Meet Stephanie Lee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Lee, a writer and media strategist who works with New York Times best-selling authors, TEDx speakers, entrepreneurs, and more.

Can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today. You can include as little or as much detail as you’d like.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a tennis superstar. I had the natural athleticism for it (or so I was told). As kids, we see dreams as truly dreams. Born from a place of pure naivety and never constrained by reality nor by what our parents would tell us. It’s funny how dreams and reality  converge in the end. Decades later, here I am: a writer, sans the pilling cardigans and cats. And it all kind of happened by accident. 

Well, at least the start of it was. 

Growing up, I loved playing video games more than anything, including Saturday morning cartoons with cereal and overachieving in grade school (I was a C student). I was lucky to have a supportive mom who did what she could to help feed my video game addictio — er, hobby. A hobby that led me to GameFAQs, a cornucopia of all video game knowledge. 

If you wanted to know a dungeon boss’ weakness, the most hidden of all hidden secrets, or get past the friggin’ Lost Woods in The Legend of Zelda, you would go to GameFAQs to consult  strategy guides written by the “experts.” I discovered though that these experts were just gamers like myself: knowledgeable and bored enough to write 50,000-word strategy guides in size-10 Courier New font.

So in 2001, I asked, “Why not me?” and took a crack at it under a music-inspired pseudonym 

(if you don’t know, you’ll never know!) — and guess what? I got published! People actually read it and even sent me emails to thank me. Thereafter I was hooked. Then, 30 (free) guides later, a site called IGN gave me the opportunity to write these video game strategy guides that I did for fun anyway, except this time for money. Not only that, these guys were the big leagues. The real deal, not this Courier New crap. That’s when I entered the freelancing world. 

Not that I took it seriously. The pay was low for the hundreds of hours I put into each strategy guide. It seemed like a sweet deal because I was getting free games and getting paid to write about them. But beyond that, I actually never dared to dream that I would be writing for a living. Gasp, what would my parents think? Instead, I said I’d become a dietitian. It was respectable. It seemed stable and secure, and it was Parent Approved.

Call it serendipity, but around the same time I’d started to hate nutrition work at the hospital I attended, the freelance manager at IGN told me that a full-time editor position had opened up and asked if I was interested. Uh, dude, it was obviously a NO BRAINER. It was the first of a handful of pivotal career decisions and the jump-start of my full-time writing career — the start of which lined up almost exactly since I’d started writing 10 years prior.

Since then, I’ve meandered through myriad writing opportunities, including: being an editor at Bodybuilding.com, writing regularly for Lifehacker, and getting more than 300+ articles published across other publications like GQ (like this), The New York Times (like this), New York Magazine, VICE, Popular Science, and more. My writing experience has taken me across many industries in a number of different writing capacities, with different people and business backgrounds. All this has allowed me to cultivate a varied skill set. These days I teach what I know by helping entrepreneurs, small business owners, and thought leaders in their space tell their stories to the media (with an actual impact on their business/brand presence). I also create educational material for online courses. 

Clearly, writing has ruled my professional track and is still the backbone of everything I do today. It’s scary to imagine how differently things would’ve turned out if I’d kept going down my dietitian track. Ugh.

Has it been a smooth road? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Oh, there have definitely been struggles. I’m also a weirdo who believes struggles make the creative and thus embrace them. Most of the struggles, though, live mainly inside my head. There’s one, based on a maybe-Walt Disney quote, that particularly stands out to me. According to the internet, Disney said:

“I don’t make movies to make money. I make money so I could make movies.” 

If someone were to ask me what my “end goal” was, I would tell them that quote. It validates how I was currently leveraging my writing to build a lucrative career in order to get to the fun stuff — whatever that might look like — like eating my vegetables so I could have three helpings of dessert. So I’ve been using that quote as my guiding light for years, using my writing as mainly a tool to earn me money. If something didn’t have an “ROI”, I was never able to justify the time needed to spend on it. 

Therein lies the paradox: if I’m writing to make money in order to have money to write, how would I know when I’ve written enough for money so I could write what I want?

THAT’S MY STRUGGLE.

When you’ve been monetizing your work for decades, you start to develop a dangerous habit of quashing any fun creative energy before even trying. Essentially, the struggle became undoing decades of limiting beliefs and habits, and finding a way to relearn the thrills, fears, hopes, and excitement of writing for the first time again. Most of it came down to just scheduling something and taking baby steps: scribbling down ideas, stretching my imagination, and Thankfully for me, that’s started to shift recently. There are things I have the luxury to say no to, even if the money is good. 

Lately I’ve even been asking myself, “Well, what if I COULD write for fun?” 

Maybe a screenplay. Maybe a short story. Maybe a children’s storybook. No one has to read it. It doesn’t have to make me money. And it’d just for me. Why not try it for once?

Tell us about your business/company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
Consider me a “solo-preneur” in the online space. There are two aspects to my business: a one-on-one consulting side and an information product side. Let me explain. 

In a personalized one-on-one capacity, I help other entrepreneurs (a fitness coach, for example) and anyone with a strong point of view tell their stories in the media to make the biggest impact possible. Specifically, this means getting them published in magazines and websites, appearing on podcasts, and overall improving their visibility and brand presence. Some people call this PR, but it’s really about story-telling, relationships, and developing a good sense for what spurs conversations. 

My clients come to me because I’ve spent over a decade on both sides of the digital publishing table — and have honed in on what sparks conversations, builds momentum, and overall makes a big impact. More than that, I’ve a proven track record to get them results. My clients have been published in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., Washington Post, The New York Times, and more — and these are often used to parlay to other opportunities.

The other arm of my business involves a growing catalog of online courses, where I help students publish their ideas and writing in online publications and major media. Think Huffington Post, Lifehacker, and more. For example, I have one course that helps people break out of their own blog to get their writing and ideas more visible on other bigger sites, including how to come up with ideas and how to pitch. Another shows business owners exactly how press and media can elevate their brand and business. Some of my students have gone on to get published in the Matador Network, Thrive Global, Harpers Bazaar, and many niche industry publications. In fact, you can sign up to check out some of my best tips on how to get published here.

I’m different from a lot of my writing peers because I tend to focus on the business side of it. I’m that weird creative who’s taught herself to actually talk about money. I also focus on the client and get them results. Part of my success is that while a lot of writers think about “me, me, me,” I’m always thinking about giving massive value to the client or reader. In other words, how can I make their lives even 1% better?

Basically, if you’re reading this and you feel like a “hidden gem” with ideas and a passion the world should hear, I’d love to help you realize your writing dreams.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Consider me a “solo-preneur” in the online space. There are two aspects to my business: a one-on-one consulting side and an information product side. I shall explain!

In a personalized one-on-one capacity, I help other entrepreneurs (a fitness coach, for example) and anyone with a strong point of view tell their stories in the media to make the biggest impact possible. Specifically, this means getting them published in magazines and websites or on podcasts and overall improve their online visibility and brand presence. Some people call this PR, but it’s really about storytelling, relationships, and developing a good sense for what spurs conversations.

My clients come to me because I’ve spent over a decade on both sides of the digital publishing table — and have honed in on what people want to hear about, what builds momentum, and what ideas overall make a big impact. More than that, I’ve a proven track record to get them results. My clients have been published in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., Washington Post, The New York Times, and more — and these are often used to parlay to other opportunities.

The other arm of my business involves a growing catalog of online courses, where I teach the A to Z of getting published. For example, I have one course that helps people break out of their own blog to get their writing and ideas more visible on other bigger sites, including how to come up with ideas and how to pitch. Another shows business owners exactly how press and media can elevate their brand and business. Some of my students have gone on to get published in the Matador Network, Thrive Global, Harpers Bazaar, and many niche industry publications. In fact, you can sign up to check out some of my best tips here (https://stephanielee.me/free-lessons/).

What makes me different is that I’ve taught myself to actually talk about money. I know conversations around money can be a huge sticking point for many creatives. This means I focus on the client and get them results. Because their success is my success. While a lot of writers think about “me, me, me,” I’m always thinking about giving massive value to the client or reader. In other words, how can I make their lives even 1% better?

Basically, if you’re reading this and you feel like a “hidden gem” with ideas and a passion the world should hear, I’d love to help you realize your writing dreams.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m reminded of this quote by Neil Gaiman: “Often you will discover that the harder you work, and the more wisely you work, the luckier you get. But there is luck, and it helps.”

I won’t deny that I’ve been lucky, but I also want to recognize that I’ve continually worked on my craft, learned the skill of business and of people, taught myself to recognize a lucky break or opportunity in the making, and deliver a lot of value. I believe luck helps, but I believe more in giving value and doing it consistently.

The idea of “luck” feels over exaggerated. It implies inevitability. That the universe has some sort of work ethic bank account that you can draw from the moment it is in the positive. Except it never works that way. A lot of people succeed because they work hard to deliver overwhelming and transformational value to the world (or their own microcosm). Just look at the businesses of our time. Starbucks. Apple. Amazon. They didn’t JUST get lucky. They created their own luck by giving immense value.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stephanielee.me
• Email: [email protected]
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/superLEE7

Image Credit:
Personal photo is by Karen Hong Photography.

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