Why your story matters with Jessica Mudditt

• Why we gravitate to stories – and want to share our own
• What makes a story matter
• Why memoir and storytelling resonates so well with others
• How to capture events in your life and tell them in your voice and personal writing style
• How to identify what’s unique about your story

Go to this link to watch the presentation:

TRANSCRIPT FROM YOUR STORY MATTERS WITH JESSCIA MUDDITT, HEMBURY BOOKS

Your story matters with Jessica Mudditt from Hembury Books

Rebekah: [00:00:00] So in the spirit of reconciliation, the Freelance Jungle would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land, water and sea of where we’re gathering from today. We pay our respects to all elders past, present and emerging and pay a special respect to anyone of Aboriginal heritage joining us today.

Rebekah: The official position of the Freelance Jungle is that sovereignty was never ceded. We support the treaties position, which means that we believe that it always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Welcome to today’s session. We’re going to be talking about why your story matters with Jessica Mudditt from Hembury Books.

Rebekah: Now, Jessica is an author in her own right. She’s written a cracking book about Myanmar that you should check out. And she also helps other authors find their story within. And gives them the means to get them out there so that they can use them for business. And I believe narrative nonfiction is now on the cards as well.

Rebekah: So without any further ado, [00:01:00] I’d like to give a very warm freelance jungle welcome to the lovely Jessica. Welcome.

Jessica: Thanks Bec. It’s really nice to be here. Hi everyone.

Rebekah: Alrighty folks, we have some set questions here for Jess, so I’m going to already truncate her name because she is Australian and that’s what we do.

Rebekah: If that’s okay. Fine, that’s fine Bec. Awesome. What is it about storytelling that you think connects us deeply as humans?

Jessica: I, what fascinates me is that this is such an ancient desire that we have as human beings to not only tell our stories, but to write them down. And I think that comes the demand for that is both from, that’s how we learn from each other.

Jessica: It’s how we connect and feel less alone being on this planet alive can be such a weird thing. And to get inside somebody else’s mind. Whether it’s fiction or non fiction, and to see [00:02:00] yourself or to be transported can be really comforting and reassuring. And then I think the other half of that is the desire that we have to write our own stories down.

Jessica: Whether it’s, Our creativity in the form, like a book is, permanent and it’s there long after you are not. And so it’s really, as someone who’s published a couple of books the life satisfaction that it gives you of completing the job and seeing your book in the world is just immense. And it gives you like a sense of completeness.

Jessica: It’s not without some angst sometimes, but like earlier in the week, I was doing some research on Myanmar. I just wanted to see what was going on in Myanmar. And I went onto the Irrawaddy website and I just noticed that they have a book review section and there was a, like a thumbnail of six books, but mine was one of them.

Jessica: And I was like, ha, like that’s, there’s a little place for me on the Irrawaddy and it just made me feel good that like our [00:03:00] lives matter.

Rebekah: It’s such an important point. You’ve seen all of those stories that are out there, like you say different stories are different versions of even Myanmar and the things that we do.

Rebekah: How do you spot what makes your story unique?

Jessica: I think it’s events we’re all on the planet together, but we have circumstances thrown at us. and we have to endure things that are unique, like no two lives are completely identical, but people talk about the universal and the specific. So what makes a really good memoir, for example, it could be like a difficult childhood.

Jessica: Like Ruth Clare’s memoir Enemy is about her father who had PTSD after he returned from Vietnam and she and her siblings suffered a lot of. And it’s about her trying to make sense of that as an adult as well. And enemy is such a clever title. And I think while Ruth [00:04:00] circumstances are, she’s an individual and she’s unique.

Jessica: A lot of other people have endured what she has endured and. It gives, you an insight into her father, which I think is powerful and fascinating how someone so complex and troubled could do that to their children. So what you, are unique. That’s the starting point. You are unique. And the more courage that you have to tell your story in your own voice and the way that you reacted to the things that happened to you will also be unique.

Jessica: And yet we have this kind of commonality. In memoir, it’s often you’re really rooting for the character like to survive their circumstances. If we look at like a book like Educated by Tara Westover, she’s such a cool scrappy kid being thrown so much shit in her life and you see her journey.

Jessica: So what’s really satisfying as a reader is the journey. And so [00:05:00] the person at the start of the book or your memoir is not the same person at the end. There’s a lot of growth. And, our brains respond really well to that. So if you guys were now to think of what’s your favorite movie? Think of what’s your favorite movie.

Jessica: I’m going to say Dirty Dancing. Baby at the start is not baby at the end. We travel with her. And when you’re thinking about memoir or the memoirs that you love to read, and again, it can be fiction. It’s finding a part of your life that is, all related. It’s one theme and it’s how, you grew and how you often, how you overcame a particular aspect of your life, which could be your childhood.

Jessica: It could be a teen, an event in your teenage years or something like that. It could be an overseas experience that you had. Like for me, it was Myanmar. [00:06:00] No one leaves baby in the corner. No. And so that’s how, You want it, you want to, I think the value of telling your story is being really truthful and really authentic and really yourself and having the courage to be yourself because people want to read about you.

Jessica: They don’t want to read about a hypothetical person who could be anyone. They want to see your unique experiences. That’s for me, what is really fascinating.

Rebekah: And do you think that’s. Part of the key ingredients that make a story resonate and stick with the audience. So are there any other little elements that we should consider?

Jessica: There’s, an element of, circumstances that are, they make you take a step back and think, wow could, that be true? That’s quite extraordinary. There’s an element of that, that you need. So you would not say, just choose like a linear My teenage years from [00:07:00] 14 to 21, because what’s your book about?

Jessica: It’s exploring a book will have an overarching message. You’ve got a message. And so you focus a strong book will be saying something. It is not a blow by blow description of events. What you leave out is just as important as what you leave in, because to create a page turning. memoir, you curate the events of your life really well.

Jessica: And they all link back to that message, not in a preachy way at all. It could be life is so complex. The world is not just, some people are kind. It could be that kinds of, I think you can overcome a certain disadvantage that you were born with. If you persist or have belief in yourself or don’t trust men or, you it’s up to you.

Rebekah: Absolutely. And how important is [00:08:00] things like story structure and the kind of techniques that what kind of techniques are authors using to assemble their stories so that they come into that format? Because I’ve done a lot of stuff in theater and TV, you do actually have little formats that you follow to keep you on.

Rebekah: So that when you’re writing 22 minutes of scripts or 44 minutes of scripts, it ends up tying up and fitting in the way that people also anticipate and expect. Does the same thing occur with books? Or is there anything that sort of hinders the writing process if we don’t think about it as we go?

Jessica: Yeah, it’s funny that you talk about theater because often what I tell my book coaching clients is imagine everything in scenes.

Jessica: So if your book was turned into a script, what would they be doing on stage? Because one of the common, ways that we go wrong when we’re writing our first book is to simply, download the information and explain and put in a lot of backstory. So it’s [00:09:00] really important the show don’t tell, which is having actual scenes.

Jessica: So choosing scenes from your life that were really significant and describing them, because that’s what gives your book pace. If, it is solely an inner conversation and I began my first book with. Really important in a thoughts, but nothing was actually happening. So I went, hang on, this is not working.

Jessica: So I set the scene at the airport where my then husband, we didn’t know if he was going to get let in or out. So I took from the internal and put it into the external because our brains are wired for story and our brains respond to certain things. That’s something that’s really important. And also chapter summaries are really important where you’re choosing the scenes from your life.

Jessica: And you think, okay, I can fit two or three of those in a chapter. And then you come to the end of the chapter and a new problem [00:10:00] arises, a new challenge arises, which I’m sure is similar. It’s how you keep the momentum because the, goal is for the reader to get to the end of your book and then to recommend your book to someone else.

Jessica: And you will do that successfully if you keep them on the edge of your seats. If you give away everything in the beginning and in the prologue. They have no reason to continue.

Rebekah: It’s, a nice little balance there where you revealing to, to spark interest in what happens next.

Jessica: Yeah.

Rebekah: Now, you mentioned at the beginning, Jessica, that people are writing about their tough childhoods or their experiences overseas or things. These are quite emotionally tough and complex subjects at times. Regardless of the content, what, what helps people deal with the content that they’re writing at the time.

Rebekah: And then also deal with that creative cringe that we all have, where we get filled with self doubt. Is this working? Imposter syndrome? Is this just a big bag of cats? [00:11:00] How do you manage all of that? Especially while you’re writing about those heavier subjects.

Jessica: What again, what I find interesting is that yes, we have this millennia old drive to record our own stories and it is not when we go and have a fantastic vacation.

Jessica: It is the worst parts of our lives that we feel compelled to record and to share with other people, which takes a lot of courage and is very difficult to relive. So we’ve voluntarily. Choosing those things. And because those are the things that really are important to share with other people, that there’s another witness to what happened to you or to what you witnessed.

Jessica: And yes, it is so difficult to confront those parts of your life without a doubt. And I would also say not just the writing is difficult, but the, reading, the sharing is also difficult. Like my first client was Holly Dean Johns, [00:12:00] seven years in a Thai prison. And she did 17 years. in prisons, and her mum died of a heroin overdose.

Jessica: She herself managed to overcome that, but she lost so much of her life along the way. And the night that I posted her, book, she just cried. not, it was sad tears, not I’ve achieved this. It’s really, confronting to see your story in a book form. And then you release it to the world and you can’t control what’s going to happen to it from there.

Jessica: Good, bad, or indifferent. And indifferent is the worst. And also reading audio books. It can be really confronting and upsetting for people. So you need to take your time to do that. Sometimes I will say to a client, it might be good if you’re not seeing your regular psychologist, if you haven’t done that for a while, that maybe Set up an appointment or something so that you can check in with them.

Jessica: And I think having people around you your, like your trusted network, [00:13:00] because some people will be really jealous that you’ve published a book and some people will be throwing dirt your way. So that can knock your confidence as well. That kind of, who do you think you are to have stuck your neck out, especially in Australian culture, like the whole tall poppy thing.

Jessica: Some people will be, they’ll be. Yeah. And so if you can surround yourself, your allies are other authors because they’ve been through it too. And they will champion you because it’s authors supporting authors often. And you will get to meet so many new people and connect with new people who will say that happened to me too.

Jessica: Oh, I’m an aspiring author too. And I loved your book and those kinds of people will give you strength, but it’s not an easy thing to do. I think it’s one of the most challenging things to do. It’s not all like sunshine and rainbows and people just turning up to your book signings and stuff like that.

Rebekah: Absolutely. Yeah. Chloe Higgins, who is the author of The Girls That Many Know, talks about the death of her sisters, also highlighted this when she spoke to The [00:14:00] Jungle several years ago. It’s, an interesting thing going through that process of actually scooping out, as you say, the worst moments and putting them in a format and then having to almost relive them on a certain sensitivity and on the rest of it.

Rebekah: Three tips would you give to people that are out there that are grappling with their stories and trying to find that voice within? Because we all have the nice little one in the head. We all have the one that we write with. We all see the voices that are out there in written words all the time.

Rebekah: How do we take the one that’s in here and put it on a page and be authentically ourselves and have that conversation that a book allows for?

Jessica: It does take time, I think, to find your author’s voice. So often when I start working with an author, the language to read doesn’t sound like the way they talk.

Jessica: And Beck, I think you’re an example. You really write the way you talk. You have a really strong, playful voice that’s very witty, but a lot of [00:15:00] people tense up and they tense up or they try to overcompensate for what is a lack of confidence in their writing abilities. So my first tip would be relax. Relax, use simple language, get the words onto the page.

Jessica: There is no more important thing to do than to be clear in your communication. So just let the story tell itself. I would say also plan, it out because that will give you confidence. Like people say, the best way to overcome imposter syndrome is to be prepared. So if you map out your chapter summaries, it can just be a couple of sentences, scene by scene, what’s going to happen in each chapter.

Jessica: You start to, you know where you’re going, you know where you’re going, you’re not distracted by possible red herrings along the way, you kill all your darlings as you go and you also should really try to enjoy it because you’ll miss it when it’s finished. It’s [00:16:00] this amazing thing to do is to write your story down and you only get to do that once because then the book exists and other people get to read it and you do miss it.

Jessica: Like I always feel a little bit sad when I finish. So enjoy this like delicious creative process and allow yourself to dream like of all the amazing things that could happen as a result of your book being published. And so many times it’s in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine. Because until you put your book out into the world, you can’t get feedback.

Jessica: You don’t know how people are going to reply. You can only try and preempt that. And you will be scared along the way, but that’s okay. Because if you weren’t a little bit scared, I think that would actually be worrying. It’s just an inherently brave thing to do to put yourself out there, like your life story and your writing abilities in one, it’s very public.

Jessica: So I always say let fear get in the car [00:17:00] with you, but don’t let it drive. Like control, keep going, just keep going and let it just sit with you, sit next to you. You’re doing something that’s really cool. So there’s going to be a bit of fear in that, but just get to the end.

Rebekah: Nice. I like that.

Rebekah: I really like that. Obviously I really like any kind of analogy, but that one really sums it up quite well. Now Jess, one of the most common tips that people bandy about with writing is just make time for it and you stick to a schedule. It becomes a routine and that’s all you need to do. Is it really as simple as that?

Jessica: It’s as simple as that and as hard as that. Because if you don’t make regular time for it, you’ll never finish your book. You just, you cannot, you will not. So I’ve written my books largely with 45 minutes at the start of my day and that included having to get up before I started my freelance journalism day or doing it at the start of my work day because our days end up pear shaped.

Jessica: And it doesn’t get done every day, every single day, and you have to carve out that time and protect it [00:18:00] fiercely and not let any time thieves encroach on that time. I don’t take calls. I don’t check email. It’s, really special to me. And even when I’m visiting my family in Melbourne, I’ll still just say, this is what I do.

Jessica: I’m just going for my writing time because that’s what I do. So the stronger you can be, You’ll get it done. And the other thing is don’t start a newsletter. I see so many people saying, okay, I’m about to start my book. And then I see they’re posting their newsletter and I’m like no You, have to, all that, all your extra time must go into writing your book.

Jessica: It’s it’s a diversion. It’s an easier thing to do.

Rebekah: Yeah, it doesn’t every freelancer have that problem though, Jess. Like we set ourselves a task and then all of a sudden these things that we didn’t really care about five minutes ago are all of a sudden very time sensitive and extremely important.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. , if you wanna finish your book, get, also get Scrivener, [00:19:00] that would be my other tip. And you can put in the date by which you wanna finish your manuscript.

Rebekah: And then

Jessica: it will tell you every day, okay, you need to write 432 words. And if you don’t write for a couple of days. That will obviously increase to make it in time, and there’s a bar across the top.

Jessica: And so as you write more and more words, you see the bar slowly filling out, which I find really satisfying. But yeah, it has to be a regular habit. If you do 4000 words one week, but then you don’t touch it for three weeks it’s like getting back onto the basketball court. You’re not warmed up.

Jessica: You’ll forget what you’ve written. You’ve got to make it a habit.

Rebekah: Absolutely. I always say to myself, it’s like the Fleetwood Mac song the chain, which is never break the chain. The minute you break the chain, it’s a lot harder to grab a hold of it again.

Jessica: Yeah. But if you like, if you don’t write for a week or something, just dust yourself off and get back, to writing and be really dogged.

Rebekah: Absolutely. So [00:20:00] with Hembury books, you’re probably saying a lot of things come across your desk. You’re probably going to a lot of events, reading a lot of things it’s what you do when you’re in these sorts of fields. What sort of trends are you seeing in memoir and narrative non fiction that you like that are out there that other people could explore?

Jessica: I would answer the question a little bit differently because Henry Books is a little bit different. We are not taking from a slush pile and choosing what we think should be out into the world. We’re trying to democratize access to being an author and the technology exists. It’s just that it’s really overwhelming to learn how to self publish.

Jessica: So what I am saying is an astounding amount of talent that is not being published. And the, books that come across my desk are so good and so brave and so just fascinating to me. Like I, it astounds me. That how much people will share of themselves. And it’s [00:21:00] so cool that people do that. And I’m saying that people I always ask did you approach a traditional publisher?

Jessica: And a lot of people know, because they haven’t got the time, they just want to get on with it. They just want to publish their book. And so that is something that, that I see is that we’re starting to be really honest with each other because self publishing exists. So I would take Dana De Silva.

Jessica: She’s not, I didn’t publish her book, but she came. I helped launch her book and I did some consulting for her. She has obsessive compulsive disorder. She’s written this memoir. That’s not, it’s part erotica, part travel and part mental health. So she has OCD. But for her, it manifested in thoughts of pedophilia towards her stepchildren.

Jessica: And she could not tell anyone for about six years. And she has gone through that journey and she’s published [00:22:00] a book and she her mom, the night before she published it said, I don’t think you should go ahead with this. And then her mom was at her launch, really proud of her. And I just.

Jessica: If, we can be this open with each other about what it’s really like to be human, we are so much better off for books like this. So I, what I see in memoir in the trad publishing space is like Paris Hilton, like celebrity memoirs. It’s not that interesting. I don’t think readers really want it.

Jessica: But what I see in self publishing memoir is just, we’re reaching new heights of honesty and authenticity with each other. Yeah,

Rebekah: it’s interesting. It’s also as someone with OCD, I find it quite refreshing to hear that someone’s actually challenged that idea of intrusive thoughts and laid bare their particular version of it in such a thoughtful manner because it is the most misunderstood mental illness.

Rebekah: [00:23:00] Yeah,

Jessica: people,

Jessica: would say to her, aren’t you just like really clean and and she was like, that’s just not how it is for me. And she has secured a lot of media coverage, like on news. com and things like that. And, she’s done heaps of interviews and it just shows that as, readers, we’re hungry for real stories, not sanitized stuff.

Jessica: We do want it. We will respond to it. And what she’s done is a real service, I think.

Rebekah: Absolutely. Absolutely. Folks, that’s pretty much almost all the questions I had prepared, but I’d like to hear from the audience. So if you have a question, you’re welcome to pop it in the chat. But you can also, if you’re feeling brave, you can pop yourself on video and have a little bit of a chin wag.

Rebekah: So I see Heather’s actually dropped one in here for you. If you’re writing about yourself, how do you tackle including family members and others without revealing too much or offending [00:24:00] them? How do you refer to them? How do you refer to well known people without them suing you if they don’t want to be mentioned?

Rebekah: So that’s two questions there, family and public, visible public people.

Jessica: Yeah. It’s that, that is a really tricky one. On the Henry books podcast, I had the author of dear psychosis come on because she writes about her door daughter’s drug induced psychosis, which happened while she was in Turkey. And she got a WhatsApp message saying, I think your daughter’s like really unwell.

Jessica: She had to fly up to Turkey. And so that was, what we focused on. And she, her serious advice was that think very carefully because once the book is out in the world, you cannot take it back. And absolutely you need to have the consent of your family members and your relationships. are so vitally important.

Jessica: And so the cover of Dear Psychosis is her daughter drew all over her face and sent her a photo [00:25:00] going, Hey mom, could I be Australia’s next top model? And it really upset her mom because it wasn’t like her. And the book cover is across her eyes and her mom was Absolutely adamant. Everyone else said no, we’ll just, use the photo.

Jessica: She said I’m not using her eyes and everything that she wrote. She actually has her daughter’s voice as well, because who said if people wanted us to write nicely about them, they should have been nicer to us in the first place. There’s that approach. You can take that approach, but there will be consequences, I think, for your personal life, and you, have to be comfortable with that, and I think it has to be your story to tell.

Jessica: There’s ways that you can de identify characters to keep them safe. And you can actually throw people off the scent by blending them into combined people in your life, not making anything up, but de identifying. And I think that’s really worth pursuing [00:26:00] in, some cases. I try just to criticize myself.

Jessica: And to not take swipes at anyone else. Cause I haven’t got the right of reply. Like it’s all my account. And also to say at the start of your book, this is my version of what happened. We all have different memories, but to acknowledge that not everyone may agree with how you’re telling it, but.

Jessica: you’re telling your truth. Now if, you’re worried about legalities, there are solicitors who can read your manuscript. And I had one client who wrote a memoir, and she has a really difficult relationship with her mother who put her on world’s strictest naughtiest kids or something in the UK. And I said, this is really public.

Jessica: I’m pretty sure it’s defamatory. this lawyer can read your manuscript and she, she can give you a qualified view, but she didn’t have the funds to do that. And I said we can’t really proceed. Because defamation is [00:27:00] real. And do you want to go down that path? I don’t think you want to go down that path.

Jessica: So there’s so much that you can tell of your own life

Rebekah: and

Jessica: you can do it in a way that does not expose you to a massive amount of stress. I don’t think publishing a book should cause you a massive amount of stress. It should be cathartic and make you feel like you’ve Completed that part of your life and come to as much pace with it as you can.

Jessica: It’s hard though. These are some really, hard questions.

Rebekah: Yeah. Look also the other approach to take with these sorts of things. I know Anna Spargo Ryan and Chloe Higgins both had conversations with their families because there were complex issues. They were talking about, death and family.

Rebekah: One where a parent had caused the accident. The other one was mental illness and the family’s response to it. Those conversations were vital to both those women [00:28:00] publishing their books. Jennifer Neal also did an approach where she fictionalized. Family abuse and created a character and was able to talk about it in those sorts of ways while still addressing the kernel of those ideas.

Rebekah: So there’s a few other ways to do it. And also Jeanette McCurdy, who famously went out and waited for her mum to die and then wrote what she needed to say. after her, abuse. So I guess there’s a few options out there.

Jessica: There are, And I hope that it wouldn’t get in the way of a real burning desire to tell that story because there are ways around it.

Rebekah: Yeah, absolutely. And SF has asked, would you recommend self publishing? A

Jessica: hundred times. Yes. For financial reasons, for creative reasons, you stay in control. You get to make all the decisions, which can be overwhelming. That’s why my business was born because I could not get a publisher or agent interested in our home in Myanmar.

Jessica: So I [00:29:00] was like, okay, I’ll take matters into my own hands. I’m going to publish this thing. And then I fell in love with the process of learning, but it was a steep learning curve. You have to make a lot of decisions. A lot of the terms you’re like what’s a bleed, what’s a trim size. So it took ages for me.

Jessica: So now Hembree Books helps other authors to self publish. Because I think it’s a better deal because you get to keep all your royalties. We don’t keep any royalties. You own all your intellectual property. If you want to change the cover in a year’s time, you can do that. You can audit copies of your book on Amazon for eight bucks a copy and then take it to an event and sell all your books.

Jessica: Self published authors are doing really well. And I guess the reality is as well is you’re very unlikely to get a deal from a traditional publisher because they are looking for books that they can sell about 30, 000 copies minimum. And if they don’t think that your book will sell and you can do that, it’s tricky because they have to front up all the costs of publishing your book and they [00:30:00] need to get their, get that return on investment and so they will acquire your book and they will acquire the rights to your book.

Jessica: And so you don’t really get a seat at the decision making table. You might be consulted and it depends what your publishing contract says. But the power imbalance is such that if you really push back on something. They might publish another book. Increasingly I’ve got clients who have traditionally published and they’ve asked for the rights back and now they’re choosing to self publish because it can be underwhelming if you feel like you’re just a number in a very big publishing house, you might get a bit of marketing attention, but after your book is not a new release, and if your book is not selling like hot cakes, The investment will leave the emails will not be returned and it can just, it can be really heart wrenching.

Jessica: Actually, I’ve had some sad stories. With self publishing, you need to [00:31:00] be the person to champion your book, but I think the author is the best person to champion their book. You need to get out there with your book. You need to tell people on social media that you have a book. And to organize your launch.

Jessica: And you also have to pay for the costs of producing a beautiful book. But you can, invest as deeply or as lightly as you wish. Like with my first book, like I spent a lot of money and with my second book, I was like smarter and leaner in, instead of chasing every shiny object, I knew what would be, what would give me a return on the money spent.

Jessica: And there’s so much you can do that just takes your time. It doesn’t take your money.

Rebekah: That’s it. And so Tamara’s addressed a question here, which is how much editing do you offer for people’s work before publishing? Is that part of your package? So are you there to supply the mechanical part of things where it gets printed?

Rebekah: Or are you there to help with those other things that we might need?

Jessica: We are end to end. So the business model is coach, edit, publish, but we can [00:32:00] also take people at any part of their journey, including book previously published, got the rights back. Let’s redo it better, but editing, of course we have in house.

Jessica: Editors. And what I like to do, which I haven’t heard of another business doing, is setting up a three way meeting with the author, the editor and the publisher, myself, so that the author can introduce their book to the editor and themselves and anything they want the editor to specifically focus on.

Jessica: And it could be quite a deep edit. Whether they’ll look for sort of Problems with the logic or the flow, or it could be a proof edit, which is more just making sure that there’s no typos, there’s no repetition. Characters names are the same person throughout. So again, it depends. I have had many books that have been edited up to six times and they’ve been kicked down the road.

Jessica: And the author is they’ve had so [00:33:00] many opinions from so many different people that there’s a real. Confidence rebuilding that has to come. For example, Harm None by Gay Lynch won the 2004 unpublished manuscript award for South Australia, the writing literacy board, and it never got published.

Jessica: Until now, because Gaze decided that she’s going to publish it. And she’s had so much input, like one publisher said they didn’t like the first page, and another said it like loses momentum in the middle, so she went away and tried to fix that. As the author, when your book is ready, Of course it needs to be edited, but you’re done.

Jessica: You’ve written the book. And that’s what we want to do is get out of the author’s way. We believe that the author knows best about their book, but we’ll make it the best book it can be. So our editors will leave comments throughout, but it’s suggestions. We will defer to the author if they wish to take the advice or not.

Jessica: We’re not going to say take up that character or [00:34:00] have a different ending or we don’t like that character or that’s irrelevant. Like it’s, meant to enable self expression.

Rebekah: Awesome. And, that, okay. So did we have any other questions that were coming through? Does that include sensitivity raids and stuff like that too?

Rebekah: Because I know in this climate, we have to be careful about positioning ourselves as experts in other cultures, other communities, Disability experience, queer experience and all the rest of it.

Jessica: Yeah, you can do that. I did that for my book because I’m not Burmese. So I had my Burmese friend agent read it and also just to check that everything was accurate.

Jessica: So I do think that’s really important. I was telling the story of my experiences in Myanmar. But insofar as it was not my country that that was really invaluable. And I also had my book translated into Burmese because I want Myanmar people to be able to read my book. And then someone came and [00:35:00] said, could she make an audio book of it in Burmese?

Jessica: So that’s really cool. Yes, I think authors. No that, and authors are really conscious of that and that they take responsibility for that. And that what I get with my self published authors is that they say, look, it’s been edited four times, but let’s get a proof. I want this to be the best book it can be.

Jessica: Anything that our editors, like that hasn’t arisen, But if it were to arise, like the only thing that’s non negotiable is anything that’s remotely legal. And that would fall under that the case of defamation or if something could be offensive, but we I feel that traditional publishers have become really risk averse.

Jessica: They are just going for mainstream books [00:36:00] nowadays and we do want to be bold and we want to publish stuff. That’s true and real. And it might be quite challenging and a traditional publisher wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot badge pole, but I do, I want to publish those books. So yeah, if it arises I’ve been a journalist for 15 years.

Jessica: I know the limits of. Fair comment and things like that. But that doesn’t really keep me awake at night.

Rebekah: Great. Okay. It looks like we don’t have any further questions from the audience, but if people want to catch up with what you’re doing, Jessica, or if they want to find out about Henry books, or they want to say, Hey, I’ve got this book inside of me.

Rebekah: Can we do something with it? Where do they find you and how would they approach that?

Jessica: You can jump on the website, henry books and.com au and you can set up a call and I’d love to hear about your book. Just jump on the website. There’s a direct link to Calendly. [00:37:00] We can do a video call like this and you can tell me all about your book and please give us a follow on Instagram because that’s how you’ll see us doing the work and working with authors.

Jessica: And championing our amazingly creative and talented and brave authors. And finally, you can listen to the Henry books podcast where we interview authors and publishing experts and people who are just killing it with their sales. Like I’ve interviewed two self published authors who have sold a hundred thousand copies of their books.

Jessica: And those episodes are coming out coming up in the next couple, in the next couple of weeks. And then at the start of January, Cause that’s what we look at. How can we pull our collective knowledge, write great books and sell a lot of books.

Rebekah: Awesome.

Jessica: Awesome.

Rebekah: Alrighty, folks. Thanks so much to Jessica for being here with us today.

Rebekah: If you want to find out more, obviously you go to henrybooks. colmart. au. Next week on the freelance jungle, we have the deadline party where we have six brave [00:38:00] souls. getting their projects up and presenting them to you in five minute presentations. You can come and cheer them along with that. That’s at 11 a.

Rebekah: m. Sydney time on Thursday next week. And then Friday Hayley and I are saying goodbye to the year by having a little bit of a casual Christmas for afternoon at 1 p. m. Sydney time on the Friday. So you can join us for that as well. If you had to drop in and out on this session today, of course it will be available on the website, but Considering I’m already sitting here in board shorts, it’ll probably be January that you’ll see it there.

Rebekah: All right. Thanks so much for joining us today, Jessica.

Jessica: Yeah. Thanks to everyone who came along to have a listen.

Rebekah: And we’ll see you all next week for these fun things. Hey folks. See you there.