How to Become a Consistent Writer and Content Creator with Mara Eller

“How can we reframe social media or other platform building as part of our writing process?” - Mara Eller

Are you writing a book? Or dreaming of writing one? Where does social media and Substack fit into that dream? We’re diving into all three of those — writing books, building a social media platform, and growth on Substack — with writer, editor, and book coach Mara Eller.

Mara almost gave up on Instagram, because not much was happening for her and she wondered if it was worth the time. Sound familiar? We talk about what changed, and how she went viral, and what that did for her followers.

Whether you use social media and Substack to grow your audience for your book or your business, you’ll find something in this conversation.

We talk about:

Why you need to build a platform and a simple mindset shift that can help you show up
Focusing on one platform and pushing your content to other platforms
The Yap Challenge and doing a series
Showing up daily in Notes on Substack and what else you can do there
Tips and tools to actually sit down and get the writing done
The importance of a writing community and how a book coach can help you

DOABLE CHANGES

At the end of every episode, we share three doable changes, so you can take what you’ve heard and put it into action. Action is where change happens.

Even though we want big change, it’s really little things done over and over that make the difference. So pick a doable thing. Put it in your calendar. Weave it through your days for a week and then move on to the next one. It will have a snowball effect.

Here are three Doable Changes from this conversation:

CREATE A SERIES FOR SOCIAL. Pick a topic and talk about different parts of it every day for a week. Let people know it’s part of a series and they should tune to get the rest.
SHOW UP IN NOTES. If you’re on Substack and want to start gaining traction, show up every day for a month in Notes. You can keep it simple. Share an idea, share a quote from a post, ask a question … Miss a day? Show up the next day.
TOUCH YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE DAILY. You don’t have to churn out 50 pages every day or hit a specific word count. But try to touch your practice. Read what you wrote last and jot down notes about what’s next. Voice message an idea that comes while you’re driving. Make a list of scenes you have to write. And yes some days sit and write. But you don’t have to spend hours daily to be a writer or get your book done.

ABOUT MARA

Mara Eller is a writer, editor, and book coach with 17 years of experience. She’s passionate about helping people transform pain into purpose and claim authorship over their lives. Her podcast, The Soul and Science of Great Writing, explores the intersection of craft and creativity with equal parts awe and analysis. In addition to 1-1 editing and book coaching, she also offers a 5-month memoir writing program called Unearthing Beauty, which guides students through a repeatable process for identifying, outlining, and expressing their life-changing stories. Students walk away with the core of their memoir written and refined as well as a chapter-by-chapter roadmap and the tools they need to finish the entire and share it with the world.

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