Someone sent me this question recently, and man did it get me fired up.

Whenever I hear any so-called advice (from anyone) saying you need XYZ specific thing in order to get published, my first response is:

Well, how does saying that benefit THEM?

Here’s the thing: do you need 100,000 followers to get published? NO. Absolutely not. Would it be helpful? Of course.

But (and this is a big BUT), there is a lot of nuance to this question, which I unpack in this episode.

Listen in for:

- thinking through using Substack, making work sustainable, whether or not to turn on paid subscriptions for this podcast, and doing work that’s easy and that I want to do

- why someone would say something like, “you need 100,000 followers to get published”

- what we mean when we say “get published” & the importance of distribution

- how to determine whether going after hundreds of thousands of followers makes sense for YOU

- why your own personal vision + goals are the most important thing to inform your book publishing decisions

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Subscribe to More to the Story podcast in Substack: https://moretothestorypodcast.substack.com/

- Under the Gum Tree: underthegumtree.com

- More to the Story coaching & editing for women: moretothestory.co- Past More to the Story episode ”If you want to publish a book, what is it that you actually want?”

- Brooke Warner’s Substack & post on distribution

- Alt Summit in Palm Springs, March 14-17

- AWP in LA, March 27-29

- follow me on Instagram @jannamarlies

- follow Under the Gum Tree on Instagram @undergumtree

When an opportunity for expansion and growth presents itself, but it’s something you’ve never done before, what’s your first instinct? To avoid doing it? To dismiss it simply because you’ve never done it? Maybe the idea of trying the thing hasn’t even occurred to you because you’ve never done it.

But just because you’ve never done something doesn’t mean you can’t do it, or shouldn’t do it. In fact I would argue that when this type of resistance comes up it’s a good indicator that it’s time to do some self-reflection and some exploring by first, getting curious and asking yourself some questions, and, second, taking one small action to get just a little closer to the thing you’ve never done.

In this episode I share an example of a client who came up against this resistance + some questions to ask yourself when it comes up for you.

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Subscribe to the podcast on Substack: moretothestorypodcast.substack.com

- My signature video course: Nonfiction Bootcamp

- Follow me on Instagram: @jannamarlies

- Follow Under the Gum Tree on Instagram: @undergumtree

- Sign up for my email list: jannamarlies.com/keep-in-touch

- Alt Summit in Palm Springs, March 14-17

- AWP in LA, March 26-29

When I introduce myself as a book coach, nearly every single woman I meet responds with, “Oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to write a book.” Then we get to talking about what’s holding them back, and it is always some variation of “I’m not ready.” It usually sounds something like:

- I’m waiting until I have a larger following.

- I’m waiting until my kids are older.

- I’m waiting until my business is more established.

- I have to take care of XYZ thing first.

- Now isn’t the right time because of XYZ.

- I’m not a good enough writer.

- I don’t know where to start!

- It’s a big, scary, overwhelming project, and I don’t know how to do it!

All of these are a version of feeling like you’re not ready to do this thing that you say you’ve always wanted to do, and here’s a secret: If you’re waiting until you’re “ready,” you never will be!

It’s kind of like producing the first ever episode of Saturday Night Live, which I talk about in this episode after watching the movie Saturday Night on Netflix. That first night, the network producer kept trying to convince Lorne Michaels, the creator of the show, that they were’t ready and they should just try again the next week. But if he had done that, would there even be the great institution of American culture and comedy that we know and love today?

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Subscribe to the podcast on Substack: moreothestorypodcast.substack.com

- More about Under the Gum Tree: underthegumtree.com

- More about my coaching & editing: moretothestory.co

- Sign up for my email list: jannamarlies.com/keep-in-touch

Aspiring authors: do you have a pre-set idea of how to write and publish your book, based on what experts and gurus have said is the (best/only/most effective) way to do it? Have you already decided that you need to do XYZ because that's what so-and-so says to do?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, this episode is for you. And I have some questions for YOU. Here's the deal: there is no one-size-fits all path to getting published and, in fact, if you haven't gotten clear on a few things for yourself first, then you may be following bad advice. Take a listen to find out what I mean.

Subscribe to the podcast on Substack: moreothestorypodcast.substack.com

More about Under the Gum Tree: underthegumtree.com

More about my coaching & editing: moretothestory.co

Sign up for my email list: jannamarlies.com/keep-in-touch

After a nearly four-year hiatus, More to the Story Podcast is back! Brought to you by Janna Marlies Maron, book coach and editor for women writing nonfiction, and editor and publisher of the creative nonfiction lit mag, Under the Gum Tree.

Time is on your side: many of previous podcast guests have published books since being on the show; what’s been happening for Janna & plans for this podcast going forward.

Subscribe to the podcast on Substack: moreothestorypodcast.substack.com

Sign up for Janna’s email list: jannamarlies.com/keep-in-touch

Janna Marlies Maron (she/her) is a professional editor with nearly 20 years of experience helping writers to complete their projects and produce the best work possible. Her experience includes time as a magazine editor, college professor, agency editorial director, and content director for a popular internet brand. Her life’s work began when she was a kid writing in a spiral bound notebook, and she has since turned an MA in creative writing into a successful career as an editor, publisher, and director of her own business supporting women authors writing nonfiction. In addition to founding and editing Under the Gum Tree, she‘s the host of More to the Story, a podcast all about creative nonfiction, as well as private online community for nonfiction writers also called More to the Story.

In the episode I talk about: 

• What’s been happening in the past three years, since the last season of More to the Story
• The importance of stepping back and taking a break when necessary
• Self-care as an essential component of work and life
• Showing up for the people you care about
• My new business working with nonfiction authors
• More to the Story, my private community for nonfiction authors. Find more info at jannamarlies.com/community
• Nonfiction Bootcamp, the 9-month coaching and editing program designed to help nonfiction authors finish a complete draft of their book manuscript. Find more info at jannamarlies.com/nonfictionbootcamp
• The best way to stay in touch with  me is to subscribe to my email list at jannamarlies.com

Thanks so much for tuning in to this season of the More to the Story podcast! Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

Nicole Walker is the author of Processed Meats: Essays on Food, Flesh and Navigating Disaster (2021) Sustainability: A Love Story (2018) and the collaborative collection The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet (2019). She has previously published the books Where the Tiny Things Are (2017), Egg (2017), Micrograms (2016), Quench Your Thirst with Salt (2013), and This Noisy Egg (2010). She edited for Bloomsbury the essay collections Science of Story (2019) with Sean Prentiss and Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction (2013) with Margot Singer. She is the co-president of NonfictioNOW and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts award and a noted author in Best American Essays. Her work has been most recently published in the New York Times, Longreads, and Manifest-Station. She teaches at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. You can find her website at nikwalk.com.

In the episode we talk about: 

• Nonfiction feeling particularly apt for the time that  we’re living in
• Star Trek and approximating an “extra inch of brain stuff” by examining things in writing
• The connecting point of imagination, drawing threads between two ideas as a way to enter braided essays
• The collaborative nature of writing, and writing & editing as a paired job
• The “bird’s eye” view of an editor and how the work of a good editor can elevate writing
• The idea that climate justice is racial justice
• The human capacity to care more about each other than personal freedoms
• Science as a lens to examine the world
• Tinkering as a process crossing over from science to writing
• Nicole’s current project examining the privilege and trauma of moving, and how it ties into climate change
• The constant feeling that we should be doing more
• Find Nicole online at nikwalk.com / Twitter & Facebook
• Read stories people shared during the pandemic as part of the How We Are project at howweare.org

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

If you’re looking for a place to find more support with writing your true personal story, join the More To The Story community!

Kristie Robin Johnson is an educator, essayist, and poet from Augusta, Georgia. She is the current Chair of the Department of Humanities at Georgia Military College’s Augusta campus where she is an Assistant Professor of English. A graduate of the MFA Creative Writing program at Georgia College and State University, Kristie’s writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has received other awards and recognition, including an AWP Intro to Journals award, the 2020 Porter Fleming Prize for Nonfiction, and the 2021 Page Prize for Nonfiction from The Pinch Literary Journal. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines, journals, and anthologies. Her first book, High Cotton, was released in 2020 by Raised Voice Press.

In the episode we talk about: 

• Hip hop as Kristie’s first introduction to literature
• Writing essays as a function of journaling, being a young mother, and writing letters to her unborn child
• The transition from being a poet to being an essayist
• Maya Angelo, Harlem Renaissance writers, and imagining her first poems as if Tupac or Biggie and Langston Hughes had a baby
• Billy Collins’s theory that every poet has 200 bad poems that they have to get out
• Determining whether a piece is an essay or a poem
• Writing about the same things over and over as a writer of color, in reference to the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery and his murder being particularly difficult because of not being able to gather during COVID
• The impact that reading Black male authors had on her young son
• Addressing race with kids and how parents make the choice of when, where, and how to talk about it
• How the media has changed the frequency at which we see racial injustice
• Kristie’s strongest writing coming out of examining the intersections of life as a woman, a Black person, a single mom, and a returning college student
• The benefits of publishing with a small press
• Find Kristie online at kristierobinjohnson.com
• Kristie’s essay collection High Cotton is available on raisedvoicepress.com and everywhere books are sold

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

If you’re looking for a place to find more support with writing your true personal story, join the More To The Story community!

Timothy J. Hillegonds is the author of The Distance Between (Nebraska, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Tim's work has appeared in The Guardian, the Chicago Tribune, Salon, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, Assay, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, River Teeth, Baltimore Review, Brevity, Under the Gum Tree, Hippocampus Magazine, The Fourth River, Midway Journal, RHINO, Bluestem Magazine, r.k.v.r.y. quarterly, and others.
In 2019, Tim was named by the Guild Literary Complex as one of their thirty "Writers to Watch,” and he currently serves as a contributing editor for Slag Glass City, a digital journal of the urban essay arts.

In the episode we talk about: 

• The practice of writing in rehab at the beginning of a serious writing life and as an integral part of healing
• Coming to nonfiction as a result of trauma
• Getting an undergrad degree at age 30
• Recovery as never being singular, we're constantly recovering from one thing or another
• Never writing the same book twice and giving yourself permission to try something different
• Crafting a persona in creative nonfiction
• Truth vs subjectivity in nonfiction, honesty in recovery
• Using the second-person perspective in nonfiction
• The challenges of an addiction memoir and a story of abuse from the perpetrator’s point of view
• The benefits of publishing with a university press
• Writing visceral scenes of using after being sober
• The moral inventory of self and wrestling with privilege working on his behalf
• How to reinvent a story like an addiction that is, let’s be honest, so played out
• Writers Hope Edelman, Michele Morano , and  Sheryl St. Germain 
• Find Tim online at timhillegonds.com.

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

If you’re looking for a place to find more support with writing your true personal story, join the More To The Story community!

Kelly is an award-winning essayist and a Pushcart nominee. She has an MFA in nonfiction from Lesley University. Her essay “Do No Harm” was awarded the $1000 Best Essay Prize and appeared in Creative Nonfiction’s Issue #55, The Memoir Issue, Spring 2015. Her essay, "Paper Moon" was shortlisted for The Pinch's 2017 Literary Award. Kelly enjoys the quiet life of rural Ohio. When she's not chasing children around the house, she can usually be found corn field watching from beneath an apple tree in her backyard. Kelly is currently seeking representation for her first book a collection of essays. 

In the episode we talk about: 

• Grief journals and turning them into essays
• Needing a place to figure out what an experience means
• Giving readers the benefit of the doubt, and essays that are a slow burn
• The short form of flash and “micro” writing
• Loss and learning to love things without consuming or owning them
• Using care in the things we create vs. self-imposed deadlines or goals
• Kelly’s piece "Winter Soliloquy" in Hippocampus
• Connect with Kelly on Twitter @WhaleLetters

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

If you’re looking for a place to find more support with writing your true personal story, join the More To The Story community!

In this episode I talk with writer Katherine Standefer. Katherine's debut book, Lightning Flowers, published November 2020 from Little Brown, was shortlisted for the 2018 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Her work was featured in The Best American Essays 2016, won the 2015 Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction, and most recently appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review Online, New England Review, Crazyhorse, Quarterly West, and The Normal School. She was a Fall 2018 Logan Nonfiction Fellow at The Carey Institute for Global Good, and earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Arizona. As a creative entrepreneur, she teaches intimate, electric writing classes that help people tell their stories about sexuality, illness, and trauma. She is also a professor in Ashland University's Low-Residency MFA.

In the episode we talk about: 

• Heartbreak and conflict minerals
• Illness as a driver force for writing nonfiction
• Owning a story vs. disguising it in thinly veiled fiction
• The need for narrative distance to craft nonfiction
• Processing illness through writing
• Research as a means of survival 
• The personal is enough, a personal story well told can change lives
• Kati’s book, Lighting Flowers, story of a complicated relationship with her ICD, the American healthcare system, and the global supply chain.
• Book forthcoming March 2020 - Nov 2020, Little Brown
• IG / Twitter: @girlmakesfire / FB: writewithkatistandefer / katherinestandefer.com

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

If you're looking for a place to find more support with writing your true personal story, join the More To The Story community!