Episode 57: Take Control of Your Writing Career with Data

This week on the podcast, Elizabeth and Stephanie talk about what it means to be a data driven author and how it's become a new coaching program of the Inspired Writer Collective. 

During their discussion, they touch upon the following and more:

• how Stephanie arrived at focusing on data
• keeping your approach to data simple
• helping authors not feel overwhelmed when it comes to data
• what are you curious about?
• what questions can data answer for you?

Send a DM to Stephanie ​@data.driven.author​ on IG if you're interested in setting up a Coffee Chat Call to learn more

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We hope you've found guidance and inspiration for your own writing.

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Transcript

Elizabeth: 0:00

Welcome back listeners to another episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. Your hosts are both here today. I'm Elizabeth and I'm here with Stephanie. And today I'm going to be kind of interviewing Stephanie because she has been working on this brand new aspect of our collective. So as you well know, we have our podcast. I have my memoir course. Now this is Stephanie's baby, and it is called A data driven author program. So, Stephanie, what is that? What does that mean?

Stephanie: 0:37

Hello, listeners, and thank you, Elizabeth. It's so awesome to be able to talk about this today, because this has been something that's been building over time, and I always naturally gravitate towards thinking about data, but this particular program is really designed to help authors who feel intimidated, and Not certain what to look at about data, kind of scared to enter into the world of numbers because there's certainly that piece within the writing world of like, Oh, I'm really good at words and books and, but numbers freak me out. And I'm here to tell you that first of all, data is not all about the numbers. Um, there's so much more that you can do with your data or with just the idea of data as an author. And so this program is really meant to demystify what data is, it's. It can be used to benefit you in building your writing business, and so I'm super excited to be offering this, to authors.

Elizabeth: 1:47

So cool. What, what is your background with data?

Stephanie: 1:56

Um, many of you have been listening for a while know that I was a former classroom teacher. And there's a huge amount of data driven decision making that is central to being a classroom teacher because you're constantly collecting data about the students, and especially with all the emphasis on standardized testing and looking at, you know, student scores, there are always those pieces that go into looking at, you know, oh, well, these students scored this way in, you know, language arts, And it, you can then break it down into the different subcategories of where their strengths are and weaknesses and use that for lesson designing. So that's kind of where it all started. And then during COVID, I had this crazy idea that I wanted to get another master's degree. In data science and analytics. And so I went through the program at University of Missouri, it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm not going to lie that I definitely cried a lot during that time because there was definitely the piece of where there was the coding and languages in these programs where I was like, I just do not understand this. This is not natural to me. I was definitely in there with, you know, certainly a lot of guys who were like, it was really easy for them. and even the professors, in some cases, it was like, they just knew how to do it. And I was like, okay, literally break it down to me. Like I'm in kindergarten. And, Some of them just couldn't do it. And it was an interesting experience because it really made me push myself for one, but I also was like, well, how can I figure this out? And so that's where my focus on simplifying the data piece comes from is really breaking everything down into simple steps because I made it through the program and it was amazing. And I'm really glad that I did it. And. It challenged me in ways that I had never been challenged before and much like writing a novel now is a challenge because of all the steps you go through, uh, I feel that in the same way that you break down aspects of your writing, it's important to break down aspects of data and not try to like figure it all out at once and take it, you know, piece by piece. that's, uh, you know, that's my background. And then, of course, within the work that we do together, I, you know, look at, look at our data. And, you know, we talk about it and we say, okay, well, what is this telling us? Or what is this not telling us? Or, you know, where can we get more information to inform our next decision for the direction we're taking the collective?

Elizabeth: 4:59

Um, I have multiple ideas floating through my head. First of all, I can see how well you can relate to authors who feel overwhelmed about the, even the idea of looking at their data. Because that's how you felt going through your master's program. It wasn't something that came easily to you. So it it's like It's like when you talk about finding someone to like coach you or guide you, you kind of want to pick the person who's struggled through it so that they understand the struggles versus the person who is telling you how to do what they did, but it came so naturally to them that they can't relate to maybe those road blocks that you're facing. So I love that about your approach. journey with looking at data and understanding data because you're gonna be able to relate to so many of us that struggle to even know where to start or get overwhelmed by the amount of data or All of those different things. Um, the other aspect I want to highlight is I just sent you like a strengths test It's called like the high five test Um yesterday and I had to kind of giggle to myself when I saw your results this morning that you had sent back to me That analytics was in the top five strengths and I knew that I knew that which is why I wanted you to take the the strength test because I knew so much of your stuff was gonna be about that because it At least to me as your business partner, I see you naturally gravitate towards, Oh, let's look at this and see what's working. Let's see if this particular day makes a difference. Or you noticed really early on of, okay, we should put up our YouTube shorts on Tuesdays through Thursdays, the Mondays and Fridays, you know, don't get much traction and you know, let's not expend more of our energy or use more of our content if it's not going to, Really go the distance for us. So you're always looking at our email newsletter clicks even the particular themes that we're talking about and how those resonate which kind of leads into this next question. Which you've already touched on a little bit of what is data because I think a lot of people just assume it's numbers.

Stephanie: 7:06

So data is really, I mean, in the simplest way, it's basically any information you use to help you make a decision.

Elizabeth: 7:16

Mm hmm

Stephanie: 7:16

even, you know, something as simple as, you know, looking at a recipe for something. I mean, That's data that's informing you as to how you're going to to the end point of a meal you're going to fix. so, I think when you start thinking about it in terms of all the little pieces that are simple, It makes it less intimidating, you know, data can be, you know, you have a theme going through your novel, um, for example, one of the pieces in my novel is going to be about the habitat of the lynx, well, data for that for my novel is, well, what are all the things that I need, what are all the pieces of information that I need to collect to help Me, you know, build my character, build my world to make it believable. Um, and then of course, when we're looking at numbers, I mean, data, you can break it down to, you know, your likes, your subscribers, your, uh, you know, who's click, how many clicks a newsletter link is getting, um, how YouTube video. Um, is getting, uh, you know, there's so many different ways that you can come to data and it really comes down to what is the information. That you are most curious about what are your questions? What are you most curious about? Are you curious about well? You know what themes in my newsletter are resonating with my? Subscribers are you most curious about how many people are viewing a YouTube video you put up? so of it is just having a question that you want answers to and how are you going to get the answers?

elizabeth_1_02-01-2025_080839: 9:04

Yeah, for sure. And you know, we're talking about a lot about data in regards to sort of how you market or get, you know, maybe subscribers or views or readership potentially, you know, as you publish and everything. But I can see us even using data to even understand our writing routines and optimizing our writing routines in the sense of, okay, when I sit down in the morning, I have trouble focusing and. Maybe if I use Adrian's yoga freebies in order to do some stretching beforehand, then I, I find that I work better. Or maybe I find that my word count, which is a number metric, you know, is higher when I sit down and do my writing in the afternoon. And so I can see ways in which authors would want to look at themselves, sort of as the data source, um, in order to. really make the most of even their writing efforts. Are there other aspects too? Right. Right. Yeah, and we'll devote a whole episode to that next week. So if you want to know more about goal setting and how Stephanie and I are, um,

Stephanie: 10:27

she's done and that she's kept, you know, she's kept journals since like 19, I don't know, 70 or something. And so, you know, just even that is data for her. And it's the same thing I, it made me just think about with what your example with writers is how track of those little pieces of information, especially, you know, say for a 30 day period, because if you just do it for a week, it's going to inform a little bit. But really like over a month's time is much better chunk of information. And then even if you go longer, you know, six months, a year, um, and build it out, you get even more information because of course life happens and, and such. But I think those types of metrics are also. great. in terms of other ways for data, uh, you know, you can use it for, I was just having a conversation recently with someone about spreadsheeting your novel, that you can look at theme, you can take, you know, okay, so which themes do you have running through your novel, and you can, you know, Uh, put your different, uh, beats into a spreadsheet and then color code them and make sure that you're hitting your themes, you know, if you have a love interest or there's some, you know, you know, where's the point of tension, you know, maybe a corporate takeover, like I'm addressing in my novel, you make sure That you're touching upon those through all the beats of your novel, uh, that that's another way that you can create a data set for yourself and say like, Oh, you know, I'm not hitting it there. And then you and I also just recently went through a course called path with Amanda McKinney, who's going to be a future. on our podcast here and I think some of her strategies too about how to break down say a 90 day goal for yourself when you sit down to plan and think, okay, within this time, what is realistic for me to accomplish? You know, 90 days sounds like a lot, but her course is amazing for making you frame it like, okay, wait a minute. I'm probably not going to be writing. For 90 days straight, because let's be honest, like, it's a lofty goal. And we'd love to say that we're going to write for 90 days straight, but let's be real, like life happens, we have other things that are responsibilities. And even as a writer. We need breaks sometimes to sit back and step back from what we're working on. So then it breaks it down even more. And then, so then that's another piece of data for you, you have for yourself. It's like, okay, what is the reality of how many hours I have during this time? And if I have like, when I did mine, it came down to like, okay, you have 96 hours. It's like, okay, well within those 96 hours, what can I realistically accomplish? Or if you have fewer hours, you know, what can you realistically accomplish? And I think those are also. data points to look at too. And, listener, we just want to let you know, I'm just going to throw this in here, that, uh, we do have an affiliate link with Amanda's course, and it's available for you for a discount. So that will be in the show notes as well. And it's a great, another great piece, especially related to You know, building data sets for yourself and approaching data in a different way.

Elizabeth: 13:56

What we've set for our 90 day milestones, how we've used that course in order to really Um, create a distinct concrete plan that feels realistic and achievable. We're going to go into so much more detail about that next week. Um, one of the things that you've started to do, Stephanie, within our email newsletter, the weekly newsletter that comes out when you subscribe to the Inspired Writer Collective, is that you've included a section of this data driven author piece. And each week you are giving our Our subscribers a little snippet of something tangible that they can do or a different way of thinking about data just to highlight a couple of the things that you've already shared within this month of January, which is how long we've been adding this to the newsletter is that data is not just numbers you talk about the fact of like not allowing yourself to get overwhelmed with data by either looking at it too frequently or Or looking at too small of a subset, which you just referenced, like you said, like, oh, you could look at a week, but that may not give you as great of a picture as looking at, you know, a month or several months. Um, also you've provided in a previous newsletter, you know, what kind of things could you check monthly and, and figuring out what makes sense of, of when to check what metric. And a lot of that can be based off of, you know, say for me on my author website, I just released my first monthly newsletter and sure that first monthly newsletter could give me some insights, but since I'm only doing it monthly, I can't really extrapolate great data from it until I have a couple of months. Whereas we put out the Inspired Writer Collective newsletter every week. So after a month we have, you know, four to five weeks worth of data that we can look at and see if we're getting a better open rate, what our click rate is looking like, and all of that.

Stephanie: 16:00

Yeah. Well there, yeah, there's definitely, um, the newsletter is a fabulous resource and I, we highly encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss. It's the, the weekly tip for, uh, the data driven author and it's, and it's a small, you know, tangible, you know, quick piece, you know, I'm not going deep into detail. I'm just providing, you know, a quick insight into an aspect of, uh, what it looks like to be a data driven author and how it can help you with your decision making. one of the pieces I want to highlight is just how much confidence. Looking at your data can give you an author and looking at how people are engaging with you And you can feel more confident the more that you do it and it is one of those pieces of You need to be in it for the long game. You know, we

Elizabeth: 17:00

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Stephanie: 17:10

to now, we have a huge amount of data that we can look at in terms of the engagement. And one of the coolest things is when you go into the back end of some of these programs is they allow you to break down the data into smaller chunks. And And those analytical pieces can feel intimidating to navigate. And that's one of the pieces that I want to help support authors with is where do you go to look at this? And when you go there, what are you looking at and what can that tell you? For example, if you go into the backend of our podcast, you can see that there's a steady increase over time. Of engagement and it just keeps going up and up and up and it's steady and we're not here to, you know, our vision at the start was not like, oh, yeah, we're going to throw a podcast out there and it's going to be an overnight, you know, we're just going to go skyrocketing, you know, to the, you know, but, but the fact that we have a steady increase tells us like, okay, something here is working and we see that and we see that with the engagement. And again, you know, just. Having the confidence of writing your, you know, titles for, you know, writing the titles and just little bits and, and really being, intimidated by it, one of my goals is to help break down that wall for you allow you to have a little bit more of a sense that like, Yeah, I can understand this because the more you understand it more that you're going to be able to engage with your readers And know what your readers want because at the end of the day that's important I

Elizabeth: 18:56

Yes.

Stephanie: 18:57

your group of writer friends who have their opinion But really your writer friends are probably not going to be your readers.

Elizabeth: 19:04

Right.

Stephanie: 19:05

yeah, and there's just a lot that, uh, That you can do to inform yourself and that's why I started this piece and also why I offer it every week in our newsletter is because starting small, starting with little bits is really the best way to go because reducing overwhelm important. We want to simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify. That's really one of my, you know, visions behind this is it simple because. Even for me, sometimes it can feel overwhelming. And so that's when I step back and say, okay, what is the question that I'm trying to answer? What do I want to know? Where am I going to find that answer? And when you break it down into manageable steps in that way of simple questions, it can make it less scary.

Elizabeth: 20:01

I want to highlight, too, something that one of our previous guests said. Michael Fedor, he talks a lot about how he looked at his engagement in his social media presence, and how well that was converting to his email list subscribers, and saw that it was, you know, a small, single digit number, percentage of Uh, even subscribers and then actually converting that to readers who either download his, you know, freebie, um, prequel or who'd opt into purchasing one of his books was so minimal, and then when he looked at how the level of subscribership and then percentage of conversion to actual readership. The the emails that he would get when he was doing like the book swap things that he talks about on that episode It was so much higher and that's how he knew where to focus his energy to not allow himself to get drained by this. The whole concept of you need to be posting regularly on social media. People need to know who you are, that he was able to figure out what Avenue was helping him find his actual readers. And I think you did a good job of highlighting, you know, that difference that sometimes even engagement on social media, you can look at that data and say, Oh, well, I'm getting great engagement, but. I mean, is that converting to people joining your email list? Because as we've recently seen with the tick tock man and then of course it came back, but it's, it's a great reminder that we don't own those spaces and those are transient. The algorithms are always shifting. They can go away. So the real question is, are you attracting readers? How are you, how are you getting readers? Are people clicking on your links and, and, and purchasing? I've got a podcast guest, um, episode coming up with a romance author who was, was, Originally writing and self publishing on Amazon back in like, I think it was 2006. And so the algorithm there was different then. The market wasn't as saturated. She could post a link on her Facebook group and she could sell, you know, 10, 000 copies just from that link that she would post. But now as she has is re entering that space again, she's seen how much both of those algorithms and markets have changed such that when she would post a more recent book that she had published on her Facebook group, most people aren't seeing it, the clicks are so much lower. All of that is really helpful data and these are just two examples of successful published authors. who are looking at their data. But I do, as you were talking about, you know, you come from a place of curiosity with these questions. And for me, I think I get more of the sense of like, What questions do I need to be asking? Because I don't know necessarily what questions I have. What should I, what should I be asking? What kinds of information do I need to know? And I think a lot of people are so intimidated, especially with marketing in general, that they, they don't even know what questions to ask. So could you, do you have some sense of some of the like entry level questions that authors should be asking and looking into their data for?

stephanie_1_02-01-2025_090838: 23:27

Well, I definitely think that just say, especially if you have an email list, which I think is a really important place foundationally for all authors to start, I think everyone should have an email list of some type that you're trying to build because you own your email list. It's yours. You're not building on rented land. Like, If you're on any of the social media platforms. So foundationally, I think starting there is really important. And I think when you're looking at that, you know, simple places to start would be asking yourself, you know, what topics am I writing about that readers are engaging with? And you can find, you can look at, you know, how many people are Opened it. Um, did you have any links in there? Were there any, did anybody click on any of the links and it's not a requirement to have links in every single, you know, email, um, you know, certainly it can be beneficial, especially to always have, you know, a link to your website, um, and links to your, to your email. You know, if you do decide that you want to be on social media, I do want to highlight that. I don't think it's a requirement to be on social media to be a successful author. Um, I think it really comes down to your own individual approach, um, and what works for you and what makes you feel the most comfortable. And then from there, um, again, just, you know, who is engaging with me? And. Sometimes you can answer those questions, um, from looking behind the scenes. Sometimes the analytics don't always give you those answers, depends on the level of engagement. Um, but you can usually get some information in terms of geography, um, of, you know, where people are tuning in from, and that can, um, inform a little bit. Uh, You know, I think if you're not sure, uh, there, that's where I encourage you to reach out and ask the question and say, say, you know, I'm wondering about, you know, how I look at the data on Instagram. And maybe it's a question of how do I look at it? You know, where do I go to look at my data? Um, you know, how do I, you know, spreadsheet? My novel, if that's a curiosity from this, and, you know, it's going into Google Sheets and oh my goodness that opens and it feels so intimidating

Elizabeth: 26:02

hmm.

Stephanie: 26:03

you know, and so, you know, eventually, you know, I'm, I'm going to have a template available, uh, down the road, you know, that can be. accessible to authors. And so that's going to be the other piece is that through our newsletter, you know, these pieces will be available. So that's why, you know, we really encourage you to get on our email list so you don't miss on, you know, our offerings of, uh, you know, checklists for you to help you, um, and, you know, different ways that you can connect with us the different aspects of our collective between data, memoir course, the podcast. There's so many. pieces that we're building here for you, listener, to support you in your writing and author journey.

Elizabeth: 26:57

Well, Stephanie, I'm so glad that you've, you're putting this together, that you're providing these like small little snippets so it doesn't get overwhelming. You've clearly done sort of the background work as far as the understanding of the data or the, what kinds of questions to ask so that you can simplify it and spare the rest of us the tears that you had to endure. Um, and so I think that's. I think this is just going to be a phenomenal, you know, additional piece of value that the collective is providing. Not only do we expose our listeners to phenomenal guests that have their own specialties, their own knowledge, but then this is a way for us to, um, help our listeners and readers of our email list extract the value from themselves. Because each one of you has value and, and by looking at this data, you're going to be able to see. where your strengths are, where you need to, you know, maybe shore up some things or find some other tools to help you and assist you in those areas where you feel less confident or where there could be rooms for improvement. So I just, I think that we're, we're putting so much value out there, Stephanie, and I think this, Just this is a piece of the puzzle that just fits together so nicely with our collective offerings. Um, so thank you for doing this. Is there anything I've not asked you that you want to be sure that we share?

Stephanie: 28:27

I think we've covered, you know, every little bit. Um, I'm sure there's probably something I'll think of after the fact that always seems to happen. But, uh, I think again, it's just, I really want to, you know, be a support and break it down and make it simple for you listener so that you. Can really focus on what matters most to you, which is your writing. But of course we know in this world that we're in, it's important to be informed. And whether you're a traditionally published author or you're self publishing, it really doesn't matter these days in terms of what you need to be aware of, in terms of, you know, Your data and where your best engagement is and where your readers are. Um, there's a lot that you have to do yourself. And so I really hope you'll reach out with questions. Definitely please join our email list. There's a link in the show notes. so, yeah, just don't be afraid of data. Data's not that scary.

elizabeth_1_02-01-2025_080839: 29:33

Yeah, it's it's meant to be a tool it's meant to be an aid it's helpful and why would you waste time Doing something our time is so precious as writers. So it's so helpful to figure out what is not Getting you the results that you need so you can stop doing some things It's not always about putting more on the to do list. Sometimes it's about streamlining. Certainly you've emphasized the word simplifying So thank you, Stephanie, for that. Thank you, listener, for supporting our podcast. Thank you for subscribing to our YouTube channel or to our podcast. Thank you for all of those five star reviews. You guys mean so much to us, and we're really just trying to find ways to provide as much value as we can to you, um, that's what this data driven author piece is all about. So thank you for subscribing to the newsletter and engaging with us here and happy writing.