photo of me on the back cover, so I went to my formatter and said, you know, we need to add this credit to this. So he went ahead and did it, and then I guess he sent me a new draft, and I didn't look at it very carefully. I figured, well, they only made the one little change. So he uploaded it onto Amazon, and I. I bought a whole bunch of copies, and a relative of mine wanted 50 copies of my book, so I had Amazon send her 50 copies, and then somebody and of course, when you're selling it on Amazon, you don't know who the people are who are buying this. So there's a problem. You to have no way to tell them. Some friend of mine who bought the book said, you know, the book ends in kind of a strange way. No. Said, what? Because I had worked really hard on this very sweet ending of the book where the dog says, we'll be we'll be together forever. And I thought, what? So I picked up one of those books from that batch, the last 10 pages were, had somehow been dropped out. So the person who had done the upload for me, you know, replaced all those books you know, so financially with but you know, my cousin who had 50 copies, I had to send her another 50 copies, and God only knows how many other people bought it and thought, What is wrong with this book? So my caution would be, no matter who is doing the technical stuff, make sure you check everything over and over and over again and now, every time I order books, I get, you know, you order author copies from amazon so I can sell them myself. I check, I look at the book to make sure everything is there that's supposed to be.
Mark Hiddleson 41:34
That is a brilliant one, and that you kind of just described me. So it's like one of my thing is, how do I protect myself from myself? I'm the person who will like, I've looked at 100 times we made one quick change, and I'll look at that quick change and then just approve everything else. And you're saying, Don't do it, right? That's Wow. That's a great that's a great pitfall to be aware of. Double check and you said something else in there. Oh, about the credit? Yeah, and I wasn't even thinking I have a headshot that I did. It was done at a industry conference. I don't even know if I would know who to give the credit for that picture, other than I took it in Chicago, at an industry conver Atlanta, I think, but interesting, and we are paying somebody to format it do all the ISBN numbers. So do you do the so you pay somebody to do that every time?
Lenore Hirsch 42:30
Well, I have purchased my own ISBN numbers, and it for people who want to publish on Amazon. You don't have to have your own ISBN if you're doing Amazon. But then it would be clear to anybody who knows what they're doing when I open the book, that Amazon is the publisher, because then it's got their imprint on it. So I always publish, and you can buy 10 of them at a time, and just hold on to them forever. Um, so I do that, I do some of that, and then I give that information to to my formatter. So different people probably do it different ways, but I was going to tell you another story, and now I left my head about it. Oh, yeah. So I once wrote a feature for the Napa Valley register about a wonderful lavender farm here in Napa and the and if it comes to me, I'll tell you the name of it, because they're truly awesome. They're in Carneros. But the lovely family gave me a photo to use with the article. And I said, so this is your picture, right? And they said, Yeah. So I gave the photo to the register, and the register published the photo with my article, and the person the photographer had a connection fit, because I and I guess the family, didn't realize that if they were going to use that, that the photographer needed To be credited, so that that was really interesting.
Lenore Hirsch 44:10
piece. You need to ask their permission, and then they will, they will either say, Sure, just give me credit, or Sure, but I'm going to charge you 50 bucks or whatever. Yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 44:22
interesting. Those are great, and that's what we have somebody else. That's one of the reasons I have somebody else working on it, because I'm the guy who's going to read the part I change, just like you did, and not look at everything. So it's nice, but you're saying, even with another set of eyes, be careful, author beware.
Lenore Hirsch 44:38
Yeah, because let's put it this way You as the author are more invested in that product than anybody you hire to work on it. So you have got to be make sure that you're happy with it. So
Mark Hiddleson 44:51
I think I read that article. Was that when Carrie Ruel was the editor, or was it more recent than Carrie? No
Lenore Hirsch 44:58
Carrie was Napa Valley. Right? This was for the register. Well, this is register
Mark Hiddleson 45:01
register because you've published it now Valley life too, right? Yeah, not
Lenore Hirsch 45:06
recently, but it was when Carrie was in charge. Yeah, I actually one of my favorite pieces I did for Napa Valley, right? Like was Who makes the best rotisserie chicken in Napa and I got Carrie to pay for me to go buy like, five different chickens at different places, and I had my friends over, and we rated the chickens. That was, I'd love to do more of that. That was a lot of fun. She's
Mark Hiddleson 45:32
a he who she moved to the East Coast when she sold the magazine. And I try to stay in touch with Carrie, but it's like, once I've invited her, I've I'm the mentor on this podcast, I'm gonna tag her on this podcast when I posted on LinkedIn, and are you on LinkedIn? I didn't, did we connect on LinkedIn? I usually
Lenore Hirsch 45:52
on LinkedIn, but I pay almost no attention to it. Okay? I should that, see, that's I should use it for marketing, and I don't so
Mark Hiddleson 46:02
try well, so I'm going to post this on LinkedIn. It's one of the only ways that I market, and it's on every podcast platform that does so Spotify. If you know somebody who listens to Spotify or iTunes or anywhere to get your podcast, you say The Tao of Pizza Podcast and Lenore Hirsch and yours is going to pull up on any podcast. So you're
Lenore Hirsch 46:23
saying that somebody could go to LinkedIn, to what your LinkedIn page to get this podcast?
Mark Hiddleson 46:31
Yeah, or our website is the other place our specialracks.com, and that's where the specialracks so the Spotify and iTunes, at least, I haven't looked at all of them. They don't have the show notes like I have with the details, like I'm going to have a link to, it'll probably be Jessel, even if it's on LinkedIn, or I'll just find ways to link all the kind of giving credit anyone we brought up. But it's also a resource of somebody that's great, because I wanted to be a resource of, and I'm hoping, because I know a lot of people just being in business, I know a lot of people who should be writing a book, or who want to or dreamed of it. So that's another one of my inspirations. Is say, you know, do it if you thought about doing it, do it if you were thinking. Or even, like you said, a lot of people are writing, but they're not publishing. One of my biggest fears of publishing, too, was being misunderstood. I'm like, this is going to be misunderstood. I'm talking about things, and I had to get over that. That was a blog. It was a fear. And then you say like it is going to happen. It just is, and nothing I do is going to avoid it. But the critique sessions, I think, are good practice for that,
Lenore Hirsch 47:38
yeah, because that way you'll know if your average reader is going to not get what you're trying to say.
Mark Hiddleson 47:43
Yeah, so many great advice for writers. So I like to end with a question about technology. Are you using any technology this year, in the last couple years that you weren't using
Lenore Hirsch 47:58
before? Well, I've kind of avoided a I although I guess it's, it's embedded in a lot of things that I do. I think my experience where I was aware of it was I was doing a post on next door to either look for a service person or sell something, I don't know what, and I got the little question, would you like AI to improve this? And I said, okay, and it did. So that's really interesting, but technology now, to tell you the truth, and maybe it's my age, the technology makes me crazy. I currently, right now, my two echo dots don't work, and when I try to get them to work, I get this message from Alexa that they're disconnected from Wi Fi, and I need to go to the Alexa app and reconnect. And I haven't been I go to the Alexa app, and it just tells me, anyway, yeah, no, I am not big on technology.
Mark Hiddleson 49:12
I always love to ask chat GPT AI is one of the things that's come up recently on the I asked somebody who was a psychologist for 30 or something years long career in psychology, asked her when she said chat GPT is something that she's never used, and using it Grammarly. And so it's a similar thing. I have Grammarly hooked up to my AOL or my special rap. Both my emails. Have Grammarly hooked up because it's interesting, if it gives you that's funny when you said that they want to give you suggestions. Were you thinking like, well, I'm nor Hirsch. I've written five books like, I've been giving you something how to do, but I do. I when I read it, because you write things that's in your head you don't know. Like, a lot of times I'm writing things down, and you can think faster than you can write. So you write it down and it just, do you get the. Suggestion from Grammarly, like, oh, you know what? I am going to change it. Well, let
Lenore Hirsch 50:03
me tell you one more thing, and maybe this applies more to fiction than to non fiction. For one of my books, I I don't think I paid her. I asked. I was looking for an editor to help me with the book, and so I had this particular price. She had said, This person I knew said, well, send me a chapter. So I sent her a chapter or two of the book, and she edited it and sent it back to me. And when I read what she had done with it, it's it. It read great. Um, there were definitely some ways it was improved, but it no longer sounded like me. And there was even some subtle, some sarca, some word I had used that had a little bit of sarcasm in it that she had changed. And it was like, You're a great editor, but this is my book. It has to sound like me, so be careful with AI that it doesn't change your voice or your personality, because that's a really important part of your writing.
Mark Hiddleson 51:18
Great. That is great advice. I think that is a great place to end. This has been so awesome. Lenore, thank you. An hour,
Lenore Hirsch 51:26
what's that? It
Mark Hiddleson 51:28
is? Yeah, it's like 5055, minutes. Dan, I want to respect your time, and I'm really glad we met at the Norman road.
Lenore Hirsch 51:36
So I'm looking forward to reading some of your pages. Send them over. Okay,
Mark Hiddleson 51:41
I'll send over. I would. I'll send the full manuscript, if you want, you want a chapter, an inner chapter, whatever,
Lenore Hirsch 51:49
whatever you want to do, I'll be happy. I will see how much I read, but I'd be happy to read it and give you my two cents.
Mark Hiddleson 51:57
That is so awesome. Thank you.
Lenore Hirsch 51:59
Thank you. I'll see you again in Norman rose, yeah,
Mark Hiddleson 52:03
I think I had three. What's the drink I love to get there? It's the big. Lebowski,
Lenore Hirsch 52:11
yeah, it was a, what is that cream and yeah? Kalua, yeah. Why can't I think of the name of it? I don't know, White Russian. White.
Mark Hiddleson 52:31
So, yeah, three white Russians. And I'm glad we got to have a conversation where I haven't had any white Russia, because although that was a great night, it was fun. I just finished my Christmas shopping. I just turned in my manuscript. So really, pleasure Cool. Thank
Lenore Hirsch 52:45
you. All right. Thank you. Have Have a Happy New Year.
Outro 52:49
Thanks for listening to The Tao of Pizza Podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
Comments