149 - Showing Up In Public and A Little Printing Talk.. Speaking Truth and Getting Clear

Today's Topic: Showing Up In Public and A Little Printing Talk.. Speaking Truth and Getting Clear

I know it’s been a minute since I’ve produced a podcast episode, but I could write an entire book on what’s gone on since I last published one. There is so much to be said if you are paying attention to what’s going on in the world. But, how many times have I written a podcast episode only to pull it back and sit on it? I’ve got all kinds of thoughts and opinions I could share about what’s going on in the world and I’ve written a few episodes circling around how we show up in a public space… how it’s hard to sit back and say nothing when you see what’s happening in the world.

Those of us aware of the shifts in the world are a mix of agitated and awe-struck and those of us living life without awareness are going about business as usual. This seems to be where the divide occurs. I thought it might be best to share some observations and stick to writing podcast episodes about writing books!

Here’s where I’ve been plagued and why I resorted to silence. There are so many mainstream podcasters showing up daily without talking about the elephants in the room around political and health matters plaguing humanity. I have questioned how one continues to show up with a public platform and not talk about the larger geopolitical and health atrocities and how so many are just business-as-usual. It’s why I haven’t shown up. Sure, I’ve been busy, but how do I show up and not talk about the lies and manipulation being thrown around on every topic?

There’s one thing I’ve learned about how you show up in a public space after all these years in the book world… you show up for those willing to listen… those that aren’t meant for you just aren’t in your vibration. But, since you’re here, you are already in some kind of alignment with my vibe. I’d probably be preaching to the choir if I began the elephant in the room discussions.

I’ve been going through the emotions about self-help “leaders” as of late. My head has really been spinning around this because when you think hard enough about who shows up and how they are a matching vibration then you circle right back around to realizing you may already know what I’m talking about and what’s the point of speaking if that’s the case, right? But, if we all had that approach, then no one would speak up, do podcasts, or write books. What would be the point if we couldn’t inspire others to achieve something they are longing to achieve! If you have thoughts or opinions then your bound to be a thorn in someone’s side.

In times of uncertainty I believe it is important to show up with what calls to you, where your passions lie, speak about the things that inspire and move you, share your expertise. Spiritually speaking, this is what you were put here to do. When we have the ability to hone in on a topic (or several topics) where you have either come through the challenges of learning the hard way or passionately thrived or excelled naturally then yo are in alignment with the thing/things you came here to do.

So many are so lost about the times we are living in and question their authority or how they can make a difference. Experience is where you gain wisdom. Many people get stopped because they believe their is some kind of plateau where expertise can be claimed and that’s where you can begin to write a book or speak out about your topic. Oftentimes when you choose to go more public then you are also going to grow in public. You may reach numerous plateaus when you put yourself out there. You’re going to draw people that either resonate with you or need what you are offering. This is naturally going to create more awareness around your topic in ways you may not have considered. This is where much growth is going to happen. When you choose a topic you’re just going to draw more attention around that topic and into your daily life.

So many people stop short of stepping up as a leader, author, or influencer because they don’t believe they are at the right plateau… then life gets ahold of you and moves on and passions and flames about the topics that once ignited you either get re-enraged or their light dims. It’s when the topic gets re-enraged in a person is where passion to speak about it generally get so intense that the power of yes supersedes all no-energy that says I’m not ready, I’m not good enough, I’m not knowledgeable enough, or who am I to speak out about this…

Since I’m not a career politician, nor am I a medical doctor, it’s not likely I will effectively be able to speak about some of the elephant in the room topics with great authority. But, for some areas there is really no formal degree available. This is where you have to fall back into your gifts and talents and experience and step up as a leader in the areas of personal expertise where you excel. Your intuition will also drive you. This is what’s funny about our world… you have to have something concrete (like a degree and education specialty) to gain credibility by so many. The thing is, if I provide you valuable information that you can use practically, then how could it be discredited? If it was useful for you then I’ve given you what you are looking for. Perhaps I hold the key to unlocking bits and pieces that serve you in some way as you grow forward.

If you’ve spun around on this concept like I have then you might wonder what it is that you really have to say to anyone your speaking to. Do people want to be taught? Educated? Entertained? Yes, probably all of the above. So, perhaps I can only speak to you about things I’ve learned or experienced and, if we are lucky, I’ll pull out that one little nugget that makes you say “I’m glad I’m here!”

So, how about we talk about some of the challenges and lessons I’ve learned since my last podcast. Gosh, its been since August… nearly half a year has gone by and here I am again talking about books and wiggling around a whole host of other topics that we are all watching play out in our world like: Has the entire human genome been altered? Are we in danger of government tyranny and control? Do we need to pack up bug-out bags and where do we go? Are we being poisoned or is weather being manipulated? Is our reality shifting or are we moving from 3D to 5D? Are we destined to be hit by dangerous solar flares or visited by extraterrestrials? Why is the Schumann resonance fluctuating so much and why is it’s flux making as feel off physically or spiritually? Are we shifting through timelines or alternate realities? Why are schools closing and first responders of many communities standing on guard for the April 8th eclipse? What is the biblical significance of this event and are we at a point of rapture or end times or are we walking into a new reality?

Many of us that are observant, suspect something is shifting. There is so much we can speculate on and so much we innately just know down in the fibers of our being.

We are all on various levels of conscious awareness. We are all affected in a myriad of ways. Some of us are completely oblivious and that down right pisses off those having different levels of awareness. “Why are they asleep?” we might be asking. Fact is, varying levels of awareness serve the overall evolution. I mean, just look at nature… take a look in your own garden. Not all vegetables come to season at the same time. The cucumbers or tomatoes aren’t superior to the later season squash! They are just at their prime in their own season! The one that wakes slower actually supports the one that is awake by keeping things running while the one awake is shifting into the new. I think God designed things this way intentionally. Someone living in complete oblivion to what someone else is living has just as much right to be here. Somehow these times are quickly chastising those of indifferent mind, body and spirit. The Christians think they are right, the New Agers think they are right and both think the other is wrong.

If someone else’s season isn’t in alignment with our own, if someone’s vibration isn’t parallel to the vibe you are on, if life experiences aren’t the same… then this may simply not be your audience! Who do you think you are inspiring if you speak out or write a book or produce a podcast? Are you looking to inspire someone with greater knowledge and awareness than the plateau you are speaking from? No! You are speaking to those you wish to inspire, teach, coach, train, or otherwise influence!

If you are offering a service then you are attracting a person in need of that service that resonates with how you offer it… they probably just like you or your message… they like the way you deliver something… they resonate with your vibe or energy…. If you’re always reaching out offending your audience then your probably going to have aggressive respondents or clients, customers, readers, or followers. If you’re soothing people with your words you may have very wounded, emotional, needy, or loving people reflected in your messages. If you provide hard business knowledge and facts you won’t get much “fluff” in your audience’s response.

How you serve others is what returns. Generally good research will help you stand up as knowledgeable, but today the source of that research may be questioned. What you stand up saying over and over and over with consistency is what you will become known for. How people resonate with that information and how you present it… your likability factor come into play.

The world is full of noise and where plenty of un-sourced or agenda-manipulating information is readily available…sensationalism, over hyped, or repetitive social media presentation often outweigh truth. Truth is often a vibrational resonance… validated from personal experience or qualitative research.

Let’s pull this all back around to a podcast about book publishing… there is a lot that goes on in the background in my world that never makes it out publicly. I struggle a great deal with issues than may not be podcast worthy. There are all kinds of shifts happening in the industry. There are still so many coaches speaking up about how they are an expert book publishing coach and the fact is that people really buy their song and dance and pay outrageous amounts of money (needlessly) to produce a book. There are coaches with unbelievable false claims still drawing in clientele with stories of being a best seller, false narratives of being a success in public speaking and business, and the facade of the glitz and glamour that if you work with them you will be an undeniable success as well.

Here’s the reality. I’m a soft-spoken woman. I speak the truth. I have a great deal of experience in the publishing industry, marketing and advertising, and business. Yet, there is nothing I can do to not be a soft-spoken woman. The aggressive boisterous flamboyant man that appears to take a stage, have an audience, or otherwise oozes levels of success…whether on social media or in a another setting… I will never compete! I will never stand out against him…. To the wrong audience!

I’ve watched over and over and over how people trust this false vision of success and flashy personalities as the solution to their book publishing dreams. Heck, they buy this in many other industries, like say… network marketing. They buy in hook, line, and sinker… the promises of best-seller and fortune and fame.

Part of my struggle I don’t always speak about publicly is how upset I get that people take off on the journey to write a book and buy into so many lies and false promises. Then, after they go through the whole process and produce a book, they think failure isn’t a poor model, but their own lack! They generally never wrap it back around to poor coaching or false promises. They think failure, with regard to their book, is their own fault!

Being a light in a noisy world seems to be a great struggle for many in these days… if you’re paying attention and you’ve done your research you are probably wondering when truth prevails. I think this is a question all across the board… in business, in global agendas, in healthcare, in politics, social positioning… I’m also seeing it in clothing and beauty supplies… the food industry… the question of when and how truth prevails… where God shows up and sheds a light…

So, as I ramble through this podcast today… I’m going to also tell you where I’ve been struggling as it relates to the publishing industry…

The printing industry! If you’ve never done this before (writing a book), I think my experience may help guide you. There are some really tricky bits in the book publication process around printing. You know, when Amazon came out with print on demand everyone became an expert at producing a book. Everyone also seems to be an author! But, there are some pretty major differences still today in the world of printing on demand and working with a professional printer.

I’ll tell you… many of my clients want to get involved with Amazon on some level. Most just want to sell their book there. But, many also want to use their printing services. If you’re in the business of creating a fiction book or novel then this really might be a good option for you. Since, I mostly work with business authors, it isn’t going to likely be the best option for you, unless perhaps you don’t mind a low-cost / low-quality output. But, some business authors do have some unique situations with how they reach their audience and the print-on-demand system gives them the ability to get their books in the hands of unique readers.

I tend to have trends in my business and this last few months was all about jail! Yep, jail! I have a therapist looking to distribute her books through the Amazon system because she wants to get her book in the jail system. I have another client that was once America’s Most Wanted with a string of bank robberies. He turned his life around and now wants to get his book in the jail systems to inspire others.

Sometimes its interesting how I learn in my business. Never did I know that hard cover books are not allowed in most jails. And, the books through the Amazon print-on-demand system are a great option for inmates apparently. Go figure! So, one client is printing through the Barnes & Noble system and the other is going to use Amazon print-on-demand. We just completed the B&N template last month and the Amazon template yesterday. So, clearly, quality isn’t as high of a priority here.

Turns out I also have an international client that is American, lives in Mexico, and wants to get her book in the Amazon system so that she doesn’t have to carry books around to different countries. All these clients are first producing a hard cover book with a professional printer, then a soft cover online. The therapist is opting to print her book in China through a US affiliate printer as well as Amazon. Not only have we had some issues getting the book off to print, but she may run into customs issues as well.

As a Book Designer I often get stretched to produce in unknown environments. People hear about a trend and that’s how they want to produce their book. Of course, my preference for quality, customer service, and professionalism is always going to be going the route of a professional printer and producing a high-end hard cover book.

Now, in comes a client in Japan who decides to print in China. We go through the whole process and I get her files over to the printer and about to go into production, but this time the government of China backs us out and tells us they are rejecting some of the text in the book. OK, so this is the point where I decide I better do a new podcast episode! I’ve had my fill of printer issues, but now the government of China is blocking us?

If you’ve listened to any of my previous podcasts you’ll find a few talking about our rights and how digital printing is going to take many of them away from us. So, in all my years in this business, I’ve never had a book rejected so quickly because the country’s own government was involved. I mean this is self-publishing for god sake! But, I have to say, printing in China is not something I’ve ever endorsed. But, for highly image-rich books, like children’s books, it’s quite common because it saves on printing costs.

As a Designer, it’s frustrating because all new print templates have to be created and all files you thought you were done with have to now be resurrected and re-sent to another printer. There is a lot of re-work here and it’s never anything an author appreciates and never issues one expects to pay extra for. And, in this particular case, I was working with a flamboyant book coach that gets a cut from the China printer and prefers to send all jobs there regardless of the backend working relationship challenges it causes his team and clients. As long as the flashy sales guy makes his income he doesn’t often care how much of it gets pulled together or the strain it causes on everything after he plays his role!

So, here we are again with several printing challenges. The greatest struggle currently in my business. We lost a printer a few years back after they were bought out by a larger, and probably Chinese-owned, affiliate and now just last month we lost an excellent printer, and one globally known to produce high quality books, as they made a corporate decision to migrate to a digital print-on-demand business model. I guess many printers are also leaving the book printing industry all together to moving to more lucrative package box printing. Yep, Amazon! Now here I am going to a third printer - one a year it seems. They promised to be all the things the last ones said they’d never be. But, of course, this requires re-working old models and surely not much of it affects the flashy sales guy. But, of course, in the shift, he’s already breathing down the throat of the new printer looking for a cut of all business he sends their way. Of course, bi-passing the best interest and needs of both the interfacing Designer and cost-cutting opportunity for his authors. So is life, eh?

As the relationship continued with the newest printer, it became apparent that there were going to be some unique challenges for authors going forward. I sent several jobs through and authors opted to print 500 or more books, so it wasn’t noticeable at first. But, I would soon learn that based on the number of books the author wished to print, it would determine which print facility the book would get printed at, whether it would be a digital print job, or offset printing would be used. Most authors really wouldn’t know the difference and really wouldn’t care. Who cares if you get a good quality book in the quantity you desire. From a Designers stand point it really wouldn’t matter much either. But, depending on which facility it goes to for print, there are different signatures. So, now you’re asking, what in the world is a signature?

Well… if you look a a magazine its easier to see the signature. It’s the number of pages folded and grouped together. If you took the staples out of the middle of a magazine, you’d notice that 4 pages are actually printed on each piece of paper… front and back and folded. A book works like this, but its’s made of of several signatures.

In the case of these different printing facilities, one location (the digital printing) makes the signatures in 8 half pages or 16 full page signatures and the other location (offset printing) makes the signatures in 16 half pages or 32 full page pages. So what does this actually mean?

What it means is that as an author you never get to have exactly the page count you desire, unless it happens to be divisible by 8, 16, or 32. For example, my last client finished up after layout with 327 pages, the next closest signature is 336 pages. So we basically have to add 8 pages to her book. In this case, the author opted for additional notes pages in the back of the book. Of course, this wasn’t a part of her initial idea for her book. The other way around this is to remove content from 8 pages and shrink the page count. This is where things get a bit challenging. This affects the author, the editor, and the designer. It’s something I’ve never had to worry about in my business model before because all my printers have been able to print the exact page count. As a designer this requires a ton more hands-on thinking and planning to work content to exact signatures.

With all this being said, a few words to sum things up on this rather random podcast…

How we show up in a public space… I’m not talking about your reputation per se, but showing up when the world is so drastically changing around you… sometimes you have to step back and get clear, then ask yourself if you have enough passion to carry forth the message in your heart. I really do think that passion drives purpose over and over. Credentials or not… passion will drive your message forward.

For me, I watch many things in and outside of the publishing industry. I feel that anyone with a public platform does have a certain level of responsibility to bring forth truth when they can. But, in reality, we all have a variety of different backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives.

When topics are coming to the surface but they aren’t your center of expertise, but you feel a moral and ethical duty to share the truth… to not hide behind a facade… maybe you’ve got to retreat for awhile to get clear. But, when you don’t speak up and you have a public platform, then you are going to be accused of participating in agendas.

Maybe you listened to my last podcast about the fires on Maui. If you saw what was happening there and you had the ability to help, you knew that the time to jump in was immediately. People lost their homes right now. The need was immediate. Many celebrities said they’d offer assistance when the rebuild happens. The real issue was that right now people are displaced without a home to return to. If you’re watching what’s happening there you know something is fishy.

I guess people don’t speak up because they believe they will be threatened or disliked. They are worried about loosing followers or business. There are so many dramas and traumas occurring in our world that sometimes I’d sit down to write a podcast about book publishing and think… how is this helping? Why am I not talking about the bigger issues playing out in our world? For me, I had to step away for awhile because I just had a hard time not being better able to wrap words around these massive topics. It felt disingenuous to just come up with a topic for the sake of producing more podcasts about writing books.

You know, there are a lot of really unclear lines in a podcast about publishing books… I mean, how much can you talk about publishing books without hitting on topics in books… you really can’t. The big publishing companies are known to use books to influence culture… they  choose topics that frame narratives and agendas.

But, it’s books that will leave legacies, share truths, and document situations. Websites and social media profiles can easily be deleted. When you really understand the real threats happening with government control over what does or doesn’t get printed, who can post on social media, the disappearance of book printers around the globe, and the rise of print-on-demand and digital printing, there is reason to be alarmed.

A bit off subject, but do me a favor and go to Amazon and punch in “organic cotton clothing” and then look at what pops up and where these items of clothing are shipping from. China has a big presence now on Amazon. And the fibers in clothing are made with plastics. These plastics are being talked about by scientists. Do you know about Morgellons? Do a little research and see where you land. So, where do these Amazon books really get printed and since all information that goes into an Amazon-produced book is digital… and many books of certain topics hidden… ask if printing here is a smart option. There are many things turned into fashion, trends, or made popular or turn-key easy…that really, on the back end, are not in our best interest. Start asking how you can help shape or influence culture with smart decisions. Money usually speaks the loudest. Choose a local printer to do business with and keep the power of free speech alive. Do your best to support American made products and services where you can.

For those that have public platforms, large followers, or are influencers in any way… you have a social obligation on many levels. Do you know that there are many trends these social influencers are pushing that are not good for their followers? Like these microfiber beauty items with little pins that go into your skin, synthetic fiber made-in-china clothings, dangerous or unhealthy foods and beverages, etc. are all being showcased by young influencers with big followings… poisoning their followers with the facade of “cool” or glam. I mean, have you noticed that these influencers are all jumping on board with the Amazon influencer program… pushing stylish clothing made in China, GMO foods, un natural beauty products, supporting brands, events, and places with questionable ethics and practices? Many times these young influencers look at the income they make, not the products they are pushing.

When someone gains public interest they may not always be someone who makes good choices. We see so many facades with celebrities, sports figures, and the like. The cute little housewife with a big following selling makeup or Amazon affiliate clothing is no different. For those of us with eyes to see, we know where lines are blurred.

I believe there’s going to be a turning point where truth prevails….where the little guy is no longer taken advantage of and the quiet researcher or knowledge-bearer gains a voice.

In a noisy world…where flashy or sexy facades seem to be the norm…where people are replaceable, where the promises of greater things aren’t proven…before invested in by the naive that are prayed upon… I dunno… maybe I’m naive, believing truth will prevail.

Myself, I’m conscious of having a public platform and what I choose to speak of… yeah I skate around topics… mostly so I don’t get deleted or banned… we kinda all have to speak with a little bit of code these days if we talk about anything really going on… many are offended or confused, and those that aren’t, understand. There is just so much going on that seems to have no apparent solution… I think thats going to break loose real soon. I’m still here talking about book publishing with a whole range of topics circling around in the undercurrent… sure I can help you produce a high-quality book, but I’m no machine plopping out podcast episode for the sake of numbers either… I’m here on the planet to make a difference… waiting in the shadows… waiting and watching like many of you… if you’re awake you know its coming…theres just too much pointing to a massive global explosion of change as truth bombs drop.

In the meantime, of course I’m happy to help you get your book published. You’re a change-maker. Let’s get it out before the printing industry challenges us once again! You’re here, so I know you’re part of the solution! Let’s get your book of solutions published so you can get out there and be a change-maker. A book will give you the credibility, if you have the strength to step up and stand out!

And, I’ll do my best not to wait another 6 months before I produce the next episode. Take a look at my portfolio… I’m still producing some great books. I just took a podcast break for awhile. Until next time… wishing you, as always, peace, love, and light!