THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Linda Sivertsen:
In this book, in Beautiful Writers, the agent comes around the middle of the book where I get an agent; maybe a little earlier, maybe that’s first third, at the end of the first third, the agent comes in, but then the agent couldn’t sell it. So I’m working on the book. I sent the whole book to the agent. You’re supposed to send a query, and if the agent wants to see the book, then you mail a proposal and some sample chapters. I did not do that. I just mailed 400 pages of a manuscript to an agent in New York, my only choice, just to one guy, breaking all the rules. Fortunately, he wanted it. But then he was like, “Okay, you need a book proposal.” I had no idea what that was. I’d never heard of one. I wrote one, and then he started getting rejections. So it was a year, a whole year process, where I’m just in agony.
Speaker 2:
It’s The Inspiration Place Podcast with artist Miriam Showman. Welcome to The Inspiration Place Podcast, an art world inside a podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hello there. It’s Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration and author of the book Artpreneur, and you’re listening to episode number 230. Today we’re talking with Linda Sivertsen, who I met because I signed up for her book proposal course, and then we had a one-on-one session. And the reason she’s on today is because she has written a book called Beautiful Writers. Before I introduce her and bring her on, I wanted to catch you up about what’s going on with my own book. As of today, I just finished recording this really incredible bonus. It’s called Artpreneur Affirmations, and it’s kind of like a potpourri. It’s art journal meets inspiration meets business advice meets you just like to listen to me, I don’t know. But basically there’s 12 videos. In each video, you get to watch me work on an art journal spread.
Some of the videos, I give a little more technique than others. There’s one video where it’s all technique, actually. But for the most part, I give a little bit of technique in the beginning of the video, and then either I read from or talk about what’s happening in each chapter. And I never… I can’t say never. The only chapter I read completely is the last chapter, which I think was, it was a pretty ninja move on my part. Most of the chapters, I’m either reading just the beginning and giving you tidbits from it, or just paraphrasing it. So it’s kind of like a companion to the book. And it’s a great way for you to get some tips and inspiration before the book even arrives. And for those of you who are art journal junkies, oh my gosh, you have to see some of these art journal spreads that I came up with.
I just did some things I had never done before with washi tape and using an X-Acto blade and cutting letters and cutting things around, and it wasn’t even that hard. So I would love to show you those techniques. The only way, though, you can get your hands on this Artpreneur Affirmations course, and the reason why I called it Artpreneur Affirmations is every single art journal spread is I took a chapter title from the book Artpreneur, and every chapter title is also an affirmation. So the only way to get your hands on it is to pre-order the book. You knew I was going to say that, right? Luckily, the book is not in hard cover. It is a paperback book, which makes it super affordable. That means it’s less than $20. And you can get that art journal course, which actually, as of this publish date, November 1st, is I know the day that you are listening to this, the course is ready.
As soon as you get the book, you will also, or pre-order the book, I should say, you will also get access to the course. So go to Artpreneur book.com, or you can order the book from wherever you want, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Indie Bookstore. Heck, you can even do it in an in-person shop, and just hang on to your receipt. When you get to the site, you just put in your name, your email, you grab the order number off of your receipt or off of Amazon, or off of Barnes & Noble, we don’t discriminate. Wherever you get it, put in that order number, and then you’ll have access to the class. And there’s also some other bonuses, too. I just don’t feel like talking about them right now.
Without further ado, let’s bring on today’s guest. I want you to imagine you’re at a dinner party with some the most successful authors of our time. I’m talking Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry McMillan, Deepak Chopra. This Book Mama, our guest today, is your dinner party host for all of these luminaries. As she shares her story of the many hilarious, outrageous, and practical things she did to launch her best-selling write career, your favorite writers are chiming in with their, “Oh my god, listen to what I did.” That’s what her book is about that we’re talking about today. Beautiful Writers: A Journey of Big Dreams & Messy Manuscripts with Tricks of the Trade of Bestselling Authors. Unlike any writing book you’ve ever read, it’s part coming of career memoir sparing none of the magic or mayhem and part instructional roadmap to having the career you’ve always wanted.
Having co-authored or ghostwritten New York Times best sellers, worked as a magazine editor, and midwife of 6 & 7-figure book deals by her Carmel-at-the-Sea and virtual writing retreats, she’s that rare expert who’s seen the industry from all sides. Countless book babies have been birthed via your Big Beautiful Book Plan, of which I was a student, by the way. When she’s not fostering literary love matches on her Beautiful Writer’s Podcast or putting pen to paper, she can be found on the back of a horse or running with her dogs.
Coming to you from Scottsdale, Arizona, please welcome to The Inspiration Place, Linda Sivertsen. Well, hey there, Linda, welcome to the show.
Linda Sivertsen:
That was really, really fun. Thank you so much. I love hearing you talk about me.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, most of my guests do. And then it’s also a good way to keep them from having to feel they have to work things into our conversation. It’s like I take care of it from the very beginning.
Linda Sivertsen:
So smart.
Miriam Schulman:
I’ve got Linda’s book right here, which I am finding it like… It’s like a romance novel, actually.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, okay, that’s amazing. A romance with writing?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, maybe you pitched it as with all the famous people, I’m skipping over all the famous people. It’s like, ah, I’ll get back to those people later.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, bless you.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m just really into your whole story. It’s so fun.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, thank you. I said to my mentor early on when I started this book, I said, “I want my pieces to be so self-deprecating and page-turning and crazy that people won’t need to read the celebrity stuff. And I think she kind of questioned whether that would be possible. Thank you. Thank you for saying that.
Miriam Schulman:
Occasionally, I glance up and I’ll see something like, “Oh, okay. That’s what Danielle LaPorte had to say. Good for her.” But I’m really interested in what you have to say. So it’s been super fun.
Linda Sivertsen:
Thank you.
Miriam Schulman:
I think most people will relate more to what your story is, the writing in the middle of the night, and balancing that with having a young child, and competing with leaf blowers when you’re trying to do something creative.
Linda Sivertsen:
Well, bless you. Thank you so much. That’s really fun to hear.
Miriam Schulman:
One thing I definitely agree with from the beginning, is you talk about how writing is giving birth to an elephant. Is that [inaudible]?
Linda Sivertsen:
I don’t remember saying that, but that’s certainly how it feels. I think what I said was that it’s like being a 30,000 pound baby, 10 years in gestation.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Okay.
Linda Sivertsen:
No baby.
Miriam Schulman:
Being pregnant with an elephant, then giving birth to an elephant. And now that I’m going to go into launching the book, so that’s where I’m at with my book writing journey. We’re entering the launch phase, and I feel like a new mother to a baby elephant. It’s like, what the heck has just happened?
Linda Sivertsen:
I know. It’s no joke. Congratulations on getting so far. That’s amazing.
Miriam Schulman:
Thank you. For my listeners who don’t know, or for Linda who may be scratching her head and trying to remember, it’s been a while, because it takes a long time. I wanted to write a book and in, oh my gosh, was it really 2020? It was the end of 2020. Now I remember. It was August. I have this Facebook group with some of your clients in there. And somebody who was in that group was talking about her book proposal. And there are a few people saying, “Oh, you got to take Linda’s course.”
Linda Sivertsen:
Aww.
Miriam Schulman:
I wasn’t even part of the conversation. I’m eavesdropping.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, wow.
Miriam Schulman:
However, I buy the course, and then I sign up for the extra session.
Linda Sivertsen:
Consult.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s right. Because that was really what I was paying for in my mind. And I went through the course and I got halfway through my book proposal, and then I met with you, and you were like, “Okay, this memoir stuff is great, but if you really want to sell it, you got to put how-to in it.”
Linda Sivertsen:
Yeah. Sorry. Did I make your job harder?
Miriam Schulman:
No, but I kind of snuck my memoir stuff in there, too.
Linda Sivertsen:
Of course. I wanted you to.
Miriam Schulman:
I know. I was like, here we go, chapter two.
Linda Sivertsen:
And where are you now?
Miriam Schulman:
The book comes out January 31st.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, my gosh. That’s soon.
Miriam Schulman:
Do you know how long that takes, though? Because it’s like 2020. We’re talking 2023. That’s why it was like being pregnant and giving birth to an elephant. Because I think elephants do have a very long gestation.
Linda Sivertsen:
They do. They do. But, honestly, your gestation was pretty quick compared to many, most. I was working on Beautiful Writers on and off for 15 years. Certain stories were that long in the making.
Miriam Schulman:
Wow.
Linda Sivertsen:
Yeah. So you did good, girl. You did good.
Miriam Schulman:
I think part of my blessing was that I didn’t know how hard it’s supposed to be to get an agent, get a deal. I thought, oh, everybody does that.
Linda Sivertsen:
Wow. So your mindset was fantastic.
Miriam Schulman:
Right. But we’re to talk about you, not me.
Linda Sivertsen:
Okay.
Miriam Schulman:
How long have you been writing this again? Could you repeat that?
Linda Sivertsen:
Well, just certain stories. I was working on a memoir, a divorce memoir, as soon as my husband of 19 years bailed. And that was 2007. I wasn’t originally writing it as a memoir; I was writing it just as notes to self to stay from going coocoo birds. Then after a while, I really saw the value in what I was going through for other people also in the midst of, and I thought I would turn it into a memoir. So I worked on it for years. And memoirs are no joke. They just take a lot of craft and care.
I had a son I was raising, a single mom, and I had a very, very busy ghostwriting business and a very busy retreat business, helping other people birth their books. I was also still working as a magazine editor. So the memoir just got done in the nooks and crannies of the day, of which we all know aren’t many, so it took a really long time. And then it morphed years later into this book, which is part memoir, part writing book. If you count that, which I think we have to, because so many of the stories originated then, we’re looking at 15 years.
Miriam Schulman:
Wow.
Linda Sivertsen:
Long time. Long time to be carrying something around.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Do you have a… ?
Linda Sivertsen:
Postpartum?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Postpartum is probably a better word for it.
Linda Sivertsen:
So many people have asked me that. That’s why I answered it quickly. Yes and no. Originally I did, so I delivered it a long time ago. I delivered it maybe a year-and-a-half ago. And then we went into a very long period of me going, “Wait a minute, I got another edit.” I just always had so many edits. I’m such an editor by trade. So there were a lot of periods where I was just like, wow, I’m not ready. I’m not ready to give her up. Now, I’m just so happy she’s out in the world. I notice I have a lot more energy, a lot more. Super fun.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s great. [inaudible] my book. And there’s certain passages that I kind of cringe at. I shouldn’t say that, because it hasn’t been released yet. My editor [inaudible] isn’t listening. But I say to myself, “My next book will be better.” I just feel like I learn so much about writing. Do you feel that every time you write a book, whether it’s for yourself or ghostwriting?
Linda Sivertsen:
You do. You change so much, which is one of the reasons why memoir is so hard, because by the time you finish the memoir, the writing at the end is way better than the writing at the beginning, and so everybody wants to go back. But I also have a personal thing that I don’t release a book unless I love it. I am one of those Hemingwayesque editors who edits every chapter fifty to a hundred times. So when I release a book, I really can’t think of how to make it better. And when I go back and I read it five years later, ten years later, to me it’s still really beautiful. So I’m lucky in that I’m hard-headed enough and obsessive and OCD enough that I will not release a book until I have no more changes, which is a luxury.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. That’s great.
Linda Sivertsen:
And it’ll drive you [inaudible] crazy.
Miriam Schulman:
And your publisher was willing to go along with that? I’m looking at who you published it with.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, I’m pretty sure they hated it. They would say to me, “Okay, no more changes.” And I’d go, “Okay, and here’s 207, perfectly itemized for you.” But you know what? They love the finished product, so what are they going to do? Who are you going to blame? I don’t know.
Miriam Schulman:
What is the hardest part for you in the entire process? I suspect you’re going to say you love it all. So if we talk about the parts, there’s proposal… How would you actually, if we’re going to talk about the different trimesters of this birthing of a baby [inaudible] to describe what that pregnancy looks like and what the different stages are. Can you do that?
Linda Sivertsen:
It’s a great question. Yeah. I think there’s that incubation stage where you get the idea and you’re just walking around with it for a bit. Not everybody puts pen to paper right away. Sometimes it’s just simmering or it’s a twinkling in the eye, I guess, if you’re going to talk about it in birthing terms. It would be the before conception, you’re getting ready to conceive, it’s a twinkle, and you’re really ruminating with it back to being in love. This is like a romance. You’re falling in love with the idea of the creative process. And then there’s that, you have the idea and you start to put pen to paper or fingers on keyboard, and that would be the [inaudible] stage, I guess, fertilization, I don’t know. So many different names we could call it. Then depending on who you are, that’s either a fast or slow process. I take often years.
When I was ghostwriting, I would write a book in eight weeks or twelve weeks, because you’re contracted. I always did that. Always, always my books were delivered in twelve weeks, and I was really good at doing that. But god darn it, is that hard. It’s hard on your body, it’s hard on your relationships, it’s hard on your eyeballs. Like, “Oh god, no. I never want to do that again.” I would far prefer to take years. The challenge with taking years, because then you start to write, and then you rewrite, and then you rewrite, and rewrite some more. The challenge is when do you know you’re done? You could be pregnant forever, and a lot of people are. I’ve known several people who have died, and on their deathbed, they were still talking about the book and lamenting it, and that’s really sad to me. So how the hell do you get finished before that?
Miriam Schulman:
To be honest, I think for me, writing during a global pandemic, throughout all that, and also having had very early experience when my father died when I was five years old. So having a [inaudible] experiences in addition, I had what I would call mortality motivation.
Linda Sivertsen:
Yep, me too.
Miriam Schulman:
I always felt like, well, I could die next year and I want this published. I want this out. I want this out. I don’t want to have a stillborn. I want to bring this out into the world. And just like our children aren’t always perfect and we love them anyway [inaudible] anyway.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, so true. So true. I don’t know how to have that mindset, though, because my parents died when I was in my thirties. To me, I felt like a midlife orphan was way too young. Certainly not as young as you were, so wow. So I’ve always had this really intense fear of time just slipping by, especially since there was a car accident with my grandparents, where I grew up in the shadow of the accident where family members were killed. So I always had that mortality clock ticking as a kid, as well. And yet I’m so fricking stubborn when it comes to creativity, that unless it’s the book that I want out there for eternity, I will not release it. So it’s a push/pull. There’s the part of me where the clock is always ticking, and the other part of me that’s like, “Nope, not going to do it.” So I take a [inaudible].
Miriam Schulman:
How was it with your first book? How long did it take you to write that one?
Linda Sivertsen:
It was six years. It was a long time. It’s interesting. I have a big fear of early death, but an overall sense I’m going to have a long life. So I trust that sense. Some people don’t have that sense, and my ex-husband always thought he was going to die young. He has not, but he always thought he would. So I think if I had that sense, I probably would’ve been more worried.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. It’s like my grandmother who lived to her nineties who always thought she was going to die young.
Linda Sivertsen:
Wow.
Miriam Schulman:
They didn’t.
Linda Sivertsen:
That’s amazing.
Miriam Schulman:
When you were writing that book, now, this is the part that I did find confusing, it sounded like you had gotten a book contract in the beginning. Was that not true? Did I misunderstand that? So when you were writing during those five years, you didn’t have an agent or a publisher?
Linda Sivertsen:
No. I think the agent in this book, in Beautiful Writers, the agent comes around the middle of the book, where I get an agent, maybe a little earlier, maybe the first third. At the end of the first third, the agent comes in, but then the agent couldn’t sell it. So I’m working on the book. I sent the whole book to the agent. You’re supposed to send a query, and if the agent wants to see the book, then you mail a proposal and some sample chapters. I did not do that. I just mailed 400 pages of a manuscript to an agent in New York, my only choice, just to one guy, breaking all the rules. Fortunately, he wanted it, but then he was like, “Okay, you need a book proposal.” I had no idea what that was. I’d never heard of one.
I wrote one. And then he started getting rejections. So it was a year, a whole year process where I’m just in agony as he’s getting rejections. The rejections are totally all over the place. Some are saying, “The people Linda’s interviewed are too famous. Everybody knows all about them.” And then some people are saying, “The people in this anthology aren’t famous enough. You need bigger names.” So I just felt like it was so crazy making, and it took a long time. It took over a year of me revising, revising, revising, and chasing celebrities, which is part of the storyline, part of the tragedy and craziness of it, that I think makes it funny.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, it’s beautiful. I really related to you when you decided to move from the suburbs of Hollywood, because I’ve made a similar move recently. I was living in Scarsdale, New York, in the suburb I think would be peaceful. But the goddamn leaf blowers [inaudible] gardener, and it’s like all day long somebody else’s is firing up. And now that I live in a city, it’s so peaceful, which is crazy.
Linda Sivertsen:
Wow. No kidding.
Miriam Schulman:
I live in the back of a building on Riverside Drive, so there’s no neighbors. I face the back.
Linda Sivertsen:
And you go to the river.
Miriam Schulman:
Go to the river.
Linda Sivertsen:
Yeah. I heard you talking about your husband on the tractor. My husband has several tractors. That’s his favorite thing in the world is to be on the back of a tractor.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, so we split our time between New York City, and we have a house where my husband gets to ride a tractor. What does your writing process look like now, Linda? Because I’m only halfway through your book, and you had a five-year-old son and were just grabbing time when you can. So now that your child has left the nest, what does your writing process look like now?
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, it’s so much easier. My god. It’s just a world of difference. When you have a young kid, you’re thinking, “All right, I got to steal time wherever I can get it.” You’re always eyeing the clock or the door or something. But you also worry, or at least I did, about is he going to write a tell-all one day saying that his mommy was absent? Because I think it’s hard for a kid when they see you there, but you’re not available. It’s almost worse than if you just had an office and you left. I think people, in general, husbands, friends, sisters, partners, they all feel kid. They feel more ignored if you’re there and unavailable, than if you’re not there. Or at least-
Miriam Schulman:
Completely disagree with that.
Linda Sivertsen:
Really?
Miriam Schulman:
Yes. Since I walked away from my Wall Street job when my daughter was 18 months old. So since then, or whenever it was now, I can’t even remember the time, but I had my art business in my home, and I found my kids really didn’t care how much I paid attention to them. And even now, even now, it’s not how much I pay attention to them, they would like me in the next room just miserable.
Linda Sivertsen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
They want me there. [inaudible]
Linda Sivertsen:
You know, my son did. That’s interesting. I’m going to reframe it, because my son does tell me he has very fond memories of going to bed at night in his bedroom that was across the hall from my office. And he would see my office light on, and he would go to sleep very comforted by, “Okay, Mommy’s home and Mommy’s working and Mommy’s safe, and it’s peaceful, and I can go to sleep happy.” What I’m more talking about is the middle of the day where he wants me to watch something on TV with he and his dad. And when you’re a writer, I don’t know how, I’m not an artist as far as painting and drawing like you are. I don’t know, can you have a conversation when you’re painting? Because, boy, when you’re writing a paragraph and you’re trying to figure out what that correlation is between the memory and the dream and the thing that actually happened and you’ve been working on it for four hours, and it makes no damn… Forget trying to interrupt. It’s hard. So you tell me.
Miriam Schulman:
For me, at least, it’s the same. My creativity, it doesn’t matter whether it’s on a canvas, on the page, it takes that introspection. I need to get out of my own head sometimes, but not into somebody else’s.
Linda Sivertsen:
Okay. So I think it’s both. I think you’re right. I never missed a little league game. I never missed a tennis match. I never didn’t cook lunch and dinner. I was there. The house was always clean. There was classical music playing, big award for Mom stuff. Always. The garden was always… There was always something growing to eat, whatever. I did it all. But he does remember me being unavailable, and that’s hard. That’s hard.
Miriam Schulman:
And you’re sure that’s not your thought? He said that to you?
Linda Sivertsen:
No, he says it. He says it. But juxtapose with Dad, who was a stay-at-home mostly actor who watched movies all day long. They were buddies, they were [inaudible]. Now my son has actually started a business where it’s been a startup, and he’s had to devote three years full time. He’s like, “Oh my god, Mom, I get it. I’m sorry.” There’s been some healing.
Miriam Schulman:
He’s like 24, 25?
Linda Sivertsen:
Thirty-two. Thirty-two. But there was wounding. There was wounding in the divorce where probably none of us could give him enough. And he’s the first… I’m not saying anything out of turn, he’s the first to talk about it. So it’s all good. We’re all flawed, we’re all just trying to do our best. But I am a dogged, relentless over-writer. Maybe I could have released my stuff a lot faster. I just was too perfectionistic.
Miriam Schulman:
But let’s circle back. I’m not sure you answered the question what your writing process looks like now.
Linda Sivertsen:
Oh, sorry. Oh, it’s so nice. It’s so nice. With this book, I had the deadline. So before I got the deadline, I really delved. It was COVID, my retreat business was shut down because I couldn’t travel. I hadn’t yet developed the virtual retreat, and I was so surprised by how much I loved them. But I didn’t have them for about a year, so I just wrote. It was kind of heaven. I just wrote all day every day, and I would say 50 hours a week. Got my samples together, got my book proposal together, shopped to agents, did that whole interview process, chose the agent.
Then once we had a book deal, then it was more farmers or bankers hours. I would wake up. My husband knew I wasn’t going to go for a hike in the morning, I wasn’t going to walk the dogs in the morning, just straight to the office. I just wrote until lunch, had lunch with him, wrote again until dinner, had dinner with him, wrote again in the evenings till bedtime. Just kind of all the time. But it felt sane, if that makes sense. It doesn’t sound sane, but it felt like it was. I was still touching base with everybody a couple times a day.
Miriam Schulman:
Do you feel very revved up? Do you have trouble sleeping, like you wake up in the night thinking about your book?
Linda Sivertsen:
No, I’m a good sleeper that way, but I’m not a long sleeper. When my child was young, I wrote at 3:00 in the morning, got my alarm for 3:00 AM, always wrote from 3:00 to 6:30, then got him ready for school, went and did the mom thing. But that was my thing. If I could get that morning time, I felt like I was having an affair. I was taking care of me. Everything else was beautiful. Nowadays… Wait, I forgot your question. Sorry. What was the gist?
Miriam Schulman:
I know myself that when I work on my business… I’m an artist business coach. I do a lot of writing. Not just for the book now, but since I wrote the book, I’m relying way less, actually not at all. I used to rely on the past on copywriters helping me. Now I’m like, I wrote a book. I can do this myself. So I’m doing a lot of writing, and I feel very revved up all the time, that I’ll get ideas in the night and I’m always in my head thinking about my creativity, whatever that creativity right now… The book is more or less to bed, because I’m going to get the second pass soon. But all my writing that I’m doing from my business and the videos I create and my art and all of it, I’m very revved up. So I’ll wake up wide awake in the middle of the night. I’m just like [inaudible].
Linda Sivertsen:
I do not. I do not.
Miriam Schulman:
You do, as well.
Linda Sivertsen:
No, I wake up early. I’ll wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 ready to go, always. I have so many ideas. And once I wake up, forget it. It’s almost impossible to go back to sleep, so I just start. I love, love, love creating before the world wakes up, but I don’t wake up in the middle of the night.
Miriam Schulman:
[inaudible] or do you have some sort of routine to set that sacred boundary with your writing?
Linda Sivertsen:
I used to. I used to call it my bed office. My husband used to go to work, he used to get up at around 4:00, 4:30. He ran waste management in Southern California. The drivers, those guys were up and driving at 4:00 AM. So he’d clear 400 emails by 4:30 in the morning, and that was heaven, because I could sit in my bed office, he’d be gone, and just delve. The dogs don’t want to go out at 4:00 in the morning or 4:30, so the dogs would be asleep, and I could write straight through uninterrupted until… because my kid was in college, so I could write uninterrupted until about 8:00 when it was time to take the dogs out. So that was pretty freaking amazing. And actually a lot of the book that you’re reading was written in those hours.
Not anymore. Now what happens is I’ll still wake up around 5:00. If I can, I’ll write for about an hour in bed before I get up. But then once I get up, we have eight dogs, we have five horses. One of our horses is pregnant. There’s so much going on. We’re hiking. It’s a lot harder, even though it’s a lot easier without the kid. I just have to figure out the hours, and then I can get back to the office. But it’s not that bed office, juicy, quiet time in the morning. My husband’s retired, and he’s home and ready to hike or ride horses or whatever.
Miriam Schulman:
Still sounds nice. [inaudible] the outdoors helping you [inaudible].
Linda Sivertsen:
Yeah, it’s nice.
Miriam Schulman:
We’re going to wrap up soon, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows about your book proposal course. Before we talk about that, though, I just want to share something for the listeners who may not know. In 2020, in the beginning, I decided I wanted to write a book. And it was towards the end, towards the middle, towards the end, I think I found you in August of that year, I heard Gretchen Rubin say, “Oh, if it’s nonfiction, you don’t have to write the book. You write a book proposal.” And I was like, “Really? I’m off the hook.” I know, I’ll just write a proposal and then I will send that out. So that’s where Linda came in, by the way. It was like, “Okay, here, this is how you write a proposal.” So could you tell our listeners what that’s about and how they can learn more about your book [inaudible]?
Linda Sivertsen:
Sure. It’s really the book about your book. Business plans are the precursor to starting a business. You don’t build a house without plans, without a foundation, and publishers are the same way. Actually, publisher doesn’t want to publish a book without a proposal where they can see kind of the business plan, the layout of the entire thing, including things like who are you, and why are you the person to do it, and what are your marketing ideas, yada yada? So there’s this whole industry of book proposals, and I just happen to be one of those freaky weird people who just loves the selling process. I love book proposals.
I can be intimidated by all sorts of things in life, but I’m not intimidated by this thing that most people are. So I’ve just had really a lot of luck with it over decades, helping people write book proposals that got them nice big advances, because that’s the idea behind it. You don’t waste years writing a book, not that it’s ever a waste, but a lot of people don’t want to take the time to write a book and then have it rejected. So the idea is you write the business plan about the book, see if you can sell it, then they’ll give you money to go sit on your ass and get it done. And I think you found me with Book Proposal Magic, which is a course that I teach.
Miriam Schulman:
And if people don’t want to do it that way, are you going back in person with the Carmel-by-the-Sea with all the [inaudible]?
Linda Sivertsen:
I love my Carmel writing retreats. Yes. In 2023, maybe I’ll do one. We’ll see. But I do virtual now. I have one in December coming up, and they’re really intimate. There are only five people, so they’re super hands-on. I still help people get literary agents. It’s just like going to Carmel with the ocean. But I will, I’ll start those up again in 2024, for sure, in person.
Miriam Schulman:
Fantastic. We will include the links to all those places, Linda’s website and her book proposal course, and you can find out about any retreats, and the show notes are schulmanart.com/230. By the way, don’t forget, if you want to get your hand on the Artpreneur Affirmations, art journal, inspirational, artpreneur, whatever I’m calling it, class, head on over to artpreneurbook.com, pre-order the book, Artpreneur, enter your name, email, and order number, and you’ll get instant access to the Artpreneur Affirmations class. That’s the only way you can get this class. Normally, I would charge several hundred dollars for a class like that, but for you, totally free bonus when you buy the book. All right, Linda, do you have any last words from our listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Linda Sivertsen:
The one thing that people keep telling me they leave with, with the book Beautiful Writers, is the idea that I say over and over in the book, which is, “If you have the ache, you have what it takes.” So it doesn’t matter if you have the schooling, it doesn’t matter if you have the money. It doesn’t matter if you feel insecure, if you were bullied for being stupid, which I was, like on and on, none of that matters. If you have the ache, trust it. Something’s talking to you, your muse, your god, your higher self, your joy, something knows what you need to be doing, and trust it. It’s magic.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that. That’s a beautiful place to stop. All right, Linda, thank you so much for being with me here today.
Linda Sivertsen:
I had a blast. Thank you, Love Bug.
Miriam Schulman:
All right. Thank you everyone for listening. I’ll see you at the same time, the same place next week. Stay inspired.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart, and, of course, on schulmanart.com.
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