Your Words Unleashed

Today I’m going to go in-depth about one of the very best and most important things you can possibly do to improve your book. And this is to host a manuscript workshop! If you’ve never heard of these before, they’re like a best-kept secret in academia. These are essentially a half-or-full day event where you discuss a draft of your book with other experts in your field before you ever submit it to the press for review. The goal is ...

This episode is focused on something that plagues many of us: procrastination! A lot of the guidance out there on dealing with procrastination is not that useful. This is because it often tends to put all procrastinators into one camp based solely on their avoidance of taking action in a timely way. They don’t address the varied reasons WHY people put things off. This episode describes 6 different kinds of procrastinators and gives...

If you want to keep your own mental, physical, and emotional health and well-being at the forefront this semester, this means SAYING NO to things that do not serve you. This episode helps listeners figure out what to say 'yes' and 'no' to and how to do so with grace and dignity. I give four different strategies to help you figure out what to prioritize in your work while keeping all of your professional relation...

Today’s episode will be focused on how you can consciously design your courses to help you attain your own goals. I’ll talk about why you need to drop your standards when it comes to teaching. I’ll also share some critical questions to ask yourself as you’re planning your courses, along with some different strategies for how you can use teaching to enhance your own research and writing. In short, teaching and writing do not have to...

In this episode, I talk about why academics have such a hard time getting straight to the point in their writing and offer suggestions on how to change it. 

Remember, it's up to YOU as the author to tell the audience what to focus on, not put the responsibility on them to figure out!

For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleashed Six-Month Program.

Check out Le...

This past academic year has been a beast! Since summer’s just beginning, here’s your chance to take stock of the past school year. This episode will help you reflect on what’s been working well for you, what hasn’t, and what you want to change so you can create a more satisfying and sustainable life and career.

For step-by-step support for your writing projects apply for Leslie's Your Words Unleashed Six-Month Program...

Summer is around the corner and you know you need to do something major to reclaim the parts of yourself you have lost this past academic year. You want to take advantage of this time out of the classroom to push your projects forward so that you can start the fall semester in a calm and confident place. The problem with all of this planning is that many of you are likely burnt out. The question is, if you’re burnt out as a result ...

How do you know if you're truly burnt out? In this episode (and the next), I delve into this topic and what you can do about it. Although this term seems like it’s everywhere, in this episode I define what it is and how to know if you actually are burnt out. I define the 3 main qualities of burnout and list the 7 characteristics of a high burnout organization so you can figure out if you are, in fact, suffering from burnout.  ...

A lot of the authors I work with are junior scholars very early on in their careers, and their book will be the primary stepping stone to their dream job or to achieving tenure.

Others are quite established scholars, some of whom already have tenure and who have spent the majority of their careers focused on publishing journal articles. 

They’ve become really good at article writing but, for various reasons, have decided they want to...

If you’re like me, you’re constantly try to find ways to get more efficient at things so you can cram more into your day and feel some sense of control over your life!

It’s so easy to lose momentum with your writing when things gets too hectic.

On today’s episode I’m going to be talking about a different, and potentially better, way to think about time and how we can release ourselves from fixating on efficiency and productivity. 

It’...

This episode talks about something that strikes fear into the heart of many introvert academics: promoting your own book!

Although your press will do some amount of marketing of your book, the brunt of promotion is primarily on YOU.

So this episode addresses how to reframe the fear of self-promotion, followed by 6 different effective strategies for letting people know about your new book.

After all, after doing thi...

In this episode I talk about something that can have a major positive impact on your work, your writing process. and the amount of writing you are able to produce.

And that is the power of “priming” your mind.

Priming basically refers to how being exposed to one stimulus can affect your reaction to another stimulus later on.

In essence, your mind is constantly storing information and then using it to create thoughts, feelings, and beh...

Well, the time has come for me to talk about one of the—if not THE—most important part of getting a scholarly book contract. 

 And that is the book proposal!

 A couple of weeks ago, I did a workshop for faculty at Rutgers University on this topic, and it was amazing how many questions people had about it. 

 This is also an area that I work with my clients in a very hands-on way.

 Typically, after someone gives me a full rough draft, it...

One of the biggest challenges my clients face is figuring out how to write during semesters when they are also teaching.

It’s not just a matter of trying to fit writing into their schedules—which is a huge challenge in and of itself.

But it’s also about the difficulty of balancing the short-term, hard deadlines of teaching with the longer-term, seemingly lower stakes deadlines that are usually attached to book writing.

The former feel...

In today's episode I clear up the question: should you submit your materials for review to more than one press at the same time?

I talk about whether you should meet with multiple editors at the same time.

I also go into detail about the process of simultaneous review--what the ethics are and the three main points to keep in mind if you want to go down this path.

Ultimately, this episode will clear u...

Today I’m going to be re-releasing one of my favorite podcast episodes, which helps you set clear and sustainable boundaries with your job.

It is based on an exercise I call “Semester Absolutes” that is best to do at the very beginning of your semester before things get overly hectic and you start just saying yes to everything.

Trust me, if you set your limits ahead of time and then truly commit to honoring them, you will vastly lowe...

Right now, I’m visiting my family in California, so I’ve decided to re-release the very first episode of my podcast. 

It also happens to be my most listened-to episode of all time. 

For those of you who started tuning in later, I introduce myself and explain why I became a book writing coach.

I also talk about how your thoughts and mindset influence your writing and give you an exercise that will change the way you think about your ow...

This episode will give you some questions that will help you process the roller-coaster of 2022 in all its glory and reflect on everything you’ve accomplished!

You can get reacquainted with your own priorities and the things you value, and bring them front and center again moving forward.

 By the end of the year, we forget so much of what happened, especially since we’re all still managing the toll that the pandemic has taken on our ...