Thanksgiving, I Love You. (And a free art print for your Thanksgiving table!)

November 17, 2015 by Maria

Thanksgiving is the best holiday.

I love Thanksgiving because it’s about nothing but the things that matter: family, friends, food, faith, home, and the gratitude we have for them all. It’s also about crispy turkey, mashed potatoes, my mom’s mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts gratin, cranberry sauce, gravy (oh the gravy…), mushroom and wild rice pilaf, butternut squash soup, soft rolls, pumpkin pie, and Karen’s Kentucky bourbon pecan pie (oh, that pie though!).

Sorry other holidays, but you don’t stand a chance.

2 Steps to Grow a More Engaged Audience (Free Printable!)

November 10, 2015 by Maria

I’ve been thinking a lot about food stories lately. They’ve been on my mind for a lot of reasons: Thanksgiving is coming up and I’m hosting for the first time; we celebrated my Yayo’s legacy of paella at the Paella for the World Festival a few weeks ago; I’ve been reading Heritage and binge-watching Mind of a Chef.

All those reasons plus, well, you know, working on cookbook proposals. But even all the proposals I’ve been working on lately that aren’t food-related have made me think about stories.

Stories are the magic behind books. It doesn’t matter if it’s a romance or a diet book—stories are what bring it to life and make it worth reading.

Yet stories are often the most difficult thing to coax out of authors, especially in the nonfiction world I work in. I’m convinced that it’s because storytelling is beaten out of us in school. We’re told to avoid “I,” and that what we have to say isn’t interesting enough, and that writing is just about the accurate conveyance of information.

The Good Stuff: Why Patience is A Good Thing, Plus a Free Jack Kerouac Art Print

August 25, 2015 by Maria

As I wrote about here, August is the month of The Good Stuff around these parts. Every week I’m going to be focusing on something worth celebrating in the publishing journey, whether it’s stories about new deals and successes, or writing inspiration, or platform-building encouragement…

Now, last week we talked about the 6 moments along the publishing journey where you should stop to celebrate. But what if you haven’t started that official journey to publication? How can you savor a journey you haven’t even started yet?

Well, here’s a newsflash: no matter where you are, you’re on your way. The real publication journey starts far before signing a book contract—it starts with years of building skills. And the most important skill to build in order to succeed in publishing? Patience.

I know that sounds groan-worthy, but it’s the truth. You’ll need patience with yourself when you sit down at your computer and all the words come out wrong. You’ll need patience when you try to build your online presence and can’t figure out why people aren’t flocking to you. You’ll need patience when you want results now, but all that’s in front of you are new, confounding challenges.

And all that patience you’ll be building? That’s A Good Thing.

I know it doesn’t seem like it—it never does. But as Wayne Stiles wrote this week over on Michael Hyatt’s blog:

“This season of waiting is a present—a gift that allows us to deepen our commitment to why we do what we do. Whatever our why is, it alone helps us to keep writing, keep speaking, and continue building while we wait.”

The person who has seemingly instant success with anything in life probably spent years building the foundational skills—both the tangible skills and the character strengths—necessary to execute on that creative vision. Those years were also the incubation period for a deep connection to the why that fuels us in our most challenging moments.

When we accept the reality that it takes time, we can start enjoying that time. We can also stop yearning for that mythical “one day…” when everything is finally easy and perfect and comfortable. When everything will suddenly be changed. That “one day…” will never arrive.

As a reminder of that (because it’s the easiest thing to forget in this industry!), you can download a free printable art print with Jack Kerouac’s famous quote:

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple.”

Read, Eat, Drink: The Best Publishing, Writing, and Platform Links plus a Memorial Day Menu

May 22, 2015 by Maria

Read:

5 Smart Content Strategies from a Stellar Marketer of Ideas (Sonia Simone on Copyblogger): If you haven’t heard of Neil deGrasse Tyson, he will be your new favorite nerd. “He talks about the value in having a passion for all kinds of things, not just your specific area of study. (Tyson has pursued serious interests in wrestling, rowing, wine collecting, and ballroom dancing, so he practices what he preaches.)” In a world where we’re all honed in on acquiring ultimate knowledge in our fields, it’s such a relief to be encouraged to intellectually roam .

Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age (Maria Popova/On Being with Krista Tippett): I listened to this podcast on Tuesday, and it absolutely changed the trajectory of my whole week. I’ve always been an obsessive fan of Popova, but it’s particularly inspiring to hear her talk about the things few people talk about–meaning, fulfillment, intellectual curiosity–in a fresh, accessible way. Dream dinner party: Me, Maria Popova, Krista Tippett, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and an XL pot of soup.

Osama Bin Laden’s Bookshelf Reflects His Fixation with the West (Michiko Kakutani for The New York Times): “His bookshelf is a weird hodgepodge. It’s hard to know how complete a list it is, and whether he requested certain books from aides, or if aides sent him works they thought he might like or that might influence his thinking.” A fascinating look at how the books we read shape our world view.

The 5 Simple Strategies That Grew Our Social Traffic by 350% (Madhav Bhandari on BufferSocial): Spoiler alert! The 5 strategies are: schedule the reposting of evergreen content, figure out your optimal timing, have great content to begin with, write headlines that draw people in, and include others in the conversation. But this is still worth a read, because each of those strategies needs to be unpacked before it can be implemented.

The Best Typography, Colors, and Templates Used in the Highest-Converting Social Media Images (James Johnson on BufferSocial): “Turns out, there’s tons of actionable, research-backed advice on how to create social media images that get shared—the ideal colors, fonts, text, and more, all leveraging what we know about design, psychology and the Internet to get more shares and engagement.”

10 Steps to Overcome Writer’s Block (Carly Watters): Step #2 is to “Forgive yourself a perfect draft: No one writes a clean first draft. It’s called a ‘Shitty First Draft‘ for a reason. Read some Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird is a must!) and learn that perfect doesn’t exist. Especially in art.” Writers, agents, and editors are always saying this because it’s one of the truest truths out there. But it’s so, so easy to forget. My favorite visual reminder: this free Anne Lamott art print to hang in your office and look at every time you’re battling perfectionism.

Category: Printable

Thanksgiving, I Love You. (And a free art print for your Thanksgiving table!)

2 Steps to Grow a More Engaged Audience (Free Printable!)

The Good Stuff: Why Patience is A Good Thing, Plus a Free Jack Kerouac Art Print

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