Imagine building partnerships by getting your message out there in the right and impactful way. Make your storytelling creative and take advantage of lots of opportunities ahead of you!

We have our guest, Melody Owen, a content creator, book coach, and storyteller. She's a founder of Author Nation who'll help you tell stories that matter... stories that connect. She's very vibrant in leveraging all of her education and experience to help heart-based and social entrepreneurs and small businesses to plan, produce, publish, and promote content that fits into their overall marketing strategy to increase their success.

Listen as Melody Owen shares her light bulb moments as she creatively tells stories that connect with people to build collaboration and partnership. She helps entrepreneurs and small business owners in developing their content that will connect them to their ideal clients. Hear her tell the importance of creative storytelling and the different approaches in devising opportunities to acquire your business success.

Melody's Website: https://authornationtube.com/

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Until next time, keep moving forward!

Chuck Anderson,

Affiliate Management Expert + Investor + Mentor

http://AffiliateManagementExpert.com/

Why can't we work together to make sure that my my readers read all of their books, right? And their readers read all of my books. So why am I searching for one reader and one reader in one reader when we've all done that work, and now we can collaborate, and share readers because readers want to read more than one book on the same topics. That's all readers do. So whether you're fiction or nonfiction, I work with nonfiction authors, whether your fiction or nonfiction, if you're an author, and you're not collaborating, you are missing out on so much, because you know how much effort it takes to get 1000 readers, and then you let them go, it's like no, share more with them, share more books, you know, and use that to collaborate with other authors to share more bugs. And that's, you know, that's one way that authors can collaborate. And I believe the publishing industry succeeds collaboration.

Hey, it's Chuck here. And I'm so glad that you're listening to this episode. And I just want to take this quick moment right now to let you know about our free collaborators toolkit. And this episode is all about partnership and collaboration. And our guests share many resources, tools, and things that you can use to make collaboration and partnership easier in your business. So if you're looking for better ways to grow, and scale your business, through collaborations, and strategic partnerships, this free collaborators toolkit is going to contain the best resources from our workshops, as well as contributions from our guests. And these tools could be the missing link that you've been looking for. And they're gonna help you to solve everyday business challenges, and access, highly effective ideas that can help and grow your business exponentially. I know they've helped me and I know they're going to help you as well. And the best part about these tools is that they're completely free. And our gift to you for being a valued member of our community, and a subscriber to the show. So you can get access to all of the resources contained inside the collaborators toolkit today by visiting the website at WWW.collaboratorsunite.com/toolkit. That address again, is WWW.ollaboratorsunite.com/toolkit. Go ahead and register today get access to all the resources, and I'm going to see you on the inside. Now. Here's the episode.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the creative collaboration show Chuck Anderson here, I'm host and I am so honored to be here with melody and Owen and Melody and I have known each other for a number of years, we've, we've been to a number of events, we've spoken at a number of the same events. And she's really been a leader here, here in Vancouver, where we, especially with the authors of the city, and she is the host of The Author nation show her own show, and just a number of really cool things that she does. So Melody, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me, Jeff, really, really love that we get this opportunity to connect like this.

Awesome. Well, you know, rather than me tell your story, I'm going to get you to tell your story. So how about you introduce the folks to you know, who you are and what you do? And we'll take it from there.

Yeah. So as you said, you mentioned automation. And I'm the founder of author nation, which is a community of authors. So author supporting authors. We all have the YouTube show, I have a podcast, we have a members area with lots of resources, we do weekly write ins together, there's so much cool stuff going on in that in that community. But what what I think of myself as is a content strategist, and storyteller, so book is a type of content. So it actually falls into the umbrella of Content Strategy. Hooks tell stories. So it falls into the category of storytelling. So I help entrepreneurs and professionals and author entrepreneurs, publish nonfiction books that lead to success. And it could be a memoir, it could be, you know, it could be a business book or a help book. I also help businesses, entrepreneurs, really nail their messaging, like really understand who they're talking to, what they're trying to say what types of stories they should be telling to make that emotional connection and to help build relationships with the people they serve. And so it's kind of a rounded out kind of When I do,

Yeah, I like that what you say there about creative storytelling, because I know many times I've sat down to tell my story. And my engineering brain is like, well, here's all the facts, and here's all the things that I do. And then it really takes someone like you to take that and help turn that into something interesting something people actually want to read or hear. And it's really the story, isn't it?

Yeah. And when, and being an engineer, you understand how important data is you understand how you need to know information in order to make good decisions. But if you're in front of a room, just spewing data at people, they're like, I don't like I can't remember all this. So you give them some data, you give them the story, it helps them embed not only the data, but how the data can be used and how they can go away and apply that to their lives. And so it's really important for engineers, to be able to tell stories to help people really understand what they do, and how engineering can be applied to their lives. So that's a really great example.

Yeah. And ultimately, it's how do we present that in a way that moves people or, you know, in a way that they want to consume the content, or at least will will read it and it's not so boring, and all of that. And so, so whenever I think about, you know, nonfiction work, I always think of you because I know that's, you know, that's the work that you do. And and, you know, we don't talk all the time, but I certainly see what you're doing with the interviews on your author nation show. So it's really, really cool to do that. So let's dive into the story. Right? So obviously, you know, writing creative storytelling is your thing. Where did this all start for you?

Oh, wow. So I think that it started way back in childhood. And I know a lot of people say this. But you know, when I was a kid, I was told a lot of stories about me. And they weren't helpful stories. And so it wasn't until I started understanding the narrative that I that I had running through my head, that I could say, Okay, wait a minute, whose narrative is this? This is mine, is this, my sons, my families, this is, you know, the bigger the larger society telling me this is who I am or where I fit? And does it does that work for me. And I learned that the stories that were told about me, or the stories that I was encouraged to tell myself about myself, weren't working for me. And so I had to come up with a new narrative. And so a narrative, just to clarify a narrative is just to simplify it as well. Your narrative is your worldview, it's how you think about the world, it's how you see the world, your story is kind of how you got there, the steps it took to get there, the steps it takes to get out of that. So you can take your life story. And you can pull different things from it to create different narratives about the world. So we've some of us, we all have good and bad experiences. And some of us pull on the negative and some of us pull on the positive. And that's just an example of how story and narrative kind of fit together. So that's how I got into it, just exploring my own narrative, my own story, and my love of telling tall tales in storytelling and writing, and supporting people in their communication efforts. And so that's kind of all of those pieces kind of fell together into this into this career. Because in high school, nobody told me I could be a YouTuber. So I didn't make that story up for myself, right?

Well, absolutely. And that's really like taking advantage of the opportunities as they evolve. And I know for me, YouTube wasn't a thing, it probably wasn't even a an idea of a thing when I was in high school. So, you know, how can you really predict the future that far, but really, what I hear you saying is that, you know, you're taking a gift and a passion that you had very, very early on, I love this in terms of that self discovery, and the things that you find yourself naturally good at naturally interested in, and then making that into something that, you know, not only you know, is your career, but help so many, many others as well. So that I find fascinating.

Yeah, my career and my way to serve and one so I consider myself very privileged and grateful that I can do that.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm, you know, this, this being a show about, you know, creativity and collaboration, and, you know, how do we take advantage of opportunities that are all around us all the time and those opportunities, some of them have always been here, and some of them are new. There are always new opportunities. Some are, doors are closing, some doors are opening, and it's really about recognizing those opportunities. And so, so tight Talking about collaborations and I know you and I, you know, we touch base before this, this episode. And it's like, where, and when we want to talk about, really where has collaboration and those some of those opportunities that present themselves kind of help you to, to follow your path, but also to build your business, grow your business or do something really, really cool. So, so let's shift gears a little bit and talk about collaboration. So, you know, what are some of the things that you've done, where you've collaborated with others, and it's made a big difference in your?

Oh, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a story about collaboration. I met a woman, Daniel bends and years ago, and we just kept crossing paths. And she was a speaking voice, self expression coach. And so that time that connected with me, I really connected with that. And I started working with her. We ended up being friends. But you know what, as our businesses were growing kind of side by side, sometimes you want to level up, but you don't have everything you need. And so you need to lean on someone, we started, we started leaning on each other, and helping each other level up in our businesses. And then one day, I was in one of her workshops, and I started getting any content. And so I started telling some stories around my my life and growing up and the memoir that I written. And she's like, Where's this coming from? I said, Oh, well, I wrote a memoir, and it's not published, but it's just sitting there. It was really good for me to retell my story, making me the hero, rather than me making you know, those times when I felt the villain is, you know, making me the hero and making me the person who can, you know, save myself, right? Oh, my God, this is really great. We should do a show. A show I like I'm not a performer. Well, yeah, I'm a storyteller. But like, a show like a whole show. She says, Yeah, let's do a solo show you. So we landed up producing a solo show, I wrote it, we produced it together, she directed it. And we we put it we put this on by when my Nana, why did a one woman solo show based on my life. And we got a theater, we invited people, we did it as part of the fringe. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Fringe Festival, I was a new performer in that kind of area and theater. And so we did something kind of smaller, simple. So I wasn't in I wasn't in a huge stadium or anything was a smaller theater. But we ended up doing a show. And so this collaboration is kind of supporting each other leaning on each other has turned into dream projects together, right and doing things that are exciting, and really stretching our boundaries together. And it's been an amazing collaboration and have a better storyteller for it. I'm sure she's she could say I'm a better something for it as well. I'm not gonna speak for her, but I think we both gained something from it. And, and, you know, I think that's a really important important piece to realize that collaboration is about building building each other up. Right, that's really what it's about.

I absolutely love that and building each other up. Right. And that's, that's really my attitude towards collaboration as well. And you know, how can we find a win win? Both people win? How do we both rise together? And how do we help other people rise as a result of the work that we do? And so I absolutely love that. I love so many things about the story. I mean, starting with me just unpacking it just a little bit, right? Because let's take the learning out of it. An opportunity arose, and recognizing that opportunity. And then then having the courage to have a conversation about it. And so, so think about for a moment moment, that opportunity. What was it that really what was the light bulb moment that went on when you recognize, hey, there's an opportunity here that I really need to take action on?

Yeah, well, I think that actually when she first presented the idea, was that resistance, right? It was like yes, I'm I'm I guess I'm a performer of sorts that like onstage for a whole hour by myself. But the truth is, in the end, it's not by myself. It is the collaboration we had, it wasn't just the two of us. We had a whole team, right. But yeah, it's what was that? What that one moment? I think actually, instead of a light bulb moment, it was a very slowly getting used to the idea of seeing myself onstage by myself for an entire hour. Interacting with an audience. I think that I don't think there was a light bulb moment there. I think it was a slow coming round to this. Yeah. Because I remember being excited by but terrified. And so I needed to work through the terrified part and kind of retell that story. It's like yes, it's it's terrifying, but it opens up this possibility for news skills and for our new, I'm adventurous and you know, I'm very much, you know, I've had I had a coach when say you're having fun, right? Like you just don't do it. And I'm like, Yes, pretty much. I love being adventurous and having fun. And so I think that side of me just pulled me into the, into the project.

So moving ahead, despite maybe having some reservations or some fears, or just, you know, should I shouldn't I do I really want to do this right. And so but doing it anyways, but I love what you said, because it wasn't so much. A lightbulb moment, as what I heard you say is that it's almost like a seed got planted, that just sort of started to grow. Is that how you would describe it?

Yes. And by the time we hit the stage on opening night, it was a it had, like, grown over all of my life. It's such a big project to put on a show. And then And then yeah, and then it went dormant. And it's currently no, this was dormant at the moment. But I can we can grow back right? Like a garden, right? I can water that can come back. Yeah. And I use collaboration every day in my work with authors as well. So important part of supporting authors is getting them to collaborate with one another.

Do you have an example of maybe how they can collaborate with one another? Like, do you have an example of some of the collaborations you coach them through trying to create?

Yeah, well, think about it this way. If you go out and buy a car, you go to the Mercedes dealer or the Toyota dealer or wherever you go. And they're not like, Hey, since she bought her Mercedes usually think about buying a BMW. Right? They don't do that cars don't do that. But if you think about your very favorite genre, Chuck, have you only read one book in that genre? Or have you read multiple books in that genre? It's usually multiple, right? So if I write a particular genre, let's say parenting, and somebody comes along and reads my parenting book, they're looking for more. And I know for other parenting authors, why can't we work together to make sure that my, my readers read all of their books, right? And their readers read all of my books. So why am I searching for one reader in one reader in one reader, when we've all done that work, and now we can collaborate and share readers because readers want to read more than one book on the same topics. That's all readers do. So whether you're fiction or nonfiction, I work with nonfiction authors. But whether your fiction and nonfiction, if you're an author, and you're not collaborating, you are missing out on so much, because you know how much effort it takes to get 1000 readers, and then you let them go, it's like no, share more with them, share more books, you know, and use that to collaborate with other authors to share more bugs. And that's, you know, that's one way that authors can collaborate. And I believe the publishing industry succeeds through collaboration, unlike the car industry, right. It's all about collaboration.

Yeah. Great takeaway from that, because one of the things too, I try to help people see a path to finding collaborations, it's a question that we get all the time. It's like, okay, this is all well, and good. You're telling these stories, but how do I find people to collaborate? And what I heard you say is, if I'm a nonfiction author, what genre Am I writing to? What is my target audience? And who else has written books to that audience? And then to I mean, reach out to them and, and, you know, look for those collaborations. So what what's your advice to other author? And so there could be business people here thinking, I'm going to write the book about my business or whatever, and can be really about anything? Where do they how do they approach other authors? In a way, what have you found that has worked in terms of approaching them in a way where the walls don't go up? The wall has actually come there. And they're, they're open to the collaboration.

I haven't really seen a lot of walls in it with the people I work with. I just, I think that if you have 1000 readers, and you go to an author, another author in the same genre and say, Hey, I have 1000 readers, and I'd like to recommend your book, would you recommend mine? Well, possible Whoa, right.

Right. That's you presented that as a win win. You can't possibly say no to that.

And if an author says no to that, if I was an author, and an author said no to that, I would just I would feel sadly, it's like, I'm very sorry, that, that you don't see the opportunities, I'll go somewhere else. Because there are hundreds of people writing in my genre, you are, you know, like one, one person says no, because they live through like fear or for whatever reason, or they just don't understand the possibilities. Then you just move on. It's nothing you do and someone says no, you just move on. Somebody else?

Yeah. What what did you lose? Really, right. And so what are some of the mistakes that maybe you see a Um, people making when they first start out trying to find people to collaborate with.

I think you want to be involved in the author community. And this is why I have an author community, because my first advice is, get involved with an author community, like start getting to know people, you don't walk into a room and start to selling your your goods, right, you know how many sales you're gonna make that way, it doesn't matter whether you're selling the idea of collaboration, or whether you are selling goods, if you walk into a room and say, I have a great book, and you should promote my book, you know, and I'll promote yours, who we didn't get to know people just go in and get to know people a little bit not as, as you get to know people, and you'll figure out who you should be approaching. Right, who actually fits, because I think that's one of the big mistakes is like, everyone should promote my book. And I also hear authors say everyone should read my book. It's like, no, not everyone will read your book, not everyone will promote your book, just because you're both authors doesn't mean you're a good fit. So find the good fit. It doesn't I say the same genre, but it does seem to have peace in the same genre. It could just be another connection, right? Someone could be writing a book on parenting, and somebody else could be writing a book on getting your first job. And you're like, Wow, you write a parenting book for teens. And I write a pair a book on getting your first job, well, what are teens doing? Right, so maybe there's a collaboration there, even though it's different, there's some cross promotion you can do for with parents, then they can buy the book for parenting, and they can buy the book for getting your first job for their teenager, right to get them to go out and get that job. Right. So not just genre, but think of all the possibilities and get to know people. So then when you get to know people think like, do they fit? And how do they fit, right? And if they do, then you excitedly go up and say, have an idea would you like to hear and run with it?

Yeah, we always tell people to do their homework before reaching out. And that's what I really hear you saying is, is really take a look at who they are, who their audience is, and you know, get to know a little bit about them before reaching out and then, and then use that in the way that you approach. And not just spam them on LinkedIn, or whatever. But I get into a group that they're a part of, or is there some way where you can even get an introduction to them and, you know, develop a bit of, you know, relationship first, right. So podcasts are great for that, right? You could start a podcast, and you can start interviewing your favorite authors from your, from your genre, we actually did that with the blissful parenting book, like we're, we interview other book authors, and so we every week we meet more, so it's a great way, you know, you got to find that thing that gets you in the conversation with those people. Right?

Yes, and, and I just also want to point out, sometimes people think when they're collaborating, that somehow they're approaching on a lower level than the collaborator. And I really want to encourage people to work on that mindset. And same with you know, I have I have kids who are working aids, and they'd go into an interview, and they thought, you know, please give me a job. And I'm like, no, no, that's not the attitude. You go in saying, Are we the right fit? Right? And yes, they have, they may be in a power position, because you're looking for a job. But if they're using that power position, or or you get into a job that you're miserable on, right, then then that's not a good fit. So same with collaboration, I lose that, you know, should I talk to that person? Oh, you know, it's like, yes, you should talk to them, you are equal, you should go up and say, Hey, nice to meet you. This is who I am. I've heard a little bit about you, I'd love to learn more about you, and approach it as equals, I see that in the collaboration world that people are afraid. And I think, I don't know, because they feel lesser, or I'm not sure exactly why but whatever, whatever story, you're telling yourself, whatever that narrative is that you are fearful of talking to somebody because they're bigger or better somehow lose it.

Absolutely. And I think it's when we view the other person as being bigger and more powerful than we are, right? And, and it's like, they value the you know, I value what they can contribute to me, they can give more to me than I can give to them. But when you start to see it the other way, where we benefit each other, then you don't have to put them, you know, or yourself at different levels, you can be at that level for that moment. So, and that happens so many times in collaboration conversations as well. Right? And we don't just go out there, hey, do you want to collaborate? Do you want to collaborate? Do you want to collaborate? No, it's like you have to do your homework and you have to know you get a bit of a relationship first, but also, you know, level right where were they at and so it helps to kind of calm down that fear a little bit. So I love all of that. So many takeaways, and I know we could probably spend ours talking about all of this and maybe we should do a workshop on it one day maybe that it's a collaboration you and I can do in the future. But, you know, hopefully everyone has gotten some good takeaways. And I'm hoping that it planted a seed to get inspired to collaborate, find ways of collaborating, whether it be maybe you've had an idea for a nonfiction book for a long time, you could reach out and get help. And melody is awesome. You definitely want to do that. And so you know, kind of in wrapping up some of our big takeaways, Melody, I would just love especially you since you're such a nonfiction, you know, expert enthusiast, all of that. What is the one nonfiction book that you think all entrepreneurs should read?

Oh, wow, entrepreneurs. I'm gonna say I'm gonna so Read Something by Seth Godin read anything by Seth Godin. I'm actually gonna suggest a book that is a little, not necessarily entrepreneurs, and it's called Just Mercy. And it's by Bryan Stevenson isn't Yeah, Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and it's not a business book, but it will help you. It will help you understand how to see the world differently. It'll help you empathize. So essentially, one one thing that Bryan Stevenson says that I absolutely love is mercy is for the undeserved. Right, it's so he he's a he's a lawyer who fights to get people off death row, just to give you some context. And he, he believes that we need to start looking at the world in a very different way. He's very first experience, he walked into death row to talk to a death row inmate, he was in law intern, he was a nobody. And he felt like, awful like, why am I going to go tell him that nobody can come speak to him today, right, or no one's gonna speak to him for another month. And the man who received him, said, Thank you for coming. Thank you for taking the time to come to give me a personal message that this is happening. And they certainly spoke for two hours. And that's where he started realizing that he wanted to defend defend people who had been wrongfully accused, or or had had been accused, but their life, you know, there, you're not on death row, because you've had a peachy lovely life and life's been flowers and unicorns, right. And he reading his book will just teach you so much about humanity, and mercy, and she dignity. And I actually think we all need more of that. So it's not a business book. But I think it's a it's Yeah, listening to him, you, I hope you would rethink how you see other people, how you think about them, how you feel about them, how you treat them?

I think that's a brilliant recommendation. Because I think if there's, if there's one mistake that entrepreneurs, business owners, people trying to sell stuff do is that they focus on the tactic of the day, they read the books to learn tactics, how do I sell more? How do I earn more? How do I, you know, do this opportunity, but what I heard you say is like, you know, it, and I know this is true in my business, my business would not have grown to the extent that that I did. And so you have to change and evolve as a human, in order for your business to really blossom and to become what it's supposed to be. So I actually love that and, you know, have my own stories of like, where perspectives change, because of something like that, where when you have more empathy for the people that you work with, or even you look at the world in a different way, new opportunities open up to you, because now you're resonating with the world in a new way. So that's life changing. Thank you.

Yeah, I loved about to it's full of great stories, by the way, as well. Another little plug for the book.

Excellent. Well, we'll post a link to that here in the show notes so that you can check that out. And I know I'm going to say, Oh, thank you so much for that recommendation, because I actually never heard of that book before. So I mean, there we go. Like, that's another great benefit of doing this, I get to, you know, get all these ideas that I never would have thought of on my own. And that's that right? There was a collaboration. So there we go. Melody, it's been so awesome to do this. You know, just before we sign off, you know, what last piece of advice or inspiration would you like to leave our listeners with today?

Yeah. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to fail. Because whenever you start a new project, they're always two paths, their success and there's failure and if you don't start the project because of the fear of failure, you'll never feel that success and when, you know, the times I have failed, I have, you know, come back to lick the wounds, you know, feel terrible about myself, hate the world, whatever I need to do. But then I can look at it. And I can think, okay, how else can I get to that dream? How else can I get to that outcome that project that, that whatever it is that I want, and you know, you will eventually get there I was it said, I have, I have learned 10,000 ways not to and I can't remember, Oh, I'm gonna give you the code and put it in the show notes. But yeah, so So sometimes what you do is you learn 10,000 ways not to and then you learn how to. And if you're fearing that, then you will be paralyzed, and you won't move forward. And that's one thing that I wished I'd done earlier in my business has just been a bigger risk taker, being unafraid to put it out there. Like I'm afraid to recommend a book. It's not even a business book, right? Yeah, that's how it's gonna who knows what people are gonna think of it, but putting it out there. I, I hope that helps.

Well, it helped me, man. So that's one. And so I find that to be very inspirational. So thank you so much, melody to wrap up, how do people get in touch with you? Where do they find you? And let's and we'll put all the links down below in the show notes. But where do they find you?

So if you're interested in author nation, so if you're looking to write a nonfiction book, or you have a nonfiction book, and you're trying to figure out, you know, I spent all this time and money on and now what do I do? Find me at authornationtube.com You can also email me at melody@authornationtube.com you can find my storytelling website at melodynowen.com as well. But yeah, just you know, reach out email me melody@authornationtube.com Reach out say hi, tell me you love the show. Tell me you needed. So whatever works for you. And let's connect.

Awesome Melody, thank you so much. And do go check her out. Connect with her. She's, you know, just an awesome human beings. So it'll be time well spent, guarantee it. So for everybody listening in today, hope you learn something. And, you know, again, keep moving forward, look for those ways to collaborate with others creatively and move your business and your life forward. Until next time, Chuck Anderson with Melody. Thank you so much, everyone.