Ep 04: Do THIS for the Sake of Your Novel

[00:00:00] The fiction world is a competitive one. The reality is that Christian publishers just don’t publish that many fiction titles each year, but they receive a ton of manuscript submissions. So your novel has to stand out and today we’re gonna talk about one particular way you can make that happen.

Hi, I’m Rachel Fahrenbach and I help Christian writers write and publish a novel that has an engaged audience ready to buy it. And today we’re gonna get into this one way that you can make your novel stand out from all the others. It’s probably not one that you have ever heard of before, so let’s get to it.

What is this magic step that you’re gonna take that’s gonna make your novel stand out from all of the rest? Brace yourselves. You are not ready for this. The thing that you’re going to do is you’re going to support other writers. I bet you didn’t. I bet you did not see that one coming. I bet you were not prepared for that.

I bet you were expecting me to say something different, but that is what I would tell you right now is one of [00:01:00] the most important things that you can do for the sake of your novel, for your novel to stand out from all the rest is for you to support other writers. I think that this is a key ingredient into making your novel standout in the whole submission, the whole publication, the whole selling aspect of your novel’s journey.

What I am talking about is not supporting somebody in a way that’s sleazy or manipulative or even fake. I’m not talking about that kind of support. What I’m talking about is like genuine support. It is coming alongside of people.

It is looking at them and saying, I want to see you succeed. How can I make that happen? What can I do to make that happen? How can I support you? It is not sleezy manipulative or fake. It is genuine. It is a genuine desire to see the other writer succeed and in order to have this kind of genuineness– that’s almost a hard word to say. In order to have this genuineness to the way that you support somebody, you have to operate [00:02:00] outside of a scarcity mindset, and it is hard for us writers when we know how competitive the world that we exist in is. We know how few titles a publisher is publishing.

We know how hard it is to sell copies of your book. We know how noisy social media is. We know all these things. And so when it comes to supporting another writer, sometimes we can kind of go, Eh, I don’t know if I want to use my platform or my time to shine to promote somebody else, or to highlight somebody else. But the reality is you cannot operate in that scarcity mindset. You cannot operate with this fear that if you support somebody else, if you encourage somebody else, that there’s somehow less for you. Because especially if you are a person of faith, you know that God has called you to this journey. You know that he has equipped you. You know that this talent comes from him. And if he is the one calling you and equipping you, He is the one who is making way the path for you to walk. And if you do [00:03:00] not believe that your God has called you to an abundancy that God has called you to these things and you think that there somehow is going to be less if you are hoarding back your ability to support somebody, if you are keeping back your ability to help another writer because you somehow are afraid that there is not gonna be enough for you on the other side of it, then you are not trust the God that has called you to this writing journey. I would highly, highly, highly, highly recommend you take a pause and you have a heart to heart with your savior, and you ask him to reveal to you why you have that scarcity mindset. Why you’re not trusting him in this journey to be compassionate and generous towards others. I think the God who wants us to be generous in our everyday lives would want us to be generous in our writing life as well. Do not operate out of a mindset of scarcity. Be a genuine supporter of others in your industry.

Also [00:04:00] this kind of support that I’m talking about this, this genuine support of other writers is proactive. It is not reactive. We do not wait for somebody to say something nice about our writing to then go and say something nice about their writing. We are not in a reactive, supportive mode. We are proactive. We are seeking out other writers. We are seeing what they’re doing and we’re saying, How can we best support you in your writing journey? I see what you’re doing. I want to champion you. Let’s see how we can make that happen.

It is a kind of support that values collaboration over competition. We are not in competition with one another. The whole world needs your message just as much as it needs mine. We are all serving a certain reader. We are all have a message to share. Even if that message is very similar to another’s, it is not the same because you are not the same person sharing that message.

Case in point people, if God could use four different people to tell his his story, his biography, you know, each gospel has a different [00:05:00] person that’s trying to reach it has a different way to tell the story. And it has a different purpose and an angle. It’s all the same story. It’s all the same message and the purpose is really the same, is to share the good news, right? But the way in which each one of those writers of the gospels approached telling the story was different. And the same thing is true in the industry that we work in, the industry that we are a part of. Your message and my message might be very similar. But we have each been tasked with being obedient regardless of who else is sharing the same message. I am called to be a writer and God is asking me to be obedient to that, and he is calling you to be a writer and he’s asking you to be obedient to that. It does not matter what somebody else is saying or writing. You need be obedient and you need to be generous in that obedience.

Now that we’ve talked about what kind of support I’m talking about, I wanted to explain to you why I think this really helps your novel stand out. It really at the heart of it, you [00:06:00] supporting other writers creates really great connections within the writing industry. It gets your name noticed and it opens doors. That’s the bottom line. We’re all just gonna be really honest about this. We’re not doing it in the sleazy way, so we don’t need to feel embarrassed that this is part of the reason why we do it. We don’t need to feel ashamed that this is part of the reason why we support one another.

We are doing this because we know that in our support of each other, we’re creating great networks. We are creating great connections within a network. Within an industry, and we are going to use those to help our novel reach our reader. And we’re doing this in a way that is genuine and generous and we’re not doing it in a way that is sleezy and so we don’t need to feel embarrassed that this is why we’re doing it. We are doing this to make connections. To have our novel possibly reach a reader, like that’s our goal. That’s everybody’s goal. And so we know this, that our linking arms together is moving us all forward. We’re all taking steps forward, and we [00:07:00] are making progress in this writing journey because we’re supporting one another. It’s reciprocal.

It’s a reciprocal relationship. When you leave a review, a book review, when you comment on somebody’s post, when you are a supportive person in the writing community, you get notice as being a team player. You get notice and your name is associated in a positive way. It is. People take notes. You have no idea whose eyes are on your work. You really don’t. You don’t know who this person knows, especially when you’re utilizing social media. You have no idea how it is reaching people who have the ability to help you make your novel, a reality in the hands of a reader. You just don’t know. That’s why I’m saying like the support has to be genuine. It has to be a true desire, and it has to come out of that place of like, not scarcity, but of generosity.

So now that we’ve really got into the why of supporting other writers, let’s get into the how a little bit. But before [00:08:00] we do, make sure you hit the subscribe button on YouTube or Apple or Spotify or wherever you are either watching or listening to this episode so you don’t miss any future episodes of the Business of Christian Fiction Podcast.

So I’m gonna, you might notice if you’re watching me on the video, look down at my notes a couple times, but just because I wanna make sure that I don’t miss any of these really great ways that you can support writers.

Real easy way to support another writer is to engage with them on social media. Like, comment their posts that they put out, share them with, um, on your threads, share them with somebody else that you think would really enjoy it. Um, just engage with the content that they’re putting out.

I mean, you know how hard it is to put content out there, so a real easy way is to help engage with other people’s content. Also, another really great ways on Instagram is to, um, engage with their stories, respond to the polls they put out, respond to the, um, [00:09:00] to the request for, um, to ask questions, respond to them in a dm, to their content.

Uh, and just either send an encouraging note or maybe explain how the story resonated with you, the way that they put it out there. Just whatever it is, just engage with it. The idea is to support the effort that that writer did in putting something out there in the world.

Another great way to support writers is to leave book reviews on good reads and on Amazon. These book reviews help other people decide to, to purchase a copy of that book. So it’s really helpful to that writer to have reviews on their, um, book pages, on good reads, or on Amazon.

They also sometimes will use those reviews in promotional materials, like on their website or on, um, in just other areas like social media and stuff like that. So it is really beneficial for a writer to get those reviews.

Another great way to support [00:10:00] writers is to share about their book on your platforms. If you have a blog or a podcast or even on your social media, you can share some takeaways. you can essentially share the review that you posted on Good Reads or Amazon. You could post that on your social media thread, or you can take a little bit more time and really go in depth.

Now, I will tell you that, um, I had fellow writer do this for me, for my book, Rest and Reflect. It’s a guided journal. You can find it on Amazon, but, um, she actually took the time to craft a blog post about the journal and about her, um, interactions with it and how, uh, as she moved through it, what she experienced.

Why, you know, some of concern she had at the beginning of reading it to when she re, you know, finished it and she realized why I had set it up a certain way and why that it really you needed to move through it a certain way. Like she was [00:11:00] really intentional with how she offered support to me in that blog post.

And I will tell you that blog post will stick with me. It will, It encouraged me. It helped me. I was able to use some of the language that she put on there in other places. Um, I was able to, Uh, understand better my reader, because she was giving me so much feedback in this blog post. Um, it just really helped me.

And now I will tell you, every time I see her social media post, now I’m liking and hearting things and engaging with her content because she gave me so much value in that blog post that now I’m returning that to her. So take the time to think of how you can creatively support a writer on your blog or your podcast or social media, use your platform and your email list too. I, I forgot to mention that a few minutes ago, but your email list is another great way, place. I’ve had, I’ve had a few [00:12:00] writers support me that way. They highlighted me in their newsletters to their email list, and that’s have been a really great way to, um, to have support as well.

So another way that you can support a writer is by inviting them into your circle into your network, into your world. Your church, your homeschool co-op, your mom’s group, whatever it is, uh, invite that writer to speak.

You know, Zoom has made this really easy. They don’t even have to be local to you anymore. But you can be like, Hey, I really loved your book. Would you mind coming and talking to this group of 20 ladies who I think would really enjoy your book too. Most authors would be, especially those with smaller platforms, they’re gonna take you up on the offer because they wanna get in front of as many people as possible and possibly create as many book sales as possible. It’s a really great way for you to support a [00:13:00] writer.

So here’s a really simple way you can support a writer. You can share this podcast episode with a with a fiction writer friend, and then you’ll be supporting me. And as you share this episode with a writer friend, take the time to thank them for the way that they’ve supported you in your writing journey. And then ask them how you can best support them in their writing journey in the upcoming weeks.

And then later down the road your novel will thank you when you have a community supporting its release. Until next time, happy writing. Bye.