Understanding Audiences and Writing Compelling Stories with Lyle Smith, author of WHY YELLOW MATTERS

Discover the secrets to finding inspiration and creating meaningful work on the latest episode of The Talk Freelance To Me Podcast. Host Ashley Cisneros Mejia sits down with author and consultant Lyle Smith to discuss his new book WHY YELLOW MATTERS and how it can help you question your beliefs, understand different audiences, and produce your best creative work. 

Lyle shares invaluable advice he received as a young reporter to focus your message and insights from his decades of experience helping businesses connect with customers. He also opens up about the unexpected journey that led to writing his book and the importance of collaboration. Tune in to hear Lyle's most memorable quotes and uncover practical tips for writing, publishing, and marketing your own books from a true master of the craft.

About Lyle Smith and WHY YELLOW MATTERS

Lyle Smith is the author of the new book, WHY YELLOW MATTERS, and host of “The Story Forge Podcast”.  He’s been a daily newspaper reporter, editor, in-house marketing executive, agency creative director, author, and for more than the past decade, chief of his own consulting brand story agency called Nymblesmith where he helps small to mid-sized businesses get their stories straight so their customers recognize the depth of their value. 

Order your copy of WHY YELLOW MATTERS here.

Full show notes here.

Chapters

• 3:00 The origin of Lyle’s book WHY YELLOW MATTERS from a blog post he wrote years ago
• 6:31 The importance of asking why
• 10:11 Why you should always take time to get it right
• 11:42 Give people things that matter to them
• 13:33 Our value as creatives is that we see the world differently
• 16:32 Everyone has a story to tell
• 17:31 Getting company leaders to put themselves in their customers’ shoes
• 19:21 Your brand story is less about you and more about what matters to your customers
• 19:57 People will give you their attention if you give them value
• 22:52 The struggle some founders experience in letting go of their companies
• 27:27 Picking a cover design for your book
• 35:28 The necessary friction between words and images in creative works
• 40:52 The best writing advice Lyle Smith ever received
• 47:30 What’s next for author Lyle Smith

Transcript

0:00

Take the time, get it right. There's the famous quote from Steve Jobs, who always taught, because people would tell him you have to listen to what the customer wants and give them what they want. And he said, no, I, you tell the customer what they want. That's what this is. If you pay attention to what matters to them, you can create something that they will want. And pay attention to and read and pick up just because you understand what matters to them, that part of tell them what they want, it only works if what you're telling them they want is something that actually works for them. Welcome to Talk Freelance To Me, the podcast for women freelance writers, 1099 independent contractors, and solopreneurs. I'm your host, Ashley Cisneros Mejia. For more than 20 years, I've worked as a journalist and freelance writer. Today, as a mom of three kids, I'm passionate about helping other women leverage their free time. Freedom that freelance offers on top freelance to me. We're all about the business of freelancing. If you want to learn how to monetize your talents, make money on your own terms and design a flexible work life that actually works for you. This show is for you before we get started. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite social media platforms. Review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. And don't forget to share this episode with a friend. Visit our website at talkfreelancetome. com for free resources. Join our email list to be the first to know about our latest offers. Thanks for tuning in and let's get into the episode. Today you are in for a treat. I have my good friend, Lyle Smith, on the podcast. How are you, Lyle? I'm very well. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here. We're talking all about your new book. I have a copy, Why Yellow Matters. I'm super excited to get into this. I've read it. I've marked some things that I really have enjoyed. I've taken some notes too. Can't wait to dive into this freelance spam. As usual. I always give you a little snippet of our guest bio so you can get to know Lyle a little bit more. Lyle Smith is the author of the new book, why yellow matters and the host of the story forge podcast. He's been a daily newspaper reporter, editor and house marketing executive. Agency, creative director, author, and for more than a decade, chief of his own consulting brand story agency called Nymble Smith, where he helps small to midsize businesses get their story straight. So their customers recognize the depth of their value. While you have done a million and three things in the writing world, we were just talking about that before we started recording. Congrats on the book, first of all. This is a big deal. Tell me the path to this book. I know this is not the first thing that you've written. I've made my career writing other people's stuff. That's been good. It's been rewarding. It's been challenging. Sometimes this book came out of, it's really, it came out of a blog post I wrote several years ago. The title is anchored in that too. It took me a while to figure out what the title would be. We're all trying to put up content that people are going to be interested in and engaged in and drive some business and all that kind of stuff. And so I wrote this one piece I had been. Scouring my house looking for one of my running shoes and I realized it's funny because I found I had two pairs of the exact same shoe, same model, same amount of wear, same age, same everything. I mean, it was exactly the same, same size. The only difference was one pair was blue and the other pair was yellow. And for whatever reason, I spent an extra 15 minutes. Searching around my home, looking for the other yellow shoe because I had decided long ago that yellow was better or faster or whatever. And, and I sat down tying my shoe and I'm looking at my watch and saying, now I don't have time to get my run in and thinking, how ridiculous is this? That I. Spent all this extra time looking for this thing. That's where I have something exactly the same. If I were to run blindfolded, it would be the same. And so I sat down and I wrote a little something about that. And it was a blog post length. So what? 300, 400 words, something like that. And I put it up and I got some them. I got some hits on it. I got some people who were interested in it. And my one friend who I had dinner with, he was visiting here last week, was talking about it. And he said, I remember when you wrote that first thing. And I said, yeah, it's, it was just something that stuck with me. And then, uh, a few years later, again, I was searching to create some more content for the, for the website and get some people interested. I had been taking a turn to writing shorter. And so I, but I liked, I always liked this one piece. So I took the piece and I started cutting it down. And trying to make it just more active and more direct and all this sort of thing. And it came out to very much what's in the book. That's really the first article in the book. And it was, it's, I don't even know how many words it is, but it was a writing style choice, almost poetic. Yeah, that's what it reminds me of. If I don't want to claim to be a poet in any way, but it was just single lines and a punctuation that maybe isn't grammatically correct, but it knocks out the pauses that I want people to think in their heads as they're reading it. And I was really pleased with it. I posted it up on LinkedIn and I got a ton of activity and I was like, what's going on with this? This is really interesting. And I said, so I think I've hit on something, probably the style, probably the a, the, a, the idea and be sort of the style of communication. So it's real quick and easy to read and, and punchy. And so I thought, well. I've been wanting to challenge myself to write post 30 days in a row, something, whatever it is. And so let me try and come up with a list of ideas that fit this format. And maybe I can do something with that. So I started doing this and I did, uh, I got my 30 days of writing, of posting something. And some of it, they weren't all articles like this. Some of them were like little photos and little ideas. And I was experimenting with a lot of different things, but I had enough of these things. Banked that I was like, okay, I really like this style. I like this idea and I'm always talking about with clients. What are the, what are the things that matter to me? Because that's to me, if you're not paying attention to your audience and what they want, you have to be, you have to really be tuned into what matters. Cause like, yeah, I'll, I'll ask, I'll ask people, they'll write an idea down and send any, I'll hear something. Why don't we try this? And then I'll inevitably turn back and say, yeah, it's, it's clever, but what does it mean? And so we spend an inordinate amount of time diving into what does that mean? And as a result, why does it matter? Who cares? You write this idea down. If it doesn't connect with someone and what they need or what they want or what they're trying to achieve, what's the point? So I started figuring out these ideas and I got them all together. And then I, I, I. Collected them. Some of them were posts. Some of them never made it. Past my desk and I had I gathered the batch of what I thought were the best of them and I ordered them into an order that seemed to make sense for me and I looked at it and I'm like, and I sent it off to a couple of different friends. And I said, I, I think this is a thing. Do you think this is a thing? I'm not sure. And so I got enough yeses that was like, yeah, okay, so maybe this is a little book or something, and I can put this together. And so I started investigating the indie publishing world from there. And that's, that's where the book came from. I love it. I think it's so cool. It's definitely made me think, and it's almost excellent. Yeah. It's something philosophical, like ideas about what matters, what matters to people about connections, about questioning these things about the fact that people Are irrational and I know in our work In the agency life where we're helping these small businesses, we try, we look at data, we look at focus groups, we look at surveys, we look at SEO, we're constantly trying to figure out what makes people tick, why do they do what they do, how can we influence them to do what we want them to do. And one of the pieces, and I can't remember if it was YLO matters or which one. It was which section, but it was just talking about how like people are irrational. Like even what you were talking about with the shoes. That's not rational. But it's, it's meaningful to you. It means something to you. You were talking also about like. Superstitions. And I love how you, you talked about that being the people, some people write those things off. Oh, they're just superstitions. But I love how you mentioned their rituals to people. They're how people get in the framework and the zone is what you used to do the thing that we're doing. And so I think. Yeah. You've definitely given me a lot to think about. Yeah. I've enjoyed it. I appreciate you saying so, but it's funny, it started out as just a bunch of things that I thought would maybe drive business or, or connected to agency type people, or I was saying for a while, it's for writers or people who hire writers or creative people and that kind of stuff. But the more I looked at it, the more I thought it's, it's more than that really, I think, because all this stuff matters to. Creative people, I think, and writers and communicators and hopefully leaders and founders and people who manage a staff of people, but it also, I think a lot of it matters a friend of mine who, who blurbed the back, my friend, Jeff Simpson said it. And I thought, oh, well, that's maybe that's what it's about because sometimes it takes somebody else to tell you what the book's about. And I, he said, it's really about taking the time to ask why. And I said, I like it really is. I hadn't been able to enunciate it, but it's, I think that's really what it is. It's cause sometimes there's one about take, take the time to get it right. Yes. I enjoyed that one. And I'm sure this coming from your background and I know it from my agency background, but. Where you, so, and the newspaper background in particular, so much is, is, is based in deadline and getting things. Getting it out. Getting out, get it out the door, get it out. It has to get out and it has to get Mm-Hmm., here's the, and and I have always thought. That if it's not right, it shouldn't go out the door. I think I mentioned it in the book, but in the newspaper business is where I learned what a deadline really is in the newspaper business. When you miss the 11 o'clock deadline by one minute, 25 union pressmen in the next building go on overtime for time and a half for an hour. So that's what a deadline means. Now, in the agency world, if you miss a deadline by an hour or four hours or a day, most of the time, it doesn't really make that a difference. Right. Unless, unless it's a publishing deadline, a hard deadline where something has to get printed or produced, it doesn't have that, the stakes aren't that high. So I think it's important to be aware of the stakes and it's important to, because sometimes it does matter, but most of the time, take the time, get it right. There's the famous quote from Steve jobs who always taught me because people would tell him you have to listen. To what the customer wants and give them what they want. And he said, no, I, you tell the customer what they want. That's what this is. And it's, I'm not so strong on it that way, but it's like, it's, if you pay attention to what matters to them, you can create something that they will want and pay attention to and read and pick up just because you understand what matters to them. You're not making something the, the, that part of tell them what they want. It only works if what you're telling them they want is something that actually works for them. It only works because the iPhone is really cool. It doesn't, if the iPhone was not that cool, it wouldn't have worked. Yeah. As you were speaking, something was coming up in terms of trust. Like I was thinking about trust, because when you, When you don't like in the newspaper for using if we're talking about in that context with news when you don't get it right when you in your pursuit of speed to be first, you mess up on those details. Your credibility is diminished and people are not trusting you to get it right. They're not trusting you to give them the accurate information that they want. And similarly, in the agency world where your businesses are coming to you because they have a pain point, they have a need, they need your help. Okay. And if you, by showing that you care about what matters to them and understanding what matters to their target audience, to their clients, they, I feel like that builds trust, that interest, that commitment, right. To understanding what matters to you, what's going to make an impact to you. I feel like that people feel like you're listening. Yeah. I think that's really sharp. And to go off on that a little bit, the idea of some clients In my mind, they hire me because I have expertise in that they think they need, or they hopefully they think they need. And you, so I bring my sense of vision and creativity and perspective to what they're doing. Um, sometimes. Clients just want help with the heavy lifting. They, how many blog posts can you SEO posts? Can you write for me every month? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, fine. That's great. But that's only going to get you so far. And, and I talk about this a little bit too, the, the, the order takers. So you're, if you're, if you're a real creative person, if you're in the creative world, like we are, you, your value is really, you know, Comes from that you think about things differently than they do if you didn't do that, they wouldn't need you in my mind. It's, it's up to us to educate them on what, what they can use us for. I'm like, yeah, you can use me for 16 blog posts a month if you want, and we'll do it. And you give me a list of topics. We'll put them out 400 words a piece and keywords and blah, blah, blah. And off you go. But if you, if you lean on us a little bit and ask what. Instead of I need this much material every month ask, here's what I'm trying to achieve. We're trying to get more X amount, more traffic. We're trying to drive X number of sales through this channel. We're trying to, and then let us design a, an idea from concept execution, how that might happen. We're going to be a lot more valuable to you than just pounding out words at a keyboard. Absolutely. Knowing that end goal, because sometimes when you're talking about like training, educating clients and helping them understand what's possible, figuring out that end goal, I mean, it's so important. Sometimes I can remember situations where folks would come up and saying, I need to be on X social media platform because my competitors there, or I need a billboard because my competitor has, has one and I want one too. And it's, but what's, what's the goal, right? Because. There might be other channels that we should be using to achieve those goals that marketing, communications, PR, brand journalism, our clients are not from that world, so we have to show them, here's the recommended path that we think is, will help you get to that goal. Right, but that's, but again, that's, that's the why, right? Yeah. That's why I need to be on this, this platform. Okay, why? Right. Why do you think you need to be there? Okay. Okay. Let's take a, take a step back. What is it you're trying to achieve? Okay. Maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe, maybe that is where you need to be. And then if you're there. And how do you need to appear when you're there? How do you, cause you have every take it from the business perspective, but I mean, every person, everybody has a story. You can call it a brand. You can call it a style. You can call it a, uh, the personal attitude you walk down fifth Avenue with whatever, and that you want people to pay attention to or emulate or whatever. So we all have this, this style, but we have to find a way to communicate to the people who matter to us. In a way that matters to them and if you, if you go at it and say, well, my competitors on tick tock or my, my competitor started a YouTube channel and I have to start doing videos, okay, yeah, maybe, but be sure why you're doing it. Otherwise you're, you're just, you're, you're creating a lot of work for yourself. That may not really deliver on the value side. A hundred percent. And, and I was, I, it's, it's hard to talk to some clients that way, cause they're really convinced. Yeah. And that's why one of the things I do with, with my clients is a brand story exercise and this, this gets, you talk about trust, this gets a lot of trust for me from some of these guys. Cause I ended up sitting in a room. I try and be with four or five people. The CEO or the founder, whoever the top dog is probably a marketing person, probably their right hand person, whoever that is, whatever role they might be in. Cause we're working with smaller businesses. So it might not be your COO. It might be your COO. And then I always ask to have somebody have somebody in there that that deals directly with the customer. Ideally, the customers. Complaints all the time. So good. Cause those that's, that's the, that's the perspective I want to have when we do this and we start, and we start working through, through the brand story and, and in a real hero's journey kind of way, who's the hero, who's the villain, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. But then we take a couple of hours to dig into, dig beyond those basic questions. What does it mean? And then we always end up. Having, and my biggest challenge in there is always, it's always with the CEO and it's always just trying to remind him or her hers. Go, go with you more, by the way, they run with it. They like the exercise. The guys, the guys tend to be really rigid about, about what their boxes and where they need to be. And, which is an interesting thing. I think, um, But, and maybe a good perspective for your show, but the guys, they all do it because they all suffer from shiny object syndrome where they want to move on to the next thing. And they, they, they, they see their job as coming up with great ideas. Which is, which is terrific. And that's great. And a lot of them could be really valuable from a sales perspective or a marketing perspective or whatever. But in this exercise, when you're trying to figure out your brand story, who it is you're talking to, why, what matters to them, I go through this whole thing where I literally have them close their eyes for a few minutes and just, okay. Think about your customer. Think about being your customer. Think about how they see you and what you do and, and, and what other people do, who do what you do, because it's, I need you to think about how you're going to get their attention and why, why they should give you their attention. Cause that's another thing. When people read, they, there's studies have been done about this. I remember one from the newspaper business years ago, where, where they, they always say people don't read anymore and it's not exactly true. They, they, they read, they will grant you their time. In about 5 second increments, and if you're still valuable to them after 5 seconds, they'll give you another 5 seconds and they never give you the whole article. They'll give you 5 seconds at a time. And so when you write. It's good to keep that in mind. That's what I found writing this stuff was the short sentences, the short ideas, it keeps you moving along in the idea. So try and write like Hemingway people, you will lose them because they only grant you their time in very short bits. And once you lose them, they're gone. So same with the CEO. I have to keep reminding them, no, great idea. Love it. Make a note. But you're talking to me through your CEO eyes. I need you to think through your customer eyes. And I am constantly reminding them to do that. And when I can do that, we come up with something pretty fantastic. So it's fun that way. I love that you include all of those folks in those, those brand storytelling sessions. It makes me think almost of families too, because as parents, I know you have a son. I've got three kids here. And as parents, we have our kids. We see them. We welcome them into the world. We decide what their name is going to be, but then they decide who they are. And I feel like they slowly. Reveal themselves to us who they are, what their ideas about the world, and we can try to influence those things, but they really become their own person, and we want them to become their own person, right? Similarly, with a company, I feel like founders, it's hard. It's hard to get them to step away and realize that. What they intended their company to be and what was in their brain first, once it was released into the world, and you've got all of these people that become part of the team and the customers will come and tell you, yes, that's what I want. You were close, but this is really what I want. That that company takes on its own personality and becomes this entity separate from the genius of the founder. And sometimes I feel like. That is the friction and the resistance is getting the founder to understand that that entity, that company, that product, that service, that may look different. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a fascinating metaphor. And it made me think of two things. One, as a writer, when you're writing, cause I write fiction as well, and I've written plays and things where you're writing a character and the characters go off and do their things. And I always used to say, and people, my friends of mine would laugh at me when I said this and I said, and I'd get frustrated and say, the characters won't do what I want them to do. That's cool. And they're like, but you, but they're your characters. You're right. Yeah, I did. But they're not, they don't belong to me. They just won't behave. You made a good one. The same as a company, if you made a good one, it's going to go do its own thing. And a couple of times in my life, I've had, I've worked for an agency and a couple of businesses that, that got acquired by another business. And so it's a smaller business, usually with one founder or lead personality, and then they get. Bought out by somebody else, it was hysterical because it happened twice, three times really, but twice where they fight it every, the deal's done, they've made gobs of money on it, they're great, they keep them there for in a president role or an advisory role or whatever it is, they keep them in and then the business gets, becomes part of this larger business. And then it starts to change and they, and they get frustrated and because, because when, and I was, I was laughing because I always just say, when, when you sell your business, It's happened. My, my, my father in law happened. He was a veterinarian and he sold his, he sold his practice and they kept him there for a while. They transition. And he, and it's like, when you sell your business, it is not yours anymore. It doesn't belong to you anymore. You don't have that kind of control and controls a little bit of a phantom anyway, but it's, uh, and they really struggled with it to the point where I won one, One time, and this may be a story for a whole nother episode, the guy who had been, who had been CEO of the smaller company was kept in and whatever. And then he had, he had been working behind the scenes because he wanted to take over the larger company and all this stuff. So a year, almost a year to the, to the day, like his contract was up. Right. The year to the day. And they met him at the door and escorted him out of the building. Oh, no, that's a little bit of a rude awakening, right? Talk about rude awakening. Yeah, it was rough. And he's gone on to do very well for himself and other, other companies. So it's not, I'm not. And I won't name them. So I'm not speaking out of school, but it was, it was, I was, I happened to be there that morning. Cause I, I used to take the, I used to commute from New Jersey into New York. And so I was there earlier than most people. And so I saw this whole thing transpire on the floor and I was like, wow, I'm just going to keep my head down. Yeah, that's, that's. That's major. That's a major. It was, it was wild. It was wild. And but, but that's how it is. But, but like you say, as, as the CEO, these things take on their own life. And the larger they grow, I'm working with a client now that's, that's basically doubled their size in the last two and a half years. And it's there. So they're wrestling with that and how it's, and it's a, it's a hundred year old family business. Right. And they're growing like crazy. And it's like, wow, that's gotta be rough. To see where it's headed and really, and you try and control and control, maybe the wrong word for it. I think it's just direct. Maybe you, you just kinda, you, you, you pull the sheets on the, on the sailing vessel and try and guide it in the wind. Cause you can't really control it. You can only guide it through. And, It's interesting. It's fun to watch because I'm outside of it too. So, right, right. That's so interesting. And you talked about there were pieces that you were in the process of writing your book that never made it past your desk that you discarded. How did what criteria did you use to decide this is what's going in? This is what's not. And how did when it was done and well, It's funny you mentioned, I had one in there that I had written for my son or with my son in mind, because I was carpooling with he and his friend to school. And I always like to listen to one type of music. And. They prefer something else. And so they would talk about this and that and the other thing. And I'd talk about God and I had the radio on. I didn't have the, I didn't have any satellite or, or, or Bluetooth anything. So they were like, Oh, skip this song. Skip. And I'm like, I can't, it's the radio. Right. And I'm like, they have no concept of the radio. And I'm like, this is really funny. So I wrote this piece about music and getting exposed to music. And how do you learn new stuff and get new bands for me? So it was always rock and roll bands, but it's whatever type of music you listen to. How do you get exposed to this stuff? And it was, it was a nice piece. It was all right. And it, but I had it in the original manuscript and I ended up working with. One very close friend of mine, Rocket is his name and he, he did the, I'm pointing, he did the design of the cover, which I absolutely love a couple of different versions. I love them all and he, he helped me with the layout and the design of the book. And so he read everything and, and he's a really sharp. He will say he's not a writer, but he's, he's quite good. And he pointed that one out and he was like, no, that's, I don't know if that really fits. I mean, I'm not sure exactly what, and I rewrote it because once the first time it was like, I'm not sure, I'm not sure exactly what it means. And then I went back and looked at it and I rewrote it and he said, nah, this is bad. I like it. It's much better, but I still don't think it fits. I'm like, okay, so I went and grabbed another one and I, I slotted a couple interests to trying to figure out which ones fit and the book it's the book is, is divided into three sections where it's like thinking things, deciding things and writing things. And the ones that fit those categories stayed in the book. And the ones that didn't got put in a file somewhere. They may come back at another time. And I just figured I didn't want to make it too long. So it's, what is it now? About 148, 150 pages. And I wanted it to be easy, easily readable, easily digestible. But because I, I hope anyway, that people have to take a little time to think about what each one of the means. I didn't want it to be a reference guide, wanted it to be a fairly quick, easy read. And so I landed on 30 pieces and the third, there's one at the end that's, there's one at the end that doesn't, the one that's not like the others. It's really like a tips for good writing that I really liked. And I thought I wanted to include in this thing and it made sense as the last piece of this one. And that's, that's how you just pick the best ones and take your best guess at it. Sometimes it's the ones you like. Sometimes it's the ones, the people you trust who read it like, and you listen to those folks. And, and that's my friend who did the cover also really helped me come up with the title. Cause we were talking earlier, I had a different title in my mind that I really liked, but I wasn't sure it would work for other people. And it was originally just called the meditations on misbelief and hyphenated misbelief. So the idea is to think about the things you believe and why, because you're not always right. I'm not always right. And sometimes the things you believe change over time. So the idea was the same, but he really, he wanted something pithier and that he could do a design with. And then it was funny that the cover design, he, he worked on it longer than I wanted him to. And I'm like, I'm waiting for this cover and I want to get out there. Yeah. And he, we're on a zoom call. He's cause he was in, he was living in Brazil at the time. And so. He gets on and he gets up in the camera like this and he goes, are you, are you ready? And I'm like, yeah, I'm ready. I'm like, okay, okay.'cause I'm really excited about this. And he turned around and he showed me the, the cover. And the cover was a little different. It was, it was on, originally it was on a, the background instead of the green, blue, white background. It was on a, I imagine if you put a, a piece of paper into a Xerox machine and it printed out as that just black gray. Wash that you get from a blank page and then he put, it was a different lemon, but he put the lemon on top of that in all black, glossy and whatever. And the, the, and layout of the title was a little bit different, but it was, but he showed it to me and he said, what do you think? And I, and I went like, my chin dropped and my, my eyes went like dinner plates. And I was like, cause I had a whole bunch of other ideas in my head of what it would be. And all of the, all of them. Yellow fade, the color yellow figured prominently, and this was nothing like what I was thinking about. And he showed it and I'm like, I love it. And then he redid it a little bit and found a lemon he liked better and all this, but the concept was always the same. And I know your audience is a lot of writers and if anybody's, if anybody's thinking about writing a book, the best advice I can give you after do the best writing you can and have a really great idea. Which I understand just kind of gets gifted to you by the universe sometimes have, have somebody you really trust who can do the cover and, and give you some good input, good, hard things to listen to sometimes too, about what's good and bad about it and what needs to be changed and what works and doesn't work and all that. Cause. As much as writing a book as a solo enterprise, producing a book and putting it out there to the world is absolutely a collaborative effort when it's done. Well, so, and I was fortunate to have one, one guy who could do both of those things. I had also a good friend who was a proofreader who was. Invaluable to me, even though it's a weird format and grammar is not as important as some books and Heather, my wife is, she's a voracious reader and she likes most of my stuff and, and she was incredibly helpful. As well, so, and my son, Aiden, Aiden's 14 now, and he, and I would read stuff to him and sometimes it was sometimes he, but he always liked listening to it, even when he was with the earlier pieces. I read I've read him stuff forever. And, uh, I always read things out loud if it's to make sure, make sure they sound right, because it's an auditory practice as much as it is. A written one. So I would read things out to Aiden and see what he's like. Oh, I really like that one. And sometimes it's like, man, it's okay. What does that mean? I'm like, good. Keep asking that. This is so good. I could almost see this as almost like a daily app. I love how you with that first title that you mentioned the meditations, because I felt like. All of this makes me think, right? Even the cover when you were like, okay, so why a lemon? Okay. Lemons are yellow, but there's no yellow into it, but there's certain all of it makes you stop and think seeing the word yellow spelled out and capital letters, but then my proofreader color. My proofreader hated the break in yellow, by the way. It's on two lines. Couldn't stand it. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I'm not changing it. No, it's cool. All of it makes you think, right? And that's what we want. I think this is the anti chat GPT. Like this, all of this, It's so refreshing because that does make you think that's a, that's a funny thing. That's a funny thing. Cause I did take just totally out of curiosity. I took a couple of these pieces that I wrote and put them into an AI tool and said, basically rewrite it, show me, you know, correct it, make it better or whatever. And they came back and I'm like, Oh, my God, that's terrible because it doesn't, it's a really specific style. It doesn't work. I don't think it doesn't work. If it's just pure pros, it has to be broken up this way. And we spent a lot of time making sure it, when, when rocket was laying it out, we did live layout sessions and just checked every, every break, every page break, every line break, and we caught things every, every go around. It was funny. It catch things every step. So if you catch something, I don't want to hear about it. Don't tell me. But you do. And that's another lesson in. And proofreading and editing is that there it's, it's not a matter of making it perfect. It's a matter of, of minimizing the mistakes. Yeah. It doesn't work unless it's, it's broken up this way. And the layout and the design line by line is part of the meaning. Right. And I commented on somebody's something. Yesterday, they were talking about how they had a presentation and they were trying to make the argument that if, if you stripped out of your pitch deck, all the imagery, and just had white background, black text, if it doesn't make sense, it's not going to work. Right. And I'm like, that kind of makes sense. And then a designer got in and made a comment. And basically the, the picture is worth a thousand words perspective, which I bought. Which I buy, but then I went in and commented and I said, and I get that and I agree with it. However, the designer still needs the stories. The designer needs the words. What are you trying to communicate? So if you don't have a clear idea to communicate, you can't put the right picture with it. A wonderfully love hate relationship with a lot of designers over the years, because they have very specific ideas about things. And I don't always agree and I'm not always in charge either. I had a lot of creative directors I've worked with were designers first. I prefer working with a creative director who, if they're not a writer first, they're definitely a writer as well. Because I think writing is not just writing. Writing is storytelling. Writing is designing. Writing is thinking. Writing is a lot of these things. And so for every one page of finished product I have, I have a hundred pages of notes filling a drawer or a trash can or something. Cause you got to work through it all and designs the same way as you work through a lot of iterations of, of what you're doing to try and communicate an idea and whether you're doing that with a picture or, or letters. I love that. I love, even when you were talking about that word, misbelief in the first, in the first title that you were thinking about it and the hyphen, right? We have to know. When you're talking about writers are all of these things and all of these activities are associated, not just thinking of words and typing them on a keyboard, but we're translators, right? Like, we are, we're just stealing information and we're thinking about who we want to reach and what they speak, what they're going to receive. And out of all the language that we can use, what's the precise word that we need to use for this, this situation. And we need to know those things so that we can give it to the designer so that they can visually figure out how to communicate. I feel like if 1 thing is wrong, if we're using the wrong word. That takes everything off, off the track. I think you could. Yeah, no, a different result. I agree. It's, and it's different. It depends. And, and there's an interpretive component to it all too. It's like whoever reads it, reads it in a different way. I forget. I want to say it was a Mel Brooks. Movie or a Melbrook sketch or something where he told you they were doing the to be or not to be speech from him and the, the, the actor decided he was going to do it in a different way. And so instead of to be or not to be, that is the question, whether it is no blur in the mind, blah, blah, blah. And he said. To be or not to be that is the question is whether it is no blur in the mind and he, and he broke it all. And it's like, it was hysterical. It's a comedy, but in the way he presented it and acted it out, it was just, it was a riot because it's like, wow, that's just so wrong. But then if you listen to it a little closer, you're like, well, wait a second, let me think about that for just a minute. And yeah, maybe there's something there because of the way people read sentences. That you write, they might read them differently than you intended them to read. And so that's, so, and you can't control any of that, but it's, you can think about it a little bit. Yeah. You can do your best to anticipate. Yeah. Try and get, and that's, and that's what this does is cause it's all very line, period, line, period, dot, dot, dot, dash, whatever I use. I forget. And all these places is designed like when you write a play or when you read a play, You will see. Different types of punctuation to notate. What the actor should do, and then you have things in parentheses for stage directions. So if you, you, a lot of modern plays don't have that much in it. They, they have, it's mainly just text and you read it like it's a normal, uh, punctuation. But if you read like a Samuel Beckett play. It has a ton of little ellipses to indicate pauses and then have stage directions that say a long pause and things like this, because he was, he was very, very specific about what he wanted, how he wanted his play to be, uh, presented and they're harder to read it's advanced, it's advanced theater reading, but if you can get into the zone of it, it's you, you get exactly what he means and you're not going to misunderstand it. So, I don't know. It's just, there's different ways around all this stuff. And, and the biggest thing, the best advice I have, best writing advice I ever got was, I was starting my job. I was actually interviewing for my job at the newspaper, my first newspaper. So I went to a, a town meeting and I came back to the newsroom and the, the main reporter for the town was at the same meeting and she came back and she was writing her stuff. And she said, you're trying out for the paper, right? I said, yeah. I said, what are you, what are you going to do? I'm like, I have no idea all this information. I have pages and pages and she said, do you want to, you want to tip? And I'm like, yeah, sure. And she said, and we're so weird. And they, this was the days we were there. There were console machines. They weren't even like PCs. They were like big console machines that were, that were, that would shoot straight to the typesetter. And. She said, pick one, pick one, one topic that you thought was important. And I'm like, okay, well, that, that simplifies it right there. It was never having done it before. I thought, well, I write one article that covers everything that happened in the meeting. And no, no, no, no. Each one of these things is a separate story that talks about, one talks about sewage and drainage. One talks. It's about science. One talks about parking, whatever it is they're talking about. So pick out the one you think is important and don't worry about it because they're all important. So just pick one. Okay. And then sit down and try to explain it as if you're talking to your grandmother. And I said, and she said, no, Your grandmother knows nothing about any of this. Right. I said, no, not in a million years. So explain it like you're explaining to your grandmother and I'm like, okay, I sat down and I wrote it and I sent it in and they ran it and I got the job and I worked in the newspaper for a few years and it was great, but the lesson was Not be simple and explain it to somebody who doesn't understand it. Although that's important It's be really clear on who you're talking to Be really clear on who, because as much as your client wants to be the audience, they want to be the person you're talking to. You need to sell them. That's not who matters. Who matters is the person who's receiving it. And if you're not clear on that, you're going to have a real uphill battle, but if you can even to the point where, and I've done this with some, some clients who, who aren't getting it, where I'll write a little thing at the top that says the audience is, or the, the target is, and describe who that person is, um, basically describe their customer and, and then, and then you have the stuff you wrote, and then that way there's some context. There's a setup. It's like a joke. A good joke has a setup and a punchline. Right. And it's like, it's like that. And, and that they're more able to picture the stuff you created in the place they thought was supposed to be talking to themselves. That's, that's the biggest danger is you see, you keep, you start talking to yourself all the time and that's, that's, that's bad, I think. And I'm sure you, I'm sure you're familiar with that, that. Very much. Yeah, I get into it with myself. Start fighting with myself, debating. Yeah, it can get, it can get ugly quickly. Right, right. I love it. You put so much intention in this. In everything, in every part of it. Everything that you've written, we've talked about the cover. We've talked about the title so much. What, what do you want this impact to be on the readers of this book? What do you want them to do after reading air? How do you want their life to change after they take in why yellow matters? I want a million people to carry it around with them. It's funny. I have, I have a bunch of books. I'm, as you might expect, I'm a book guy and there are some novels I read every year. I'll go back and read Gatsby every year. There are some things I'll look at there. I'm such a geek. Oh my God. I'm inventing this. I read the declaration of independence every 4th of July. Oh, I love that. Partly because I think it's important to remember what the holidays about and partly it's just really good writing. There's, there's some, there's some crazy stuff down there in the, he did this, he did that section, but there's some really good writing at the beginning and the end. And so, and I have sitting on my desk as I'm sure you have somewhere. Uh, nearby, uh, I have, I have an AP style guide. I have a strunk and white little how to write well guide. These sort of things that I have around that I pick up when I, when I need to remember something. It's like, Oh, wait, lay or lie. Which one is that? Oh, that one always gets me. I couldn't tell you right now. That's why I have the book. But I feel like I. If I could declare what I, what I would like this to be, and I know I can't, but it would be nice for it to be the thing that, that sits around, sits on somebody's shelf after they've read it, maybe a couple of times, I don't know. And there's one or two that really resonate with them or really confuse them maybe. And they keep going back to it every so often to say, oh yeah, that, yeah. And that helps me do what I'm working on better. For me, that would be it. It's like, it's, it's not a reference guide, but a, an inspiration guide, I guess, or maybe a clarify, a reminder, really again, that, that idea that take the time to get it right. Take the time to ask why, if, if, if that, if this thing can remind them to do that more often, I think that's a victory right there. Very cool. I love it. Well, I will definitely be revisiting it and continuing to think about it and take breaks because I have to absorb and really meditate. It's great stuff. What's, what's next for you? I know you've written plays, you've had books, you've got ideas for days. Is another book on the way? Yeah, well, the idea was this was a heavy lift. It's funny. It's not a long book, but it's a project to get it out there. That said, I have learned how to do the indie publishing thing. And I had a couple of friends, friends of mine from kindergarten. Wow. Both have written books. Very cool. In different fields. One is a sales guy. My friend, Brett Kirstead wrote a book called We're All Sales People. And, uh, and my friend, Peggy DeLong, Dr. Peggy DeLong, she's a psychologist, wrote a couple of books, but she wrote a fantastic memoir. And then she wrote one, The Gratitude Guide, because that's her area of practice now. And they went through a, one of these companies that does. Beyond vanity publishing and, and into the indie publishing world, and it's like, let me control it myself kind of a thing. And so I, I, I talked to them a little bit about it and, and, and did my own research into it and realized with my background in publishing and newspapers and printing and all that kind of stuff, I could, I could do most of the stuff myself, and I had, I had some good resources as far as proofreader, a couple of good editors and a designer cover to cover designs, really, really important. So anybody doing thinking about doing one, it could separate you from the books that indie publishing with a lowercase. I and independent publishing with a capital. I that's the difference and the cover makes all the difference. And so I did it myself. So I worked through all that myself, which gave me a lot of extra work and a lot of extra headache, but it's, it's a lot. I have gratitude for it because I did it. And so I had always thought of this as volume one. I've called it volume one. It's a little dangerous calling it volume one because you got to come up with volume two, but I have a list of other topics and thoughts and it'll, it'll, it'll be three different sections. So like this one is thinking things, deciding things and writing things. The next one will be three different themes. Vague. I have a vague idea that there are three volumes. And, and maybe when I have all three, I'll put it out of the hardcover, or I don't know, but I have a series of novels that I have in mind that if I can manage to put time aside to work on, I'm going to work on. And then NimbleSmith is, is going strong and creating brand stories and content for people. I ghostwrite as well. I spend a lot of time writing for other people. And that's another thing people should use ghostwriters busy. People should use ghostwriters. Cause they can help you find your voice. They can help you clarify your message. They can help you really understand your audience. Cause a lot of times, again, a lot of times you start talking to yourself and it doesn't mean as much. So I have all that work that's, I had hoped the book would drive some more work. It would sell some copies, which it's, which it's doing. And it's, I'm grateful for that. People seem to be happy with it. I get quoted back to myself from time to time, which is very strange. It's a very strange thing, but it's fun. And then I have other stuff I want to do. Creative people always have a million things they want to do and have to figure out which ones are the most important to them. So that's me. That's where I am. No plays on the, on the horizon. I did that a long time ago. I'm vaguely considering what it might look like if I were to start helping people independently publish their own books. Because it seems to me. There's, I think there's a, there's a space between some of these agencies, businesses that help you write your book through to publishing and people who don't really need the help writing it. There's a lot of us out there who have a lot of a lot, this is a, and they really just need the help taking it from manuscript to available in Amazon and Barnes and Noble and wherever else. Apple books, wherever you're going to make it available. So there, I think there's a gap there that I feel like maybe I could help some people with. And so that, that's something I might. Expand into it's still kind of a vague idea, but I love that. I think lots of people would be interested in, in that needing that handholding. I think your experience to in marketing and communications and storytelling and journalism, I think makes you especially like qualified, I think, to offer a new perspective on that because so much of what I hear with writing a book is the mark. It's like, once you get it birthed, It's like, you have to market it. You have to tell the people that are going to push it. You got to do ads even if you don't want to. Right. You got to get on podcasts. Uh, whatever, whatever you can do to get the, you got to get the word out is what it is. And like I did this book, I'm very proud of it. I'm very happy with the way it came out. I mean, I had a friend who was a design, he was a partner in the Michael Graves design group and he was, he was holding and he was folding the paper and he's like, did you get to pick the paper and stuff? And I was like, cause I love the way it feels. And I'm like, well, it's funny cause cause when you're doing this, you, you don't have as much. Leeway on those types of things that, that you might like to have, but again, having a little bit of background and that's, that's the guy from the newspaper business is printing. And I'd go hang out in the printer after, after deadline and watch the papers come off. And so I intentionally chose a paper that was a matte finish, not a glossy finish, that kind of stuff. And he's like, again, I realize it just feels good. Like, okay, cool. I'm glad. That's another thing. That's I like that. Yeah. I like the map because you can take notes because I've underlined things and stuff. So maybe it's a workbook. Maybe it's a journal. Maybe it's like a daily app. I would love to hear you record it too. I have, I have a vague idea of doing that too. And I haven't quite figured out how to execute on it, but I'll, I'll get there. My friend Brett and his book, he did, he did an audio book version of his book and it was, it came out wonderfully. So I'm going to lean on him a little bit. I love it. Lyle. Where can people get a copy? How can people continue to follow you on all the places on the internet? I am, well, nimblesmith. com is the business. Why yellow matters. com is, is a central book page, but you can get it at Amazon. You can get it at Barnes and Noble. If you do and you like it, write a review, please. That's really helpful. I'm on, I'm personally on Facebook. I'm business wise on LinkedIn and I'm, I'm embracing Instagram now, just under my name, Lyle Smith. And I did, I have, I have a threads. I'm experimenting. I had, I had Twitter and Instagram. I didn't like the idea of X, so I don't really do that anymore. I think Instagram is a friendlier place and it was probably the videos and photos that make it. So I don't do Tik TOK. I don't know. Maybe it's an age thing, generation, but I post a lot of stuff on LinkedIn. I post a lot. That's on, and that's a nimble Smith. So linkedin. com slash nimble Smith. And I post a lot on, or I'm trying, I'm starting to post a lot on Instagram. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is great. I really appreciate it. And I'll include all the links to the book page and the website for the company and all the social media platforms in the show notes. It's funny. There's another indie publishing thing. If you order directly from me, it may take a little longer to get. Cause I guess I have to order books sometimes and all that, but you get a, you get a fun little, you get a fun little gifty for me. I make slightly more money if you order directly from me, but the, if you write a review, get it through Amazon and the Amazon reviews are more valuable than the difference in price. So yeah. Or Barnes and Noble, or if you're a Goodreads person, that's I'm learning about Goodreads. I never really did it, but it's, it seems to be a good thing for driving interest if you get some reviews out there. So it's a whole, it's a whole new, I mean, that part of it is a whole new thing for me. So it's, it's kind of hard to investigate. Thank you, Lyle. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you for creating this. You've given us lots to think about. Thanks, Ashley. I love what you're doing. I appreciate you having me on, even though you're focused on the female writers out there. I hope some of this is helpful to your folks. And with that, we've come to the end of another episode. Please make sure you hit subscribe and give me a five star review on Apple. Check out the show notes and grab my free Niches Get Riches freelance writing worksheet to brainstorm the best niches for your writing business. Until next time, this is Ashley Cisneros Mejia. Don't forget, we all get this one, Don't constrain yourself to a box that you were never meant to fit in. It is your right to profit from your own creative gifts. Our music was composed by Donna Raphael of World Instrumentals. Talk Freelance to Me is a product of Fenix Creative Studio.