Naima B. Robert – Advice for Muslim Women Writers Can you make a living as an author Rukhsana Khan
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Welcome to this special session of the Muslim
Writers Journey Summit.
We are talking to a very, very, very
special author today.
Some of you may have heard of her.
Some of you may not, but that is
the beauty of summits like this because you
actually get to find some phenomenal people
and learn about the amazing work that they're
doing, Rashaan. Now I can say that I
did notice to stop Amdulillah
because I had a bit of a heads
up. She is a children's book author, an
award winning children's book author at that, a
prolific
children's book author published by mainstream publishers in
Canada. And when you click on the links
and you go to see her work, you
will be thinking to yourself, how come I
never heard of this sister
She is, you know, one of the people
that I really admire in our space. She's
definitely one of the pioneers
in diverse children's literature in Canada and probably
just in the way in in the world
in general.
And it is so, so wonderful for me
to welcome sister Lobsana Khan to our stage.
Sister Assalamu alaikum.
And and the feeling is mutual. I feel
like we're both doing the same kind of
work from the other side of the pond.
You know?
Okay. I should I just jump right in?
Well, let me tell everybody why you're here
because I love
what you are gonna be talking to us
about today. Yes. She could have spoken about
children's books and she could have talked about
diverse literature, but no, masha'Allah. Sister Roxana is
going to be telling us today about how
to actually earn a living
as an author. You know that thing that
nobody wants to talk about, you know, that
money, that mola. She gonna talk about that
next.
She's got 9 ways
for you to make money as a as
an awesome martial arts, as a Muslim author.
So,
take it away. Oh, okay. Great. Well, I've
been at this now for 20 years, and
a lot of people have called me a
pioneer. And I will take it.
Basically, for 20 years, I've survived
as a children's author
and actually to the point where I'm making
a pretty good living at it. And what
I wanted to do was give you some
tips. You, the the viewer, who is interested
in in writing as a career. I wanted
to give you some tips
on how to make it as an author.
The first thing, you know, they always say
don't don't quit your day job.
For me,
my day job was babysitting. Okay? I had
I was raising my own
4 children. No. I think it was 3
at the time. I 4 be it became
4. And while I was raising my children,
I was doing daycare in my home just
to make a little bit of money to
help make the ends meet. Now, what you
have to do, have your day job.
But while you're doing while you're doing your
day job and it helps if your day
job is not too brain intensive.
Like taking care of children
is is is like physical work, like a
lot of,
you know, changing diapers and all that kind
of stuff. But in terms of my mental
acuity,
I was able to still do a lot
of my plotting and thinking
while I was taking the taking care of
the children. And then when I put the
kids down for their naps or the other
ones went to school in the afternoons,
that's when I had about 2 hours
of focused writing time.
Now why I say to keep your day
job is because
if you really want to be an author,
you need to develop discipline.
It's not easy. Writing is work. So if
you can write
while you have a day job, if you
can
if you have that passion
to keep going while you have other,
other responsibilities
to tend to, that develops the kind of
discipline you're going to need in the long
run. So keep your day job while you
dream of getting published.
Now the second thing is
get published.
And that means that you've got to accumulate
publishing credits.
Publishing credits are like,
it's like
magazine articles.
Start anywhere you can. Even if you start
with small publishers, that's something. Because
on your query letters, when you're when you're
querying other publishers and remember,
publishers receive thousands of
queries all the time.
So you need to rise above the others
and show the person
on the other side of the desk that
you are a serious writer and that you
have something new and original to offer.
And you can do that with with publishing
credits. Now when I started, I actually started
trying to write for magazines,
and I was woefully inept. I I am
not really much of a magazine,
author, but that came over time. So start
by writing. Writing articles,
submitting, and you will be rejected.
Remember that rejection is part of the process.
And in fact, without rejection,
you have no incentive to keep going and
to keep keep getting better. Rejection basically weeds
out the people who are not that serious.
So take it seriously
and get some publishing credits.
And also start,
start
really developing your skills. There are all kinds
of resources
online,
in the library.
The libraries have books on how to write
books.
Go and take them out. Read them. One
of the ones I really recommend
was by, an author by called Rust Hills.
He I think he used to, edit the
New Yorker.
And he wrote this amazing book that I
just
really clicked with me. It was called the
the short story in general no, writing in
general, and the short story in particular.
His name is Russ Hills. Just look for
that one. And I really found
his,
his
advice
really struck me well. And I and I
applied a lot of what I learned. He
talked about zooming in, zooming out, in terms
of looking at your story as if you
were like a field director. And that that
actually comes in even better later on because
more and more literature
is imitating,
cinematography.
Like, when you're writing, it's almost like you
are a director and you're focusing the story
on different levels and the scenes and all
that kind of stuff.
So develop
your writing skills.
And that means it'll take time.
Be patient. Be perseverant.
Remember that God war God rewards
patience and perseverance.
Now, for me personally, once I did get
published,
what I did was I developed presentations
that promote
my my books even while
providing essential knowledge of arts education.
So I started taking some of the skills
that I had learned and all the research
that I did in terms of, developing developing
my skills as a writer.
I packaged them into a presentation
And because
I'm Muslim and there are a lot of
Muslims in the kid Muslims and kids in
the schools,
the schools often have a mandate to represent
the diversity
of their their their community that they serve.
So because of that, they would they would
they would invite me as an author and
an artist, but also as a storyteller.
That's another thing I did. I became a
storyteller.
So what I did was I took my
books, because I wanted to keep them in
print,
and I developed presentations
around how, about the creative process behind them.
I have a whole hour presentation
that I do on my book, The Roses
in My Carpets,
that involves the creative process,
social justice issues,
a lot of curriculum
applications.
Because that makes your your presentation so valuable
that, hey, when the teachers book you, they
realize that, hey, we're actually
not just,
exposing our children to an award winning author,
we're actually providing
essential curriculum applications
that we need to cover during the year
that are hard for us to cover in
any other way. So, that's what I was
able to do.
And that presentation
I mean, I would pay to watch that
presentation because it includes
a whole visual tour of the Afghan refugee,
foster the the refugee camp that I visited
that was the inspiration of the show. I
mean, inspiration of the book. So when I
when I make a presentation, it's like a
show, and it's entertaining.
It's, it's actually really interesting, and the kids
will be engaged.
I mean, when I came to England, I
did that presentation in English schools as well,
and the reaction
from everywhere I go
in terms of that presentation
is universal.
It's fascinating. Okay. So try to be fascinating
in your presentations.
And what will happen is you will develop
word-of-mouth
and teachers
will constantly come back to you. They'll tell
others
and you will be known as a good
presenter because,
face it, a lot of the times,
children's literature
and children's authors
need to also be good presenters. We have
to kinda wear 2 hats.
Now, so market your skills. That's number 4,
is market your skills.
You you schools, like I said, also not
just presentations,
schools will also pay for workshops.
Workshops, they actually find even more useful because
you're you're trying to impart some of your
skills. The skills on how you became an
author and what you know of, story construction.
Because this is actually part of the curriculum.
They're trying to teach children
to be savvy when they're reading, To be
able to distinguish the parts of the story.
How the author
is is using the story arc to impart
their themes, their messages, the things that they're
trying to get you to think of. It's
a form of education.
So market your skills. So in doing that,
what you can do is you can approach
different
booking agencies. Like, I have a booking agency
here in Toronto. They put me into the
schools
and I mean, I at the beginning, I
was doing, like, a 100 schools a year,
which is sounds like a lot, but it's
about 10 per per month.
It things have that things will ebb and
flow
as time goes by, but you will become
known
as a skillful workshop leader. So that's another
stream of income. And it's another way of
of paying your bills while you're waiting for
your royalties. Because when you keep publishing books,
you're gonna get royalties. At the beginning, usually,
the royalties are larger.
Over the years, they usually diminish. But it
depends. I mean, my book, Big Red Lollipop,
the subsidiary rights and other rights and stuff
are have been pretty substantial. I've made a
lot of money from that book of hungrily.
So, you know, you can get like a
good best seller like that, and that can
help you. But that's only one stream of
income. Okay. Now, number 5,
create a website.
A website
is so important. It's basically your resume
up on the Internet.
It's a way that people can find you
and hire you. And when you're creating your
website,
make sure you tag as many
appropriate,
tags as possible, like under Muslim, under children's
author, literature,
under what whatever your books are about. Make
sure that the tags are all there so
people when they're searching, they can find you.
Okay?
Now, number 6, as your profile grows,
apply for grants that can pay for your
living expenses
as you write. Because the thing is that
you have to continue to keep writing. You
can't just rely on a body of work
and then just say, okay, I've written how
many books? Well, with me right now, I've
written about 13. And I think, okay, that's
enough.
Personally, it's not satisfying for myself.
I wanted to keep developing myself, and I
have so many things I want to I
want to
say and so many, ideas I want to
explore with the writing.
So and and there will be times, fallow
times, where
you're frustrated, you're getting lots of rejections and
stuff like that.
But in those times, you have to keep
persevering,
and you
have to keep developing your skills.
Find the right way to tell the story
that you want to tell. It's not what
you say, it's how you say it. Because
if you have something important you wanna convey,
you have to find the right angle. And
that's that's sometimes very difficult, especially because we're
coming from marginalized communities.
And we have we have the mainstream way
of thinking, but we also have our own
cultural way of thinking and our own religious
way of thinking that is completely a different
cultural paradigm.
So to
mesh the 2, it it often takes more
effort. It's not as easy as if we
were just writing from a mainstream perspective.
So
get some grants.
And and the thing is, I mean, I've
been able to, get
a number of grants, like here in Canada,
the Canadian Arts Council,
you apply to the grants. This was the
1st year that I actually got a grant
and it's for a project that's really close
to my heart. And this project is has
allowed me to really focus
and put us like, not seek
more presentations and more work to fund my
writing activity. I've been able to actually focus
on the projects that I want to find
I I want to write
because of the grants.
And it depends on wherever you are, whatever
grants are available. There might be local city
grants. There might be provincial grants. There might
be federal grants. Okay. There's for me, personally,
there's all 3. There's one from our my
city, the one I live in. There's Toronto
Arts Council grants, then there's Ontario Arts Council
grants, and then there's Canada Arts Council grants.
It could be different from where you live.
Okay? So look for it and see what
grants are available.
Apply.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Okay?
It might take a bit of time to,
to to figure out how to apply, but
you will get better with time as you
go along. And as you and the thing
is, a lot of these grant grant authorities,
know that these granting organizations
are also looking for diversity.
So, you know, they will be looking for
their we've got a lot of allies out
there and who realize the kind of,
difficulties we're going through as a community.
So use those allies, get the grants, and
get the money that'll help you continue.
Now number 7 Let's just ask a niggly
question.
Sure.
This is this is sister of Islam, this
actually is gold.
You know, nobody has spoken about this,
so it's definitely going to be setting off
some ideas in people's heads. I just want
to ask a question about the grants.
Do you apply for a grant with a
story idea?
Do you have a publisher already in mind
when you're writing with a grant? Or do
you get the grant to explore your idea
and then submit to publishers? How does it
work from the publishing point of view? Oh,
it depends on the granting process. And there
are different types of grants. There are grants
that are really grants that are, like, for
you
to pursue whatever projects you want. It's like
more
you've you've presented yourself
as a as an established
author or whatever,
and you're trying to explore something.
Other grants, like this one that I personally
got recently,
was based on this project that I'm working
on. So what I did was I presented
this project, and when I'm writing the grant,
like, I've been on juries. I've been on
granting juries. And that actually helps because
when you see other people's applications,
you see where it it fall falls short
and where they're strong.
And as a person on the jury, you
wanna give away the money.
But you need to make sure that you
give it away to the person whose project
you believe in.
So make when you're giving the information about
your project, it's okay. Be enthusiastic.
Be passionate
about what you're trying to convey.
Try to try to let that come through
in how you write about your subject matter.
You know, be honest. Like, I mean, with
this this per this one, it's a historical
novel, and the person I'm writing about,
I consider him fascinating.
Oh, he's like, oh, he's so interesting.
And the story behind him is like, woah,
it's got to be told. So what I
did was I put some of that enthusiasm
into my my grant proposal, and lo and
behold,
I got it. I know. So and I've
I've received grant grants for
in the past,
I've received grants but never one for actual
a project.
And I think this time, what I did
was I just let loose and bit and
I was as passionate as I as I
really felt. Yeah. I didn't reign myself in
and try to be too professional and everything.
I just showed it the way it was.
But because also I have developed
a list of publications,
they can tell that I'm a serious author,
that I'm not just trying to get the
money, I really want to do this project.
They could tell.
So and and because I had that track
record,
they took me more seriously. So it's all
about
developing credibility.
Make sure you guard your reputation.
You know, make sure that whatever you put
out there is the very best. You know,
that's what you've gotta do. I mean, that's
how you survive.
I mean, there were other authors I met
that were better writers than me, but they
didn't last. They didn't have the perseverance.
They didn't keep going in the face of
all kinds of rejection.
And that's why I've been around for 20
years. And I'm still getting rejected. There are
still Really? Frustrations,
thoughts, feelings.
Y'all gonna say, like, do you still Oh
my gosh. Yes. I haven't had a book
published for about 4 years. And not because
I haven't been writing, but because,
I because the stuff that I'm writing, the
publishing industry has gotten even harder
in some ways. And the thing is that
if you've got a track record now in
the publishing industry,
it's there's more of a risk for some
publishers to publish you than if you're brand
new. Because they say, oh, well, she's a
middle est author. She's not ever gonna get
bigger than that, which is nonsense.
Okay?
So what you have to do is sometimes
you have to,
produce something so fabulous, Insha'Allah,
that they're gonna take you seriously once again.
And and, I mean, the stuff that I've
been working on, I believe in it,
but it hasn't gotten the right angle. You
know what I've talked about angles? Yeah. Like,
maybe there's there's something going on within my
own growth
and my own,
skills
and the develop of my own development of
my own skills. But for whatever reason, yeah,
I'm in the process of a bunch of
frustration. But look at that frustration
as
a learning opportunity.
It means that what I'm doing right now
isn't working.
But when you keep at it when you
keep at it and you make dua, you
ask Allah for help, and you think, okay.
Yes. But I've got a really good story
I wanna tell. I just have to figure
out how to make to package it. You
know, it's about packaging it. It's about angles.
So,
you have to just keep going. You have
to can't you can't give up. You have
to think, okay, this is what I wanna
do. And keep it close to your chest.
Don't talk too many people about it until
you're ready to reveal it to the world
Mhmm. Because you can talk out a project.
Yeah. So
the the whole thing is is keep it
under wraps.
Still help other people. Of course, I help
other people. In fact, 2 of the people
I've been mentoring have gone on to amazing
success.
And, alhamdulillah, I'm proud of them. These are
two friends of mine for years
that I've been mentoring. And both of them,
I mean, one of them came to the
UK
and she was at this big Muslim writers
conference and stuff like that. And yeah. Like,
they're both they've both done really, really well.
So
don't get jealous of their success. It's about
supporting each other. And for me, it was
always about
writing stories that would humanize us as Muslims.
And the fact that other people are doing
it as well is is a good thing.
It's not taking anything away from me.
It's not taking anything away from me. It's
supporting
all of the because we need more stories
to be told. It can't be one person
doing all the time. We did when you
started or when I started. To be honest,
we needed even more today than Oh, yeah.
We do. We absolutely do. But it's it's
funny because there seems to be a big
boon in Muslim publishing.
That's really good.
That's really good. And competition is good. It
makes for it makes you work harder too.
Okay?
So all of this stuff, alhamdulillah, is good.
So what you do is you keep at
it and make sure that you develop your
your skills. Now, number 8,
develop your business.
Take yourself seriously as an author. Okay?
Start,
start keeping receipts.
Write off your expenses.
I for years when I first began,
for years I had,
I had 1,000 of dollars in expenses
that I wrote off and I carried over
to write off against future income. And then
finally, when I started making money, for a
while I didn't have to pay taxes because
I had all these negative
expenses that I had written off. But then
when the time came, I had to pay
taxes, I thought, oh, you gotta pay a
lot. And sometimes I would be working for
a couple of months thinking, okay, I just
paid my taxes.
And I didn't get any money for that,
but honestly,
the my husband put it really well into
perspective. He said, look,
we get so much from our taxes in
terms of our government support. I mean, look
at all the grants that I've received, all
the things that I've gotten back through my
taxes.
So
we should say alhamdulillah when we have to
pay our taxes. Mhmm. Okay? That doesn't mean
you don't write off,
your business meetings and your your mileage and
your the the amount your, of your house
that you use
to, to to work in. But it just
means
that you you pay your taxes,
but you also treat yourself as a business.
That helps to,
it helps to,
keep you your business going. It helps you
make a living at this.
Now, number 9
is go back and do number 1 all
over again. It's get published. Okay?
It's get published and get published more. You
have to stay relevant. Okay? And I'm at
that moment now. In fact,
when people were calling me a pioneer, I
felt like, does that mean like I'm over
and I'm done?
No. It doesn't mean that. Oh, it doesn't?
It means that I was there at the
beginning, and I was one kind of forging
the way. And sometimes the person forging the
way doesn't get all the attention.
Sometimes it's the people who are coming afterwards
who get the the lion's share of the
attention.
But it's not about attention.
It's about the journey and what we're trying
to accomplish.
In my own situation,
my intention with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
was that I wanted to write books
that would provide something good for this world
and for the hereafter.
And inshallah, my books will will earn me,
good deeds, even it'll be a satekajarian
and even when I'm in the grave, they
will earn me some good deeds.
And sometimes those kind of books aren't the
most popular.
They're not the biggest bestsellers.
And that's okay. Yeah. That's okay.
Because the thing is that the people who
need to read them will, inshallah.
They will find them and they will benefit
from them. And so the thing is that
if you have enough of them going
and you develop yourself
as a resource,
both within the Muslim community and within the
mainstream community,
you will eventually develop a reputation
of someone who is worth listening to, worth
hiring. And alhamdulillah, basically, that's how I've done
it. That's how I've been able to survive
for 20 years. And
sometimes I make more more money than my
husband does.
Okay? It just depends on the year. Okay?
But
I'm doing quite well. I started out poor,
and I can say I'm not poor anymore.
I'm not too quite comfortable. That's one of
What we're kinda talking about is obviously
we need to be
being published.
So continuing to have books out there, producing
more books, more books. And I think now
we're in a bit of a different situation
where we've got, I think, a bigger choice
of publishers because you've got the main big
ones. But there are also so many new
independent publishers now that are interested or focusing
on diversity.
The big publishers have even published sorry, started
lists
specifically for either Muslim fiction or African American
fiction or whatever. So you've got, you know,
much more variety than when we started, I
think, in terms of partnerships you can't work
with. Right? But then,
also, if you are doing what you're what
you're telling us to do, which is to
put establish ourselves as an authority,
as a source of value, of learning, of
training,
of passing something on. So we're doing workshops,
we're doing school visits, we're doing courses, we're
doing training, we're doing webinars or whatever the
case may be. We are then building a
platform so that if we actually decide, and
I'm just gonna throw this in there. If
we build a platform to a certain stage,
we could even decide to self publish. So
you can Oh, definitely. There's people who self
publish and they do really well. You can
have a book. There are some books. Yeah.
There are some books that should be self
published. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's I've never
had unfortunately, I never had any any luck
with self publishing. I did self publish one
of my books when it went out of
print.
I self published it as an ebook.
I just got a statement,
and I don't think it sold anything in
the last But I think this is this
is my point about the platform though because
publishing a book on Amazon without a platform
for me and if you listen to my
talks earlier on in the summit, you'll know
that I just don't believe in that at
all. But if you are doing what we're
saying which is phase 1, pushing the creative
side to continuing to produce and to submit
and inshallah get published. And then phase 2,
building the platform
both in real time and online,
serving,
giving value, you know, protect spreading your message.
Once you've got that platform and you've basically
got a tribe and you've got an audience
and you have a readership, you can actually
have books published with mainstream publishers,
a copy of
independence, and some that you've done on your
own because you know what your audience wants.
And you're like, I can give my audience
what they want. I don't need a gatekeeper
for this. I can I I know what
they need? I know what we've been talking
about, and I know the story in my
head right now. And I'm just gonna put
it out independently,
just because I can. Because I have a
platform. But if you don't have a platform,
then you need to work on that stuff.
Yep. Like, I've never been that good at
platforms.
I have, like, a Twitter following.
I have,
I have what else? What is my YouTube
channel.
I have a bunch of things. Yeah. Like
Yes. But I've never been good at reaching
out
and developing that following.
I just figure, hey, if you want a
a subscribe, you're gonna subscribe. And I've been
I've been putting the links down below Yeah.
This, definitely below this video to one of
those because definitely we are going to like,
comment, and subscribe because that's what you have
to do. Because what what? Absolutely.
But also at the same time, like, when
you write your way up,
that's what like, when you start with small
publishers, which is what I did. I started
with small Canadian publishers.
You write your way up. Keep pushing your
skills.
Eventually, you'll write yourself up to the next
level, which is basically what I did. And
I'm at the point now
where for SubhanAllah, my novel, Wanting More,
has been published in, like, about 7 I
think 7 or 8 different countries. Wow. And
it I I was recently at the international
what's it? Research children's literature or whatever. It
was a big international conference in Toronto where
they invited me to speak. And I met
people, like, these are graduate students, graduate literature
students from all over the world who had
written dissertations on that novel of mine.
So people were studying my work. They're looking
at it. And it gave me such a
feeling.
Like I felt like, wow, people are actually
taking my work very, very seriously.
And even I've heard of them looking at
that book in particular
to see how I included black back material,
like backstory.
And and I did it in a very,
alhamdulillah, I did it in a very effective
manner.
So they look at that. They look at
Big Red Lollipop. They look at some of
my other books,
and they start to examine them,
dissect them, all kinds of stuff. So you
could come. Yeah. You could come an authority.
That that is, like, one of the the
biggest compliments when you have either a university
class or even an a level class actually
choosing your book to study. You know? Absolutely.
And I have line by line, and then,
you know, they're pulling I have a member
of my book Far From Home. My cousin
I love that book, by the way. Thank
you.
My cousin is a lecturer,
in in the states at Boston. I think
it's Boston University. And for her literature class,
they studied far from home. And so she
sent me some of the work,
and these students were picking up on stuff
like the symbolism of the sadder, for example.
And I was like, what?
Yes. I don't remember even thinking about that.
But
Well, you probably did, but it was settled
and it was, like, it was part of
it. Yeah. Yeah.
Amazing.
No. Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Oh, cool. And, yeah, when you when you
when you get to that point,
and oh, I forgot to men mention Skype
presentations too. So they're under the same presentation.
People can find you through your website for
even Skype presentations.
And they can become a significant source of
income. So you might not make enough money
in terms of just your royalties,
which is usually once or twice a year,
and all the other. But when you add
all of those streams of income in, you
can actually make a living wage and a
living income. And you can keep going to
the point where, Inshallah, you're doing very well.
So basically,
keep at it, be perseverant,
develop
a really good content.
Really good content and and things that nobody
else can do and nowhere else they they
can find that information.
So do that or that perspective.
So make sure that you do it in
the best way possible
and you give it your all.
And, inshallah, you will be successful.
That is Good luck.
Fantastic
fantastic advice, you know, from a pro. Hey,
you know,
you know what you're talking about.
I know it's it's it's really I'm I'm
so honored to have you on this platform,
and just I just wanna say
for your generosity
and for squeezing us in.
Nobody else is giving talks, only us. But
it's it's just gold, what you've given us.
And and I know that everybody is listening
to this talk,
will definitely walk away
thinking, I did not know that. I didn't
know that was an option. I didn't know
I had to do that. I didn't know
I could do that. And so that's really,
really amazing. So everything that you've mentioned here,
the book that you mentioned, your books, obviously,
your website, your YouTube, we will be linking
to all of that, Inshallah, in the description.
And,
you know, I would love to I would
love to learn more from you and do
some more training. So we'll talk about that
later. Okay? Yeah. In
the meantime, I just want to say
may Allah continue to bless you and especially
Will you agree? This little secret project
because something tells me it's going to be
an absolute stunner, and I can't wait to
read it myself.
Alright, sis.
We'll see you not in the comment section
because you're not on Facebook, but,
see you on Twitter because we'll be tagging
you inshallah.
Okay. Great. Inshallah.