The Life Story Coach: Recent Episodes
Amy Woods Butler, Personal Historian and Life Story Writer
Want to make your living as a writer? Love listening to other people’s life stories? Tune in for advice on the craft and business of personal history, the growing field of recording memoirs and family histories for paying clients.
Karin Jones believes sex and intimacy are a big part of our lives, and she challenges personal historians to gently explore this topic with their storytelling clients.
Links & Stuff Karin's controversial article appeared in New York Times' "Modern Love" column. "What Sleeping About Married Men Taught Me About Infidelity"
Find Karin Jones' bimonthly column, "Savvy Love," at the Erotic Review Magazine, or on her Savvy Love blog at https://www.savvy-love.com/blog.
Follow Karin on Twitter: @mskarinjones
Curious about Esther Perel? Read about her fascinating story.
Illustrated Heirloom Books, and What Goes into Creating Them In this episode, we're going back to the first part of our conversation with Lisa Kagan.
As an artist and writer, Lisa is fascinated by the intersection of visual art and storytelling. She brings all her gifts to bear on the illustrated heirloom books her company produces, allowing the clients a chance to become intimately involved in the creation of the words and images of their life story book.
She also talks about:
- connecting to her community as an artist and creative, and how that has helped her organically grow her business
- contracting other personal history professionals for editing, book design, production, and more
- the elements of her initial sales conversations
If you missed the first part of our conversation, where Lisa talks about her workshops and retreats, you can find that here.
Links & Stuff Family Heirloom Arts Website Book Designer Emily Garcia Workshop Offerings Upcoming September Retreat: Self Portrait of the Inner Landscape, Exploring Personal Mythology Through Writing and Mask Making
Workshops serve clients and creatives, and help to build a personal history business Family Heirloom Arts offers the usual range of services to its personal history clients: interviewing, writing, editing, photo management. But its founder and owner, Lisa Kagan, takes things a step further by inviting clients to create their own personalized artwork to illustrate their books.
That's just one of the things that makes Family Heirloom Arts unique. In this interview, we talk about:
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Lisa's roster of workshops and retreats, and how she leverages established organizations such as the library to market them
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the difference between outcome-based and process-based workshops and retreats
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how fans of her workshops sometimes turn into personal history clients
- a good place to start if you're just getting going with workshops
We also talked about Family Heirloom Art's upcoming weekend retreat, Self Portrait of the Inner Landscape: Exploring Personal Mythology Through Writing and Mask Making
Links & Stuff Family Heirloom Arts Website Workshop Offerings Upcoming September Retreat: Self Portrait of the Inner Landscape, Exploring Personal Mythology Through Writing and Mask Making
Marketing with a local newspaper column and more Lisa Lombard O'Reilly of Your Stories Written joins us for a conversation about personal history. Listen as we discuss:
- Lisa's experience writing her dad's life story book
- using Kindle Direct Publishing for cheap proof copies and supplying friends with print-on-demand books
- Lisa's monthly column on personal history for Coastal View, a local print publication
Lisa approached the publisher of Coastal View after attending a workshop given by Annie Payne, a colleague out of Australia. Annie gave expert advice on mastering your community and becoming the go-to personal historian.
Lisa also talked about being featured on a blog post by a woman with an historical press. Clairitage Press specializes in local history, with titles written by Karen Dustman. Read the article here or here.
If you want more ideas about writing local history, check out Episode 47 with Patricia Hamilton.
Links & Stuff Find Lisa Lombari O'Reilly at her website, Your Stories Written
Part 2 of our interview with Lettice Stuart, Portraits in Words Join us for an insightful conversation about the business of personal history and the art of interviewing.
In this episode, Lettice discusses:
- how much she charges for life story projects, and how that number has grown through the years
- a clever pre-meeting tactic that gets Lettice into the right frame of mind for that always-difficult money conversation with clients [Correction: with this technique, it doesn't have to be diffult!]
- how, when, and why to bring in outside editing help
- working with a partner
- the extreme importance of listening, no matter how you do it best [Knitting optional]
Links & Stuff You can find Lettice Stuart at Portraits in Words
Other episodes mentioned:
29: Rutger Bruining of Story Terrace
53: Part 1, Christine Norton Helps Life Story Writers Get Up and Running
54: Christine Norton, Part 2
Lettice Stuart was a journalist with stories in the New York Times when she shifted to writing life stories. While her writing credentials helped give her credibility, it was good old-fashioned conversations with people that grew her business.
In part one of the interview, we discuss:
- the importance of talking about your personal history work in any social situation, and why it's easy
- how and why to contact groups looking for speakers
- what to include when you give a public presentation
We also talk about why family members may not be capable of getting to the same stories that personal historians do. And what a magical moment it is when you see the light go on in the storyteller's eyes: the book is important, the telling of the stories even more so.
In our next episode, Part 2 with Lettice Stuart Stay tuned for the second half of our conversation with Lettice, where Lettice shares how much she charges for her life story books, how she prepares for the money conversation with clients, working with outside editors, and more.
Links & Stuff You can find Lettice Stuart at Portraits in Words
Want to hear more about the art of interviewing?
Check out Episode 3: How to conduct a great interview
For Steve Pender, personal history comes alive in Legacy Video When Steve Pender started his legacy video company years ago, it wasn't to produce videos, but rather to teach DIYers how to make their own. Then technology changed. You still needed the know-how and the artistic flair to produce top-quality videos, but you no longer needed the big commercial studio. That's when Steve pivoted to do what he loved most: create compelling, beautiful legacy videos.
Give them options
I shape the production to fit the client's wants and needs."
Steve uses a winning strategy when he sits down with potential clients for the sales meeting. Instead of shooting out a price right away, he asks lots of questions, then goes back to work up a proposal, complete with costs. He believes in giving the client options: a price for what they said they wanted, and a fallback option that's less expensive. His packages start at $7,500 for a Q&A-style basic video, and increase to $20-25K and up for more deluxe packages. These premium videos include music, archival footage, and more.
Listen as Steve talks about:
- traveling to Italy to shoot as his client visits his ancestral home
- how Family Legacy Video was featured in the AARP Bulletin
- Steve's appearance on a local TV show [hint: This was a PR move any of us can use!]
- how using a freebie as a lead generator can build your email list
- how the Rotary helped launch his business
Links & Stuff Family Legacy Video website
In six short years, Starts at 60 has grown to a platform with a million and a half visitors per month.
Now Starts at 60 is looking toward markets outside the US, and there's room for us life story professionals to leverage the systems they've already built.
The idea I like best is starting monthly coffee groups. Maybe it's because I saw how lonely my dad was after my mom died. Maybe it's because as a waitress in my teens, I saw how the people who lingered over coffee after dinner seemed to be the best conversationalists, the ones I liked to eavesdrop on as I cleared away their plates (and ashtrays; yes, this was a long time ago!). And what better way to get people interested in preserving their life story than getting them talking about it over coffee, in a safe place among new friends?
In this episode, we also discuss:
- the need to find a group of people with similar mindset, especially after a transition like retirement
- how Baby Boomers, like the rest of us, want a hybrid experience of online and off-line
- the importance of building and safeguarding trust among clients or in a community
- how storytellers of all ages are turning to online research when looking for services (Hint: Have your website and Facebook page up to snuff!)
- why Baby Boomers make great storytellers (let me know what you think about my new slogan: More wrinkles, better stories).
- and more.
Links & Things Visit Starts at 60
Want to get your client a byline and possibly feedback? Contact Starts at 60 about blog submissions.
Establish a Starts at 60 coffee group in your area
Running and growing a video life story business This is part 2 of our interview with Mike O'Krent (listen to part 1 here). In this episode, you'll hear Mike talk about
- public speaking and how it can grow the public's awareness of our services. (Hint: Check out Toastmasters for improving your speaking skill and spreading the word about your services)
- the power of seeking out influential people and connectors in your community
- how to ask for referrals and virtual introductions (via email)
- how being humble can hurt—read Mike's article, "Being Humble is Nothing to Brag About"
- listening with your whole body (check out this TED Talk with Evelyn Glennie)
- speaking at family business programs
Mike's TEDx Talk It wasn't easy, but Mike made his dream come true: After sending out over 60 pitches, he landed a spot on the TEDx stage in Wilmington. One of the key factors was enlisting the help of Taylor Conroy of The Idea Collective, a company that helps people "land the talk, do the talk, spread the talk."
How volunteering for Steven Spielberg sparked a career saving stories Mike O'Krent was volunteering for an organization in Austin when he learned about Survivors of the Shoah, a foundation created by Steven Spielberg to interview and record the stories of Holocaust survivors. His training in L.A. set him up for successful interviews with survivors in Texas. In an article by Rich Polt (a previous guest on this podcast), Mike says, “These conversations are not going to be easy, nor should they be. In some cases, you’ll be asking loved ones to recall events and memories that have long been dormant. That’s OK. Don’t shy away from asking the hard questions.”
Mike's work with the Shoah Foundation helped him discover his passion for interviewing people and helping them save their story. Today, he runs LifeStories Alive, LLC, a video company that documents the stories of individuals, non-profits, and businesses.
Maureen Taylor talks about helping people solve the mysteries of their unidentified photos, a skill we as life story professionals can use to help our clients.
Maureen Taylor's early career as a curator exposed her to lots of photos. But it wasn't until she opened shop as a photo historian that she discovered just how many unidentified photos people have.
Frequent questions she hears:
- Who is in the photo?
- What is happening in the photo?
- Where was the photo taken?
Rachel Rifkin's photo experiment Rachel Rifkin, a fellow personal historian, posted photos of herself alongside images of her relatives. Donning similar clothing and mimicking the subject in the old photos, she bore a strong resemblance to her relatives—including a bearded man from yesteryear.
Patterns Change perspective to see the unseen in photos. That's where the big reveals come in.
Not everyone can see faces; not everyone can see details.
Some people suffer from "face-blindness," the inability to differentiate the faces they see. Go here and scroll down to find the quiz, "Are you a super-recognizer?"
Maureen does her detective work on my family photos Links & Stuff Visit Maureen's website
View Maureen's photo detective courses
When he first started Acknowledge Media, Rich spent hours teaching himself Adobe Premiere Pro. But while he sees the need to have the skills that are foundational to the projects he creates, he recognizes that his team of videographers (including Jordan Freeman), editors, archival producers, and media directors are better suited to the technical side of things, while he handles the rest of it: new business development, sales, marketing, HR, and, of course, the most important task of all—conducting the interviews. Backed by a solid (and growing) team, Rich makes sure that all the projects are up to his standards, with each undergoing a final pass by him before being delivered to the client.
Types of Projects Rich's offerings have grown over the years, and now include three distinct packages:
- a 3-4 hour narrative, including all footage shot
- a showcase, including the above 3-4 hours plus a 5-6 minute highlight reel
- a feature, including both products above, plus a highly edited documentary film with music score, b-roll footage, archival assets, and more.
Gear When he began, Rich and his videographer used two DSLR cameras and lav mics on all. Today, they've switched to two high-end video cameras and a boom mic for the storytellers.
My biggest surprise? When Rich said that a beginner can get great results with two iPhone cameras. It won't be the same quality as what he produces, but it's the listening and questioning skills you bring to the interview that will define your core value, not the high-tech gadgetry. (Hint: Two cameras, no matter what kind you use, will give you far greater results than just one.)
Rich also spoke frankly about his prices: where he started, what he charges now, how those prices will likely rise in the future. The important thing is to make your prices reflect the quality of your work. And then, of course, identify the market willing to pay for that exceptional quality.
You can find part one of our interview here.
Rich Polt started his legacy video company in 2016; three years later, it's growing by leaps and bounds. Rich Polt left a lucrative career as owner of a public relations firm to pursue his passion—helping people record their legacy stories on film. And he did it all without knowing a thing about movie-making.
It started with a personal project called Talking GOOD, where Rich interviewed change-makers with the power to inspire others. The epiphany came when Rich went off-script to ask his interviewee a highly personal question, something he didn't normally do. The man cried, and so did Rich. That was all Rich needed to understand the power of sharing stories.
Acknowledge Media brings the same high production values of documentary filmmaking to the world of legacy preservation. Listen as we discuss:
- how Rich gave himself a year of working for free to build up his portfolio
- some of the mistakes he made as a novice interviewer (hint: get comfortable with your inteviewee's emotions!)
- the benefits of having regular meetings with his mentor, Mike O'Krent of LifeStories Alive (and soon-to-be guest on this podcast)
- the three phases of any legacy video project
Because Rich had so much great stuff to share, we're breaking this podcast into two parts. In this episode, we get into the specifics of phase one of his projects. Rich gives a breakdown of the 2-3 hour session he spends with the interviewees before the cameras make their appearance. He uses this conversation to create a detailed roadmap for the recorded interview.
A few tips:
- In order to keep the storyteller from launching into an anecdote during this first conversation, Rich asks them to name the stories that come to mind with a headline. He includes it in his notes, a reminder or tag to include that topic in his recorded interview.
- As part of phase one, he sends the storyteller's adult children a questionnaire, which includes the following questions:
- What are the stories you want to hear?
- What are the red flag topics that may be difficult for your parents to talk about?
- What are the things you've always wanted to ask but never have?
Rich then creates a spreadsheet with questions, pouring in the answers to those he already knows, examining the whole to find the narrative shape that will guide him during the recorded interview.
Stay tuned for part two of our conversation, where Rich discusses the recording and editing processes.
We continue our conversation with Christine Norton about her Writing Partners, business licensees who operate independently, but who get all the support they need to grow a thriving life story business.
Listen as Christine gives a run-down of some of the many, many support systems she provides for her licensees.
Christine Norton is passionate about telling people's stories. And she knew others were, too. But not everyone is comfortable with creating a business from the ground up, and that's where her Forget-Me-Not Life Stories writing partner program comes in.
In exchange for a business license fee, her writing partners get everything they need to get their own memoir-writing service companies up and running. Listen as we discuss this and much more, including:
- the high-end, hand-bound book design, created especially for Forget-Me-Not Life Stories, that allows clients to later add more pages to their books
- the value of celebrating photos and memorabilia in highly designed life story books
- her mentoring and coaching program, offered to clients who need some help as they write their own life story
- how the success of her business licensees equates to her own success
- what her licensees get as an official Forget-Me-Not Life Stories writing partner
Because Christine had so much great stuff to talk about—and I don't want anyone missing any of it—I split our conversation in two. Check back next week to hear part two of the interview.
End of Life Coach Janet Bieschke on serving the dying Dr. Janet Bieschke has turned her retirement into a double career: She serves the hospice community as both life story gatherer and life coach. In her work with the dying, she makes room for a "sigh of relief"—the chance to share not only stories, but also regrets, forgiveness, and "I love yous."
Janet's website: https://drjanetb.com/
This week, David O'Neil talks to us about how and why we should be developing relationships with financial advisors and wealth managers.
Listen as we discuss:
- Who in the financial industry make good referral partners?
- Why they value helping their clients pass down wisdom along with their wealth
- How to follow up after meeting a good referral partner
- How to use presentations to spread the word about life story work
Links & Stuff David's website: https://storytrust.com/
Want more ideas on how to market your life story business?
Listen to these previous episodes:
47: Creating (and Selling) a Community History Book, with Patricia Hamilton
18: Teaching Life Story Classes and Opening a Life Story Studio, with Sam Uhl
17: Life Story Memorabilia Boxes and Marketing with Show and Tell Events, with Martie McNabb
12: International Ghostwriter Derek Lewis
6: Marketing Guru Dhyan Atkinson
From Life Stories to Business Histories David O'Neil founded Story Trust in 2007; several years later, he recognized the natural connection between life stories for individuals and stories that recount the history of a business. His most recent book was an outgrowth of an oral history conducted several years ago. With the upcoming centennial anniversary of the family's company, they reached out to him to create a book of memories, recipes, and memorabilia, with an initial a print run of 2,500 copies.
Early in the life of his company, David decided on a marketing strategy that revolves around networking. Listen as he discusses how he has turned networking breakfast meetings into referrals to new clients.
Links & Stuff Find David and Story Trust here: https://storytrust.com/
View and excerpt from A Farm Grows in Concord: Celebrating 100 Years of Verrill Farm, the book David created for the family who own the business.
David recommends starting your networking efforts with your local Chamber of Commerce. Here are a few other groups mentioned:
BNI, Business Network International
LeTip International
TIGER 21
"It's all about the questions you ask." This is advice given by Beth Kephart to memoir writers, but it's just as applicable for those who ghostwrite memoirs. Listen in as we discuss:
- How we can use escalating questions to guide our storytellers to deeper and deeper stories
- How Beth teaches her workshop participants "empathetic imagination" through one-on-one conversations with others
- The gap between a person's spoken voice and their written voice, and how to study the techniques of dialogue in published memoirs
Diction is the atmosphere you create with words."
- Why scenes and rich details are better than a bald recounting of life's events
- Why emotionally resonant themes like "Holidays" or "Food" can lead to rich veins of stories
Juncture Memoir Writing Retreats Beth also gives us a detailed overview of her intensive 5-day long writing workshops. These aren't your yoga-and-writing-prompts-and wine workshops; at Juncture, participants receive a semester's worth of writing direction, critique, and publication guidance. Want to see for yourself? You can find them here.
Links & Stuff View and subscribe to Beth's newsletter here.
Her websites are at junctureworkshops.com and bethkephartbooks.com
"It's all about the questions you ask." This is advice given by Beth Kephart to memoir writers, but it's just as applicable for those who ghostwrite memoirs. Listen in as we discuss:
- How we can use escalating questions to guide our storytellers to deeper and deeper stories
- How Beth teaches her workshop participants "empathetic imagination" through one-on-one conversations with others
- The gap between a person's spoken voice and their written voice, and how to study the techniques of dialogue in published memoirs
Diction is the atmosphere you create with words."
- Why scenes and rich details are better than a bald recounting of life's events
- Why emotionally resonant themes like "Holidays" or "Food" can lead to rich veins of stories
Juncture Memoir Writing Retreats Beth also gives us a detailed overview of her intensive 5-day long writing workshops. These aren't your yoga-and-writing-prompts-and wine workshops; at Juncture, participants receive a semester's worth of writing direction, critique, and publication guidance. Want to see for yourself? You can find them here.
Links & Stuff View and subscribe to Beth's newsletter here.
Her websites are at junctureworkshops.com and bethkephartbooks.com
Creating (and selling) a community history In today's episode, Patricia Hamilton, publisher at Park Place Publications, discusses a project near and dear to her heart: a curated community history with contributions from residents of Pacific Grove, California.
"It's a community of people." Patricia talked at Rotary Clubs, heritage societies, senior centers, and libraries, putting out the call for submissions to a book that would be about the community, penned by the community members themselves. She received a whopping 400 submissions, all of which became part of her book, Life in Pacific Grove California: Personal Stories by Residents and Visitors to Butterfly Town U.S.A.
Listen as she discusses how the idea originated, her creative tactics in drumming up interest and story submissions, and how she sold out of a 500-print run on launch day. [Hint: Endorsements from a state senator and the town's mayor help!]
Scrivener contest winner announced! Thanks to all who participated, and congratulations, our winner,
Ranee Boyd Tomlin. Woohoo!!!
Ranee is located in Littleton, Colorado. Check out her company at https://www.wordsforstories.com/.
Want to use Scrivener for your writing projects? You can find the Mac version here and the Windows version here.
See how I use my favorite writing software in episodes 31: Scrivener for Life Story Writing and 41: Editing Life Stories with Scrivener. For more guidance, listen to my interview with Gwen Hernandez, author of Scrivener for Dummies.
Links & Stuff You can reach Patricia at publishingbiz@sbcglobal.net, or visit her website at https://lifeinpacificgrove.com/.
If you're a podcast fan who happens to write memoir—for yourself or for clients—you're probably familiar with the dulcet tones of Ann Kroeker, a writing coach who doles out advice and inspiration on her podcast, "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach."
In today's episode, Ann talks about the role of a writing coach and how she went from "editing with a coach's heart" to "coaching with an editor's eye."
Win a free copy of Scrivener Don't forget to enter our contest before February 18 to win a free Mac or PC version of the writing software Scrivener. To enter, submit a written review of the podcast to iTunes, then drop an email to amy@thelifestorycoach with "I reviewed the podcast" in the subject line. That's it!
Until next time, go out and save someone's story.
Mike Oke of Bound Biographies doesn't write his clients' life stories; they do. Funny how we think our way of doing something is the standard approach. And then along comes someone like Mike Oke, a 27-year veteran life story writer, who says he can't believe everybody else isn't following the model he practices. After our podcast interview, I can see where he's coming from.
Instead of sitting down to record an interview with a client, and then spending hours transcribing, editing, and polishing their prose into a shapely narrative, Mike puts the onus of writing squarely on the shoulders of his client. But the novice writer needn't fear a lack of skill, focus, or editorial savvy, because once every four to six weeks, Mike shows up with a lightly edited version of the client's previous writing assignment, and together they spend the next six hours reading through it and talking about what comes next. With his method, the storyteller is truly the storyteller, both in speaking the tale and in writing it.
How it works During the first six-hour meeting, Mike spends time going over the ground rules, establishing the parameters of the collaborative relationship and building rapport. He also usually creates a simple family tree; not to spark a conversation about genealogy, which he believes can be fatal diversion for an aspiring life story writer, but to get a feel for the principal players in the client's life—who were the grandparents and parents, the siblings and aunts and uncles, who had an impact on the client's life?
As the clients talks and reminisces, Mike is busy taking copious notes—a practice he continues throughout all subsequent meetings, too. When it comes time to tackle a theme or event or era, Mike can refer to his notes if the client has forgotten to include something in his writing.
Once the two get into a rhythm, it looks something like this: Mike shows up to each meeting with a sheaf of typed pages, usually around 20-30 pages, that the client sent after their last meeting. Mike has taken the time to make changes and tweaks to the material, and at the meeting he reads it to the client aloud. This gives the client what every writer needs: the chance to hear his words interpreted by a reader. They take a break for lunch, then carry on for several more hours afterward. A work session runs from 10 am to 4 pm.
What the client gets Some projects take 6-12 meetings, some 15 or 20 or more. The client determines how many times they meet, and when the material has grown into a complete book. In addition to the editing Mike performs along the way, the manuscript is given a final proofread by an outside professional, and then it's turned into 10 paperback copies.
What Mike gets, or, how payments are structured At the end of each 6-hour meeting, Mike collects a payment of £400 (roughly $525), plus taxes and mileage (for long drives). When the book is completed and in the hand of the client, he collects a £4,000 (about $5,250) product fee. The books run a minimum of 20-25K words but usually come in around 50,000 words, or 200 pages. For clients who want to continue meeting after they've reached this page count, they pay the daily meeting fee along with a £1,000 for each additional 10,000 words.
Why it works By taking on a dozen or so clients at a time, Mike is able to spend two days a week sessions with clients, and three days back at the office, editing the writing and running the business.
Is it for you? Like I said at the beginning, Mike wonders why all of us life story writers aren't using this model. It's the way he fell into doing life story work nearly three decades ago, and it's the way that feels the most natural and productive to him. More importantly, though, he believes this is the best way to capture the storyteller's voice: by having them tell their own stories.
Links & Stuff Find Mike's company here: http://www.boundbiographies.com/
Win a free copy of Scrivener Don't forget to enter our contest before February 18 to win a free Mac or PC version of the writing software Scrivener. To enter, submit a written review of the podcast to iTunes, then drop an email to amy@thelifestorycoach with "I reviewed the podcast" in the subject line. That's it!
Until next time, go out and save someone's story.
Mike Oke of Bound Biographies doesn't write his clients' life stories; they do. Funny how we think our way of doing something is the standard approach. And then along comes someone like Mike Oke, a 27-year veteran life story writer, who says he can't believe everybody else isn't following the model he practices. After our podcast interview, I can see where he's coming from.
Instead of sitting down to record an interview with a client, and then spending hours transcribing, editing, and polishing their prose into a shapely narrative, Mike puts the onus of writing squarely on the shoulders of his client. But the novice writer needn't fear a lack of skill, focus, or editorial savvy, because once every four to six weeks, Mike shows up with a lightly edited version of the client's previous writing assignment, and together they spend the next six hours reading through it and talking about what comes next. With his method, the storyteller is truly the storyteller, both in speaking the tale and in writing it.
How it works During the first six-hour meeting, Mike spends time going over the ground rules, establishing the parameters of the collaborative relationship and building rapport. He also usually creates a simple family tree; not to spark a conversation about genealogy, which he believes can be fatal diversion for an aspiring life story writer, but to get a feel for the principal players in the client's life—who were the grandparents and parents, the siblings and aunts and uncles, who had an impact on the client's life?
As the clients talks and reminisces, Mike is busy taking copious notes—a practice he continues throughout all subsequent meetings, too. When it comes time to tackle a theme or event or era, Mike can refer to his notes if the client has forgotten to include something in his writing.
Once the two get into a rhythm, it looks something like this: Mike shows up to each meeting with a sheaf of typed pages, usually around 20-30 pages, that the client sent after their last meeting. Mike has taken the time to make changes and tweaks to the material, and at the meeting he reads it to the client aloud. This gives the client what every writer needs: the chance to hear his words interpreted by a reader. They take a break for lunch, then carry on for several more hours afterward. A work session runs from 10 am to 4 pm.
What the client gets Some projects take 6-12 meetings, some 15 or 20 or more. The client determines how many times they meet, and when the material has grown into a complete book. In addition to the editing Mike performs along the way, the manuscript is given a final proofread by an outside professional, and then it's turned into 10 paperback copies.
What Mike gets, or, how payments are structured At the end of each 6-hour meeting, Mike collects a payment of £400 (roughly $525), plus taxes and mileage (for long drives). When the book is completed and in the hand of the client, he collects a £4,000 (about $5,250) product fee. The books run a minimum of 20-25K words but usually come in around 50,000 words, or 200 pages. For clients who want to continue meeting after they've reached this page count, they pay the daily meeting fee along with a £1,000 for each additional 10,000 words.
Why it works By taking on a dozen or so clients at a time, Mike is able to spend two days a week sessions with clients, and three days back at the office, editing the writing and running the business.
Is it for you? Like I said at the beginning, Mike wonders why all of us life story writers aren't using this model. It's the way he fell into doing life story work nearly three decades ago, and it's the way that feels the most natural and productive to him. More importantly, though, he believes this is the best way to capture the storyteller's voice: by having them tell their own stories.
Links & Stuff Find Mike's company here: http://www.boundbiographies.com/
Win a free copy of Scrivener Don't forget to enter our contest before February 18 to win a free Mac or PC version of the writing software Scrivener. To enter, submit a written review of the podcast to iTunes, then drop an email to amy@thelifestorycoach with "I reviewed the podcast" in the subject line. That's it!
Until next time, go out and save someone's story.
Scrivener tips and tricks from the expert Gwen Hernandez is novelist who learned Scrivener the natural way—by using it. She shared what she knew with the online community, and her reputation as someone who not only used the writing software, but someone who could explain how to use it, took off. The author of Scrivener for Dummies talks to The Life Story Coach about some of the ways we can keep our writing, research, interviews, and everything else organized with what she calls the "project manager for books."
Color coding, tags, and meta-data, oh, my. Listen as Gwen gives a rundown on helpful tools like tags, keywords, and other bits of meta-data, and how they can simplify the writing process.
Want more Scrivener? Check out my video screencasts of podcast episode 40 and episode 41, where I walk you through my process of writing a life story book with Scrivener.
Win a free copy of Scrivener! Want to enter our drawing for a free Scrivener software? Here's what you need to do:
- Write a review of the podcast on iTunes
- Send an email with "Reviewed the podcast" as the subject line to amy@thelifestorycoach.com.
Your review remains anonymous, and your name goes into a hat for the drawing.
Links & Things: Visit Gwen Hernandez at https://gwenhernandez.com/
Want to take one of Gwen's Scrivener classes? Enter the code LifeStory at checkout to receive a 20% discount. See a listing of her classes here.
Going into business for yourself can be scary. There are forms to fill out, licenses to apply for, new checking accounts to set up. And then there's the whole business about contracts, services agreements, insurance—do I need it or not?—along with lots of other things that can send your head into a spin.
Even if you're already in business and have been for a while, you might not feel like you have the best grasp on the legal, tax, business entity-ish side of things. (Maybe I'm talking about myself—yes, definitely—but I'm guessing I'm not alone.)
That's why I invited Rachel Brenke to talk to us. Not only is she a lawyer, she's also a business consultant specializing in helping people in creative fields (like us!).
Listen as we talk about:
- separating your personal and business "buckets"
- protecting your business (and yourself) with the proper business entity; contracts, services agreements, and web terms; and insurance. (Who knew there was such a thing as insurance for computers, scanners, printers, etc?)
- why you should NOT be operating a Sole Proprietorship
- how contracts can be the bad guy, so you don't have to be
- four important types of legal documents you might need
Links & Stuff: Rachel Brenke's website
Rachel's books
Still need to submit your listing to my upcoming directory? It's free and open to anyone working (full-time, part-time, or as a volunteer) in the life story business. Fill out the form here.
Cynthia Kyriazis, productivity coach and bestselling author of "Get Organized, Get Focused, Get Moving," shares her (well-organized) thoughts on doing business better. When I was a kid and my mom needed to send a check to school for some activity (or for my Scholastic Book order, remember those?), she would place the check in an envelope, write my teacher's name across the front, and pin it to my coat. That's right, I was the kid with stuff pinned to her coat. Because if it wasn't attached, I'd lose it, and if it wasn't in plain sight, I'd forget about it. Don't ask how long this went on for. (Way too long.)
No wonder it was so fascinating to listen to Cynthia Kyriazis talk about how individuals have different styles and methods for keeping ourselves (and our business) organized.
"We can't manage time," Cynthia says. Sounds obvious, but how many of us try to do it all the same?
There are better approaches.
In this episode, we discuss:
- how productivity is about being effective and efficient at the right time
- how procrastination, like any other habit, can be replaced by a better one
- how clutter (my old friend clutter!) is symptomatic of delayed decision making (read: procrastination)
- Cynthia's three dead simple questions for strategic planning
This one is a quickie! I give you an overview of how I use Scrivener to wrastle documents into order so that I can find them when I need them. You'll also see how the split Editor pane in Scrivener is a life story gal's best friend.
Watch the screencast here.
Links & Stuff Want to use Scrivener for your writing projects? You can find the Mac version here and the Windows version here.
Want to be listed on the upcoming Life Story Professionals Directory? Help future clients find you! The listing is free. You can get the process started here.
How I Edit Back in 2010, when I first started The Story Scribe, my memoir-writing business, I asked a man to sit down with me and tell me his life story. We met for a total of fifteen interviews over the course of many months. He was happy to just talk, but my goal was to shape his words into a life story book—my first. I wanted the practice. I needed the practice. Or so I thought.
Turns out I needed something else even more: the realization that if I didn't get my act together and create a functioning system, I'd never get his book or any other written.
Every week, we met at the same (noisy) coffeeshop, and every week I went home feeling worse than the week before. The words were building up, on my recorder, in the transcripts I was doing myself, behind files scattered across the desktop of my Mac. I felt like I was drowning in his words.
At some point, I gave up. He didn't mind. The act of telling was what interested him. But I did. I had disappointed myself.
I never got the book done, but I did create a system so that would never happen again.
If you've got a great system that's working for you, this episode isn't for you. But if you're interested in how one life story writer (errr, that'd be me) gathers together a series of transcripts and turns them into a book, here's a peek.
(By the way, if you DO have a great system, please share some tips in the comments. The only reason I can do what I do is because of all the help I've gotten along the way. And I'm sure I'm not alone.)
Have a listen. Or, if you'd like to see my computer screen as I walk you through my process, you can watch the video here.
Jenny Doan talks about the correlation between family history and family quilts Jenny Doan and her family started the Missouri Star Quilt Company. A decade later, Jenny's quilting tutorials have been watched by millions, and her love of quilting has spurred people around the globe to create quilts of their own. Along the way, fans have sent stories behind the family heirloom quilts that have been collected into several books. Jenny discusses quilting, the importance of family stories, and how the two are related.
Family History Idea, compliments of Jenny's mother: Fill a jar with writing prompts; during family gatherings, pull out a slip and ask your family elder or answer the question yourself. Over time, these brief pieces will add up to a long narrative.
Links & Stuff Books mentioned:
Stitched Together, Stories for the Quilter's Soul, Volume 1. Click here or here.
Stitched Together, Stories for the Quilter's Soul, Volume 2. Click here or here.
Stitched Together, Stories for the Quilter's Soul, Volume 3. Click here or here.
Block Magazine
More on coffin quilts, along with a beautiful example by artist Barbara Todd.
Jenny on the Road, a list of scheduled visits to towns across the US.
Saving veterans' stories, one patient at a time Dr. Susan Nathan, physician at the Boston VA, and Thor Ringler, therapist and poet in Madison, Wisconsin, talk about their experience with My Life, My Story. The VA program offers veterans the opportunity to record their life story—not only for posterity, but for their medical chart as well.
Thor is the overall program director of My Life, My Story and an avid collector of patients' life stories. He was brought on board after two psychiatrists, Dr. Eileen Ahearn and Dr. Dean Krahn, recognized the need to promote greater understanding of the patients among the team of people caring for them. That led to the revolutionary idea of including 1,000 word narratives, told in the patient's voice, in the medical chart. In addition, each patient receives hard copies of the edited story to take home.
Links & Stuff Want to volunteer for My Life, My Story? If you're in Boston, contact Dr. Susan Nathan. Anywhere else, email Thor Ringler.
Want to learn more about narrative medicine? Check out these books by Dr. Rita Charon:
The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine
Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness
Voices in Time co-founder Lili Shank on creating life stories on audio Lili Shank is a life story professional who helps people preserve their stories as told by them, in their own voice. Listen as she discusses:
- the steps for each audio interview
- how to warm up the guest/storyteller with questions about their parents and grandparents
- why she gives the guests time to prepare their answers and reflections before asking the bigger, more philosophical questions
- why people ask for help in saving a voicemail message
- the power of the voice
- why a prospective guest's "no" may turn into a "yes"
- and more.
Donna Strickland Helps Writers Add Mindfulness to Their Workday Donna Strickland knows firsthand how painful writing can be. When she started hating the book she was writing, she knew something had to change. That's when she discovered the principles of mindful writing, a practice she teaches in classes and workshops across the US.
Mindfulness is that quality of paying attention to what's happening in the present moment without judgment."
In this episode, we discuss:
- the work of Robert Boice
- interpersonal mindfulness
- the transformative power of becoming aware of our body
- what tight shoulders and hunching over the computer might be telling us
- why short, focused sessions are better than longer ones, and the lure and danger of hypomania
-
suggestions for a few moves and yoga postures that we can use throughout our workday (Hint: they don't have to be complicated!)
Links & Stuff Reach Donna via email
Donna's upcoming (November 2018) workshop
Donna's book, The Managerial Unconscious in Composition Studies
How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency, by Robert Boice
Mindfulness for Educators Program at Antioch University
Ann Bettencourt, who runs the Mindful Relations Laboratory at University of Missouri—Columbia
Ken Robinson's TED talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity? [Spoiler: Yes!]
And finally, a big thanks to our sponsor, Hoefel Haus Bed, Breakfast & Bike Hostel
Brittany Bare, founder of My Life, My Stories, on running a life story non-profit Like a lot of us, Brittany Bare was inspired by a relationship with a close relative to make the jump into the life story business. Where she's different from most, though, is that she's set up My Life, My Stories as a 501(c)(3)—a non-profit organization. On this episode, she talks about matching volunteers to seniors, serving seniors from under-represented populations (including those who speak a foreign language), and pitching her program to residential facilities and community centers.
Interested in becoming a volunteer? Email Brittany or visit her website.
Links & Stuff My Life, My Stories website
Change your Money Conversation Sarah White knows how important it is for us to charge what we're worth; more importantly, she knows how to help us over the obstacles that keep us from doing so.
Life story work is "heart-driven" work, and like other service-oriented professions, it attracts people who may not feel comfortable with the money-making side of their business.
Because of that, Sarah has taken her training in Guided Autobiography and created a workshop aimed at helping us uncover our "story" about money: the attitudes and assumptions that we absorbed in childhood, the very attitudes and assumptions that may be sabotaging our financial success today.
You're not going to bring in caviar if you have a cheese-sandwich attitude toward your value."
Listen as we discuss:
- Upper-limiting and how we get antsy when (financial) success comes knocking
- Questions to get started on revealing your own unconscious attitudes about money, such as: If you had all the money you need, what would you spend it on?
- How we all come from at least two different money stories
Marketing, Workshops, and Getting Visibility Sarah has been running the First Monday, First Person writing salon for five years. It started as a program hosted by the library, but when participants kept signing up for repeat sessions, Sarah branched out to try a critique-based salon.
Other avenues for raising your visibility as "the life story person" in your community:
Teach a workshop or class at your local library.
Advantages of teaching at the library: * The library handles the administrative tasks * The library will publicize the event * Libraries are natural venues for connecting with people who value words, stories, and writing * It can be a lead producer for future clients * HINT: Even if your local library offers workshops for free, they may pay the presenters an honorarium.
Start a club for enthusiasts of local history, like Sarah's East Side History Club. They convene every month or so to reminisce about topics of local interest, subjects that make people reflect back on their childhood in the community. They even published a book of stories by the members that's now in it's second edition (see below for links to the book).
Links & Stuff: Want to get in touch with Sarah? Find her website here.
Check out Sarah's workshop, "Write Your Way to a Better Relationship with Money."
Mark Bowden knows his stuff. Mark is the author of 13 books, including Black Hawk Down, Hue 1968, and the upcoming The Last Stone(due out in 2019). He's spent his career writing true stories about real people. He has a world of knowledge (literally! he's covered stories all over the globe) to share with us life story writers. Listen to my conversation with Mark as we discuss the craft of researching, reporting, and writing.
Click here for more.
The Writer's Diet—a book and companion website—won't spiff up your prose for you, but it will point you toward the flaws that can make writing dull and stodgy.
Helen Sword wrote the book and developed the Writer's Diet Test after noting the uneven quality of writing by students and academicians. A professor with a PhD from Princeton in Comparative Literature, she takes aim at zombie nouns, prepositional podge, waste words, and more.
This brief writer's guide is a favorite of mine. Listen to this episode to learn about five common trouble spots in writing, how to spot them in your own prose, and what you can do to fix them.
Not everyone has a zombie video to their credit! Links and Stuff (scroll down for a transcript of our interview) HelenSword.com
The Writer's Diet website
Books by Helen Sword:
The Writer's Diet
Air & Light & Time & Space
Stylish Academic Writing
Other books mentioned: Joseph F. Williams' Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace
William Zinsser's On Writing Well
Transcript of our interview with Helen Sword Amy: 00:09 I love reading writing guides and you have such an interesting take on what you've done. But first, could you start by telling the listeners a little bit about your background and why you've decided to make a specialty out of helping people improve their writing?
Helen Sword: 00:25 Sure. Well, I started out as a literary scholar. I have a PhD in comparative literature, taught in an English department for long time and still do a little bit. But at some point I moved into working in faculty development, which is more working with academics to try to improve their teaching and that meant that I started reading research also in, in higher education as well as in literary studies. And I think that made me really aware of the different kinds of writing styles that people use in these different academic disciplines. And it made me really start thinking about why white people didn't communicate more clearly. I guess I'm at the same time. I was also, as always teaching students, reading colleagues work, doing my own writing. And so my first book on, on writing the writer's style really kind of came out of that work.
Helen Sword: 01:26 I was just trying to figure out how to help people write better sentences, was what it came down to. And one of the things that I observed was that as people spent longer in school, particularly like advanced undergraduates and people just starting Grad school, the writing often got worse rather than better, you know, there's sentences got longer and longer and the words got more and more sort of jargon-y. They’re praised for doing that because that is kind of the secret handshake into the discipline in some instances. And so I was just trying to show that you can say the same things often in about 60 percent of the words. I'm not the first person who has done this, but with the writer's style that I developed a particular algorithm to help people see if, as I put it, they're writing is sloppy or fit.
Helen Sword: 02:22 Or you could just say kind of soggy, sharp, you know, different ways of different metaphors you could use on that and then really give some quite clear principles, not rules but principles for writing, clearer, sharper, more energetic sentences. And then that work led me to looking more broadly at academic writing, research, writing and all the different disciplines and John was that people write in. So that led to my book Stylish Academic Writing, where I just trying to distill the principles used by the best writers to try to kind of jolly along those who had fallen into the, into this trap of the long winded boggy prose. Show them how to get out of that by telling stories, by having introductions that make people actually want to keep reading, writing stronger sentences, all that sort of thing. And then working on that book meant that I started running lots of writing workshops for academics.
Helen Sword: 03:31 So both for faculty but also often graduate students. And then I started hearing about all the human problems involved in writing. You know, the lack of time, lack of confidence, power struggles. Like when you're trying to write a really interesting first person narrative in your thesis, advisor says, no, that's not what we do in this discipline, even though sometimes it is what other people do in the discipline, but the gatekeepers can be really conservative. So that led to my most recent book, which is called Air and Light and Time and Space. How successful academic right now, both of those last two books have the word academic in them, but I really want to emphasize that they're not just for academic writers. I think the kinds of people who listened to your podcast, who are writing histories, family histories, that sort of thing. I'm pretty much all of the same principles apply.
Helen Sword: 04:32 People who have moved into historical writing are somewhat less likely to have fallen into these particular traps, but they still can. And, and I think some of the, a lot of the ideas and the information and the research and these books could be really helpful to them as well. So the most recent book is much more about writing habits. How people learn to write in these different genres, how they make time for writing and how they feel about the writing. There's a whole section on the emotions involved in academic writing. So, for that book I established a kind of rubric. Again, like the writer style. You can find it online and I can tell you more about that if you like that. Again, I think this is applicable not just for writers but for people to just about anything, whether it's learning a sport or becoming better at art or music, but I've found that it's not just about behavioral habits.
Helen Sword: 05:32 You know, you can read these advice things that tell you should wake up every morning at 5:00 and write for two hours every day and that will make you the perfect prolific writer. Well, if you really hate doing it and you feel incompetent at it, you probably won't keep doing that for very long because there are lots of other things that go into a productive writing practice. So I talk in that book about what I call the writing base, which looks at the behavioral aspects of writing that also the artisanal aspects. So that's the craftsmanship because I see writing as an artist and like activity, but then also the social aspects. So that's getting feedback from others, being part of a community of writers, not just trying to do it all in solitude. And then the fourth aspect of this writing base is the emotional side of writing.
Helen Sword: 06:25 And that's what my, what my next book is going to be on. It's called writing with pleasure because what I found was that the most successful writers come to the writing with some kind of deep well of desire and passion and pleasure that gets them through all the frustrations, gets them through the fact that writing can be hard and slow. And yet there's very little written about this. A lot of the productivity literature is much more, you know, crack the whip just right. This is not a real writer or, or if you think that you need to have a nice room with a beautiful view, you know, you're just looking for excuses and you know, when it comes down to it, if you give me a choice between writing in an unheated basement while I'm feeling really stressed and agonized and writing in a nice light filled space when I'm feeling good about myself and good about my writing, I would take the latter.
Helen Sword: 07:30 I would recommend it to anybody else. So the book is trying to help writers find that air and light and time and space metaphorically as well as you know, in, in the actual world. So lots and lots of different aspects of writing. Each one seems to lead onto another, but I'll say one more thing and then I'll let you pop in. But that's my topic I'm working on now. Right with pleasure. I think actually feeds right back into all three of those books. I think the craft of writing a really great kick ass sentence is a deeply pleasurable activity or should be. I think that learning to write stylishly, means learning to communicate with your audience in the most effective way and there's a real pleasure that comes from doing that and from having people respond and really get what you're trying to do. And then of course the pleasure is an important part of all the kind of behavioral and habit aspects of writing as well. Right. Well, and I think probably for a lot of people who do live story books, you know, there's, you were talking about the artist side of things and that's pretty much what I want to focus on mostly because we don't have the option of writing or not writing. If you're, if you're not writing then you're not making living doing this.
Amy: 08:56 So you have to have been the chair. Do you have to get the job done? whether it's pleasurable or not that you know, that at least for me it depends on the day. It depends on what section of a book I'm working on and I would absolutely love to have a little bit more insight into what can make that happen, you know, on a more consistent basis where it is a pleasurable exercise. But what I, what I really wanted to talk about was because so many people come into this, people are drawn into this industry for various reasons, but something that I hear all the time from listeners is that they want to come into this industry because they want to listen to people's stories. They want to help them get their stories recorded and help them share them with their families. And so they're not necessarily.
Amy: 09:43 Some people are writers and some people are not, but they're not necessarily focused entirely on, you know, building super strong writing skills. and I think, or the flip side is that maybe they're feeling a little bit weak with their writing skills, but they still know that they want to do this and they still know that they, they can help people. So I think that's why I was so drawn to your first book, The Writer’s Diet: A guide to fit prose. Besides all of the good information that you gave, I absolutely love your writing style. I mean it's just very tricky and it can be funny and you use, you know, you talk about helping academics, but you have examples from Shakespeare and you know, classic literature, all kinds of great examples, but the, the promise that you make to your readers in that book, and here I'm going to read it, you say this book will help you energize your writing, boost your verbal fitness and strip unnecessary padding from your prose.
Amy: 10:43 And then you go on and you give very concrete ways of helping writers do that. So that's what I would like to address in greater detail by know, it's not your latest book. I know it's your first one, but I think it's something that can really help life story writers out there just with the Zombie nouns, propositional package. There's some very specific ways that you steer people towards improving their writing. So can you give us just a brief overview of the main topics and then I'd like to talk a little bit in more detail about each of them.
Helen Sword: 11:16 Yes, absolutely. And it all comes back to the same stuff. You know, I wandered far away from style as I talk to writers and yet in the end it's all about sentences. And I, I like to think of sentences as being the bricks and mortar of building your, your house, of writing, building, whatever it is that you're producing. You just are not going to do it. If you go out in the backyard and take a few handfuls of mud and sit them in the sun to dry for a bit and then start building your house, you know, it's all going to collapse. I'm sentences are like bricks that need to be shaped and set and fired and really worked. That's how you're going to get that strength. That's a different metaphor from the Diet and fitness metaphor, but I think, I think they're both quite powerful.
Helen Sword: 12:09 The Diet and fitness metaphor, what I really had in mind, there was not so much diet as in not eating. I had in mind diet as an eating well, and so the metaphor that I use there is that we all know that in order to be fit, physically fit, you've got to do two things. You've got to eat good food and you've got to exercise and I think sentences are exactly the same. You've got to fill them with good words and then you've got to put them through their paces and that often means working them again and again and again. For me, a sentence is never ever finished. And I think some writers might find that kind of disconcerting. Even a quite skilled writer will still be tinkering up till the last minute. But for me, it's helpful to link that craft back to the pleasure.
Helen Sword: 13:07 Again, if you are wrestling with any media, whether it's clay or would you know anybody, any crafts person is, has got to love the medium and not allow themselves to be frustrated by the medium. So, you know, when you talk about getting through those hard days and those days where you just don't want to be doing it, I'm, one of the things I always try to do is to just remind myself why I'm there in the first place, which is a real love for the medium of language and for the communication that it can do, have these ideas or in the cases that you're talking about these, these stories, but every single sentence is a story in microcosm. And so that gets us down to the nitty gritty of how sentences work. I'm in the writer's style. I have five main chapters. One looks at nouns, one looks at verbs, one looks at adjectives and adverbs, one looks at prepositions, and then the last one's kind of grab bag of categories, that I call called the waste words.
Helen Sword: 14:12 But it's four words that don't necessarily have anything grammatically in common, but they often tend to end up in sentences together. And when you see a lot of them congregating together, the sentences may end up being a bit long. And then we'll do use. So those are the words, it, this, that and there, and I talked to them about each of those in turn in the book. But really if I had to boil, boil it down to just two things that would be nouns and verbs. And if I had to boil it down to just one principal, it would be the principal of concreteness of concrete language. Nouns can be concrete or abstract. Verbs can be concrete or abstract, even adjectives and prepositions for that matter can be concrete or abstract. So understanding the distinction is just absolutely key to understanding how a sentence works. There's a, I don't know if you've seen the youtube video on the Ted Ed site, but, there's a hilarious video that was made from an article that I wrote about Zombie nouns in the New York Times. And that kind of animates, shows you what they are and how they work. But zombie nouns is just the phrase that I use to describe nominalizations, which is such an unwieldy word that I have trouble even saying it.
Amy: 15:50 So I'm going to jump in there for a second. Nominalization. Did you come up with that word because it's, it's brilliantly funny. I mean, because it is what you are telling people not to do.
Helen Sword: 16:04 It is a nominalization, but no, I didn't come up with it. It's a grammatical term. You can find it in the dictionary. I think it was some of the best writing about nominalizations is in Joseph Williams. Really Fabulous. It's classic book: Style: Lessons in clarity and grace, and any of your listeners who don't already know that book should raise that and buy it. It's been around for decades, but it's a, it's really a great book on how sentences work. So in some ways, I'm not saying anything that, that he doesn't say or the William Zinsser doesn't say in, in his book, On Writing Well. Well, but it seems to be a lesson that needs to be repeated over and over again. Partly because so many people have not ever been taught to recognize nominalizations or to understand what they're doing.
Amy: 17:00 So the fact is, I mean you're. You're citing some really good, prestigious. I'm writing books, but the fact is that I'm. I have it in front of me, The Writer's Diet, and I've read William Zinsser. I haven't read the first guy that you were talking about, although I have a note to do so
Amy: 17:15 because you mentioned him in your book, but you've done it in 73 pages and you've done it very, very clearly in, you know, you're talking about using concrete now and said, I'm staying away from abstractions. You, you give app, you give exercises, you give ways of testing, like taking something that a writer is already written and seeing where the tweaks need to happen and I think that's something that's so important for people who maybe are new to the craft of writing and they haven't read tons and tons craft books. This is such a good primer to get started with. So I, I interrupted you there, but if you could tell people what a nominalization is and in my mind I'm going to let you describe what it is, but in my mind sometimes we just like academics try to write smart and I think that's when things like nominalizations creep in and it's, you know, masking maybe some inexperience and if you want to get into the psychology of it, I think it's probably the fear of coming across as not being a good writer. So we tried to spruce things up and that's where we go wrong.
Helen Sword: 18:27 Yeah. And sometimes we get a lot of that same kind of language in bureaucratic prose, in all kinds of different places. And sometimes it's just easier. It's easier to come up with a nominalization followed by a weak verb followed by something like is or shows or you know, sort of what I call the usual suspects. rather than to find a verb that really has a lot of energy and uniqueness to it, which really is the key even more than nouns. But what a nominalization is. it's a, an abstract noun by definition. All nominalizations are abstract, it's an abstract noun that has been created from other parts of speech, so usually either a verb or an adjective, occasionally another noun even. So a nominalization itself. It comes from, well, the in French nom is is a name, but it's also a noun, right? So nominal.
Helen Sword: 19:37 One meaning of nominal is having to do with nouns, so that's already an adjective, a descriptive word that's been formed from a noun. So the noun or noun becomes the adjective having to do with nouns, nominal. And then you can turn that into a verb to nominalize. So if you take a noun and you turn it into a verb, you have nominalized. It. Nominalization takes the final step of turning it into a noun by adding one of these endings. Like in this case t I o n. So a nominalization is a noun that has been created from other parts of speech and nominalization as a process is a way of describing the process of creating nouns from other parts of speech. So it's quite a. it's, it's a big word that's describing a complex process, but the beauty of it, as you said, is that it's a word that enacts would.
Helen Sword: 20:39 It describes a nominalization is a nominalization that has undergone nominalization. So what's wrong with nominalizations? Well, nothing at all. We use them all the time. We need them. We need to abstract language in order to communicate it. That ideas. So the word education is a nominalization. Does that mean that we shouldn't use it? Of course not. It's very useful to be able to talk about education, but a writer who is using the word education in every sentence, sometimes more than once. I might want to think about the verb that it came from educate, which has a kind of energy to it that education doesn't have education or any abstract noun is something that we can conceptualize. We can talk about it right at that edge, but we cannot visualize it. We cannot touch it and that's the problem really with abstract nouns in general, but nominalizations just seem to be a version of them that were especially drawn towards an English for whatever reason and that are easily minimized by if you become aware that you used in a lot of nominalizations, you can just look at them and say, okay, what if I take half of these and release?
Helen Sword: 22:06 So word that's hiding inside there? So what a past. The Times I say education, I try to talk about educating and educate and maybe that will actually get me thinking about where it's like teaching and learning so that I have a bit more variety in my vocabulary, you know, so it's just a way of doing that. But the greater issue of abstract versus concrete nouns is just so important to think about because I've read academic articles where people use six, seven, eight, nine abstract nouns in a sentence. Sometimes just in the title, you know, a reflection on the normalization of the this, the, that you know, and it's just this big string of these saints. Lots of examples in the book of real world writing that does these things and not just from the academic sphere. So, the, the problem with that kind of writing is that the reader can visualize anything and so they just get lost.
Helen Sword: 23:13 So in the zombie nouns video, I take a sentence that has a bunch of nominalizations in it and I cut it down to just one, so because it's an active sentence in which the one abstract term is really foregrounded and you can see what it means and you can see why it's being used instead of being in there with, with all these others. So just think it's such. I mean it seems like this kind of dry concept, why should I have to learn this? But it's like learning how to hit your nail with your hammer. If you haven't learned some of these really basic things about how a sentence works, you're going to be building them the much more hit and miss way. So my, my kind of rule of thumb is to make sure even when I'm doing or I would say especially when I'm writing about quite abstract things to make sure that in every paragraph, if not in every single sentence, I've got some concrete nouns and congregate nouns are things that exist in the world that you can visualize, that you can perceive with the senses. So you know, in family writing, historical writing, you've got an advantage that you're writing about real people in the world and yet it can be really easy to start talking about them in more abstract ways by letting these zombie nouns creep in there.
Amy: 24:48 Exactly. And that's always a danger with zombie nouns and with other ways of having the, the prose go a little bit lifeless because generally we're going out, we're interviewing the storyteller and then we are reshaping the storytellers words to put down onto the page or you know, maybe doing some editing for videos or are probably less so with audio. But definitely for the written format. We're taking a transcript and those words have a way of getting stuck in your head. And sometimes you, it's hard to see beyond the way that they have expressed something and you and I both know the way we express things in speech is not how we want to be reading things on the paper and, and so the challenge is probably a little bit different from an academic trying to write in a lively manner, but it's still a challenge because, because we're trying to reshape what somebody else has said and so if, especially if you haven't really studied the craft of writing so much to be able to hear something like nominalizations, you're going to be much more aware of what you're seeing on the paper. And especially for nominalizations because they have a few different word endings, right? I mean the words that end in men and yeah. So M, e n, t a, T I o n or ion, right. So, so those are visual clues that we can see on the paper and that we can, that can alert us like, hey, maybe we need to
Helen Sword: 26:22 better website the writers start
Amy: 26:25 I have. And that's something that. Yes, I know. Let's, let's, let's talk about one or two of the other things and then I definitely want to talk about the website because it's such a good tool for us so listeners are just going to have to wait and wait until the end and then we're going to talk about it, but. So I'm jumping around in the book a little bit, but one thing we all, you know, we have definitely heard to use strong verbs and a concrete nouns, but something that you brought up that I had never really heard of before is that there's different qualities to different prepositions and you also give a few rules and I'm sure that these rules are meant to be broken if the need arises. But. So I'm, I'm reading from your book again, avoid using more than three prepositional phrases in a row. That's something that as readers we can all understand. We can all intuit when somebodies piling on prepositional phrase after propositional phrase and we'll probably lose interest, but it might not necessarily be something that we consciously understand and can apply to our own writing. So I, I so appreciate that. You just
Amy: 27:34 putting a, putting a number on it, and then the other thing that you say is do not allow a noun and its accompanying verb to become separated by more than about 12 words. That's brilliant. You're telling us 12, you know, it's not, it's not the kind of advice that I've seen before and it's just, it's so exciting to be able to have something that you can just in a very practical way apply to your own writing. So and. But the thing that I started talking about was you, you, you mentioned that some propositions are just a little zippier than others. Can you talk about that?
Helen Sword: 28:09 So I have some examples in the book of people who use a lot of prepositions in a sentence because they're physically taking us someplace. So if you're describing somebody who walks through the garden into the shed, behind the lawn mower, into the pool of darkness, you know, you're, you're breaking the three preposition. I don't call it a rule, but a rule of thumb. It's kind of like good one to stick to unless you have a really good, clearly defined stylistic reasons for doing otherwise, but if you are somebody who's trying to kind of pull out the suspense of that movement through the space back behind around, then you're using those prepositions really, really well and really effectively, but often we're using them just to hook a bunch of, in many cases, abstract nouns together, a demonstration of the efficacy of the practice of, you know, these sorts of things where it's,
Amy: 29:22 oh, that rolls right off your tongue.
Helen Sword: 29:24 I actually think it's easier to write this kind of soggy buggy prose than it is to write tight sippy pro. Some people are fortunate and they just seem to have been born with that gene or they've been trained into it. But I find, I once a paper in which I was kind of parodying prose that broke all of these rules and I found it dead easy. It was way, way easier than trying to find the concrete language and what I call the fresh unusual for. So prepositions, there's, I would say for most writers, prepositions are not a big issue and yet what I do with all in all five categories as I do put numbers on things and I basically say if you're going over this percentage of prepositions in your prose, you might want to think about that. You probably want to make sure you have a good reason for doing that.
Helen Sword: 30:26 And if you do, you know, if you're able to articulate well, I'm using all those propositions because I'm walking us through landscape. Getting us to a particular place and the prepositions helped me draw the suspense. Then great. Ignore the principles. But if you're just piling them on because somehow you haven't figured out how to get to the end of your sentence. That's one where you need to go back or it would be a good idea to go back and have a look and think about the work that each of those prepositions is doing. And as with I think any part of speech varieties part of it as well. So you can. You can start to see if you use the same five or six prepositions over and over again. If you are, then that writing will be much more monotonous than if you're. If you're using quite varied ones that really are taking us spatially or prepositions are connecting words and if you're using prepositions consciously and imaginatively, then there's gonna be some variety and some interest in the way that you're doing it. So I would put. I would put thinking about prepositions as being, you know, kind of at the nerdy and the specialist end of, of thinking about how to craft a strong sentence.
Amy: 31:43 I think you just called me. It's funny because this has become a favorite book. This, the writers your yearbook because of the content and because of your writing style. Another one that I have sitting on my desk right now, his sister Bernadette sparking dog, which is all about diagramming sentences. Something I love, but it's also, you know, it's, it's using grammar to serve, to serve a bigger purpose which is writing sentences that convey meaning in a, in a pleasurable way to read. Okay. So we're getting a little bit close to the end. So I do. I, I wanted to go through more of your, your rules of thumb, but I think people are just going to have to go out and buy the book themselves because I do want to give you the chance to talk about the website and that website.
Helen Sword: 32:35 The very beginning when I started working on the rider stud, I thought, well, if I'm using kind of going to the gym analogy and let's say you're going to the gym because you want to start a personal training routine to get stronger and fitter. Your personal trainer is going to get out the calipers to measure the fat on your arm and they're going to make you. Do you know the treadmill tests? They're going to put you through your paces and they're going to say, here are some things where you really could could improve or where we'd like to see the numbers change and that will indicate your fitness stuff. So I just thought, I wonder if it's. Is it possible to do that with some of these grammatical and syntactical principles? In a way that's not saying you must do this, and I think this is really important, the writer's style test you, you copy in between 100 and a thousand words and you click this button.
Helen Sword: 33:38 This is at writersdiet.com. You click the run the test button and then you get this diagnosis of whether your sample. I won't say your writing and it's certainly not you. It's just the sample that you've put in whether it is so I say flabby or fit. Now I'm working on a version of this right now that is actually going to be a plugin that you can run in Microsoft word on your own machine or in the cloud. That will allow you to look at an entire document of whatever length and not just something up to a thousand words. It's turning out to be quite complicated to program, but we will get there eventually and as part of that, I'm going to have some customization options. So anybody who doesn't like the words flabby and fit can rename it to red and green. You know, or whatever they want to apples and oranges, but they at the idea of it all, it's showing you when it puts you over from lean and fit into needs, toning or flabby or the most dire emergency category is heart attack.
Helen Sword: 34:51 All it's saying is that you've got a lot of words in that category, a high percentage higher than we would expect somebody writing vigorous prose to have and you really should go and have a look and think about why. Again, if you're doing it consciously for repetition or because you need to use a certain word over and over or for a stylistic effect, then you ignore the results and you'd go on with what you're doing. But for most people it shows them things that they aren't aware of. So with the nominalizations for example, if you get a reading of a heart attack, I think it's showing you that six percent or more of the words your sample are nominalizations and it's just saying, you know, that's kind of dangerous zone. You may be losing your breeders because if you have that much, that many zombie nouns, you probably have a whole bunch of other abstract nouns that aren't even getting you know that the that the algorithm won't find because it's only looking for certain word endings.
Helen Sword: 35:57 And if you have all that abstract language, you probably don't have very much concrete language. So the way it's working is it's an algorithm. It's doing is counting you, put in your words, it spits out a result and we all love algorithm thinking because you know you push a button and you get an answer, but what it's trying to teach you is what I would call her ristick thinking, which is thinking in terms of principles rather than rules. So that's where you can see the principle is that if you have too many prepositions, your sentences are probably quite long and stringing together a whole lot of nouns and you may be losing your reader. But the heuristic is saying, oh, but if I understand how prepositions work and what the different effects are, then I can make my own choices based on what the algorithm is telling me.
Helen Sword: 36:50 It's just giving me a very simple diagnosis and now I take that diagnosis and I, the human being with a brain, you know, look at, look at my writing with new eyes and, and think about how to improve it. So, you know, I do get comments every now and then from people. I'm usually undergraduates, often undergraduates for whom English is not their first language. Saying this tool doesn't fix my writing. It doesn't tell me what's wrong. It tells me all these that I have to get rid of all these words. Well, it's not telling you that at all. It's just saying you've got a lot of words in this particular category. So the nouns category, all it's looking at our nominalizations. So that is nouns with anyone of seven word endings and both the book and the website will tell you what they are, but we'll tell you how to identify them yourself.
Helen Sword: 37:49 And you can even do the whole thing with just the book by counting and color coding. It tells you how to do that in the back. So it's giving you a formula but it's not meant to be a formula that any thinking person is going to, you know, Kowtow to and, and follow without thinking about it. Quite the opposite. But it's data that can shed a light on problems that you might not be seeing yourself. So like you said, it's not, it's a diagnostic tool and you can do what you want with the results, but it can definitely show us where we are falling down when we don't realize it. And I think that's the beauty of it because it, it can really, it can eliminate some things that you didn't understand about your own writing. I follow those principles myself very rigorously, but I can also tell when I'm moving away from them and it's often when I'm doing a certain kind of academic writing.
Helen Sword: 38:47 Like writing an abstract often is quite abstract and I'll, I can, I can start to feel that I don't have great verbs in there. And then I've got an awful lot of these, the zombie nouns, you know, more than I would like to. And if I start to feel that I can almost always put that segment through the test and Yep, sure enough it will have gone over over the line. Now having said that, it doesn't tell you whether your writing is good or bad. it doesn't even tell you whether it's interesting or boring. It's just looking for characteristics of sentences. Set tend to be types of words that tend to be associated with a certain kind of foggy longwinded prose. That's all it's doing. But that turns out to be quite a helpful thing to have a mechanism to do. Because what I used to do before I developed it is I would hand back students' papers or sometimes colleagues draft articles or whatever and I'd say go through circle all of the forms of the word to be.
Helen Sword: 40:02 So that's: is, was, were, all of those verb forms and get rid of half of them, which was a pretty, a pretty random, you know, pretty scatter shot sort of thing. Whereas now with this particular algorithm, you can, you know, I basically said generally if I read something where it's up to three percent of these, be verbs, it's fine, and generally if it gets to more than that, either the language is quite passive. You're using passive for constructions which always then brings in a be verb. You know, the research was performed, mistakes were made. So if you're doing the passive then you've often got rid of the agent, the person or thing doing the action, or it may just be that you're writing a lot of kind of lazy sentences. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, you know, it's this kind of monotonous use of one verb over and over again, and it's just so common in all levels of writing that that seemed an interesting and important thing to flag. Now, what it won't tell you is how to replace or how to rewrite those sentences using more energetic verbs. The book will help with that because it gives you some exercises and lots and lots of examples, but it will not do it for you.
Amy: 41:35 Well, you're writing in this book is a great example of the things that you're trying to teach us in the book itself. So thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. Can you tell us again the name of your latest book and where the listeners can reach you?
Helen Sword: 41:51 The latest one published last year is Air and Light and Time and Space. And if you go to The Writer’s Diet website, so writersdiet.com down at the bottom, you can subscribe to my newsletter now having said that, I write to the newsletter about once a year, so it's not a very active one, but I do use it to inform people of new developments. Also at the bottom of the page, you will see a link to the writing base, which is where you can go and, do a little self diagnostic tests looking at your behavioral, artisanal, social and emotional habits and how they all intersect. And you'll also find links from The Writer’s Diet site to my kind of main website, which is helensword.com. And there you can find links to all of all of my books on writing as well as various other things and things like the zombie nouns video, which is pretty much my favorite thing ever. Being able to take a piece of writing and then having somebody animated and add sound effects to see it. And I think I think practices what it preaches because it's taking this quite abstract. Know what is a nominalization, what's wrong with nominalizations? And it's, it's actually putting a story on it, the story about the zombie nouns that go and cannibalize other parts of speech and wreak havoc in our sentences.
How I Use Scrivener for Life Story Writing: a few helpful tips I made the change from Mac Pages to Scrivener over the past year or two, and now Scrivener is my go-to for creating all my life story books. I'm constantly learning new things it can do, but here are the essentials that make it an indispensable part of my workflow.
1) Split-screen editor. The Editor is where you do your writing, the main window where your draft appears. And since we as life story writers are basing the narrative on what our storyteller has shared with us, it's a huge help to view the raw material (transcript, old letters, etc) side-by-side with the draft.
2) The Binder. This is where you see all of your documents and folders, where you create new ones, and where you go to move sections of the book in a snap. You can use it as an ersatz-outline, dragging and dropping elements until you find the perfect structure.
3) Labels. On its own, the binder is a powerful visual tool; add colored labels, and you'll never get lost in your writing again. Listen to the podcast to see how I use just a couple of labels to signal what's been finished and what still needs work.
Want to check out Scrivener for yourself? Click to check out Scrivener for Mac
Or here for Scrivener for Windows
Need some visuals to go with the podcast? Take a look at my sample project at http://thelifestorycoach.com/31-scrivener-for…fe-story-writing/.
Before we jump into today's interview... I want to give a quick shout-out to my former coaching student, JoEllen Anklam of Story Canoe.
A professional voice actor, JoEllen takes events from her storyteller's life to create an old-style radio show. Check out the sample that kept me on the edge of my seat here.
Now, on to the show...
Dawn Roode of Modern Heirloom Books creates visually stunning life story books In this episode, Dawn talks to us about transitioning from the magazine world, where she worked on publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and Parenting, to creating a life story business.
Listen as we discuss:
- how a creating a tribute book after the sudden loss of her mother spurred Dawn into founding Modern Heirloom Books
- the difficulties of selling
- how life's milestones—a wedding, a funeral—are the times when people most want to take stock of their lives, and recognize the value of saving their stories
The longer you speak, the deeper the narrative becomes."
(By the way, the above is an example of a pull-quote, something we also discuss in the interview.)
Modern Heirloom Books' "Dear Daughter" Signature Product The wedding industry is huge. So from a business standpoint, it made sense for Dawn to create a line of beautiful books for brides. Parents hire her to record stories about their daughter's life and surprise her with the book on her wedding day [Hint: It's best to do it before she's ready to walk down the aisle; inevitably, the bride reacts with tears of joy!] This is also a way to build the opportunity for future life story projects within the family.
Life Story Links, a Roundup of All Things Life Story Every two weeks, Dawn does a great service to the life story professional community by publishing her Life Story Links. The round-up gathers together all the blogs, videos, tweets, and posts that pertain to life stories, biography, and personal history.
If you've posted something online that you'd like to appear on the Life Story Links round-up, submit it to Dawn here. And if you don't have anything to post, check it out anyway. You're sure to get some great ideas from other life story writers, genealogists, photo organizers, and more.
Thanks for listening. Now go out and save someone's story.
Links and Stuff: Modern Heirloom Books
Submit your post to Dawn's blog round-up
Story Canoe; the sample that kept me on the edge of my seat is here.
Rutger Bruining of Story Terrace talks life stories Rutger Bruining thought about recording his grandparents' life stories—life in the Resistance during WWII, 20 years in the Caribbean—but he never got around to it. The regret he experienced at having missed the opportunity spurred him to start Story Terrace, a company that produces life story books.
"A biographer for every person." Rutger's breakthrough came when he realized he could tap into the freelance market to match up writers with customers. When someone orders a book package, Story Terrace assigns them a writer within their area, allowing most interviews to be conducted in person. If Story Terrace doesn't have a writer nearby, they go looking for one [Hint: This is why you should have an updated LinkedIn profile!].
To date, they have 200 freelance life story writers in the US, and many more in the UK and the Netherlands.
Also covered in our interview:
- using family members as guinea pigs when starting a new life story business
- how Angel investors helped him get his fledgling business off the ground
- the guidebook of high-level tips Story Terrace provides to its freelance writers
- creating a structure or outline of the book before the writing is started
- using technology and an online platform to help customers upload photos and captions, and—in the future—to make edits to the drafts
- systematically surveying customers after they've gone through the process
- Story Terrace's Virtual Reality pilot program (compare this to the work Hilarie Robison is doing with embedded links to videos in her life story books at Legacy Tale)
Links and stuff: Story Terrace
Want to learn more about becoming a freelance life story writer for Story Terrace? Check out their application process.
If you enjoy the interview, please help others find us by leaving a review on iTunes.
Now go out and saved someone's story.
John Jantsch shares marketing advice for life story professionals Turns out, marketing a life story business isn't so different from marketing any other kind of business. John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing explains some basic principles that will help you connect to potential clients.
Among topics we discuss are:
- The importance of identifying the client's problem and how you're going to help solve it
- Systemitizing your marketing efforts [Hint: A robust marketing plan isn't just for big companies!]
- Helping people understand WHY they want the project we're offering them
- Breaking through a storyteller's resistance to having a book done about their life
The conversation can deepen the relationship between aging parents and their children."
Nuts and bolts of online marketing We may spend most of our time talking face-to-face—or over the phone—to prospective clients, but that doesn't mean we can neglect our online presence.
John shares some steps that we should incorporate into our overall marketing strategy, actions specific to local businesses wanting to get the word out to their community (that's us!).
People don't really want to know how to do something. They just want to know that you know how."
Google's Small Business Universe Okay, technically that's a Duct Tape Marketing term, but it makes sense. The vast majority of people looking online for personal historians and life story professionals will be typing their search into Google. And Google wants to help us help them. John mentions a few (free!) tools that can help land us that coveted "above-the-fold" spot on the search results page, including:
- Google My Business
- Google Maps
If you enjoy the interview, please help others find us by leaving a review on iTunes. Now go out and saved someone's story. Links and stuff: Duct Tape Marketing
Google My Business
Life stories aren't just for people In part 2 (listen to part 1 here) of our interview with Janet Kirkman, we hear her talk about the refined world of show dogs and why this can be a good niche market for life stories. [Hint: stories that focus on the dogs.] And then there are the "just regular" dogs, the pets we love to pieces, who can also be the focus of a life story. Janet points out that a typical lifespan for a dog is 10-plus years. If you're a dog owner yourself, or have been in the past, think back to one of your pets and consider what was going on in your life at the time. What life changes did you experience throughout that decade?
Even if you're not doing a pet story per se, you can use a pet as a way to focus on a period in your storyteller's life. Use your own experience to generate open-ended, thought-provoking questions.
A good example (I think? I haven't read it) is Marley and Me.
A better example (because I have read it) is Travels with Charley in Search of America, by John Steinbeck. I love this book. Steinbeck and his French poodle climb into his pickup and drive across the US, a discovery journey that tells us just as much about the author as it does about America. And Charley.
Cherished possessions have stories of their own Janet has worked with clients to tell the story of their family home and the meaningful possessions within it, such as an armoire that escaped the Nazis (when some of the family did not). Again, the objects are a way to focus in on a person's life and their roots.
Oops, part 2. Again, sorry for the quality of the recording. I hope it's not too bothersome. I was willing to risk it in order to share Janet's great experience as a life story writer with you.
If you like show, please help others find us by leaving a review on iTunes.
Now go and save someone's (or something's) story.
Today's episode is part 1 or our interview with Janet Kirkman, a 15-year veteran or life story writing. She talks to us about writing life stories, clients who self-publish, teaching memoir classes based on Guided Autobiography, and how she learned to create legacy letters with Barry Baines.
Oops. We had some technical difficulties with the sound and lost the first part of the conversation. The TIME Magazine article Janet refers to was part of a publicity campaign spearheaded by fellow life story writer Lettice Stuart, a founding member of the now-defunct Association of Personal Historians. According to Pat McNees on her amazing writersandeditors.com site, "It was Lettice who pushed reporters to write articles about APH, and whose friend at the Wall Street Journal wrote the first major media article about APH. Then several national publications got on the bandwagon and published stories – Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, the LA Times, Time Magazine, and many more."
The interview with Janet was packed with so much good information (and inspiration!) that I split it into two parts. Stay tuned for part 2! (Click here if you want a heads-up as soon as it goes live.)
Links and stuff: To reach Janet, email her at janetkirkman1600@gmail.com
I hope you enjoy this episode. If so, please leave us a review on iTunes. It's the best way to spread the word about the life story business! Thank you.
Now go out and save someone's story.
Who takes responsibility of documenting a family's memories? After becoming a mom, Hilary Robison also took on the mantle of "keeper of family memories." Her experience led her and her husband to found Legacy Tale, where they help clients "learn how intentional living, memory-making, and technology come together to build stronger families and make life more enjoyable."
Living life intentionally In this episode, we discuss how we can be oblivious to experiences while we’re in the midst of them. By being intentional in our choices, we have a better chance of creating experiences (and the memories that follow) that strengthen our relationships and make us more resilient as a family.
Treasuring the experiences as they happen Hilarie's advice includes creating a roadmap or strategic family, with input from parents and kids. Ask:
- Who do we want to be?
- What’s our vision for our family?
- How do we achieve that?
- What kind of experiences do we want to have? e.g. places we want to travel
Why? Because experiences shape who we become.
Hilarie didn’t want to look back and say, “Where did the time go? What did I do with that time?”
Other topics include: * planning a family planning retreat * tips on creating your own family history * Google Photos, a free app at photos.google.com * on partnering with her husband in the Legacy Tale business [hint: Hilarie’s husband can build your life story business website and help market your business!] * Legacy Tale's interactive books, with links connect to audio and video content * creating a business that’s scaleable * digital projects—coaching and help for diy’ers on how to write and publish your personal history and more * Legacy Tale's courses and products, including a self-guided online course and membership on how to write your life story
Links and things: You can find Hilarie at LegacyTale.com.
Click here to receive 20% off products at Legacy Tale, a special gift to The Life Story Coach Podcast listeners. Thanks, Hilarie! Please help others find us by leaving a review on iTunes. Download a transcript of the interview here.
Bookkeeping woes? Keep it simple. Candus Kampfer wanted to make a difference. When her hair stylist cried with relief after Candus showed her how to pull her accounting reports, Candus knew she wanted to help others. She began making short, focused video tutorials about Quickbooks in 2014, and her following grew.
Candus big message: keep it simple.
It doesn't need to be overcomplicated. But remember that bookkeeping is a vital part of your business. It's not just for doing taxes! Track the numbers throughout the year.
Numbers are a black and white way to view your business.
How to get started?
Start by opening a business bank account; don't co-mingle your personal and business expenses!
Keep records on paper: Use columns to designate expense categories, e.g fuel, office supplies, meals and entertainment [Hint: keep the categories fairly broad].
Or use an Excel spreadsheet to track your numbers
There are three types of reports you should be pulling: 1) Profit and Loss * the top--your income, what you're being paid from your clients, based on categories of products or services * below--all of your business expenses * bottom line: did you make a profit or take a loss for the time frame chosen
Questions to consider when looking at the P&L report: 1. Have you been making an income in the areas you expected to? Are you making more income in one area over another (e.g. producing books vs. producing audios)? 2. Keep track of your expenses; where is your money going, and how does the outgo compare to the income? 3. Compare a date range to a previous date range, e.g. this month vs last month.
2) The balance sheet All assets, all liabilities, all equity, and your net worth (Hint: The net should match the number on your P&L if you chose the same end date).
The balance sheet is a snapshot of your business at a particular moment.
3) Sales by Item Summary (this report is specific to Quickbooks) For creating invoices within Quickbooks, use "items"; items are more detailed than the categories on your P&L. These items give details on the services and products you provide. It will show you the income you're generating on this specific services and products, and their percentage of the overall income.
Knowing this allows you to proactively guide the business in the direction you want it to go. For example, you may see you need to do some marketing to grow a particular area.
How to determine profitability in a service-based business Add a value to your time tracking
Set up a non0payroll item with your service item and cost
I use Toggl for time tracking. For most of us, the free version is fine—it's what I used for years. I only upgraded to the paid version when I wanted to start drilling down into the statistics of how I was spending my time.
To get your effective hourly rate, you have to track all business-related hours worked, not just billable time.
Quickbooks: for each customer, you can enter billable AND non-billable time. When you go into Profit & Loss by job and by customer, it tracks the costs for you without counting it as income.
The entrepreneur's struggle: understanding the value of your work * What would I like to earn? * How much time do I have to work per month? * Being confident with your billing comes over time. * Kind, loving praise from clients helps!
Discomfort with invoicing (whether it's on your end or your client's) can be alleviated by stating things clearly in writing.
Trust your gut feeling on whether it's a good match between you and a potential client.
Routine bookkeeping tasks * Download or manually enter your bank transactions * Enter expenses * Track your income * Reconcile bank and credit card accounts * If using desktop version, back up your Quickbooks to an external drive (or any accounting software) [Hint: Do not use Dropbox to back up Quickbooks]
Pulling reports P&L, pull it every month and compare YTD or month-to-month; are you where you want to be?
Balance sheet, pull every quarter or so to make sure everytyhing looks
Sales by item summary, pull every month. This gives a breakdown of your income and where it's coming from
Links Candus has a free minicourse on how to get started with Quickbooks in under an hour (canduskampfer.com/minicourse).
Confidence with Quickbooks Course
Quickbooks Simplified Community
What I use to back up my data:
Crashplan for Small Business
Toshiba external hard drives for Mac (with Time Machine)
(here's a model that works with PCs)
Whenever you're learning something new, be patient and kind with yourself. It can be overwhelming!
If you're interested in helping your clients learn about their genetic genealogy, keep an eye open for a special sale on the 23andme kits. They may be offered at a reduced price during Amazon's Prime Day. It starts at midnight on July 16, 2018 and runs for just 36 hours.
Please consider leaving a review (or just a rating) on iTunes. Thanks for helping to spread the word!
Now go out and save someone's story.
Set your clients expectations before you give them the first draft If you’re a writer, you know rough drafts are just that: rough. They’re not meant to be polished and perfect. They’re going to have mistakes. But your clients most likely aren't writers, and they’re not going to know that. And when you hand them one thing and they’re expecting another, it has the potential to cause a problem.
It’s our job as the professional guiding the process to set the stage. We don’t want the client thinking the rough draft is the final book, minus the official cover.
I’m going to talk about the specific steps I take to manage clients’ expectations, but first I want to talk about the kinds of mistakes we have in those early drafts:
Mistakes in the writing There are mistakes in things like punctuation and grammar, transitions, even chunks of material that may need to be shifted to a different section. And that’s all okay, because now is not the time to be delivering a smooth, tightly-written draft. Editing happens later in the process, after the draft is written to completion.
For one thing, if you’re still doing interviews, you’ll be getting new information about a subject or time period you’ve already covered in the draft. Nobody tells their story during the interviews in a completely chronological fashion—and that’s why they’re hiring us, to put the bits where they belong, so they don’t have to worry about how they’re telling the story, they can just go along with the flow of it. It doesn’t have to come out in any given order.
But when you’re on interview five and they go more in depth into a story that they told you back in interview two, you’re going to go back and work that into the draft. If the writing is already tight and smooth and flawless, then it’s going to take you that much more time to sort of disassemble it, work the new material in, then polish it up again, with the proper transitions etc. So in the end, you’ll spend time un-doing and re-doing the work that you shouldn’t have done yet in the first place.
These are the mistakes that will probably bother us as writers the most. But unless your client is a retired English teacher, they’re not going to be paying nearly as much attention to the prose as they are the content.
Mistakes in the content This brings me to the second big category: mistakes in names, places, dates, details of their life story. They know things that you’re just getting acquainted with, so you don’t have the “reading glasses” so to speak, to see them. You can create all the timelines and place lines and gather all the data in a super organized system, but mistakes will still crop up.
Now, sometimes that’s because we misread something, or just got confused about something, but sometimes it’s because the storyteller has contradicted themself , or you find something in a source document that contradicts what they’ve said. I’m working with a client right now who didn’t find some new materials written by older members of his family until well into the process, and there was a bunch of stuff he told me that turns out to be flat out wrong. I never picked up that he was just speculating when he was talking about the earlier generations and he never told me he was doing it. And it’s all okay now, because he was ecstatic to find these memoirs written by the people about their own experiences.
So mistakes will happen. And that’s perfectly acceptable—as long as you prepare your storyteller.
How do you set the storyteller's expectations?
Talk to them. For all mistakes that originate with the client, it’s really important to let them know that it’s natural and it happens to everyone. The one thing we want to avoid like the plague is to have them start self-censoring. We don’t want them getting hung up on whether their grandma was born in 1903 or 1906—those things can be verified, or just left out.
And if they contradict themselves, even if the draft comes back and they tell us we got something wrong, well, the customer is always right. We make the correction and move on.
Setting a storyteller's expectations 1) Start with a conversation Have a conversation BEFORE you hand them the draft. Tell them clearly and directly that they should expect mistakes, and talk about the two categories of mistakes.
Make sure they know that editing for things like grammar and punctuation doesn’t make sense until the end, AFTER all of the material is included.
Tell them there will be mistakes in names, places, dates and details, because they know their story better than you do; and part of their OBJECTIVE in reading the draft is to make those corrections to it, right there on the paper.
The draft is also their chance to see if they want to go back to a story that’s already been written up and expand on it, or see where there’s holes, things they haven’t yet talked about but want to
2) Include it on the draft! We’ve talked about the importance of redundancy before—well, here’s another place that I use it.
- For each draft I give to a client, I have a cover sheet with the client’s name, the date of the draft, my logo and contact info, etc and also the words “DRAFT-IN-PROGRESS”
- On the next page, right there in the draft itself, I include a note with some boilerplate text about how they should expect to see mistakes, what kind, and what to do about them—taking pen to paper, dog-earing so I don’t miss any (they never remember to do that!), etc.
- I include it in the running header. I say something like “Working draft—uncorrected." It’s like a watermark, not only as a reminder to the storyteller, but also for any family member who make pick up the early draft. Because I may not have had the opportunity to have a conversation with them to manage THEIR expectations, and I don’t want them thinking, "What is this? It's full of mistakes!"
- Last thing: if there is contradictory info in the interviews, I use an inline annotation set off with square brackets and put in a different color text (taking into account my client's eyesight; colors are sometimes harder to see than black on white).
To recap: * early drafts will have mistakes, in the writing and in the content * it’s your job to set your client’s expectations about what they’ll see in a draft * do it early and do it often—have a conversation with them, and have it in writing on the draft itself
Want a checklist cheatsheet to remind you of the steps to take before giving a client an early draft?
I hope this has helped. If you have any questions or better yet, if you have a different way of dealing with this, share them in the comments.
And if you've enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes.
Thanks for listening. Now go out and save someone's story.
Want to earn an online certificate in Reminiscence and Life Story Work? Then this episode is for you.
Today we talk to Esther Gieschen at University of Wisconsin, Superior about the academic field of reminiscence and life review and what we as practitioners of life story work can learn from it.
Topics discussed:
- the role of reminiscence and life story work as narrative therapy
- how the academic field can serve as a foundation of knowledge for practitioners out in the field, whether that's life story professionals running a business or volunteers serving their community (e.g. one student applied what she learned in the program to a group reminiscence project with cancer patients)
- Barbara Haight, who conducted tests to create her structured life review
- the benefits of integrating memories from the past and how it can enrich someone's present and future
- Erik Erikson's stages of life development
- Cheryl Svensson and Guided Autobiography (listen to Sam Uhl about her experience as a student in Cheryl's GAB class)
- the value of sharing common memories
- how each person processes and retrieves memories differently, so even when we are experiencing something together, our memories of that shared experience will vary.
- Faith Gibson and her book, Reminiscence and Life Story Work: A Practice Guide
- how group reminiscence sessions can act to heal conflict within a community; the example of a woman from the UK who used a group session to have recent immigrants sit down with long-term residents, some of whom had been immigrants themselves 70 years earlier. The conversation helped them see how much they had in common. [As an interesting aside, I follow the work of Laird Schaub, a consultant who helps intentional communities (think communes) resolve the conflicts that inevitably arise in their communities. He writes about it here.]
- the storytelling certificate program through the Kansas City-area Mid-Continent Library System (incidentally, also the home to the Midwest Genealogy Center, the largest free-standing public genealogy facility in the US and a favorite destination for family historians)
- James Walsh, professor at University of Colorado and his talk on reminiscence theater
The 2018 Annual Reminiscence Conference: the who, what, where, and why The conference takes place November 12-13, 2018, at the Hilton Boston Back Bay, in Boston, MA, with pre- and post-conference workshops on hospice/end-of-life reminiscence and on cultural perspectives. The keynote this year is Jefferson Singer on “The Varieties of Remembered Experience."
Want to sign up for the certificate program? Click here to get on the waiting list for 2019. Not sure you're ready to take the plunge? Esther advises that you look at the course reading list.
Click here to pre-order the new book, International Perspectives on Reminiscence, Life Review and Life Story Work (due out November, 2018)
Want to join the Reminiscence and Life Review registry? It's open to academics, researchers, and business owners. Find out more here.
If you enjoyed this episode, click here to leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for helping us spread the word! Now go out and save someone's story.
Erika Ettin gives people A Little Nudge up in the dating world What does online dating have to do with life stories?
A lot.
If you've ever looked at a dating site, you've seen a user profile, that miniature snapshot, in words and pictures, of a person in search of a partner. And just like with life stories, some people need help writing them.
Erika recognized this need years ago when friends started asking for her help with their own profiles. She got so good at it that she left her job in the finance industry and created A Little Nudge, a service that caters to singles ready to jump into the online dating pool but not sure they know how to swim.
Erika assists her clients through profile writing, picture selection, coaching, and date planning. In this episode, we talk about what it looks like to write a client's dating profile and even the messages they send to potential dates.
Listen as we discuss:
- Erika's biggest demographic— Women over 50 (a typically common demographic, incidentally, for life story clients)
- turning what you love to do into a viable business
- the process of creating a client's online dating profile
- the narrow line between coaching and therapy
- serving a population of people who are single, but don't want to be
- managing clients' expectations
- the gratification of working with someone fresh out of a long-term relationship who is just getting to know herself again
A few questions life story writers can borrow from Erika I'm always looking for interesting, conversation-stimulating questions to ask my storytellers. Here are a few that will elicit more playful responses:
- What's something about you that your friends would make fun of?
- Do you have any stupid human tricks (i.e. something you wouldn't put on a resume!)?
- Tell on yourself! What's a funny or awkward story about you that makes you shake your head and say, "Yep, that's me!"
What it takes to be a good dating profile writer-for-hire * You have to be an excellent writer. * You have to be intuitive about people. * You have to be a good businessperson and salesperson.
Links, contacts, and stuff:
A Little Nudge
Erika's book, Love at First Site
The New York Times article featuring Erika and her business
Listen to Erika's podcast, So, We Met Online...
Like this episode? Help others find it by leaving a review on iTunes.
Thanks for listening! Now go out and save someone's story (or help them find a partner!)
Welcome to episode 1 of the Nitty-Gritty This is the first episode of a new occasional series within the Life Story Coach podcast. In the Nitty-Gritty, we'll talk about the practical aspects of our work. Today, we're going look at file naming conventions.
Yep, it's dry and boring. But you won't think it's boring if things go haywire with your files because you never bothered to adopt a naming convention.
Why do we need a file naming convention? So that we can put our hands on our files quickly and easily, and so they don’t go missing. Or if they do, we know how they’re named so we can go look for them.
Let your naming convention evolve; then make sure to stick with it consistently!
HINT: Start your client folders with a # (this will bump them to the top of your folder list in Dropbox’s finder window)
Standard folders within each client’s folder:
- interviews and transcripts
- drafts delivered
- scans (including a separate folder for online scans)
- research
Want to see what my naming convention looks like? Download the PDF here.
Links and tools mentioned: Pat McNees' Writers and Editors
Rev.com
Dropbox
Adobe Bridge (available by subscription only; try looking for an older version to buy)
Like what you heard? Help spread the word by leaving a review on iTunes.
Peta Roberts, a life story professional who does it all. In this episode, Peta tells us about how documenting her own family's history led her to a career in personal history, and how a newspaper advertisement jump-started her business.
A climb in the Andes with an Argentinian ski guide led Peta to an enormous oral history project. Pure serendipity, mixed with a healthy dose curiosity, led to the creation and publication of a genealogical index.
Peta worked with The old Welsch families living in the Chubut province of Argentina (which answers the question, why do they speak Welsh in South America?)
From this project came collaboration with historian Michele Langfield to document all of the Welsh Patagonians who had come to Australia. None of them were related to Peta's family, but the work fueled her interest in helping others preserve their life stories.
Peta describes family history as a three-legged stool One leg is the genealogy: names, dates, places.
Another is genetic DNA testing, which can link us to people we never knew we were related to (for more on this topic, listen to our talk with scientist Mike Tones).
And the third leg of the stool? Family stories.
For the Welsh Patagonian Australian oral history project, Peta created a relationship map to show how the families knew each other, married into each other’s families, and came to Australia together on the same ship.
Can you use a relationship map to illustrate connections in your client’s story?"
Funding sources: in this case, it came from academia. The book is available on Amazon.
Personal historian means different things to different people Peta placed an ad in a local newspaper and clients called with various needs. She adapted to meet the needs of the people who wanted her help.
- recording interviews and creating a book from the transcripts
- working with a client’s letters
- digitizing, organizing and preserving photographs
How do you build the skills you need for different projects? * by doing * by consulting experts (e.g. in Peta’s case, she reached out to a paper conservationist about preserving old, frail photos)
Why it's a mistake to use the "hunter gatherer" technique for orgainizing photos. Pet describes her systematic yet flexible approach.
[Listen to Martie McNabb of Memories Out of the Box talk about finding the stories behind the photos, documents and mementos]
Sometimes it comes down to being brave, establishing a clear understanding of what the client wants, and then deliver. What is the client’s pain point?
Search Amazon for models of what you want to create--in Peta’s case, it was publishing a book of letters in the native handwriting (not transcriptions).
Marketing How Peta structured her winning newspaper advertisement:
“Want to give the perfect gift? Get personal. Tell them your life history. Record your audio, video, or write your life story in a book.”
We talk about what makes a good ad, and what doesn’t.
What is an ethical will? Usually in letter form, it’s a way for a client to pass on their experiences, values, and the stories of how they overcame struggles. Smaller than life story projects.
Trust documents are bare bones, but an ethical will says who I am. It’s what you want your loved ones to know and understand.” —Susan Turnbull of Personal Legacy Advisors, as quoted in a New York Times article
Peta's strategy: Peta wrote to attorneys to explain how she could help their clients; one of the attorneys brought Peta in to give a talk to his clients. (In an earlier episode, Dhyan Atkinson talked about using referral partners to compound your marketing efforts.)
Storyical, Peta Robert's podcast Peta’s podcast introduces the public to personal historians and life story professionals.
She interviews a variety of people, including personal history writers and their clients. Two recent linked episodes feature Songfinch, a company that produces customized songs with lyrics based on the stories of a person’s life.
Links:
Find Storyical on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Spotify.
Find Peta Roberts at lifestoryprofessionals.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, please help spread the word about the Life Story Coach podcast by leaving us a review on iTunes.
Now go out and save someone's story.
Sam Uhl of The Cheerful Word Sam shares her ups, downs, and sideways on growing (and then scaling back) her life story business. Once the proprietor of a brick-and-mortar life story studio in Hendersonville, North Carolina, Sam now teaches life story classes, coaches writing clients, and publishes books from her new base in Germany.
Listen as we discuss:
- how Sam learned to listen to older adults from a young age
- all you have to do is show sincere curiosity and ask the first question, and that gets the ball rolling
- how writing small stories as a home health care professional tipped her off to her true passion (“Some day, I’m going to have a business and tell these stories!”)
- the story of Sam’s Life Story Studio in Hendersonville and being a hub in the community
- growing, then scaling back her business
- some thoughts on the obstacles we all face as life story professionals
How teaching free life story classes led to a shift in direction Sam taught free classes for a local genealogical society; once they grew in popularity, she started offering paid courses.
A favorite class: “How to teach a skeleton to dance” (about talking about the skeletons in the closet)
- Sam became a Guided Autobiography Instructor from the Birren Institute in California
- she rented space at an inn to host her classes
- she charged $295 per six-week class
- she unwittingly becoming a publisher
- she became a memoir writing coach
- she wanted to write bespoke memoir, but that’s not what the community wanted; they wanted Sam to be their guide
- the importance of adapting to what the market wants
- customers are mostly women 55-75; they want to work with her in partnership mode
Despite lots of success, Sam was nearly homeless during this period. All of her money went into the business and supporting the costs of the studio. But she was also happy because she was finally doing what she wanted. [Lesson: We have to tend to the business side of our business, but we also have to believe in what we’re doing.]
Other topics we cover:
- some perils of having a partner
- working virtually over Skype and Facebook Video (in this case, from Germany)
- the payoff of working virtually
- making sure you run your business in a way that gives you satisfaction, not just an income
- the need to cut back on products and services
Sam's new focus:
- writers retreats
- online workshops
- coaching writers
If you want to teach, look into the Guided Autobiography training. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Sam took the “Train the Trainer” class with Cheryl Svensson, Ph.D., an experienced GAB instructor who has taught in the Autobiographical Studies Program at the University of Southern California’s (USC) School of Gerontology.
Want to know more about James Birren, the father of Guided Autobiography? Download his life story or read his book, Telling the Stories of Life Through Guided Autobiography Groups
Check out Sam's website, www.thecheerfulword.com, for news on writing retreats in Germany and in North Carolina and her online workshops.
If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes. And if you have any ideas to share or questions about this episode, share them in the comments. Thanks!
Now go out and save someone’s story.
What do people do with all the memorabilia they've collected over the years? Martie McNabb's Memories Out of the Box creates life story memorabilia boxes to tell the stories behind the stuff that matters most to us. And her show and tell events harnesses the power of face-to-face connection to foster an interest in telling our life stories.
How she started her career as a life story professional Martie had careers as a NYC public school teacher and a sign language interpreter before she opened her life story business, Memories Out of the Box.
At Show and Tales, Martie tells stories with people’s stuff. You can, too."
A lost photo spurred the creation of Memories Out of the Box, Martie’s company that tells people’s stories through the objects they’ve collected through the years. Martie gathers, organizes, and edits memorabilia for busy individuals who value what they’ve collected but don’t have the time, energy, or creative vision to create a legacy item.
Memories Out of the Box Martie has offered many types of products, but most clients want bespoke heirloom scrapbooks. [Hint: Show your clients what’s possible, then give them what they want.]
Listen as we talk about:
- creating an interactive experience with scrapbooks
- new technology for oversized scans
- Flippal for mobile scanning and making several passes and stitching together images for larger pictures
- the demise of letter-writing
- the Letter Writers Alliance
Martie’s clients work long hours and don’t have the time for long meetings. They feel guilty and overwhelmed by the memorabilia they’ve collected and neglected, and are relieved to find Martie to create something for them. Martie spends time going through their photos and other memorabilia, and has developed an intuitive sense of where the stories lie. (Listen to Dennis Ledoux on the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, and being a feeler and an intuitive person.)
[Hint: If photos aren’t labeled, they can still be appreciated as works of art in an heirloom project.]
How do clients find Martie? Martie started Memories Out of the Box with a store in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn (she no longer has the store). But now she finds that word-of-mouth is best. Ask previous clients to let others know about you. [Hint: Get testimonials from clients at the end of each project.] Her new marketing tool? Show and tell events.
Show and Tales Most creatives don’t like marketing themselves. And what we do doesn’t lend itself to an easy elevator speech. Our first task is to build rapport with potential clients. We need to educate people who have never heard of doing life stories.
Having a book to read at the end of the project is wonderful; what’s surprising is the power of telling the story. It’s a gift the storytellers give to themselves.
Long sales cycle. It can take years of ruminating before someone decides to START on a project.
Because Martie tells stories with people stuff, what better way to publicize
Branded Saloon in Prospect Heights Brooklyn was the venue for her first show and tell event. Martie held it in the backroom. People were invited to bring any object that they wanted to show and share its story.
She lived in the neighborhood so started by inviting friends. Then she reached out over Facebook and started a Meetup group (just like Chad Elliot discusses in this episode).
Show and Tale: The Moth meets Antiques Roadshow Storytelling is huge in NYC (and elsewhere!). But storytelling events are more performative (think of shows like The Moth). Martie’s Show and Tales are more like a cross between The Moth and Antiques Roadshow—without the competition or even having a developed story. Show and Tales are more about story-sharing than story-telling.
They can be held around a table, at a coffee house or library.
Or they can be held at venues with a stage.
Regardless, everyone feels welcome.
Martie has had anywhere from 0 to 50 people show up. One of her best-attended events was in conjunction with the Morbid Anatomy Museum. She also did a themed event Show and Tale called “Scars, Tats, and Piercings” at a bar in Lower Manhattan.
Each participant talks for 3-5 minutes, relating something about the item they brought. It is NOT meant to be a well-developed story, so even people who are afraid of public speaking should feel comfortable. This isn't about performing; it's about connecting with others.
[Hint: During a traditional life story interview, give the storyteller a prop and the conversation almost always flows easier.]
Martie is taking Show and Tale on the road! She bought an RV and will travel around the US for a year or two, hosting shows; she’s also starting to host them virtually. The first one was in honor of Mother’s Day—Mothers, Mementos and Memories.
Sign up for Martie’s newsletter to learn about her Show and Tale events.
Martie will be offering a certification and licensing program for life story professionals to host their own Show and Tale events. She’ll also partner with them for events while she’s traveling the country. Join her! Have fun, go traveling, and do marketing in a creative way.
Links:
Memories Out of the Box
Show and Tales
martie@memoriesoutofthebox.com
info@showandtales.com
Aspinal of London leather photo albums and notebooks [note: I'd never heard of these before Martie mentioned them, but now I want some! I'm a sucker for beautiful journals.]
If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes. And if you have any ideas to share or questions about this episode, share them in the comments. Thanks!
Now go out and save someone's story.
What does AncestryDNA really tell us about our forebears? Why is one sibling’s AncestryDNA results different from another’s? If we share the same parents and grandparents, how can our tests show something different? Is genetic genealogy incompatible with family heritage?
Mike Tones, scientist, explains the science behind genetic genealogy testing at sites like AncestryDNA and 23andMe.
You share an average of 50% DNA with your sibling. But that’s just an average. Theoretically, you could share 100%—or 0%—of your DNA with a full sibling.
Genetics and family history don’t line up exactly.
In this episode, we discuss a simple overview of how genetics work, including:
- how DNA carries the genetic information
- how the DNA is packaged in chromosomes
- how we each have 23 pairs of chromosomes—22 pairs of autosomes and 1 set of sex chromosomes
How are these genetic “packages” passed down? You don’t necessarily get 25% of the DNA from each of your grandparents because of the way the DNA is packaged. Some grandparents may be under- or overrepresented in your DNA pool. The deviation from the average gets greater and greater the farther back you go in your family tree.
The “packages” of DNA in a chromosome—e.g. all of the genes on Chromosome 1—don’t get mixed up. The set of genes are arranged on that chromosome, and it holds steady.
Interesting fact: By the time you get back to your great x5 grandparents, there are more grandparents than there are number of chromosomes.
Genetic genealogy makes some assumptions For example: if you trace your family back to the Mayflower, that's going back nearly 400 years, or 15+ generations. The probability of you having any of the DNA of an ancestor who came over is very low.
These relatives exist in your family tree, but probably not in your DNA.
Genetically, you’re not like a glass of water, infinitely divisible. Because your inheritance is packaged in these chromosomes.
In her Facebook group, Family History Writing and Photos, Lynn Cobine posted a message stating that the average British person’s DNA is 36% British. (One British member got results back from AncestryDNA saying she was 1% British!)
What does this mean. And how are the genetic tests conducted? They don’t sequence your entire genome (yet).
Mike gets into the science of genetic sequencing, explaining concepts like the double-helix, SNPs, base pair rules, and how genetic data from different populations are considered representative of certain regions.
The upshot? The science is real. However, we need to bear in mind that there are certain assumptions inherent in the scientific process.
A few things that genealogical genetics can show:
- They know the SNP markers for Neanderthals; there was interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans, and that can show up in your DNA.
- DNA genealogy also shows migration patterns in humans.
- Exchange of DNA can cross between members of pairs; it occurs during the formation of the sperm and egg. The chromosome as a completed self-contained package isn’t 100%; over time there’s a little bit of seepage between them.
- There are ancestors from which you will have inherited NO DNA.
In the end, we’re ALL related to each other because we’re part of the same species.
The nuclear genome isn't the only genome in town. Introducing the mitochondrial genome. Inside most cells are mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell, where ATP is made. The mitochondria are derived from bacteria, which are in turn descendants of ancient bacteria. Our cells are fueled by these descendants, providing the energy they need to survive.
The human egg is a huge cell. A nucleus and a huge amount of cell surrounding it, with the mitochondria. The sperm basically injects its DNA. That fertilized egg divides and develops, and during that process of cell division, the mitochondria are dividing as well. We get ALL of the mitochondria genome from our mothers.
In essence, we can use the Y chromosome to trace in the male lineage back through a single line of descent, and the mitochondrial genome to trace back through the maternal line. It’s a great gift of nature to scientists.
Iceland, a case study DNA analysis showed that the male Vikings who raided and settled Iceland didn’t take along their Viking women, but swung by Scotland and Ireland to capture new females. So the population of Iceland is descended from male Vikings and female Scottish and Irish women.
Family/cultural ancestry vs. genetic ancestry At a DNA level, the story of our ancestry may be different from how we see it culturally. There may be times when those things are in conflict with each other; that’s when you have to hold two apparently contradictory things in your mind at one time.
There are isolated populations in the world, but at the end of the day, we’re all mutts who trace our roots back to Africa.
Genetic variation within a population is much greater than between populations.
Greg Cronin wrote this after being surprised by the results of his AncestryDNA test. I read only a part of it on the podcast. Here it is in its entirety:
"For My Ancestors,
I write during a period of identity questioning. Today, my genetic analysis sprung some surprises on me – surprises are a normal part of life, but these surprises were about WHO I AM, and where I came from. Cronin and Winsky, Irish and Polish, has been the neat, tidy story that I have just recently begun to investigate. The Cronins, Mocks, James, and Guys branches have been studied thanks to the hard work of a cousin. Two of my great-great-great-great-great grandfathers are identified. These two men are of utmost significance to me, as are all of my ancestors: I would not exist, if not for them. My children, and generations to come, would not exist, if not for them. This is a simple biological fact that should be better appreciated. I share 0.8% of my unique (as opposed to the 99.9% of DNA that all humans share – we are all one big human family) DNA with them.
I have 62 other great-great-great-great-great grandfathers (and 64 corresponding grandmothers of the same generation – I love them all and wish I knew them) who have not been identified.
The fact that they have not been identified does not make them less important. Serendipity prepared me for my ancestory information. I was blessed to be invited to participate in sweat lodge the night before receiving my DNA results. [Sage advice from a guy with 0% American DNA: never decline an invitation to participate in a sweat lodge with a Native American.] I hope Danny doesn’t mind me repeating what he shared. He has an Irish father and a Chicana mother: he calls himself a Leprechano. That is funny as hell, even without his delivery, and set the atmosphere for the sweat. With his wit and wisdom, we were asked to love and pray for our future, present, and past family. Universally, we pray for our children, grandchildren, and future generations. Brilliantly, as I rarely contemplated, Danny told us that my ancestors prayed for me, just as I pray for my children and future generations.
Wow!!!!!, my ancestors, my (great)x grandparents prayed for me.
Assuming from probabilities, my Nigerian ancestor was likely kidnapped and brought to America on a slave ship. I am 3.3% Nigerian. Each of my 32 great-great-great grandparents contributed 3.125% of my DNA. I have been reading slave narratives for the past month, and feel quite sure that of all my ancestors, the one from Nigeria prayed hardest, deepest, and most often for his/her future generations, including me. I want to know this person. I want to visit Nigeria, as much as I do Ireland, Poland, England, and north Africa.
I am Irish, who colonized nobody. I am English, who colonized everybody they could. I am Polish. I am Jewish. I am northern African. I am Nigerian. I am human."
Fellow life story professionals, what role do you see genealogical genetics playing in your work? Is this something your clients express an interest in? What kind of impact does it have on the stories of someone's life?
Check out Mike’s music on Soundcloud
Mike is on LinkedIn
If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes. And if you have any ideas to share or questions about this episode, share them in the comments. Thanks!
Now go out and save someone's story.
A state grant started a thriving memoir business Denis started as a writer of autobiographical fictional. When he shared his stories with audiences, it struck a chord, and the Turning Memories into Memoirs workshop was born. At first funded by a state grant, Denis segued into teaching memory writing at community workshops.
In this episode, we discuss:
- how resistance to writing memoirs abated in the mid-1990s
- how clients write their own memoirs with Denis’s help, then use presentations to sell copies of their books to the public
- the difference between writing for family and writing for the public.
- the importance of honesty when writing your memoirs
- helping clients learn elements like suspense and foreshadowing. e.g. “How could this change?” Adding a simple line to the end of a paragraph.
Maximize your income Prioritize by starting your day with the work that produces income. Denis makes sure he does ten hours of billable time per week, including coaching, editing, and ghostwriting. This is augmented by income earned on work that he subcontracts to other editors.
[Hint: Denis is always looking for good editors, so get in touch if you’re looking to work as a subcontractor. It’s an excellent way of focusing on your writing without the added pressure of all the other tasks: marketing, sales conversations, invoicing, etc.]
More topics:
- the importance of keeping your work and free time separate.
- underpromise and overdeliver.
- on billable time: if he hasn’t done his 10 hours by the end of the week, he catches up. He can do more, but not less.
- in addition to his 10 hours, Denis earns a cut of the income from his editors, plus the profit from selling packages.
- the importance of giving honest feedback to coaching and editing clients. Don’t avoid the hard moments. Do it honestly, lovingly, and offer suggestions when there’s a problem in a manuscript.
- if you’re a life story writer and you send your client’s manuscript to an editor, don’t take criticisms personally. Editors want your book to be the best it can be.
- some suggestions lead to a discussion with the client, and a hybrid solution comes about.
What’s the difference between coaching and editing? Coaching proceeds without a manuscript, more focused on the client, carrying the client along.
Editing is more focused on the manuscript.
Sometimes they become indistinguishable.
“Who am I to think that I should write?” When clients ask this, they’re acknowledging the fact that they are impelled to write, but they’re fighting the voice that tells them they don’t have the right to write. Denis’s suggestion: Set a certain amount of time to write everyday. That way you don’t have to decide whether you “should” write or not. One coaching client calls Denis every day, a thirty-second accountability call. That’s part of coaching: supporting the writer.
Adult children sometimes want a book done on their parents, and the parents don’t get on board. We talk about the difficulties with dealing with a third party (e.g. the adult child). This usually doesn’t work in Denis’s experience; it very often does in mine.
To make your services appealing to a wider group of people, have an array of products and services, including coaching or editing, which can more affordable than ghostwriting a memoir.
Average costs for services: * $8,000-$12,000 per one hundred pages; on the lower range for people who are involved in the editing and writing. If the cost of a ghostwritten memoir is out of someone’s budget, offer other products at different price points.
Workshops: * Workshops: 40% of people who came to workshops bought a subsequent product, e.g. editing or coaching services. * Speaking: at libraries, clubs, fellowship halls, etc. also a good way to find clients. * One year Denis earned $22,000 of work from four speaking gigs; another year none. As a beginner, workshops are a good source of local clients. * Send a press release, bio, photo, and promise of a free book or 1/2 hour coaching. That goes into the outreach (don’t depend on the venue to do that). Arrive 25 minutes early, set up a table with books, go around and chat with everyone. That creates an intimacy.
Denis bases a workshop on five talking points. He uses his Turning Memories into Memoirs; use your own, open it up and read from it to illustrate examples of what you’re teaching. For example, if you’re talking about creating effective dialogue, read a passage of dialogue from your book.
The personality of memoir coaches and ghostwriters: desire to serve. But this must be balanced with selling, making your memoir writing into a business.
If you don’t sell, you’re being of less service to people, because you won’t be able to continue. Learn how to sell, people!
The first time a woman asked Denis for a discount: He suggested that the woman ask her children to contribute to the cost of the book. She was appalled, said she couldn’t ask them to give their own money. Denis responded by pointing out that she was willing, in effect, to take money from him and his family to fund the project.
Denis’s rule for himself: Don't care for someone else’s memoir more than they care for it themselves. If they ask you to subsidize the cost/give a reduction, walk away.
Personality types: there are thinkers and feelers (Myers-Briggs), and the people who get into memoir work are generally feelers. Feelers can identify with their clients. Many are also intuitive.
Build on your natural gifts.
The sense of the observant self: looking at yourself from the outside as you create characters and dialogue and suspense in a memoir. This ability to observe is what makes us become better at writing. You can bring that same sense of the observant self to your business of memoir writing. Reflect and analyze the prices your charge and the products you offer. It must add up emotionally and financially.
First steps for new memoir professionals: * assess your writing skills; are they up to snuff? or should by join some writers groups and have your writing critiqued * do a practice memoir of someone close to you * do an exchange with another * do programs and workshops at libraries and other places where people are interested in learning to write * start at a lower rate at the beginning , maybe $25-40 per hour, then with subsequent clients add $5 or $10 per hour
Denis offers packages for memoir professionals, including a speaker’s manual, a great way to launch your career
Want an affiliate relationship with Denis? Sell his books, tapes, and programs on your site.
Links: The Memoir Network, Denis's website
Jumpstart Your Memoir Business Success (free!)
Memoir Professional's Speaker's Manual
Every year there are new people who want to write their memoir—or have it written for them. Are you going to help them?
If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes. And if you have any ideas to share or questions about this episode, share them in the comments. Thanks!
Now go out and save someone's story.
Learn how to scale up your life story writing and personal history business with Tom Cormier Tom Cormier knows the legacy business. A former nationally-syndicated radio host, Tom is cofounder of legacystories.org, a platform for sharing legacy stories, and its sister enterprise, legacystories.com, a B2B company that offers coaching and resources for professionals who want to teach their clients the value of recording and sharing life legacies. Tom shares tips he has learned on how to scale up life story and personal history business by using the "one to many" approach.
Tom didn't start with a biding interest in legacy stories. Several years ago, his business partner and the partner's wife perished in a plane crash, and it changed everything. Through this tragedy, Tom met Dennis Stack, a wealth manager who after losing his parents had created a legacy saving program for hospices. The joined forces, and the Living Legacy Project was born.
In this episode, we discuss:
- how they trained hundreds of hospice care givers on how to collect stories, an how to break down the barriers of reluctant storytellers
- how they scaled up their story-saving mission by bringing their legacy training to home care companies and independent living communities (some of the largest home care providers use their system today)
- how they shifted their focus to estate planners and wealth managers
Why do wealth managers need personal historians and legacy professionals? We talk about:
- the legacy wave and the aging boomer population
- the value people place on passing down their values and their stories, not just their tangible wealth
9 out of 10 wealth managers and financial advisors lose their accounts when the patriarch of the family dies. Why? Because they don't have a connection to the client's family beyond being the "numbers person."
One one side, there's the recognition of the importance of family history, values, and life stories.
On the other, there's the need for wealth managers to differentiate themselves, foster bonds with their clients' families, and bring a value-add to the relationship.
Those two tides converge to create an opportunity for personal historians and legacy professionals.
Legacy coaching teaches financial advisors a process of how to have that legacy talk with their clients. It changes and deepens the relationship.
Russ Allen Prince, an author and contributing writer for Forbes, did a study that showed some startling numbers. We all live our life based on a set of core values. Prince found that if a financial advisor knows their client's top 8 core values, they'll be entrusted with 100% of the family's assets and be given, on average, about 4 referrals. The less familiar the advisor is with the core values, the fewer assets and referrals the client shares.
Tip: This opens the door for scaling up life story and personal history business in an organic way. We also discuss:
the legacystories.org platform (it's free!)
growing your business by focusing on the people who serve your potential clients
the Legacy Stories Consultants program, with business tutorials
how life story writers and personal historians can work with estate planners
a couple interesting examples of unconventional marketing
the Legacy Cafe Podcast, hosted by Robb Lucy, author of How Will You Be Remembered?: The Definitive Guide to Creating and Sharing Your Life Stories and Legacies Aren't Just For Dead People: Discover Happiness and a Meaningful Life by Creating and Enjoying Your Legacies Now!
the Legacy Stories app, available in your favorite app store
the Legacy Stories Handbook
Tom has graciously offered listeners of The Life Story Coach Podcast a discount on his coaching program and the Legacy Stories Handbook. Click here to check out the offer.
If you're interested in becoming a Legacy Stories Consultant, visit legacystories.com for more information.
If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes. And if you have any ideas to share or questions about this episode, share them in the comments. Thanks!
Now go out and save someone's story.
As a personal historian, we don't often share about ourselves. Should we? Today’s topic is sharing. But not about the clients sharing their story. Instead, we’ll talk about how much we can and should share about ourselves. In episode 8, I warn personal historians away from sharing about themselves (and then tell you about how I broke that rule). In this episode, I share how a couple of recent incidents have made me rethink that.
What a conversation with a podcaster taught me A couple weeks ago I had a long conversation with Jennifer Gardner, the host of the podcast Roamhowl. During our hour-long phone conversation, we explored whether I might be a good fit for her show. At quick glance, I met her criteria. Mid-life career change, check. Change spurred by painful life episode: check. Out-of-the-ordinary steps taken that might appeal to others: check. Extra dollop of hardship: check.
In other words, we talked about how I started The Story Scribe, my personal history business, when I was in the midst of a divorce, during a time when I was moving each week between the kids’ home and the secondary residence my ex-husband and I shared as part of our “nesting” arrangement. I told her about a lot of the hard stuff—some expected, some not—that happened during this dark period.
Our conversation is hard. The conversation was full of starts and stops. Basically, she kept asking me to dig deeper, to paint the picture for her of what my life had been like. And I tried, but the deeper we got into it, the more panicky I felt. I was hitting up against a wall.
The more longer we talked, the more frantic I felt.
Words failed me. Over and over.
I’ve always considered myself to be pretty good at self-reflection, but it that’s what happens on the page, when I’m writing. As it turns out, I’m not that great at sharing in conversation.
It wasn’t just the facts she was going for; she was mining for my reactions, my feelings, my reflections and interpretations. I gave a little start when she asked me what I had learned from one particular experience. Hey! I thought. That’s my question!
Dive deep—but not on me! When I interview people about their life, after someone tells me about something about a big event or incident, I regularly ask, “How did that make you feel?” or “What did you learn from that?” (The first question tends to be easier for women; men do better with the second one.) Sometimes you watch as the storyteller struggles to find words. Sometimes they never do.
I like to think that I show sensitivity during these times. But until my talk with Jennifer, until I was on the other side of the interview table, so to speak, I didn’t fully understand how hard it can be to share in a coherent way. Not just the facts, but the storyteller’s reactions to things.
A couple weeks ago, I had a client apologize for not “knowing” the answers to some of my questions. I hate that, because a storyteller should NEVER feel like they aren’t “doing” it right. Another client (both are men) asked me at the end of our iv if he was doing good. It was sweet but also a sign that I need to improve. I need to find a better way to convey that there is no right or wrong. I tell my storytellers many times not to worry about questions they can’t answer, that I’m just doing my thing of poking around to look for their stories, but I want to do a better job at convincing them.
So that’s one thing that my pre-interview interview with Jennifer taught me--an appreciation for how hard it can be to answer questions about your life. Not because you don’t want to, but because you haven’t maybe churned through it and made sense of it. So I think I’ll have more understanding when a storyteller doesn’t know how to talk about something. (As an aside, I also learned that nope, no way am I prepared to bare myself to the world on a podcast. No. No.)
Try this at home. It might be a good exercise for any of us personal historians to put ourselves in this position, to experience interviewing from the other side. It’s a little like when they taser each other at police academy. You should know how your actions--or words, or questions--affect people.
Okay, here’s the second big thing, another piece of this topic of sharing and how hard it is, and how much of it we’re willing to do. Another lesson I learned this past week.
Part II: What the presentation taught me A few days ago I gave a presentation to a group of seniors. I’d been asked to come talk at their meeting and tell them about perosnal history. I love doing this. I haven’t yet met a crowd that wasn’t fascinated by the idea of collecting stories and recording them; it’s almost universally appealing. So it’s not hard to make these talks fun and entertaining and informative for the groups. Maybe later I can do an episode about what one of these presentations looks like, because it can be a took in your marketing tool belt to have a standard speech to give when the local Rotary or church group calls up and invites you to talk.
Anyhow, this group was lovely from the minute I walked in. About 25 seniors, they’d been meeting for over 30 years, lots of good cameraderie. I change up my presentations slightly depending on who I’m speaking to, and for this one, I had chosen to play a short audio clip from an interview that I did several years ago, about a woman describing how a ghost appeared at her bedside when she was a little kid.
So one of the reasons I play it is because what started off as a kind of sweet memory actually pointed us in the direction of a family feud, so something much more serious and consequetial (the ghost looked just like the aunt who had fought with the girls’ mother). It’s a good illustration of being open to tangents and how the small stories can lead to much bigger ones.
Taking a risk, because I just couldn't help myself And that’s where I normally leave it during these presentations. But this time, I didn’t. Because as it happened, this presentation, which was taking place a month later than we had originally scheduled , fell on the one-year anniversary of my dad’s death. He died April 9, 2017. Nine months before that, my mom died. And Mom was the one telling the story about the ghost on the recording I had just played.
I don’t mention that to groups. I just don’t. It’s personal, and that’s not what I’m there for. I’m there to talk to them about perosnal history. Or if it’s writers, I’m there to teach them a little about doing perosnal history. Not talk about something really sad and personal, like my mom getting dementia and my dad taking care of her at home and getting so worn out that he dies nine months after she does, both while still in their 70s.
I don’t know, you guys. The mood changed as soon as I told them who was on the recording, and what had happened to her, and what had happened to my dad. And I think I even apologized and said I don’t normally do this, but man, the talk had fallen on exactly one year after Dad’s unexpected death.
There wasn’t anything I was trying to teach them, or convince them (except maybe, don’t wait to tell your story!), but wow, did they respond strongly. The presentation came to an end just after this--I was worried because I din’t want to leave them on a down note, but I had kind of blown that. And I can’t tell you how many of them got up and thanked me, and expressed this really heartfelt sympathy. One lady jumped out of her chair as I was walking out and asked if she could give me a hug. She knew how hard it was to lose a parent, she told me.
Vocational hazard Anyhow, I guess my point is that, maybe sometimes it is good to share our own story. We can get so good at listening, that we start to forget how to talk, to express ourself.
Maybe it’s a vocational hazard that we can get so adept at active, empathetic listening, that we kind of forget how to be the talker, the one doing the sharing. And maybe, for no good pragmatic reason except that we’re all in this life together, maybe sometimes it’s okay to open up to our storytellers and potential clients and share some of our humanity with them. There are boundaries, professional boundaries that we dont’ want to cross, but maybe they’re not as set in stone as I’ve always thought.
Anyhow, I know this one isn’t full of practical advice. It’s more me kind of working through some things I’ve noticed and been thinking about. What are your thoughts on it? On sharing with clients about ourselves? Have you had any surprises that made you see interviewing in a different light? That made you realize something you didn’t know before?
I’d love to hear your take on it. Or, if you have any other ideas that could help the rest of us, or any questions about today’s episode, share them in the comments . And if today’s show was helpful, the best way you can return the favor is to leave us a review on iTunes. I’m Amy Woods Butler, personal historian, and your coach for building your own personal history business. Now go out and save someone’s story. And while you’re at it, tell a little of your own.
[Stick around at the end of the episode to hear an audio clip of my mom talking about the ghost.]
Tips for Finding Clients for Life Story Writers and Personal Historians, and More Derek Lewis ghostwrites business books on a large scale. His client-authors range from IT-startup millionaires to a Turkish oil tycoons and he's written for people on all continents but Africa and Antarctica. While his business books are created with a different intent and a wider audience than what we personal historians create, we have more in common than you might think. In this episode, Derek shares how to find clients for life story writers and other personal historians, giving us a behind-the-scenes peek at his marketing strategies and how a simple revelation changed everything for him.
How he started his ghostwriting career One post on a freelancers’ forum kicked off his ghostwriting career. But it wasn’t all rainbows from this point on. Derek spent a lot of time with outbound marketing, casting a wide net to find ghostwriting clients. But all that time and energy reaped…nothing.
Yet the work kept coming. People who wanted a ghostwriter were finding Derek’s website and reaching out to him. It took a long time for Derek to sit up and pay attention. When he did, he realized he’d been asking the wrong question.
Instead of, “Where do I find clients?,” what he needed to ask was, “How can I help clients find me?” He didn’t need outbound marketing—the stuff we associate with traditional selling, like cold calls, advertisements, email blasts—he needed INBOUND marketing. He needed clients to come to him. And that’s when he started implementing the strategy he uses today.
Make it easy for people to find you. People are out there Googling and trying to find us; scatter breadcrumbs to help them. Scatter them in different places and make sure they all lead to your hub: your website.
Purpose of the website: it's not to get someone to hire us, it's to get them to speak with us. Your website is not your sales conversation, it's a tool to spur that conversation. Make sure your website has the right content and focus, the markers and signals of credibility and legitimacy.
Attractive and repellent marketing: the yin and yang of your marketing effort
The goal is to use breadcrumbs that will attract potential customers and repel those who aren't a good fit. (And why you may not want to repel even poor prospects early in your career.)
The two elements of breadcrumbs: the content and the medium or venue.
Examples:
- book
- white paper
- blog posts
- youtube videos
Offline venues:
- speaking engagements (retirement communities, veterans groups, etc)
- local radio or podcast shows
The purpose of breadcrumbs isn’t to get people to hire you. It's to produce helpful, varied content that you can put onto your website, on YouTube, on social media, or on written literature that gets passed around.
Decide which types of breadcrumbs work best for you They should be:
- easy and fast to produce
- relatively inexpensive
- enjoyable to work on
Derek likes interviewing and being interviewed—he feels energized. This makes podcasting a pleasant type of breadcrumb for him. Blogging is a different story. After hating it for years, he finally gave himself permission to quit doing it. (Does that mean I don't have to use social media? Yes? Please??)
We also examine my long-held belief that you should never teach what you sell, and talk about the mentality of abundance versus the mentality of fear.
Where to find Derek Lewis: Derek's email
Derek's website
Derek on LinkedIn
Check out Derek's podcast here
If you're interested in Derek and Ed Gandia's occasional course for established writers wanting to break into ghostwriting, visit b2blauncher.com
If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes. And if you have any ideas to share or questions about this episode, share them in the comments. Thanks!
Now go out and save someone's story.
Tips on How to Price Your Personal History Project I was recently asked by a few listeners what boils down to the same question: how do you price your projects?
It’s no surprise that this is on people’s minds. It’s a common question, one that gets batted around a lot. I remember a conference I went to where they had a panel discussion on this very topic, and the crowd was huge. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got your own way of doing it, it seems like we’re all curious about how other people are doing it.
I’ve got to admit, pricing has never been easy for me. I’m not talking about earning money, or even collecting it. I’m talking about the psychological stumbling blocks. I hope you don’t have them. My guess is that people who come to personal history from a business background may have an easier time with it. But I didn’t. I've been a teacher, a social worker, a travel director. And mostly a stay at home mom. My business skills weren’t rusty as much as, umm, non-existent.
Know the value of your work Not only that, I’ve never had a comfortable relationship with money. I can’t remember now if it was my dad or Miss Campbell, one of my high school teachers, who first taught me the old saying, "Money is power, and power corrupts." Whoever it was, I took it to heart. It’s not that I dislike money as much as I fear its corrupting influence.
And then there’s the whole issue of putting a monetary value on something I create. And not in any abstract way. Of saying to a client, yes, I’m bringing these skills to the table, and I’m providing you with a service that equals x number of dollars.
I find the whole thing difficult. My dream is to hire someone to take care of all that so I can focus on what I’m good at, and what I like doing: interviewing and writing.
But until then, I have to put on my big girl pants and figure out the best way of tackling the pricing stuff. And invoicing. And bookkeeping.
And I’m telling you, if I can learn it, anybody can.
Let's get to it. How does one price a personal history project? Okay, now that you know I’m no expert, I’m going to walk through my process. Just keep in mind that there are no hard and fast rules. Take whatever sounds good to you and adapt it any way that makes sense.
Roughly speaking, we all fall into one of two categories: those who price by the hour, and those who price by the project. And then, of course, the people who use a hybrid model.
I charge by the hour. And I tell every potential client in our initial sales consultation: That’s not going to mean anything to you. Because they have no idea what goes on when I’m not with them. They don’t know how long it takes to transcribe an interview, or how many hours go into shuffling the material into roughly the correct spots, or how much time is spent writing and rewriting, and entering corrections once the client goes through the draft, and then more rounds of edits.
And if you’re just starting out, you’re not going to know this either. And that’s one more reason it’s so valuable to have a sample project, a book you do for someone for free or low cost, your guinea pig. You’ll go through all the stages of the creating a life story book and be able to work out the kinks as you do.
Track your time I highly recommend that you keep really good records of the time you spend on each main category of task. That would be interviewing---not just the number of interviews, but how long each lasted, whether it’s 90 minutes or 120 or 45--; the time you spend either transcribing, or the total cost to have it transcribed; the time you spend editing; the time spent scanning photos and, if necessary, doing some photoshopping to clean off the noise and speckles.
One thing I’ve tried to track separately is research, but it doesn’t work for me. There’s too much going back and forth between the draft and checking things on the internet; the processes are too intertwined. The only exception is if I’m going to a research facility to specifically look up something. For instance, a colleague had hired me to do some editing on one of her books about a man who had worked in the space industry, and I spent an afternoon or two looking through the McDonnell Douglas archives at a historical society. That’s when it makes sense to track and bill research as a separate line item.
What I don't charge for There are things I don’t charge for--like preparing invoices or travel time. Or drafting emails (mostly because I’m ridiculously slow at it, for some strange reason). I had a mentor early on who told me I was crazy, I should add every minute I spend to billable time, but whatever, I don’t. Maybe it’s something I should rethink.
At any rate, if you keep track of your time, it’s not going to do you much good on quoting a price for the current project, but it’s priceless for the projects going ahead. The numbers will shift as you get more efficient, but at least you’ll have a foundation or baseline to start from.
The other thing that shifts EVERY TIME is the project. Some will be bigger than others. Some won’t be bigger in terms of word count or page count, but they’ll take more time for other reasons--you’re interviewing all the kids and incorporating that material into the book; you’re doing a husband and wife together, and the structure is more complicated; there’s lots of primary source material, like letters and journals....lots of different reasons.
Set up metrics So your target will always be shifting. That means you’ll want to set up some metrics; once you’ve done a few projects, you’ll be able to look at the metrics and see the averages. So, for instance, you might create a spreadsheet and for each interview track the number of minutes you spent interviewing, word count on the transcription (which is going to higher than the words you add to the edited draft), the number of minutes it took to fully process the transcript--that is, add and edit the material in the draft, total word count added to the draft, and the total dollar amount to process that one interview, including interview minutes multiplied by your hourly rate, editing time multiplied by hourly rate, plus the cost for transcription. If you keep track of all of these things, you’ll be able to calculate the total cost per word--which is how a lot of freelance writers charge; or by page, going by industry standard of 250 words per manuscript page (although this can vary a LOT, based on number of photos, trim size, font size, etc). You’ll also be able to calculate total cost per interview hour, and you can even drill down and see what it cost related to how many words in the transcript---which can be a good thing to track, because some people will speak much faster or slower.
And it all this is overwhelming, because you’re trying to master a whole bunch of new skills, so it CAN be overwhelming, just keep track of the basics: add up the interview time and the time it takes you to edit that first interview, then the second, then the third.
Once you get a rough idea of how long it takes to process a transcript (by that I mean turn the recording into edited words), you can multiply it by the number of interview hours you’re recommending you have with the client.
Say it takes 15 hours to “process” an hour interview; can you do a complete life story on 8 or 9 interview hours? Probably. How about somewhat larger one for 15 or 18 interview hours? And for a client who wants to make a considerable investment of time and money, 24 or more may be required (and relished by the client!). Multiply these amounts by your hourly rate, plus what it will take for transcription and proofreading, and you’ve got three ballpark ranges to pitch to the prospective client. But make sure they know that’s for the interviewing and writing only; book production is separate.
Why you need to keep book production separate Why?
Two major reasons.
First, the range on book production is enormous. Going with Createspace? You can pay a couple hundred bucks for the layout and ten bucks or less per book. Want custom design and three-quarter calfskin leather on the cover? You could be looking at several hundred dollars per copy.
Most likely, it will be something in between. But it’s extremely hard to come up with an estimate before the draft is complete and the images chosen. That is, before you know how much design work will go into creating the layout, and how many pages the final book will be. (There are more variables, but you get my drift.)
The second reason you want to keep book production separate is for tax purposes. On your contract or services agreement, you’ll want to specify all the “service” work--writing, editing, proofreading, layout, etc--this is where the lion's share of the budget will go. And there’s no sales tax on service. But if you’re also selling the client the actual books, those are physical products and you’ll need to collect sales tax on them. So keep them separate.
Okay, that’s a brief rundown of how I price my projects. I use a timer app called Toggl to keep track of the time I spend on each portion of each clients project. And I have to say, I’ve been toying with the idea for awhile now of trying out a per project model. Mostly because with the timer running, it’s hard not to feel harried. I’m wondering if it’d feel more peaceful knowing just how much I was going to earn--a total project price--and just how many pages I would need to write.
Advantage of pricing per hour But that leads me to what I see as the biggest advantage of pricing per hour. You and your client, do not need to decide ahead of time how big the book will be. I give drafts periodically as I go along, and the client can see how the book is growing, and can decide when it’s time to stop. Right now, one of my current clients has told all he wants to tell, and it took much less time that what I expected. he’s going to come in considerably under what my ballpark range was for him. And that’s fine. He’s happy with a smaller book. But in general, most people’s projects grow bigger. So many people are surprised by how profound the experience is of telling their stories, and they want to go on, and the scope then grows. Another current client wants the book to be about him and his deceased wife. What I didn’t know when I gave him an estimated range was the amount of material she had written. And I was so, so uncomfortable when I went, tail between my legs, and very apologetically told him I couldn’t honor the price range AND go through all the new material and get it into the book. I shouldn’t have worried. He didn’t bat an eye. Said it was worth it.
Because look, we want to give the client what they want, and what they’re willing to invest in what is after all a very, very important project for them. It’s a book about their life!!! So I guess that’s the main reason I’m still sticking with the hourly rate. If my clients have no way of knowing at the outset what they really want, I don’t want to even mess with pitching a certian number of pages with x number of photos for x dollars.
Even though I know that works for plenty of people. And maybe I’ll do a later episode with a guest who does it this way, and we can talk about it more in depth.
Before I finish, I want to address one more thing regarding the per hour vs per project issue.There are a lot of reasons that there’s no “best way”, but one of the biggest doesn’t have to do with money--it’s more about what matches up with your personality. And with the clients.
Some personal historians and clients want to know the exact parameters of a project from the beginning. And they’ll build in safeguards with extra charges if the scope expands. Others are fine with taking a more organic approach and letting the book develop without deciding in advance the size.
Word of warning I want to stress that EITHER approach is fine---they both have advantages and disadvantages, but mostly you just need to find what works best for you. However, a word of warning. There’s the chance that your style won’t match up with the client’s. And then it might be best to adapt a little. For example, I had a woman years ago who was a very successful business owner. Smart and ambitious and --not the kind for small talk, kind of a tough nut to crack when it came to establishing an emotional connection. She was considering having a life story done on her parents and wanted me to tell her how much it would cost. Now, in my defense, she didn’t have the time to sit down for a consultation; she wanted a number up front, before she was willing to commit to even a free sit down with me. Today, I’d be more inclined to give her a really wide range, but even that would be hard because she was talking about a project for two people--both her parents, and that makes pricing even more complicated. Needless to say, I did not get the project. I happen to know her socially, and it doesn’t sound like she ever had it done with anyone else, either, which tells me she wasn’t all that interested to begin with. Still, it left me feeling frustrated. And made me recognize that I may be most comfortable with doing things a certain way, but I’ve got to be willing to adapt my style to that of my client.
Whew.
I hope this has helped. If you have ideas or different ways you handle pricing, I’d love to hear them. You can share in the comments below.
If you liked this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!
I’m Amy Woods Butler, personal historian, and your coach for building your own personal history business.
Now go out and save someone’s story.
How Blake Snyder's beat sheets can help us structure our personal histories C. David Milles is a teacher by day and author by night. After stumbling onto Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! books, Milles began to incorporate the screenwriter’s lessons in his novels and the way he taught middle school English. His keen understanding of story structure landed him a gig as a contributor for the popular Save the Cat! website, where Cory breaks down components of current and past movies to show their inner workings—a great exercise for storytellers in all media. In this episode, he shares how the Save the Cat! system can help us find the story structure in our personal history books.
Listen as we discuss:
Save the Cat's 10 genres 1. Golden Fleece 2. Buddy Love 3. Suprehero 4. Monster in the House 5. Fool Triumphant 6. Dude with a Problem 7. Out of the Bottle 8. Whydunit 9. Institutionalized 10. Rites of Passage
For an overview of what each genre is, check out the Save the Cat! site here, or to listen, here.
What kind of story are you telling?
By deciding on your genre (as the term is used by Blake Snyder), or a combination of genres, you can zero in on the necessary elements to keep your story humming along. This will also help you recognize where elements are missing and where your story sags.
15 Beats of the Beat Sheet 1. Opening Image 2. Set-up 3. Theme Stated 4. Catalyst 5. Debate 6. Break into Two (Act Two) 7. B Story 8. Promise of the Premise 9. Midpoint 10. Bad Guys Close In 11. All is Lost 12. Dark Night of the Soul 13. Break into Three (Act Three) 14. Finale 15. Final Image
Milles walks through some of the "beats" (plot points) and explains their function in stories.
For example:
Opening image—tells what the story will be about: scope, setting, tone, mood. It gives us a glimpse of the main character before the changes to come.
Theme stated—for example, someone may wish for something. This sets up the character transformation to come.
Set-up—sets the stage for the reader by introducing the main characters and setting and all the pieces the reader needs to understand the story. A good hint for personal history interviews: When our storytellers are lost in memories, we need to remind them that we—and future readers—need details to ground us in the scene they are describing. We don’t know what it was like at your grandmother’s house or back at camp.
Catalyst—kicks off the character’s journey into change; a key moment that changes everything.
Debate—how the character reacts to this change. For life stories, this is where we find out how our storyteller felt about a turning point in life. [Hint: As a general rule, women are in tune to how an event made them feel; men may respond better when asked what they learned from an experience.]
Break into (act) two—taking an active step into this new reality.
B story—the subplot; is often another person to help the main character with the theme (getting what they want or need). This can be more than one person, a relative, etc.
Mid-point—Cory’s favorite part of the story; character thinks they’re getting what they want, but it’s a false victory. Things seem to be going great, but not really.
Bad Guys Close In—main character realizes things are going to get worse, they’ll be broken down.
All is lost moment—when the main character hits bottom; the “whiff of death”; whatever they’ve been trying hasn’t been working. This is the part of the story where the audience/reader gets teary-eyed.
Dark night of the soul—when the protagonist learns the main lesson.
Break into (act) three
Climax—problem is finally solved
Final image—shows what has happened to the protagonist after the journey.
Blake Snyder's Transformation Machine We talk about the three acts as three worlds:
thesis world—life at the commencement of the story
antithesis world —the upside version of life as they know it
synthesis world—the new reality in which the character has changed as result of the journey
We also discuss: * What we can learn about story structure from Pixar movies * The difference between story structure and a formulaic story * How evolution has wired us to understand stories (it's a matter of survival!) * Even commercials and movie trailers incorporate the elements of story * 40 scenes in three acts * How alternating between internal and external events can increase tension
Gertrude Bell, and what we can learn from biography Gertrude Bell was an important statesman and adventurer, and one of my current fascinations. Examining the Georgina Howell biography, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations , and comparing it to the online archives of Bell's letters and diaries, found here, is its own lesson in writing biography. It's not exactly the kind of writing we do as personal historians, but there's overlap. And where there's overlap, there are things we can learn.
It's all about character development In the end, every story must show that a character develops. Finding a distinct narrative arc in personal history books might not be easy or straightforward, but we one thing we have going for us: Every storyteller has developed over the course of his or her lifetime. It's part of our job (and a fun part, to0) to figure out how to best highlight this transformation. Understanding story structure helps us do that.
Where to find C. David Milles Reach out to today's guest via his website at cdavidmilles.com, on Facebook at C. David Milles Writer or browse for his beat sheets on the Save the Cat website. And make sure to check out his novels listed below.
If you liked this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!
Now go out and save someone's story.
Help your clients archive their photos, papers, and more Margot Note is a professional archivist with nineteen years experience. A couple of years ago, she realized she could use her talents and skills as an archivist to help individuals and families bring order to their chaotic piles of photos, letters, and other family history mementos. In this episode, she shares professional tips on how you can help your clients archive their own precious mementos, following standards and best practices used by museums, corporations, and organizations. Tune in to hear us discuss:
How to create order out of chaos! * Margot becomes the family historian—and a new idea is born: taking her archiving skills to the public * slow and steady progress begins with a plan * Be intentional with where you invest your time, and choose where you’ll get the most dividends (look here for Margot’s Project Prioritizer) * Don’t think of the project as one big lump; chunk it out to keep it from being overwhelming * How it works: an example of one Margot helping a client get her and her children's mementos out of the Lululemon bags and into acid-free folders and archival boxes * Start getting the physical artifacts in order before digitizing anything * Margot is digitizing, annotating, and posting the 1940 love letters of her grandparents; the interplay of letters, photos, and research starts with getting things organized * On recognizing the value of history and the historical artifacts; you need to reach a certain age before you appreciate family history. Organize what you have and keep it preserved for future generations, even if the teenagers show no interest now! * Keeping it organized gives more insurance that it won’t end up in the trash * On hearing the dreaded: “I know my child isn’t going to want this material.” Don't throw it away; give them a change to decide if and what they want to keep (hint: it'll be more than you think!) * Be kind to your descendants: provide captions for your photos * Use full names on captions, e.g. "Joyce Smith," not "Aunt Joyce" * On working with letters and scrapbooks, and the surprising dangers of newsprint * Decide on an order of organization (and what that means!)
Tips on storing archival materials: * Take them out of harm’s way; get them out of the attic, shed, garage, and basement storage, or anyplace with fluctuation in temperature and humidity * Don’t get fixated on the details of individual items, think in terms of groups. What are the big buckets you can sort your material into? Think of high level groupings. * Keep the original order (and what that means) * don’t worry about getting rid of duplicates; it’s probably not worth your time. Get things in their group and then start looking at it in a more granular level * Best place to store family archives: interior closets, like a bedroom or linen closet * If you don't know what kind of supplies you need, start at the Container Store, which has a section with archival boxes and folders and even garment bags for things like old christening gowns. Do not use old plastic containers or old cardboard boxes because of chemicals and off-gassing * A great preservation retailer: Gaylord Archival * Look for products that are acid-free and lignin-free
What is a finding aid? * Create a document to itemize what you have in each box; this is your finding aid * The finding aid gives an overview of the materials you have and how they’re organized * Finding aids act as a map of where things are and can be especially helpful when materials are spread among relatives
What if my client is overwhelmed? * When to bring in a professional archivist * People love to save things, but they don’t usually think about the order it’s put in. That’s where an archivist can help
Get started with Margot's excellent book, Creating Family Archives: How to preserve your papers and photographs
For more information and to find Margot, visit her at margotnote.com, or ask to join her private Facebook group.
Enjoy the show? Leave us a review on iTunes.
What the initial sales call should look like (but didn't) In episode 7, I talked about what an ideal initial sales call looks like, everything from the planning session to the sales conversation to the review afterwards. Today I’m going to dissect an actual sales call I went on and show you what worked, what didn’t, and how I can modify for my next sales call.
Okay, to set the stage: A few weeks ago an 86-year old woman--we'll call her Miss X--contacted me about writing her life story, and we scheduled one of my free initial consultations. But on the morning of our appointment, I cancelled because of an ice storm.
Well, sort of.
There was a big ice storm and my daughter’s school was closed. And I’d been working way too hard. So when I got the early-morning text that daughter had the day off, I made a snap decision to give myself a snow day too. I NEVER cancel appointments with my clients or potential clients. But I did that day. Because my youngest is a high school senior and I’m getting a little wigged out about her moving away to college in a few months. So I made the executive decision to take the day off—and make it a movie day with her. We drove (yeah, see why I’m still feeling guilty?) to a big multiplex theater and saw THREE movies. Best day I’ve had in a long time!!
My next not-so-professional semi-mess-up was not rescheduling right away, mostly because I’m working on so many books at the moment that I wasn’t all that excited about adding another. I did try to call Miss X to reschedule, but only once, and her answering machine was full, so I couldn’t leave a message. However, she called me a week later and we got it scheduled. Still, I knew I hadn’t treated her with the professional courtesy she deserved. Promptly returning phone calls and emails is definitely something I have to work on.
Okay, on with the review. I’ve always been pretty good about entering dates on a calendar; where I fall down is checking the calendar. My kids tell me I’m a great mom but on paper I stink; that's because of all the doctor appointments and teacher conferences I've missed. Obviously, this had to change when I went into business for myself. But it hasn’t been easy. Even a great tool —I use the calendar app Fantastical 2 for Mac—is worthless unless you use it. So one thing I’ve done is to set up alerts. I get a pop-up message (okay, usually more than one because one is too easy for me to ignore and/or forget about) on my phone, my laptop, and my desktop for each appointment I make. For initial sales calls, I have it set up to remind me an hour in advance (plus the night before, and at the time I need to leave the house, and...). Because an hour, I’ve determined, is plenty of time to get ready for one of these sales calls. Have you heard of Parkinson’s Law? A task expands to fill the time you allot to complete it. If I gave myself a couple hours to prepare, I’d take it, and that would be less billable time to work on other projects. So restricting myself, in my schedule, is a good thing for me.
Except that this time, it barely worked. Because what I hadn't remembered until an hour before my appointment with Miss X was that I needed to print out copies of my service agreement. And somehow my printer, that sadistic, whirring hulk of machinery, always goes fritz-y on me when I most need it. Can I take just a moment to say how much I HATE printers?? They work when you least need them to. Otherwise, it’s all “Printer not connected”!
Until that point, I was feeling pretty happy with myself. I’d managed to clean myself up, dress in my business clothes, do a mental run-through of questions I wanted to ask Miss X and points I wanted to cover, and gather most of what I needed to bring to the call. I managed not to smack the printer and it managed to spit out the papers I needed, and I flew out of the house. I was leaving just a few minutes late but a whole lot flustered. Especially when I saw my car. I park outside, so in the winter it’s often covered with the grayish dirt from snow and salt, and in the spring it kind of glows a soft green from the tree pollen. I ALWAYS want to show up to a client’s house with a clean car and almost never do. This day was no exception; the car was filthy. Something else to put on my MODIFY list—schedule time for a car wash before meeting clients.
Okay, so now I’m on my way, more or less prepared, but a little flustered, because of:
- rushing
- feeling residual shame from having played hooky on our first appointment
- more shame for not having actively tried to reschedule
- dirty car!
Which leads me to the Big Gaffe at the Door I arrived exactly on time and when I rang the bell, a man answered. He introduced myself, and making a big presumption, I asked if he were Miss X's son. Just then Miss X herself rounded the corner in the entrance hall and gave me a warm hello and a hug.
Back in her office, she and I sat down to chat. One of the first things she kindly, warmly explained was that the man who answered the door wasn't her son--he was her partner. They had met when she was 61 and he 38, and they've been happily partnered ever since. By handling it so graciously, she didn't give me reason to feel bad about my mistake, but I did anyhow. My job as a personal historian is to have an open mind and heart; the only way to really listen intently and deeply is to discard assumptions and knee-jerk judgements, and I had failed with my cursory, and false, assessment at the front door.
The conversation took a turn for the better when she told me that she is a licensed pilot. And that's when I broke one of my cardinal rules: I told her a story about myself. I told her how I had always wanted to fly and nearly got flying lessons years ago (long story, but it didn't happen). She was so happy to hear my enthusiasm for her flying exploits that she reached across the desk and gave me a double high-five. I'm normally very strict about not bringing myself into the conversation unless the client asks. The focus should not be on me, it should be on the client. But experiencing this moment of spontaneous, joyful connection with Miss X makes me think I need to reevaluate this rule.
From there, the conversation proceeded smoothly. She looked through the books I brought, we chatted some more, she asked me about prices and I told her. Without missing a beat, she told me it wasn't something she could afford. And then we kept on talking, and I listened, charmed, as she told me some more about her life.
Why didn't I pack up and leave when she told me she wasn't going to hire me? A couple of reasons.
For one thing, I’ve learned that today’s "no" sometimes turns into tomorrow’s "yes". (And by tomorrow, I mean anything from a week to a couple years in the future.)
Plus, she was just delightful. The kind of person I wouldn’t mind meeting for coffee. And how often do we meet strangers who feel they have permission to tell us about their life story? It’s a unique situation to be sitting in a stranger’s home, in her sanctum sanctorum—which her office clearly was for her—and have her tell you some of the stories of her life. These aren't the kind of conversations we usually have with people we've just met. I consider it a perk of my job. Even when I don't win the job.
After I left, I went back to my office and wrote up my notes, including all the details we discussed in the last episode, things like the date and location of our meeting, and the prices I had quoted her. And then I jotted down the bits and pieces of stories she had begun to tell me. I finished with my brief review, the roundup of things I can improve or do differently in the future. I won’t look at her file again unless I hear from her, but the act of writing the review will be enough to have the lessons sink in. Get the darn car cleaned; print up what I need the NIGHT BEFORE. Don't make assumptions about people's relationships, or anything really.
I’d love to hear from you about what your initial sales meetings look like. What are the things you do differently? Do you have ideas on how we can all improve our sales meetings? If you do, leave them in the comments below. And if today’s show was helpful, the best way you can return the favor is to leave us a review on iTunes.
Now go out and save someone’s story.
What the initial sales call should look like Today I want to talk to you about how to make the most of your initial sales call, that all important meeting that will either get you that new project, or won't.
This is going to be a two-parter. In this first episode, I’ll talk to you about what goes into making that initial sales call; in part two, I’ll do a review of an actual sales call I went on, to show you what it looks like in practice. And show you what I did right and where I messed up! (In this case, I committed a huge gaffe before I even got in the door!)
I always like to do a review of these personal history sales calls for a few reasons:
- Reviewing these meetings after they happen allows me to figure out what’s working, what not, and how I can modify the sales conversation the next time I meet a potential new client. This review has become an indispensable part of my process. Plan—Act—Review—Modify
- I don’t just run through it in my head. I take notes. I have a folder on my computer called Inquiries, and start a new document for each person who reaches out to me, and I save it with their name and the date they contacted me.
- Then, after each subsequent contact—an email or a phone conversation—I take notes. They’re messy and full of the details the person has told me—why they want to do a life story, how they found me, but also the random pieces of info about their family or their life, the kernels that will develop into the stories in the book. Also random comments about them, which is pretty often This lady is so sweet! Or quiet man, seems thoughtful—hints that will help me when I sit down to interview them should they hire me.
I do this for every inquiry.
Then, after I sit down with them in person—the actual sales call—I go back and take more notes. EVEN WHEN THEY DON’T HIRE ME.
Why? Because it they call back in a year or three—and trust me, this will definitely happens with some inquiries—I can review my notes and catch up on what we talked about. It's helpful to me and gives them a sense of connection—that they’ve been heard.
In today's episode, I'm going to describe how I think my initial sales call should go; in the next episode, you'll hear me dissect what actually happened on a call I made this week.
Stage 1: Preparation This falls under the “planning” stage. And honestly, it’s one of my weak spots, because I’m not a planner by nature. But it just feels better when things go right, and I’m upping my chances considerably if I force my monkey brain to try to be systematic about it—to plan ahead. Ugh. Okay, so it’s got to be done, and building a system helps me make that happen.
First step: gather what I need to bring with me. * My nice leather portfolio, with pockets for: + my business card (which I inevitably forget to give to the prospective client—see why I need to keep reviewing my process??) + my presentation folder. If anyone’s interested, I can do a later post about what I have in this presentation folder—but just briefly, it’s about 15-20 pages (on nice paper and comb-bound) with sections for a description of my process, some testimonials, and some excerpts from books I’ve done. Even if you have all this on your website, don’t assume a potential client has seen it. And even if they have, giving them something tangible that they’ll later see lying on their desk or the kitchen counter is only going to help remind them about you and your service. + a brochure—I’m getting away from doing these; they don’t seem to be a very current way of marketing our services. + a pen—duh!! Don’t even ask me how embarrassing it is to come as a professional writer, then have to borrow a pen! + two blank Professional Services Agreement forms (what I use instead of contracts); if they’re ready to sign on immediately, I want to have the forms at the ready. I didn’t used to do this—it somehow seemed a little rude—which just shows how little business sense I started with. We both sign and I take one copy and leave the other for them. Except when I forget....Yesterday when I pulled out my portfolio, I found two signed copies from a client who recentlyhired me. I’d forgotten to give her her copy. Another area for improvement! * A sampling of books I’ve done for other people. This is perhaps your biggest "marketing" material, the chance to allow a prospective client to start imagining what their book will look like.
What I DON’T bring: * a recorder. This is an initial sales call. Even if the client hires me on the spot, this is not the time for them to start telling their stories. They will, of course, and that helps build excitement and an emotional connection to the project, but before it can go too far, I tell them I don’t have a recorder so we’ll want to save it for the interview. This helps establish boundaries for what, after all, is my free consultation. (Afterward, I usually pull into a parking lot and furiously write notes on the bits of the stories they’ve told me!)
Second step: the mental review Getting the stuff together is the easy part. I also like to leave time to review what information I already have on the potential client (from earlier emails or phone conversations), and go over a few key points on how I want the sales conversation to go.
I remind myself to:
- listen more than I speak. These are people who want to be heard—it's the reason they want to do a life story project in the first place. Ask them questions, learn why they want to do the project, help them visualize it and build an emotional connection to the concept. To see the potential. And take joy in their excitement. What a great job, where we can help someone bring their dream book to life.
- Only then do I shift into an explanation of how the process works, with the emphasis on our interviews or conversations. I also give them a glimpse into what goes on when we’re not meeting, which, as I tell them, is where 90% of the work lies. I used to belabor this part because I wanted them to understand why a project is such a significant financial investment; but they don’t want to hear that. They want to know how their problem (how to record their story) will be solved (hire Amy!). I’ve shortened all that down to: “It takes a lot of work to write a book.” Usually while giving a thump to one of the sample books in front of them. That says it all.
- At this point, if not sooner, ppl will ask about price.
- so many different ways you can address it
- determined whether you have a project price or per hour
- By the end of this initial sales call, some people will tell you they’re ready to sign on now; some will say they need to think about it, or, in the case of adult children wanting a story about a parent, they may tell you they need to talk to siblings about sharing the cost (in my experience, this usually doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t mean the deal is off—a lot of times they’ll just pick up the cost on their own); and some will tell you they can’t afford it.
- addressing this last one: you have the option of commiserating with them on the price—these ARE expensive projects, after all, and there’s no reason not to acknowledge that, and telling them to call if circumstances ever change
or
- giving them other options. For me, this is usually a “mini” life story of fewer pages, or an audio only project. Earlier in my career, I even offered a lightly edited manuscript. It brought in some money but was always way more work than I quoted for, and not very satisfying work for me. but it may work for you.
I find that whether I offer these last options depends on where I’m at in my work load. If I’ve got a lot on my plate, I don’t mention it. This has the advantage that if they change their mind and decide they do have the money for the bigger project, you haven’t committed to something smaller (and, in my experience, harder). Also, it leaves your schedule open for the bigger projects, if that’s your goal. There’s nothing worse than having to turn away an ideal project because you’ve committed to doing too many less-than-idea ones. But only you can weigh this. Like I’ve said before, when I was just starting out, my motto was: nothing is too small. It helped me earn some money and get more practice than if I’d held out for the “perfect” project.
That concludes the sales meeting, but not that’s not the last step for me. When I get back to my desk (or sooner), I take notes, being careful to include a few key items:
- name and contact info of the prospective client
- project prices or hourly rates I quoted them
- details on any stories they started to tell me
That does it for the overview of my process on initial sales consultations. Remember to tune in for part two (episode 8) to get the scoop on how this week's initial sales call really played out. Let's just say I still have a few things to learn!
If you want to share how you plan and conduct your own sales interviews, leave a comment in the show notes. And if today’s show was helpful, the best way you can return the favor it to leave us a review on iTunes.
Now go out and save someone’s story.
New York Times-featured Dhyan Atkinson studied psychotherapy for six years before opening her own practice and realizing she needed more than excellent skills to grow a business: She needed to learn how to find clients. After studying all she could about marketing and selling, her newly acquired skills converged with her interest in family history and life stories to create a new passion, a business and marketing consultancy specifically tailored to the needs of personal historians.
Here are a few highlights from today’s episode:
- how her background in psychotherapy has equipped Dhyan to teach marketing skills to personal historians
- how learning the skills isn't enough; you have to put them into action
- start by tackling the things that scare you
- learn about Dhyan’s Five Essential Skills to Find Your Clients
- don't jump straight into marketing; work on the basics first
- the difference between selling a furnace and a personal history
- what to talk about first in your initial sales conversation
- guiding the interview with your storyteller from head conversations to heart conversations
- the importance of strategic planning and organizing your time
- the danger of task-switching and the importance of giving your mind the breaks it needs
- investing in training to learn the business skills you need
- having the courage to start your own business
- your message shouldn’t be what you do for your clients, but why your clients hire you: what do you do for them?
- identifying your ideal target clients
- most personal historians are marketing-averse, and why they need to get over it
- a challenge: set the goal that 200 people a month are going to hear about your business; now brainstorm how
- what is your marketing equation?
- and much more.
The best part is, Dhyan is gearing up for a new teleclass bootcamp to teach you how to find your personal history clients. Click here for more info.
You can reach Dhyan and find out about her services, including her upcoming boot camp teleclass, or to get a copy of her Five Essential Skills to Find New Clients, at memorysaving.com.
If you like the show, help spread the word by leaving us a review on iTunes.
Thank you!
What can personal historians learn from ghostwriters?
Meet Tim Vandehey, ghostwriter extraordinaire. Over his fifteen year career, he's written 55 books for his client-authors—and a couple of his own. He's hit the New York Times bestseller list, and one of his books recently won a coveted Axiom award.
Tim is currently working on four projects: a Hollywood producer's response to the Hollywood sexual harassment story; the story of an inventor; a book for a former NFL player; and one for two women running a large branding agency out of New York. All for busy people who have ideas and stories to share with the world, but lack either the time or the know-how to craft them into a compelling book. Just like the clients we serve as personal historians and life story writers.
Join us as we discuss how his practices and procedures can improve our own work when writing legacy stories for our clients.
Highlights include:
- the power of referrals
- bringing a sense of mission to your client’s book
- getting the voice right
- how outlining can help you find the story’s structure AND keep you sane
- tips for personal historians whose clients want to market their book
- building your interviewing skills
- some of the books Tim has done for his clients (including one that was featured on Oprah)
- plus Tim’s top two tips for writers
For more info and show notes: thelifestorycoach.com/episode5
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Join us for an interview with Chad Elliot. He grew up a shy, home-schooled kid, but that didn’t stop him from becoming Seattle’s preeminent improv coach. In this episode, Chad talks about how he adapts improv techniques to help people improve their communication skills—not just on the stage, but in their personal and professional lives as well. We explore how we can adapt those same lessons to improve our interviewing skills, and what it means to be the best listener for our personal history clients.
Some of the things we cover:
- Chad’s childhood and the winding path that brought him to where he is today
- Tony Robbins, hitchhiking, and ballroom dancing
- Using dance as a way to break through social fears and to experience the physical power of touch
- Keith Johnstone’s influential book, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
- Improv and its opportunity for people to be more expressive and better communicators
- Viola Spolin and letting go of the ego
- Leveraging the power of Meetups to attract new students and hone your teaching skills (brilliant idea, Chad!)
- Brenda Ueland’s beautiful treatise on the gift of listening to others
- The main reasons people go into their own heads and stop listening to others
- Paying attention to the gap between body language and what someone says
- Establishing a sense of trust as a personal historian working with a new client
- Using counterintuitive methods to turn off your own limiting filters
- Story scavenger hunts
- Taking a lesson from the great interviewer and journalist Cal Fussman
- Priming your mind, then letting go
To connect with Chad, visit him at seattleimprovclasses.com. And be sure to check out his book, Improv Manifesto: 7 Easy Steps to Confidence, Creativity, and Charisma—Even if You’re Shy!
If you enjoy the show, help others find us by leaving a review on iTunes here.
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Show notes, episode #3 There are two major skills you need for life story writing: writing and interviewing. Today were going to talk about what's probably the more important of the two—interviewing.
Setting Choosing the right environment for the interview is crucial. Make sure it's someplace where your storyteller is at ease. (This will usually be in their home, or, occasionally, at their office.)
Recording gear and set-up * iPhone or iPad vs dedicated recorders * the importance of having a backup recorder * optimal placement of the recorders * also recommended for your gear kit: extra batteries and an extension cord * start the session with the date, name of the storyteller, and interview number
Interview skills * don't expect yourself to be perfect at the beginning * the more you practice (on friends, relatives, the barista at your coffee shop...), the better you'll get * the advantage of practicing on non-paying people before you take on paying clients * the importance of active listening * getting the details to bring their stories to life
Show notes, episode #2 Annie Presley is co-author with Christy Howard of the Read This series of guided journals, big, beautiful books that encourage people to gather the practical information of their lives and their personal stories, all under one cover. It’s a different take on legacy projects, something the two authors were inspired to write after one lost a parent at an early age and the other nearly lost one too soon.
In this interview, we discuss how the authors are on a mission to change the world, one book at a time. Their first book, Read This When I’m Dead, deals with weighty matters in a fun and irreverent way, adding levity to the difficult end-of-life discussions our culture shies away from.
In this episode, we also talk about:
- their target audience of female baby boomers
- the hunger for stories Annie never knew about her own mother, who died when Annie was just a girl
- the practical value of gathering data in one place and how it helps family members at the time of a parent’s death
- how we shouldn’t fear talking about death, and solving the pain point felt by both the elderly and their adult children in addressing the topic and collecting the information
- obits, the new “selfies”
- how pets and possessions can be used as a way access and frame life stories
the trend for family history and family mission statements - Annie and Christy’s innovative approach to marketing their book through presentations, and identifying the clients most likely to benefit from the Read This books (hint: they connect with the same people who can help personal historians reach their target clients)
- writing in collaboration with a co-author, and the need to take breaks from each other
- the benefit of having a partner or an outside reader
- Annie’s conversation with John Grisham—yes, the John Grisham!
- the need to knock on doors and make phone calls to get in front of the right people
beta testing a book club - and much more.
It’s a great conversation full of actionable ideas that we can use to grow our business as personal historians. I hope you enjoy listening to Annie as much as I enjoyed speaking to her!
Links and resources discussed: Cowork Waldo, I didn't give it more than a brief mention, but this was the coworking office where I rented desk space for a year and a half when my house was too full of kids for me to be productive. Circumstances and my needs have changed, but I can't stress enough the importance of finding a workable work environment if you plan to make personal history your career.
readthis.guru, where you can order all of the Read This books and reach out to Annie and Christie
Createspace.com for print-on-demand book publishing
John Grisham’s A Time to Kill
Show notes, episode #1 Thanks for joining me for this early episode of my new Life Story Coach podcast. My overall aim with the show is to create a space for conversation about the field of personal history, both for people already working as personal historians, and for those of you who may be new to the field. Or maybe you’re just curious, and thinking about shifting into a new career as a full-time writer.
What is personal history anyhow? Honestly, most people have never heard of it. Even now, after working for years in the field, I still get a blank look from people when they ask me what I do for a living and I tell them, “personal history.” It’s no wonder, because the term is so ambiguous.
Here’s my definition: Personal history is the craft and business of helping people record their life stories and family histories.
These legacy projects can take the form of a book, an audio recording, a video, even a website, but the type of life stories I create are books, printed and bound long-form narratives with some images. I write in first person, that is, in the storyteller’s voice. My goal is to capture not only their stories, but also their voice, to create a narrative that they would have written themselves, had they been a writer.
So, who are these storytellers, and why do they want to do a book or other legacy project about their life? And who are they doing it for?
I’ve been asked to speak to many groups about personal history, and I’ve never yet addressed one where at least someone—usually more than one—had dabbled with writing their life stories. Let me be clear. These aren’t writers groups. These are groups of financial advisors and estate lawyers and businesspeople—people who don’t consider themselves writers, and don’t necessarily have the urge to write. What they do have the urge to do is preserve their memories, to pass along the stories of their lives to their kids and grandkids.
The desire to reminisce and reflect back on our life is a natural part of life, especially as we get older. If you who studied psychology or education, you’ll remember Erik Erikson’s developmental stages—the steps we each pass through in life, stages defined by specific needs relating to our sense of identity, like the baby’s need for nurturing from its parents or the middle-aged, empty-nester’s need for a sense of deeper meaning in life. In later years, the need revolves around reflection, looking back at our lives to find that sense of meaning, to make sense of this long ride of life. The yen for telling stories, of course, isn’t new; after all, we tell stories about ourselves and our experiences all throughout our life. But in the golden years this need sharpens and intensifies.
And it’s not just about making sense of our lives for ourselves. It's also about the desire to pass that accumulated wisdom on to the next generations. It’s a way to connect to younger generations, to say, “I get it, the world of my youth was different, let me tell you about ME, not as your parent or grandparent, but about me as a person.” Because all the great stuff an elder has experienced and learned, all the fun times and sadness and challenges and joys? Those are treasures, valuables in the truest sense to pass down to their heirs. Because those people they love today, and the generations who will follow, they will have fun times and sad times and challenging times too, and wouldn’t it be great if they knew how someone upstream in the stream of generations dealt with all that?
People don’t need the research to tell them what a gift it is to leave this is for their kids and grandkids, but it’s there anyhow, study after study that have identified traits like greater resiliency and stronger sense of self-identity among those who know their family history, those who know their roots. These people, the odd Joe or Mary who’s struggling to get stories down on paper, or who are just thinking about it and wishing for it, they know by instinct that it matters. It matters that their stories get recorded. What gets recorded gets remembered.
And that, my friends, is how we can help.
Because even the folks who think they might possibly some day maybe want to write a book, even most of them come to realize, no way! Writing is hard!! And takes serious, concentrated effort. And a set of skills way beyond what they were taught back in high school composition class. Not that someone has to be a professional writer to successfully wrangle their own story down onto the page, but most people either know they have no desire to write a book, or they find out pretty quickly that they don’ t want to do it. And yet, the desire to have their story recorded persists. It’s a little like the days of old when a scribe would set up at the local market or maybe the train station, and for a fee, they would write the words someone wanted to send to someone in a letter. The words—the stories, the thoughts and reflections and memories—we all have those, but many, many people need help in getting them down. In recording them. And that’s why we have the field of personal history. To help people record their stories.
And the ones who really get it, the ones who understand the value their stories have, and the value of recording those stories, those are the ones who will invest their time and their money in creating a legacy project. And probably most of them right now don’t even know you and I are out there, ready to help them. And when they find out, just like I’ve seen over and over again in the past seven years that I’ve been doing this, they will heave a huge sigh of relief, because they know their stories will not be lost, that they don’t have to do it by themselves, that it will get done. The best part is that they have no idea how powerful the process will be for them to sit down with us and tell us their stories. But that’s a topic for a later episode.
I hope this has given you a good idea not just of what personal history is, but what it can do for people. If you’re just beginning your personal history career, or if you’ve been at it for a while and have thoughts or inspiration to share, check out my website and leave a comment in the show notes. You can find them at thelifestorycoach.com. And please take a moment to leave a review on iTunes or whichever platform you’re listening on. It’ll help others find us and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening, and until next time, happy writing.
Amy