Her Story
About Tracy
I've always had an imagination since childhood, playing with Barbie dolls and creating stories in my mind. What actually sparked my writing was attending the Essence Festival in New Orleans. I love to read, and they had an area for authors selling their books. I met three self-published authors who went on to become really popular writers - the late Eric Jerome Dickey, radio host Michael Baisden, and author Zane (phonetically 'Tanana Reeve Du' in transcript). They inspired me to start writing my first book when I came home. It took forever because I didn't know anything about the publishing industry. I learned the hard lesson that only about 3% of writers actually get contracts and deals. I got scammed by people who said they were editors. Finally, I did the research and figured out how to do it on my own. I got the book out and it was received with a lot of enthusiasm. People really loved it and gave me a lot of advice. I went on to write two more books within two years, then stopped because life was happening and bills had to be paid. But it stayed with me, and about a year ago I decided to redo that book into a four-part series. I'm working on that now and getting ready to release the second book of the series. The first title was called 'He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.' For content writing, after being with a company for 10 years, I was part of a layoff. I ended up helping a guy who came to give me an estimate for my house. We started talking about his business during the time when the economy was about to dump. I was telling him he should try this and that, and he eventually said, 'Why don't you come work for me and help me straighten this mess out?' I ended up creating him a website for his stucco business, and the website needed content. I started learning about SEO and writing articles about the stucco business. People started taking notice and contacting me. A local magazine called The Power Broker found me, and the owner asked if I'd be interested in interviewing people and writing articles for her magazine. It was basically word of mouth taking off from there.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tracy
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think just having parents that stood by and supported my siblings and I in whatever it was that we wanted to do, and not to give up, you know, be steadfast. For me, I published that book in 2009, but it just stayed with me that I could do better than this. My book deserved better than this. I didn't give up or push it aside. Instead, I said, you know what, I'm going to take the time to go back and do this right. So recognizing that you can do better, and that something deserves better - that's what I attribute my success to.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Don't quit. If it's something you love and something that you're passionate about, give your all, do your research, get your education to be the best at what you're doing.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Make sure that you're passionate about it, make sure you're ready to give 100% to it, that you're dedicated, and do your research. When I was trying to find people to help me edit my book, I was paying people money and learning that they're not who they say they are. So do your research, check people out, look for reviews, ask them whose book have you edited, and then go to those people and ask for a reference. Because there are people out there that, no matter how nice they are or how intelligent they may sound, they can still be ready to scam you. That's kind of what I ended up with. I reached out to an agent who finally broke it down to me about how hard it is to get an agent and what you really need. She started helping me with the book after I told her I had been scammed by a lady who said she was an editor. She was very instrumental and helped me for like 3 months until she had a big project coming up. I'll never forget all the work that she did and how she believed that one day I could get the book where I wanted it to be.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The number one challenge is finding clients, because now with AI, people have websites that continue to write articles without permission that are purely plagiarized. I did a scan on one and it was 67% from other people's content. So I'm basically trying to sell the idea that you need somebody, like a human, to write for you, and having people understand that it's going to lower their ranking on Google if they're plagiarizing and pulling content from other people's websites. The biggest challenge is just getting clients and getting them to understand that they need personalized content that speaks to their audience and makes their audience feel connected. Another personal challenge I'm facing is that I have been gone for so long, and so much has changed. Back when I wrote my first book, I had never even heard of Facebook. Today, you can't send your manuscript to somebody like I used to - they are going to put it under their name. I see people in Facebook groups all over the place for ARC readers and beta readers, and authors saying they sent their book to these people and they never wrote reviews or anything. Today, people are taking advantage of indie authors left and right.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
To be honest, I talk about the AI - it's easy, but it's not me, it's not authentic. Just being authentic and true to who I am is really important to me. So being ethical in the things that I'm doing - that's what matters most.
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