About Benjamin Plumb:
Benjamin Plumb graduated from the Harvard Business School and was a US Army intelligence officer in Vietnam. His obsession with his introvert “winning recipe” mistakenly led him into unfulfilling careers as an entrepreneur and executive. As soon as he backed away from the recipe and began to live openly as an introvert, he found his niche as a writer and turned his life around. He lives in the Tampa Bay area with Sandy, his wife of over forty years.
In his spare time he reads books on history and longevity, and enjoys nature documentaries.
What inspires you to write?
Our society has gone overboard with extroversion. Introverts naturally have a skillset that makes a real contribution in that world: clarity (thinking before speaking), harmony (avoiding conflict), intimacy (talking deeply), insight (thinking deeply), listening more than talking (connection), and working carefully (reliability). Much advice to introverts centers around how to become more outgoing. There is little sustainable satisfaction in that. What works is to lean into your introversion and live authentically and openly as a quiet person.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
Susan Cain in Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking convinced me for the first time that as an introvert I had no “defect” to fix. It is foundational reading for any introvert who wants to start living authentically, as opposed to presenting ourselves via the persona that we all created as children to appear more outgoing than we really were.
Tell us about your writing process.
I’m in bed by 2:00pm, get up around 10:00pm, and write all night long. I'm an outliner, and often use artificial intelligence for a first cut at organizing my material. I write only nonfiction.
What advice would you give other writers?
First, if you’re young, keep a journal. For much of the 60-odd years covered in The Satisfied Introvert I kept one and found it to be invaluable in creating vivid stories from the past.
Second, use a hybrid publisher if you can afford it. Otherwise you may get sequestered into giving up your royalties to a mainline publisher while at the same time you do all the marketing work that you likely are not good at, and like me, may even dislike intensely.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I self-published the first edition of my book with modest results. It was a huge hassle, so for the second edition I went with a hybrid publisher. The editorial, production, and marketing support have been stellar, freeing me to focus more on writing.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
More and more authors will use AI to generate ideas, organize content, do research, and write first drafts. Any who don't will be left behind, struggling to compete with the speed and depth that AI brings to writing, particularly nonfiction.
What genres do you write?: memoir/self-help
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Benjamin Plumb Home Page Link
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
