Meet Lisa Creffield

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lisa Creffield. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lisa below.

Hi Lisa, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I started a Self-Publishing community in Australia because I saw so many other authors, particularly authors with less technical ability and knowledge, getting ripped off by vanity presses. Many of these authors were dipping into savings to fund “publishing packages” that had no real hope of commercial return. I also felt that writing and publishing can be a lonely business, and wanted a way to bring people together.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’ve been a journalist my whole career, mostly working in broadcast news and online video news. I started writing novels some years ago, joining writing groups and discovering self-publishing.

Through this I realised that many writers were getting misled about the reality of publishing. Not just the chances of getting published but also the potential commercial return. To try to share information and guidance, I started a community called Self Publishing Australia with a couple of fellow writers. We have a website (https://selfpub.com.au), we run regular MeetUps and a Facebook group which has nearly 700 members.

We’ve deliberately kept it completely non-commercial and I don’t even link or promote my own books through it. The aim is to be totally independent, neutral and impartial. We offer free author pages to help those without their own website get some kind of online presence. We also started a list of Australian publishing service providers to help editors, illustrators and other experts reach authors.

We also started a digital literary journal, ink, to give writers – new and old – a change to publish their work. We welcome all kinds of creative work, from prose (fiction and non-fiction) and poetry to artwork and photography.

My view is that self-publishing is best seen as a kind of smorgasboard of services. Some writers are very technically astute with an eye for design, and can DIY the entire publishing process. Others may need help in certain areas, such as formatting or book cover design. It’s about being flexible and ensuring people’s expectations are managed in terms of what results they’ll get.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Writing – In terms of writing, having a background as a journalist has been very helpful. For people whose careers don’t involve much writing or editing, classes can be helpful, but a good writing group is possibly even more critical. You need honest feedback from peers who will be similar to your future readers. I don’t recommend people invest in creative writing degrees – if you look at successful authors, including most Booker and Pulitzer Prize winners, hardly any of them have this qualification.

2. IT skills – Due to working extensively in TV and online news, I’ve gained some good technical skills despite no formal IT background. There are many online courses these days, and authors do need to gain some tech skills particularly when it comes to marketing. For example learning how to set up a basic website and mailing list, and/or a social media Author page. Of paramount importance is simply learning how to save and backup your work. I’ve encountered so many writers – even younger writers – who have lost everything due to trusting their work to a single location.

3. Marketing and promotion – Some of my work has involved working with PR and marketing agencies, and this has been invaluable in terms of understanding book promotion and concepts such as the “buyer journey” – or in this case, reader journey. There are online courses that writers can do but I think this one of the hardest areas to grapple with. Many writers aren’t outgoing, they don’t want to self-promote or have to figure out online advertising strategies. They are writers, not marketers. But unfortunately in the current industry if you want to be successful you have to do both – or pay someone to do it for you.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

For writers I think this is a big quandary. Because as well as your writing skills you also need technical and marketing skills. Even if you get a traditional publishing deal, you are still expected to do a lot of your own self promotion.

You can outsource the areas you lack ability in but if you have zero knowledge of those areas it can be hard to know what services to invest in. So I do I think writers need to be more rounded in their technical and online skills. Wanting to be a successful author but having “no idea how to do a website” just isn’t workable these days.

As an example, I frequently meet older writers who don’t even have social media accounts let alone websites. In some cases they have children (or even grandchildren) who can help out. For others, they need to invest in gaining more knowledge and ability.

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