Procrastination And A Memoir Tease

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Book seven is a work in progress. I'm in procrastination mode, which has probably been for the last six months. Um, my wife and I have been working on it together. We've got six chapters done, but I'm it's I'm not feeling it. I need to go back and probably start over. But I do have a memoir that's coming out at the end of the summer of 2026. The working title is Plot Twists, a memoir on writing and living.

Meet John DeDakis And His Path

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines, and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing lives, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. My guest today is John De Dakis, who is a journalist who spent 45 years in the newsroom, 25 of them at CNN, where he was a senior copy editor on the Situation Room with Wolf Pitzer. Before that, he was a White House correspondent during the Reagan years, and one sat across from interview subjects ranging from Jimmy Carter to Alfred Hitchcock. Today he's the author of six mystery suspense novels, a manuscript editor and a writing coach. John, welcome to the show. I am so glad to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Thanks, Natasha.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, of course. And I think, John, we connected via LinkedIn and I saw your bio and was like, wow, we have a lot of in common. We both live in Maryland. We're both journalists. We both uh write books and we both book coaches or writing coaches. So this is great. So, John, you started as a journalist, you covered the anti-Vietnam uh war protest, you covered Reagan as a White House correspondent, and then you decided to write a novel one day. Why

Why Journalists Turn To Fiction

SPEAKER_01 2:07

did you actually pivot to uh writing this? And did your career as a journalist help you while you were writing fiction?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

The reason I started writing fiction is that I was working at CNN and they made me an editor, and that and that was tedious because it was fault-finding. It wasn't particularly creative, and so I needed a creative outlet. And so I taught myself how to write fiction. I know a lot of people would say, well, you lurked at CNN, so you were writing fiction all the time. Well, not really, but so that's why I started writing fiction. And I think that being a journalist actually did help because as a journalist, you only have so much real estate. You only have so much time, you only have so much space to tell a story. And so you have to be succinct and you have to be efficient and you have to be willing to work under deadlines. So I think that a lot of that background prepared me for being able to write

Learning Emotion After Reporting Facts

SPEAKER_00 3:08

fiction. One of the things, though, that was an impediment is that journalists really try to take their own selves out of a story. You know, you're not really supposed to be part of the story, it's supposed to be just the facts. And good fiction is going to be, you know, you're gonna have that create, you're gonna be able to make things up. And I think that it's important to be able to get into the emotional life of your characters. And as and as journalists, that for me, that was a that was a stretch because I'm used to keeping myself out of it. And so I had to give my permission and get comfortable with the emotions surrounding my fictional characters. So, you know, I think, but in the long run, I think journalism prepared me well to write for writing fiction.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, it's fascinating because I remember when I started writing fiction, I had a group, a writer's group, critique group, and they always used to tell me like your paragraphs as if you're reporting facts. There was no emotions to them. And I would like to say, This happened and that happened and this happened. And part of me, I think, was like I was subconsciously trained not to show emotions or not to just to state the facts. And I struggled. I struggled with that in the beginning, and then it took me a while to understand that these are two types of writings, and I have did you have the same struggles when you first started writing your your fiction books?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I did, and I've and I some of my clients are journalists or former journalists, and so I've had to point out to them that they need to be able to, you know, get more into the emotional life of their characters. So, you know, it was a struggle for me. And my first novel, you know, my my men it went through like 14 major drafts and 39 agents before, you know, I was able to finally find a home for the manuscript.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Hmm. Who's your publisher now?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

My

Agents, Indie Presses, Self-Pub Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_00 5:14

main publisher is Speaking Volumes. It's a small independent house. They publish about, I think, 40 books a year, something like that. And I'm actually also with strategic media books, but we're in the process of migrating all of my books to speaking volumes.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Would have you ever considered self-publishing to get more control over?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

I did think about it initially. I mean, it was always in the back pocket, but you know, when I first started writing, it was the mid-90s. And so self-publishing wasn't not nearly as well established as it had been. Oops, sounds like a big dog there. So, you know, self-publishing wasn't as well established. So I decided that the first thing I would do would be to try to get an agent. And I and I realized that was probably the wise approach because, you know, if you if you're going that way, then it'll bring your writing to a professional level. And self-publishing was always a fallback, but I was fortunate that I before I ran out of agents to pitch, I found an agent that, you know, didn't know me, didn't, wasn't related to me, didn't have to, you know, accept my manuscript. And that was the shot in the arm that I needed. So since then, self-publishing has become much more well established. There are also hybrid publishers that will, you know, you can pay for extra services, you know, your book cover, your editing, your marketing, you know, you pay extra for that, but it's still under the umbrella of self-publishing. And you do have more control, but you're also, it's your, you are your, you know, the success is going to be based entirely on your own ability to market and manage, you know, the business.

Marketing That Builds Real Readers

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So you published six books and six books in the span of how many years?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

20.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

20 years.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I have procrastination nailed.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Two books a year, probably two books one book every two years or so.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

It's not about, not about actually.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

No, I'm not I'm I'm I'm not ashamed.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Okay. And how are you marketing these books? And are they still selling? Because Mark, writing the book is something, but marketing the book is a whole beast. And how are you doing with the marketing part of it?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

I was I was very fortunate because my very first publisher, ArcaBooks, they went out of business at the beginning of COVID, but Bob Jolinas was the uh publisher, and you know, he did a really good job of helping his authors to learn marketing. And so I probably the best thing I learned was to gather email addresses because that's your fan base, and it doesn't cost you anything to build relationships and build a Rolodex of contacts. And so over the course of the last 20 years, I probably got about, I don't know, 5,000 emails. And, you know, these are, I mean, I don't, I can't say that I've sold to everyone, but these are potential book buyers. And and they're also relationships. But it's also it's also important to have a website because that's your cyber, that's your cyber calling card. And it's important to be on social media. You don't have to be an expert on every you know, platform that exists, but I'm active on LinkedIn and Facebook. I find that those are they they have tremendous reach, and I find that Facebook especially is very dynamic. And and you know, you can build an author page there as well. So that and bookmarks, I think, or business cards, you know, just as a way of connecting with people, you know, it's my books are still in print, all of them since 2005 have been in print. And you know, so it's a it is you take the long view in connecting with people, and and it doesn't mean you have to take people by the lapels and say you need to buy my book. It's just a matter of letting people know you've written one, and then it's up to them. You don't have to convince them, it's not selling, it's telling.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you on LinkedIn specifically. Again, this is how we met, and I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I'm also very active on Substack. Uh, Substack is becoming like the place for writers, and I'm getting a lot of traction there. I'm curious about Facebook. Are you talking about an author page or you're like page for friends and family? How and how are you both?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

I I've got I think I've got three pages. I've got an author page, a uh uh you know, a friends of group, and uh, and then I've got my personal page. And probably the personal one is the one I use the most because I think that's the the most dynamic and the one that I'm able to be most authentically me. You know, because it's you know, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

That's true. I mean, I got more, I get more traction on the friends and family. And I have an author page and I update it, you know, occasionally. I just for me, the author page is like dead. And and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong as opposed to other platforms where like they're pretty lively. I don't know. Do you have any tips for using the author page or not?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Maybe I don't have any for using the author page because that's not something that I'm particularly adept at using either. I, you know, the the Facebook personal page works for me because, you know, that's where my friends are. And I I, you know, I like things, I engage there, I post periodically, not all the time. I probably am not using it as effectively as I could. But, you know, I think that what makes the difference is if you treat it as if as if it's a major attempt to just connect with people. And if you can make it authentic as opposed to buy my book, then I think you're gonna have more traction because it's you're building relationships.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So

Making Writing Pay Beyond Royalties

SPEAKER_01 11:22

I want to talk a bit about the business side. So you're retired now from your journalism job, correct?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yes, I left CNN in 2013.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Okay. And so you do writing full-time and the coaching, correct? And editing?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I do I do writing, although, as I said, I'm really good at procrastination, but there's writing, there's one-on-one writing coaching, there's manuscript editing, and I also teach at writers' conferences and at literary centers and online different classes on how to write a novel or any other aspect of the writing community. Plus, I'm expanding my speaking so that I'm also speaking to groups where people who are dealing with grief, I can help them use writing as a way to heal. So I'm actually trying to branch out beyond the writing community as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

That's great. So one of the challenges that I have as a business or as an entrepreneur, as they call us, is of yeah, is because we publish books and we know book, you know, if if you were still thinking game great, you can have make a lot of money. But if not, the royalties that you get from the book is they're not gonna pay all of your bills, they're gonna pay some of your bills.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

This is not a it's not a get rich, it's not a get rich quick scheme.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

It's not a get rich scheme, yeah. So we have to supplement with with other stuff. So for me, I think that it the issue, which is getting better and better the more I do it, is having a consistent stream of clients that you know that you can sustain kind of this creative life where you write on the site and teaching helps you pay the bill so that you can continue writing the site, right? So, how do you get how how how are you see how do people find you, how they discover you? What is your strategy for getting clients, getting speaking engagement, teaching gigs, all of that?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Oh my excellent question. Probably

Website, Word Of Mouth, Podmatch

SPEAKER_00 13:25

the best thing has been having a website, and it's and it's my name.com, johndedakis.com, D-E-D-A-K-I-S dot com.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

And so, you know, everything, you know, events speaking, books, all of those things are right there. As far as getting speaking gigs, a lot of it is just word of mouth. And, you know, talking to the people who are already part of my life and and seeing if they have leads on people that I can, you know, talk to, meet, and discuss how I might be supportive of their particular organization. And as far as getting editing, I really I'm not actively seeking clients, uh, but they're coming to me through word of mouth. And so, and and in many cases it's repeat clients. So it usually works out that I there's a steady stream of people that are just uh a logical extension of the relationships that I have.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

You have a podcast, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I do. I've I've cut back on it. I've cut back on it only because I only have time to do so many things.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

And and I and I've never really tried to monetize it. It's on YouTube, but you know, I I do it just because I'm a curious person. I like to to talk and interview other people and engage them and and go deep. And so I I still do that, but it's not as much as I had been doing when COVID hit when I first started doing it. I was doing it maybe once a once or twice a week. It's now, you know, maybe once a month or so.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

And how do you feel? Do you think that the podcast is a must for all authors? Is it really good for their author brand? How did it help your author brand having podcasts?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

I I'm not sure that it has. I mean, it it might. There's a great platform called podmatch.com. And that's whether you're a podcaster or a podcast if you want to be a guest. It's not very expensive. It's like 30 bucks a month, and it's a great place to either get guests for your podcast or to be a guest on a podcast to promote your books or your services or whatever. So, you know, I find that that's a pretty good platform.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, on it as well, on both sides. And I I get a lot of I get a lot of matches. I can't keep up. But I think the best part of this platform is that they actually pay the podcasters.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

They do, and I and I'm not really I'm not on the I'm not on the platform to get guests. Yeah, I'm on the podcast to be interviewed. And it's and again, it's the interviews like this one, and I appreciate your taking the time to do this because you know I'm I'm widening the net. I mean, people, people who are within your sphere of influence aren't within mine. And so, you know, you are you've basically invited me to, you know, you're you're introducing me to the people who follow you.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

You know, maybe, maybe someone is interested in, you know, hiring me to be their coach or might be interested in reading one of my books or both, or not. That's it's I'll be fine. I'll be fine if if whatever happens.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Okay.

What Writers Struggle With Most

SPEAKER_01 16:47

So you you coach people, right? And what are the main things that you think people struggle with that you try to help them with?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Ooh, you know, a lot of what I do is hold hands. I think people need that encouragement. There, we I I think writers especially can be very self-critical. You know, it's not good enough, we're not good enough, how should I go about doing this? Fear of making mistakes or failure. And so a lot of times I'm just offering encouragement. And that's, I think, probably one of my core motivations in life is to be able to encourage people. So that's probably fundamental, job one. And then it's just a matter of responding to whatever questions they've got about publishing or writing, or if I'm, you know, reading one of their manuscripts or some of their pages, I'm able to give more deep dive, specific, granular kinds of feedback based on what I know about writing and what I know about the industry and about the marketplace.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So I are you writing more books after your six books now?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

I haven't

Book Seven, Memoir, Grief, Healing

SPEAKER_00 17:55

given up. Book seven is a work in progress. I'm in procrastination mode, which has probably been for the last six months. My wife and I have been working on it together. We've got six chapters done, but I'm it's I'm not feeling it. I need to go back and probably start over. But I do have a memoir that's coming out at the end of the summer of 2026. The working title is Plot Twists, a memoir on writing and living. And it basically chronicles the pivotal moments in my life that have brought me to where I am. So it talks about writing and it also talks about living, because I think that there were there were some really stupid decisions that I made as a youth. And so part of that book is just sort of a struggle to regain some integrity, some personal integrity, as and uh dealing with the personal losses that I've experienced. You know, the suicide of my sister, the death of my son. And so those kinds of experiences have fueled, you know, have have influenced my life and have contributed to the writing I do and now the speaking and teaching that I do. So it all comes together.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

I'm I'm so sorry to hear about what you went uh through. So uh what is your day today like? I'm

A Retired Writer’s Daily Rhythm

SPEAKER_01 19:16

just curious.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

As I highly recommend retirement.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Okay, tell me, tell me. I have maybe 10 years left before I retire.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

So okay, well, here's what to look forward to. I mean, I worked overnight at CNN for like 17 years, so my body is bludgeoned in the submission. I only need about five hours of sleep. And so, you know, my wife and I go to bed somewhere around 10 o'clock or so, and I'm awake at two o'clock or three, and instead of tossing and turning and going, Well, it's too early to get up, my body is saying, dude, you've got stuff to do. And so I get up without an alarm, I come down here, you know, I read, I uh answer emails. This is when I do my writing. It's quiet. I journal every day, and then Cindy's ready for coffee about eight, and then we hang out upstairs and we, you know, read the paper, we read Heather Cox Richardson, which is she's a uh a historian who ties the politics and the news of the day to history. We do the New York Times puzzles, we talk. Yeah, so I hang out with her most of the rest of the morning, and then I work on whatever project I'm working on, either editing someone's manuscript or you know, pitching someone to see if I can speak at their event. And then I end we end the day at 7 o'clock, we have dinner together, watch something on TV, a series that's streaming, or watch a movie, have some popcorn, and call it a day. So it's it's wonderful because Cindy and I have been together almost 48 years, and these last years have been excellent because we're really spending quality time together. I get to do what I love to do, but I get to be with who I love.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

That's so sweet. Yeah, I'm I'm glad I'm glad to hear it. 41. Wow. Okay, so you're working on a group. You mentioned switching to get speaking engagement. One of the things that I've been trying to do more this year is to get more speaking engagement. And I'm sure people who are listening they would like to know your secret is how we become more visible, and how do you get these speaking? Like, I have this dream of like every three months I'd be in an international conference, like speaking about this and that. And some people actually do that, but how how do you do that? And how often do you get to speak that?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Well, it's it's growing, and and I'll I'll tell you what this is the first time I've actually talked publicly

A Simple System For Speaking Gigs

SPEAKER_00 21:51

about this, but probably within the last year, I took something called the Speaker Lab. Uh, it's run by a guy named Grant Baldwin, B A L D. And he's written a book called The Successful Speaker. And it's not so much how to talk or how to speak in front of a crowd, but it does cover those kinds of things. But probably the best advice I got through this speaker lab thing, which is also covered in his book, is learning how to prospect for gigs. You know, it's important to know what your message is and who your audience is. And then it's a matter of finding the people who are the deciders, the people who are looking for content, looking for people who are experts to speak to their organization. And so a lot of that time then goes in identifying, you know, people to pitch and working what they call warm leads. It's not like you're necessarily having to do cold calls going after someone who doesn't even know who you are. Instead, you're talking to people who are already part of your life, but who know people who can and then they can make the introduction. So, in a sense, your first speaking job is talking to a person who's a decider. You set up a get acquainted Zoom, 10-minute Zoom, and tell them what you do and see if there's any way that uh you might be useful for their organization. So that's the how-to. And you know, I've just started to put it into place, and I'm already starting to get some you know, keynote speaking gigs around the country and even abroad.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Where where are you speaking next?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

I'm going to be the keynote speaker at the bereaved parents of the USA gathering in Pittsburgh in July.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

I'm going to be leading a writing workshop at the Compassionate Friends Conference in Baltimore later this year. I'm going to be involved in the International Death Grief and Bereavement Conference at the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse in another few weeks. And this is mostly a gathering of psychologists. And so I'll be uh moderating a panel discussion on grief and masculinity and also teaching a workshop on writing as a way to heal. So these are some things that have already started to come together based on the efforts that I put in finding things.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Fascinating. Are you on Substack?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

You know, I have a Substack account, but I haven't decided how to how to how to use that yet. I get a lot of Substack mailings, and some are very engaging. I know you can monetize it, but I've been holding back because I'm still not sure how best to utilize it. So, you know, maybe every now and then I'll restack something, and I know I have a few followers, but I haven't taken the time yet to use it to its fullest.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

It's a whole investment. Honestly, I spend a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

It's a time investment, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:01

It's a yeah, I spend a lot of time on it. But it it pays off. I mean, I met amazing people, I got new clients, I sold books. It's just it's great. Okay. And the question of the hour, the big

Substack Momentum And Time Costs

SPEAKER_01 25:15

elephant, is AI. Are you using AI? Which camp are you in? It's it's a very contentious debate. There's a lot of people who hate people who use AI, they call them others, are very vocal about using AI in the even in their fiction, like Joanna Penn, who runs the podcast, the Creative Pen, and others. Oh, we'll never ever use AI, you know, they steal people's work, blah, blah. So where do you where do you stand? And no judgment. Whatever. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

No, I appreciate the look, it is it is here to stay.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

And I'm probably an AI agnostic in the sense that I know the upside and the downside. And

AI Risks, Ethics, And Practical Limits

SPEAKER_00 26:01

there are plenty of downsides. So let me start there. First, it is a major suck on our resources. You know, it takes a tremendous amount of space and energy to fuel something like this. Also, there are really no guardrills right now. It's the Wild West. And I think probably one of the things that I find the most offensive and dangerous and outrageous is that AI can be, and this is especially dangerous for teenagers and young adults who may feel lonely or in any in any way vulnerable. They can use AI as a companion. And there are instances where AI has actually talked them into committing suicide.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Yeah, I read about those, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Right. And so I think that is probably the most nefarious thing that can happen with AI right now. It is certainly contentious in the voiceover community. It's taking jobs away from real people who are narrating books. It is pirating copyrighted material and as in its training, you know, using it to train, using stolen material to train, you know, future versions of AI. That said, you know, it's it's amazing at being able to take vast amounts of information and summarize it. I have used it to create a dust jacket blurb, you know, the dust jacket copy. If you are ever thinking of writing a book using AI, don't. For two reasons. One, the book will suck. It'll just suck. But B, if you're thinking of getting traditionally published, you will have to lie in order to get picked up, because you will have to stipulate to an agent or a publisher that your book was not created using AI. And so that's one of the things that they're doing to guard against uh having that happen. I think that AI can be useful as a resource, as a research tool or maybe a brainstorming tool. You know, it's like, you know, talking to anybody and saying, Well, I've got an idea for this. What do you think of that? You know, brainstorming. Research, as long as you get, you know, if you can get your sources and be able to confirm that this is a legitimate source and that the information is really out there, because AI can make things up. And so it can be a useful tool, but it doesn't know you. It's not you. And so the creativity, the creative part of being a writer, I think comes needs to come from you because only you can really draw from the personal intimate experiences that you've had that dwell in your subconscious, that when you write, you're able to access. And so, and because I teach classes, AI does come up. And I have I've experimented using AI. I'll say this one more thing, and I'm probably going off on a tangent. But I was asked to write a short story for an anthology, and I hadn't written a short story in 40 years, and I wasn't any good at it. So I gave AI the parameters. I want it to be, you know, this number of words, this character, this title, this is the topic, you know, do it. And in an instant, it spit it out and it sucked. It was terrible. I knew instinctively that I could do better, and I did. And so I but but I'd I learned about AI by trying AI. And so I am to sum it up, I'm I am for it within limits, but I am very skeptical of it, and I think we need to be very careful and discerning when it comes to using it.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Okay. Have you ever caught any of your uh students cheating or using AI?

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Well, I mean, I I I have not come across any clients who've used AI. And if I were a teacher, I mean, I used to teach journalism, I would probably have them write their stories in class, you know, without being able to, you know, use a computer, or at least not use on, you know, be online. I know that there are programs that can help just discern whether it's AI. I'm not sure about that. I I know teachers who are vexed by the dangers of EI AI, especially if you're an English teacher. But I think one way around it is just have the student write in class. And and that way you can you can also get a benchmark of how that student communicates. Because if they then use AI, you're gonna know right away this is way better than they can do.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yeah, that's true. All right. So John, how can people reach you, buy your books, hire you as a coach? What's the best way to reach you?

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Best best way is my my website, johndedakis.com, J O H N, D as in dog e, d as in dog A, K-I-S as in Sam, johndedakis.com.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Great. Well, uh, thank you very much for your time, John. This has been wonderful, enlightening, and very informative. And for anyone who's listening or watching, thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. And until we meet again, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Thank you, Natasha.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write

Where To Find John And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 31:40

with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Times. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time.