On June 18th we welcome Sandra Nomoto. Sandra is a book whisperer for authors with impact and writes for the popular podcast, A Little Bit Culty. Drawing on two decades of experience, she now serves as a personal brand manager for established ethical female leaders, overseeing their thought leadership from strategy to execution to help them scale their impact. She ran Conscious Public Relations Inc., an award-winning public relations agency, from 2008 to 2018.
Sandra authored two books, including the world’s first vegan marketing book, Vegan Marketing Success Stories. She’s spoken at various events about the intersection of veganism, marketing, and branding. On the side of her desk, she co-hosts VEG Networking Canada, Canada’s only vegan networking group.
Mariquita Solis: So welcome everyone, I’m Mariquita Solis, the live stream host of All-Creatures.org. All-Creatures.org was founded in 1998 and is a leading resource for faith-based animal rights veganism, led by our executive director, Tams Nicholson. We provide free resources for people seeking to live compassionately towards all creatures. Our extensive library includes vegan sermons and commentaries, animal rights strategies, action alerts, events, and works by various vegan authors. We also sponsor websites for animal rights organizations. Our mission is to unite compassionate individuals worldwide who honor the dignity of all creatures. So, thanks for joining us today. Let us know if you’re watching today.
I’m excited to welcome Sandra Nomoto. Sandra is a book whisperer for authors with impact and writes for the popular podcast A Little Bit Culty, drawing on two decades of experience, she now serves as a personal brand manager for established ethical female leaders, overseeing their thought leadership from strategy to execution to help them scale their impact. She ran Conscious Public Relations Incorporated, an award-winning public relations agency from 2008 to 2018, Sandra also authored two books, including the world’s first vegan marketing book, Vegan Marketing Success Stories. She’s spoken at various events about the intersection of veganism, marketing, and branding, and on the side of her desk she hosts co-hosts VEG Networking Canada, Canada’s only vegan networking group. So I’m excited to talk to you today, Sandra. We’ve, we’ve been in touch many times, and I’ve, I’ve seen your leadership, and I feel your strong presence. So thanks for joining me.
Sandra Nomoto: Oh, thanks so much, Mariquita. Right back at you. Yeah, we’ve been in touch through some of my clients that I’ve worked with, the vegan clients, and yeah, you do such great work too. So glad to be here.
MS: Well, thanks. Let’s talk about your vegan story, first of all, when did you—did you grow up in a family that might have been vegetarian or vegan?
SN: Oh, heck no. Traditional Filipino household. I’m in Vancouver, for those of you who don’t know, Vancouver, Canada. Yeah, and it wasn’t predominantly Filipino cuisine, I should say, kind of a mix of Canadian, you know, normal household foods and Filipino, but vegan, vegetarian was was not a word we spoke in our home. I don’t think I even heard those words until I don’t know, maybe I was about 10 years old, and I went, “Wow, vegans, whoa, like no animal products whatsoever.”
So I had a sense, I had heard of the term, but I just never thought until my mid-20s that it was even possible, and what really kicked it off for me was seeing Earthlings at the end of 2007 which was completely by accident. I was invited to a screening, didn’t know what I was going to see, and that changed everything.
I didn’t go vegan overnight. It took me 11 years. I did a really low and slow elimination style approach, and I wish I had done it sooner. Obviously, a lot of the vegans that I know say, you know, once they get over that food hurdle, everything else is so much easier, and I wish I had done this sooner. But yeah, 2018 so the same year that I closed my PR agency was, was the year that I finally was able to cut dairy, that was the very last thing, and then I thought to myself, I’ve made it, and of course, clothing and everything else is so much easier than food. So yeah, I’m eight years running now.
MS: That’s amazing, yeah, and it, for me, it wasn’t just a linear journey either, so it took time. I fell off the wagon, you know, and did the best I could. But nevertheless, I’m here now completely, and knock on wood, so what about your family and friends? What did they say when you—did you tell them about Earthlings, and when you decided to change your way of lifestyle?
SN: No, I think the biggest shock was, was, yeah, at first I had cut most all of their meat, except for chicken, because that was just a big part of my diet. And then I finally cut chicken, and then people started calling me vegetarian, even though I was still eating some seafood. I’ve never been a huge fan of seafood. But technically, pescetarian, that’s like the correct term, but yeah, people were calling me vegetarian.
There weren’t very many questions about why I did it, and I guess that’s why I didn’t really need to explain myself. Once you know, I came to the family gatherings or the friend gatherings, you know, I would always bring the staple veggie dish, or what have you, they just knew that that was what I was going to do, and there was no question around it.
So I think because of the content that I’ve been sharing over the years and just the general sense of people being able to eat on a plant-based diet, I think it’s becoming a little bit more normalized than it was before, and certainly vegan restaurants that we have here help with that. So yeah, there wasn’t really a backlash or anything, it was just a matter of, “Yeah, this is what this is what we know Sandra does, who she is. It’s a big part of who she is. “And I haven’t converted anyone to go fully vegan yet, but I have seen that small changes. So, some of my friends are opting not to eat seafood. My husband has completely cut red meat out of his diet, so small changes here and there, but I think, yeah, mostly the awareness is I guess, what I’ve been able to bring among my close circle.
MS: Yeah. And how do you—you seem very peaceful about that, accepting of other people on their journey. I mean, how does that work? How do you get to that peace? Because so many vegans are struggling with families and being angry or very disappointed and lashing out and holding resentments, and they don’t know how to move past that. What would you say to that person?
SN: Yeah, I mean, I’ve just been a very conflict-avoidant type person to begin with. That’s just in my nature. It’s my…you know, I really value my mental health. If I’m not doing well, I just can’t function, and so I know that maybe for others, batting up against and having those hard conversations is something they want to do, and that could bring up some anger, or they know how to deal with their anger best, but I know that from seeing a lot of the vegan activists online that if one is not even open to having a conversation, it just does not work, right? That’s why I respect a lot of the folks who go out on the street and they wait for people to come, come and see the footage, or come and ask, “Why are you here?” Because you’re letting people in, and to have that conversation.
Whereas I wouldn’t be going, you know, on the street and saying, “Hey, have you heard about veganism?” Or like, “Are you a meat eater?” Like, people don’t like to be challenged like that, right? Like, I don’t like to be approached by a stranger about a completely different topic that is not even in my awareness field, and so if one is open to having that conversation with me—and this has happened sometimes—I am more than welcome to then preach why I do this and how I’ve done this. But yeah, I think you have to wait for that open window or that open door. Otherwise, it’s just—you’re just, you’re just looking for a fight at that point. That’s kind of how I see it.
MS: Yeah, that’s very true. And you brought up a good point. Let other people come to ask the questions. Because when I get approached at the square or something by people, I mean it’s different religions or different people, I feel very…I mean, it’s off-putting. I feel afraid. It’s something like, “Oh, here we go again.”
So, yeah, definitely, I try to be nice to those people, though, because I know what it’s like, you know, us wanting to share our message, and sometimes actually what I’ve really tried to do is listen to them, and then I’ll say, “Are you at all interested in plants, or how do you feel about this?” I mean, if I can kind of do that, tie that in, and I’m not very good at that, but that would be something to work on for me. But you’re exactly right. We have to let people come to that space on their own terms, because we can’t force anything down anyone’s throats.
SN: Yeah, that’s exactly my view. If people aren’t open to changing, then they won’t change, so you have to wait for that open-mindedness.
MS: Right. And you’ve worked with a lot of vegan clients, and so you’ve seen the whole spectrum of activists and ways to do activism, and through publishing, and articles, and everything in a lend that’s a wonderful way to get the message out, so tell us about your journey into this into that area of business.
SN: Yeah, I truly believe everyone has their own innate skills and talents and I think, if you know what those are, and you are vegan, then that’s your calling to be able to use that, because not all of us can, you know, are great conversationalists and can go out on the streets and spend our time doing that.
So, how it happened for me was, I closed my agency in 2018 I was—that was the year I went vegan, and I didn’t know what I was going to do career-wise, I spent a good year and a half figuring things out, freelancing for some women. And I sat down to meditate at the end of 2019 and got that booming intuitive voice that said, “You’re vegan now, and you will always be a writer, so go and put those two things together.” And I know enough times when I ignore my intuition, it just comes back to me stronger in some form.
So, I said, okay, I hear the call. And I threw a service page up on my personal website, which is still the website that I use today under my name, and I just started tapping into my network and asking folks, “Who do you know who runs a vegan company that needs a copywriter?”
And that’s how that that business kicked off, because of the pandemic. I had more time, so I started taking courses in editing and formatting books, because I thought to myself, well, books are the longest piece of content, and I’ve always been interested in book publishing. I had self-published my first book in 2019. So for a good number of years, I had vegan companies that I was doing copywriting and marketing for, and then on the other end authors, and some of those have been vegan as well, which has been fantastic.
I’m not doing so much of the marketing and copywriting lately because of AI. This is the only—I have no real data—but it’s the only thing I can attribute to the loss of that income in the last few years, which is why I’ve been pivoting into doing some other things. But that’s really how it started for me. As soon as I made that decision in 2020 I started networking with all of the vegan networks that were out there, Vegan Business Tribe, VIVAS. Both of those organizations are no longer around, even though the websites might still be up, and I was very lucky to just start working with some fantastic vegans.
MS: Yeah, well, tell us some of those…Who have you worked with? Because I mean, you’ve sent them to me for interviews here, which has been wonderful that you made the introductions, but who has stood out for you?
SN: One that comes to mind is Rey Ortega, who runs Sun Flour Baking Company, which has just recently rebranded to Hooray! Foods [Hooray! Cookies] (with an exclamation mark), and I love that he did that, because his vegan cookies are really fun. The branding is really fun, very kid-friendly, and I think that switch to Hooray! Foods [Cookies] is just spot on, whereas when you say “sun flour,” you’re not sure if you mean the sunflower, the flower, or sun flour, the flour that you bake with, and it’s the other one.
So yeah, there can be some confusion there. And so yeah, Rey just wanted to—he’s had his business for 30 years, amazingly, and it’s been doing well, but nobody knew who he was, and so that was great to just get him in his name as a vegan out there.
Another one that came to mind recently, that I just finished up with her, is Gail Eisnitz, who’s an animal investigator. She works with the Humane Farming Association, and she’s been an animal investigator for over 40 years. I think this is the 43rd year she’s been at this, and so that just tells you how long this abuse has been going on with animals in factory farming. She’s amazing. She just launched her—last year she launched her memoir, which is her second book. Her first book, Slaughterhouse, was very well known for turning a lot of people vegan. And then her second book, Out of Sight, does touch on some of her career, but is more of a personal journey about just all of the work that she’s gone through, plus having a lifelong visual processing disorder. So she is an amazing person too, and yeah, those are just two that that come to mind.
MS: Yeah, and those were great conversations. Rey is so funny, he’s a firecracker. So y’all go back and look on the channel for those, and um, Gail, my gosh, her courage. And I don’t know how she could do that. That mean that takes immense—I don’t have it. I couldn’t go into slaughterhouses, I can’t watch those videos, I can’t. I just couldn’t do it. I wish I could, but the strength that it takes to do that, and then write a book about it, is incredible. She’s an angel to be able to do that, to spread this message, for the animals, to be a voice for the animals, and to…gosh, she did what she had to do to help dismantle animal agriculture. And we’re still dismantling it every day with everything that we do.
We just really don’t know who’s watching or who’s listening, and what changes they’re making, like you and you and me. The progressive progression of it, so people are in their own journeys progressing, and every time they read a book or watch a video, I want to say that’s one more step closer.
SN: Absolutely.
MS: Yeah, and you worked with Angela Crawford, who’s a good friend of mine, and so I know that she loved working with you, and what I see with you is strong female leadership, and that is, tell me about that. How, what was it like as a little girl? Were you always a strong leader and embraced that part of yourself that seems to not take no for an answer, but very confident.
SN: Oh, thank you. No, I would not have identified as a leader when I was younger. I guess I attribute it to my mother and my sister. So, my mother is a very extroverted, talented woman known for singing in church and at weddings and funerals, wherever people ask her to. She’s very much a performer. And my sister and I also did some performing, but I’m very much an introvert.
And then I started my own business back in 2008 because of my sister. Because I saw her go from an administrative assistant to partner of a small business, and I was really inspired by that journey, and thought, “Maybe I can start my own business too,” And yeah, I’ve just never ever had a real full-time job since I started, Yeah, and so I’ve had very strong female leaders in my family, and then also as mentors, and some of the clients that I’ve worked with too, especially since 2018,
So, yeah, pretty much since I was vegan, I’ve worked a lot with women and high-level women, and so this year when I was thinking about, you know, the loss of income from AI, and how I could use all of these skills that I’ve gained in the last two decades, and who I want to serve. Of course, I would love to serve vegans, but we are still a small percentage of the population. And yeah, I’ve found it quite tough to work with only vegans.
And so the next best thing, in my opinion, is women, because women, number one, are not as visible as leaders as men are. And two, I find that women are driven more by values and by impact than men are. Not to say that all male leaders are bad, but when you see women step up as leaders, you see them, more so than men, lead with their values, and those are the types of women that I want to work with, and that’s why in terms of my new role as a personal brand manager, that’s who I’ve chosen. And if they happen to be vegan women, amazing, but so long as they are creating some sort of positive impact in the world, that’s who I’m really looking for.
MS: Yeah, that’s very interesting. And what’s interesting now also is this trend towards professional women kind of turning off their emotions, which is not good for veganism, right? And this out there doing the things that would be considered masculine, the hunting and killing, and being proud of that. So, I mean, that’s something very challenging for us to go up against. I mean, if we have men that are doing that, I mean, that’s one thing, but now if women are doing that as well, and not wanting to embrace that softer side. I mean, you can still be a leader, but you can be soft and have values like you’re saying. And now we’re having to kind of come up against that. And have you seen that kind of trend?
SN: I have. I don’t know about the hunting so much, but certainly I don’t know if it’s always been happening, or that it seems that we are seeing it more because of social media. But yeah, with more and more people using social media, I think it has become more obvious. You know, women, yeah, going to the extreme masculine, and then even men going to the extreme masculine. And so again, that’s why I want to work with more female leaders, because yeah, as you’ve said, we do need a softer and more intuitive and more empathetic—that’s the key word, I think—empathetic side to leadership, if we want to solve a lot of these world—the world’s problems.
And I’ll note that, I think 80% of vegans are women, right? And so that just tells you that when women are presented with this information that challenges their values, and then they think, “Oh, do I need to make a change if I want to live a life that aligns with my values? Then maybe I should start moving in a plant-based direction.” That tells you something, when the majority of vegans are vegan, or are women. So yeah, I agree. I think we need to just see more femininity and feminine values out there.
MS: And how do you balance that within yourself, the masculine and the feminine, where you do have a good balance? Do you even think about it?
SN: I don’t think I think about it too much. I know that I can come off very masculine, again, because I’m introverted. I’m not very emotional. But I also do have this leadership side where I have had experience leading other people. Like, I’m the co-host of VEG Networking Canada, as you said in the beginning, which is our country’s only vegan networking group online.
But yeah, I think where my femininity comes in is more on the values side and more of that conscious self-care. So again, because I’m really aware of my mental health and wellness, I have really good self-care practices that I try and do daily. Yeah, and I need a vacation. I’ll say that right off the bat, a vacation, Mariquita. Yeah. It’s definitely not a conscious thing.
MS: Okay, great. Yeah, no, I mean, you seems like you’re very balanced in that, in those energies. And what would you say to a little girl that might be afraid, like, I mean, that would say, “I can’t do it because I am a little girl, and this is a very masculine world.” I mean, what advice would you give that little girl?
SN: Wow, what a great question. I mean, the number one thing I would say is don’t say you can’t do anything. Because there’s always a way, and we can find somebody who’s paved the way. And maybe not created the exact dream job that you want, but maybe has paved the way. Again, I would just maybe double down on self-care practices. If I’m talking to a girl, that might look a little different than what I would do as an adult, but take care of yourself first. I think that’s what I would say. Take care of yourself first. Do what you love and enjoy, and I think if you can cultivate that inner peace—that’s one of my top values, inner peace—then that makes it easier for you to go, then go out in the world and create new things, or impact the people in the way that you want to.
MS: Yeah, that’s very wise advice. And so, when we were working with men and women, now, if you’re in the vegan realm, you were saying that about 80% women, and did that show up in also the book publishing? Did you have mainly vegan women compared to Rey, or how many vegan men did you help in the book?
SN: Well, one vegan comes to mind. So, Steven Lee August, who published Vegans Vs. the Verses. I love that title. I think he’s the only vegan man that I’ve worked with, and or I have, I have had some other male author clients, but he is the only vegan one, so there, there you go And I’ve worked with a number of other vegan authors, and the rest have been women.
MS: Yeah. It’s interesting, because people are looking, women mainly—not just women, but I mean, vegans want vegan partners, and it’s way off here, right? I mean, for heterosexuals. So yeah, it’s interesting that I can see the values. The values are so important, but men are also taught so differently, as children. You know, they’re not taught about that, about empathy, right? Of course, that’s a one, that’s something that women have, not men. So, unfortunately, for veganism, that’s something to be ashamed of.
SN: Yeah. And I that’s a great point, because of the way that men are raised as boys, there isn’t that sense of empathy. And so that’s why it’s so hard to convert men, or harder to convert men into living plant-based. Yeah, because again, meat is masculine, that’s kind of what I think has been ingrained even subconsciously, yeah.
MS: Yeah. What was your father like? Was he, is he a very masculine man? Is he a very masculine man?
SN: My father—he’s immobile and has dementia now, so he’s definitely in his aging years, but he wasn’t a very manly man when we were younger. Very gentle, unless you know we did bad things and he had to yell at us, but yeah, I think my character is a lot like, like him compared to my mother. But the interesting thing is when I first told my dad this was shortly after I’d seen Earthlings that I was going to start cutting meat out of my diet, he laughed at me because he said, “Oh, like I grew up on a farm, my grandfather had a farm and he was taught at the age of 12 how to slit a goat’s throat.”
And so he laughed at me, because I showed this kindness to animals that I didn’t want to eat anymore, but as he saw me progress and completely remove meat, and, you know, only eating seafood here and there. He wanted to try it, and so he did, for a bit. He didn’t stick to it, but I think he was really influenced by seeing me lead an act with my values in mind, and so I thought that was really interesting. And so, again, to the men out there who might be watching this, it’s not hard. You can do it as easily as we do. It just takes some effort and some education on how to live and act upon your values.
MS: I love that story about your dad. No wonder you’re so balanced, that explains it. I mean, if he was warm and he had a tender side, and he was—that showed up in your life as a child, that’s beautiful, something we all can hope for. So, how does the peace of not eating creatures, how does that come through in your life today?
SN: Yeah, I mean, it’s showed up a lot in my work, as you said in the beginning. I published the world’s first and still only vegan marketing book, and that’s something I’m really proud of, because I saw a gap in the market. Before my book , there was only Katrina Fox’s Vegan Ventures, and I thought to myself, there’s only one book about vegan business in the world. I guess I have to create the second, and most of the people on my team were vegan, which I’m really proud of too. My book has vegan ink. Somebody asked me about the glues. Like, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know about that, you know, when you get down to that level of detail.
But what that book did for me, not only did it, you know, bring me clients, but it kind of made a name for me in the vegan world, and it brought back the public relations piece that I had thought I had left behind with my agency, because people like Rey started seeing me on these vegan podcasts that would invite me on, and they started asking me, “Can you do that for me too?” And so it allowed me to add a new service offering that I didn’t have before, because now I had a decent list of vegan media and podcasts, which I still make available to anyone who’s a client of mine or who takes my course that’s online. Yeah, you can have access to this list as well.
In my daily life, I don’t know beyond, of course, just my lifestyle, I just don’t have time to do other things. I wish I could do some street activism, I just can’t manage to fit that in my life right now, but on the side of my desk I do co-host VEG Networking Canada. We meet monthly online on Zoom, and we welcome all vegans who want to drop in into our meetings. And then what we do is we record an interview with either a vegan member or a special guest who works for a vegan company, and all of those interviews are free to watch on YouTube at VEG Networking Canada.
Yeah, people have asked me, “Sandra, you should start a podcast,” and I said, “Well, I already kind of run one.” Because even though I’m not the one doing the interviewing, my co-host Justin does, I’m the one loading it to YouTube, so. I feel like I am already a podcast producer in that kind of work, and so, yeah, any little thing that I can do, even sharing things on social media that other people post, because I think every bit helps. You know, people who may be coming across my Instagram Stories and seeing this, you just never know which video or photo is going to, is going to trigger that question of values in someone’s mind, and so, yeah, that’s what I do right now in terms of activism.
MS: Yeah, and so, the Zoom call, is it open to anyone that somebody that might be vegan curious?
SN: Unfortunately, no. Our meetings are for vegans only. In terms of the people we interview, they, they don’t have to be vegan, but so long as they are running or working for a plant-based or vegan company, so we’ve had people like that interviewed on our channel as well.
MS: Okay, yeah. And do you run into any criticism about that? I mean, there’s so many…seems like there’s so much infighting that it’s almost probably everybody runs into criticism at some point, but I know I have. But I mean, with the words plant-based, vegan, or any of these things, if you’re saying they don’t have to be vegan, do you know what I’m saying here?
SN: Yeah, and so whenever I connect with somebody new on LinkedIn, I always share, you know, what I do on the side of my desk, I share the YouTube link, because you never know who might want to follow our channel, and then they ask, “Oh, can I join? Or can I be interviewed?” And I say, well, in order to join, you’ve got to be vegan, that’s kind of the criteria, there’s a million networking groups out there. The criteria to join ours is that you have to be vegan, and you have to either be like a Canadian or resident, you know, somebody living in Canada. That’s kind of the criteria too, because there are other vegan groups out there, but you know, none specifically for Canadians, so that’s our criteria.
And because we are a business focused group, again, you can be working anywhere, but a lot of our interviews are focused on: how did you go vegan, if they are vegan, how or why did you start your business? And we talk about things like that, and so even though the person may not be vegan, we can talk about how they founded their company, why it’s vegan, the things that they’re doing to grow it, and so that’s more what we’re focused on, versus yeah, maybe some of the other groups that are out there.
MS: Okay, great. Yeah, and that sounds like a great service to have. So, I will not be applying to that because I’m not living in Canada.
SN: Yeah, unfortunately. We’ve talked about possibly opening it up to inviting vegans in other places to be interviewed, but yeah, we’re still working on folks in Canada, so until we run out of people to interview here…But, yeah, that’s always in the back of my mind, the possibility of having other vegans interviewed on our channel. Maybe at some point in the future.
MS: Yeah. Well, is Canada very vegan friendly,? Are they more progressive than the United States?
SN: That’s a great question. I don’t know. I don’t think anybody’s done a survey recently to see, you know, the percentage of vegans in Canada versus other places. I know in the major cities it’s quite easy to get around and find your options. In rural places, you might need to order from online, depending on the types of products that you prefer.
But, yeah, I don’t think I’d say we are any more vegan than the US is. We just don’t have as much of a population, that’s the one thing I’ll say. So, in terms of activism, like you’ll probably see moreso in Toronto, because they, they just have a bigger population than we do in Vancouver. But yeah, every every major city in Canada, I think, has its pocket of vegans that you can hang out with, or its vegan-friendly restaurants that you can find.
MS: Well, that’s good to know. Hopefully, we’re growing in the world. It almost seems like…I don’t know. Sometimes I just think, why is it so hard to grow? It seems like we’re stuck at 3%. Maybe that’s a high range. I don’t know what it is right now, do you? But when you go to the store, I see a lot more plant-based milks, and thankfully, but then we have the backlash also with the meat that is being cultivated meats, and all this.
I wish there was some solution right now for this, where it doesn’t involve any animals, where there would be no animal harm, but as you pointed out, this is it’s a journey for people, and it’s a journey for civilization. Do you think that we will see a vegan world before we pass away?
SN: Before we pass away, I don’t know. That’s how I feel right now, but I am not giving up on the prospect of having a vegan world. And, as you were saying, you know, it made it not take as long for a person to go vegan, but for a civilization, absolutely. And there are innovations happening, right? We have so many plant-based substitutes, and people are working on cultivated meat, but yeah, we are not going to see cultivated meat on the market like we do right now with conventional meat, and it’s going to take a while for it to get to price parity.
Also, I know that the innovation is there. When it comes to the market, is the other unknown. But I think once that starts to happen and once it becomes accessible and people know that these options are out there, and they’re less cruel, I think that’s when we’ll start to see that shift, and yeah, and I think that’s that’s the way that we’re—hopefully—will help us move in that direction, but yeah, I don’t know if we’ll see it in in our lifetimes.
MS: Yeah, I don’t know either, and it seems sometimes it just seems to be getting worse with people turning off the blinders with the environmental damage, and not.. it just seems like, wow, if we don’t…if we’re destroying our environment, and we’re doing all these things. I mean, we’re just completely blind to what’s happening, and then animals are like on the bottom tier, so it’s very hard to see the sadness in the world, and to keep moving forward. How do you keep positive in this world that can be very sad?
SN: I just think about what I can do, and a vegan client of mine, actually Dennis Jones from Course Correction, shortly after the January 6 insurrection happened, because he’s in Washington, I asked him, “How are you doing?” And he didn’t seem as frazzled as I was about that incident, and he said, “You know, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about that.” And that stuck with me, you know. I can only stay positive and use my own skills, talents, and abilities to make things better in this world, and hope that that rubs off on some people, and that they do the same, because yeah, I can’t be responsible for the entire population moving in one way or another, so that’s yeah, that’s how I operate.
MS: Yeah, and that’s very true, responsible for yourself and your own legacy, because when you do your best you can sleep at night knowing that you’ve done your best. So let’s get back to the business a little bit. What, who is your ideal client for those who might be watching?
SN: Yeah, so my ideal client now is a woman who is visible. So they’ve already got some sort of online audience, maybe they’re running a podcast, but now they are finding themselves managing teams. Whether it’s a team helping with their content, a team helping them run the podcast, and they’re unable to move forward with projects that might help them get more visible.
So what I usually find is not just women, but people want to be paid public speakers, right? And so I asked them, “Do you have a book?” No, and they’re not interested in writing a book either. But what they don’t realize—and I went this through this personally, and I did not know this—but when you publish a book, people just start asking you to speak at their events.
Victoria Moran invited me to Main Street Vegan Academy, and then I got invited to speak at the Planted Expo, VegFest Nanaimo, and Vancouver Vegan Festival here in my city, because I had put this book out and they thought I had something interesting to say. And so even though I’m not looking to be a professional speaker, I just, I found, wow, books are really the fast track to this kind of visibility, if that’s what you want.
And so, because of my book experience, I could then come in and not only help manage the teams that they already have, but move forward on a book if they don’t already have one, and then once the book comes out, or if they’re launching some sort of product or service that they want more visibility for, then we can go and pitch to media and get them visible in media, interviewed on podcasts, and then start to incrementally raise their visibility in ways that they haven’t been able to do themselves. So that’s who I’m looking to work with in terms of a female leader, somebody who needs somebody like me to manage their teams, and then also move forward on those high visibility projects.
MS: What keeps people from writing books? I mean, what’s the big deterrent to that?
SN: I think it’s because people may not have a hobby of writing, and that makes complete sense. You need, for you know, a normal fiction or nonfiction adult book needs to be at least 30,000 words. And so when you say 30,000 words, this roughly, let’s say, 120 pages, “Oh, wow. that’s a lot. I couldn’t possibly do that.” But if you break it down into chunks, so let’s say you can write, you know, doesn’t matter if you’re a great writer, if you could write just over two pages a day, you might have a book in 30 days.
MS: Wow.
SN: That’s the 30,000 word mark. If you were to do that every day for 30 days. So it’s actually not as impossible as you might think. If you just break down that word count. And there are also other ways to get around it. So, if you’re a better speaker, you know, you don’t like typing in a laptop, you can speak your book, so you know whether it’s your iPhone or another recording device. Then you can transcribe that into text.
I tell a lot of people, if they’ve already got blogs, articles, podcast interviews, keynote talks that they’ve done, you could convert that into text, and, and that’s part of your book, so you’ve got some written content there already. And then the other option is hire a ghostwriter or a co-author. So, I’ve ghostwritten two and a half books.
MS: And what is a ghostwriter exactly? What do they do?
SN: Yeah, a ghostwriter basically takes on that responsibility of writing for the author. So that involves a series of interviews. I work a little bit differently than most traditional ghostwriters, in that I like to sit with the author and record them narrating their book, and we, of course, do this in sessions. We don’t do it all in one session. But I like to preserve that person’s voice as much as possible, especially if they plan to speak or release an audiobook.
You don’t want—or you can—but when you hire a ghostwriter, they’re writing it in the way that they write it. That’s what I’m saying. And then if you go and you do a keynote and your voice sounds a lot different than the book that came out, there’s kind of a disconnect there, and readers are going to kind of question why that is. And so that’s why I like to work with authors who want to preserve that speaking voice, so that the book sounds like you.
So those are your options. And yeah, if you’re not the writer type, so long as you’ve got a story or some expertise that you want to share in book form, you can absolutely get that done.
MS: Well, that’s very interesting to know, and a book can seem overwhelming, but you made it sound…well, you could do it in a month or even if you did it one page a day in two months, that seems doable.
SN: Yeah, and that’s why they have writer’s retreats, because people go off, and it’s almost like a vacation. But you’re going away from home, and you’re going to spend that dedicated time to work on your book, so there’s that too.
MS: Wow. Well, these are opening up some new options. Everybody’s listening, and where are you? Where can they find you right now? I’m going to still keep asking questions, but where can anyone find you?
SN: I’m everywhere with my name, Sandra Nomoto. That’s the best place to find me. I’ve got all my social links on my website. Yeah, and happy to have a conversation about how you can get a book done.
MS: Yeah, I gotta get these questions answered for our guests that are watching that might want to write a book. Now, what if I say, well, I can write a book, but what if it’s…how do you get it in an order that flows? I mean, that’s what you do?
SN: Yeah. So the best thing to do is just get a first draft done at that point, don’t worry about the flow of things. There’s a lot of different like story arcs that you can research, and you can follow those if you want, but I think the most important thing is to just get what you want down on the page, because then you can rework these sections later.
So when you either self-publish and you’re at the point of hiring editors, that’s exactly what a structural editor does. They work on the flow. Are these chapters in the right order? Are these sections in the right order? Are these paragraphs in the right order? That’s the job of a structural editor. There are different types of editors.
Or if you get a book deal with a publisher, the publisher will provide, that type of editing for you. So I would worry less about, you know, whether it flows from beginning to end than just getting that first draft done, because the next steps determine, now, how is this gonna look to the readers, or come off to the, to the reader?
MS: And now, with the physical books not being…a lot of people don’t have the physical books anymore. Is it essential to have a physical book?
SN: I would say it is. Because—and I should probably look at the stats more recently—but the last time I checked, maybe two years ago, most people preferred a hard copy than the other formats. So it’s about, let’s say 70% of people are still buying a hardcover, and then followed by ebook, and then followed by audiobook. Even though audiobook is a growing format, we are still seeing more people prefer the hard copy.
And so there’s a lot of folks out there who say, okay, I’ve written a book, but it’s only an ebook format. Well, you know, you should think about having a hard copy as well, because then you can do in-person events, and you can sell that book, sign it. You just don’t get that from an ebook, and same thing with audiobook. And so, if you want to be considered a serious published author, I think you should think about doing both print and ebook. Audiobook is a different story, because there’s different needs there and services that are involved with that, but at least some sort of print and ebook, I would say.
MS: So, I have no idea what’s the pricing if you’re going to print books? How many books would you print at first? How does that work?
SN: Yeah, that’s completely up to you. So, if you’re using an online service…so I found that most of my readers were not in Vancouver, they’re around the world, and so they’re going to buy my book online naturally. But I did buy a chunk, a chunk of books. And I wanted to give, especially to the local contributors who are in my book, I wanted to give them a copy. So I bought a batch. My starting batch was 65 books, a good number of those I gave away for free. The rest I was selling at events that I was speaking at.
And yeah, and you can do your own book launches, you can, you know, appear as a vendor at an event, and sell your books there. There are different ways that you can do it. And then every time I run out of copies. I just order five more every time I need them. And so that’s really up to you and what your strategy is. But again, that’s why I recommend that you use an online platform, so that it doesn’t matter how many books you’re carrying. Anyone around the world can be able to buy your book online.
MS: Great. So, yeah, I’m getting a clear view of this. So, you’ll buy about 65 and then you don’t have to buy like 65 or 100 next time. You can buy in small batches.
SN: Yes. It depends on the size you’re right of your audience, right? If you know you can sell 1000 right off the bat, then you know you can start with that amount, but yeah. I don’t have a huge following. I had an idea of how many I wanted to give away, how many that I wanted to provide at my book launches, and then keep on hand in case, yeah, I wanted to mail some out.
I do have the ability to ship out signed copies across North America, but nobody’s ordered one, so a lot of people just, yeah, prefer to order from Amazon or Lulu, which is the other place that I have it.
MS: Right. And so is it better to go with the big names, like Amazon, or what about the smaller book companies? Does it really matter?
SN: Yeah, again, that’s really up to you. I do think that you should have it available on Amazon, because no matter what you feel about Amazon, it is actually the number one place people buy their books, because you can add a book to your cart while you’re shopping for other things, and they started out selling books. That’s how Amazon started, and so they have facilities around the world that can be able to print books and ship them quite quickly.
So I would say yes, consider Amazon, but if you want to make your book available in other places, then use an aggregate online platform. So one of the most popular ones is called IngramSpark, and IngramSpark will push or make your book available to other online retailers, and bookstores can actually order from IngramSpark as well, so that’s another option.
There are others, but that’s just an example of an option where if you want to make it available in more places than Amazon, then then you would load your book to that platform too.
MS: We’re getting a lot of good advice here. So what about what’s the feeling you have when the book is done? Can you describe that for us?
SN: Oh, it was fantastic. I started writing my book in October 2021 and my goal was to finish it by early 2022 and then have it available in the fall. And the thing with my book is I had contributors, so I asked almost 300 either vegan companies or professionals to submit their marketing stories, and I got just under 50 people either sending in their stories or wanting an interview, which I then turned into a story. So I had help. I had help with the writing.
I’m not going to say anybody can do a book in three months, but I had help. And what I was going to do at first was wait until I got about 50 stories and then start writing, but as they started coming in, you know, that those creative juices started flowing, and I said, “Let’s start writing the book now.” And I think that really helped. So, by the time 2022 rolled around, I was sort of ready to send it out and to beta readers and get endorsements and start the editing process. So, that’s how it was for me.
MS: Well, it sounds very…I mean, I would be so excited if I had a book in my hand, and I can imagine, because.. and like I was saying, Angela Crawford, her book is so beautiful, The Vegan Transformation. I wish I had it here, but I don’t.
SN: Yeah, it’s in my shelf, too.
MS: Is it back there? I’m sure it is. I bet you have a lot of wonderful books. So, yeah, she spoke so highly of you. So everyone that’s watching, please don’t be afraid to do it. Call Sandra, and reach out to Sandra, and get, get this thing going. Because it is really a good way to get visible when you have the book, it really does up your credibility. It makes people think, “Wow, I mean, that’s that takes a lot of work to write a book, it really does.”
So, and what you’re doing is elevating people’s lives, because it can seem very overwhelming, and getting this book is such a gift of confidence. It really boosts people’s self-confidence as well. And look at you, look at how confident you are.
SN: I’ll tell you a book does boost your confidence, because, and I’ll tell you, I have not broken even on my investment, so going the self-publishing route, you know, it is an investment. But I can’t put a price on the visibility that it gave me, that’s what I will say. As I said before, it kind of, yeah, made me sort of known in the vegan world. Like all these vegan podcasts started inviting me on to be on their shows. I got a couple clients out of it.
But yeah, there were these other results that came about that I just couldn’t have imagined, like the speaking invitations. People asking me to be their publicist and help them with their books. Yeah, until you put it out there, you really will not know what it can do for you. And the other thing that books do is it helps you with search. So if you don’t have a great presence online for when people search your name, a book will get you up there in search and in AI search as well. What else did I want to say?
And the other thing that I love doing is signing books, because yes, you can buy my book online and get it shipped to you, but when I meet you in person and I sign the book to you, if that’s something really special, it’s a special energy exchange where you know I’ve done this piece of work and now I’m giving it to you. And I hope that you use it in a positive way. Yeah, there’s something really special about that, that I discovered when I started signing books for people.
MS: Well, I believe there’s tremendous satisfaction in this. So, give us, since we’re coming to the end of our time, give us your information again, where people can get a hold of you and who your ideal client is, again, for those who might want you to clarify it one more time.
SN: Yeah, you can find me at SandraNomoto.com. I’m most active on LinkedIn and Instagram in terms of social media, and I’m looking to work with established ethical female leaders who need a personal brand manager to help them manage their teams and get more visible in the world, so that they can have more impact.
MS: All right. Well, you heard it here, and y’all, let’s commit one or two pages a day. Well, first, let’s figure out what book we’re going to write.
SN: Yes, yeah.
MS: And now we have, we can’t make any more excuses, because we have a little traction here. We can start doing it, and we know kind of the layout. It doesn’t have to be perfect, like Sandra said. We just get the first draft down. So I’m excited that we had this conversation, because you answered a lot of questions. I’ve been thinking about writing a book for years. I mean, I have some chapters written, but I’m going to try to do at least, at least one or two pages a week. Maybe I could do one a day.
After I just told everyone else to do it, I’m going to have to do it now. So, thank you so much, Sandra, for this conversation, and for your inspiration, and being such a strong female vegan leader. I really, I really am glad that we, that you finally came on the show.
SN: Thanks, Marquita. It’s my pleasure.
MS: Yeah, and thanks everybody for watching, and y’all also please go to www.all-creatures.org to make a one-time or reoccurring donation, and we will see you here next week. Thanks everybody. Bye, bye.
SN: Bye.
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