Every author recognizes the moment.

You’ve set up your table. The books are neatly arranged. Maybe you have a banner, a tablecloth, something that says you belong here. You’re ready.

Someone walks by.

They slow down… glance at your books… and keep moving.

In that split second, most authors make the same move.

They start talking.

They explain the book. They summarize the plot. They reach—a little too quickly—for a reason the passerby should care.

That’s the exact moment the sale quietly slips away.

In almost every author’s journey, they start with excitement—ideas, concepts, characters, and the satisfaction of finishing something meaningful.

And then quietly, the questions change:

·         How much does this cost?

·         What do I need to invest?

·         Will I ever make it back?

That’s the moment the real question appears:

What am I actually building here?

“What am I actually building here?”

The Line Most Authors Don’t See

On the surface, all authors look the same. They write. They publish. They share their work with the world.

But underneath are two very different paths:

The hobbyist path and the business path

The difference isn’t talent. It isn’t ambition.

It’s the foundation for your decisions.

What happens when a war correspondent, Hollywood screenwriter, and strategic storyteller turns to fiction?

Listen to the episode here.

In this episode of In The Writers Chair, Lana McAra sits down with Fred Yager, a writer whose career spans the Vietnam War, the Associated Press, major film studios, and global communications strategy. His journey is anything but linear—and that’s exactly what makes his storytelling so compelling.

Fred shares how his early experiences covering real-world conflict shaped his instinct for narrative truth—and how those instincts carried into screenwriting, where he learned the realities of Hollywood, where he had thousands of scripts optioned, but only a handful produced. Instead of letting stories sit unseen, he’s now transforming those screenplays into novels—where creative freedom is far greater.

The first book is a miracle.

It appears out of years of silence, doubt, false starts, abandoned drafts, and late-night promises to yourself. It carries all the weight of your hopes. It represents the moment you finally became the person you always meant to be.

But after the celebration comes the quiet question:

What next?

One of the writers in a group raised it gently. He had published a book about hiking a wilderness trail—a true story, full of photographs, the kind of book that sits comfortably on a coffee table and invites people to pick it up.

Now he had a second book. A novel. Different tone, different structure, different expectations.

How should he make the transition?

Most writers assume they’re stuck because they don’t know enough yet.

They need another class. Another book on craft. Another conference. Another round of feedback. Another certification, credential, or permission slip from the publishing gods.

If you listen closely—really listen—to the way blocked writers talk, the problem isn’t technique.

It’s belief. Invisible, reasonable-sounding beliefs that quietly fence them in.

The Most Dangerous Cages Are the Ones That Make Sense

The hardest barriers to recognize don’t announce themselves as fear. They show up dressed as logic.

·       Who am I to call myself a writer?

·       This has already been done better.

·       I should wait until it’s perfect.

·       People will judge me.

None of these thoughts sound irrational. In fact, they often sound mature, cautious, even responsible.

That’s what makes them so effective.

They don’t feel like cages. They feel like good judgment.

Most people have a certain romantic image attached to writers.

We picture a quiet room. A wooden desk. Sunlight filtering through a window. Perhaps a cup of coffee and a notebook waiting patiently beside a typewriter.

Reality looks different.

During a recent Open Office Hours with writers, one participant joined the call from a Burger King.

You could hear the drive-through beeping in the background every few seconds. Someone behind the counter shouted an order number. The room hummed with the ordinary chaos of fast food and evening traffic.

He apologized for the noise.

Then he mentioned, almost casually, that he had been working on his book there.

Another writer laughed in surprise. She couldn’t imagine writing in that kind of distraction. For her, silence was essential.

But for him, Burger King was simply where the writing happened that day.

This small moment revealed something important about the writing life that rarely appears in inspirational speeches or glossy author interviews.

What if the fastest way to build a sustainable writing career isn’t writing more books—but writing them strategically as a series? In this episode, Julie Robitaille shares why series fiction creates momentum, deepens reader loyalty, and simplifies both writing and marketing.

Most writers think a good chapter ending is about surprise.

A gunshot. A scream. A door kicked open. Someone whispering a name they shouldn’t know.

Those things work—sometimes. But they’re unreliable, and worse, they train the writer to chase escalation instead of control. The result is a book that shouts when it should tighten its voice.

The endings that actually make readers turn the page rarely shout... They land. Twice.

This is what I call the one-two punch.

The first punch creates realization.
The second removes the reader’s footing.

It isn’t spectacle. It’s leverage.

The first punch gives the reader new information—something that reorders the scene they just read. A truth surfaces. A motive clarifies. A hidden arrangement is revealed. The reader sits back, recalibrating. Ah. So that’s what’s really going on.

When Thomas Tilson was born in 1951, he had no nose, lips, or jawbone—an anomaly so severe that survival seemed unlikely. Doctors advised his parents to let him die. Instead, his life became a 74-year testament to surgical innovation, stubborn hope, and faith that would let go.

On this week’s In The Writer’s Chair, I pulled up a seat with Thomas to discuss his memoir, Facing Myself: A Life’s Journey from Tragedy to Finding God’s Love. What unfolded was a meditation on identity—what it means to face yourself when the world has already decided who you are.

A Child of Experimental Medicine

Thomas became a patient of one of the foremost reconstructive surgeons at Northwestern. The agreement was straightforward: the surgeries would be free because his case would be documented for medical journals. Sixty-five reconstructive procedures followed. Each carried risk. Each advanced a field still defining itself.

His progress helped shape modern craniofacial reconstruction. Today, his case stands as evidence that severe deformity does not determine a person’s capacity for a full, expressive life.

But surgical innovation does not soften a difficult childhood.

Thomas recalled the snickering classrooms of the 1950s, years of speech therapy, and rebellion that left him homeless at sixteen. His resilience was not born in the operating room. It was forged in cafeterias and on sidewalks, in daily decisions to keep going.

If you sat in on the call that night, you wouldn’t have thought it was anything special. A few people in different states, one in Michigan, one in New Jersey, two in Florida. Someone’s voice was scratchy from a cold. Another was waiting for a shipment of books that seemed to be traveling by mule. Someone else had just illustrated her own children’s book because she didn’t want to pay an artist.

And yet, this is what the writing life actually looks like.

A handful of people logging in after dinner, each carrying a book idea that has taken years—sometimes decades—to reach the surface.

One woman was launching a second edition of a book about growing up in East Germany and learning to build a life beyond invisible walls.
Another had written a historical novel based on her grandmother’s journey to America in 1921.
A man was finishing a biography of Greta Garbo—his great aunt—after years of research.

It wasn’t a networking event.
It wasn’t a pitch session.
No one was trying to impress anyone.

They were simply introducing themselves. Three minutes at a time.

We’ve all seen it.

A great book—beautiful writing, carefully edited, wonderfully presented. ARC readers love it. The reviews—when they come—all give 5 stars. And yet the book idles on Amazon like a racecar that never takes off. It does not find its audience. It does not travel.

This vacuum looks like a verdict.

The author thinks the writing’s not good enough. Or worse, maybe they’re not good enough. They try harder. Ramp up social media. Do a blog tour. Lower prices. Add urgency—get this deal before it disappears.

Professional authors pause.

They understand something that takes professional writers years to learn: a good book is not the same as a working book.

Every writer knows the moment. You’re re-reading a scene that matters, and something tightens in your chest.

Is this believable?
Is this too much?
Have I crossed a line I can’t uncross?

Writers often call this the “cringe factor,” but that word is misleading.

Cringe is not the enemy. Disbelief is.

The distinction matters.

Discomfort is a valid—and often necessary—reader response. It means the story is working. Disbelief, on the other hand, breaks the spell. The reader stops trusting the story and starts judging the writer.

Manuscripts stumble when the timing is wrong.

Most writers believe their audience is something to worry about after the book is finished.

That’s when the cover is ready. That’s when they write the back-cover copy and check the genre boxes. Marketing people determine the audience because that’s a business decision.

That’s also why so many books flounder.

Audience is not a marketing decision. It’s a storytelling decision. When it’s unclear, the book has no place to anchor.

You can feel it when beta readers disagree wildly. When one person calls the book gripping and another calls it disturbing. When an editor says the writing is strong, but they can’t articulate who the reader is. The story works on the page but not in the world.

What’s usually missing isn’t talent or effort. It’s alignment.

Writers know where they belong.

Bookstores. Libraries. Literary festivals. Conferences with lanyards and coffee urns and panel discussions that run ten minutes over. These are the sanctioned spaces. They are safe. They are familiar. They are, in many cases, crowded with other authors hoping to be noticed by the same small group of readers.

What we are not taught—and might feel faintly rebellious—is that books sell very well where no one expects them.

A gun show. A car show. A county fair. An antique market. These are not environments most authors would circle on a calendar with anticipation. They sound weird or at least a bit odd. What would people who came to buy spark plugs or quilts or hunting gear want with a novel?

I didn’t expect to sell books at a gun show.

That sentence alone would probably get me politely escorted out of most publishing conferences, but it happens to be true. I set up my author table between vendors selling knife sharpeners and boxes of ammunition, fully prepared for an afternoon of awkward smiles and polite disinterest. What I got instead was conversation—real conversation—with people I would never have met inside a bookstore.

By the end of the day, I sold ten books. I also met a former shop owner who bought a novel because she loves to read, a man who quietly admitted he wanted to write a novel, and a local business owner whose card I slipped into my pocket because, as it turns out, I need a handyman. I made my table fee back and then some. But that wasn’t the part that stayed with me…