Crafting Change with Lilian Zenzi
Business as UNusual Ep 2 - Season 3 Transcript
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Aicila: . Hi. Welcome to Business as UNusual. Today, I am very excited to introduce Lilian Zenzei the author. Welcome to the show.
[00:00:12] Lilian: thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.
[00:00:14] Aicila: I am delighted that you are joining me today. I have, , been pestering this wonderful human to join me on a podcast for a very long time. BeFore we dive into the delight, that is the work that you're doing, I wanna ask, what's a tradition you enjoy?
[00:00:32] Lilian: Oh well, since we're still in, uh, Sort of New Year's season. My favorite holiday tradition is our family New Year's Eve. Um, we have our local NPR station plays Beethoven's Symphonies in order from 6:00 PM until midnight on New Year's Eve ending with the O Joy of Midnight. . and what we do is we get fancy cheese plate together and have sort of easy [00:01:00] snacks and play board games and do puzzles all evening until New Year's.
[00:01:04] Lilian: And it's my, it has has become my absolute favorite way to turn over the year.
[00:01:13] Aicila: That really sounds so lovely. And cheese plate
[00:01:17] Lilian: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:01:19] Aicila: So, when I was in high school, I was an exchange student in Germany and my host family were musicians and they actually did a campaign, a political campaign to try and make the ode to Joy, the new German national anthem.
[00:01:36] Lilian: Oh, I
[00:01:37] Lilian: love
[00:01:37] Aicila: yeah, they were on the radio a lot and talking about why they thought, because there's a part of their national anthem, they're not even allowed to sing anymore.
[00:01:45] Aicila: It's illegal.
[00:01:46] Aicila: And so they were, they were saying, you know, this is such a beautiful song. It's written by a German composer, and it shows a way to be in the German spirit that's fully embraceable. So I thought that was such [00:02:00] a beautiful thing. At any rate so can you tell people a little bit about. I usually say business and I feel like this is also artistic endeavor business.
[00:02:10] Aicila: So however you wanna just, you know, talk about that,
[00:02:14] Lilian: I Am an independent author of Queer Science, fiction Fantasy and Romance. What that means is that I not only write the books, but I do all of the production and publishing work myself. Not entirely alone. I hire and trade work with a number of artists and editors and marketing professionals to help Produce my work. And it is very much, there are two sides to the work. One is the creative artistic side and the other is very much a business
[00:02:50] Aicila: I mean, I, I mean, novels pay a lot. So I can see that being a bit
[00:02:54] Lilian: Oh, We can hope
[00:02:58] Aicila: Yeah. I've not met very [00:03:00] many writers. I've met as we reframe that, I've met many authors and I. I have yet to meet one that's in it for the money. And so , it's not a, it's a passion
[00:03:11] Aicila: endeavor, even when it's your business.
[00:03:14] Lilian: absolutely, if you are in it only for the money, you don't last very long. There's sort of a, a series of rude awakenings that, that get you pretty quickly, I think.
[00:03:21] Aicila: Yeah. So what does success look like to you then?
[00:03:28] Lilian: Hmm. . . Well, I feel like I should preface this by saying Spark and Tether is my first novel. And everything I told myself with at least the first book, everything is an experiment. There's no, I keep, my expectations are, are very open for this book in that I am not necessarily committed to any particular path or process. I am just trying to see what will work for this book at this time. and for me, so right now, what success, what success [00:04:00] looks like is finding answers to those questions and finding my readers, connecting with people who are looking for the same kinds of stories that I want to tell. Producing work that is meaningful to me in ways that feel sustainable. One of one of the challenges of being an author of any kind is there's, this big pressure to produce more, faster, bigger, and sell more and sell harder and just keep increasing and growing. anD a lot of the pieces of that particular puzzle are just completely outside of your control. So one of the things that I am focusing on is keeping my process whether that's the artistic side or the business side sustainable for me personally. Meaning I turn my devices off and I go have a life outside of the work [00:05:00] regularly and on a schedule and in a way that keeps me functioning and happy.
[00:05:08] Aicila: I think for any honestly creative entrepreneur solopreneur, that is a hard one and significantly important lesson to take in that the more you love something, the easier it is to let it run your life in a way that is not sustainable, that takes away that which allows you to generate. Whatever that is.
[00:05:31] Aicila: So, props, super, big props, because that is a,
[00:05:35] Lilian: thank you.
[00:05:36] Aicila: I think I, I don't know. I do business development with a lot of small businesses, passionate people, and I feel like I'm not, honestly not great at it always because I love what I do so much. , I'm like,
[00:05:49] Lilian: You don't say.
[00:05:50] Aicila: I, it's I'll, I wanna make a so I've read. I was privileged to [00:06:00] read the advanced copy of Spark and Tether.
[00:06:02] Aicila: No spoilers here, but highly recommend. And I also read your first novella, which was an ebook only,
[00:06:10] Aicila: and it it was both of them for me, touched my heart in such a comfortable way, it like that, that opening and, but there's a trust in that. So I just. For you, for those of you, if you're looking, you know, the physical book park and Tether, you can get it this week, comes out on the 19th, right?
[00:06:34] Lilian: Yes.
[00:06:34] Aicila: But if you're listening to this, you're like, I gotta get one right now. You can go get the ebook metamorphosis in green and gold, and you can have it done. It's only 90 pages. You need to read for a January afternoon under a cozy blanket. , I'm a big fan.
[00:06:47] Lilian: I think is currently available as a free download on my website. And there will be, there are eBooks that Spark and Tether available as well. On the 19th.
[00:06:58] Aicila: So join me. We have a little [00:07:00] book group guys. It. This is business as unusual. What would you say is unusual about what you're doing?
[00:07:09] Lilian: This is, I, so I've been thinking about this question since you asked me to be on the podcast because the honest answer is, I don't know that yet. rEality is there are hundreds of paths and approaches to publishing. Everyone does it a little bit differently. Lots of people will tell you that there, there's one particular way That works better than others. And reality is there is so much luck and timing and outside influence that it's very difficult. It's difficult to to necessarily pinpoint what normal is. fOr example, when I first [00:08:00] started writing Spark and Tether, I had no intent of publishing at all. It was just it was a side project sort of during a very tumultuous time of my life. It was just a little space in my head of a story that was just for me. aNd I, I. Had friends who were publishing stories on web, serial apps, and I'd started reading a lot of web comics again, and I was really intrigued by that whole setup in that system. So I started by publishing my first draft as I wrote it on a web serial app. And I learned very quickly that I actually really loved having readers involved and engaged in the story early in the process, which was not something I had ever done before. I previously I would hold work very close. And not [00:09:00] share until I was very confident that it was done and ready to go out in the world. So releasing something in a very raw form was a huge step outside of my comfort zone. And I realized near the end of that process that I was actually committed to this book and this story and turning it into a real novel, so to speak which is where a lot of the real work started. That's not a particularly unusual path.
[00:09:30] Lilian: Lots of people have done it
[00:09:31] Aicila: Mm-Hmm.
[00:09:32] Lilian: independent publishing doing my own production work, et cetera. There are thousands of people doing that. I Think where we see Where we start to see real change is actually in those numbers. It's not necessarily what I as an individual am doing but when there are [00:10:00] thousands of authors selling direct to readers and thousands of authors hiring their own editors and artists. We see shifts away from corporate production and retail outlets that are monopolies that are out for their own best interest and not for
[00:10:24] Aicila: So diplomatic
[00:10:24] Lilian: not in ours. Try not to name names, but we all
[00:10:28] Lilian: know who we're talking about.
[00:10:29] Lilian: And as an example of what that difference looks like is if if a hundred people buy a copy of a book from big online retailer that has largely monopolized the market um, that that results in a very small amount of money going back to the author. And it is Nothing to that [00:11:00] retailer. They don't, it's, it doesn't actually change their change their numbers in a significant way. If a hundred people buy a book directly from an author from their website and from my book that would fund most of the art and production costs for the next book, it's an enormous change. In my bottom line. And I, the more of a, the more that we are, the more that we're able to work that way, the more that we are able to shift readers from by from buying, from Amazon to buying directly from us the more we're able to fund ourselves our work, and one at a time is the way that we make that change happen.
[00:11:57] Aicila: Yeah. And that's [00:12:00] a lot of the sort of business development groups that I'm a part of that are invested in this concept of shifting business. We, one of the things that we talk about from a practical and philosophical standpoint is that if we want things to change, it has to be that. Slow one-to-one, because becoming a behemoth to fight the behemoth does not actually work.
[00:12:26] Lilian: right.
[00:12:26] Aicila: And so those of us who are invested in this different way are both unlikely and also against becoming a behemoth , which means that it's our collective action that creates that shift and it's not as dramatic. I think that's one of the things that, and I'll say that I find that reflected in the stories you tell, that the, it's not this dramatic high, shoot [00:13:00] 'em up, actiony, grand gesture kind of storytelling.
[00:13:05] Aicila: And it's not that, it's not that kind of change. It's more of the slow, steady day to day. What's the opposite of a grand gesture? You know, mundane, kindness, but
[00:13:17] Lilian: love that. I love that. I might borrow that.
[00:13:19] Aicila: you're welcome too. But that's the, and that's harder, right? Like it's the old saying when you know, a lot of people are willing to die for a cause, but are you really willing to live for it? 'cause it takes so much more to do.
[00:13:31] Lilian: I it's actually very intentional. One of the things that I start with when I sit down to start a new story is I try to distill the rules of the world I'm working in to their simplest pieces. And for the synchronous universe, which is Spark and Tether is the first book in a new science fiction series. One of the rules for that world are we get the systems we build. And [00:14:00] so there's nothing. in the, in that storytelling universe that is just not that there are no accidents, but that there, there's a cause and effect to the choices we make and the behavior that we choose to emulate.
[00:14:24] Aicila: Can you draw an example in some way? Is that so interest it? I think I understand what you mean when you say we get the systems we build. Is there a way that you can demonstrate what that doesn't look like or what it does look like?
[00:14:40] Lilian: Oh like in the book or in the here and now.
[00:14:46] Aicila: Both, either except it just caught me attention and I can't quite conceptualize it and I'd like to have a little bit more grounding in it.
[00:14:55] Lilian: So one of the things that I was thinking about as I [00:15:00] wrote this novel of being where we are late stage capitalism and the way that the structures we have around social support networks or the lack thereof, are things that were intentionally created or destroyed to serve a very particular set of people. sO in the book, what I Am in constructing that universe, one of the questions I kept asking myself was that if we actually set up a system of supports, how does that change things? If we're, if people aren't if people aren't worried about where their next mail comes from, if they're not worried about how they're going to pay the rent, if we're not worried about access to [00:16:00] healthcare, if those things are truly considered basic, fundamental human rights and get addressed before anything else, what could those worlds look like?
[00:16:12] Aicila: Hmm.
[00:16:14] Lilian: and then the, we don't get any of that if we don't build it.
[00:16:18] Aicila: Right,
[00:16:19] Lilian: that is not built by individuals.
[00:16:22] Aicila: right. One of the things that I've talked about with other creative entrepreneurs and authors, I think, is that in order to create a different world, a different way of doing things, we have to imagine it. And so it's one of the things that I really appreciate about the artistic endeavor is the ways in which it can give us a chance to see what would it look like if we had a world in which people weren't scared all the time.
[00:16:52] Aicila: How would they behave? What would they choose, and how would that
[00:16:57] Lilian: what becomes
[00:16:58] Aicila: to day? Mm-Hmm. , [00:17:00] it becomes important. I I've love d and d so for everybody who thinks I'm serious and mostly serious, uh, ,and a lot of times your backstory when you create your characters all about trauma. And the last long campaign I played, I decided to create a character whose entire backstory was that they were loved, love, accepted, and fully supported by their family.
[00:17:23] Aicila: They came from just this 100 plus, a hundred percent human. I mean, let's be clear, they fought with their sisters or whatever but the basics were just there. And then how does that contribute to the risks they're willing to take or the ways they do and don't trust people, the expectations they have of the universe?
[00:17:40] Aicila: And it was the. It was a really fun exercise to see the ways in which I felt that would show up in the world. And sometimes the other players would be like, why are you doing that? And I said, well, I don't think it's a good idea, but she totally does because she doesn't, she's not that suspicious.
[00:17:57] Aicila: She's not tough, but she's not like instinctively suspicious [00:18:00] in certain ways. It's kind of a fun, a fun exercise, so.
[00:18:04] Lilian: I love that.
[00:18:05] Aicila: I appreciate that you made a world where that is sort of an expectation. 'cause I, I love playing a character who had that as a family expectation. I'd love to see a world
[00:18:15] Lilian: It sounds much more sophisticated when I talk about it now. At the time, what it often looked like was something would distress or annoy me in day-to-day life, and I would decide it didn't exist in the book. So. Like, that's it. If it irritated me, it was out. Right. And that, that shows up in little ways of this, and this is mostly not a lot of this is actually on the page.
[00:18:41] Lilian: It's sort of like background in, in the universe, but things like, there's a minor side character who uses mobility aids. and switches between different types of mobility aids, depending on our need [00:19:00] at the moment. And they're just available
[00:19:04] Lilian: In, in, in public spaces or in transport stations or they're just like, things are freely available in case people need them.
[00:19:13] Aicila: Hmm.
[00:19:15] Lilian: it's, it's not discussed. It's not a it's not a focus of the plot in any way, shape or form. They're just there. And then there's an other piece where characters people communicate often by implants. WHich makes it very difficult to lose your phone if it's, you know, actually
[00:19:39] Aicila: I like that.
[00:19:40] Lilian: connected to you. Right. But one of the other things those implants are able to do is to m manage sensory stresses. So characters can change both adjust their environment, but [00:20:00] also adjust their internal experiences of the environment to keep themselves happy and comfortable. And a again, this is not, it's not something that, that's a major point of the book in any way. It's just, I don't like crowds. I don't like having to be in crowds. And I had a I had a day where I was like, I just I just need something a little bit better than the noise canceling headphones to like deal with this level of noise and activity around me, that kind of thing.
[00:20:34] Aicila: Well, and that's imagining that world. I do think it gives us a possibility. Like I, I was looking at a list of someone of those like 29 cool things to buy and I don't know why it, gets the Q VVC in me, and the, one of the things, there were two or three things that I remember. As a kid seeing in shows, like they have [00:21:00] a little portable translator.
[00:21:03] Aicila: It's essentially a universal translator like from Douglas Adams or Star Trek. And I, and you can also do it on your phone, but this one's like verbal and it, I was like, wow. Like when I was a kid, that was science fiction.
[00:21:18] Lilian: Yeah.
[00:21:19] Aicila: it's science fact and it's available to buy for 29.99 or something like that just, and so I feel and they've done shows I've seen little reviews where they've said, okay in Star Trek, I. They imagine that these doors that move by themselves and you walk up to them and now we just assume you're gonna have that when you walk up to a grocery store.
[00:21:39] Aicila: That wasn't real when they imagined it. So we someone who would like, stand there and pull the door back open and shut behind the set. And that to me is, like I said, it's that the power of imagining that possibility and then someone decides that they wanna see if it's what they can do.
[00:21:56] Aicila: And e and even if they don't get to that. There's gonna be something new [00:22:00] that allows us hopefully to connect, function, and move through the world with more ease and opportunity. So I love that mobility aids, and I love the idea of being able to filter things a little bit more instinctively to make it so that folks can engage in life and out without having to be quite as overly conscious of all the impacts on them and others.
[00:22:25] Aicila: Because there's so many different ways of being. Even if you are quite thoughtful, you may or may not know that something you're doing has a huge impact on somebody else. And especially if you're just walking past somebody, you're not necessarily, we're gonna find out. So I love that. So can you share any advice that you've received that influences how you work or how you approach what you do?
[00:22:49] Lilian: Oh there's been so much, one of, one of the loveliest surprises about when I decided to go the indie author path was [00:23:00] how friendly and encouraging and open I. Other indie authors have been my favorite advice, which has been most immediately helpful, I think actually came from a TikTok video.
[00:23:18] Lilian: And I don't actually remember who said it, it was a while ago, but it was about how to know when the book was done because
[00:23:25] Lilian: that is the thing I will tinker forever. Er with anything, whether I'm making a promo video or writing a book or a it's if you are making little fiddly changes that don't essentially Improve or change anything real, it's time to let it go, is there's no end to the fine tuning language. You can do that forever,
[00:23:57] Aicila: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Lilian: But if you're not [00:24:00] actually adding to the story or distilling some important piece of the story, it's done. Let it go. I remind myself of that a lot. So that's the advice that I've been working.
[00:24:11] Aicila: It sounds wise in general as well, but it's, once again, when you love something that the desire to reiterate and improve it is, for me at least, it's a constant, and so learning how to say, okay, I'm gonna stop that. We're accepting where it is. That seems very wise.
[00:24:36] Aicila: So what do you do to recharge or inspire yourself or get into the zone of writing?
[00:24:44] Lilian: Oh, I've been working well as far as getting into the zone. I've been working on developing a new ritual to restart A regular drafting process. I got so caught up in the production of this book that [00:25:00] I have a hard time switching between the business brain and the production brain and the creative brain.
[00:25:05] Lilian: And trying to get the creative brain rego restarted, I've been working on a new new ritual that involves making a little like 22nd TikTok video. Of some like making tea.
[00:25:19] Aicila: I love your TikTok videos.
[00:25:21] Lilian: some I have a really wise marketing consultant who has been gently but firmly encouraging me to to make a habit like this. Just a small daily TikTok just sort of say hi and set the tone for the day and I was grumpy. And resistant and it works in both making my brain switch gears and in keeping my TikTok engagement and my sort of my reader communication [00:26:00] going in a good direction. So
[00:26:04] Aicila: thAt's great
[00:26:04] Lilian: I owe her a big thank you.
[00:26:08] Aicila: You're welcome.
[00:26:09] Lilian: I don't know if you out yourself on your podcast and you can cut whatever pieces of that you like.
[00:26:14] Aicila: oh I'm trying to be. It's better about sharing than I actually do work.
[00:26:22] Lilian: I think you should take credit.
I recently talked to someone who was like, you stop hiding.
[00:26:26] Lilian: Mm-Hmm.
[00:26:29] Aicila: So thank you. No, I, and I do, I love your videos. They are so fun. Every time I see them they can make my, I always reshare them and and, but mostly 'cause I want more people to have that . I will admit, like obviously I wanna get the word out 'cause I love what you're doing and I want other people to have them in their feed 'cause they're just so pretty and they're fun.
[00:26:47] Aicila: There's just a little moment of uplift. So it's just it's a win-win from my perspective.
[00:26:51] Lilian: I Actually really enjoy making them. And I have in a past life, I worked in photography and graphic design and [00:27:00] not, I never did a lot with video, but there's something about like re-engaging part of my brain that, that thinks about how to put things together. That has helped a lot with the writing,
[00:27:11] Aicila: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that I will encourage people to do, and I was thinking about it this morning, is that whatever. Whatever you do in life. I don't know how to describe this, but as people get success, a lot of times they stop doing some of the like tasks or the mundane things or, someone might be really good in their industry and then become a teacher or a speaker.
[00:27:36] Aicila: And I've really strongly encourage people to keep some aspect of where they started in an ongoing way. Like even if you're a multimillion dollar speaker, take a client or do some pro bono work. Every year so that you stay really connected to where that source of awareness and delight and inspiration comes from.
[00:27:57] Aicila: And I don't know how to say it because I don't, it's not that I think [00:28:00] specialization is necessarily bad or even evolving, and I also feel like when we lose connection to those grounding things, that there's a. There's, I don't know if it's a loss of depth, but there's something shifts in how we connect to what we're doing and how we show up.
[00:28:17] Aicila: So I feel like there's a power in retaining small aspects of our skillsets and our different passions, even if it's just touching in once a year or finding a way to incorporate it into this new endeavor because I don't know, I don't think we ever lose that thing. We sometimes just have to evolve it.
[00:28:35] Aicila: And it's still obviously rambly in my head because I just had that sort of feeling this morning. It's a, it's advice I give to people as they're scaling their business that, make sure you stay connected to your industry or your activities that you're doing in some way now. And then there's this larger sense of not losing if you love to play outdoors when you were a kid, which I think we all did.
[00:28:57] Aicila: To a certain extent, make sure you're still getting outdoors, [00:29:00] or whatever that is, that helps you to retain that full spectrum experience of who you are.
[00:29:05] Lilian: I think that's really great advice. And I think there's an element of that. That was how I decided to stay independent as an author and that I am, I spent a long time thinking, gosh, that seems like an awful lot of work. I think I would rather go with a publisher who can manage all the things. And then I realized as time went on that I, the parts of the process I was most concerned about. Or things I had actually done in some capacity, both in publishing and in other industries, and that I did actually have a lot of those baseline skills and was certainly capable of learning the ones I didn't have.
[00:29:51] Lilian: AnD it has allowed me to stay connected through a variety of different spaces. Which has been really lovely [00:30:00] in that I have, I had more of a reader base ready for me than I realized.
[00:30:09] Aicila: Yeah, I'm excited. So we touched on this a little bit and I, I do wanna re-highlight. So this week, spark and Tether releases.
[00:30:18] Lilian: Mm-Hmm.
[00:30:19] Aicila: And so folks are listening and they're just like, whoa, I need this book. I wanna learn more about your new projects. Can you share a little bit about how they get connected to you on your list?
[00:30:31] Aicila: Get pre-order the book, or I guess order it this week, whatever. All of those things that the commercial piece that we have to share. And frankly, I know people are gonna want, and I'll also put stuff in the show notes, guys, but.
[00:30:42] Lilian: Awesome, thank you. Best way to contact me and or to buy the book is through my website, www.lillianzzi.com. I'm sure that ILO will put a link in the notes for us. I am on several different [00:31:00] Types of social media. TikTok and Instagram are my favorites, but I am also on threads and Blue Sky. I am happy to chat anywhere my book is available on most major online retailers. You can always request it from your local library. thEy do absolutely have access to the book through Overdrive or Libby. And through their distributors and supporting your libraries is a great way to support all of us.
[00:31:29] Aicila: That's great. Thank you so much.
[00:31:31] Lilian: Thank you so much for having me. This was fun. This was my first podcast recording ever and I was very nervous, but you were absolutely lovely. Thank you.
[00:31:38] Aicila: I'm so glad. Thank you for joining me and thanks everybody for listening, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
