Podcast: From Marketing-Averse to Newsletter Enthusiast with Memoirist Eleanor Vincent
hosted by Sue Campbell
"I prefer to focus on the work. Marketing felt like a distraction." Sound familiar? Memoirist Eleanor Vincent used to feel the same way. Like many writers, she found marketing overwhelming—until she discovered something that changed everything.
In this episode of the Write Anyway podcast, Eleanor shares how she went from marketing-averse to genuinely enjoying her newsletter practice on Substack. Even more impressive? Her first memoir sold over 20,000 copies with a tiny press.
You'll hear
How identifying her ideal reader transformed her entire approach
Why understanding her ADHD and rejection sensitivity was a game-changer
The specific platform that finally clicked for her (and why)
Her practical system for staying consistent without burning out
resources mentioned
Eleanor’s website: eleanorvincent.com
Eleanor’s book: Disconnected
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*Affiliate link — we get a small commission when you purchase, but you don’t pay more.
transcript
Anne Hawley: Are you a writer who's confused and uncertain about building that author platform you know you're gonna need to attract readers? Then this one's for you. Hello and welcome to The Write Anyway podcast from pages and platforms and the happily Ever Author Club. In today's episode, Sue talks with memoirist and happily ever author club member Eleanor Vincent, about how she overcame her reluctance to marketing her books.
Sue Campbell: Eleanor Vincent, it's such a pleasure to have you on the Write Anyway Podcast.
Eleanor Vincent: Thank you, Sue. I'm so excited to be here
Sue Campbell: So, Eleanor and I have been working together in the Happily Ever Author Club for how long, Eleanor?
Eleanor Vincent: 2022.
Sue Campbell: That's crazy. That's like four years.
Eleanor Vincent: but it's been sort of off and on.
Sue Campbell: Yep. And that's the way of things. So you are a memoirist. And I have to say, you are a wonderful writer and I personally subscribe to your newsletter, and I feel very honored to have played a role in the fact that a newsletter exists. So why don't we talk about your journey with marketing from a mindset perspective, and from a, just like what you've done, perspective from 2002 until now.
So tell me, where was your mindset about marketing when we started working together?
Eleanor Vincent: Well, I think it was where many writers find themselves. I prefer to focus on the work, and marketing felt like a distraction, and it also felt overwhelming because of the advent of so many social media platforms. It felt like this is a distraction. I don't have time for this. I don't like this.
There were exceptions. There would be things that would happen that would make me have a glimmer of hope that, yeah, maybe I could do this.
But usually they involved either small or one-to-one interactions with people in either book groups or events. Or in the past I've taught creative nonfiction and those interactions are always very meaningful to me because you're speaking with other people who are very passionate about the genre.
So whenever I could get myself in that sort of a head space, it felt good. It was when it became more impersonal and I was speaking to an sort of undefined, larger audience.
Sue Campbell: Yeah, that makes sense. That's when it's a little more nerve wracking. But then there's also that pull of, well this is only a small number of people, so then it doesn't matter. That's what you're telling yourself. I think it does matter. But then when you, oftentimes when writers then try to push themselves in those bigger groups, it's not as rewarding of an experience.
It's more nerve wracking. So how did that start to shift for you?
Eleanor Vincent: Well, I had a MailChimp newsletter, an author newsletter actually for some years before I found Pages & Platforms. And I just wanna say that I found it through another writer, Laura Davis, who I've known for years, literally. And I had reached out to Laura when I had submitted the manuscript for my second book to get some marketing advice from her.
Sue Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Eleanor Vincent: one of the pieces of advice she gave me is reach out to Sue Campbell and Pages & Platforms.
Sue Campbell: That's lovely. Thank you.
Eleanor Vincent: So I did because I knew from launching my first book, which was launched twice, it was launched in 2004 with a small publisher that then went out of business six years later. And then I was fortunate enough to find a new publisher, and by the time I got to the new publisher, Dream of Things, in 2012, 2013, the whole landscape had changed and Mike o Mary of Dream of Things was really great about online marketing, so I learned a ton from him. And Swimming with Maya had a whole new life and subsequently has sold more than 20,000 copies.
Sue Campbell: Fantastic.
Eleanor Vincent: for a midlist author with a very small press, is like miraculous.
Sue Campbell: It's wonderful. Yes.
Eleanor Vincent: I was convinced that reaching out online was a worthwhile enterprise, but I wasn't completely sure how to sustain it.
Sue Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Eleanor Vincent: And so before my second book was gonna launch, which was gonna happen in 2024, I decided I need to get a jump on this.
Sue Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Eleanor Vincent: And that's why I reached out to Laura and then that's why I joined the Happily Ever Author Club and took advantage of a number of different offerings in the club, all of which shaped how I kind of now relate not only to my own mindset, but to what I now see as a great opportunity and privilege of finding my readers.
Sue Campbell: Yay. Talk about that.
Eleanor Vincent: I think the light bulb started going on when I was in one of the longer seminars or workshops. It was who's your ideal reader?
Sue Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Eleanor Vincent: And so I made a big spreadsheet and I started interviewing people I thought of as my ideal readers and just getting a lot more clarity about who that is and what it is they're looking for.
And the headline from that would be My ideal reader is looking for inspiration.
Sue Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Eleanor Vincent: and I feel like the raw materials of my life and the way I then construct them into a narrative can provide that.
And so it was when that light bulb went on that I sort of started slowly making the turn to, okay, so given that I now have a better idea of who my ideal reader is, how am I gonna reach that person?
And for me, that is an ongoing question that needs to be asked over and over again, because things are shifting and changing so rapidly.
As platforms change, as algorithms change, as writers migrate to different platforms, I have tried to adapt and through learning more about myself, and I have to credit now Rachelle Ramirez, your wonderful developmental editor, Anne Hawley too, but Rachelle and Sue, you offered a course on ADHD in writing and then another series of light bulbs went off and I understood more about why it is so difficult for me to feel exposed
and also why I sometimes even when I know it's something that needs to be done, even when I want to do the thing, I get into a procrastination loop.
So that class, which was a pilot program at the time, and that was in the spring of 2024. Really had a big impact on me, and I didn't even fully appreciate it at the time because I wasn't even sure, am I ADHD? Am I not? Since then I've become more clear that, yeah, I definitely am. And I started understanding more about the dynamic of rejection sensitivity and how that has shaped my life in a lifelong way, not just as an author, but as an author that poses particular challenges for anyone who has that profile.
Sue Campbell: Yeah, absolutely. So what are some things that you found with that self knowledge that you gained? What are some ways that you're working with that to still be able to get out into the world and do what you wanna do?
Eleanor Vincent: I wish I had a really concise answer to that. It's a process of trial and error.
Sue Campbell: Yep.
Eleanor Vincent: And I feel like with everything I try, I evolve a little bit further in an understanding that I think it's pretty common for writers to feel uncomfortable with the exposure, but yet at the same time to want to find readers.
So it's this interesting tension, and I guess I would say that through many different avenues, through a meditation practice, through spiritual practices, through ongoing support from other writers, through the Happily Ever Author Club, and then the writing communities I belong to in the Bay Area, i've just slowly evolved to the point that I now feel a lot more comfortable, specifically in my author newsletter.
Sue Campbell: Yes.
Eleanor Vincent: I have backed away from many of the social media platforms that I used to spend quite a bit of time on, and I'm pretty much focused right now on Substack.
Sue Campbell: Tell us what you love about it, because I know you genuinely like spending time there, which I think is a really important ingredient for authors who wanna be able to have the consistency piece. So tell us what you love about it.
Eleanor Vincent: So it was a slow build to the relationship I currently have with Substack. I resisted,
Sue Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Eleanor Vincent: but. I started reading other newsletters and I really liked what I found there, and felt a connection to other writers who were on the platform. So I started migrating content from my website over to Substack, and I found it was pretty easy to do, which was a happy surprise because one of my barriers is a real phobia about technology.
Sue Campbell: Very common. Yes. You're not alone.
Eleanor Vincent: Yeah, I feel like I don't understand it. The help instructions are written for people with different brains than my brain. I don't know what they're talking about, and it just becomes very frustrating. So on Substack, I found that technology was pretty seamless, and I could migrate some content from WordPress over to Substack just to get started.
I took a course, an online course with Michelle Richmond. It was quite effective and she would answer questions if I reached out to her. So bit by bit, very slowly I learned how to set up my Substack, which I think is pretty vital. It took, you know, a couple months, then I finally landed on a name for it, and that really was the key.
Sue Campbell: Oh, good. I was gonna tell you to drop the name anyway, so this is a perfect segue.
Eleanor Vincent: I was trying to think about, well, what is it that I really do? What is it that I specifically have to offer? And there are a lot of good Substack and I can mention some that are by authors who write memoir, and that's really my wheelhouse. So I thought and thought, and I brainstorm and brainstorm.
Finally, I came up with the idea of "Writing the Real World". And there was something about that I really liked because it was very concrete, yet there was a sort of poetic alliteration. The writing, the real,
Sue Campbell: Yeah, we love alliteration.
Eleanor Vincent: which we do love, the music of the language. And so once I hit on that, it kind of helped me feel a better sense of direction and commitment to the project. So then I started posting. Gradually as I did that and as I started to gain subscribers, oh, and you should say complete transparency. I imported all my subscribers from MailChimp.
I told them in a MailChimp newsletter, Hey people, I'm doing this. If you don't want my Substack newsletter, please unsubscribe. Don't feel obligated, don't wanna overwhelm your inboxes. Because you teach a lot about permission structure, which I believe is extremely important.
You cannot just send your newsletter to whoever. You must have their permission to do so.
Sue Campbell: Yes. And just to be clear here, for anyone, it's fine if you have a email list on one platform to migrate that email list to another platform. Readers often do not care what platform you're using.
They signed up to hear from you, so that was completely kosher, and then you went an extra step to be like, and feel free to unsubscribe. That was beautiful.
Eleanor Vincent: Yeah. I just wanted to let people know, and I keep the MailChimp newsletter, but I now view it more as email marketing. Not the main place where I'm writing content.
There is content, but it's kind of a different purpose and you advised, and I'm now hearing advice from other people. If you're gonna be on Substack, that's great. Substack will allow you to keep your list, but you can't keep your followers because Substack has now become both a social media platform and a newsletter platform. I actually like that. Some people have expressed they don't like that. I do, because you can use the social media platform, which is essentially the notes feature if you choose or not.
Nothing is forcing you to be on there.
You can just do your newsletter if that's all you wanna do. I like the combination. It's working well for me. I'm meeting other writers. I'm able to share. You know, restack people's content, make comments on their content, which I'm finding is then winning me endorsements from those writers and more subscribers.
So I'm finding a lot of organic growth on the platform without feeling like I have to do anything smarmy.
Sue Campbell: Yep. Yep.
Eleanor Vincent: Oh, Marlo
Sue Campbell: Oh Mar,
Eleanor Vincent: this.
Sue Campbell: we love animal guests here at the Ride. Anyway, podcast. He is most welcome.
Eleanor Vincent: Well thank you. I appreciate that.
Sue Campbell: What I heard was that you love Substack because you were starting to read other writers who you thought were super great.
You like enjoy the social media component of the notes because you're getting that sense of community connection and you're also getting built in organic growth for your newsletter as well. Substack has a lot of great things going for it. You mentioned a lot of 'em, like a pretty good user interface. It's got built in organic growth. There are a lot of super smart, wonderful writers over on Substack, and just for those of you out there, I feel the need to caveat it a tiny bit and that it does not have the full functionality of a different type of email service provider.
So, for example, if you wanted to run a pre-order campaign and send you know, special things to people who've pre-ordered your book, you can't, on the backend of Substack tag, oh, this person pre-ordered and this person didn't. Like, it doesn't have a lot of the functionality that other things have, but a lot of writers love it because it is just simple and straightforward and gives them the basics of what they need. But if you're going to get fancy with your backend stuff, you're gonna need something in addition to, or in lieu of Substack.
Eleanor Vincent: Well, this is why I keep MailChimp.
Sue Campbell: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really smart.
Eleanor Vincent: I'm always in danger of feeling overwhelmed by essentially having two newsletters, but the more I get clear on what the purpose of each one is, the less I feel overwhelmed by it.
Sue Campbell: Yes.
Eleanor Vincent: So, you know, what I'm finding on Substack is it allows me to be my writer self.
Sue Campbell: Yes.
Eleanor Vincent: I'm putting on my marketing hat. On Substack, I may be marketing in the sense that I'm outreaching to other people. But I'm doing it in a much more writerly way because what I'm doing is writing essays
Sue Campbell: Yes.
Eleanor Vincent: and you know, they're typically, they're 800 to 900 words. I can choose my topics. I have topics that relate to my current book, Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage.
I did a whole series on aspects of autism and how it shows up in relationships. And I pre-wrote that, which was an interesting experience. I wrote it in September and October and then rolled it out in November when it was the first birthday of my book. So I wanna do more of that, but also I find on Substack at that length of essay, I can produce them in a very timely fashion and roll them out right now, based on what my current interests, passions, obsessions are, or what I'm seeing on Substack that I'm then responding to.
So you can do it both ways. Pre-plan the content, get it written and edited and polished to a high shine, and then post it when you're ready, or be more spontaneous. And I really like that combination.
Sue Campbell: Yes. That sounds great. Talk a little bit about your process for creating content, like you talked a little bit about, sometimes I get inspired, sometimes I pre-plan, but like, how have you developed consistency in putting out your newsletter that other writers could be like, oh, I could try that.
Eleanor Vincent: Well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask about consistency. I'm a hard worker and I'm very determined. I guess my consistency is more in the long term, over years.
Sue Campbell: I think that's an important distinction, right? Sometimes consistency means it's like you are almost batching, right? You're having a period where you are putting something out and then you keep having those. It's not just one blip, where you have one push and then you never do anything again. Consistency doesn't have to look like every single week for six years. Consistency can look like I never get up. If I fall off for a little bit, I get right back on as soon as I can. That's also consistency.
Eleanor Vincent: Yeah. So right now what I'm aiming for is publishing on Substack about every 10 days. I'm feeling once a week is a bit too much for me right now. So we'll see if I get there eventually. But I aim to put up between two and three posts a month.
And then in an ideal world, I would be putting out my MailChimp newsletter, my marketing email newsletter once a month.
And you are the one who trained me to do that. And for quite a period of time there I was doing that. And I think it stood me in really good stead when I launched Disconnected in November of 2024. 'Cause I was really ready to go and I had a larger list and it was just helpful. I had less stress, let's just say.
Sue Campbell: Before we wrap up, we talked about like your organic growth that you're getting from Substack. Talk about some other ways that you have gotten your email list to grow.
Eleanor Vincent: Okay. During the period of time when I was working with you and I was in the club in the first go round, I got very serious about not only defining the ideal reader, but then taking some steps to outreach. And I didn't have a new book to promote at that time, and we had a lot of conversations about that.
Sue Campbell: That's okay.
Eleanor Vincent: And so what I did was I joined BookSweeps and BookFunnel, and I did a couple of campaigns on BookSweeps, gave away a chapter of Swimming With Maya, my old book, as a reader magnet. I gained a number of subscribers that way. Now, what I found was those people eventually dropped away because maybe memoir wasn't their main interest. They just wanted a freebie.
Sue Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Eleanor Vincent: Nonetheless, it showed me that there's a way to grow the list, and it gave me more confidence and more inspiration and motivation to really keep going.
So I totally support whatever works for people. I personally find it more comfortable to have the organic growth, but I am not at all opposed to doing other things, and certainly in the lead up to the launch of my book, I did paid options, you know, paid advertising on Amazon, on Facebook, et cetera. I can't afford to keep that up ongoing, and so Substack for me right now is really so wonderful.
Sue Campbell: I love it. Well, Eleanor, thank you so much. I think people really benefit from hearing real life writers who are doing it, and they're, you know, getting more comfortable all the time and getting excited when they see growth. I think it's really inspirational. A lot of coaches will just come out and talk about like, here's all the things you do, and then the magic happens.
But it's actually really good to see real life examples of what you can expect in the real world.
Eleanor Vincent: Exactly, and that's what I love about your coaching also. It's very real and it's about mindset and in the end that's so, so important. So it is a process. It does take time. And you know, we can all evolve and grow and find our own way through that process. And I feel like finally that's what's happening for me. So that's pretty exciting.
Sue Campbell: Beautiful. Well give us the name of your book and the name of your Substack again, before we go, and anything else you want people to know about how, what you do and how to get in touch with you.
Eleanor Vincent: So the best way to get in touch with me would be to go to my website, which is just eleanorvincent.com. There's a contact form there, or to follow my Substack and hopefully subscribe. It's called Writing the Real World. Or you can search it by my name. Either way, it'll pop up.
And my most recent book is called Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage. It's about my brief marriage to a man presumed to be on the autism spectrum, who was masking his autism, how that played out the early kind of romantic phase, onto the phase of realism and confronting some very difficult issues, and it's meant to inspire other people who might be in a difficult relationship and not understanding why.
Sue Campbell: It's beautiful. Eleanor, you're a wonderful writer. I'm so glad you've been a part of our community and we get to see each other, and we might already have seen each other in person at the San Francisco Writers Conference when this episode airs, but we get to meet in real life very soon.
Eleanor Vincent: I'm very excited.
Sue Campbell: All right, take care, Eleanor.
Eleanor Vincent: Thank you, Sue. Take care.
Anne Hawley: Eleanor Vincent is the author of Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage, and you can find her online at eleanorvincent.com.
If you'd like a weekly dose of writing, insight and mindset and marketing tips in your inbox, subscribe to the Write Anyway Newsletter at pagesandplatforms.com/subscribe.
And that's it for this episode of the Write anyway podcast. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.