We recently connected with Verity A. Buchanan and have shared our conversation below.

Verity A., thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I was so excited to see this question on the roster, I had to jump on the opportunity to talk a little bit about my parents.

My parents both read to me from the time I was a baby. I was their first, so I might have got a little extra one-on-one attention, but in any case, that sheer immersion in the written word fed a lifelong pursuit. As long as I can remember, I’ve been in love with language, fascinated by its capabilities, curious about the way it shapes culture, and it’s my parents that fostered that love.

My mom is an artist, a dreamer, a listener. The school system didn’t treat her well and she felt a marked contrast between that experience and the four years of high school she spent being educated at home. I know how to love learning because she wanted to make learning love-able for me.

My dad is a pastor. Analytical, quick-thinking. He knows words and he knows a lot of them. He would throw random teasers at me, trick questions, vocabulary games. He was always out to equip his children with critical thinking skills, teaching us to recognize fallacies and communicate clearly. He’s the one who told me, “You can’t use the word in the definition.” He’s also the first one to say, “I’m proud of you.”

They always made space for my aspirations. I know some authors whose parents actually read their work — that was never my story. Between breadwinning and running an eight-child household, their lives were full when I was a kid and I never expected them to read my collection of half-finished scribbles. But they took every goal I had so seriously, and encouraged me to give it everything I had.

But one of the most important things they taught me was to expect failure. Not a defeatist mindset, but one of dedication. Error is part and parcel of learning, and disappointment doesn’t mean the end. You give it your best, but when you don’t see the results you wanted, you ask questions, do more research, and get back up again. If it’s really worth it to you, then it’s worth the perseverance and the failure that it takes to get there.

Verity A., love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve been writing stories since I was six. At twenty-four, that makes three-quarters of my life now that I’ve been pursuing the craft of storytelling — and constantly seeking ways to refine, beautify, and vivify the way I do what I do. I’ve called myself a perfectionist, but I’m no longer fond of the pejorative ideas in that label. I’ve never expected my stories to be free from flaw, but I do aim for excellence in every word I write. My goal is to come away from a paragraph with the thought, “I want to reread this.” If I write something I want to come back to, there’s going to be someone else out there who thinks it’s worth coming back to, too.

I write books set in the fictional world of Legea, with a variety of characters and themes. I enjoy lore and world-building (specially the linguistic aspect, hehe), but the characters come first for me.

The tagline for my stories is, “The everyman, the beautiful, and the reverent.” Everyman, because I strongly believe in the value of each human being, no matter how easy to overlook or how simple their story may look on the surface. Beautiful, because I write to capture the moments that take our breath away, moments of significance, to hold onto them and savor them a little longer than they last and learn to understand them better. Reverent, because I don’t believe I’m living in a world of pure immediacy, a world where we live and fizz out when we’re done: I believe in an absolute that undergirds every contradiction and grey area we must grapple with on a daily basis, and in a world of real powers beyond our earthly sight, and in purposes beyond our understanding. I believe that there are things that cannot be laughed at and matters that we would be less casual towards if we truly saw them. My stories reflect that.

I signed on with Ambassador International Press in 2018 to publish “The Journey” (Ceristen Series book 1), and eventually all four books of the Ceristen Series. After four years under their umbrella, with an increasing desire for independence in my authorship and platform, I secured all publishing rights back to my own name and withdrew my books from the market with the goal of re-launching them individually on my terms. The Journey’s second edition is now scheduled to release in July of 2024!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When I first started building an author platform, I submerged myself in the advice of people who were supposed to know best, frequently to my own stress and detriment. One of the recommendations I saw most frequently pushed was to “grow your email list by any (ethical) means possible!”

With years of context and experience behind me, I hear what they’re saying now. Or, at least, what the good ones are saying. But as an eighteen-year-old author fresh on the scene and struggling to hold all the expectations of others, what I heard was: “Numbers matter, and they’ll translate into readers.” And because I wanted to do things right, I figured I had to listen up and do whatever the experts wanted.

I joined StoryOrigin, a newsletter funnel platform, while it was in beta, set up freebie reader magnets, and gained exponential additions to my email list. It was exciting to create my account and my little set of .pdfs, but the honeymoon era didn’t last long. I found myself rapidly bemused, frustrated by the fact that I didn’t know these streams of people and they didn’t really know me. Overwhelmed by the pressure of choosing which promotions to enter, and never really knowing whether the people who found my freebie even opened it. Afraid to be myself to an audience of people to whom I might not translate well. And… based on engagement and click-throughs, I wasn’t really getting any more readers.

The methods went against the grain of everything I learned to love growing up: the organic process of real growth, listening to the individual’s needs, meeting them where they are, and building community first, clicks second.

As a teen, I posted my books on a writer website (Wattpad) for a period of time, and the more traction my stories gained, the more I noticed a disproportionate uptick in followers — people who hit the little blue button in passing, perhaps, usually looking for a follow-back, with no indication of wanting to actually connect. With my newsletter I faced the same disconnect — but the difference was, I never invited the Wattpad follows. If I followed someone, it was because I wanted to connect + had every intention of doing so: what other people did was up to them. But every time I put my book into another multi-author e-list promotion, I was inviting more deadweight.

I quit.

Now, if someone signs up to hear from me, I know they did it not from a third-party wildcard, but from my website. They followed either a link I personally shared, or one featured under a guest article or interview. Or perhaps, even (happy thought!) from a friend who recommended it to them. They saw my invitation, what I have to offer, and decided it meant something to them. I can’t express the comparative reward that is to me.

Not everyone struggles with newsletters the same way I did, and not everyone has to take my solution, that’s for sure. I know that if I had gone all out, submitted to promos indiscriminately, I would have probably seen more audience growth, but that would have required denying my entire way of relating to people. I lived for eighteen months with that kind of strain and I decided I couldn’t take it any longer — I needed a new approach. And I share this story for those who might feel the same.

For me as an indie author, marketing is about authenticity and sustainability. If you don’t believe in it, you won’t be able to do it long-term; and if you can’t do it long-term, it’s not worth doing at all. It’s okay to rethink what email lists — or anything else — needs to look like for you.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I write for my own enjoyment, but I also write to share. There’s nothing more rewarding than knowing my words resonated with someone who feels the same way about humanity, consequences, beauty in the natural sphere, or just the weird little people I dreamed up in my brain. Some of my favorite memories are just gushing with readers who’ve become close lifelong friends about said weird people.

One of the best parts of sharing a story you loved with others who’ve read the same story is to hear them say, “You get it!” And when you’re an author, that circle of sharing starts exclusively with you. It’s so, so special to watch that circle expand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.verityabuchanan.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/verityb.writes
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VBuchananWrites
• Other: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19384782.Verity_A_Buchanan