Q&A With Brooke Warner 

I am so thrilled to be doing this Q&A with the author, publisher, TEDx speaker, podcaster, & writing coach. Brooke Warner. Brooke has written 4 nonfiction books about writing titled How To Sell Your Memoir, Breaking Ground on Your Memoir, Greenlight Your Book & Write On Sisters. Brooke currently sits on the board of Independent Book Publishers Association, The Bay Area Book Festival & The National Association of Memoir Writers. Brooke writes a monthly column for Publishers Weekly. Brooke has 4 websites www.brookewarner.com www.shewritespress.com www.writeyourmemoirinsixmonths.com & www.magicofmemoir.com . 

Q: Brooke, would you like to tell the readers of the blog & I a little bit about you and when you discovered your passion for reading, publishing and writing?

A: Thanks for inviting me. I would say I had an early passion for reading, like a lot of bookish kids, but that I had no idea that books themselves could be a career until I was already out of college. I got very lucky because I have a supportive mom who, after I told her I didn’t know if I wanted to pursue a career in what I’d majored in (international affairs), asked me what I liked. I said, “Books.” And from that moment on I was pursuing a career in book publishing. From the get-go this career suited me. It satisfies curiosity. It’s never boring. It’s complicated and maddening and invigorating. A lot of what drives me about publishing has to do with fighting for the underdog and fairness, and this is an industry that touches everyone because everyone reads, even if they’re not big readers. It’s a culturally important space to be in, and that, too, is engaging. As far as writing goes, I didn’t start writing until well into my book publishing career, so I’m grateful that I found my voice through being book- and author-adjacent, and now I consider myself all of these things: a reader; a publisher; a writer/author. It’s not a bad place to have landed. 

Q: Why was it important to have your first 4 books be nonfiction ones about writing? If you are currently writing your next book, will it be another nonfiction like what you’ve written so far, or will you try your hand at writing fiction this time around?

A: I often joke that I feel lucky to have no interest in writing fiction. I love fiction. I publish novelists in my presses. But fiction will be a genre, for me, that’s always going to be in the realm of reading and publishing others’ work, and never writing. I can’t say why. I think these drives we have to write are internal. Who knows the forces that drive any one of us to feel that we have a story to tell, or why some people are drawn to fiction and others to nonfiction. My books so far have been solidly in this space of being an expert in the world of publishing and memoir, but my next book will be a memoir. I’m working on it (slowly). So that’s still nonfiction, but not as comfortable to write as a book about writing or publishing. 😊 

Q: I think it’s amazing that you are a writing coach, TEDx speaker, podcaster and publisher on top of being an author yourself. How do you juggle all those roles? 

A: They’re all interconnected and so while I agree that I juggle a lot of roles, they’re kind of a mosaic. I think I’m a pretty good time manager, and I fit things in as I can into my days or my weeks. Somehow it all makes sense to me, and the truth is that the various things feed one another. Some things are big, longer-term projects that have an end in sight—like a book or the TEDx talk. Other things are ongoing, like my podcast or my weekly Substack. Other things are more about my day-to-day job—coaching or my work as a publisher. I think I am not so unique in the modern economy—someone who’s piecing together a bunch of different things to create a whole. What I like about all the roles is that they keep me creatively engaged and stimulated, and as I said before, it’s never boring. 

Q: What is it like doing public speaking for TED Talks? Do you ever get nervous in public speaking? What is your advice for anyone who is nervous about public speaking? If you like, would you please post links to the TED Talks you’ve done?

A: TED is a big deal, of course. I was very nervous, and I had to memorize my talk, or I chose to anyway. So, I spent countless hours on that talk. A lot was riding on it. There was a guy who presented just a few speakers in front of me who totally forgot his lines onstage, and that’s for sure my biggest fear. So, I knew I had to really know my lines. I’ve only done one TEDx talk, Green-Light Revolution. I’d like to do another one but to me a TEDx talk is on par with writing a book. It takes that much time to apply, to write the talk, to memorize the talk, perform the talk. All in all, the whole process took more than a year. Other talks I’ve given have less stakes. I will say the higher the stakes, the more nervous I get. And I still get nervous. Usually, I can shake it off within the first minute or so of being onstage, but I think any talk I give to a large audience, I’m a little choked up in the first thirty to sixty seconds. And that’s okay with me. I want to be at ease, but being nervous is good for performance. I say if you’re nervous about public speaking, don’t worry. That’s normal. The best thing I did before my TEDx talk was a power pose. Someone had told me before my TEDx talk to watch Amy Cuddy’s talk: Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are. I’m so glad I did. The power pose made a huge difference. And I enrolled all the other speakers backstage to do it with me. It was super fun and defused a lot of the nerves before we each went onstage.  

Q: Would you like to talk about your podcast Write-Minded? What is it like having a podcast and co-hosting it with Grant Faulkner? What is your advice for anyone wanting to do a podcast?

A: I love our podcast, and I love doing it with Grant. Grant and I have great synergy. We’re just super aligned in how we think about writers and our ethos about writing and writers. We are such different writers and thinkers, but we truly respect each other’s thinking on this endeavor that so many people undertake, which often has so little financial ROI and is all about passion and the love of words. So, I feel incredibly grateful that I get to be in conversation with him on such a regular basis. And what we have to talk about just feels endless. I could do this podcast with him for another decade easily and not worry that we were going to run out of topics, or things to say. And I’m not sure that there are that many people I could say that about. My advice for podcasters, especially if you’re going to partner with someone, is to enjoy the person you’re going to podcast with. Make sure you get clarity on how you’re going to divide the work. Grant and I have had almost zero snafus or confrontations with each other over all these years and it’s because we both do a lot of heavy lifting. And another piece of advice—get a great producer. We love Jeremy, who’s there with us for every interview and makes us sound great. Grant and I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do this show without his support. A good team makes everything better. 

Q: You write columns for Publishers Weekly! I think that’s amazing! What do you normally write about in the Publishers Weekly columns, is it reviews or just any book related topic? What is your advice for anyone wanting to write columns & reviews for Publishers Weekly? Can you also submit Q&As? Would you like to share links to the columns you’ve written for Publishers Weekly?

A: Oh gosh, my PW columns have really been about anything and everything to do with publishing over the years. I do have to pitch them, but I think my topics tend to be things they’re interested in. Lately I’ve been spending a lot more time leaning into my Substack, and to some degree that’s been at the expense of my PW column. There’s only so much a person can do! But I love writing for PW, and I appreciate this magazine so much and what they do for the industry. These are a couple more recent columns that I’ve written:

On the confusing nature of publishing business models: 

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/pw-select/article/91501-what-s-in-a-label.html

On AI:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/pw-select/article/93341-the-future-has-arrived.html 

For any reader who likes these columns, I will say that I’m basically writing a column a week at Substack these days, so I welcome people checking that out: 

https://brookewarner.substack.com/ 

Q: Would you like to talk about your websites www.brookewarner.com www.shewritespress.com www.writeyourmemoirinsixmonths.com & www.magicofmemoir.com  

A: The sites just speak to the question you asked earlier about the many things I’m juggling. My personal site accumulates all I do. SheWritesPress.com is my publishing company, and we have a sister imprint called SparkPress at gosparkpress.com. Then the other two sites are memoir sites and feature classes that I teach. I’m a memoir teacher, enthusiast, and champion. I write about memoir, I’m writing a memoir, and if there’s a memoir episode on Write-minded, that’s usually driven by me—though Grant has been getting more and more enthusiastic about memoir lately. 

Thanks so much for this opportunity to share with your audience. I really appreciate it.