Your Words Unleashed

Send us Fan Mail Today’s podcast episode is inspired by a workshop I recently ran for mid-career faculty at Rutgers University. The topic was the challenges of writing your second book. They asked me to run this because most book writing advice—and let’s admit, job advice in general—is geared towards helping junior faculty. This makes sense in a lot of ways because junior scholars have the most to...

Send us Fan Mail Today I am going to try to clear up some misconceptions about book contracts and clarify whether or not it’s in your best interests to obtain an advance contract for your manuscript. In a nutshell: it depends! And I’ll explain all the reasons why and help you sort this out for yourself. For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleashed...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are going to talk about a topic that is somewhat taboo in academia, and that’s money . Specifically, I’m going to give you some ideas for how to get writing coaching and other kinds of professional development funded by your institution.  But more broadly, I’m going to talk about the concept of money mindsets and why we need to view spending money on ourselve...

Send us Fan Mail Hi writers! I bet that things are really starting to ramp up in your work weeks.  Now that the semester’s up and running again, you need to focus and prioritize your book writing time much, much more. That is, if you hope to get anything done besides teaching, service, and the writing projects you’ve committed to that have clear deadlines. So today I’m going to be talking about a...

Send us Fan Mail Today I’m going to be talking about something that comes up a lot with my coaching clients, and that is ways to manage fears around writing. My view is that fear arises when your inner critic is trying to protect you and keep you safe.  As I’ve talked about before, your inner critic has positive intentions even when it’s making you feel anxiety and self-doubt by telling you horrib...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode is meant to help you figure out what to prioritize in your work this semester.  I want you to keep your own mental, physical, and emotional health and well-being at the forefront, and this means SAYING NO to things that do not serve you. When I talk about saying no to requests, I’m especially referring to service and committee work that can be extremely tiring and...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode I’m going to be talking about how important it is to be part of writing groups and how to run them. This is always true, but especially so when you’re working on your first book. When you have the support and accountability, you will not only write more, but you’ll feel a lot better while doing it. And who doesn’t want that? For step-by-step support for your wri...

Send us Fan Mail On today's podcast episode I thought I would do something a little bit different. Rather than giving tips or advice about writing, I’d like to help you create a sense of internal calm with a short guided meditation. When you’re in a calm, curious, and collected space, much more is possible in every realm of life. In the days ahead, with their many challenges, you can use this...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode talks about ways to befriend your inner critic and treat yourself with more compassion. For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleashed Six-Month Program . Support the show Check out Leslie's website at www. YourWordsUnleashed.com ! The three ways Leslie can help you with coaching & developmental editing...

Send us Fan Mail So in the last episode I talked about some of the reasons why transforming your dissertation into a book is an emotionally complex process.  It’s possible you’ve outgrown your topic and need to find ways to reconnect to your original sources of inspiration to keep going.  You also need to bid farewell to your earlier grad student self and move forward into the next stage of your i...

Send us Fan Mail Recently I was asked by a large research university to put together a workshop for junior faculty about transforming your dissertation into a book.  It’s made me reflect on the very long and painful process I went through writing my first book, which I started working on soon after I graduated with my PhD in 2010. In this episode I’m going to focus on WHY revising your dissertatio...

Send us Fan Mail In the last episode I talked about when you should start reaching out to scholarly presses and setting up meetings with acquiring editors to talk about your book project.  The moral of the story is that there is no one-size-fits-all model to getting your book published. As I’ll tell you about later in this episode, even my own two books had vastly different journeys to publication...

Send us Fan Mail Publishing a book involves a hidden curriculum of knowledge that some have more access to than others—especially those who went elite institutions or whose advisors are well-known and well-connected. One of the primary goals of this podcast is to help equalize the playing field for academic authors by creating more transparency about each step of the book writing and publishing pr...

Send us Fan Mail Today I’m going to talk about something that affects nearly all book writers—and let’s be honest, pretty much all people—at one point or another, and that’s overwhelm.   I’ll be giving you four tips to help you overcome these feelings when they arise so that you can feel calmer and more confident to move forward with your writing.  To find the full transcript of this episode, go t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we're going to dig into a topic that is critical to your success in getting your book published, but it's also something that's really difficult for a lot of first-time authors to achieve--and this is how to develop your own distinct voice and writing style in your manuscript. You can find the full transcript for this episode at YourWordsUnleashed.co...

Send us Fan Mail Wouldn’t you agree that these days boundaries have become such a buzzword? All the time, we hear experts talking about how we need to maintain strong personal and professional boundaries if we want to protect our limited time and energy and put it towards the things that matter to us most. But, on the other hand, I’ve noticed that there’s very little good advice or practical strat...

Send us Fan Mail How do you maintain consistent progress on your book manuscript? What are the best ways to stay motivated to write? What goes into a strong book proposal, and how in the world do you get a book contract?  Hi! I’m author and writing coach Dr. Leslie Wang, and I’m going to answer these questions and more on my brand-new podcast Your Words Unleashed.  Focused on the challenges faced...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the very first episode of Your Words Unleashed Podcast! I’m so excited to be here with you, sharing everything I know as a book author, writing coach, and publishing strategist. Find the full transcript for this episode at yourwordsunleashed.com/1 . Today I’ll walk you through how your thoughts about writing can either help speed your manuscript along or slow you way do...

Send us Fan Mail Thanks so much for joining me today! Today I’ll be talking about one of the biggest challenges that first-time scholarly book authors face, which is maintaining the motivation to write, day in and day out. You can find the full transcript of this episode at YourWordsUnleashed.com/2.  When the semester is going full force, writing is often the first thing to drop off your to-do lis...