Creative Satisfaction, In Person Print Book Sales, And Author Mindset With Mark Leslie Lefebvre

What if the real secret to a lasting writing career isn't talent or luck, but learning to thrive in the mess? Why are in-person events worthwhile even if the maths doesn't add up? How do you protect your creativity when the machines never sleep and the community is at one another's throats? With Mark Leslie Lefebvre

In the intro, Has AI Already Killed Non-Fiction [Tim Ferriss]; 9 ways that AI would disrupt authors and the publishing industry over the next decade; Pivoting towards The Transformation Economy; and Who do you serve?

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

Mark Leslie Lefebvre is the author of horror and paranormal fiction, as well as non-fiction travel and books for authors. He's also an editor, professional speaker, and the Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital. His latest book is Stark Realities: Stacked Up Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know About the Business of Writing and Publishing.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• Why print and in-person events are making a comeback for indie authors
• The case for (and against) licensing your voice clone through ElevenLabs
• Why we keep selling books in person when the numbers rarely add up
• Measuring success by creative satisfaction rather than money
• Being honest about author earnings and the fear of being truly seen
• Managing stress, divisiveness, and the noise around AI

You can find Mark at MarkLeslie.ca.

Transcript of the interview with Mark Leslie Lefebvre

Jo: Mark Leslie Lefebvre is the author of horror and paranormal fiction, as well as non-fiction travel and books for authors. He's also an editor, professional speaker, and the Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital.

His latest book is Stark Realities: Stacked Up Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know About the Business of Writing and Publishing. Welcome back to the show, Mark.

Mark: Oh, hey, Jo. It's always an awesome time chatting with you.

Jo: You've been on the show lots of times over the years, but the last time was in September 2024, when we talked about selling books in person. So give us a bit of an update.

What does your writing and publishing business look like at the moment? How do you manage it alongside the day job and everything else you do?

Mark: Oh my God. Well, sleep is—no rest for the wicked, maybe. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

It's so funny, it was just this last weekend in Waterloo. I was at Waterloo Book Fest, and somebody came up to my table—another author from one of the other tables—and said, “I heard you on the The Creative Penn Podcast. And then when you mentioned something about Waterloo, I said, ‘He can't be from Waterloo.' And then when you mentioned the skeleton, I said, ‘I know where he lives.'”

Jo: That's scary.

Mark: So I love the fact that there are so many of your listeners all over the world, and that's usually how people know me. No matter what else I've done, it's like, “Oh, you've been on Joanna Penn's podcast.” I'll say, “Yes, I have.”

You know what's really funny? The last time I was on the podcast, we were talking about A Book in Hand, which I was supposed to release that year.

Jo: Yes.

Mark: I just added another 5,000 words to it this morning.

Jo: Wait, it's still not published?

Mark: No, and it's so funny. I actually have the first 60,000 words of it with an editor right now, and I told her I'd get her the rest of it, which I thought would be another 20,000 words, by the end of June. But I think it's going to hit 100,000.

Here's the weird thing that happened with this. This is trying to accumulate my life of book selling, as well as doubling down on doing in-person events in the last several years.

I thought I was going to have the book done in 2024. I ran into some issues where I didn't back it up properly. It was an old version, and I accidentally overwrote the only version I had.

Jo: So, for everyone listening, Mark—how many decades have you been an author and a publisher?

How come you're still missing deadlines and still not backing up your work properly?

Mark: Yes, this is a lesson: no matter how long you've been doing something, you can still make boneheaded errors. So if you, dear listener, have made mistakes, just know that this old guy who's been doing this since the mid-'80s still makes mistakes like that. Don't beat yourself up. I probably did something worse.

Anyway, that book I thought was going to be maybe 40, 45,000 words, it's going to be bigger than Wide for the Win—close to 100,000 words.

Here's a really important lesson I learned in that, Jo. I thought the book would be something. It became something else. Through my own experiences of doing more in-person events, book signings, and library event.

Also in talking to awesome folks like Johnny B. Truant, Katie Cross, Todd Fahnestock, and so many other authors I know, and seeing what Ben Wolf is up to, and a whole bunch of different people who are doing in-person events.

In creating case studies for how they interact specifically with a bookstore or library, or how they do in-person selling—I really think the book wasn't ready then. It's like the recipe wasn't ready. I still needed to play with some things.

I do sincerely have faith, since I got it into the editorial process, that this will be the year the book actually gets released.

Jo: As you said, there are some really good lessons there around sometimes the book not being quite ready. I'd bought an early version from the StoryBundle, which is how I got this book as well, actually.

Mark: Yes.

Jo: That's another tip for people—storybundle.com. You can go and find some great bundles there.

I was also thinking, as you were talking, that maybe one of the reasons this book about in-person events has got so big is because that's a real trend in the community. It feels like indies, we've moved…

Back in the day, I said, “I'm not doing print. No way.” This was the early days of digital, because print was really hard back then. So I was like, “Oh, and we've got all the advantages doing digital, so I'm just going to focus on that.”

It feels like the pendulum has swung, perhaps even more with the ease of mass production of digital with AI.

The focus on print and in person is getting stronger and stronger. Do you think that's happening?

Mark: Oh, yes, 100%. I did print in 2004. It was really hard back then, so that's gotten easier. I think there are a few reasons.

One of the reasons is, yes, digital made it so much easier for indie authors to get out there and break into the community. But the reality is that print books still outsell e-books in general—overall—despite the fact that indie authors can make six and seven figures a year from selling e-books alone on a single platform.

So print has never really gone away. It was just never something indie authors attended to. They were in a different business than traditional publishers were in.

And second, obviously I've got these gorgeous books that you've created on Kickstarter, because I like the beautiful books. I've never stopped buying print books. I actually buy more print books. I read more because of audiobooks and e-books, but I buy more print books, especially when I can get a nice signed copy.

Then the other reason comes back, again, to your advice—something I've been following for the longest time, and you've long been saying.

I do repeat this, and I try my best to offer attribution to you every time I use it: to double down on your humanity, particularly in this age of digital generation and the ability for even non-writers to leverage tools to create content.

I think it's so much more important for me, as a creative who will never be able to catch up with the machines, to exploit my humanity.

I mean, we both have digital voices of ourselves, right? There's a digital Mark Leslie Lefebvre voice that people can use, and I'm making money off it because people are able to license it through ElevenLabs.

But when I'm there in person, so far the holograms aren't good enough to fool people. I think I'm not just selling a book to somebody; I want to create an experience where, “Oh, I'm talking to the author, and we're signing a book together, and we're taking a selfie together.”

For me, there's that tactile experience that's really enriching. And it may not be something that lines my pockets as easily, because the investment is more significant.

For every $10 I make, it costs me six or seven dollars, as opposed to an e-book, where the cost is amortised in the most beautiful way over millions of copies.

Jo: There are a few things there. First of all, let's talk about that ElevenLabs voice licensing, because, as you say, I also have a voice clone. Bones of the Deep, the latest book, that's my voice clone.

I haven't gone with the licensing, partly because you don't have control over what someone can do with it. So, for example, someone could create Nazi content, or content that I might not agree with, in my voice.

So how have you got over that? Because part of me really does want to license my voice, and the other part doesn't.

Mark: This is a great question, Jo, and I'm glad you asked it. It's the same reason I don't worry about people stealing my books—adding DRM onto my e-books and things like that.

I may as well make some money off it, because let's be honest: you and I, our voices are out there. Thousands of hours of our voices, right? In your podcast, my podcast, in various interviews we've done over the years.

The technology exists for someone to make a copy of my voice themselves anyway. The tools exist. They can do it easily, so why not do it myself and at least make money? I'm actually getting money deposited into my account. Not a lot—maybe $30, $18, something like that every week.

Again, I've taken a lot of my non-fiction books that I haven't had the time to record myself, as I like to do, and I can at least load those to ElevenLabs and make my voice the default voice.

But wouldn't it be great to be able to listen to my book in your voice? It would sound so much better. Because you can do that. When you listen to a book on that platform, you can choose my voice if you'd rather hear it in my voice, or you can choose Burt Reynolds' voice, or some other folks who've licensed theirs.

Again, for me, the whole concept of wide publishing has always been important. It's another small revenue stream that's adding to my numerous revenue streams.

So I guess that's how I've justified just licensing the voice. If someone's going to do something with my voice that I can't control, they can do it regardless of whether or not I put it out there myself.

Jo: I agree with you. That could happen, and neither of us is famous enough that it's likely to happen anyway. I do quite like the idea of people using our voices, say, for other books for authors, because that would make sense—that's where we fit in the niche. I will rethink that, because I think it's interesting.

I wanted to come back to print books. You said sometimes there are easier ways to line your pockets, and I think that's funny. So, getting into the book, this leapt out at me quite near the beginning:

Why do we keep doing this when the maths almost never adds up?

Mark: Oh, I have a perfect example of that from an event I did a couple of weekends ago in Burlington, Ontario. I think it was a $60 table fee. It was a new event. I believe I made $90 or $95 in sales.

So even after the costs of printing and all that stuff, I really didn't make money. I made my table back, which is always a good thing.

There were a few encounters I had with people who were really excited to find my Canadian Werewolf series of books, and just so thrilled to get started. Among the four of them, they bought one copy, but they were going to pass it amongst each other.

You know what? Okay, they bought a single copy, and I was like, “Well, the e-book is permanently free online. You don't even have to buy a copy”—which is anti-selling. I just want them to read the book and enjoy it.

But if they read it and pass it along and start talking about it, they could become readers for a long time. It's an eight-book series, with the ninth book coming out later this year.

There was another encounter I had that day. A woman and her teenage daughter came in, and they were looking at my traditionally published books that I buy at a reduced price from a local bookstore and resell.

They were looking at these true ghost story books I had, and they were pointing: “Do you have that one?” “Yes, I have this one, I have that one.” And the mother's like, “Well, she collects all your books, and she wants to make sure she has them.”

We had this conversation, and she was so excited to meet me in person and to get a signed copy of the book. That experience was such a vanity moment for me as an author. We're lonely. I'm a big loser. Nobody's buying my books. We're always down on ourselves.

So that investment of time and energy, in order to get that little pat on the back or that feeling of, “Wow, I really connected with someone who likes my stuff”—those moments are really precious. They're difficult to explain if you only look at the world in a financial way.

I guess I'm fortunate enough that I do have enough income from numerous streams, including the consulting I do part-time, that it's okay if not every bookish endeavour leads to more money in my pocket at the end of the day.

I can still have these authentic connections with people, which I think is one of the reasons I'm a storyteller. Yes, it's the stories I have to tell, but it's also putting the story into somebody else's hands and eyes and heart and mind.

Jo: You're very giving like that. You have that sense about you, whereas I'm just a curmudgeon in the corner.

Mark: That is not true.

Jo: It is, generally. I don't do events like you do for readers.

Mark: But that's because it takes a lot out of you.

Jo: Yes, but that doesn't matter. Why do I write? I write for me.

Mark: Ah, very good.

Jo: At the end of the day—just being entirely selfish about this—when people say, “Oh, if you won the lottery, what would you do?” I'm like, “Well, I'd do pretty much what I'm doing now.”

Mark: Yes, I'd just do the same. Of course, I'd write more books.

Jo: I'd write more books. So this is where I'm trying to get to for people as well: measuring success in a different way. You were talking about measuring success by how that girl loved your books, and how you feel when someone says they love your books.

With Bones of the Deep, this thriller I've just done, I feel like I had the benefit of that book before anyone even read it.

As soon as it was finished, I made a nice proof copy from BookVault, and I held it in my hand and said, “I made this. I'm proud of the story, I wrote the story, and it's outside my head now.” I feel like I'm creatively satisfied in that moment.

Then, of course, the Kickstarter was great, and I love that the books are going out around the world, but—

I think the happiest I felt was that moment of finishing—that creative satisfaction of holding the book in my hand. You know what I mean?

Mark: 100%, Jo. I cannot agree with you enough. I love so many aspects of writing. Yes, the connection with people is amazing. But I often say this when I'm doing my one-on-one consulting with authors: focus on the projects that mean the most to you, those passion projects.

The process of writing, and the painful rewriting and editing and all the things you go through—when you finish that book, like you said, you hold it in your hands and it is a thing of beauty. It's a huge achievement. You've won.

Whether or not you sell a single copy, you've won by doing it. Everything else is gravy: the sales, the money in your pocket or not, the reviews, positive or not, the people who say, “Oh my God, Bones of the Deep, thank you for writing this book. I'm so glad you introduced this into the world and into my life.”

Anything beyond the creation itself, which is a pure joy—I love it so much. It's just why I get up at 5:30 every morning and write for hours before the rest of my day begins. I try to get stuff done before the rest of the world wakes up.

I want to get the writing done first, when I have the most energy to give myself to the page. Then the rest of the day is kind of gravy for me too.

Jo: You talk there about giving yourself to the page, but in Stark Realities—

You talk about the fear of truly being seen. What do you mean by that, and how do you manage that feeling?

Mark: For anyone who has written anything—fiction, non-fiction, memoir in particular, since it's a bit more closely tied to reality—it's exposing yourself to the world.

I'll never forget an interview I did with Canadian science fiction author Julie E. Czerneda, who, before being a fiction writer, was writing biology textbooks, but her real passion was science fiction and fiction.

When her first novel came out, she said, “It's like standing naked on the front lawn.” When you release a book, even a novel, people look at it and they're going to judge you and rate you.

I remember early on, Jo—we knew each other through Twitter, I think, where we initially met, and then interacted with and finally met in person at London Book Fair. I think you and I have a very similar reaction.

When people know us as positive and upbeat and out there helping authors in the community, and then they read our fiction, they go, “Well, Jo, you burned a nun alive on page one.” Or, “Mark, what kind of… they're drinking from the skulls of dead people? What the heck is going on with you two?”

We are exposing parts of ourselves in our fiction and non-fiction. That's a fear I embrace, but also never get over, if that makes any sense. I write scary stories because I'm a big chicken. So maybe the entire process is just cheap therapy for me. Or not cheap, because it's an expensive pastime, isn't it?

Jo: It certainly can be, but I agree. I struggle with fear of judgment still. I think it's also because we do this in public, which comes back to the financial side of things. We do a lot of this in public, and then people judge us on our author businesses too.

You could look at Bones of the Deep, which was just on Kickstarter, and compare my Kickstarter to another author's Kickstarter for a fiction book, and judge one or the other person based on numbers.

I feel like this is because you and I have done so much in public—for me, almost 20 years, and for you, like 40 years or whatever. Maybe 30 years. You look that old.

Mark: Listen there, dearie. Get off my lawn.

Jo: Yes, get off my lawn—with those skeletons you have on your lawn.

Mark: Yes. They're no longer in my closet.

Jo: They're not in your closet.

I wonder if that also plays a part of it—the pros and cons of doing this business in public.

Mark: Yes, that is a part of it. One thing I try to be very clear about, because there's so much FOMO and so much out there about people thinking that everyone else is making a million dollars from their books and “I'm the only loser who's not”—I try to be clear that I have never made more than a mid-five figures as an author from my author earnings, ever. I haven't yet hit six figures.

One of the reasons I try to be transparent in sharing that is I don't want people to think that everyone else is a six- and seven-figure success story, and they're the only one who's only made $100 last year on their books.

The reality is, 90 to 99% of the people who are writing and publishing are not going to earn a significant amount of money.

I realise I'm also very, very lucky that I've earned this much, and it's taken a long time.

I just shared this in a Substack post I posted yesterday: it was 10 years of rejections before I got $5 for my first short story that was published in '92. It wasn't until 2001 that I finally made pro rate, six cents US a word, for a short story that, ironically, Julie Czerneda bought from me back in the day.

For me, I've been lucky that it's always been a long, slow slog. It's been a marathon, and I've never instantly sprinted across any dramatic finish line. I've had some really phenomenal moments—doing a book signing in a Costco, walking into Walmart and seeing my books there.

Even last night at the Burlington Public Library, going, “Wow, they have eight of my books here—four of my self-published books and four of my traditionally published books, in two different sections.” I was like, “That's kind of cool.”

So I've had these amazing moments as a writer, but I've never had the blockbuster—the Brandon Sanderson, or even the Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman, kind of moments.

I still think I've had a very fortunate and lucky journey. Even if I wasn't making the money I'm making, I'd still be writing, and I'm sure you would be too.

Jo: Oh, yes, for sure.

I actually think the thing most of us would probably let go is the marketing.

If we won the lottery, we'd carry on with all the creative stuff, the writing, the community stuff, and we'd just literally do no marketing at all.

Mark: Well, yes, of course. Or potentially say, “Oh, here, ad agency, here's some money. You just run it, whatever. Let me know if it works or not. I don't care.”

Jo: That's a much better idea.

Mark: At least I've got the extra disposable income, so I may as well, because I'm helping the world when my books are out there. I know my books will help people.

I really honestly think that as storytellers—whether it's fiction or non-fiction, we're still storytellers—what we do in writing and podcasting and all the things we do, the re-sharing on social media, is really helping connect people.

I think that is one of the most profound things we can do as writers. And I mean that the writing, in and of itself, is a reward.

Jo: Like you said, we met on Twitter when Twitter was what it was back in the day. I do very, very little social media now. But you just mentioned your Substack, and you also have your podcast, Stark Reflections. So how are you balancing what you put on each?

I only do this podcast now. I don't even blog. I write books, obviously, and then I do the podcast.

So what are you doing differently on Substack to the podcast, and what part do they play in income and marketing?

Mark: Great question. I realise most people have never heard of me, or read or listened to the things I put out into the world. And I've been a longtime fan of “reduce, reuse, recycle my IP.”

My podcast is not as long-running as yours, but I'm in my ninth year, and I've not missed a single Friday in the full eight years, or eight and a half by now, that I've been doing this.

Every week I reflect on what I learned from an interview, or I'll reflect on something you've posted and say, “This episode is not an interview, but Jo said this last week, and I'm going to talk about it.”

The podcast itself takes a lot of work. I still do all of it myself, and I know I probably shouldn't, but I like doing it, so it's one of those tasks I enjoy. I also have reflections that aren't going to come out vocally but might come out in writing.

Sometimes in the morning I'm not in the mood to write the novel or the non-fiction book I'm writing, but I'm writing some tangent. I just let the creative monster go.

I find that re-sharing… I might have reflected on something for a couple of minutes at the end of an interview, but I really want to expand upon it, so I write the Substack article. I try to reuse some of that content.

Someone's going to enjoy seeing it on a short video clip I share on YouTube, or whatever the platform is. Someone else is going to listen to it on a podcast, wherever they listen to podcasts, and someone else is going to want to read it.

It could be the same information, just shared in a slightly different way, to potentially get it out to other people. So for me, it's part of that wide publishing mentality. I'm trying not to completely duplicate the work, although I am duplicating some of it.

I'll give you an example. Hey, Canadian listeners—if you have not registered for Public Lending Right in Canada, please put something in your calendar for February 2027, because the deadline's over. It was May 1st of 2026. Put it in your calendar for next year.

I even had somebody at this writers' event I was at this last weekend say, “You mentioned something in a presentation you did for the Canadian Authors Association about Public Lending Right, and thank you, because now I get thousands of dollars a year from this.” So just look up Public Lending Right.

I've been saying stuff about Public Lending Right for at least 10 years now. Every time I get my beautiful multi-four-figure cheque from them in February every year, I post on social media and remind authors to check it out. I know it exists in the UK, and it exists in 36 countries in the world—just not the US.

Jo: Not the US.

Mark: They don't have a programme like this, probably because the big publishers—and probably one of the authors' associations—think that libraries are cannibalising book sales, which is not true. It's been proven time and time again, and that lobbying has prevented it from happening.

Whereas here in Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Writers' Union of Canada worked hard to make this happen.

Anyway, I talk about something like Public Lending Right and I feel like I must have said this so much that people are sick of it, but every single time I mention it, someone goes, “Oh my God, thanks for saying that. I never heard it.”

That's a good reminder, especially for folks like you and me. We know the basics. We know what an ISBN is. We know KDP Select means you can't put the e-book on any other retailer, or even sell it on your own website.

We know all these things, but it's hard for us to remember that there are folks coming to this for the very first time who've never heard it, even though we feel like, “Oh my God, I've said this till I'm blue in the face.”

I think I got that from retail. When I worked in retail, I recognised that somebody's going to come in and ask for “that blue book that Reese Witherspoon was talking about,” or Oprah was talking about, or whatever. And you do your darn best to help them figure it out rather than mock them.

I try to take the same approach when people ask me those questions, because I'm trying to remember what it was like when I honestly did not know the answer, and having someone take the time to help me. I've been very, very lucky that I've had a lot of people take the time to help me.

I'll never forget—God rest her soul—Nancy Kilpatrick, a horror writer here from Canada who passed away a few years ago. She gave me a blurb for my very first book in 2004 because she'd acquired one of my short stories for an anthology she'd edited.

I was trying to call my short story collection an anthology, and she very kindly took me aside and said, “It's not an anthology if it's a single author. An anthology is a…”

Jo: I didn't know that until, like, last year. I got that wrong as well. There are lots of words like that.

I want to circle back, because you didn't really answer earlier about the time management. You just mentioned YouTube, on top of Substack and all the things you do.

You also have a day job at Draft2Digital—it's part-time, right? You also do part-time at the university, teaching publishing, right?

You do all kinds of things. How do you manage your time with all of that?

Mark: Well, I mismanage my time more than I manage it, Jo. That's the God's honest truth. Fortunately, most of the things I have that aren't scheduled—like, scheduled to do this lecture at this time, or scheduled to have this meeting at this particular time with Draft2Digital—most of my work is very flexible.

I do not work a regular 9:00 to 5:00, Monday to Friday. Well, I never did. I always worked way more. But I have a very flexible schedule. Every single day is a work day, and every single day is a play day for me. So I'm very, very lucky.

I do schedule in the very important things, particularly where somebody else is reliant upon me—meetings and connections and stuff like that. Then I make the time first thing in the morning to get the writing done. Everything else is not as important, and it's part of… I guess it's part of playing.

You know, like the social media sharing. I don't look at social media as marketing. I just look at it as another way to connect with people, with other creatives, and with readers potentially, all six people who read my stuff.

I probably could do a better job of managing my time. I've tried several times over the years to adapt processes to make it better, but I consistently default back to what I do, and so far I guess I've been getting away with it.

So I was like, “Do I want to waste more time trying to come up with a process, or do I just want to roll with it?” Because so far I haven't killed myself doing it, and I've been enjoying the journey. So, if it ain't broke…

Jo: I think that's the point, if it doesn't feel like it's broken. Having known you for a long time now, and we work together—obviously we co-wrote The Relaxed Author—you do work very, very differently to me. You definitely are a little bit more chaotic. I'm chaotic in some ways too.

Mark: Oh, you're very generous. “A little bit chaotic.” Thanks. That was generous, Jo.

Jo: You're chaotic in your work practices and scheduling and all that, which I couldn't cope with very well. Even though I feel like a part of my brain is very chaotic—the creative side, I guess, can be quite chaotic—I think I'm actually quite controlling and very scheduled in my work practices.

As you say, for someone else on the outside, it might feel to me like you have too many balls in the air. But if you don't feel that, then that's the way of working that works for you. So this is another important thing, isn't it?

You can't adapt to what other people say your life should look like. It's what feels good to you.

Mark: Oh, for sure. One thing I know about my procrastination tendency is that panic and fear motivate me. So, a deadline—”I have to get this into a publisher by this date, I have to get this manuscript to an editor by that date”—I'm motivated by fear. And I'm afraid of everything, so I guess I'm always motivated.

Jo: But I also know that when you hear the word “deadline”—and I know a lot of people who do this—the deadline means you get it in on the deadline, or the day before the deadline. To me, a deadline means I have it ready a month earlier.

Mark: I love that. I've done that a few times and shocked myself. I actually had a pre-order up—with the audiobook, the print, and the e-book—a month in advance, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I was like, “Well, what am I going to do now in the next month?”

Jo: Work on the next thing.

Mark: But I'm so used to working on it up to the last second that I was kind of like, “What do I do?” That actually caught me by surprise, and I honestly felt weird. I was like, “I've never felt this before.”

I'm really lucky. I know you have a very supportive and amazing partner, and so do I. My partner, scarily enough, is maybe a bigger procrastinator than me, so she never gives me a hard time.

She supports me, and I do the same thing with her own work. I'm up all night with her at the last minute so we can get something turned in. So, fortunately, we really understand one another, and we don't give each other a hard time. We just go, “Well, got away with it again. I guess I'm not going to change my ways.”

Jo: We made it. And again, that's the point. You and I could stand up in front of people, both hold up the last book we wrote, and say, “We made this,” and our processes are completely different. Our brains are completely different.

We come from different countries. There are lots of things that are different, and yet we both made a book.

So hopefully that encourages people. You don't have to do anything that we're telling you, or anyone else tells you. But if you want to be an author, at some point you have to produce a book.

Mark: Exactly. As Brian in the classic Monty Python film gets them to say: “Yes, we are all different.” Embrace that difference. I think that's such a powerful reminder that there is no one process for getting anything done.

Jo: Given that we co-wrote The Relaxed Author back in 2021—and we did that because we had another show, and we were talking, and we said, “Oh, everyone's stressed and the anxiety levels are really high, and we think there's a better path”—we co-wrote that book, which I think is still a very good book. Definitely people should get it.

Interestingly, I think the stress and anxiety might actually be higher now than it was.

So what do you think the main stresses are in the community now?

You also see a lot with Draft2Digital, I guess, as well.

Mark: Oh, for sure. Honestly, Jo, I'm so glad we wrote that book, because I actually pick it up every once in a while to remind myself of the things we tried to help others with. Again, it's therapy for me as well, so I'm so glad we did it.

I think we're 10, if not 100, times more stressed. The world events and things going on, the divisiveness—not just in the world in general, in politics and everything else, but the divisiveness in the author community.

The witch-hunting that happens, people trying to tear down other authors either because they're successful, or because, “Oh my God, you dared use a new technology.” All of these things are happening, and everyone's at one another's throats.

I need to pick that book up and reread it. I'm a lot more stressed than I was. I'm just getting over shingles, which is…

Jo: Oh. Which is actually related to stress as well, isn't it?

Mark: It is, yes. I was in LA for Writers of the Future—I'm a judge for that science fiction and fantasy conference.

I went right from LA, like a week in LA, which was a phenomenal experience getting to mentor the winners. And I mean, come on, it's a free trip to Hollywood, hanging out with Kevin Anderson, having beers and stuff like that.

Then I came back to the Toronto Indie Author Conference, run by Tao Wong, here in Toronto. I went right from the airport—didn't even go home—straight to the hotel, because I kicked into another conference.

We did a display on how to set up an in-person booth, so I ended up having to hand-bomb boxes, blocks down the street from where I was parked.

My chest was really sore when I got home on the Monday, and I thought it was because I hadn't used these muscles, because I'm not in the best shape. Then I took my shirt off and went, “Oh, there's a rash there.”

Liz goes, “You have shingles.” Because the pain in my chest, which I thought was the muscle, was actually underneath. I'm one of those lucky people that it's taken the full five weeks, and I'm still in pain even afterwards.

So, again, public notice: if you're an older person like me, and there's a vaccine available for shingles, you may want to consider it.

Jo: Yep, get it.

Mark: Oh my God, it hurts. But, yes, the stress, I think, is higher—even though I didn't know I was feeling it. It was happy stress, right?

I was stressed out because I'm there in Hollywood, helping people and doing some good things, and then I'm doing the same thing, interacting with some amazing authors at the Toronto Indie Author Conference. I didn't feel anxious stress. I was happy stress. Is that a thing?

Jo: I think possibly… your physical body masks stress, physical stress, because you enjoy all of that stuff. Whereas someone like me, I'll feel it quicker and withdraw.

Although I say that, back probably a decade ago, Jonathan would say to me, “You're going too fast, and you're going to hit the wall. And when you hit the wall, it's not going to be fun.” And I did hit the wall.

Then, probably in 2021—I mean, that was when I just started going into menopause, and obviously we had the pandemic, and I wrote Pilgrimage, and I was doing all those walks, which I think really helped me. I learned a lot about maybe stopping that before it happened.

Becca Syme obviously talks a lot about this too. But I find it interesting with you, because I think you're so positively happy with these events you do that it might mask your physical symptoms in a different way. That's really hard to watch out for.

I'll give a tip to you and everyone else listening: schedule the calendar, and look at your calendar and go, “I can't go back-to-back-to-back. I have to put in some rest days.”

Mark: Well, thank you. You know, Jo, you and Becca Syme are two of my best unpaid therapists. I appreciate that.

Jo: You just don't listen, Mark.

Mark: Or sometimes I do.

Jo: Just coming back to the community, and the divisiveness there is primarily over AI at the moment, I think that's one of the biggest things. And the arbitrary lines as to what you're allowed to use it for and what you're not allowed to use it for, which is just kind of crazy.

Obviously, you know I've opted out of that whole discussion now.

How do you think we can move through this [divisiveness over AI], move on?

We remember when it was trad versus indie, and then it was wide versus KU. So this will pass—it's just hard, when you're in it, to know when it might pass.

Mark: Yes. I think the more generic advice—for whatever may come, whatever has come—is: why are you doing this? Why are you a writer? Heads down, focus on what gives you pleasure, and do that, because everything else is noise. All the marketing tactics and strategies, and all the people yelling at one another.

Write your books. Do the things that motivate you. Do the things that give you that intrinsic reward.

It's hard to ignore. I get it, it is hard to ignore. I have difficulty ignoring the haters and the yelling and the screaming that happens, but I do my best.

Like this morning, when I was in the throes of my manuscript and I looked up and went, “Oh my God, I've got to shower. I'm going to be talking to Jo soon, I should comb my hair”—which I have none of. Because I was so in my book that everything else melted away.

That, for me as a storyteller, as a writer, is one of the most beautiful places to be.

Jo: I think you're absolutely right. I have a little thing that pops up in my calendar sometimes which says, “If you're feeling all of these things, just go create something.” The moment you refocus on creation—whatever that means to you—things change. It changes the energy. That, or go for a walk. That's my other tip.

Mark: Outside. And I have to say, Jo, Pilgrimage is still one of the most profound and powerful books you've written, and you've written a lot of amazing ones.

Jo: Oh, you're very sweet.

Mark: That one really resonates, not just for me, but with Liz. Because one of the things we often do when we get stressed is go for a walk, ideally in nature. The vitamin N. I think there's something really profound in that, and it really helps me a lot.

And again, sometimes going for a walk listening to your podcast, or an audiobook, or sometimes just attending to the environment.

A tip I picked up years ago from Brooklyn author Denis Hamill was: go for a walk with your character. Listen to what they see. What do they comment on? How do they approach this environment that you've seen a million times? How do they see it? What do they notice that you don't notice?

That's such an incredible experience of creativity—when you're not writing, but writing. That really helps me a lot.

Jo: Oh, nice one. Okay, so your latest book is Stark Realities, but you have so many more.

Where can people find you and your books and your podcast online?

Mark: Jo, you can find everything you want to know about me—and stuff you don't want to know about me—over at MarkLeslie.ca. It links to all the other places from there.

Jo: Brilliant. Thanks again for your time, Mark. That was great.

Mark: Thanks so much, Jo. Bye-bye.

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