You have to wear a lot of different hats as an author. You can’t just be a writer, you have to be an editor obviously, but you also have to be a marketer and you have to know how to talk with and understand people. If you’re doing book signings, you have to be able to command a good presence and be comfortable with the fact that while people may praise your writing, people will also tell you when they don’t like it. It’s often said that writing is the easiest part of being an author because of the many hats and managing all the different players: publishers, agents, editors, fans, haters, etc.
As a part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist” I had the pleasure of interviewing Stuart Meczes.
Stuart Meczes is an Amazon top 20 bestselling author of 6 novels. His most recent project is working as the Creative Director at Contnt, a new subscription-based platform transforming the creator economy. Previously he has also worked as a professional copywriter for major brands and startups, particularly those in the tech, cryptocurrency and decentralized finance sector.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I was born in Carshalton, near south London. For most of his life, my dad was an insurance salesman (back when people still wanted insurance), and my mum mainly worked as a ward clerk at St Helier Hospital.
For a lot of our lives, we were quite wealthy. We lived a really good life down in Kingswood in a house that I believe is now owned by a footballer. Unfortunately, in the recession — I think it was in the early 90s — we lost a lot of money. So we were really scrambling for cash and had to move around quite a lot. I attended a lot of different schools, and it was overall a pretty difficult time. Writing helped me cope with a lot of the frustrations and anxiety I felt during that turbulent period.
Eventually, we moved up to Malvern in the Midlands, in the UK, where we bought a nursing home and converted it into a hotel. Some of my very best memories are from this time of my life. It’s where I met some of my lifelong best friends — you can only imagine some of the (mis)adventures that we got up to in a 21-bedroom hotel, which often housed some quirky long-term guests. It’s served as quite a creative inspiration, actually, for some of my stories.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
After moving back to London, I managed the flagship store of an audio / visual brand called Bang and Olufsen in Knightsbridge. When the next recession hit in 2008, there wasn’t really anyone coming into the showroom. I’d always been very keen on writing and had done a lot in my spare time as a child, but there was a moment in the empty showroom where I had this flash of inspiration — I was going to write a book. So I whipped out my laptop and the words were just flowing out of me like an oil spill, before I knew what I was doing I had written about five chapters.
That made it pretty clear that I was on the wrong career path. Soon afterwards, I straight up quit my job and went back to college, and then on to Birmingham University where I got an English and Creative Writing degree. And it was while I was there that I got my first novels published.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
There’s quite a lot to choose from, but I’d love to share one about tenacity that could be helpful to hear for people who are interested in supporting their own craft.
There used to be an unpublished manuscript website called Authonomy, hosted by HarperCollins, many years ago. The way it worked is people could post their manuscripts so others would read them and leave comments or message other users, and you could upvote the ones you liked. If your manuscript got to the top five in any given month, HarperCollins would then take your book and review it. Obviously, it was tremendously difficult to even make the top five because there were thousands of excellent titles on there, but for those who did make it, it was even more difficult to get a positive review.
So I posted my manuscript at the time and just decided I was going to do whatever it took to get into the top five. It was important to me and it was my sole focus. So what I did was send thousands of personalized messages to other users on the platform asking them to check out my book. I didn’t ask for upvotes because that would have been cheating, but just asked if they wouldn’t mind giving my work a look and let me know what they think. It took me ages. While my peers were hanging out, partying, having fun, I was hunched over my laptop in my dorm room sending these messages and connecting with people.
And I had a really good response. I was super fortunate that at the end of that month, my manuscript had risen in the ranks to number three. Not only that, but HarperCollins gave it a really good editorial response, which effectively started my journey to where I am now.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
Well, right now I’m currently working with a company called Contnt (you can read some more about us on our website, content.io). Today we hear the title “content creator” a lot and I consider myself one of them. There’s all different types of creators out there, and mine just happens to be the written form.
One of the things I’ve found is that there are numerous issues within this industry: there’s corporate overreach, an overall lack of funding creators properly, and there’s exploitation everywhere you look — creators aren’t being treated fairly. On top of the lack of fair compensation, they’re also contending with unequal spotlighting, where social media platforms are algorithmically designed to boost the profile of people who are already popular. It’s just generally unfair, and you’ve got all these people who have amazing things to say or showcase, but they’re struggling to get any form of attention. And I just don’t like it. It’s a broken system.
So my latest project is acting as the Creative Director for Contnt, where the sole purpose of the platform’s existence is to put creators first and to give them equal opportunity to earn fairly and earn very well. But there are numerous ways the platform is championing creators. For example, creators have the ability to protect their IP considering IP theft is another massive issue in the industry. Creator’s are also provided with the means to be successful through workshops, tutorials, brand partnerships, there’s all sorts the company is working on right now. I think what they’re building is absolutely phenomenal and I’m really happy to be part of it.
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
I think the best story that I have is about Neil Gaiman who is a very famous author. I originally reached out to him a long time ago when I first started writing my book and I asked him for some advice. He actually responded, which was incredible, and gave me a ton of advice.
Then, after I published my third book, I had another correspondence with him and his answer was a bit unexpected. He told me how proud of me he was. I’ve since framed that email because it just meant the world to me. He didn’t need to take the time out to write me back or encourage me as a young writer, but it goes to show what a class act he is and further cements the fact that he’s my writing hero.
Where do you draw inspiration from? Can you share a story about that?
See the Neil Gaiman story above!
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
After about my fourth book, I got invited to teach some creative writing lessons at various schools. I forget the name of this particular school, unfortunately, but it was down in Croydon. In general, it was amazing to work with these kids who you could tell were screaming for something to be passionate about. Specifically, there were these two boys who had apparently been youth footballers, but they had been kicked off the team for bad behavior or something, and it seemed to have derailed their dream completely.
I had the whole class taking part in an activity where groups would draw a certain number of words out of a hat that would inform the story they had to write. These two boys had drawn something like “mirror,” “vampire,” and “London”, I think. But they got really into writing their story! They came up with this incredible story about a vampire that could pull people through their reflections in the mirror and take them into another world, and he was taking over London.
When I went to have my lunch break, hours later, they were in the library still writing. When they saw me they came up to me and were saying, “Oh sir, we want to show you our story!” It was just incredible. I actually found out a couple years ago that they went on to complete that story. I don’t know if they published it formally, or just created it on their own and passed it out to family and friends, but regardless they finished it and they were proud to share it. They went on a whole new journey. To have that small sort of success with two people who had kind of lost their way by simply sharing my love of writing and giving them that inspiration was just incredible.
I’ve also had numerous fans email me to share that my stories have helped them with depression or having low thoughts. The story centers around a boy who doesn’t feel like he’s worth anything who kind of stands up and starts to become a hero. And I think that there’s a lot to be said for sharing the message that you’re okay, like you are worth something. You can be a hero and you can be there for people around you and stand up for yourself and for others. I think that people need to hear that now more than ever. So that has been another amazing result.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why?
- The first is don’t edit as you write. A lot of people will start writing and will edit as they go along. That’s kind of like trying to drive with one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake — you’re never going to get anywhere. They’re two completely different mindsets. Instead, let the writing be raw creation — just write the book and get to the end of it. Then use editing to refine and beautify that creation.
- Have a space where you can go and write. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a physical space. If you don’t have a place to go and write, like an office, you can create the mental space where you’re allocating time to do your particular thing. It helps to ritualize it: put on some headphones or a certain piece of music, sit in your favorite chair. Wherever it takes place and what it looks like doesn’t matter as much as the commitment to have it.
- Set yourself a writing target. This is key and I think it’s where people fall down quite a lot. There’s a widely held myth that you cannot write unless you feel creative. Honestly, I think that’s nonsense. I believe being creative is like a muscle — the same way you can go to the gym and strengthen your real muscles, you can also work out your creative muscles. The more you write and get religious with that practice of writing, the easier it becomes to do that. I can testify to this. With my first book, I was only able to write a few 100 words at a time. By the time I got to my fifth book, I was writing upwards of 5000 words a day. I credit this to setting writing targets, making sure I hit those targets no matter what, and then increasing them over time.
- Just believe in yourself. As a writer, you’re going to doubt yourself and your craft and think that you’re not good enough and that your writing is not good enough. Every writer has that fear. It doesn’t matter if you’ve written one book, or you’ve written 1000. It is a constant battle with ourselves. Often what you write at the start won’t be good enough, and that’s absolutely fine. That is where the editing process comes in. You make things better as you go. The finished products that people read when they buy a book are often not even remotely similar to the original drafts. So it’s about believing in your craft, believing that you have the power to do it, and trusting the process.
- You have to wear a lot of different hats as an author. You can’t just be a writer, you have to be an editor obviously, but you also have to be a marketer and you have to know how to talk with and understand people. If you’re doing book signings, you have to be able to command a good presence and be comfortable with the fact that while people may praise your writing, people will also tell you when they don’t like it. It’s often said that writing is the easiest part of being an author because of the many hats and managing all the different players: publishers, agents, editors, fans, haters, etc.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think it would be a return to traditional creation values, which is something we talk about a lot at Contnt. You know, the influencer age, whilst it was good to a certain degree, has got out of control. There are so many influencers now who don’t even know the product that they’re selling, they’ve never tried it, they’re just getting paid. It’s a very false economy.
I think a return to traditional “campfire” values where people genuinely want to engage with and share acts of creation that are interesting and authentic is so important. Whether it’s singing, dancing, cooking, telling stories, whatever, if someone wants to be a creator, they need to be true to their passions. It’s unfortunate that today content creation is often about chasing trends. Creators should absolutely not chase trends. They’ll never get anywhere if they do; it’s vapid and even if it goes viral, the next day someone else will have taken that place.
But if you slowly, steadily build a core audience through something that you’re truly passionate about and take the time to genuinely connect with people through your art, that is what makes a difference.
We have been blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she just might see this.
I don’t really have the same heroes as a lot of people. I respect anyone that’s done well for themselves in business or entertainment. And there are certain people that I think are great to watch, or to listen to, but I’m not that interested in meeting most of them. You know there’s that saying, “Don’t meet your heroes.” I’ve already shared that my hero is Neil Gaiman, and I guess he’s the only person I would break that rule for, because I would love to just have a fun conversation with him, mainly about books, which would probably be quite boring for most people.
I guess if I could meet anyone else, I think Jordan Peterson would probably be someone interesting to talk to. I don’t agree with all of his values, but I think he’s an incredibly interesting and intelligent person, and I’d love to pick his brains about a few things and get his feedback on different world issues.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Historically, I haven’t been the most active user of social media, which is a bit strange considering that I’m an author, but I just really don’t like it. I think it can be quite toxic, which is why I’m trying to inspire a return to traditional values in terms of content creation.
But you’ve got to go to where the people are to help them with your art if you can, right? So you can follow me on X/Twitter @Meczes, though I’m not on there very much. I have recently started a TikTok, @stuartmeczes, where I’ll be giving writing tips and writing advice and talking about books. Generally nice, non-cringey things.
So, that’s me and thank you for your time!
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Stuart Meczes: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.