The Right Attitude to Lead with Jennifer Harshman

If you've ever wondered about the intricate dance of book reviews and the potential risks associated with purchasing them, you're in for a treat, as we invite Jennifer Harshman, a seasoned book coach, editor, and writing educator, to the discussion. We'll expose the potential pitfalls of review schemes and emphasize the potency of organic reviews – genuine responses from readers who've discovered and enjoyed your book.

Next, we navigate the intriguing terrain of multi-author books, using Jennifer's riveting project, Purposeful Leadership, as our compass. We delve into the thrilling challenges and rewards of managing multiple authors while maintaining a cohesive narrative. As we explore, we touch on the vital role of emotional intelligence and strategic planning in leadership and reveal the secret of balancing ego and flexibility for effective leadership.

Author, Editor, Educator, Writing & Book Coach, known as “The Book Baker”, Jennifer Harshman

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome back everyone to the Writers' Prayer issue. We are guiding author and writer dreams to a perfect landing and of course, we have another special episode. Today. I have one of my favorite friends and co-smart person about books. This is Jennifer Harshman. She's the book baker and we're going to come talk to her about a new book that she has out on a multi-author project called Purposeful Leadership. But of course we're going to go ahead and get the housekeeping out of the way. Of course we would love for you to smash that like button. Go ahead and subscribe on either YouTube or the podcast channel you're listening to us on right now. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook, instagram, tiktok, twitter and now on threads at Writers' Parachute. That's Writers' Parachute without an S. And if you would like to sign up to get weekly updates in your inbox, you can go to sinfoxcom, slash the Writers' Parachute and get signed up for a weekly newsletter that sends you all the episodes from the previous week, so you don't miss anything. All right, so let's go ahead and jump on over to the topic of the week. I want to thank Jennifer's for suggesting this topic.

Speaker 1: 1:14

We've been focusing on season two with reviews, and she had an interesting thought, which I'm glad she was talking about, the purchasing of reviews and or the gifting of items in exchange for reviews. So I'm going to just start off the topic and then I'm going to go ahead and let Jennifer talk more about it. So, generally, if you're purchasing reviews, again, be very careful. Make sure you understand fully especially with Amazon their community guidelines around reviews. Sometimes you're going to get yourself into trouble with some of these purchased reviews because they're not actually reviews. They're one person reading the book and everybody's duplicating the same review over and over again. It's very obvious, but a lot of times you're not going to know that in advance. So do check the source that you're getting the reviews from, but also make sure you are staying within the guidelines, the community guidelines of Amazon.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Also offering gifts in exchange for reviews, of course, you can always ask for an honest review. You cannot ask for any other kind of review. If you are offering a free book and exchange for review, that's perfectly fine. If you're offering anything else, again there's some specific guidelines around that. But I generally will say as a guideline if you're gifting something to the person, you need to gift that before asking a review instead of after the fact as a reward. So, jennifer, go ahead and add on to that I think you covered it really well.

Speaker 2: 2:58

It is something that I see really often and I always feel deep concern for the authors when I see them saying that they're participating in this type of activity or asking questions about it in a positive way. How can I, you know, and I, when I have the time to step in or have the opportunity to say something, I do speak kindly to that and let them know the risks that they're putting themselves at, because you do not want to get banned from Amazon. The consequences can be so steep and I have known some people who had to pay back all of the royalties that they had been paid by Amazon because they were caught in a review scheme. So you know, editorial reviews are great. You can put those in the editorial review section of your book. Other than that, you want natural, organic reviews that occur from people finding and buying your book.

Speaker 1: 4:01

Right, yeah, and you know we see this a lot in the Facebook groups and it's like, and I always feel like this is just one of those situations where they don't realize what they're doing, and so, again, I feel compelled often to step in and add a note of caution. You know they think well, I know all of these other authors how about if they review my books and I'll review their books? And it's like this sounds great, but in theory it sounds great, but in truth it is not a good idea and it does go against the community guidelines for Amazon around reviews, not just book reviews, but reviews of any product that they carry. And, as you said, the severity of the punishment for breaking those guidelines is pretty high and you really don't want to get caught in that. So if you're considering any of these things, the first thing I will always say is go read the community guidelines about reviews, what is allowed, what is not allowed and of course, you have to make that final decision. I can't make it for you whether or not it breaks those guidelines, but please be aware. Same thing with gifting items. You know we see that a lot with advanced reader copies, where they'll send out these promotional packages with, you know, cups and mugs and flyers and t-shirts and stuff like that. And again, that's perfectly fine as long as it is being sent before the request or with the request for the review. But again, there are some rules around that too. So be aware, you do not want to risk that, but also you don't want to be the author that everybody points to as the bad example either. So consider that so all right. Well, I am so glad that Jennifer was able to help me out here with the topic of the week. Of course, there's always so much more we could talk about about reviews, about this specific part of reviews, and if you would like for us to do a special episode about this, please leave us a note in the comments or you can reach out to us at info at thewritersperissuecom and we'll see if we get enough viewership to warrant a special episode for you around this particular topic about reviews. But let's get on to our interview with Jennifer. I'm so excited to have her back. This is her second visit back. Last time we talked about her amazing book your Book Bakery Making it Easy to Write a Book. This time we're going to be talking about her new multi-author compilation with Dan Miller Purposeful Leadership.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Jennifer is the book baker, book coach, editor and writing educator. I got it out. She's an upbeat lover of language and learning. Jennifer Hodgeman taught herself to read and write when she was three years old. She has consumed more than 20,000 books and developed an extremely broad knowledge base. She attained degrees in psychology and education. It's held a variety of leadership positions. She began helping authors professionally in 1992, developing more than 300 books and 30 million words. She's working around her child's special needs and her own. Some of the credits include New York Times and US Today bestsellers.

Speaker 1: 7:37

She's a ghostwriter and author and knows the struggles of writing as a leader. She also knows how hard it can be to find the time to write. She created a recipe to simplify the process and make it fast and fun. Because of this, her coaching clients entitled her the book baker. Jennifer loves to help people like you achieve their goals of writing a book, so, in addition to consulting would-be authors, she writes, teaches and speaks. This is her third multi-author book anthology, and she has more in the works. Welcome to the Writers' Parish, jennifer. How are you today?

Speaker 2: 8:12

Thank you for having me, Donna. I feel fabulous. How are you?

Speaker 1: 8:16

I'm doing great and this is kind of a. You know we're getting an early peek at this book. It's not quite out yet, so but can you give us just a little snippet of what the book's about and kind of give us a taste of the authors involved in this book?

Speaker 2: 8:32

project, sure. So the way that the book came about was I work with a lot of people who will tell me they want to write a book. But I want to write a book but I don't know that I can do it. Imposter syndrome comes in I don't know if I have the time. It's such a big undertaking and so I like to ask a lot of questions.

Speaker 2: 8:58

And so I was thinking one day with a cup of coffee and I thought how can I make this bite-sized? Like I talk to my clients all the time, take your goals and make them bite-sized. You're writing all of that. I thought how could I do that for these people who keep saying I want to? But and I've been working with a group of leaders and I thought you know what? All of them need to write a book, every single one of them. They'd be great and they've got all this wonderful wisdom to share about leadership.

Speaker 2: 9:28

So you know, I kind of scratched my head and I thought what if I wrote the core of the book and brought them in with bite-sized chunks where they can showcase their expertise or write about what really makes their heart glow? And I can. You know I have done this before. I am an editor in all of those things, so why don't I apply my skills to their work? And I messaged Dan Miller and I said when you get 48 seconds, please give me a call. I said 48 seconds because 48 is his number 48 days to the work you love. And he just that's his branding. And he laughed and he called me right away and I told him about my idea. And, donna, I didn't even have the whole sentence out of my mouth when he said, yes, I'm in and let's do this. And so I talked to some of those leaders and got the whole thing going.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Well and that's pretty typical, you know, it's like people often just need somebody to hold their hand and tell them that it's going to be okay. I got you. I find that that as especially as writing coaches that's probably about 80% of what we do is we just go? Nope, I'm right here behind you, you're not going to fail, you're not going to fall down, I've got you. Yes, so there are many other authors involved in this project besides Dan Miller. You want to read off that list to us and kind of give us an idea of what this particular I mean? You did say that it's leadership, it's purposeful leadership, but what kind of was the theme or thought process you were trying to get from each of these people who are very specialized in leadership?

Speaker 2: 11:17

So let me read you their names first Colleen law, phd. James Woosley, pmp. Amy Hamilton, pmp Joanna. Hugh Renee Metty, reverend charity Goodwin, lee Brower, phyllis Jenkins, shila web.

Speaker 1: 11:55

So set Larry and me Well, I mean that was right there would make me buy the buck.

Speaker 2: 12:05

Thank you. So we have some project management professionals that's what the PMP stands for and they brought their expertise in strategic planning, so leadership through structure and systems and, you know, projections and things like that. And then we had some people who are what we would call soft skills experts, so people who are great at working with other people and who are experts in emotional intelligence, which is really important in a corporate environment and or even in an entrepreneurial environment. So some of our authors are entrepreneurs. They own their own businesses. So there is a variety of not just business but also other types of organizations that are represented in this book.

Speaker 1: 12:58

Well, it is fascinating. Now again, as I said, we just got a art copy here so I was able to scam it, but I wanted to keep reading. It was like no, no, I have other things to do. I mean, you sort of talked about how the project came together, but what was the actual sort of inspiration or the impetus of? Why purposeful leadership? I mean, there's so many things you could talk about about being a leader and about leadership and how to approach it, but why this purposeful leadership?

Speaker 2: 13:36

That is something that's very dear to my heart meet meaningful work, making a difference, and I also don't like things that are well. We've always done it that way, even though it doesn't really work. We've always done it. I would rather see people do work they love and do something that they know is going to make a difference. And you can make a difference anywhere. It doesn't matter if you're working in a public school system, it doesn't matter if you're working in a library, if you're working in a hospital, it really doesn't matter. You can make a difference wherever you are. And you can make a difference and be a leader even if you don't have an official leadership title, and that's another message that's really strong in this book.

Speaker 1: 14:22

Well, and I did love the fact in what little I was able to read that it was also about the fact that if you're calling yourself a leader, if you're calling yourself a coach, if you're calling yourself some kind of position of authority, you should do it with purpose.

Speaker 1: 14:40

It should be oh well, you know, this is the flavor of the week or the color of the month or the. You know it's like there shouldn't be something behind it, because it doesn't take long before people figure out that, that you're just chasing the next thing and you really have, you know, you kind of scattershot. It's like people want to go to somebody who honestly believes in what they're saying, and I think that was that was very clear in what I read at the book and I thought you know that's that is missing a lot, and I don't think people talk about it enough. So I do appreciate this book. So I'm going to kind of shift a little bit here and ask you what kind of advice would you offer to other authors and writers who want to either work on a project like this or manage or create or, as you did, inspire some kind of a multi author project?

Speaker 2: 15:34

I would say I would hearken to Stephen Covey's advice when he said begin with the end in mind. So think about what is your purpose with this. What do you want this book to do, and then ask who? Who would be good for this? Who is an expert I know? Who should I be asking questions of? Who has done this before? Maybe I could send them an email or contact them through their website form, something like that, and ask for some advice, Right?

Speaker 1: 16:09

Well, and that's that is excellent advice. You know, I spoke to, you know, a couple of authors around horses and they got together and did a compilation, you know, and for them it was a little interesting because you know, they sort of knew each other but in some cases they were missing points of view, so they just kind of rallied between each other and it's like, well, do we know somebody who might be able to bring us that point of view? So sometimes that's that's good. And then I talked with another one where they put a complication together around. I believe it was joy, which I thought was interesting. And to me, I think some of the, I think the underlying issue that they had was because joy is such a broad subject and they didn't have it niche down to what specifically about joy. So it kind of felt like the book wasn't cohesive and I know a lot of the authors that were involved with the project were a little disappointed.

Speaker 1: 17:08

But again, you know, I think that that comes from the leadership perspective of that. It's like, you know, whoever is in charge really needs to make. You know, it's like, yeah, we could, we could write a subject about the weather. Well, what about the weather? I mean, what can we talk about? The seasons? Are we talking about temperatures? Are we talking about statistics? You know particular weather phenomenon? It's like you could see, if you had all these different points of view, if you had to have some, as you did in this book, where you were kind of creating that flow from person to person to kind of marry it all together in a readable format, that it would be a little kind of choppy and a little hard to kind of get through, because you're like, wow, okay, wait, what does that have to do with that?

Speaker 2: 17:57

Right, you make really great points, donna. I created the outline so before I did have some people in mind, but before I contacted any of them except for Dan, I sat down and I wrote out the outline. So I knew what needed to go into the book to make it well rounded but still focused Right. And then I thought about who do I know you know? Who do I know that's great with strategic planning. Well, I instantly thought of Ted Dickle, james Woosley and Amy Hamilton and other questions like who do I know that's great with conflict? Ron Price, he's a mediator. He's done it for, I think, close to 40 years now and he's amazing. So just those people came to mind after I had that specific structure laid out and I knew exactly what I was looking for.

Speaker 1: 18:51

Right, but I think even then that's why I was saying is there's another step beyond knowing what you want and who you want you still have to communicate to them the focus of what you want them to write about.

Speaker 2: 19:02

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 19:03

You know you want it. You know you need to know what that focus is or that through line that you're going to have for the whole book so that it is understandable. So in the purposeful leadership book you know each of the authors kind of share their own kind of skills and advice, you know, on how to focus on that purpose, define that purpose. You know the things you need to understand about purpose and leadership and how they're married together. So I want to know what was your favorite part advice or skill that was included in the book.

Speaker 2: 19:40

I think emotional intelligence. I think that is probably my favorite and I am going to make another book just focused on that, because we could go so deeply into the people, skills and, and you know, bringing in our humanity into what we're doing. I think it's so important.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Well, yeah, I mean, we were sort of talking about that in the green room, about how you know that you know it's so much easier to be a giver and then you're never chasing people because they always know to come to you, because you're you're giving and generous and kind, whereas if you're somebody that's kind of going well, pay me first, they're kind of like I'm not sure is it really worth it to me, because they don't know yet I mean. So I mean, and that is part of what you're talking about, the emotional intelligence is where we're understanding not only where we're coming from as a person giving the advice, but the person who's seeking the advice, and where those two lines meet, which is which you know, which is hard, it's not easy and it's you know, it's trial and error, but it's an important thing to consider. So what do you think are the top three missteps that leaders make around focusing or sharing their purpose?

Speaker 2: 21:09

Oh gosh, this one's, this one was the hard one, mr. I think definitely one of the biggest is letting their ego take too much precedence. Because to be a leader it does involve some confidence, it does involve some ego and we have to balance that. And you know, have enough of something. You know, like enough sugar in the cake, not too much, because things just won't work very well if your recipes completely out of balance. So being able to take feedback from our co workers, from our superiors, from our subordinates, from any stakeholder you know customers, clients, anything like that being able to take feedback and determine whether or not it is helpful and applicable and then taking that really hard step of putting it into practice. So I think ego is one of the very big ones when it comes to leadership.

Speaker 1: 22:19

Well, yeah, and I think my point of view is that a lot of that comes into inflexibility. It's like once you know it and you've learned it, and you've taught it that you know it backwards, forwards and sideways. Well, that's not always true. Things are constantly changing and morphing and updating and you still have new situations and questions, and I think part of getting out of the way of your ego is accepting that you may know a lot, you're never going to know everything, and so, again, it gets me back to what I always search for every day is did I learn something new today?

Speaker 2: 22:55

That's a great practice.

Speaker 1: 22:57

It reminds you that, yes, you may know a lot, but you don't know everything, and you can't possibly know everything, and so you sometimes have to listen more with your head instead of your heart, because sometimes we get so attached to what we're doing and saying that we can't hear anything different. I guess is the word so, but I agree with you. So what do you think are the most critical steps in just being a great leader?

Speaker 2: 23:35

And so empathy is one like putting yourself in the other person's shoes and you know. If you know what it is that they are after, it makes it so much easier for you to work with that person. And if you know their personality, style or you know their way of behaving so if you feature the disc profile in the book and talk about some of the different types, so if you know how to interact with that person, then you can be a better leader for them.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Alright. Well, those are. Those are great tips and steps and I think they kind of speak to the fact of you need to know who you're leading. And if you know if you know, I tell people about this is like you know you're writing a children's book. It's like don't go talk to the bar owner about putting your children's book on display. That's not your audience, that's not leading anybody that wants to know about your book.

Speaker 1: 24:38

But now, if you go to a daycare center and you wrote a book about you know how to overcome alcoholism that's still the same thing. You have to know who your audience is and what they want to know about. You know what you're reading and I think that's so important. I think in almost everything you do and we have to remember, especially here on the writer's parachute authors and writers are leaders. So what I'm just reading writing a book is to get it out there, to give our point of view or our information that we feel people should know about.

Speaker 1: 25:12

So we are leading the way, we're blazing that trail, and if you don't know what it is that reader needs to know about that topic, then you've just led them off the cliff and we don't want to do that I think that that's very important. So we talk about this here on the writer's parachute all the time, and I know that you are as experienced or even more experienced than I am, but I know, even with all my experience, I still have these problems with every single book I write and publish, every single book I write or publish or help other authors with. So what kind of obstacles or challenges did you have to overcome in bringing this book to life?

Speaker 2: 25:59

I think the biggest one was working with so many moving parts, so with, you know, about a dozen contributors to the book having all of their pieces in on deadline, and author photos, author bios, all of those things working with each one individually. Some of them are previously published authors and some of them had no problems whatsoever. Others are brand new to this and so they had a lot of questions, which I love. I totally come alive when it comes to the teaching components and it was a little bit to juggle, so it wasn't difficult by any means and I would absolutely do this again. In fact, I'm going to do it again and again. But if there was any kind of a challenge, it was that.

Speaker 1: 26:50

Right, well, and I imagine it's kind of like trying to juggle 12 different authors at the same time and then jam them all together in one book. Yes, it's like, oh, wait, okay, that would be a lot of coordinating. And it's like making sure you get the right photo with the right bio and the right space and the names, and it's, yeah, it's a lot of coordinating. It's like people don't stop and think it's why I tell people. It's like most people think that only in. You'll laugh at this too. People think editors only look at grammar and punctuation. It's like, oh, no, no, no, honey, that's kind of like the. You know, that's like the little icing strip in between the layers of cake, right, and it's like we do a lot.

Speaker 1: 27:35

You know, we want to make sure the plot works, we want to make sure the characters are developed, we want to make sure that you're not contradicting yourself through the book, you know. We want to make sure that there's an actual through line through the story. We want to make sure that you're not overly wordy or under wordy or too much description and not an M description. It's like there's so much and that you know that the rest breaks are in there, that there is some kind of ebb and flow to the book throughout that it isn't just like, okay, all the elevator to the top floor and, oh, now get off. And when you get to the bottom there's more of the story.

Speaker 1: 28:09

It's like so there's so many more things, and I could go on and on and on about what editors do, but it is a coordination of trying to figure out, you know, the priority of all of those things, and I can't imagine that being exacerbated times 12. Because, again, you're working with a bunch of different writing styles to which would make it like, okay, how do I get 12 different authors to sound like they're all talking together? But that would that would be difficult. So I have to give you huge kudos for that. It's like I'm not sure that I would be up to the task. I you know I never know until I try, and maybe I will try sometime in the future.

Speaker 1: 28:55

But I definitely applaud you for doing this book and you've done it well and this is not your first try out on a multiple author project, so you know, keep trucking on. So it's like you guys need some information about multi, multi author projects. Reach out to Jennifer. She's got a lot of good advice on it. So we're going to shift again here. We're going to talk a little bit about your specific book. You wrote the book, the book bakery, making it easy to write a book. It offers simple, easy to follow instructions, kind of like in a recipe book, which I loved about creating a book. So what do you think is the most important step for anyone to take in writing or publishing their book?

Speaker 2: 29:42

Figuring out what it is that you want your book to do, yeah, and, and who is it for? And how are you going to take them from point A to point B? So again, begin with the end in mind right we want to know what it is we're setting out to do before we just sit down and dump a bunch of words on the page.

Speaker 1: 30:04

Right, and you know I talk about this. I often get this question about oh, I'm fine with the writing, I'm fine with the publishing and the editing and all that stuff, and I'm great when it comes to the marketing approach. And I'm so lost and I'm like, okay, well, what do you want? And they're like oh, I just want you know, I just want to be famous or I want to be. I'm like, well, if you don't know what you want, how do you know how to market it? Again, you need to know what, what you want. The end it's like do you want more followers? Do you want more interviews? Do you want to make a? You know a New York Times bestseller list? I want to be an.

Speaker 1: 30:35

Every bookstore is like you can't market to everything all at once because then you're you know, the message is so convoluted and confusing that you get no one. So it's like I always tell people if you're going to choose something to market, figure out what you want, because then I'll tell you where to go rather than just seeing you know. You know, author a did this marketing promotion and did good. And author be did this marketing promotion and good, good. And I'm like, oh, I'll just do those.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Well, what did they do good at? I don't know. I don't know what they did out of it, I don't know. Well then, why would you do that? So it's kind of the same thing, and I'm glad that we get to talk about that, because it's this is, I find, sometimes the frustrating part, where you know we have, we have the skills If we had the roadmap and sometimes I think that's that's the problem is we can easily access the skills. It may be the basic information that, yes, we need to market, and this is the different kinds of marketing, but how do you pick which one?

Speaker 2: 31:46

Right. So the one thing that would be very helpful with that is deciding who's your audience that you're serving. So one of the main audiences that purposeful leadership serves is up and coming leaders. So we're looking at colleges, churches, nonprofit organizations that work with youth, people that are young, that are growing into who they are as people and realizing, oh yeah, I want to make a difference in this world. So I basically hand them this manual that says this is how you go about it. So I was just talking with a friend of mine who is working for a university and they just put together a digital marketing degree and he's the head of the department, and I told him I said you know what both of my books your book bakery and purposeful leadership will serve your students really well. Let's have some conversations about how we can get these books into their hands Absolutely, and so serving is so important, right.

Speaker 1: 32:53

And understand who your primary or secondary and your bleed over markets are. Because you know, obviously I brought up the point that this would be very hopeful to authors and writers, because we are called upon to be speakers and things. These are very helpful, but those are secondary to the main focus. So and then of course, you're going to have bleed over people who are just interested in being speakers and leaders and and and TEDx talkers and stuff like that. But again, again, you would market to all of them very differently. So I'm glad we're having this conversation. It's like this is so much help, so much help to our listening audiences. Like this is like a mini TED talk on how to how to do a book the right way. So I'm always so happy when you're here with us. So what is next for you?

Speaker 2: 33:49

What is next is two things at the same time, which you know don't do this. So another book in the purposeful leadership series I mentioned, we're going to do one on specifically on emotional intelligence and the quote unquote soft skills. And then I'm also writing a book on Airbnb hosting. So that's something that I've started doing recently, the last few months, and all sorts of people have been asking me questions about it. So I've been writing down the questions.

Speaker 2: 34:22

I've been also journaling my experience with my guests and you know names will be changed to protect the innocent all of that fun stuff. And so I have the outline done and I have about 30,000 words in it so far and so and it's it's focused on shared hosting. So you know you have a spare bedroom or you've got a cottage in the backyard and then you have a niche the landlords who want to rent out an entire property type of thing. So it's a very specific niche and also it'll probably be aimed at single moms or people who are in, you know, their work at home because they're entrepreneurs and they also want another income stream.

Speaker 1: 35:07

Yeah, and I think that's very helpful. I knew that. You know I've used. Airbnb is from time and it's like it's always really hard to determine how honest and truthful they're being, because when you get there, it's like sometimes it's way better than you anticipated and sometimes you're just like you know. It's like how did they get pictures? They could just make this room look like it was big and it's not the size of a closet and they made it sound like a standard room.

Speaker 2: 35:37

Yes, so yeah, it's the camera lens.

Speaker 1: 35:41

Yeah and it would have been helpful to me if there had been a book out there about tips and things to watch for and things, because I would have asked more questions, I would have inquired more. But you know, it's like, if you don't know that you can do that, you just assume. It's kind of like anything else in the public sphere. This is what you get pick and choose, what you're willing to put up with, kind of thing, rather than asking the specific questions. Like I went to one and they had no towels. Wow, I had to go to the store and buy towels.

Speaker 2: 36:20

Oh my goodness, I promise I have lots of towels.

Speaker 1: 36:24

But I mean, it was just like. I mean, how would you anticipate that they would have no towels? And then you open the cover and there's a sign saying we you know, for sanitary purposes we don't have towels. You'll need to go purchase your own.

Speaker 2: 36:39

No, that should be in the listing. That's not reasonable, donna. That is not reasonable. I should Like. I live by the golden rule, right, like? Put yourself in the other purpose and the other purpose, excuse me, put yourself in the other person's shoes. Would you want to be treated like that?

Speaker 1: 36:57

No, no, I know, I mean, of course, you know they didn't. They didn't. You know, I mean I didn't give them a bad rating, but I didn't mention them and I was just thought that was just the oddest thing to me. Yes, definitely. And then it was like I went to one and there, very clearly was, in three different pictures, a television in the living room, but then when I got there there was no television. I'm like, well, I mean, you know, I'm adaptable, I can work, I have my laptop and stuff with me, but it was just odd. I was just like you just don't think about those things.

Speaker 1: 37:34

So, yeah, I think that would be a very helpful book. I mean, even in that limited situation, because there are, especially from a woman's point of view, because there are situations where I'm maybe I don't want to rent a whole house for just myself, but how do you stay safe when you're just running a room? You know that is a concern, and so I applaud you on that. So we're going to move on just a little bit here and as season two we've been talking about that we're focusing on reviews. Of course we are trying to make sure that people understand that reviews are king. They're important to authors and writers. They're how we get our books noticed and out into the world. They're how we introduce ourselves to readers, and I oftentimes get them to make the decision whether to buy or not to buy. So I would love to hear what your review of purposeful leadership is.

Speaker 2: 38:31

Oh, my goodness, golly. This book is for people who want to make a difference, and it gives you the information you need to step into the leadership role, whether it's official or unofficial, and to bring your heart to your work and to make that difference you want to make.

Speaker 1: 38:58

Awesome Five stars. We love it and, like I said, the reason that we're doing this is we want our listeners to understand I'm putting my gous on the spot here, asking them to write a review about their own book, which is really difficult. That's like trying to review yourself, right? If there's so much of ourselves in these books, it's really difficult, but we are showing you that it is possible. Reviews don't have to be complicated. They don't have to be long and drawn out. They are just an opinion, your opinion of what you experienced or what you read.

Speaker 1: 39:28

So the next time you read a book, the next time you read one of the books that we introduce here on the Writers Parish, you'd be sure to go back to where you purchased the book and leave a review. If you can't remember where you purchased the book, of course you can always go to Goodreads and leave them a review there. Reach out to the author Of course we always have all that information for you in the show notes and let them know that you love their book or that you had some questions. They would be more than happy to hear from you. This is generally the most feedback we, as authors, get about our books is through the review process, so make sure you leave a review. It can be as simple as I like this book or this book would be great for this person, so don't forget, go get a review. So we wanna know where listeners can find your books Amazon. Are they only on Amazon or are they available in other platforms and bookstores?

Speaker 2: 40:24

They are available in other platforms too Barnes, noble, I'm not sure where all like we do draft to digital, so it's fairly wide distribution. But Amazon is the 800 pound gorilla.

Speaker 1: 40:38

Okay, Well, yeah, I mean always. We obviously say Amazon, but some of our listeners and readers do like do you have the option of other independent bookstores and other book retailers? So we do ask that question. Of course, in the show notes we will have all that information for you. Also, you have a coaching and editing services, so where could listeners reach out to you if they would like to get some of those services?

Speaker 2: 41:06

Your book. Bakerycom and harshmanservicescom.

Speaker 1: 41:12

All right, awesome Again. We'll put that in the show notes for you, and you are active on social media, so what platforms can they follow you on?

Speaker 2: 41:20

They can find me on Facebook and TikTok.

Speaker 1: 41:23

All right, no Instagram or Twitter or any of that. No, not anymore. Yeah, I know Sometimes it becomes overwhelming, but all right. Well, again, we'll have links for that in the show notes so you can go follow Jennifer on Facebook and TikTok and I've watched her on TikTok. It's very informative and funny at the same time, so I find those very entertaining. So do you have any upcoming events that you'd like to share with our audience?

Speaker 2: 41:52

I do. I have a 12 week group coaching program. It's titled your Book Bakery 12 Weeks to a Nonfiction Manuscript and I run those a few times a year and we usually have about 10 people or so. I don't let them get too big because I want to be sure that every author gets all of the time and attention that they need and they're guaranteed if they follow the recipe they'll have a rough draft of a nonfiction book by the end of the program.

Speaker 1: 42:23

Awesome, so they can reach out to you where to sign up for that.

Speaker 2: 42:29

So they can find that on harshman-servicescom or at yourbookbakerycom, and they could also email me at Jennifer at harshman-servicescom.

Speaker 1: 42:41

Okay, Again, we will go ahead and add that stuff to the show notes. So any kind of signups, newsletters or anything else that you'd like to share with the audience before we go jump over to our tip of the week.

Speaker 2: 42:53

Sure so, on harshman-servicescom and on your Book Bakery, I have some email signups in the upper right corner, and the longest series that I have right now is about three years of weekly tips focused on nonfiction writing, mostly Right.

Speaker 1: 43:11

And I do get your weekly tips and I do like those. They're kind of no-nonsense kind of a look at the things that we deal with, with some great advice and tips on how to kind of wade through the shark-infested waters, because you will find, once your book is out there, you're gonna be inundated by hundreds and hundreds of people saying, oh, I can help you, I can do this, I can do that, and generally it's not true. So check out her list of tips weekly. I think they will serve you well. Is there anything else that you'd like to add before we go do our tip of the week?

Speaker 2: 43:49

One thing with the right attitude and resources, you can do amazing things, and if you will choose the first, you will find the second.

Speaker 1: 44:02

Yes, absolutely. So I am so glad that you're here, but we're going to go do our tip of the week and Jennifer's going to join me on this tip of the week because we're going to talk a little bit together like we did for the topic of the week. So she was saying that her problem or obstacle that she was running into was coordinating and managing. You know, this author schedule on a compilation project, and what I would say about that on my tip of the week is whether it's a big project or a small project, whether you're juggling one author and their teams such as, like, children's books, we have, like, illustrators and editors and authors all trying to work together to bring that book, and there's a lot of coordination going on. You know, whether you're working on a project where you have beta readers or something, this is something you're having to juggle, as what she's talking about. Working on this big 12 author project. It's a lot to juggle.

Speaker 1: 45:03

So what I would say is again you know, use your resources, figure out what it is that you can comfortably manage and see if you need to ask others to. You know, take some of that on, maybe delegate a little of the simpler tasks that really don't need your time and expertise, because this is where you sort of fall into that overwhelm. And then here comes creeping in the self doubt, the imposter syndrome, the critic. You know, george and Fred show up and I've got to kick him to the curb, send him to the closet. It's, it's a mess. It's a mess. I would say have a plan, you know, but be flexible as you go and don't forget that you have resources, you have other people who can help you through that and don't you know, don't feel like you have to do it alone for yourself, and I'm sure you have so much more to add to that.

Speaker 2: 46:05

You nailed it.

Speaker 1: 46:09

I am so glad that you are here with us. Thank you so much for being here and, of course, we want to have you come back again when you have more books out for you. You also had a new book that I noticed on your Amazon listing, for it's like children writing a book. I forgot what the title was. It was like Sam writes a book or something. Sam Bakes a book. Ah, sam Bakes a book. So if you have children who are interested in writing, I think I would encourage you to go check that out. It seemed very intriguing. She also has a bunch of workbooks and information. She has a book about hiring an editor and what to look for, so she is a wealth of information. We're so glad to have her here and, as always, I am so thankful to get to be the host here. On the writer's issue, guiding author and writer dreams to a perfect landing, we hope that you find this is a safe, creative space for your dreams to land well too. Until next time, bye everyone.