Risks and Rewards When Writers Share Personal Stories Online

Al Indie Writers Podcast Episode 30 - Sharing Personal Information Online - Plus a special personal q&a session with Princess Jones

 

In the most recent All Freelance Writing Podcast, Princess Jones stopped by again. This time we chatted about writers sharing personal information and stories online (or in books in some cases).

  • Are there any benefits to opening up to your readers?
  • What are the risks?
  • And when does being open turn into oversharing?

These are some of the questions Princess and I answered in Episode 30 of the show.

But we went further than that.

We took this show's topic as an opportunity for you to pry a bit to get us to share the kinds of personal stories you wanted to hear. So we let members of the community ask us a series of personal questions.

This was an exceptionally long episode (over four hours recorded). So I released both a standard version of around one hour and an extended cut running around two-and-a-half hours.

You can listen to either version from the show notes page at the link below:

Listen now.

Both versions have the same practical information at the beginning of the show (approximately the first 25 minutes). The extended version features more community questions.

Because this is such a long episode, I tried to make it easier by linking to the start of every question on the show notes page.

This way, if you'd prefer not to listen to the full show, you can still easily find answers to the specific questions you're interested in.

Those questions include:

  • The one thing about us we wouldn't want clients to know;
  • What we tend to hide about ourselves, or what most people don't know about us;
  • Where we've regretted, or had second thoughts about, sharing personal information in the past;
  • Whether we feel sexism has ever negatively impacted our writing careers;
  • And what kinds of personal sharing or oversharing make us uncomfortable as readers.

We also answered some more fun, casual questions including:

  • What books we're reading and what our favorite books are;
  • What our favorite TV shows and movies are (my favorite film surprised Princess, which in turn surprised me);
  • Who our favorite fictional characters are;
  • What our worst dates were like;
  • How we'd spend our perfect day;
  • How Princess got her name;
  • And more.

You can find the full list of questions, and links to our responses, on the show notes page.

This week's podcast may be delayed a week, as I might post additional clips to the show notes page for this episode instead.

A couple of questions and some side discussions had to be cut from even the extended version due to the sheer length of our chat.

With Princess being the absolute hoot she always is, I'd hate for you to miss out on some of her other stories and insight.

For example, we did actually find her "line." It didn't fit in well enough with the rest of the show though, so it had to be cut. That one will definitely be posted as a bonus clip.

Check back on the show notes page at the end of the week for any new additions.

Profile image for Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern is a professional blogger, freelance business writer, consultant, and indie author. She runs numerous websites & blogs including All Freelance Writing, Freelance Writing Pros, NakedPR, and Kiss My Biz.

Jenn has 25 years' experience as a professional writer and editor and over 20 years' experience in marketing and PR (working heavily in digital PR, online marketing, social media, SEO, new media, and thought leadership publication). She also has 19 years' professional blogging and web publishing experience (including web development) and around 18 years of experience as an indie author / publisher.

Jenn also writes fiction under multiple pen names and is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association.

Subscribe to the All Freelance Writing newsletter to get freelance writing updates from Jenn in your inbox.

Get More Content Like This in Your Inbox

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please subscribe to the All Freelance Writing newsletter where you'll be notified of new blog articles and receive subscribers-only content.

Subscribe now.


Leave a Comment