Episode 100
Tiffany Yates Martin on How to Create a Delightful Writing Career - 100
Tiffany Yates Martin started in the publishing industry in her twenties as a copy editor for many of the Big Six (back then), when the business still used red pencils and to fact-check she had to spend a day at the New York Public Library in the stacks. For the last fifteen-plus years as a developmental editor she’s worked directly with authors as well as through major publishing houses, on titles by New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal bestselling and award-winning authors as well as manuscripts for indie-published and newer writers.
In her thirty years in the industry, Tiffany has seen thousands of writers' weather publishing’s constant ups and downs. Some seem to always land on their feet and some flame out; some hold on to the joy and satisfaction in creating that first sparked them to become an author, while others lose heart, confidence, or hope.
The difference between success and struggle has little to do with the publishing industry itself, despite its many challenges and how many variables are outside the creator’s control—but rather with the author. Those who sustain and succeed are the authors who know why they write, what they want from their career, and how to take the reins in creating a fulfilling, joyful writing career they can happily maintain for a lifetime.
Writers are so often given the advice to persist and be resilient if they want to create a successful career—but what does that actually mean, and how do you do it? Tiffany talks about practical, actionable ways to handle the most common issues, obstacles, and pitfalls of being an author: from practical issues like writer’s block, feedback and rejection, and advocating yourself as an author; to managing the demons that so often beset creatives (impostor syndrome, comparison, procrastination) and staying motivated and confident; and how to integrate writing into a healthy, rewarding, well-rounded life.
Find her (along with her online course, weekly blog on craft and career, and lots of free resources) at: https://foxprinteditorial.com named as a Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers for the last two years in a row.
Buy her book Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide for Writers, here: https://foxprinteditorial.com/intuitive-editing/
A little about today's host-
Kristi Leonard is a modern Renaissance woman deeply rooted in the book world. When she's not immersed in crafting novels, she's orchestrating writing retreats through her business, Writers in the Wild, or lending her voice to non-fiction audiobooks. She leads the Women’s Fiction Writers Association as the president of the board, and interviews her writer pals as one of the hosts of the Author Express Podcast. She will start querying her first book in 2024.
Beyond the realm of words, Kristi embraces the Florida sunshine by hiking with her writer-hiker group and leisurely walks on the beach. She and her husband juggle a couple side businesses and take turns sharing the couch with their goofy Golden-doodle, Maddie. Kristi enjoys travel adventures with her twin sister and living vicariously through her grown children. You can learn more about her and connect at: https://linktr.ee/kristileonard.
Be sure to follow or subscribe to Author Express wherever you listen to podcasts and to follow us on Instagram @AuthorExpressPodcast
Learn more about our hosts, the guests we've had, and their books -
Transcript
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Kristi Leonard [:Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Christy Leonard, owner and host of Writers in the Wild Retreats, nonfiction voice over artist, and president of WFWA. I'm excited to share with you a little about today's guest.
Kristi Leonard [:Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly 30 years as an editor in the publishing industry working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today best selling and award winning authors, as well as indie and newer writers. She is the founder of Fox Print editorial and author of intuitive editing. And her new book, The Intuitive Author, How to Grow and Sustain a Happier Writing Career, comes out on October 15th. Under her pen name, Phoebe Fox, she is the author of 6 novels. She is a regular contributor to writers outlets like Writer's Digest, Jane Friedman, and Writer Unboxed, and a frequent presenter and keynote speaker for writers organizations around the country, including the Women's Fiction Writers Association a few years back, which is where I met her. Welcome, Tiffany.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:It's nice to see you again.
Kristi Leonard [:It is. So we typically talk about works of fiction. But today, we're going to talk about a little something different. We're going to get to that in a few. But for now, we always start with the same question. And hopefully, I don't throw you too far off. Tell me the most interesting thing about where you are from. And it doesn't have to be where you were born.
Kristi Leonard [:It doesn't have to be where you live now. It can be somewhere you've lived before, but give us a little taste of somewhere where you're from.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:Well, I was born in California and then went to New Jersey and then grew up in Georgia and then moved to New York, Florida, and Texas. Wow. So probably the most interesting thing, and that's that has nothing to do with being in, like, a military family, which is also weird. I just move a lot. So probably the most interesting thing is that I don't know that I necessarily feel that I am from anywhere. I guess as much as anywhere, probably Georgia. But I left when I was pretty close out of college, and I always feel like home is where you make it. And I tend to travel and find places that feel like home.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:And I like to see new places and meet new people.
Kristi Leonard [:Well, I think that is absolutely a valid answer because I have also lived in many of the places you've lived. I've lived in Florida and Texas and California and lots of places and also not military. So I can actually completely understand what you're talking about. I'm actually back in Florida. I grew up in Florida. And now I'm back in Florida. So I guess Florida is really my.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:That's what I was gonna ask. Is that what you consider home?
Kristi Leonard [:Now I do. Yeah, absolutely.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:That's how I feel about Austin. It's home now.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah, absolutely. So we like to sort of get to know you a little bit. We talk to a lot of authors, and you are a novelist as well as an author of craft books. And it doesn't have to be related to either of those things. But what would you say is the best piece of advice that anyone has ever given to you?
Tiffany Yates Martin [:I'll tell you, it doesn't have anything to do with writing necessarily, except it does. And it's funny that it does tie into my new book incidentally. My mom always told us that you are as happy as you choose to be on the path you're on. I refer to that advice all the time because I think life hands us situations and we do have a certain amount of autonomy and control, which is kind of the foundation of the new book, but then there's also a lot outside of our control and you can be moan the parts that don't turn out the way you want, or you can find the joy in where you are. So I think thanks to her and that advice, I've always been able to kind of find my center no matter what's going on around me.
Kristi Leonard [:That is very excellent advice. So we talked about the fact that this is not a normal we're not talking about any of your fiction books. And we'll get to the fiction books later because, of course, people are gonna wanna find out about them. But I'm really actually excited to talk to you about your newest book because for me as an author and writer, I find it's very well timed.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:I was hoping it would be for you and everyone.
Kristi Leonard [:Yes, me and everyone.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:It's tough out there right now.
Kristi Leonard [:It is really tough out there right now. So I would like for you this is different because it's not a novel. But if you can summarize your book, the one we're gonna be talking about, which is not a novel, how would you summarize it in one sentence? You're an editor. You're gonna have this down.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:So keep it brief, editor. I would say what I've been describing it as is that the intuitive author is a survival guide for writers. It, this is a challenging I've been in publishing for 30 plus years, and this is as tough an environment as I've ever seen, but it also has all this opportunity. And I think writers have a chance to have more agency over their own careers than they've ever had. I guess it does kind of tie into my mom's quote because the industry is what it is right now. And we get to decide what we want our day to day writing career to look like within the framework of what it is.
Kristi Leonard [:Definitely. And I think that it's interesting for the readers that are listening to this podcast to even understand that the things have changed.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:Yeah. Like basically for readers who may not, I always assume, you know, I'm usually talking to authors, but for the lay reader, literally 2,000,000 books are published every year. So that's an author's competition. And I don't know if a lot of readers know this, but most writers don't make a living from their writing and they have day jobs. I'm putting that in air quotes. Yeah. It's a lot harder than I think people realize. And just because you get a book deal doesn't mean suddenly you're a big deal.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:You know what I mean? You might get a 6 figure payday with 1 book, and then nobody will buy your second book. There's no guarantees. There's no safety net. It's like any other creative career.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. Absolutely. Well, having seen you teach, I've had the privilege of learning a few things about you that aren't in your bio. And hopefully, this isn't a hidden thing, but you used to be an actor and you have some very great stories. I'm hoping some of those are in your book. But how has your time in that pursuit informed the writing of intuitive author?
Tiffany Yates Martin [:I reference acting because there are so many parallels with any creative career. And acting has a lot of the same challenges, which is to say a lot of competition, not a lot of compensation, not a lot of reliability, no safety net. And so I talk about the parallels with that, but what I've always been grateful for several things As an editor and a writer and a teacher of craft, it's been incredibly helpful in focusing me on character in great ways because when you're an actor, you get a script and all you have to go on is the dialogue on the page. And you, from that, you have to create an entire human being who is real and fully fleshed. And all the things you do to figure out who that person is as an actor are so relevant to writing. The other thing it's been great for is, well, 2 things. 1, I remember the day I quit acting, I thought, wow, I never have to face rejection again.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, boy.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:Yeah. And then I went into writing. But the good thing about it is that well, I guess good in hindsight. The rejection in acting is right there to your face for the most part. You can be in the middle of your audition and they will cut you off and go, thank you. Next. Oh, yeah. It's brutal.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:Ouch. They I was at a meeting once with a casting director, and they just look at you like you're a commodity, which you are. True. But it's hard to divorce yourself from that. And they have said things to me like this is direct quote. Your nose is globular. Yeah. And so what do you do with that? It feels very personal, even if as an actor, you know, one of the skills you have to master is don't take it personally.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:But I'll tell you what, Christie, if you can sit there and take that right to your face, there ain't no rejection as a writer that's gonna hurt you.
Kristi Leonard [:Maybe we have a new thing for authors that we all need to go out and become actors so that we can handle our writing rejection.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:And then the other good thing, and I also did improv, is that it's made me very comfortable on my feet talking to people, and it's made me very flexible. Like, I show must go on, and, you know, if the lead actor drops dead, the understudy steps in and you carry on. And so that's really stood me in good stead. I do a lot of teaching and speaking now. And so I feel like no matter what comes at me, I got it.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. Absolutely. 100%. So after putting so much thought into writing this book, what do you want our listeners who aren't authors or who are to understand about novelists or any creatives, really?
Tiffany Yates Martin [:Well, you know, I have a theory that creativity is not necessarily something that the select few are called to. I think it's a human instinct. But I think for some of us, it's shamed out of us, or it's drilled out of us, or it's not practical. And so we let it go or we think it's something children do. So we put it behind us, but I do think there's something really precious and universal about being in touch with your creative impulses. So I guess I would say if you are a book lover, it occurs to me that you are probably enjoying losing yourself in that story. And that might be hitting that creative chord and somebody worked really hard and took the emotional vulnerable chance of sharing this most intimate part of themselves. And it means something to you obviously, or you wouldn't be a regular reader.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:And so I hope that would give people courage to maybe get back in touch with their own creativity. I really think it's incredibly human and joyful.
Kristi Leonard [:So I wonder if we flip that on its head and could help authors see how readers are connecting with them and that most personal part of themselves that's coming out in their writing. Is that kind of what you're going after in writing your intuitive author book?
Tiffany Yates Martin [:It's one of the things I do talk about. We have to identify sort of our driving force of why we do this, because that's going to be the engine for us to be able to have the persistence and resilience we're always told we have to have to weather all the many vagaries of this business. So I do think that we find that center by remembering why we did this in the first place. And for a lot of us, it was that creative impulse. It was wanting to tell the stories in our head. It was maybe a love of language, But I I really believe that for many of us, I would almost say most of us, the creative impulse doesn't find completion until it hits another person. Because you create what you think you have created, but the person taking it in completes that circuit, what they bring to it. And the story may not mean to them what it meant to you.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:They may find different resonance in it.
Kristi Leonard [:They have their own lens.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:They have their own lens, but that connection between the 2, I think is something as writers. Not that you write for that because you can't know how it's going to hit someone, but I do think that 2 most meaningful moments in my artistic career, well, one was as an actor, one as a writer. As an actor, it was someone in the audience who gave us a one person standing ovation at the end of a show with tears streaming down his face.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that's awesome.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:And I thought, this guy went through something because of what we're doing up here. And the other was a woman who told me that my first four books, which is a series called The Breakup Doctor, got her through chemo.
Kristi Leonard [:Wow.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:And so for me, it was that connection with somebody knowing that something I had created out of my head made a meaningful connection that offered someone something important for them. I think if we stay in touch with that, that can be a big part of what keeps us hanging in there when it may seem like a lot of things are working against us in this business.
Kristi Leonard [:Absolutely. Well, it calls to mind I mean, I have a 1,000,000 friends that are authors on social media and not even every so often, very frequently, I see the request out to the void, leave a review. If you liked my book, leave a review. And that's one way I think that readers can actually close that loop and, like, help the author understand that they did get it or they did get something out of it.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:Well, yes, that, I mean, that's incredibly meaningful, but also I hope readers know how much those reviews help authors because the algorithms, the mysterious, great and mighty algorithms of all of these book sales sites operate on things like that. And it helps that book have more visibility so more readers can discover it, but also so can talking about that book, telling your friends about that book, putting it on your social media, making sure your library carries it. There's a million ways that people can support authors if they want to help bring more stories into the world.
Kristi Leonard [:Yes, absolutely. So we talked a little bit about your fiction books and you said you have a series. Where is the best place for people to find you? Do you have a website?
Tiffany Yates Martin [:I used to have 2 because I do write under a pen name Phoebe Fox, but I write in the new book. I write about the demons, which are these internal negative voices that we all have. And one of mine has been imposter syndrome. And I realized that one of the reasons I kept the identities separate was fear. And I didn't because I am mostly an editor and that's how I identify and I didn't want, I realized I was scared. My reason I said was because, oh, I don't want people to think that editing is not my top priority because it is. But I realized that part of the real reason was I was afraid of what people might think of my work. And that didn't seem fair.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:So anyway, then I put everything under one umbrella. And now it's all at foxprinteditorial.com. All of my books are on the books page, the nonfiction as well as the Phoebe Fox books.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that is awesome. So we always end with what book or story inspires you the most? Which I think is interesting because you probably edited a lot of books.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:You know I have and thousands literally. And this is a question I always dread because I feel like I'm playing favorites, so I'm gonna cheat it a little bit, and I'm gonna use a nonfiction one that actually really did shape my whole career. Solstine was an editor. Oh gosh. I guess in the fifties sixties, also an author. And he wrote 2 books, Stein on writing and how to grow a novel. And those books, I read them very early in my editing career and I think they were instrumental in making me the editor I became and honestly the writer I became and probably influenced my own writing about writing.
Kristi Leonard [:That's awesome. Well, so if we have any listeners who are readers who think they might wanna write, then maybe those are the places they start, those books.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:They're a great start.
Kristi Leonard [:It has been an absolute pleasure, very quick. This went by probably quicker than any other conversation I've had, which is crazy. But we are at the end of our show, and I just have to thank you so much for being willing to do something a little different with me, and good luck with the book. I know it's gonna be really popular. I'm telling all my friends about it.
Tiffany Yates Martin [:No. Thank you. This was so much fun, Christy. Thanks for having me on.
Kristi Leonard [:Absolutely.
Kristi Leonard [:Thanks for joining us. We hope you take a second to give us stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform, platform, and we'll be here again next Wednesday. Follow us on Instagram at author express podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.
