What I wish I knew - Author Video Transcripts
Video 1 Transcript
I'm doing this video about what I would change if I could do it all over again, and I will say one of the things that I would change is not being so dependent on a specific illustrator or editor to do my job, because one of the problems that I've run into is I had a specific artist that was designing my book covers, and whenever it was time for him to do the cover for my fourth book, the guy disappeared. He ghosted me. He disappeared off the face of the earth. And that means that I have months' worth of work just sitting somewhere not making me money because somebody else isn't doing their job. And if I could do it all over again, I would make sure that I had a more simpler cover design style that I could have different artists come in and do.
Video 2 Transcript
I wish I knew how smart your actual characters are. They do come alive and that's something that's quite fascinating as an author. And if you let them tell the story, they tell a way better story than you do. So a lot of times people will just get stumped. They'll kind of get stuck where they're at. They won't know where to go. Go back. Just go back a couple of paragraphs, reread, and realize you're missing something. A character was supposed to walk in. They were supposed to say something. They were supposed to do something. Your story literally will halt itself and stop you from writing because it's supposed to do something else. Allow that story to tell itself. Allow those characters to shine and then you'll be able to take off again and have an amazing book.
Video 3 Transcript
What I wish I knew whenever I first started being an author, being an author is actually, you are a small business, and your product is your books, is your words. I wish I had known that sooner, so I could have set up an LLC, or a C Corp, or an S Corp, just depending on what my income levels were at the time. And that would have saved me a lot of pain and headache down the road when it comes tax time. And that's something that if you are serious about becoming an author, you really, really should look into starting your own LLC before you publish anything, or right after you get signed as an author, or before you hit publish if you're going to self-publish on Amazon. Make sure you have an LLC, and that's to protect you in a lot of ways. And then that also means if you pass away, your loved ones can still control things.
Video 4 Transcript
There's a couple of things I think I wish I had known earlier on. I figured out with time. Only you're going to be able to write your story. If you want this story to exist, you're going to have to sit down and do it. Otherwise, nobody will ever see this story. So it's you. It's on you. If you don't persevere, it won't happen. And the second one is that you have an eye for art. That's how you became a writer in the first place. But that means that you might like really fancy art better than your beginner's art. That is normal. Just keep trying because anybody who's up here in the fancy art started as a beginner. So don't stop at a beginner because it's not as good as the fancy stuff. You just keep trying until you get there. So you got this.
