Each month, the Nonfiction Authors Association asks a burning publishing question of our wonderful, experienced members. Here’s what they have to say!
NFAA: What goals are you setting for yourself for the coming year?
MICHAEL OSTER
My big goal for this year is to launch my book, Level Up: How to Use Your Unique Strengths to Improve Your Competencies and Reach Your Goals, on May 5. It will present a unique and powerful way anyone can use what they’ve got to address almost any issue in their life.
Cinco de Mayo will be a big day for me—my book launches, my business will pivot from Rio Mountain Advisors to Level Up Advisors, and my Level Up Advisors website will go live.
Mike helps high achievers live more meaningful lives. As principal of Level Up Advisors, he draws from his 20+ years of experience as a CEO and Board of Directors leader to support others who wish to take their lives to the next level. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
GLORIA SLOAN
Authors can always use personal development to help build human capital. This is a vital part of our growth and success as with any career or profession. Prior to publishing my memoir in 2018, goal-setting was a necessity primarily for business management and forecasting. The mastery of my goal planning changed after becoming an author to align with my values in life. I decided to self-direct essential skills to identify and accomplish goals that would improve my awareness, potential, and human capital.
I emerged into 2020 clearly focused on a strategic plan that included writing, coaching, and speaking. In my book, Abundant Faith, I write about the gift of wisdom, life skills, and how personal development shapes us. No surprise, I’m a product of my own coaching. I set goals to write more on essential life skills, enhance my knowledge to serve, and become a speaker to inspire others. The first phase of my goals has been accomplished. I became a certified life coach and joined the International Coach Federation, and then completed NSA Kentucky Chapter Pro-Speaker Academy. Currently, I’m working on my next book: Life Skills for the Journey, with the publication goal of end of the year. It’s important to remember that personal development is a lifelong process. Studies show that ultra-successful people never stop reaching for new heights, talents, and goals.
Abundant Faith: Secrets to Plenty Traveling on Life’s Journey https://www.amazon.com/Abundant-Faith-Secrets-Gloria-Sloan/dp/1973638339
RACHEL LEROY
This year I’m building my business as a book writing coach and editor, and I’m growing my business by updating my website, learning more about the nonfiction writing industry, positioning myself in the market by building my platform, and building community with colleagues and potential clients. My main goal is to show nonfiction writers how to get their impactful message from their vision to reality. I work with nonfiction writers who want to write a transformational or healing message—particularly writers who are highly sensitive (HSPs), empaths, and INFPs/Js. Also, I’m expanding my knowledge base so I can serve my clients with professionalism, compassion, and impact. I plan to work with clients to build more editing and coaching experience so they can see results.
Many writers don’t know where or how to start on their books, and I help writers make this the year they get it done. My goals are to help writers overcome self-doubt holding them back from writing their book, implement a plan to prevent procrastination, upgrade their habits to write a powerful book fast, clarify their book’s central message, and create a blueprint to write their book. This year, I look forward to helping as many writers as possible get their book into the hands of those who need its message.
Rachel Leroy is a book editor and coach who has 20 years of experience teaching creative writing and composition on the university level. She got her MA in Literature from Georgia Southern University and MFA from Sewanee School of Letters at University of the South. She helps highly sensitive and INFP/INFJ healers, coaches, and entrepreneurs overcome writing blocks and get their transformational or healing message into the hands of those who need it. rachelleroy.com
CATHERINE STENZEL
Just stay committed to your “butt time” in the chair. There’s nothing magical about writing a book or three or ten. It’s all about choosing to spend your time writing instead of whatever you use as an excuse not to. Make appointments with yourself. Think of these appointments as nearly unbreakable—emergencies aside. You would keep an appointment with a friend. Why not keep them with yourself? Just as a friend will become tired of multiple cancellations, so too, will you grow frustrated, and possibly depressed, about not making good on your promises to yourself.
I think I can say these things because I have published three nonfiction books with John Wiley & Sons, have another book in the beta reader stage at this time, and just for fun, I’m writing an epic poem—sort of nonfiction. In addition, I write weekly for an online publication called The Wannaskan Almanac, which keeps me committed to writing on a regular basis. I also mentor other writers, and the “butt time” principle is the one thing I expect them to do, because if they do this, they are going to produce something—maybe not great the first time, but that’s what revisions are for.
Catherine has published several books with John Wiley & Sons and has written many articles for newspapers and magazines. Her next nonfiction book focuses on martial arts and is due out this year. She holds a Masters in English, an MBA, and a CPA. She lives in a log cabin in Beltrami Island Forest near the Minnesota-Manitoba border with her husband, Joe, her service dog, Willa, a German Shepherd, and her companion Sheltie, Sancho.
KAREN GREENBERG
1) To publish the following three books with Authority Publishing as a trilogy (titles may change according to further suggestions and recommendations):
- A Mother’s Tale of Her Two-and-a Half-Year-Old Son Who Revealed and Healed His Alleged Satanic Ritual Abuse
- O.V.E. (Divine Original Vibration Embodiment) System toward Enlightenment and for Inner Peace
- Kabbalah: A Year-Long Personal and Spiritual Growth Journey through the Tree of Life to Reconstruct Your Life
2) to get on a daily marketing path with Stephanie’s tutelage and coaching
3) to travel as a speaker for the books separately or as a related trilogy
4) to finish writing all the other manuals on the other courses/classes that I have been teaching for the past 2 decades
5) to institute Zoom classes for my teaching.
6) to help my loved ones on their path of fulfilling their Souls’ Purposes (including monetizing).
Karen is a certified essence repatterning practitioner, identifying and repatterning limiting patterns. She is a registered physical therapist and has taught physical therapy courses at the University of Maryland Hospital and dance at dance studios she owned. For nearly two decades, she has traveled to and Skyped spiritual seekers worldwide as a personal/spiritual growth teacher through her D.O.V.E. (Divine Original Vibration Embodiment) work and her Kabbalah Ascension Journeys through the Tree of Life. www.clair-ascension.com
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