Today, I want to talk about the three most important characters from a structural perspective within your story.

Very often, two of the most common questions writers will ask about characters in their story is, “How many characters do I need and or can I have and which characters do I need? What characters are important to my specific story?”

What I’m going to be sharing in this post is definitely the stripped-down answer to this question. We’re going to be getting under the hood and looking at some of the mechanics of how story works. What I’m going to share is not necessarily meant to be taken literally. Rather, it’s meant to show you the foundation upon which you can build your entire cast of characters.

So when I say your story’s structure only needs three characters, don’t freak out! This doesn’t mean you can only have three characters in your story.

Character #1: The Protagonist

From a structural perspective, what actually creates plot and makes your story move?

There are three specific types of character who are important in running a story’s engine.

The first and most obvious is of course your protagonist. When we hear the word “protagonist,” very often what we think of is the hero, the main character, the good guy, something along those lines. We think of a specific type of person; we have a visual idea of what a protagonist is. Maybe you even see your protagonist from your story. However, although who your protagonist is in your story is very specific, sometimes this can distract from the deeper understanding of what “protagonist” is and how it functions within the story.

What Defines a Protagonist?

Within story, all that defines the “protagonist” is that this is the person creating the forward momentum in the plot. They do that by wanting something. They have a desire, which will translate into the story goals that move them forward. In some stories, the desire may be that they want to move away from something else, but it could also be that they have something specifically in mind they’re moving toward.

You can think of this as the change you’re going to see within your story. Whether your characters know it or not, what they’re moving toward is the end of your story. They’re moving toward whatever state they’re going to be in—wherever the plot finds them—at the end of the story.

The protagonist is the one who creates that throughline and that momentum of moving through the story. Without a protagonist, we really don’t have a story. The protagonist is the person who is defining what this story is about. Theoretically, you could pick any number of specific characters within your story to be that protagonist. Each character would slightly change the nature of your plot because different characters will want different things, which drives and creates different plot. Regardless, the protagonist is the throughline.

Structuring Your Novel: Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition (Amazon affiliate link)

You want to make sure the protagonist lines up with all of your major structural beats throughout the story. Usually, that means the character will be present at these beats, but more specifically it means that what’s happening at those structural beats needs to be in alignment with the protagonist’s forward momentum toward the end state of the story. If you can identify any particular structural beat within the story where that really isn’t happening—where they’re not moving toward that end state—then it’s probably a good sign that structural beat is off in some way.

From this perspective, the protagonist is the single most important character for defining your story’s structural throughline. They create the throughline (and the throughline should be created for them by the author). It’s a vehicle for them.

Character #2: The Antagonist

The second most important character (although really this character is equally as important as the protagonist because you need both of them) is the antagonist.

Similarly to the protagonist, we often hear that word and we think “bad guy.” We think of a morally negative person—a villain.  However, this has nothing to do with being an antagonist. We only think this because, generally speaking, the protagonist is someone who’s morally positive and with whom we sympathize with from a moral point of view—and therefore the antagonist stands in opposition to that and is often characterized as someone who’s morally negative or at least ambivalent in some way.

What Defines the Antagonist?

However, within storyform, functionally speaking, the antagonist is simply whatever or whoever is creating the obstacles between the protagonist and their momentum.

I often  to use the term “antagonistic force” rather than “antagonist” because this also reminds us that the antagonist doesn’t have to be human. It doesn’t have to be a specific character within the story. Usually, the antagonist will be human and will be at the very least be represented at certain points throughout the story by proxy characters, which we’ll talk about in just a second. However, fundamentally, the antagonistic force is nothing more or less than whatever is creating the opposition through which the protagonist has to move.

Without the antagonistic force, without this opposition, the protagonist can move unhindered. They will move easily and smoothly toward whatever the end state is within the story. When they reach that end state, the story is over. The very fact that we have a lengthy tale to tell means that must be roadblocks—obstacles—difficulties. Conflict is encountered as the protagonist moves through the story. The antagonist is that necessary counterforce that creates that opposition for the protagonist to have to work through. This, in turn, is what creates the conflict and the interest in the plot.

Character #3: Relationship Character

The third character is a little more interesting in some ways and not as obvious. The third character is the relationship character. This character can actually take quite a few different forms within the story.

What Defines the Relationship Character?

You might immediately think of love interest or something like that. This character could also be a sidekick. It could be any relationship within the story, but fundamentally what we’re talking about from perspective of story is a motivating force for the protagonist within the story.

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Again, this can take many forms. This could be an Impact Character representing the story’s thematic Truth and prompting or inspiring change. For instance, a love interest very often will act within a character arc as someone who “rewards” or “punishes” based on the protagonist’s effectiveness within the plot (based on the protagonist’s relationship to the Lie and the Truth and how that allows them to either move forward or not against the antagonistic force).

However, the relationship character doesn’t have to be a love interest. This character simply represents a relationship that is important to the protagonist and is creating motivation for what they’re doing. This relationship character shines a light on the “why” of the protagonist’s motivation. The antagonistic force shines a light on all of the things the protagonist hasn’t dealt with or hasn’t figured out yet as a way to be able to move forward toward the end goal, whereas the relationship character is shows the broader context of why the protagonist is doing this—what they’re trying to build, why they’re trying to expand.

Again, this isn’t necessarily something the protagonist is conscious of. You’ll see this dynamic in stories, in which there needs to be that relational level so that there’s a catalyst—there’s a why behind the protagonist’s motives.

Using the Three Characters When Your Protagonist Is the Only Person in the Story

Again, just as with the antagonistic force, this doesn’t necessarily have to be characterized. It’s entirely possible to create a story that’s about just one character. If you have just one character on stage, in that case these other two forces within the story will either be internalized within the protagonist as aspects of the protagonist ‘s own self, or they’ll be reflected somehow in the world around them, in the setting. We see this in stories such as the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away, in which he is all alone on an island.

Cast Away (2000), 20th Century Fox.

The whole story basically is him lost on an island. He’s stuck in the middle of nowhere and has to survive. The antagonistic force is mostly just the weather and the elements, with him trying to figure out how to make the island work in a way that he can survive off of it. Then later on in the story, we also see, within himself, his own difficulties, as his fear and anger and frustration also work against him. He has to work through that as a way to continue toward his end goal of getting off the island and surviving.

The relationship aspect—creating a context of meaning—is represented by his relationship with the volleyball Wilson, who he personifies—but who is, of course, really just him. Wilson gives him something to care about something, onto which he can project meaning and purpose out into the world, so he doesn’t feel so alone.

That’s a great example of how all these three of these elements work within a story without necessarily having to be represented by actual characters.

Using the Three Characters When Your Story Features a Cast Larger Than Three

Obviously, most stories will feature many, many more characters than just these three. In these cases, what is happening is that every single character within your story—even if you have hundreds of them—are related to these three primal forces within the story. They are all representing, in some way, one of these forces within your story.

What If You Have Multiple Protagonists?

First, I want to talk about stories with multiple protagonists. This is an important question. From the foundational perspective of story structure, there is really only one protagonist. That is what creates the structural throughline. So if you have more than one protagonist, you necessarily have more than one structural through line—as happens in stories with multiple plotlines, which I talked about in a previous video this year.

Basically, you’re telling multiple stories, which means you have multiple different story forms with each of these three story characters/forces happening in each of those plotlines until the plotlines coincide at some point later in the story.

It’s important to recognize this because you need to have a solid throughline to your structure, you may in some instances have two characters operating within the same plotline together who seem to share equal weight (romances are an obvious examples where the weight is shared equally by two different characters points of view). What’s happening in these stories is the two characters are sharing the role of protagonist within a single shared structural throughline. They’re not pulling in opposite directions. Even if they have smaller goals that are separate, they’re working toward the same structural goal or desire (e.g., being together and making the relationship work)

The same would be true in a mystery where you feature two detective characters equally. They’re working toward the same goal, so they share the weight of the protagonist’s role throughout the story. In this case, you want to make sure this shared role is represented in a unified way at each of your structural beats.

Multiple Characters Fulfilling These Three Roles (aka, Character Proxies)

The most common way to use these three structural character roles in a large cast is for each character to act as a proxy for one of the three main roles—protagonist, antagonist, main relationship character.

For example, your story may feature a unified antagonistic force that is not represented by just one character. You may have a Big Bad, and then he may have doing his bidding. These minions are  not separate antagonists within the story; they are proxies for the main antagonist and therefore acting in his stead. The antagonistic force is still a unified force within the story.

Again, that’s harder to do with protagonists. You have to be careful because the protagonist is your throughline and your structural anchor throughout the story.

On the other hand, you may have many different relationship characters. Obviously, you’re always going to get the tightest effect in a story when you narrow these things down as much as possible, so you don’t have a lot of extraneous characters. But for instance, you may have a protagonist whose context and reason and why for what they’re doing—therefore representing that relationship aspect—could be a whole town. It could be you are perhaps interested in showing a broader setting, where there isn’t a specific relationship character within the story.

What comes to my mind right now is The Andy Griffith Show, in which protagonist Andy is involved with this entire town. He’s in a relationship with many different people throughout Mayberry. There are primary relationships, such as his son Opie, his deputy and best friend Barney,  and his aunt Bea, but all of the characters within the entire show relate to him and interact with him as either an antagonistic force or a relationship character.

The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68), CBS.

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In very simplified terms, you could think of the relationship character as the one the protagonist is doing things for, while the antagonist force is the one they’re doing it against.

I hope that’s helpful. However, sometimes oversimplifying things can be the opposite of helpful, so if this doesn’t resonate or if it feels confusing, then just forget about it. The essence of what I’m trying to communicate here is that there are three engines kind of within your story. If you’re ever confused about whether or not a character is useful or is extraneous, or you have too many characters or not enough characters, this is a good place to come back to so you can examine your cast. You can go through each one and say, “Okay, this character is a protagonist. These characters are representing the antagonistic force. These characters are representing the relationship aspect within the story and reflecting back to the protagonist the required growth qualities.”

You can ask:

• Would my story be stronger if I got rid of some of these characters and just focused in on one specific character to represent each of these categories?
• Would it create a stronger dynamic for my protagonist, or do I need more characters?
• How do I do that in a cohesive way that is still structurally pertinent?

Thinking about putting each character in the little box where they belong can be helpful in organizing them and seeing where maybe some things are misplaced and not fulfilling their optimum job and or where they’re completely extraneous.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Who are the most important characters in your story? Tell me in the comments!

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, or Spotify).

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The post The 3 (Structurally) Most Important Characters appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.

How do you approach writing a second edition of a non-fiction book? How does self-publishing compare to working with a traditional publisher? Can you build a viable business without active social media use? Gin Stephens shares her tips.

In the intro, the end of Kindle Vella [Amazon]; Lessons from week one of the book launch for This is Strategy [Seth Godin]; Seahenge is out now on my store, and on pre-order elsewhere; ChatGPT launched Search [OpenAI]; How Generative AI Search Will Impact Book Discoverability in the Next Decade.

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Delay, Don’t Deny, Fast. Feast. Repeat., Clean(ish), and other health-related nonfiction books. She’s also a podcaster at Intermittent Fasting Stories.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Pros and cons of publishing a second edition of a nonfiction book
• Tips for bringing a heavy subject alive
• Breaking through the noise when misinformation surrounds your subject
• Reasons for going the indie route after traditionally publishing
• The power of word of mouth marketing
• How a small paywall can create a more respectful community
• Social media’s impact on mental health
• Creating an ecosystem — podcast, community, and books

You can find Gin at GinStephens.com.

Transcript of Interview with Gin Stephens

Joanna: Gin Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of Delay, Don’t Deny, Fast. Feast. Repeat., Clean(ish), and other health-related nonfiction books. She’s also a podcaster at Intermittent Fasting Stories. So welcome back to the show, Gin.

Gin: It is so great to talk to you again.

Joanna: Yes, it’s been a few years [Gin’s previous interview here]. Now, you have recently released the second edition of Delay, Don’t Deny, and I completely get the pain of a subsequent edition. It’s just a bit of a nightmare. So I wanted to start by asking you—

Why did you feel like you wanted to do a second edition of that book instead of writing something new?

Gin: Well, that is a great question. I have written new things since writing the original Delay, Don’t Deny. This original book that I wrote in 2016, Delay, Don’t Deny, and self-published, is just really the bedrock that everything else has been built upon.

I’ve learned so much more about the topic since I wrote it in 2016, and this book just needed a refresh. It needed some love. I really didn’t understand how some people love this one the most.

I was speaking at an event a few years ago, and someone in the audience said, “Which of your books should we start with? Delay, Don’t Deny or Fast. Feast. Repeat.?”

Fast. Feast. Repeat. was a New York Times bestseller. It’s comprehensive, it’s thorough, it’s thick. It’s every question you could possibly ask about intermittent fasting. It’s well referenced. So I said, “Of course start with Fast. Feast. Repeat.“

Then someone in the audience said, “Can I disagree?” I’m like, “Well, go ahead.” She said, “Delay, Don’t Deny. I love that one the most.” That got the wheels turning in my head because ever since I moved towards traditional publishing, I hadn’t self-published anything.

So I thought, people love that original book. I never talked about it anymore, but it kept selling, and people kept buying it. It did need to be updated because some of the advice I did not necessarily agree with anymore.

From 2016 to 2024, things are going to change. There were just some things that were out of date, so it deserved some love.

You know what kept me from revising it sooner? The audiobook. I didn’t want to rerecord the audiobook, and of course, you want them to match. Finally, I just bit the bullet.

First I offered it to my publisher, and the amount that they wanted to give me for an advance was so itty bitty. I was like, well, forget that. I’ll redo it myself.

Joanna: That’s interesting. I want to come back. So you said there Fast. Feast. Repeat. I’ve got these books, I’ve got several of your books, and Fast. Feast. Repeat., you said it’s comprehensive, it’s thick, it’s well referenced. You’re a scientist. You do a lot of research. You are very knowledgeable.

Do you think that people don’t want the heavily researched book, they just want the story-based book?

Gin: Well, it depends on the person. There are people who resonate with each kind, and that’s what I realized. I would like the one with all the references in there, definitely. I want to be able to look at them. I actually do that, by the way, when I read a book written by a scientist or a doctor.

I’ll turn to the reference section, especially if something doesn’t sound right, I’m like let me look at that myself. I’ve actually found places where they did not actually represent the study the same way—after I read it—it’s not what they said about it.

I also want to correct, I am not a practicing research scientist. I have a master’s degree in natural sciences and a doctorate in gifted education. At my root, I’m very much a teacher.

I had to write a dissertation, I learned how to research, I learned how to share all of that research as a part of going through my doctoral program. So I just wanted to make that clear.

So some people just want the basics, and that’s what Delay, Don’t Deny is for. So it really needed to be updated, like I said, because the people that preferred, you know, just tell me the quick part, give me the stories, they needed Delay, Don’t Deny.

Then I actually am now recommending everyone start with Delay, Don’t Deny because it might be all you need, but if you want more, that’s when it’s time to turn to Fast. Feast. Repeat.

I also think that once you’ve lived the lifestyle for a while, everything in Fast. Feast. Repeat. will click, if that makes sense. You’ll understand it better, and you’re ready to dig into the science more than maybe on day one.

Joanna: Yes, I totally agree. I discovered you on the podcast years ago, and I still am IF. It’s so funny though, I almost don’t say I’m IF anymore because I never eat breakfast, or very occasionally, but mostly I start after lunch sometime and have sort of an 18:6 type of lifestyle, as you say. It’s almost like I don’t even consider that to be IF anymore.

I know you’ve been doing Intermittent Fasting for years. Do you kind of feel that way sometimes?

Gin: It’s just what we do. I’ve been doing it for over 10 years now, and it’s just what I do. I don’t have to think about it. You’re not like, what am I doing today? What’s my window? You just live your life, and then you have your window.

Going back to how you used to live way back before you started just feels so foreign. You couldn’t even imagine doing it.

Joanna: No, it’s interesting.

Coming back on the book, you said it needed a refresh. So I’ve done several subsequent editions, and I know how that feels. For people listening, how do you know? So you’re reading it, and are you just like, “oh my goodness, I can’t believe this”?

How did you decide what to keep and what to change in the new edition?

Gin: Well, I know what questions people have, and I know where the confusions lie. You’re familiar with the terminology “clean fast”, and that is foundational in my work. What’s funny is, when I wrote Delay, Don’t Deny in 2016, we had not started using the terminology “clean fast” in my groups yet.

I came up with that wording at some point in 2017, and it stuck. So it’s just kind of funny that Delay, Don’t Deny doesn’t have the wording “clean fast” in it. I also was a little wishy-washy about a few things related to the clean fast and how to fast properly.

That was because there was the doctor who had written a book, Dr. Jason Fung, The Obesity Code. He was like, “Well, have a little lemon if you want,” and I didn’t want to contradict him in my book. Who am I to contradict him? So I’m like, well, I’ll just kind of go along with what he said.

Then the longer that I supported people through intermittent fasting and my Facebook groups, we had about 500,000 combined members before I ended up leaving Facebook. So over time I realized the lemon does make a difference, and that little splash of cream does make a difference.

So I became more emphatic, I guess is the word I would use, about the clean fast, just because we had it validated with so many people who found that the clean fast changed the whole experience. So I developed confidence, and I can say with confidence, this is how it works better, and you should give this a try.

By the time Fast. Feast. Repeat. came out in 2020, I was really embraced to the idea of the clean fast and very confidently saying, “This is what I think would work for you better. Try this.” So I needed to get that into Delay, Don’t Deny as well.

Not to mention the success stories in the back. Looking back at it through fresh eyes today, when I wrote Delay, Don’t Deny, I was just leading a small Facebook group. At that time we had like, I don’t know, 1500 members or something. I can’t even remember.

So I just put out into the group, “Hey, anybody want to share their story in my book? Just send it to me and I’ll put it in,” but I hadn’t written anything yet. I didn’t have any podcasts yet. I was just leading people who had joined together in a Facebook group.

So the stories are just very ‘interesting’ that are in the original Delay, Don’t Deny. I’m just going to say they’re ‘interesting’ because I’m so grateful for the people who shared their stories early on. Now, many of them are not things I would recommend that you do. So reading through them years later, I’m like, oooh.

So what I love more than anything about the revised second edition of Delay, Don’t Deny is the success stories section.

I was like, how am I going to gather them just in my community? Am I going to need to email my whole list? How many stories will come in? I just put it out into my private intermittent fasting community and said, “Here’s the Google link. Fill out this form if you want to.”

Then I just left it there, and people submitted their stories, and they’re just amazing. The beauty of it this time is that they have read my books, and listened to my podcast, and been a part of the community. So all the stories align with the advice I would give.

There was nothing that jumped out as, oooh, I wouldn’t suggest that someone do that. Instead, they’re all aligned. So that was really, really important to me to get the good stories with the aligned recommendations out there.

Joanna: Then I guess there’ll be some people listening, people who want to write a non-fiction book, that feel a bit like you did, which is, “Oh, well, there’s a doctor who’s written a book on this. Maybe I can’t because I’m not special,” or whatever it is.

Do you think you made the right choice publishing that first edition when you did?

Looking back, you’re happy with that? You’re not embarrassed? How can you encourage people to put the book out there even though, as you say now, maybe everything wasn’t perfect?

Gin: It wasn’t perfect.

If we wait for something to be perfect or for 100% of everyone to agree with you, you will never do anything.

If you look at books written by doctors, they don’t all agree. Doctors are people with opinions and blinders on for certain things on occasion.

So the more you read and see what’s out there and how people disagree, the more you feel like, oh, I can have an opinion too. Now, do I regret putting it out there? Absolutely not.

I’ve sold over 380,000 copies of that first little book, and for a self-published book that is only available in paperback through Amazon I feel pretty good about that. I mean, that’s it. I don’t have it wide. You want the paperback. It’s Amazon. That’s it.

Just think of all the lives that have been touched by intermittent fasting. I’m not pretending to be something that I’m not. I’m very, very clear throughout the book of who I am, what my background is like.

For example, I mentioned that I have a doctorate in gifted and talented education. I remember when I first joined this like health and wellness community with influencers, writers, podcasters, a lot of doctors, actual medical doctors in this group.

One of the first things the people running this group said to me is, “You’re Doctor Stephens. You have a doctorate. You should put doctor on the front of your books.” I’m like, nope, because I’m not that kind of doctor. I don’t want to misrepresent myself.

Be confident in who you are. I know what my skills are. I’m a teacher. I can read things and then teach them to you. I taught math, and I’m not a mathematician. I taught history, and I’m not a historian. I taught reading, and I’m not a linguist or whatever.

I am able to teach things and say, “Here’s what I have learned, and I’m sharing that with you. Here are some resources where you can go learn more.” I think the fact that I’m not a medical doctor, and that I am a teacher, has been my superpower because people can understand what I write.

I’m trained in delivering content, so I think that I’m able to do that better than a lot of doctors.

Joanna: Absolutely. There’ll be some people listening who listen to the medical podcasts out there, Peter Attia and things like that, where you’re like, okay, but I can’t listen to this because it’s way too technical for me.

I mean, Intermittent Fasting Stories is normal people talking about normal life, and not using difficult words about whatever hormones. You do go through things like hormone effect and all of that kind of thing in Fast. Feast. Repeat., I think, but it’s like you don’t need that to get started. You can just get started with the story.

So I think that’s so important. I think this is one of the problems with nonfiction books, is people think they need to be all fact based and emotionless. You’ve written with real voice, like your actual voice is in the book.

Do you have any tips for bringing a subject alive if it gets too heavy?

Gin: I think it’s just a matter of readers want to connect with stories, whether they’re reading nonfiction or fiction. We enjoy connecting with stories. Stories are powerful.

So when I first wanted to write a book about intermittent fasting and share what I knew to help people learn how to do it and apply it into their lives, I was really inspired by a set of books that I read when I was pregnant and a new mother. It was The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy. Do you remember that series?

Joanna: No, but I’m happily child free, so not my thing.

Gin: I was pregnant, and my babies were born in ’98 and ’99. So that tells you when those books were really, really popular. There was the Bible of pregnancy, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and that one was dry, and it was like factual.

You definitely needed that one, but The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy was irreverent, and it was funny, and it was like a girlfriend was talking to you. You wanted to read it. I mean, I read that multiple times.

The same thing with, she had The Girlfriends’ Guide to the First Year and The Girlfriends’ Guide to the Toddler Years. You just felt like somebody got it. You’re learning about it from someone who got it, and it was funny, and you didn’t feel alone.

I think that when we’re thinking about health and wellness and the diet industry, you know, you can read a book written by the person who is maybe a nutritionist or a workout expert, and they’ve never struggled like you. They’ve never been overweight, really. Maybe they had to lose five pounds or something.

They’ve got this book for you, and you’re like, but do they really get what it’s like to weigh 210 pounds? You know, I know what that’s like because I did weigh 210 pounds. I was obese, and I lost 80 pounds with intermittent fasting.

I know what it’s like to be on that diet roller coaster of up and down. I know what it’s like to read all the diet books, and try everything, and just be so stuck. So I wanted that to all come through in a way that was relatable. It’s my story in there interwoven through Delay, Don’t Deny.

I think the reason people love this book so much, and I’ve heard this hundreds or thousands of times, I don’t even know how many times, that people will say—

“I read that book, and I thought, if you can do it, I can do it.”

It was just the fact that they felt like it was a real person that was telling them there’s hope, and here’s the science. You know, I’m putting the science in there too. It’s not just only my story, I have the science in there.

I talk about autophagy. I talk about the problem with calories in, calories out. The Biggest Loser study, and why low calorie diets fail us. So the science is there. It’s got that underpinning of science, but it’s also relatable, and you know that you can do it.

Joanna: Absolutely. So one of the other interesting things is that when you started out on intermittent fasting over a decade ago, there really wasn’t much out there about it, but now it feels like the market is saturated.

There’s books and podcasts. You go on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, reels, and there’s positive stuff, there’s negative stuff, and there’s just a lot of stuff. I mean, even on Amazon, there’s just a ton of stuff.

How are you breaking through the noise in a saturated market so that people find your books?

Especially when there’s a lot of hype, misinformation, and people might put you in the same bracket as some of the people who aren’t so good, let’s say.

Gin: I will say the truth sells. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, but the truth will make the difference. The truth of the clean fast and the way that that will change the experience for you.

For everybody listening who may be like, “Well, I tried intermittent fasting. It didn’t work for me,” I bet you weren’t fasting clean. I bet you were trying something overcomplicated. So my magic secret, which isn’t so magic and it’s not really a secret, is word of mouth.

If somebody read my book, let’s just say the original Delay, Don’t Deny, and they read it in early 2017 when it first hit the market, and then they had great success. Well, people around them notice, and they’re like, “Hey, what are you doing?” And then they tell them, and then you’re just spreading the word like that.

That’s really been the magic of my work reaching a lot of people. Yes, I’ve got the podcast, Intermittent Fasting Stories, and my newer one Fast. Feast. Repeat. we’ve been doing for just over a year.

People might just stumble across them, and then they hear the stories, and then they’re like, well, let me see what Gin has written. Then they end up with my books, and then they try it, and then it works. Then they tell people.

There was a commercial in the United States in, I don’t know, the 70s, the 80s, it was like a shampoo commercial. Maybe it was Faberge Organics, I can’t remember, but it was, “And then I told two friends, and then she told two friends, and then she told two friends.” It was just like, yes, word of mouth really can spread the word.

So, yes, there’s a lot of confusing information out there.

There are a lot of books on intermittent fasting that are overly complicated.

But I think those kind of fall from the wayside. Delay, Don’t Deny has been selling steadily since I released at the end of 2016. Other fasting books come and go.

The same with Fast. Feast. Repeat. It’s been selling steadily since 2020. If you compare it to the other fasting books that are out there, almost 100% of the other fasting books also have a diet plan they want you to follow.

Maybe they want you to be intermittent fasting plus paleo. Or maybe they want you to be intermittent fasting plus keto. Or you have to be intermittent fasting plus whole food, plant based, low fat, or whatever it might be.

My work is intermittent fasting plus eat the way that makes you feel your best, whatever that is, and it will probably change over time. It really empowers you, instead of being a prescriptive plan.

People want that. They might not know they want it. They might be used to a prescriptive plan. There’s a lot of magic in being empowered to choose for yourself.

Joanna: This word of mouth, I totally agree with you. You said there, selling steadily, which is the mark of word of mouth. It’s not like you put everything into the first month and then it all disappears.

This is also one of the challenges of a second edition because with a true second edition, you lose all those reviews. You lose all the incoming links from all the websites that linked to that edition of the book. So presumably you feel that’s worth it because—

That book on Amazon starts again, essentially, with no reviews.

Gin: It does, and you know what? I put that out there in August of this year, 2024, and I think it’s got 78 reviews already. Whereas my other one had like 13,000, okay.

Joanna: It takes time.

Gin: It does take time. When I’m looking to buy a book, I look at the overall ratings. I’m not going to read 13,000 reviews, right. A book with 78 reviews, and it’s 4.9 stars, I’m going to be really excited about that book.

I’m very clear in the updated description that it’s a second edition, and I talk about the updates and how it’s changed. I had to really think about that, since I’m self-published, I could have just slipped the revisions in the old version. I could have done it.

I debated about that and decided not to for multiple reasons. One of which is used copies, and then people would accidentally end up with the used copy of the first edition, and I didn’t want them to read the first edition anymore. I wanted them to read the second edition.

So I just made that decision, and it was not easy that day that I started with zero reviews on the new edition. Luckily, my community, of course, they’re the ones who found it first. My community found it, and they’re the ones giving it the five star reviews because they’re already fans. So hopefully that will lead more people to it.

Joanna: Then I’ve got to return to the audiobook because you said you did not want to do the audiobook. So tell us—

Why do you hate doing audiobooks, and what are your tips?

Gin: I just hate doing audiobooks, but I have to read them myself because everyone’s used to my voice. They listen to my podcast. So I know I have to read it myself. Also I’m going to give it the right kind of intonation. I know how it should be emphasized.

It’s a lot of work, and I don’t edit audio. I can edit the written word. I can design my own book. By the way, you self-publish, right? You’re self-published?

Joanna: Yes, but I employ freelancers to design things.

Gin: Well, I’m pretty much a one stop shop when it comes to the paperback. I just have started using Atticus for formatting.

Joanna: Yes, sponsor of the show. Atticus.

Gin: Atticus, you are amazing. I don’t know how I found out about it, but that’s another reason why I needed to do a second edition because, embarrassing, my first edition, I did it in Word. It looked crazy when I put them side by side.

I mean, people still bought it, but after being traditionally published with professional book designers, I was like, oh my gosh, Delay, Don’t Deny looks like I made it on Word, Whereas —

The second edition is just beautiful. Thank you, Atticus.

The thing about the audiobook is I had to hire somebody. I had to go to a recording studio. I’m still going through the editing process right now. So it’s just a lot of work. It’s like running a marathon.

Joanna: Yes, it’s definitely something you have to get used to. After my first audiobook I did myself, I was like never again. Then I started hiring people, and then I went back to it.

I’ve got an audio studio here in my office, so I just now do it myself. There’s a lot of AI tools you can use for editing. So I think it depends how many books you end up doing yourself. Maybe there’s more.

Gin: I’m grateful that I can outsource it. Just like you said, you send some things to designers. For me, it’s the audio part.

That’s the part I want everyone who’s listening to hear. Be confident in the part you can do, and also be confident in the part you can’t do. If that’s the part holding you back, you can hire somebody to do stuff for you and get a professional product out there.

Joanna: Absolutely. Let’s come to the publishing bit because, like you said, you started out in self-publishing, but then you did several books with traditional publishers.

What did you love about traditional publishing?

What did you find useful? What did you enjoy? Since I know you love learning.

Gin: There are definitely parts that I enjoy. I enjoy having copy editors who read my work and find mistakes, but they also don’t find everything. Let me just put it that way. Even after a book has been completely copy edited, things can still get out of whack through the traditional publishing process.

I enjoy that there are cover designers to work on the cover, but again, also you want to be able to give your input. You have to put your foot down sometimes and say, no, I want it to look more like this, and that’s important to know.

I enjoy that they have a liaison with Amazon if those scammers get out there, and they will, and they do. Putting out their little scam books, and it ends up in the listing, and they can get right on there with Amazon and get that taken care of for you. So I really enjoy that.

It feels great to be supported through the audiobook process. MacMillan Audio handled everything. They set up the studio. All I had to do was show up. There was a director there with me, the audio engineer.

Actually, two of my audiobooks I did at home because of COVID. Like even though I had MacMillan Audio and professional directors, we did it from home with them with me throughout the process. It was just because of COVID both times.

The third time I went to the recording studio, and that’s where I connected with the guy. When I did my latest book, 28-Day FAST Start Day-by-Day, which was my last to be traditionally published, they found the audio engineer with a recording studio close to me.

I didn’t have to try to put blankets up in my office, for example, like I did the last two times in my little blanket recording fort. So that was really, really nice having the professionals to go through it and listen to it and make sure it’s just right, all of that. It’s just nice to have those eyes.

I learned a lot, and I think it made me have a better product. Like I said, looking at the results of how my first edition looked compared to how my second edition looks, it just made me bump it up. You want to have a book that compares.

Joanna: Yes, I think that’s it. People listening, know that you can hire editors, you can hire book cover designers. As you have done, you can hire audio people. You can hire pretty much everyone now, a lot of whom used to work for traditional publishing. So there’s options both ways.

What’s interesting, of course, and you mentioned that the advance you were offered was not enough to be interesting.

Were there other reasons you decided to go indie with this book?

Gin: Just because Delay, Don’t Deny is like I wanted it like I wanted it. That’s one of the tradeoffs of working with a traditional publisher. From the title, to the book cover, to what they put on the back, to what’s written in the Amazon listing.

Every single one of my traditionally published books, the way it’s worded in the Amazon listing is not the way I would word it. Every one of them. The back matter is not the way I would have worded it.

As a part of the collaborative process, you might get a first draft from your editor, and then you make suggestions, but it’s still that somebody else is uploading that to Amazon. Somebody else is doing all of that.

I mentioned to you before we recorded, in an email, I have another book that I’m going to be working on, and my agent shopped it to my editor, and I got a very substantial six figure advance offer from it, and I have turned it down. I’m going to self-publish the new book as well.

I mean, it made total sense to do the second edition of Delay, Don’t Deny myself, but for a new book with a great advance offer from a traditional publisher that I enjoy working with. I love my editor. I love my agent. They’re great people. They have a great team.

I looked back at a book that I wrote in 2017 called Feast Without Fear, and I haven’t talked about that one much, and I looked at my earnings from 2017 through today, and my earnings on that little book I never really talk about are almost as much as the big six figure advance that they’re offering me. I was like, huh—

Why would I traditionally publish it when I can put it out there myself?

I have an audience of people who are going to be interested in reading what I have to put out there.

Of course, it’s not all about the money, but now that I have realized with Atticus, and I’ve got someone who can help me with the audiobook, I really can do it myself now. I have the skills to do it. I have the support.

So everything that I really enjoyed about traditional publishing, I can make my new book look very professional, and do it myself, and retain the royalties, and have control.

The new book that I’m got in my head, and I have it a little bit outlined, both my agent and my editor said, “I like the idea, but you’re going to need to work on the title. We don’t really like that.”

I’m like, well, I don’t want to work on the title. I really like it the way I want it. So just all those little things along the way that you lose control of when you do traditional publishing. That’s important when you’re a writer and you’re a little bit of an artist too, and you want it like you want it.

Joanna: Yes, I think that’s important. One of the biggest things there, of course, is that you have a community. Now, like everyone, you started with no community, so you did have nobody. Then over time, like you said, you started on Facebook groups.

You left Facebook, and you now have a paid community on Circle.

 This is something that many people are petrified of. A, of leaving Facebook, but B, starting a paid community. So can you maybe talk about that? Why you did it, why you left, and any tips?

Gin: I could do like a five hour show about why I left! When I left, it was the end of 2020, going into 2021, and you can remember what a charged time that was on Facebook. Okay, now imagine I’m running health related groups, and also imagine that there are almost 500,000 combined members.

So you could just imagine how charged that time was and how difficult it was. One thing about Facebook groups, especially in the health and wellness community, is that Facebook was shutting people down for things.

I mean, I don’t know if they’re still doing that in groups. I don’t really know since I don’t run any groups. I can remember somebody that was actually in my community, in my Facebook community, had some sort of recipe group or something related to food. It was a Facebook group with maybe 10,000 members.

She woke up one day and the entire group had been shut down by Facebook, and there was no way for her to get it back. I thought, what if Facebook decides that fasting is dangerous and shuts me down? I would have no recourse. It would all be lost. All these people that are in my community would just be gone.

We got dings against our group for things like AI didn’t like certain wording, like they really don’t like the word fat. In a fasting community, there’s something called being fat adapted, and that is actually a good thing. You want to be fat adapted, meaning your body has flipped the metabolic switch and is running on fat easily.

AI would be like, “You used the word fat, and you’re the admin. Three more strikes, we’ll shut down your group.” I mean, you’d get an AI-generated ding. Somebody who was a moderator accidentally did some emoji, and then she’s like, “Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to pick the angry emoji. Fat thumbs.” Ding, bullying.

She’s like, “Wait, no, that was me. I said I had fat thumbs.” You know what fat thumbs means. It’s not bullying. It means you accidentally clicked the wrong thing.

There was that fear of losing my whole community [if Facebook shut us down.]

There was also a little bit of wandering off the street in Facebook, if you know what I mean. People could find you by accident, and that was beautiful, but also not always.

Sometimes people would find you by accident, and they wouldn’t have any idea about you or anything about you, or your books, or your podcast, or what you recommended, and they would come in hot. Then they’d argue with you about things.

I just want to support people who are bought into the clean fast. I want to support people who have similar goals, who have similar philosophies towards fasting. I don’t want to argue with people who think that Bulletproof Coffee is a great way to start your day when you’re fasting.

There are communities where those people can be really happy, but I don’t want to have to police that all day long. So I would like a community where I can support people who are following the advice that I give.

I don’t want to argue with anyone on Facebook ever again until the day that I die, pretty much.

So it was hard because, like I said, I had a giant community. I thought maybe I’m only selling books, and maybe people are only listening to my podcast because of my Facebook groups. Maybe leaving Facebook will make it all stop and that’ll be the end. I said, it is worth it. Even if that is true, it is worth it.

So I started my private community, and, oh, some people some people were mad. People that were used to being in my Facebook group for free were super mad. They’re like, I read your book, I bought your book, and now you’re asking me to pay for your community.

I’m like, well, buying a book means you get a book. You got the book, right? I don’t know why reading a book means you get free support for the rest of your life from me, the author. It doesn’t.

So the people who joined my community wanted my support, they wanted my advice, they wanted to interact with me, and they were willing to pay for it. It’s like $9.99 a month. I’m not really asking a lot, but $9.99 a month weeds out the people who really don’t want to be in my community.

So I have a wonderful community, and I love interacting with the people there. They ask questions, and we help them. People post their struggles, they post their successes, and the right people find it who are excited to be there. So that fear that I had when I left, I’m so glad that I did it anyway.

Everything good I’ve ever done, I did it full of fear, and I did it anyway. So it’s been worth it.

I love my community so very much, and I’m grateful for everyone who has moved over with us.

Joanna: I think it’s such a big thing. So at the end of 2023, I did something similar with content, which I’ve put within my Patreon/thecreativepenn. So I’ve got a Patreon, but I did the same thing. It was like—

I’m getting too much hate talking about specific things. I’m just going to put a very small paywall up.

The difference to mental health is tremendous, right? I was around you at that time, and I remember how stressed you sounded around the stuff on Facebook.

Gin: Well, it was awful in the summer of 2020, when everything was really politically charged. We had a ‘no politics’ rule in our Facebook groups, but something happened while I was sleeping one night where someone tried to post something political, and my moderators did not allow it because we’re not a political group, we’re a Facebook group.

Whether I did or didn’t agree with the post, we’re not going to have political posts. So the person got really upset that the moderators wouldn’t let them post something.

Then instead of just whatever, they went to Amazon and left a one star review on my book and said really mean things that were untrue about me and my personal philosophies. I wasn’t even awake. I was sleeping the whole time when it happened.

So I was like, oh, we can’t have this. That made me realize that there does need to be a little bit more gatekeeping. We’re not going to be political in my group, no matter where we are.

We’re going to help you with fasting. We’re going to help you with your questions. We’re not going to talk about your political leanings, no matter whether I agree with them or whether I don’t.

I hope people have no idea where I stand politically. That’s what I want. You got plenty of content for that, Gin Stephens doesn’t need to be part of it, if you know what I mean.

Joanna: Are you on any social media at all?

Gin: I am on Facebook as Gin Stephens, the person. When I said I was leaving Facebook, I wasn’t kidding. I took the app off my phone, and I did not open it or look at it for over a year.

I mean, even like, what are my high school friends doing? What are my college friends doing? I didn’t know. I was in my bubble because it almost felt like PTSD, honestly. I realized, you know what, I can go back on Facebook as Gin Stephens, the person. I went in and, first of all, unfriended everybody that I didn’t really know.

There were some people that I had met through intermittent fasting that I really liked, and I kept them because some of them were in my new community. Some of them weren’t. I considered them friends, some of them who’d maybe been on our cruises before COVID.

So I really weeded it out, and so now Facebook really is my friends. It’s people that I have from college, people that I grew up with, people I worked with, kids I taught. I mean, I can go on Facebook and just be me.

I don’t interact on Facebook a lot. I definitely do not do any political commentary with friends who I may or may not agree with. I just ignore those. I’m just like, “Oh, what’s she doing? Oh, she went to a concert. That’s nice.” I’m using Facebook like it was originally intended, and I’m not talking about intermittent fasting at all.

Instagram is a different kind of beast. The problem with Instagram is, being a public figure on Instagram makes people sometimes think that anything you post, they can then feel free to comment on in different ways. I don’t care for that.

I posted a picture of me and my husband on Instagram, just Gin Stephens, the person. It wasn’t a fasting post. In some of the comments, one person wanted to critique Intermittent Fasting Stories, and one person wants fasting coaching.

I’m like, no, no. This is me and my husband on the porch. If you want fasting coaching, you will not get it through the comments on Instagram, sorry.

Also, don’t critique my podcast here. Leave it a review. If you really need to say something, give it a review. I don’t want to see that. I don’t go read my one star reviews. I just don’t, no matter where it is. I don’t want to see that. I know they’re out there, but I don’t want to see it. It made me feel very reluctant to even post anything on Instagram. So sometimes I will, but —

I don’t go back in and monitor the comments or even read them anymore.

Here’s a little secret for everybody who’s listening, most people who are commenting back to you on Instagram, that’s someone on their staff doing it, not really them, anyone who is like “an influencer”.

I don’t have any staff, I don’t have people going in, commenting as me. So I just don’t read it, and I don’t have to comment or have hurt feelings. I guess that’s the way I deal with it.

I’m here to help you if you would like my help. If you don’t, that’s fine too. There’s other people out there that might resonate with you more. Go explore their content. If you don’t like what I have to say, if you think the clean fast sounds really dumb and you want to have whatever, do it.

I’m here to guide the people who are interested in what I have to say, and it’s taken me a long time to get to this point.

You can’t please everybody, and if you try, you’ll just make yourself really unhappy. So please the people who you please, they are your people.

Joanna: Yes, you have to have the boundaries. I know we’re almost out of time, but I know people are now going, well— How does she get traffic to her books and her community?

So it’s your business model. So you’ve got the Intermittent Fasting Stories Podcast and you’ve got a second podcast, which are the main ways people find you. Then you’ve got the books, and you’ve got the community. That’s it, right?

Gin: Here’s what’s funny, my business plan was zero business plan. I started my first Facebook group in 2015 with no plan. I was a school teacher.

I had no plan for intermittent fasting to be my business.

I just started a Facebook group to support me and my friends who had seen me lose 75 pounds. I wanted a place where it was me and my friends and we could talk about it.

I’d been in some other Facebook groups as I was losing the weight, and again, I don’t want to argue with people on Facebook. So that’s why I started my own group because I was like, I’m not going to argue with people.

Then, of course, you can’t stop doing that on Facebook when people join and want to argue with you, which is why I left Facebook.

It grew because I had a very welcoming community and people saw the positive interactions.

We kept the arguing behind the scenes. It was just a very, very friendly community, and it was heavily moderated.

I had a group of volunteer moderators, and they were wonderful. I’m so grateful to them, but it was still hard to keep that on Facebook.

So I also started podcasting. I released my first book at the end of 2016, put it out there. I wasn’t podcasting yet. People just found the Facebook groups, and they found the books.

Then when people would find the books, that would lead them to the Facebook group. When people would find the Facebook group, that would lead them to the book. Again, I was just selling books one at a time.

Then I started podcasting. My first podcasting experience was in 2017, and I no longer do that particular podcast, but I did it for five years.

People would find the podcast first, and that would lead them to the book and lead them to the community.

Then I started my own podcast, that was Intermittent Fasting Stories, and that’s really been the baseline for me ever since. Here’s a suggestion I have for people. If you’re naming a podcast, name it something that people will find, like Intermittent Fasting Stories.

If someone’s looking for intermittent fasting, they’re going to find that because it’s the key word and the title. So if your podcast is out there and people are finding it, it will direct them to the rest of your work.

So all of my things, and I didn’t know anything about the word ‘funnel.’ I didn’t know that word.

Then when I talked earlier about joining this community of people that are health and wellness practitioners, and influencers who are writers, and podcasters and getting the word out there. One of the first sessions was all about your funnel.

They’re like, what’s your funnel? What’s your email? I’m like, I don’t have any of that. Then I realized I really did. My podcast leads people to my books. My podcast leads people to my community. My books lead people to my podcast. My books lead people to my community.

You can’t consume one thing without finding the other things. If you like my podcast, you will like my books. If you like my podcast, you will like my community. So just really letting people find you and then leading them to the other things that you have.

My whole reason for being is not, what else can I sell you? Podcasts are free. You can read my books for free. You can get them from the library. You can get them from Audible. I mean, literally, you can find the content out there.

You can get the eBook from your library app. If your library doesn’t have the eBook, ask them to get it. You can join my community for a very small price.

So it’s not like I’m going to sell you more and more things, but the funnel kind of leads people to what they want. I’m thinking about it, I’m saying the word funnel, but it’s like my own little definition of funnel.

Joanna: I use ecosystem. You’ve got an ecosystem.

Gin: There you go. It’s a natural funnel. It’s not like click funnels, where now I’m going to put you on my email list and try to sell you 42 things a week. No, it’s not like that.

By the way, I don’t send out email newsletters. If you are in my email list, you get a notification every time a new podcast episode drops, and that’s it. I’m not like always trying to sell you things.

Joanna: I love it. I absolutely love this. People are like, what? She doesn’t have proper email list. She doesn’t have social media.

Gin: What’s really funny also in this group that I was a part of, this teaching you how to be a successful entrepreneur in the world. They’re like, “Getting an email list is the most valuable thing.”

I was in the summit, and they were like, “You had so many people with the summit that you win the email list.” I’m like, no, thank you. They’re like, what? I’m like, no, I don’t want that email list.

Joanna: No, that’s terrible. That’s unethical of them as well.

Gin: I mean, that’s the name of the game, it’s growing your email list so you can sell people things. That is not what I want to do. I could sell a fasting supplement, but you don’t need fasting supplements, everybody. I could sell fasting electrolytes, but you don’t need me to. I mean, you just don’t need it.

Fasting coffee. I could sell you fasting coffee, but guess what? All coffee is fasting coffee. Get the kind you like. Ah, anyway, you have to joke about it.

Joanna: Oh, no, you do. You do. I do remember you do have a partner with some wine, right? I remember your wine recommendations.

Gin: I definitely will have affiliate links to things I love. I’m not against doing that, but I also turn down a whole lot of sponsors or affiliate relationships.

If I don’t love it, we’re not doing it. There are so many things that were like, “Oh, we would like to advertise our whatever on your podcast.” I’m like, no, no.

Joanna: I’m the same. I think our reputation is more important than a quick buck. So I get that.

Tell people where they can find you, and your books, and the podcast, and your community online.

Gin: Well, if you just go to GinStephens.com that will funnel you everywhere. There are links there to my books, and to my community, and to my podcasts.

If it all resonates with you and it sounds like what you would like to do, I would love to support you. If you would like to follow a more complicated kind of fasting, you could do that too, but I wouldn’t.

You don’t need to fast according to the moon, and you don’t need to change 100% of what you’re eating. You are empowered to find the intermittent fasting approach that works for you, and that’s what I will help you do. We’re not all the same. I’ve said this before, someone could follow me around and do exactly what I do and have different results. So my job is to help you figure out what works best for you.

Joanna: Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time, Gin. That was great.

Gin: Thank you.

Takeaways

• Gin Stephens emphasizes the importance of updating her book to reflect new insights.
• The community’s feedback played a crucial role in the book’s evolution.
• Clean fasting is a foundational concept that needed to be emphasized in the revised edition.
• Success stories from the community align with the advice given in the book.
• Readers connect more with stories than with dry facts in non-fiction.
• Word of mouth has been a powerful tool for spreading the message of intermittent fasting.
• The challenges of releasing a second edition include losing previous reviews and links.
• Audiobooks require a different skill set and can be labor-intensive.
• Self-publishing allows for creative control, but traditional publishing offers professional support.
• Confidence in one’s unique voice and perspective is essential for non-fiction writers. Audiobook production can be a collaborative and supportive process.
• Self-publishing allows for greater creative control over content.
• Building a community is essential for authors and creators.
• Leaving Facebook can lead to a healthier online community experience.
• Maintaining boundaries on social media is crucial for mental health.
• A business model doesn’t have to be complex to be effective.
• Podcasts can serve as a powerful marketing tool for books.
• Engagement in a paid community can foster a more dedicated audience.
• It’s important to prioritize reputation over quick financial gains.
• Finding what works best for you is key in any health journey.

The post Self-Publishing A Second Edition Of A Non-Fiction Book With Gin Stephens first appeared on The Creative Penn.