The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Publishing’

C. Hope Clark – Your Invisible Mentor This Week

As usual, the interview is packed with lots of solid information for you to use. Hope is a writer and has an ezine, FundsforWriters, which she distributes weekly. For Part One of the interview, there are five great ideas that I have pulled out, after you have read the interview, what are your five great ideas?

5 Great Ideas from C. Hope Clark’s Interview

1. The more consistent and productive you are, the more motivated you get
2. Rushing anything before it’s ready is fool’s folly
3. With a serious well thought out plan and mindset, you can stop the train wreck you’re on and head in a different direction
4. Do the best you can at the job you are given and people will respect you
5. Stay hungry, to improve all aspects of your life

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I write nonfiction for others and fiction for me. I hope one day to cross the bridge where each works for the other side. I adore the outdoors. When I lived three years in Phoenix, one of the first things I did upon returning to my beloved South was to hug a tree. Seriously. I’m married to a retired federal agent, and security/safety is huge in my house. I have two sons, two stepsons, a grandson and granddaughter (Yea, tell me I look too young. I love hearing that – that’s just the photography, trust me. You should see me in person. The years have left their mark here and there.) When I built my house, I told the contractor he had two main goals – place my writing room so it had the best view of the lake . . . and build my husband’s walk-in-safe exactly as he wanted. I said safety was key already, didn’t I? We live on the banks of Lake Murray in South Carolina.

What’s a typical day like for you?

Sleep until 9-10 AM. I’m a night person. Hubby fixes my breakfast. A few chores, maybe emails for an hour or two (I receive 300-400 per day), then something outdoors, if possible, especially if the day is nice. I have to get my daily dose of Vitamin D. I at least feed and greet my chickens – one rooster, 14 hens and a couple of babies. By 5-6 pm, I’m back at the computer working on FundsforWriters. Break for dinner, maybe a mystery/cop show or two with hubby (I adore mysteries), then back to the computer – by then writing on the novel until 2 AM. I love writing in the middle of the night, when no one is looking and I can think with the world silent, leaving me to my thoughts.

How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

I don’t get caught up in this “muse” business. Neither do I believe in writer’s block. Motivation, to me, is nothing more than being consistent. The more consistent and productive I am, the more motivated I get. So on those days when I’m dragging, I continue to drag my behind to the computer and work. The results are just as satisfying as when I’m positive and perky. Frankly, once you write something to completion, you really can’t tell what you wrote on a good day and what you wrote on a sluggish day. So the point it to just show up.

If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

Not marry my first husband? LOL. Seriously. I would take my efforts at writing more seriously. It’s probably normal for younger people to second guess their abilities, but I would have written more, sooner, and younger. I would have traveled this writing road harder with more purpose, because only after you’ve traveled it long and hard do you improve. It’s not a skill set you’re born with, regardless of what people think. All the great writers spent their lives putting words on paper in quiet rooms for years before anyone knew their names. And they took their writing seriously early in their lives.

What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

That self-publishing is a serious option with the explosion of ebooks. I’m normally NOT an advocate of self-publishing. I still tell new writers to avoid it until they’ve walked that long road I mentioned earlier . . . until they understand the publishing business. If they haven’t done either, then they need to leave the publishing business to the professionals and stick to traditional publishing. On a personal note, I’ve discovered/decided that my children need to struggle and fall on their knees so they can learn how to pick themselves up and become stronger people. I think every parent makes that discovery . . . or else they spend their lives in misery watching what they can’t control.

What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

I’d like to say print-on-demand, but I think that predates five years. It was the first step in shaking the foundations of the big publishing houses because it put smaller presses on a more equal standing. But recently it’s been Amazon. I’ve learned you either hate or love Amazon, but you can’t deny that they stay on point in developing the reading world. They have single-handedly, in my opinion, thrust ebooks into the forefront of the writing business. Yes, there are others who followed, but if Amazon hadn’t jumped in in a big way, the others wouldn’t have done as much. Amazon gave ebooks dignity.

What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

Three threats, in my opinion:

1. My age. Some may say I’m still young, others not so much, but I constantly feel I’m in a race with time to publish. That said, however, I clash with myself about the concern, because rushing anything before it’s ready is a fool’s folly.
2. The phenomenal changes occurring with social media. I study the changes and do lots of reading in attempt to keep up.
3. Peace of mind. I’ve worked hard to become very happy with my lot in life. At the same time I am competitive. So I have this constant struggle to live a simple life without overindulging in my career. I love my life, and I don’t want to sabotage it with the extreme busy-ness so many others seem to get lost in.

What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Frankly, I not so sure. LOL What I do know is that when I’m honest with my readers, they respond positively. They also like my conversational tone. I like to write in first-person, as if having coffee with a friend. But as with a close friend, I also speak frankly with a bit of a scolding edge, just enough so that the person realizes I’m saying this in a constructive manner. Readers adore that tone even more! But something else that makes a difference is the fact I am consistent. Every Friday, the newsletters go out. I meet deadlines. I try to research the material used, and keep it fresh. For ten years I’ve missed two deadlines: one when traveling in Europe, the other when moving my household cross-country. I believe readers appreciate it when I keep their interests first.

What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

Respect others. Respect their interest, their level in their own professional (whether newbie or seasoned), their questions, their efforts, even their time. I respond to all emails . . . all.

Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it.

I worked 25 years with a federal agency, ultimately reaching the rank of second in the state. However, I had the challenge of being the only woman amongst my peers most of the time. I hated the animosity, the vying for power. While I was good at it, it took a toll on me. So I created a three-year plan to get my finances in order and request an early retirement (dropping my income about sixty percent) so I could write for a living. I’d already been writing part-time and earning a few dollars at it. FundsforWriters was only a couple years old, but Writer’s Digest had already recognized it in its 101 Best Websites for Writers. That recognition was jaw-dropping to me and served as a tremendous catalyst. With a family on board with my decision to leave the bureaucracy, I leaped into writing and FundsforWriters. Even told the kids that I’d fund their college as long as I could, but if things got tight, they had to find ways to take up the slack. I’m proud to say that FundsforWriters covered both sons’ college tuition.

What lessons did you learn in the process?

With a serious, well-thought out plan and mindset, you can stop the train wreck you’re on and head in a different direction.

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

That’s hard. I’ve never relied upon others and rarely sought advice. I’m a believer in doing lots of research and making informed decisions, rather than relying upon someone else. I will say that my current husband taught me to take chances and added a whole new dimension to my world.

Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

Being a fairly competitive individual, in my old life (pre-writing) I dared to step too far in my efforts to make a name for myself. I had to step-back (reassigned to another office) and analyze myself. I sought to identify the mistakes while holding onto the standards I believed in. A peer taught me this: Do the best you can at the job you are given and people will respect you – even in the midst of controversy. Best advice I ever received. I not only weathered that point in my life, but I also rose above it, achieving a promotion I never expected. We have to be honest with ourselves in order to improve.

What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Divorce. The second time around, my husband (also divorced) and I entered into our relationship with plans on how to avoid repeating history. Respect is huge in this house, as it should be.

What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

Again, the divorce. It kicked me on my butt even though I initiated it. Suddenly life was so far off-track I never thought it’d return to any sense of normalcy. But I told myself to take it one day at a time and that a year from now life would be better. And it was. I know today not to panic when life takes a negative detour.

What are three events that helped to shape your life?

1. Meeting my husband…shaped me on so many levels.
2. Becoming a mother…made me think outside of myself.
3. Daring to leave the nine-to-five to court my own self-employment.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Outside of family, reaching ten years of history with FundsforWriters, each year being recognized by Writer’s Digest Magazine. I flaunt that everywhere.

How did mentors influence your life?

Mentors gave me self-esteem, made me study my own strengths and capitalize on them.

What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Be true to yourself and respect others. Stay hungry to improve in all aspects of your life.

As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Be true to yourself and respect others. How could I give any other advice when it’s been so good for me? When it isn’t all about you, you touch more people, make more sales, become more successful, fill-in-the-blank. It’s just a potent formula.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Today I present the first part of the interview with Jenny Pickles who has worked in the publishing industry for 15 years. As usual, look for the nuggets of brilliance, and be open to the bits that you can apply to your unique situation.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I have worked in the publishing industry since 1995, firstly at Emerald Group Publishing Ltd initially  in the Editorial department.  Here I was responsible for organizing the annual best paper awards for excellence and managing a suite of real estate and environmental scholarly journals. In 2000 I transferred to the Business Development department and took on responsibility for digital licensing, reprints and permissions.  Two years ago I was lucky enough to be offered the role of Associate Director of Global Rights at John Wiley & Sons in the UK. This involves responsibility for all secondary licensing of the many thousands of books and journals published by Wiley including translation rights, permissions and digital licensing.

What’s a typical day like for you?

Dealing with the many emails from external and internal customers, working with my staff who are based in both Oxford and Chichester and with our Global Rights colleagues who are based around the world.

How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

Working every day with talented, enthusiastic and committed staff always motivates me to try harder myself, lead by example, and fully support my team. I like to encourage their ideas for improving the business, our business processes, our service levels and our productivity.  Additionally in a digital age the way in which knowledge is created and disseminated is constantly changing and developing, the consequent demands and expectations of our customers grows exponentially and this constantly challenges us to find ways to meet those demands and expectations. The job is never boring.

If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I would probably have got into the publishing industry much sooner than I did. I took the job initially because it was available at a time that a grant funded role at Bradford University came to an end, not because I had a burning desire to get into publishing.  However, I quickly found that I loved the job, the constant challenges and the dynamics of publishing. I feel that I would know much more now if I had been aware of this when I was much younger.

What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

That partnering with respected organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Centre to develop an automated online permissions clearance service for our journals can not only vastly improve the service that we offer our customers and authors, but also cut down significantly on the time consuming manual elements of the job thus enhancing the Permissions team’s daily tasks and enabling them to spend more quality time evaluating the more complex and challenging requests we receive daily.

What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

Definitely the opportunities afforded to increase readership of our authors’ work through both developing e-books and other digital, audio and mobile products in-house and at the same time partnering with external specialists in these formats to license our titles for inclusion in these services.

What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

I would say the continued campaign for open access in the absence of viable alternative funding models, thus threatening the very industry which has provided refereed scholarship for centuries – we are trying to handle this issue by offering authors the option to pay an online open fee to make their final published refereed article’s openly accessible on our site. We are also planning to launch new entirely open access journals next year each of which will continue to receive the same rigorous review process to maintain quality, accuracy and high standards; the proliferation of piracy and online file sharing sites for which we are working with the Publishers Association, other industry groups and legal colleagues to tackle and thirdly, the proliferation of unauthorized, outdated and inaccurate information that the aforementioned can result in and which should not be relied on through casual searches on the internet.

What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Rights management and content licensing is not unique but it is important.  We publish a wide range of books and journals in the English language which are sold throughout the English speaking world. However many students and professionals around the world would not be able to benefit unless local publishers were able to translate and sell the books in their local markets.  The wide range of licenses and permissions requests to reuse published works negotiated daily, based on the rights granted to us by our authors, mean that the authors’ work get much more widely read and that they benefit from additional royalties from sales of their work in for example Russian or Spanish translation as well as primary sales in  English.  We are also able to negotiate special arrangements for developing countries to ensure that access is truly global.

What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

Can’t really comment

Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it.

We have been working on updating an internal IT system and this has involved selecting the most high priority issues and project managing these with IT and business colleagues  over the last year or so.

What lessons did you learn in the process?

Patience, patience, and more patience – and accepting that not everything can or maybe even should be automated.

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

The owner of Emerald Group Publishing Ltd who agreed to allow be to participate in an in-house MBA program which was funded by the company. It was he who supported me and encouraged me to take as my dissertation the copyright implications of digital publishing – this in no small part contributed to the job I have now.

What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

In accepting the job I have now I had to relocate away from my family and friends – I love and appreciate the job but I do miss not seeing my family as much as I would like to.

What are three events that helped to shape your life?

My family and having my children, I have one daughter and four sons who are the greatest joy in life; the support and encouragement I received from my late husband who pushed me into going back to university as a mature student to study for my Masters degree in history and politics and taking up the challenge of the in house MBA which was done alongside my daily job – the hardest and most challenging thing I have ever done but which taught me most about opportunities to grow and progress in the workplace.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Raising my family.

How did mentors influence your life?

By encouraging me to look at life and achievements differently.

What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Set your goals and be prepared to pay the price in advance – this is a mantra that I have always followed. The mentor was one of the directors and co-owners of Emerald at the time, Barrie Pettman, a self made millionaire and I always thought the statement made a lot of sense. The price you pay may be financial in terms of the fees for a particular course of study or training you need to undertake, it might be the time you have to be prepared to invest in learning new skills or gaining the required qualifications to get where you want to be, it might be what you have to personally forego in other areas of your life in order to spend that time, or it might be the effort of identifying who you need to seek out who may be willing to offer you further help and guidance. Whatever the price, you need to research what it is first and decide if you are prepared to pay that price, then just do it.

As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

I would pass on the advise that was given to me,(above) to have confidence in yourself – if you truly want to achieve something in your life, find out what you need to do in order to achieve it and if you are prepared to expend that effort in planning and working hard at it you can achieve your goal.  Conversely, there is no shame in admitting defeat if, having evaluated the possibilities and challenges of a particular objective you decide that it is not for you after all.

What are to takeaways from the interview? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.