Being vegan and self-publishing

Aaron Leidecker: Hey, pals, it’s Aaron here with another episode of Aaron Has No Clue. Thanks for listening. Tonight, we have a very cool episode. It is with author and award winner Sandra Nomoto, who is the author of Vegan Marketing Success Stories. And we talk about being vegan, and we talk about some the myths about self publishing, which I thought was really cool, because I actually just finished a children’s book that I’m having self-published, and it’s always been a dream of mine. And I like talking to other authors who self-publish, you know, and hear their thoughts. And I think if you have a story or something, we talk about it in the episode, that you should just go ahead and get it out there in the world. Because why not? In this day and age? It’s kind of, you know, it’s good and bad that everyone has a voice. But if you think you have something to say or a story to tell, this is the time to do it, because you can do it and it’s fairly easy.

So yeah, I think it’s a great episode, and I hope you enjoy it. Just really quick before I start the episode. Have a few shows coming up if you’re local in the area. April 5, I’m going to be at Baralus Coffee in Bristol. That’s a seven o’clock show. I’m performing with improv Jones. It’s an improv group. They do improv, then I do my stand up set, and then they’ve closed the night with more improv. And then on April 12, I am at Red White and brew in Warwick, Horn Island with Nick Albanese. And then April 23 I am at the Comedy Connection, and that’s a seven o’clock show. I think it’d be really cool if you guys, yeah, came to that show. We can maybe meet next door at the Black Duck and talk about what is going on with the season of The White Lotus, or Adolescence, or any, any show you want to talk about. I love pop culture. We can talk about shows, or we can just hang out. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but the dog is snoring, so I’m going to start the episode. Yeah, sit back and enjoy. Bye.

Before we get started, we mentioned in the email, today is a special day.

Sandra Nomoto: It is for me.

AL: Well, what is that? What is that day?

SN: It’s my veganniversary. Yeah, yeah, I, because I started in April 2018 and so yeah, it’s just like, right at the start of the month. I, yeah, I’ve reached the seven-year mark. So yeah.

AL: Did you tell anyone you were going vegan on April 1, and they thought it was April Fool’s?

SN: No because I it was the date I started a cleanse of all these foods that supposedly I was sensitive to, and dairy was on that list, and the last animal product that I gave up, like meat fish, I had done those, you know, over the years, but, yeah, dairy was the last thing. And so I started the cleanse April 2018, and then four months later, finished the cleanse, and I was like, I guess I’m vegan, because this is, this is like, I didn’t know how I was able to give up dairy in the before, but I just reached that point, and I was like, yeah, I can do this. And so that’s the date I count from.

AL: That’s amazing. Like, so that is your, your vegan origin, if you will. Or do you have, like, it was there a reason like you? Because I feel like everyone has, like, their moment like, “Alright, I just can’t eat meat anymore.” I definitely had a moment like that. And, so this is your vegan anniversary, but before that you, you’d be trying to you’ve been tapering off with other animal products?

SN: Yeah. So the journey started at the end of 2007 for me when I saw Earthlings, and that was completely by accident. I didn’t know what I was going to watch. I was just invited by an ex-boss to some screening and I don’t know if you know Uwe Boll, but she used to be married to Uwe back when. I don’t know if he still lives here in Vancouver, but he was living here for a while, and he had seen Earthlings. This is a few years after it came out. And he was just like, I gotta show this and hosted a screening at the University of British Columbia. And she—my ex-boss was like, “Hey, my husband’s putting this on. Come with.” And I didn’t know what I was going to see. And so, yeah, after I saw the whole thing, there was also a Q and A at the end of that screening, and somebody from the Vancouver Humane Society answered somebody’s question and said, “The best thing you can do to help these animals you’ve just seen is to stop eating meat.” And it was just so simple. I was like, “All right.”

And vegan was like the North Star. I didn’t know how or when I was going to reach it. It was just sort of like, “I’m going to start the journey now. I don’t care how long it takes me, I would like to someday reach that point.” But I’m kind of glad I did it in stages, and it took me, yeah, it took me 11 years to get there, which I don’t think it needs to take for other people now, but during those 11 years, I was watching all the other documentaries, reading all the other books, following the influencers, and had it not been for all of this other data that I collected, I might not have reached that point. So by the time I’d given up dairy, I was like, “Yeah, I can do this.” And then once you do diet, everything else is so much easier. So yeah, it took me 11 years.

AL: I feel like you had kind of mentioned it in the book. But like, being vegan now, like, opposed, as opposed to 20 years ago, is a lot easier if you’re going strictly for, you know, the food.

SN: Absolutely.

AL: Because I remember back in the 90s, I’d have friends who were vegan and vegetarian. I was like, how do you even do that? Like, how do you like? I’ve always, I always, you know, love the animals, but I’ve never even thought of it that way. You know, they were like, they were ahead of it, they were ahead of me, in that, in that, in that aspect. And then I would, yeah, then eventually I through social media, you know, my algorithm is like, cow is like being, you know.

I can’t do it anymore. My last thing was fish. Like, I loved salmon. You know, I love salmon. It’s marketed as, like this great protein. I feel like, you know, I like to work out. I like to exercise. And like, you know, what’s the question all vegans get? Like, where do you get your protein, you know? But like, if you know, you just do a little digging. You know that there’s protein everywhere. And I think we actually probably get more protein than a lot of people asking where the protein’s coming from. You know what I mean? Like, where do you get your protein? You know?

SN: Yeah, yeah, quite possibly.

AL: Let’s talk about how you market being vegan to people who have no interest in it at all. But might, might. But, like, think that they’re going to be sacrificing too much. Yeah.

SN: I mean, I don’t know if I know the answer to that, but, but it’s funny, because when I, when I show up at a business event, like my very first speaking invitation was at a local business meetup. The organizer saw that I had recently launched this book. So this is at the end of 2022, invited me to come and speak to this local business crowd, and she allowed me to sell my books. And what I’ll never forget, one guy was like, “What’s vegan?” He didn’t even know what vegan meant. And so, to even understand the concept of my book as a vegan marketing book, like I can’t even discuss that if he doesn’t understand what veganism is. And so I find myself at step one, vegan is, you know, not consuming any sort of animal products. He’s like, “Oh, okay, yeah. Like, I’m a pescatarian.” Like, he kind of could relate to me on a little bit of that level, like, he’d only been eating fish, I suppose, in terms of animal products.

And so it’s interesting, because you have to know where the other person is. We can market veganism all we want. But if people don’t understand that basic concept of what this is, I don’t think they can picture, then they start to picture themselves: Could I do that? And of course, for most people, it’s like, no, that’s too hard because, because, you know, I have some sort of animal product in a meal three times a day. But if you just tell people, well. Again, if they’re open to having this discussion of, well, instead of eggs, what do you eat? Instead of this, what do you eat? Then I think people can realize that it is more realistic than you would initially think.

AL: Yeah, and it’s just so, like, we’re like a fully vegan house and like, the products like, are insanely accurate to what you’re used to. Because I think what people I don’t think that every omnivore is, you know the devil, obviously, but I think what they want is like a familiar, a familiarity to what they grew up with and the food they grew up with, like, oh, I can’t be, I can’t be vegan, because then I’ll never be able to taste a meatball again, or I’m never going to be able to do, you know, my grandmother’s apple pie, you know, I mean, like, but they’re the cheese.

SN: Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

AL: Cheese was a big thing for pizza and mozzarella sticks. All this stuff that I couldn’t touch it now anyway, because if I did, it would make me sick. Like, there’s no question. You know what I mean? I really think, pretty sure I’m lactose intolerant. I think I always was, but I didn’t know.

SN: But yeah, at least half of the world is, statistically.

AL: Yeah, so that makes sense. Do you ever get this question? Well, if you want to eat something that tastes like a burger, just eat the burger. I get that. It’s like, because I eat a Beyond Meat a lot, and I work with a guy and he’s just like, “Well, if you want to eat a Beyond burger, just have a burger.” Like, yeah, but you don’t know nothing. Like, there was no torture for the Beyond burger. It’s not all about the taste, you know?

SN: Yeah, I think there was only one comment that I can remember, where I was on the journey. I think I’d eliminated meat. And I was at like, a work outing, and somebody’s shepherd’s pie happened to, like, cross, you know, cross over. And I went, “Oh, that smells good.” And, and the guy went, “Why don’t you just order it?” You know, it was like, if she knows it smells good and she just refuses to eat, why doesn’t she just order. And, like, all I said was that it smelled good. Can I find an equally pleasing smell with a with a vegan shepherd’s pie? I’m sure I could. Like, I’ve made it.

AL: I have too.

SN: I don’t make it all the time because it’s quite cumbersome with the mashed potatoes and all, but, but, yeah, I actually can. And maybe the meat isn’t going to taste the same, but that’s what we’re after. We’re after, like, as close to as we can get. And in this era right now, we’re there, like, we’re already there.

AL: Oh yeah, we’re totally so every time I go to Whole Foods, there’s like a new product. I was like, “Oh, I gotta give this a whirl.” Like, sometimes, if they hit it, sometimes it tastes, you know, it’s not, it’s not what I like. But most of the time it’s like, there’s the new mozzarella stick. It’s like, “Oh, you’re vegan to be healthy.” It’s like, well, no, so hold on a minute.

SN: Yeah, the assumption is always health, too.

AL: I’m vegan for the animals, okay, I’m not, I don’t know. I’ll eat, I will eat fake mozzarella sticks. You know, it doesn’t matter to me. Yeah, the assumption is like, it’s like a diet. It’s like, well, like the vegan before six. Did you remember that?

SN: Yeah.

AL: Like vegan before six? It’s like, okay. I also think there’s like a stigma with vegans. It’s there when you think of, when people think of vegans, like, I can actually even think of, there was a commercial for a yogurt. I think it was a yogurt or some sort of cream, and it said, now available in vegan. And when they said vegan, like, there was this guy, like, on a cloud, like, doing, like, the namaste. It’s like, what? Like, you’re not some hippie because you’re a vegan, you know. I mean, yeah, people who just, you know, I don’t get where, like, I guess, I don’t know when it started back in the because I guess it was such an obscure thing to be back in the 90s, and now, when I first was introduced to veganism, and now, like, slowly, yeah, like, you’re right. Like, everyone, a lot of people are vegan for the right reasons. You know what I mean. And it’s easy to be.

SN: Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see how the stereotype changes, because so many celebrities are vegan, or they’re coming out and, it’s like, yeah, like, you could be Mikey Madison in Anora and like, she’s effing vegan, won the Oscar for Best Actress. And, yeah, like, I wouldn’t picture her as your typical vegan. So, yeah, yeah. I hope it changes. I think it is changing.

AL: I think so. And I think maybe some people just need that moment. I remember I became vegan when my dog died. It was, it’s such a sad story, but like when I realized, like when I saw an animal die peacefully in my home, like we can’t really…and like, you’re still sad about that. So like, imagine millions being slaughtered, you know, not to bring this conversation down, but that’s what happens, you know.

So it’s just like, I couldn’t, I didn’t want to be part of that anymore. You know, even by six degrees, like, however many degrees it is away, I just didn’t want to be part of that anymore. And when you think like that, it kind of makes it easy, you know. Like, I mean, there are some days, and because I’ve been vegan for like, 2020, only couple years, you know. And so, like, sometimes, like you said, I’ll hit a smell, and I’ll hit, like that something part of my brain that takes me back to, reminds me of a certain time and a certain taste that I did like. But then I realized, like, why would I do that? You know, like, it’s, it’s part of a bigger picture, the principle of it, not just the taste, you know what I mean?

SN: Yeah. 100 percent.

AL: A couple things. I really dug in your book. And I’m gonna talk not too much, because I don’t want to give away because, like, it’s, I didn’t think when you sent the thing, I was like, oh, “I’m going to read a little bit of it.” But I was like, I found myself engrossed in reading, and I just kept flipping and flipping and flipping. It’s so good. This is back to marketing. You talked about the THIS brand. Okay, I don’t think we have that here.

SN: No. THIS is—I’m in, I’m in Vancouver, Canada. We tend to get things a couple years after you do in the States, but you but THIS is a brand in the UK.

AL: Okay, yeah, and how… Like, they…not tricked. But, I mean, I guess they did trick. But like, they just set up a what? They set up a tent. Can you correct me if I’m wrong, because I read a few days ago, they set up a tent. And, like, I didn’t tell anyone to not meet real meat. And like, people were like, really digging it.

SN: So this took out a booth at the European Pizza and Pasta Show. I think this was in 2021, and so. And they hired an actor to act as Chef Luigi and made up a fake, I think they called it, THIS Is Italy, their booth. And they pretended they were selling sausages. And all of this with the fake actor with his Italian accent, saying, “My grandparents’ farm” or whatever, you know, and yeah. And people were eating it and saying, “Yep, yep. This tastes exactly like the sausage I grew up with, too,” or whatever it may be.

And they catch this, and, you know, they’re secretly filming it. And they’re really good at that, like, just filming candidly whatever stunt they’re pulling, and then it’s revealed later, oh, you’ve just eaten plants. And then the shock comes. “What? I’ve just eaten plants?!” And so, yeah, I love that strategy. It’s tricky because you just have to make sure, like, nobody’s allergic to, like, let’s say, if there’s a nut in your product, that could be tricky. Yeah, you don’t want to fool people and then find out later they’re allergic to a nut in your product or something like that. But for the most part, it’s such a great tactic, because you can’t argue on taste then, like you can’t say vegan meats taste like crap because you’ve just said, this tastes exactly like pork sausage. And, yeah. They’re great at those kinds of stunts.

AL: I absolutely love that. Yeah, so I guess to appeal to market veganism to people who are opposed to it is to capture that familiarity and know, so we capture familiarity and kind of know the person needs to understand what veganism is and why?

SN: Yeah, yeah, I would say, I would say that’s a good place to start. Yeah, because most people, again, they have an affinity for animals. Like I’ve got a friend who says, “Oh, my kids love animals,” but their family is not vegan, and so when they say love, they’re talking about a different kind of love. I don’t know. They like the sight of the animals. They like to pet the animals. But yeah, yeah. I think that’s a good place to start.

Yeah, because the whole basis of it is animals. And then there happens to be other great benefits to being vegan: health, planet, sustainability. I think those are the top two ones. But, of course, there’s many others. But, yeah, yeah, finding out what it is that is important to people, what their values are, what their interests are. And I think if you can strike a chord there, then that’s an in to opening somebody’s mind,

I have a colleague. He runs the Planted Expos here in Canada, and he calls it sort of this chamber where you’re knocking down doors. Like, if people start seeing that there are doors opening, like, one is animals, one is the environment, then all of a sudden, all these doors are down, and you’re like, I can’t not do this. Yeah, yeah, that’s how he describes it.

AL: I love that. So this book as a whole, how did—I’m going to try and, like, segue into the publishing aspect. How did you—did you self-publish this? Is this your company? How? How is this done?

SN: Yeah, I self-published. I use a platform called Lulu, which is very similar to IngramSpark, just not as well known. Yeah, yeah. I didn’t go with IngramSpark because I found out they don’t use vegan ink, and so that was a deal breaker for me, although it does mean you, you might be a bit limited in your distribution, but, yeah, I went with Lulu.

AL: That’s so funny, because I didn’t even think about, you know, new vegan. I didn’t even think about ink. You know what I mean?

SN: I know. Most people don’t.

AL: Yeah, and the book I just self-published a children’s book, and I went through Lulu.

SN: Oh, awesome. Congrats.

AL: So I’m actually waiting for the proof to come back because I went through Blurb.

SN: Yeah, I looked at Blurb too.

AL: Blurb was good. The quality was okay, but I felt it was a little pricey. It was like, okay, it was like, $32 for a soft cover kids book, and then Lulu’s doing it for like, like 10 bucks a soft cover, 15 bucks for a hard. You know what I mean? So I was like, oh, Lulu is the way to go. Now I’m like, oh, is the quality going to be good? But then I was looking through. It’s so funny you used Lulu because I was just today, I was like, looking at Lulu reviews as if it’s not too late because I already have the book, but like, I was like, looking, I was like, and everyone’s saying that it’s great quality.

SN: Yeah, yeah. I’m super happy with the quality. I looked into Blurb too. And what’s funny is, they got back to me saying, yes, we use vegan ink, but it is not edible. Please do not consume and I was like, what like, how would you consume book ink? Like I’m imagining somebody licking the pages. I’m like, who in the right mind is doing this? So it’s like, Thank you for the unnecessary visual there, but yeah, I just wanted to know if it was vegan or not.

AL: I can have a dinner party. It’s like, oh, the books are over there. Those are the non vegan books. Those are the vegan books. If you want to chow down.

SN: Yeah, help yourself to a buffet of pages.

AL: I’m not hungry, just a little novel. Just a novelette, please. But, I mean, yeah, okay, so there was a blog you posted, and it was three self-publishing myths, and the first one was, you won’t make any money. Now, I haven’t put it out to sell yet, but I’ve just the calculations that Lulu gives you. There’s a way to make money. You know? It’s marketing, it’s promotion.

SN: Yeah.

AL: It’s like when I was in grad school, I remember sitting down with children’s author, and she had a couple books out which she self-published, and she said the key is in marketing. Your social media, like, promote it, promote it, promote it, promote it, promote it, you know, and you’ll find your audience. Like, yeah, I could just order 50 books and let them sit on my, you know, desk for a year. But why would I do that? Like, I feel like, if anyone who’s self promoting, it’s like a labor of love in the first place, right?

Like you’re doing it because you love it. You want to get a message out. You want to get a story out. So my book’s about my blind dog, and I want everyone to read it, you know. So, like, of course, I’m going to, like, start an Instagram page about it, figure out different ways to‌ market it. I’m going to try and get it into like, schools and, like, read it to kids and, like, say, you know, give this to your parents if they want to buy it, you know. I mean, it’s like, there’s definitely ways to make money.

SN: Yeah, yeah. There’s a couple things I would say there. So a lot of, especially folks who run businesses, they’re not‌ doing it to make money. They’re using it as a calling card for whatever other course, product. I mean, for me, like I wanted to publish this, because nobody else had thought of a book about vegan marketing. I thought, wow, what an opportunity for me to be seen as somebody who does marketing for vegan companies. That’s exactly why I did it.

And yes, it’s brought me some clients, but, yeah, I’m not doing it because I think it’s going to sell millions. Like, I know this is a niche. In fact, it’s a double niche book. It’s a vegan business book. So your average person is probably isn’t going to care about it. Vegans, maybe, but it really is for that you know, Venn diagram middle of folks who are either vegan or working for a vegan company and then they’re also interested in marketing and business, and so it’s for those folks and that’s why I published it.

It wasn’t because I was expecting to make a whole lot of money. It was because I wanted clients, and then I got speaking opportunities out of it, which were paid so those were just bonuses that I didn’t even imagine when I published the book, but yeah, you’re absolutely right, if you put in the effort to market it. And really, that’s half the work when you’re publishing a book. And you don’t need—yeah, if it’s like a children’s book and you don’t need, like, an editor, maybe you need an illustrator, but like, yeah, you don’t need all these other services to get the book done.

Then, yeah, just throw it up on this platform and do some marketing for it. And yeah, and then you’ll reap the rewards.

AL: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s. I mean, hey, if someone big is like, “Hey, can I buy the rights to this?” Then, you know, we’ll talk. But for now, it’s like a labor of love. I just want it out there. Yeah. And just like, it’s kind of cool, like, how I found your profile after we messaged and you talked about self publishing. This is right up my alley right now. And like, you know you’re officially an author. You put it out in the world. It’s out there for people to buy.

Which brings in the third myth: no credibility. A lot of people think, oh, anyone can just write anything and, you know, have it printed now, which I guess, is true. But I have books behind, and you can’t see the bookcase, and a lot of those books I got from conventions. Writers conventions, and they’re not published. They’re not, you know, they’re all self-published. A lot of them are self published, and they’re great books, you know.

And like you had mentioned, I think‌ in the blog, it’s a lot of books traditionally published that shouldn’t have been published. You know what I mean? Like, we’ve, I think we’ve all read a book, or had a book, we’re halfway through and, like, this is garbage. I don’t even want to finish it. I kind of, like, I have to finish everything I start. I can’t run away. But so it’s not really, and they use the same tools, the same printers and stuff like that. So I don’t know why anyone would argue against self-publishing if it’s an option. Why go through all those extra hurdles? That’s what I say. I don’t know.

SN: Yeah, I was just having this—I always start, when an author reaches out to me, and they’re about publishing a book. I always want to know what path they’re thinking about, because if you want to go the traditional route, you can absolutely but you’re going to be on their timeline. First of all, you have to land a publisher. You’re not going to get picked up by one of the top five, unless you are already, you already have some sort of reputation as a writer, you know, journalist, etc, even a content creator. If you want to get to that level, you need an agent. And agents won’t even look at you unless you have, again, some sort of existing reputation, or you happen to have a lot of social followers, or something like that.

And I don’t know where I was going with this, but, but yeah, once—you’re basically again, it can take how many years it takes to land a traditional publisher, and then once you’ve signed an agreement with them, you’re in a queue. So it could take up to two years for your book to come out, especially if you haven’t written it yet. And then you need to meet certain deadlines.

Whereas I tell people, if you start writing it now, finish it in a couple months’ time. You get it edited, you get it formatted, you get the cover design, boom, you throw it up, and it’s marketing time. And you can do that within a year. So you’re on your own timeline, you have complete creative control, and you often earn a higher profit margin than you would if you were traditionally published.

AL: Yeah, yeah. I think that’s—I love the whole timeline thing, because for me, it was like, I did illustrations too. So it was like, and they took me forever, because I’m not, like, I guess. I mean, I can draw, but these pictures are going to a museum, okay. But, I mean, you know, and then I would be like, Oh, I don’t like that. And I would because I’m a perfectionist.

I think a lot of artists are like, when they see that, they start comparing it like “Oh, this is not as good as this. I should maybe, like, scratch this.” So I, a lot of my pictures were done a few times, you know. I felt more confident in the writing, for sure, because I went to school for writing like I’ve been writing forever, you know.

But yeah, it took—the drawings themselves, took a few months. And I can’t imagine being on someone else’s timeline. You know, you’re like, “Hey, you got those drawings?” I’d be like, “No, I don’t.” So, yeah, so that’s cool, Lulu. I mean, hey, this is, I’m not trying to promote Lulu, but it’s, it’s, it’s definitely, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s awesome. And if it’s and if my book comes out and halfway as good as yours, then look, that looks professional. And you wouldn’t even like thinking like self-published, you know, I mean, like, a lot of people think self-published. They think like a zine, practically, you know, like, oh, self-published. But no, no. They’re like, legit books from the bookstore, you know?

SN: So yeah, and I think I wasn’t even really paying attention when, let’s say, Amazon, came out with its self-publishing platform, because I wasn’t into the industry at that time. But I’m sure a lot of them were cringe-worthy, because the authors were doing their own covers and they were doing their own interiors and‌ for whatever reason that became associated with self-publishing, whereas it’s really not. It doesn’t mean you do everything yourself. It just means you know, you have control.

And so I, you know, for my book, I wanted it to be as vegan as possible, so I hired a vegan book coach, a vegan editor. I did my own formatting, I hired a vegan designer, and I hired a vegan marketing strategist to help me. So my entire like—I’m proud to say my most of my team was vegan, so that I could truly say, like, this was a vegan-produced book, and so, yeah, you can do that. You can hire whoever you want when you’re self-publishing.

AL: Exactly, which I wouldn’t think would be the case if you’re—if you have a publisher, they have a team, right?

SN: Exactly. Yeah, you have, I mean, you have a say in, you know, what you may like or don’t like about the cover. But in the end, it’s not going to be your decision. They’re going to do whatever cover they want.

AL: Okay, I don’t know. I just feel like everyone should have the joy of having a book done, like just I feel like everyone has a story to tell. I think everyone should just self-publish a book. I think it’d be great.

SN: No, yeah, I absolutely agree. I think anybody can be an author. It’s just—yeah, if you’ve got a story to tell, it’s like trying to get somebody to become vegan, if you find that in, right? Are you a parent? Well, do you want to leave a legacy to your kids and share with your descendants what kind of life you lived? You might want to think about publishing a book.

AL: Great.

SN: Oh, and then there. Oh, yeah, maybe it’s possible.

AL: So as successful as you are, let’s talk about just a couple more things I want to talk about before we we wrap up. Like, do you have a specific routine you follow, as far as writing, or, like, how you go about your business, I should say.

SN: I follow, uh, pretty much like, a nine to five ish schedule weekdays, because that’s when I feel like most of my clients and everybody else is working. So time-wise, it’s not too different. I try to reserve evenings and weekends for personal life and work-life balance. But yeah, in terms of like, let’s say, if you’re going to do a big project like tackling a book, you’ve got to set aside that time. And for me, I don’t have a problem with writer’s block, so it’s just a matter of like, if I choose to sit down and write, I will write.

So for me, it was if I had time during the day, like I was done with client work, and I had a couple hours left in the afternoon, I started to tackle the book. And in fact, so my book had close to 50 contributors, and at first I was thinking, well, I should wait until I get 50 stories and then I’ll start writing the book. But of course, if you’re a natural writer and you start getting these people’s stories in, you’re like, oh, like, I gotta start putting them in right now.

And so I already started, like, I mean, I had an outline already going, like a tentative outline. And so as the stories started trickling in, I would literally copy and paste it where I thought it was going to go, in whichever chapter section. And then I just filled in, kind of like the meat of the book from there and it took me three months, like I it probably would have taken longer if I had waited, waited for all 47 stories to come in, and then started it at the start of 2022. But because I was already working on that outline, yeah, yeah, by the start of 2022 it was done when I had all of those stories in.

And then I also knew I found that there were gaps in my book where I wanted an example and I didn’t get it from a contributor. So what I ended up doing was I just did some research online and found examples online, and then I got permission to use their stories, and then I threw them in.

So there’s another, like, 50 or so examples that I got permission to use, and so that was the method for my book. So again, if you’re thinking, I can’t fill up, possibly fill up 30,000 words with my own story. Like, what if you tell other people’s stories? Yeah, like you could form a book with like, 10 chapters and you get 10 different people to each write a chapter or an essay of their own story. Put it all together. You got a book there.

AL: Yeah, that’s fantastic. Does it one of the women I was in grad school with actually did that. She had 14 people. She sat down with 14 people. They talked. They had like their journey to find joy. It was like—and every chapter was a different person. And I think that’s just phenomenal, because I know one of the hardest, I mean, I went to school for creative nonfiction. So I had to hand in a packet every 30 days. And for some it was, I was doing a personal, like memoir-type thing. And I was like, wow, I really, I’m tired of talking about myself. You know what I mean?

So I think having, like, finding, hearing other people’s stories and having it relate to you, or kind of like, write the chapter where it’s kind of like you guys conversing, I think that’s, that’s a really creative way to do it, you know. And you’re getting their story out there as well. And who else, who knows if that story might not have, might not have, might have gotten out there otherwise, you know. So I think that’s a really good tactic. So, yeah, we’ll just do one final question.

I make these podcast under an hour. I don’t know. It’s like, some podcasts like, I’m like, wow, this podcast is three hours.

SN: I don’t, yeah, I don’t know how they do it. They gotta take a bathroom break halfway, seriously.

AL: So I guess we can say, we’ll focus on, we’ll focus on the writing. Now, if there was any advice to someone just starting out that you did, that you would want to know for yourself, what would it be that you wish you knew back when you first started?

SN: Well, the first book that I self-published was a workbook, and I almost wish that I had done more of a fully fledged book about public relations, or at least my way of doing it, because, not that I regret doing the workbook, but it ended up being a very different kind of book. It was—I don’t know, 8000 words, not long at all, and a lot of blank space so people could fill in their own plans.

But, yeah. I mean, it was the right choice for the time, because I had written the book before I’d closed my PR agency, and then I published it after I had closed the agency, and didn’t want to really use it as a marketing tool, because I already closed my company, so it was the right product for that time. But, yeah, I do wish I had, I don’t know, done something a little more with it, I guess is what I would say.

And I’m working on a memoir now, which is very different from the two books that I published, which are about business. So, yeah,as you were talking about your own process, I was thinking about what I’m going to be doing is reading memoirs that other people—similar memoirs that other people have published. Because I need that inspiration.

I don’t know if what I’m writing so far is going to be something anybody else would want to read and so right now, I’m doing research and writing what’s already out there, so maybe I can glean what would be different about my story that I can point out. Because again, I’m already—my marketing brain is already going and thinking, what makes my story different from these other folks who’ve come before me, and so that’s what I’m doing right now, working on this memoir, which—I don’t know when it will come out. Yeah.

AL: Yeah. I think it’s. Cool writing about I’d like, as much as I was like, oh, people kind of understand really care about my past life? You know what I mean? And stuff I did in the past. But I think, like, the fun thing about writing a memoir is having is writing in a way that relates to everybody you know. And I think that can people be like, okay, yeah, I didn’t have this particular experience, but I had an experience that I can that’s kind of like relatable to this and the way this person’s writing is making me feel like I kind of have that experience. You know what I mean? It’s all about inviting the reader to be part of the memory, I guess you could say in a way, like have them be interested in it, even though it had nothing to do with them, you know.

And I think that’s why a lot of us are so drawn to, like, celebrity memoirs, because we kind of feel like we know the celebrity even though we don’t, you know. So, like, we’re like, oh, we’re kind of like, living this story with them. So I think that’s cool. I think memoirs are cool. I think nonfiction is…when I went to school, I didn’t realize I got accepted for my nonfiction essay because I had submitted two essays. One was fiction, one was not, one was non. And when I got there, I got my tag. It said nonfiction. I was like, oh, I guess I’m here for nonfiction.

SN: Nice.

AL: Two years of writing nonfiction, I really, you know, I like writing, like humorous style, like David Sedaris type, funny life stories, you know. So it kind of worked out. But I think memoirs are cool because you can learn a lot about yourself and the person writing them through it. You know?

SN: Yeah, yeah. Memoir is my absolute favorite genre, because like, I don’t really care for autobiography. I don’t need to know your whole life, like, I just want to know what about this time period you’re talking about was important to you? And what’s the experience you’re sharing with us? And, yeah, and that’s what I love about it so and I also have a memoir idea for about 20 years down the line, because my husband, next year, my husband and I will be married for 10 years, but I don’t want the book to come out until we’ve passed 30 years of marriage, because then I’ll have a lot more—it’ll all be rounded up into these 30 years. So, I already know I’m publishing a book in about 20 years, but, but, yeah, I’m working on a different one right now.

AL: I love that. I love that. Well, I can’t thank you enough for coming on today. This is really a pleasant experience for me. I love talking about, I love talking about being vegan. I love talking about self-publishing. It was just a joy.

SN: Thanks so much. Aaron, it was, yeah, it was an absolute pleasure for me too.

AL: Now, where can people find you on social media?

SN: My name is the best way to find me. SandraNomoto.com, yeah, just various ways across the different platforms. I would say most active on LinkedIn and Instagram, but yeah, you can find me most everywhere with my name.

AL: I love that. All right. Well, hey, thanks a lot. Thanks so much.

SN: You’re welcome. Thanks, Aaron.

AL: Talk to you soon. Bye.