Self-Publishing

The Writer As Public Speaker

By its very nature, writing is usually a solitary career, and many writers I have known are perfectly happy laboring alone out of the public eye. More than a few are introverts who are not comfortable in large crowd, let alone speaking to groups of people. But to reap the highest rewards from your writing and self-publishing career, you really should become a public speaker.

I was also one of those high school students who would take an F over reading a report in class.

In my 25+ year career owning and publishing small town newspapers, my publications won many, many awards from everything from the Chamber of Commerce to civic organizations, to newspaper associations. Not once in all of those years did I ever attend and accept an award. I always sent one of my editors or office managers, because I was terrified to get up there and say thank you to the crowd.

For the last 9½ years we have traveled fulltime in an RV and I publish an RV travel newspaper www.gypsyjournal.net. About six months into publishing the RV paper, I was drafted into giving an hour long seminar on working on the road at an RV rally. I tried to get out of it, but was stuck. Another long time public speaker said “Just remember, those people came to hear what you have to share. They don’t want you to fail, they aren’t there to judge you, they want to listen to you.”

I rehearsed my talk for weeks. I was up all night the night before, sick to my stomach. I had to walk about ¼ mile from my RV to the seminar room, and I threw up three times on that walk, at every trash barrel I came to. I just knew I was going to pass out on stage in front of everybody. I would have gladly gone back into combat rather than get up there with everybody staring at me.

But something happened when I stepped onto that stage. The first thing I said was “I’m scared to death up here, folks, so if I fall over or something, please throw water on me.” Everybody laughed, and I could tell by the look on their faces that they were all pulling for me.

I had a friend who was sitting in the front row, and I looked at her and just began to talk to her, giving my speech. She nodded and smiled, and I tried to forget that there were 150 or so other people there. About 5 minutes into my talk, someone from the audience said “You’re talking way too fast, Nick. Slow down and relax. We’ve got all day.” Without thinking, I blurted out “The sooner I get done, the sooner I can get off this damned stage!” and everybody broke up.

I can’t explain it, but knowing that I had the ability to make people laughed changed everything. I forgot my rehearsed spiel and just began to relax and talk about the subject in general. In what seemed like minutes, the hour was over, and I got a very long round of applause. People came up to me as I was getting off the stage to tell me how much they appreciated my information, and to tell me how much they enjoyed my talk. And I realized that after those first few rough minutes, I enjoyed it too.

Since then I have talked before groups as large as 1,500 people at RV rallies and RV shows, and I have become a core instructor for the Life on Wheels www.rvlifeonwheels.com program. I routinely present ten 90 minute seminars in 2½ days at a Life on Wheels conference. I also present seminars and workshops on writing and self-publishing across the country. On average, I do from 75 to 100 seminars a year.

I also act as master of ceremonies for the evening entertainment at the two big RV rallies our newspaper puts on every year. We just finished one last week in Ohio , where the crowd was over 300 people.

And I love every minute of it. I find I’m a bit of a ham, and I seem to have the ability to make people laugh and learn at the same time. And I am so very glad I got over my terror of public speaking, because it has opened up many doors for my personally, professionally, and financially. I really urge anybody who shares the fears I did to force yourself to face that fear and overcome it. Start out small, with just a small group, and work your way up. But start, because the rewards can be great.

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