Welcome to The Writing Coach. On this podcast, I speak with the instructors, editors, coaches, and mentors who help writers and authors create their art, build their audience, and sell their work.
In episode #114 of The Writing Coach podcast, I speak with author and writing coach Susan Crossman.
Susan is a best-selling author, a speaker, an editor, and a content marketing consultant who wields the power tool of language to benefit people who seek greater success.
Through her content marketing company, Content with Clarity/Crossman Communications, Susan and her team create high-quality online content that helps businesses connect with their target audience. As a book coach and editor, Susan helps entrepreneurs and others create the books that will support their businesses, their hearts, and their careers.
During our discussion, Susan describes:
- Why she returned to school for a MA in English literature after already launching a successful career as a journalist
- What she learned about book marketing from working with her publisher on her first book
- Why she considers the brain magical territory worth studying
- How the loss of a dear loved one inspired her to pursue her publishing career
- Why writing a first book is so difficult
- How the conversations we have with ourselves impact our results
- The surprising circumstances regarding how she accidentally ended up in a coaching certification program
- And much more!
Listen to the full podcast episode:
Watch the video of the conversation:
The Writing Coach Episode #114 Show Notes
Episode Transcript
Today on the podcast I have Susan Crossman. Susan, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, Kevin. It’s a delight to be here.
Can you let the listeners know a bit about who you are and what you have going on in the world of publishing and helping authors?
I have the best job in the world in that I help people who are trying to make a difference in the world, write a book that shares their message while supporting their business. And I do that as a book coach and an editor. I come from a long background, as a writer myself. I have had many, many years in the field of writing through journalism and government communications and corporate communications and marketing copywriting and all that kind of thing. And somewhere along the way, I had this dream of becoming a published author and set out to write my first book. And of course that took me 13 years. So I’ve learned a lot about writing books just from doing it myself, but also from the other side of things as, as a professional writer. Fantastic.
It sounds like writing has been a huge part of your life for a very long time. Does that go right back to childhood? What are some of your first memories of putting words down on the page?
Boy, I think it takes one to know one Kevin, to even ask that question, that’s really astute of you because I was that little girl that curled up into the apple tree in my backyard with, with some paper and a pencil and I would spend hours and hours and hours writing, scribbling, writing, little stories and legends and complaints about my sister and just anything that came into my head, I would be up there in that tree writing. And
When you ended up going to university, I think you have an MA in English? Is that correct?
Yes, I, well, yes I do. I have a BA in political science, you know, and initially, I wanted to be a journalist. And so the choices at the time were to go to journalism school, which was kind of the obvious pick, or do something else. And it seemed to me that a journalist should have a really good background in politics and history and philosophy and all that kind of thing. So that’s the path that I took for my undergraduate degree and then got into journalism after that. And it wasn’t for many years that I got back to school because yeah, I, I, I really wanted an English degree and I was being very practical as a young person, trying to prepare myself for my career in journalism. And, but really my love was English. And so I went back as an adult and did my master’s degree in English at that point.
How many tears was that between the undergrad and then the time spent as a practicing journalist?
I got right into journalism after my undergraduate degree and I was very lucky. I think I was also pretty determined because when I went to go get a job after my degree, I was told I’m sorry, but we only hired journalism graduates. And so I was kind of flummoxed at the time, but I got freelance positions and I worked part-time at a daily newspaper and really worked hard and did my best. And I did a lot of on the side learning and eventually they gave me a full-time job, which I was really, really happy about.
I remember when I did my master’s in English, I remember one of the profs saying, we love people who come out of journalism into this program because journalists understand you need great opening lines and hooks. And they were saying that the people who studied English during their undergrad, they’re like, they just assume that the prof wants to read their words. Whereas journalists, understand you need to earn the reader’s attention.
That’s a good way to put it. You sure do. You do not waste time in journalism or words?
That was such great training and all the jobs that I had were such great training for book writing, because you learn to become very spare with language and effective. And you, I mean, in, in, um, news organization, you are edited all the way up the line. Like was, as a Cub reporter, I would have had three or four editors looking at my work before it ever got published, which, you know, they’re all looking for different things, but the, the final draft didn’t look much like the first draft in the beginning. So you, you, you learn from being edited and that was just such a great training ground.
You have several books. It’s interesting, both nonfiction books, books on writing, as well as novels. Tell me about this breadth of publishing that you’ve done.
It’s pretty cool because that dream of writing that first book, that 13 year project to finish and get published was such a proving ground for me. And I ended up with a traditional publishing contract, which was really lucky, you know, not, not everybody gets that. And so I, uh, well, a funny story about that, you know, a lot of authors are also interested in marketing their books, and I was so excited to get my book published that I went out and I had a website put together and it was all themed around my book and I spent a lot of money on it. And then my publisher came to me the next year and said, so have you got any short stories? And of course I had short stories, I’m a writer. I like to play with short stories and everything. And so the next year we brought out a collection of my short stories.
Well, that first website was useless at that point because it had nothing to do with anything, but the first book. So, so that was really fun. And then, uh, a year or so later, my publisher came out and said, you know, you’ve been writing a really long time. How about a book about how to write? And I thought, well, heck yeah, you know, I’ve always wanted to share what I’ve learned about writing in a book. So that became book number three. And by then it kind of a little story. If I can backtrack a bit in that, the part of what took me so long to write my book and what got me writing was I, I was home with five kids, uh, stepchildren and, you know, kind of a blended family. And we moved a lot, my husband and I, and, and then he got sick, he got cancer and then died.
It was, it was tough. My littlest kids were seven and nine at the time. It was a huge shift in my life. And I had an unfinished novel on my hands. And after Steve passed away, one of the reorientation and projects I had was okay, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? And holy cow, it can be ripped away at any time. And so I figured I better finish that book just to see if I could, because if I didn’t do that, I might not know if I could finish and get published. And so that became my big motivator was okay. I don’t know how much time I have left. Of course it was pretty traumatic all around, but that was one of the projects that came out of that at the same time, I’d been home looking after my family for a number of years and with the bread winner gone, I had to get giddy up going here and start earning an income to support my kids.
And so I rrecalibrated as a content marketing consultant. I’ve been doing copywriting for many years and, and now this thing called the internet had come along while I’d been making babies. And so I had to learn everything I could learn about online marketing. And so I had created a content marketing business around my skillset. And so my publisher for that fourth book came up to me and said, you do this thing called content marketing. And I said, yeah, I love content marketing. It is so cool. And so he said, how about a book, a book, content marketing. And so that became the fourth book. So I’ve been very nurtured by my publisher as a traditional publisher will do. And then for the fifth book, that was a co-authoring project with one of my editing clients. And she came up to me and said, you know what?
You do content marketing. I do referral marketing. Let’s do a book about referral marketing and how you support your referral network with your online content, which was such a great idea. And so that became the fifth book was your personal marketing playbook. So yeah, it’s, my author and career has just kind of showed up for me. And, uh, I think too, what I’ve discovered and I, I share this with my coaching and editing clients too, is that first book is really hard. You don’t have a skillset around writing a book. You don’t know what’s coming, you don’t know how to do anything. And so you’re creating a skillset around book writing with that first book. Well, the second book, you kind of know the lay of the land. And so it’s a lot easier. And the other part of that is from a neurological perspective, with the first book, you don’t have a neural network that supports book writing your brain is really chugging along, trying to figure out how do I do this? Well we’re of course, with the next books, there is a map in your brain for doing this. And so it’s a much easier project forever, for all reasons. You know, it’s really, really kind of neat. So that’s, that’s about it for me. That’s how I’ve fallen into writing books. It’s a passion for me and I love helping other people get their books written too. It’s it’s such a satisfying thing when one of my clients’ books comes out, it’s a celebration.
I couldn’t agree more about the challenges of writing a first book. This is what I often talk to my clients about. You’re doing two things at once. You’re writing a book, but you’re also learning how to write a book. Right? Very few people have an education in fiction writing or book writing in general. And, even if they do, book knowledge versus the practical application is a whole other thing. Even if you understand story structure, you’re still figuring out your own habits, your own strengths, your own weaknesses. So I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen with my own clients, I’ve seen that leap hugely forward from one book to the next, but I’ve never thought about it in neurological pathway terms. And I know you have training in neuro-linguistic programming. It seems like you’re interested in the brain aspect of coaching. Could you tell me a bit more about that?
I am fascinated by the brain. I think that’s the command center for everything for us and our internal world affects our external world in so many ways. And I believe it’s a lot about the conversations we have with ourselves that impact our results. And actually that’s what my, my master’s thesis was on, was how conversations with ourselves and others affect the results we get. And that comes down to what’s happening in our brain and in our interior internal messaging. And then that’s another skill set around writing a book is what, what are you saying to yourself while you’re writing your book? And so that’s, that’s become something I’ve invested a lot in, and our brains are magical. Territory’s really, and so much happens in there. Even small, small injuries as children will affect our personalities when we’re older. And again, personality impacts the way we write our books, but we can change the messaging that we have to become more powerful.
And so, um, so for example, who am I to write? A book is something I hear a lot from my clients. And I share my stuff in that first book who’s ever going to read. Any book I write was another message that I was giving myself. And a lot of people that I work with and probably you too, you know, that’s, there’s a lot self-doubt that comes in, but if you change that messaging to people might be waiting for the book that only I can write, then that there’s a shift that happens. And actually Kevin I’ve become involved with an organization called positive prime and positive prime has, oh, it’s the neatest thing. They have a series of videos that are keyed with affirmations and music. And so positive prime is priming your brain to change your results. So if you aren’t getting the results in life and in writing that you’re looking for, you play these videos and they’re very uplifting and they are telling your brain things about yourself that are all uplifting, positive, inspiring, and just promoting a change in your thinking so that you can get different results. So I, um, there’s a, it’s a membership, a monthly membership that goes along with it, but there are dozens and dozens and dozens of videos there that are key to different aspects. It might be financial performance or weight loss or relationships. There is currently only one there about writing and I’m in the process right now of creating another writing one for them so that they, so we can help more writers get those great books written.
Let’s talk a little bit about how you made this leap from being an author yourself to helping edit and coach other authors. When did that happen? When did the idea of a book coach get on your radar?
The interesting thing about that is that I never really wanted to be a book coach. It wasn’t a goal. I’m a big goal setter and I set lots of goals in life. One of them never was to be a book coach. However, I had been editing always my whole career. I’ve always done editing. And as I was writing, my first book, people were coming to me asking for assistance to help edit their books, which I was doing, but not very seriously. It was mostly friends and clients. I knew really well. It wasn’t a serious thing. And I fell into a coaching program and I actually funny thing, it was a personal development program that I was looking for, but they also offered coaching certification. And I signed up for the personal development program and realized after the fact that I had mistakenly applied for the coaching certification program, which was, you know, that was a big mix-up and it was a lot more expensive than it was like, no, no, no.
Why do I want to be a coach? So I contacted the office and said, I’m sorry, I’ve made a mistake. And could you please put me in this, this personal development program instead, which happened to be built into the certification program and the lady in the office said, no, she said, no, no, you’re supposed to be in the certification program. And I said, well, no, no, I don’t think so. And she said, trust me. And so I thought, okay, I don’t know why I need this, but I’ll okay. I’ll bite. And so I got into this training program to become a certified coach and grew enormously from it. And, and all the way through to the end got my certification. I was sitting there going, well, I don’t know what I need this for. And, but I was doing a little bit of coaching and loved it.
And then as my business evolved and I was started to do more editing, I realized, well, wait a minute, people who are writing books actually need coaching. It’s like a really important part of getting to the finish line because there’s so much self-doubt. There’s so much misunderstanding around the publishing process. And of course I was becoming more mature as an author, myself and learning a lot about publishing and book marketing and so on. So I did a lot more training and, and learned a lot more about publishing and book marketing and you know, it all, it all came together. At some point, the light bulb went off and I thought, okay, I need to step into this in a big way, because there’s a huge need for people who are sensitive and compassionate and hold that safe space for people who are writing a book. And I want to be that person because I just feel it’s so valuable and so important. So I created some courses and programs around book coaching, and, and here we are today where it’s, it’s really all I do now. We don’t do the content marketing me and my team anymore. We we’ve gone a hundred percent into the book world. And it’s, it’s such a relief to have made that decision because it really is so fulfilling and so fun.
Something that’s interesting about you as a coach is I understand you primarily work with authors who are writing empowering books or books about changing the world for the better. Tell me a bit about that area of focus.
Well, sure. That is so, so interesting too, because as I have evolved who I am, I’ve become more clear about what I’m here to do as we do. As we get older, we get a little more certain about what we’re, what our legacy is and what we want to be standing up for in the world. And I have decided that really my, my work is about world peace and that’s my mission is to contribute in any way I can to world peace, well, son of a gun. Uh, isn’t it true that all of us have had that one book in our lives that made a huge difference that that left us with this breathless moment of understanding and, and know shifted our paradigms somewhat and created more peace in our own hearts. And, and so that’s what I’ve recognized now is that people who are writing books specifically to share an important message, are the people who are making a difference in the world and in supporting them, I can make my contribution to global peace because those books are really needed.
We have a world in crisis. I don’t know if anybody’s noticed this, but when you look around you, we have global warming. We have drought all over the place. We have war, we have conflict. We have well virus right now, we have domestic abuse has gone through the roof. We have child abuse, we have sexual abuse. I mean, this world is in crisis and it’s in crisis because people are in pain and they’re not acting properly. You know, they’re acting out of their pain rather than out of their peace. And so if we can support the people who are writing books that really touch the human heart and help people step forward into a loving way of being in the world, then we’re actually supporting what needs to be in place in order for more harmony to rain on the planet. And it sounds pretty Pollyanna to a lot of people, but this is, this is the truth, as I know it, and it’s a pretty exciting position for us to be in as book coaches, too, to be able to support the people who are writing those books.
Okay, this is a little bit off topic, but you’ve sparked a thought for me here. When I was starting my coaching business, almost a decade ago now, I was quite interested in online marketing and social media and all the opportunity that technology provided us with a decade ago. But like you, and like most of us I’m looking around, I’m seeing the world get worse, not better. And, and in my own efforts to kind of try to make a difference, I’ve largely stepped back from online marketing, particularly participating in social media and other things. So I’m curious, as someone who’s studied marketing, who’s clearly quite knowledgeable and skilled in that area, is there a relationship between technology taking over our lives and things seemingly getting worse out there?
Probably, you know, technology is a fabulous way to connect with people and you and I have connected over technology. So how wonderful is it that we get to have this conversation today? So there are some amazing benefits to it, but I do see people submerging themselves in their phones and having a life online and not so much in life offline. And I think there is a danger in that because how many people are actually reading. You know, when I, when I look at my website statistics, it’s really quite interesting because most of my web visitors are coming through, um, uh, not mobile browsers, but, uh, desktop desktop browsers, which I’m quite surprised at. And, and we have also been surprised that the ebook situation hasn’t turned around, you know, when eBooks started to be a thing, we thought we were going to be seeing all books, becoming books, which they haven’t well. And I mean, we’re still relying on it and it’s magnificent. I love technology. I think it enables so much in the world, but I think we, we do submerge ourselves in it a little bit too much. And you know, it’s great for book marketing, but people do need to read those books. So you’ve got to take time to do that.
That’s what’s really reinvested me in books and made me proud to be someone working on books is as we move more and more to this soundbite world, where people think they understand a topic because they read a headline on Facebook or something. I see books as the complete opposite of that, of the soundbite world, books are thoughtful pieces. Books are in-depth, books acknowledge that we live in a complicated world that can’t necessarily be summarized in some sort of black or white argument in a Facebook post or a forum argument.
Oh, you’re so right. Kevin, you are singing my tune. It is so, so true that that books change the world. And actually, I think we have important work to do as authors. If I look back over history, I see that the, the books that have been remembered and the authors that have been remembered have actually had pretty important things to say about the world around them. They are a reflection of the world around them. They’re the spokespeople for their generation. And so are we, we are the spokespeople for our generation and we hold a mirror up to society to say, Hey, look, this is what’s going on here. What do you think about this? And quite often the author will have a commentary about that. I mean, we all have opinions. We all have judgments. And so that’s really, our job is to be that reflective voice in our society so that people get the, get the soundbite, you know, like they, they might not read the whole book or remember the whole book, but they’ll remember how they felt about it. They’ll remember a few lines from it. They’ll remember the character, you know, there are things they remember that affect them going forward. And I that’s our job as authors is to do that work as nobody else is doing it.
Susan, I know you offer some limited one-on-one coaching. You also have courses, as you mentioned, and even live events. So tell the listeners about the various ways in which your company can help authors get their books out there and into the world.
Well, thank you for asking Kevin. That’s really nice. Yeah. So I have a number of courses. I offer a six week book writing, kickstart formula program, and it’s really designed to help people get started because a lot of people, according to my market research have a really hard time starting to write a book. So we start with that. And then I have a 12 month mastermind program that takes people all the way through that, that process of writing a book to getting it published and marketed. Um, they they’re, a lot of that program involves a writing clinic that I do. We have regular writing clinic meetings to help people write better. Because again, that’s something, a lot of people are insecure about their writing and they don’t need to be, you know, it’s a skill set. We get better at it over time.
When you say clinic, do you mean kind of a group where everyone’s writing together or something else? Tell me a little bit about what you mean by clinic.
It’s so powerful to people. Every time we meet. So we meet once a month for this. And two people are responsible for submitting a 1500 word portion of their books that they’ve been writing on. And the whole group then takes a look at that and provides feedback. It’s a scary thing to, to be in that position of having your work examined. Um, but you know, the whole world is going to read your book. So you better get used to sharing your writing now in a safe place, you know, where you have a chance to improve your writing. So everybody gives positive feedback. I, you know, I’m very particular about the kind of feedback that people give. I don’t know if you’ve been in writing groups like I have, where there are one or two so-called experts, self appointed writing experts, and they have a million opinions and they’ve never been published either.
So, you know, it’s, it’s not always valid, excuse me, um, feedback, but pardon me in this group, we have specific parameters around the feedback that we give. And then I will edit that feed that submission as well, so that people are getting professional editing feedback along the way, which gives them a chance to fine tune their writing and figure out what their, their problematic patterns are in their writing. So it’s, it’s, it’s really fun. Yeah. And we have a writing retreat every month and a whole lot of really, really fun and powerful components to that program. I also run a three-day offering event and that’s for anybody who’s considered writing a book, come on and let’s, let’s play with, with book writing. And it, the last one was in April. The next one is July nine to 11th. And then we also have one November 19th to the 21st in 2021.
And they’re really, really surprising events for people because three days, oh my gosh, who wants to sit for three days? But the people who come stay because it’s lively, it’s impactful. It normalizes book writing for people so that they have a safe place to try it on and experiment with their book and just see, well, you know, can I really do this? And the answer at the end of the three days is, well, heck yeah, you can, you know, you can do this, we can all do this. It’s just how we get there might be different for everybody. So that’s, that’s really exciting. Um, and I also have a membership community too. I have, uh, a six month membership community for people who just want to get together once or twice a month to talk about their book and, and feel some accountability. It’s a, it’s a lower cost initiative than any, anything else that I offer, but it’s, it keeps people connected to their book. And we talk about our books and as part of the, I call it the active voice writers community. And as part of that, they get the six week program included in it. So lovely.
I had this conversation with someone this week. It’s, it’s so unfortunate that in the film industry, a movie ends and the names just go, it’s like, oh, Steve took out the garbage on Thursdays, you know, and he gets his name in the credits. Everyone who touched this film is acknowledged. And in the book industry, we see that author’s name on the front and nothing else virtually. And I think it creates this myth that the book is this lone solitary project. And as you know, it is as collaborative as any other art form, especially if you want to be successful. And so whether it’s coaching, whether it’s a mastermind, whether it’s a retreat, whether it’s a membership program, those relationships and those interactions with other authors, other editors, other coaches, experts is so valuable to the process.
Success takes a team. Why, why wouldn’t you want to team around you to get to success? That’s you know, and, and, and it, I think part of it is our little hurt, little egos, you know, that we, we think we have to do it alone and, and we aren’t sure we can. And so we hide ourselves a little bit and don’t ask for help when actually it’s okay to need some help with this. Why, why shouldn’t you know how to write a book if you’ve never written before, when you wrote a bicycle for the first time you had some help with that. I mean, writing a book is a lot more complicated than riding a bicycle. So of course you might want some help with that. Yeah. Ask for help everybody it’s.
If people would like to get help from you and your team, where should we send them?
Well, they can email me directly susan@crossmancommunications.com and I’ll be happy to respond. And maybe if people aren’t quite ready for a conversation, I do have a free writing course that I offer to people. And that’s right, like a pro now.com. And that’s a three module writing program that helps people structure their writing better, right. With better style and also to write for better audience engagement. And that, that draws on all the experience that I’ve had throughout my career to boil it all down to some key pieces that help people just, just write a little better. And I think that I put that together because confidence is such an issue in this business that, um, you know, if you feel better about your writing, you’ll feel stronger about getting that book done.
Susan, I will put the links to all of that in the show notes for this episode. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show today.
Thank you, Kevin. What a delight to be here. I really appreciate everything that you do for authors. You have such a wonderful commitment to this business and we’re all blessed to have you doing your work. Thank you.
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