HOW TO BREAK INTO publishing in a non-traditional way is the area of expertise of Roxan McDonald, who quit the nonprofit world to dedicate herself to full-time writing and spreading her brand of edgy, playful, often irreverent spirituality and personal development. In 2013, she launched an Instagram account which has grown into vibrant communities on multiple social media platforms. Listen in and read along as we discuss what she knows.
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Marion: Hi, Roxan, how are you?
Roxan: Hi, Marion. I’m well, thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Marion: Well, I’m delighted to have you here and your story is really inspirational, so let’s set it up so people understand what it is that I find so inspiring. At age 15, you got sober and currently celebrate 28 years of recovery, so congratulations. During that time, you spent 14 years working on the front lines of addiction and trauma recovery. Despite coming from a family that you say, where women do not graduate from high school, you hold a Master’s of Fine Arts and Creative Writing from Pacific University and a Bachelor of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies from California Institute for Integral Studies. So, if you would talk to me for a moment about that early background of recovery and what it did for the vision you have for yourself.
Roxan: That’s a great question. I come from a history of trauma and poverty and also always wanting to be a writer and having books save me. I always connect my love of reading and my ability to use books as a way for me to find help and redemption. When I was reading all these stories about people coming from difficult places, no matter if it was fiction or nonfiction and the hero’s journey and the story arc, I think it just implanted in me that I wasn’t defined by my situation. So I think that plays a role in why I got to get sober so young and get into healing from my childhood.
And I think I was lucky enough to live in Santa Cruz where Ellen Bass was, and she had started “The Courage to Heal” and she was doing writer’s groups where they were talking about this. And I was a child during that time, so my friend’s parents were in those groups. So I was talking about what was happening to me very early on because there were all these women saying, “This isn’t something you have to keep secret.” And then just the connection between that and getting sober and getting into therapy really young. I had this idea that I wasn’t my situation, but I also was blessed with these resources. There was this clean and sober high school that had just started when I was 15, and then it was a no cost high school, so I was able to enroll myself.
Marion: Wow. Clean and sober high school. What a fabulous phrase. And you refer to Ellen Bass, who I consider a goddess, and she’s remarkable. I interviewed her a while ago. She’s such a great poet, she’s such a great teacher, and you now co-teach writing workshops and retreats with her, which is pretty fabulous as a story arc. And you have a thriving creative coaching practice. And the fact is that with all these fairly traditional, even with the recovery, which is non-traditional, it’s very young and the clean and sober high school is wonderfully non traditional, but you have these fairly traditional, really great qualifications. But then you took a truly non-traditional approach to publishing by carving out a career via social media when specifically in 2013, you recognized a deficit in the self-help and spiritual market, which you did not see, and you write as your “reverent, irreverent, and pottymouth” expressed in the self-help market.
And you’re right, we’ve been awfully gentle in our language in the self-help market, I think. But you took off and the stats on you are great, 172,000 followers on TikTok, 245,000 on Facebook, over 100,000 on Instagram, and a sizable email following. But you don’t really have content. You don’t just blah, blah, blah all over social media. You have product. Specifically, you’ve released two decks of cards. They’re sort of inspiration in a box. One with guidance and provocation for our spirituality and the other with guidance for our gratitude that together have sold more than 100,000 copies. So, I want to get into this, and here’s a little trigger warning for anyone who’s opposed to profanity because here comes some, your promo copy reads, “If you’re a spiritual being with a fondness for F-bombs, this collection was made for you. After all, the line, the social media accounts and the website all live under the spiritual AF name or “spiritual as fuck.” So explain.
Roxan: Explain.
Marion: I guess I could say so what the fuck? But that would’ve been the easy shot.
Roxan: Absolutely. I love that you said that though. Like you said, I saw this untapped market. I don’t like to call it an untapped market. What I was doing, I became a counselor at that high school. So I graduated from the high school and then I became a counselor, and then I became the director of the schools. And so for 14 years, I was working with young people and I was devouring self-help and therapeutic books and everything I could. I wanted to give everything I possibly could to these students and I would read them and then I would need to translate them to make it palatable for my audience. And it wasn’t just the students, it was their parents. It were people that were not attracted to the kind of language that’s used, especially in spiritual realms with the whisper voice. Everything is soft and lovely. I needed to curse to just speak our communal language. And so I did that.
And then when I was quitting my job, I’ve been going to writers groups and I’ve been taking every writing class I possibly could. And I finally got to a place where I thought, “I can’t do this anymore. I have to become a writer.” And so when I quit my job as a counselor, I went out into the world going to conferences and I was getting these agents and I was doing book proposals and they were saying those type of people don’t buy self-help. And it was my people. And it really upset me. And I didn’t want to continue just banging on doors trying to get something new out there and this was before. There’s now a big surge of this kind of edgier self help. But what happened for me was that my friend went to a conference and she was in an elevator with a famous writer, and I’m not going to quote the name, because I think I’ll get it wrong, but she asked him what his advice for writers were that were trying to have a career. And he said, “Be a really kind person and write your ass off.”
I was getting in all these conferences and then everyone was just trying to sit next to the literary agent. And I was like, “I don’t talk to anybody for what they can give me. I don’t connect with people that way.” And so I decided I was going to take this guy’s advice. And so I was teaching with Ellen and I was going to Esalen all the time. It’s a retreat center. And then I went to Cheryl Strayed’s Writer’s Camp and I wasn’t a teacher, I was just there, but there was this woman there who had a headache and her pillow was wrong. And so I went, and since I knew the campus, I got her a pillow and I got her some aspirin. And then I checked up on her for the rest of the week.
And then about six months later, I got a text message or a direct message and she said, “Hey, I’ve been trying to contact you, but I think you think I’m a bot. And so I own a publishing company and I’d really like to talk to you about what you’re doing on social media.” And so I’ve been posting gratitude lists and she since sold it, but it’s Knock Knock Publishing, which is a gift publisher, but she had had a big shift in herself and she wanted to start giving more funny, playful, in depth products out there. And so then they flew me to LA and we all sat together and they helped devise or come up with these. The first things were the decks, which for me were bit size self help. You don’t have to pick up a whole book.
Marion: Yes. And they’re so helpful. They’re so tactile, they’re funny. I’ve got them. I love reading them. I’ve also watched online and in your social media streams, other people reading them and smacking their heads and doing things and moaning and screaming and carrying on saying, “This is what I needed today.” There’s a lot of enthusiasm around them I think because of the language and it percolates up some kind of permission. I don’t think it’s for everybody. I know a lot of people are really offended by profanity, but for me, it got under me in a way that the quiet, serene, sort of verdigris angels and hanging plants don’t get. So it works. And how exciting. So you’re a living, breathing example of how social media has opened the door for a writer to have a unique career that works for you. That’s beyond the conventional approach of being published by traditional publishing and teaching in academic settings. So can this work for others?
Roxan: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Marion: Good. So let’s talk about that. You coach writers, artists and other creative entrepreneurs and social media platforms that really, the way I read it, it’s very authentic and it really sustainably supports their work and their dreams, their vision, their language. So let’s go there. Let’s take a new writer. I’m thinking of one that I worked with recently who just published a really fabulous op-ed in a big newspaper. First thing she’s ever published, big important topic. She’s working on a memoir. She did everything right. She got the op-ed published, and the tagline says that she’s at work on a memoir hoping that an agent or an editor will see that and get in touch to represent her. That’s what we’ve always been told to do. But that plan has taken her pretty much as far as she can go. So what should she do?
Roxan: What happened for me was that I saw that trajectory and I really didn’t think it was going to work for me. And I started on social media because I had seen so many panels of agents talking about you have to do your own marketing, you’re going to have to be out there. And so I started before. And what I see a lot is that people will write a memoir, write a book, and then after it’s published, start trying to get people to notice it and them. Instead, for myself, I started going, I have to have a relationship here. I have to have a relationship and build a community. For people that are authentic and creative, not looking at it as marketing, if you look at it as about creating a community and being generous. So I really tried to look at what can you give? What expertise do you have? What passions do you have? What could you talk about forever? And then start sharing that as you go along.
I think everyone is different. So these marketing plans and these social media plans, they work for some people, but I don’t think they work for everyone. I think everyone looking within themselves and finding what is it that I have to share freely and I have an 80/20, 80% should be just giving freely, engaging and only 20% asking for anything. Asking people to click a button, asking people to support or asking people to buy. And it’s the way I think we would naturally be networking if this was in the days where you’d go to a cocktail party. You wouldn’t walk in and just yell, buy my stuff. You would-
Marion: So you’ve never been to a New York publishing cocktail party, obviously.
Roxan: No.
Marion: Just kidding.
Roxan: But I really think of it as going in and going, you’d walk around, you’d get the lay of the land, you go, these people are having these conversations and these people are having this, and this is where I think I could add to something. And you would engage. You would say, “I really like what you said about that.” And that’s what social media is. You watch, you start engaging, you start shaking hands, you start saying, “I really liked what you said,” and then you start adding in. But what I think happens a lot is people just jump in and start yelling and desperately yelling.
Marion: Yes. And we see through that. And also it’s a one trick pony. I mean, how many times can you say buy my book?
Roxan: Yeah.
Marion: If you’re writing, one of the things that I find really reprehensible and therefore love talking to clients about is when publishing says there are some subjects you just can’t sell. You can’t sell a book on suicide. You can’t sell a book if there’s a dead child in it, you can’t sell a book if… And there’s these short lists of things that there’s no way. Well, none of that is true because there’s communities online for people who are deeply invested in suicide prevention, are deeply invested in caring for the continued health of people who live through the death of a child. There are people who have created huge webs. And finding them and speaking with them and being supported by them, I think is a great way to look at it.
So, let’s get down to the neophyte. Somebody who hasn’t made the mistakes yet and hasn’t published the piece yet and has a vague idea for a book. So they’re getting online, they’re looking at edit, more like a cocktail party that they get an invitation to because it’s an open invitation, social media. And they want to be heard, they want to be a writer. So are you saying, is it the old thing admire to acquire? Is it that we used to be told where you start leaving comments on that person who is engaged in a topic that interests you?
Roxan: Absolutely. I think that is definitely a big part of it. I always instruct people to pick a platform first that they can start to learn to navigate and then watch. Before you comment, before you do anything, just start watching. Looking up hashtags, looking up conversations that people are having, writing down ideas for yourself before you jump in and do anything. And then the next step would be start liking things. When I first started, I blocked things out as part of my job. So I’d go, I need to like 100 posts a day. I’m a professional liker. And I would look for things to. So throughout my day I would be trying to hit my 100 likes. And then I’m a professional commenter, so I need to write five comments a day. And then I did that for so long before I really started posting. And then I started having an idea about this is how I want to engage with people. These are the communities I would like to tap into and this is what I have to offer.
And then also during that time, I made a list of things that I could talk about, and then I narrowed down to some topics. My thing is that I have a very intense memoir that I’m almost finished with, and I from the start kept saying, I don’t want to come out with this really intense memoir if people don’t know that I am happy and healthy and playful and goofy. And a big part of the reason why my social media is the way it is because I don’t want my memoir to come out and have people only know that I went through really bad trauma. I want my presence the way it would be in real life. That you go, wow, that she thinks all this stuff is funny. And then she’ll switch gears and all and start talking about trauma recovery or start talking about substance abuse or being really, really excited about people achieving their dreams because I am elated about people. Anytime somebody hits a milestone, I am absolutely filled with sparkles. And so I wanted that to be present within the community I was building.
Marion: Yeah, you are filled with sparkles by the way. It’s honest to God, it’s like I can’t have that third cup of tea if I’m going to go watch Roxan online because you just give me so much energy when I watch you. It’s very wonderful. So let’s talk about that book for a minute. I really want to ask you about how do you divvy up the writing and this large social media presence? Writers say to me all the time, “I can’t do it. What precious time I have for writing is all I’ve got. I can’t do it.” Yeah, you have to or you should I say, and you can learn to do it.
So, let’s talk about you and then we’ll continue on with a few more tips about the social media world. So you’re a writer, you’re writing this very intense book and I’m really hoping it’s going well. I’m looking forward to reading it. But how do you divide your attention, literally? Do you live on a grid? Do you put it all on your electronic calendar that you do your social media from four to five every day? Give us some really practical sense of your writing life with your social media being an integral part of that.
Roxan: I think it’s different for everyone. And when I coach people about this, I always try to go with what are your strengths? So some people are really strong on a digital schedule. I am not. I write down goals. I have a to-do list every week. So that thing, when I said I need to like 100 posts a day, that works for me. And for me, I just worked it into my life. So every time I stood in line, I liked 15 things. Every time I had a moment in between clients, I would go on social media. And that’s pretty much how I work it still. Is now, it’s a part of just my life, but it’s clearly, I think of it as my job. And I think one thing that helps with anybody who wants to have any type of career in a creative field is to start to let yourself energetically connect with community building as part of the career. It’s part of the craft.
And then when you can get the stink off of it, because so many people are like, “I don’t want to do it. It’s too much. It’s dah, dah, dah. It’s going to take away.” And if you can just take that stink off for a bit and go, okay, I’m going to find a pace that works for me. Consistency is the best thing you could possibly do. So finding an on-ramp to consistency. I can post once a week and now I can post twice a week. And understanding for yourself how you’re going to build a relationship with a community and with your persona that you’re putting out there. So for me, I write these products. I have more products coming out, I’m promoting these products, and I’m also a traditionally trained writer who’s writing a literary memoir.
And I just block it off. I put into my schedule. Now I do one week a month. I live in Europe now. And so it’s a benefit because the US is up late and I have my mornings free. So I block out five days where I don’t do anything for those five days during my morning free time than write my memoir and other people write for an hour in the morning. I have not been able to do that. I think that the only way to be a writer is to write an hour a day was written by old white guys who had wives and servants and I have never been able to pull it off. So some people can do it, I can’t. So, I block out times where I focus for a chunk of time and then I go back to my daily routine.
Marion: That’s fabulous. And how is the memoir going?
Roxan: It’s almost done. I’m so excited.
Marion: That’s wonderful news.
Roxan: I’m so excited. The reason why with the social media that I find so important is because I didn’t want to go trying to just break into this publishing world and then be begging them to do whatever they would for me. So at this point, I have an agent that’s interested, but I also am thinking I don’t have to do that. There’s so many options now that I have this platform. I can self-publish, I can hybrid publish. I can wait and do so many things. And that’s really what I wanted. I wanted to have a whole bunch of opportunity for myself and a bunch of choices. And I’ve coached other people where they are building that same thing too, because traditional publishing isn’t necessarily the route for everybody.
Marion: No, it’s not. And I’ve talked to lots of experts about that and I am a huge believer in finding the place for you. It’s a lot like choosing a college. There’s got to be a fit. And it’s a very important thing to understand that there’s a fit. And if you’ve built community, you’ve got a whole lot of options and you’re not dependent on a mainstream publisher who may or may not get behind your book, which can be a real problem. Speaking of the product, let’s go back to the one that just came out because you just earlier this year added to your line with the release of a new product in this Spiritual AF line, which is the Spiritual AF activity book and journal. And it offers practical tools, it gives insightful guidance.
And it’s for everybody seeking their increase, their self-worth if they need to improve their mindfulness, if they need to set some boundaries and who doesn’t. Maybe develop some more gratitude, speak up on issues, get some kindness, what in the world? I mean, the parameters of this book are endless. So did this inspiration come from coaching all these writers and realizing that we all need all of this? It’s just fascinated me that it’s broad and there’s something for everybody. So did it come out of your coaching experience to set the breadth of this book?
Roxan: Absolutely. And it comes out of years of being a counselor and being in therapy myself. And the thing that I didn’t want to do was write a book that said it had an answer. So the activity book and journal is what I kept thinking of it as is if I only had one thing to hand somebody that I desperately wanted them to feel that they could know themselves better and have the right tools for themselves to heal in their own way. And so I put in some stories of myself, I put in some breaking down some concepts. A lot of the introductions are about me saying, well, you think self-love is this way, but here’s my concept of self-love.
And then it’s a bunch of questions. It’s a bunch of the activities people can do and then reflect on themselves. And I know I could have written five different books and given a whole bunch of my opinions or gone and found research to support it, but that’s not what I do. That’s not who I am. I’m always get a whole bunch of tools and then see which tool’s working for you specifically on this specific day for this specific issue. So I really love curiosity. I think curiosity has been the thing that has saved me over and over and over again. And what I wanted was a tool for deeper, more directed curiosity.
Marion: Well, I think curiosity is the highest human pursuit. And no writer can be successful without curiosity. I was raised in a newspaper where they teach you it’s not about intent. Don’t go in thinking you know, go in thinking what if or go in thinking, what the hell or go in thinking, what? But don’t go in with intent because if you go in with intent, you’re not going to ask the right questions. You’re going to be pigheaded about the way that the conversation is going. It’s not a good idea. So I love the fact that you set us with the power, with a workbook to do the exploration. And I think it’s a perfect addition to the line. I really do. It’s taking us to new and different places.
So, to get back to the ability to promote your own work on social media, so you’ve got this new product and you’ve got the myriad places you could be on social media. And I mentioned where you are and you’re very successful on TikTok and on Instagram and on Facebook. Do you just think that people with a product or building community should stick to three, two, one? You said you got to pick yours, but let’s get into the weeds a little bit about how you with a product and versus somebody without product, make that choice. Because TikTok is great if you love video and Facebook does other things, I mean they all do something different. So what about you? What’s your strong one and what do you advise people to start with in terms of looking amid the various venues of social media?
Roxan: First, I think finding the platform that you can navigate all the buttons, that’s the biggest hurdle a lot of the times. It’s just going, what buttons make sense to you first and how steep is the learning curve? I think finding whichever platform that you would engage with yourself if you were just being a consumer and then picking a focus. So I do recommend, if you’re going to start making content, to get on almost all of them. I couldn’t do Twitter. And actually I love my intuition at this point because Twitter… But I could never do Twitter. And I just decided I’m just not a Twitter person, even though all the writers in the industry is there, there’s just a bunch of people yelling at each other in short bursts and I can’t understand who’s yelling, and I could never figure it out. So I just gave up Twitter.
But before I knew I loved TikTok, I made a TikTok account and pushed myself to go watch it. And now TikTok is my main focus, but I do say Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. But I think there’s also Tumblr and all these things. For me, I don’t want to write anything more than a long comment, so I tend to tell stories in comments, so I do that on Instagram. But some people really write blogs really well. I don’t want to write blogs, so I didn’t pick a platform that expects me to write a lot. I want my writing to be focused on the projects I’m working on. I do just want to say one of the biggest things is that people, when they’re starting out will not want to put their face and their personality out there.
And I have found that people don’t buy from a product. So if you are just posting a grid that’s just those grids that are so manicured and it just looks like a business page, people don’t buy from that. People buy and engage with human beings. And so finding ways to put yourself and your voice out there, and it’s scary. And I always say make a bunch of drafts. I had 100 drafts on TikTok before I ever made a video, and I had been an influencer on Instagram. And now I really just try to push everyone to just put yourself out there. Because if you think about who inspires you to go support their work, it’s people. And so be a person.
Marion: Well, as we wrap this up with be a person, which is a great piece of advice, I think that we can just take that a little bit further because I think you hit on something that’s really important, which is the fear. The fear of being seen. And it is surprising to me to see people my age on TikTok. It’s surprising to me to see people who are of all different ages on TikTok. I think when you go, you’ll see, and it’s a great… It’s like riding the New York City subway. Everybody’s on it. And it’s making me less afraid. I was afraid that nobody would want to, and then fill in the blank, buy something from me because I am of a certain age or of a certain gender, or I give off some kind of vibe of privilege. I talked myself out of it for the longest time. So, just drill in as we wrap this up a little bit into the fear and give everybody some more permission if you would.
Roxan: We all have the list of reasons why we can’t and the reasons why we be ridiculous and being vulnerable. I think one of the most vulnerable things we do as human beings is expose what we really want, tell people what our heart’s desire is, and it’s evocative. And so if you share just openly what you want and putting yourself out there saying, I want to be a writer and I think I deserve your attention, is very, very vulnerable. So I say, honor that. Hold that with a lot of love and care. Ask yourself what you’re going to need when that vulnerability hurts.
And also I always recommend, which I did, is make a list of all the things you’re worried people are going to say. So I was worried people were going to say, you’re too old, you’re not good looking. You aren’t an expert because you don’t have these types of degrees. You blah, blah, blah. And I made a list. And then every time somebody said it, I would check it off and I’d go up, I lived. And then when my list was checked off, I was like, yeah, nothing left, proud. And then they started going after my bangs. And my bangs became a big old thing where people were just hating on my baby bangs. And then I was like, oh, I didn’t even expect that. And look, I’m still alive. And that’s what I recommend.
Marion: That’s beautiful.
Roxan: I don’t believe in tough skins. I think you just get clear on they can hurt, it’ll sting, and then you move on.
Marion: Beautiful. Thank you, Roxan. I think you’ll be deeply inspiring to everyone who’s listening here. And I wish you the very, very best with the memoir. I can’t wait to read it and with the new book. It’s a joy and a great big help. Thank you so much for coming along today.
Roxan: Thank you so much, Marion. It was so wonderful speaking with you.
Marion: You’re welcome. The writer is Roxan McDonald, reachable at spiritual-af dot com, and see more on her products at Knock knock stuff dot com. Follow her on TikTok. Follow her on Instagram. Go and watch what she does. I’m Marion Roach Smith and you’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at Overitstudios dot com. Our producer is Adam Clairmont. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit marionroach dot com, the home of The Memoir Project where writers get their needs met through online classes in how to write memoir. And thanks for listening. Don’t forget to follow QWERTY wherever you get your podcasts and listen to it wherever you go. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It helps others to find their way to their writing lives.
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