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The official podcast from the team at BookFunnel, hosted by Jack Shilkaitis, Kelli Tanzi, and Emma Alisyn, featuring guest interviews, self-publishing industry discussions, and tips for using BookFunnel to build an author business.
0:00: And I can't decide, is it, is work-life balance worse when you love both of your roles or better?
0:07: Still, having a day job makes you less of an author.
0:10: It does not.
0:11: There's no effing thing.
0:13: There's no such thing as work-life balance, at least in this industry and when you love your job.
0:17: It's also OK to be like, to accept the fact that you're going to try some things and you might fail, and that's OK.
0:23: It's not failure.
0:24: How much energy and time do you really have?
0:27: There's literally no way.
0:30: To make time appear, you have to give up some things in order to air quote, make time appear.
0:35: Very few people talk about the 2030 years before you made it big.
0:39: They're overnight sensation.
0:40: No, they're not.
0:41: They're like 65.
0:42: They've got a backlist of like 100 books from like the 1970s that ain't overnight.
0:47: Hey folks, welcome to the Book Funnel podcast where authors get real-world advice on Writing, publishing, and growing a career on their own terms.
0:56: Whether you're just starting out or you're deep into your author journey, we're here to help you build your readership, boost your book sales, and connect with your audience.
1:03: Each episode, we aim to bring you insights from authors, experts, and industry insiders who have been there, done that, and then some.
1:10: My name is Jack.
1:11: I'm our lead author support specialist here at Book Funnel, and I am joined Today by both my co-host and guest, Emma Allison.
1:20: Yes, that's right, Emma.
1:21: It's just Emma and I today.
1:22: this is gonna be a shorter episode of the podcast.
1:26: We had a guest who had to reschedule, but we're here, we're ready to go, so we figured we would record an episode real quick.
1:31: We, you will get to see that guest.
1:33: They will be on the next episode, so don't worry, we just had to reschedule some things.
1:36: But here we are.
1:37: And we thought, you know what, we're already ready to go.
1:40: Let's just dive in here and have a conversation.
1:42: And so, Emma, if you wanna introduce the topic for us, cause I'm, you're, I'm gonna hold you responsible for the topic today.
1:48: OK, well, if anybody's watched this podcast, they've listened to all of us insert expletive about work-life balance as, as full-time authors and full-time Jamie, and I can't decide, is it Is work-life balance worse when you love both of your roles or better?
2:08: Because it's almost worse because you just can't shut it off and people who are sane tell you to shut it off and you're like, why would I want to do that though, man.
2:16: Now, this is an important conversation for like a lot of authors, cause most, most authors out there, most aspiring authors in particular, right?
2:23: They're not making a full-time income from their writing, that might, that's probably what they're aspiring to, in many cases, but yeah, it's, it's tricky, and you've got, there's a lot of balancing to do.
2:32: By the way, when Emma says full-time Jamie, I wanna, I wanna clarify it cause not everybody knows, what do you mean a full-time I'm Jamie.
2:39: Here at Book Funnel, we, in Book Funnel support specifically, we refer to ourselves as Jamie, because that's how we reply to your emails as Jamie.
2:48: We are a collective.
2:49: There's an episode on that, that's some of the deep lore of the Book Funnel podcast.
2:53: You can go find that Jamie episode here on YouTube or wherever else you might be listening that will fill you in on that.
3:00: But, so, The, I think the question that you posed there first, let's, let's just go with that one, cause I think it's the most relevant to us.
3:08: And what is it, what do you do when you love your day job, but you also really love writing and being an author, and you want that to be a part of your life too, and how do you, how, how have you balanced all that, Emma?
3:20: There are two answers, and the first one comes after 10 years of doing this as an indie author, and for the 1st 8 years, I was nothing but a full-time indie author, and then I was blessed with Book Funnel.
3:31: And in a while, we may want to QTP, do you really want to be a full-time author, cause that's stressful, man, if you don't have.
3:38: So if you're on the fence or you're not sure, or you're thinking that still having a day job.
3:44: makes you less of an author, it does not.
3:46: It does not.
3:46: So let's just get that out of the way.
3:48: But the real answer is there's no effing thing.
3:51: There's no such thing as work-life balance, at least in this industry and when you love your job.
3:56: The second real answer is you learn over time through a lot of hard conversations with yourself, and I also have a wonderful coach, Christopher Downing, to set boundaries around the worst of your worst.
4:08: Impulses.
4:09: And that's a journey to learn, to learn your own crazy and how to manage it.
4:14: I was just telling my sixth grader the other day because she burst into tears because she got grounded because her room is an effing mess, man, and she's frustrated with herself.
4:22: I'm like, Listen, this is not a moral failing.
4:24: This is a systemic failing.
4:26: You don't have boundaries of systems set up around, you know, your habit of being sloppy.
4:31: So.
4:32: That's hard to do.
4:32: I mean, it's hard to do for a 6th grader, but it's hard to do for an adult.
4:37: I know, like, for me, I know one thing I've done, and it's kind of the same thing, maybe attacking it from a different angle, is like I've put myself in a position where I have to do those things that the business requires, right?
4:49: So my, my Patreon is, is.
4:52: Like this, and it's not a paid Patreon right now, but I released chapters on there, and I feel accountable to those people, that I have to release content for them.
5:01: They're expecting something from me, and I'm just posting chapters as I write them, so it motivates me to keep writing.
5:08: So I have that set up to motivate that piece of the puzzle, right?
5:12: Because I know like, a chapter got posted today, no, not today, yesterday.
5:17: And it was the night before, I'm like, OK, I gotta get that done.
5:20: I've gotta do that.
5:22: And that motivated me, and so I set up that system, if you will, to make that happen.
5:27: Another thing that I'm doing that's, and I don't wanna get too, and we can go into the weeds on this in a little bit here.
5:33: I've done some in-person events, loved them, had a blast.
5:36: And so I decided, cause I keep going to the local mall, I asked them like, how much would a kiosk be?
5:42: So I can just have a permanent setup, and it's like, and it's, there's a bill attached to that.
5:46: Like it's, and it's not, it's not, it's not the most expensive thing in the world, it's totally doable for me.
5:51: It's, it's in a sweet spot where it's just challenging enough where it's like, OK, I'm gonna have to put in some work, right?
5:56: And we'll see how that goes.
5:57: I think it's also OK to be like, to accept the fact that you're gonna try some things, and you might fail, and that's OK.
6:04: It's not failure, it's new information, right?
6:06: That's a good way to look at it.
6:07: That's a good way to look at it.
6:08: I mean, I would, I would, I'm, I'm, the failure label doesn't bother me, so that's why I use that language, but I know for some people.
6:14: That's like a, some people, they don't like that word.
6:17: Yeah, yeah, it's new information.
6:19: Exactly.
6:19: OK, we tried that.
6:20: Here's what we learned from it.
6:22: That's valuable learning.
6:23: That's valuable information that we got.
6:25: What, how can we take that and then use it for the next thing?
6:28: It's interesting you mentioned the money motivator, and I have rabid ADHD, so I have multiple big projects all over the place, and I'm constantly having to refocus on like, what is the main goal.
6:40: But I've recently dropped.
6:43: Same as you, about the same amount, and we know what amount we're talking about on a marketer to run my TikTok for me.
6:49: And that is just a significant enough expenditure each month that I'm sitting up and I looked at my goals for the week and the month and I'm like, OK, we're going to have to hone in on the tasks that are going to make me money like in the next 7 days.
7:04: And that perspective, and not everybody wants to monetize their business, and there's nothing wrong with that if you don't.
7:10: If you do want to monetize.
7:11: And you're spending, air quotes, rent money on it, then it's, there's a different perspective, not literally rent money, but you know, bills, kids.
7:19: You start asking yourself what's really gonna move the needle this week and next week, and that's kind of, and it's interesting, that probably worked inadvertently for my ADHD more than anything else because I sure have gotten my behind in gear the last 6 days.
7:34: Right now I'm sure there are some folks who are hearing this and are getting like maybe a little sick to their stomach even.
7:41: At the thought of this, OK, no, that is not for me.
7:44: and, and that's fair too, like, it's, it's totally viable for you to also take the opposite approach and be like, I'm just gonna do this one thing.
7:53: I'm just gonna focus on X, Y, or Z, you know, whatever the case might be.
7:59: like TikTok, you brought up, right, for some, for some folks, it's gonna be, OK, I, I'm just gonna do TikTok.
8:06: That's gonna be what I focus on right now because that's what I have time for, and I enjoy doing it, all right?
8:12: And I think that's the key there is I'm not saying do TikTok.
8:14: I'm saying do what you enjoy, right?
8:17: Do the thing that you enjoy doing, and then it becomes, it's a positive feedback loop.
8:22: And I think looking at this from the motivation angle is still important, because either you do what I think that you and I tend to do, which is like, OK, let me make myself obligated to the process, and then I'll find the motivation.
8:36: But for some people it's the opposite.
8:38: It's like, OK, let me find the thing I enjoy about the process, whatever that is, sharing, sharing it with people, whatever that looks like for you, maybe it's a sub-stack, maybe it's just in your newsletter, maybe your newsletter is enough, right?
8:50: Maybe you really like, you know, like I said, TikTok or a social media platform, or there's something specific, and you enjoy it, and then you just lean into that, the fact that you enjoy doing it, and you find the motivation that way.
9:02: Absolutely, yeah.
9:03: I think you and I may be, well, I have activator and achiever, so I am motivated by external goals that I set for myself.
9:11: I do like, I do not like external goals set for me by other people, but for myself, it's almost like a game.
9:17: And that does motivate me, but if that does not motivate you, don't try that system.
9:22: And that's part of what I went back to about the hard years of learning your own crazy.
9:27: You have to figure out what really motivates you, what do you really like?
9:30: And one of the hard lessons that I came to over the last couple of years was, I'm not actually, when it comes to picking.
9:38: What stories I want to write, I'm not actually motivated by money.
9:41: And I used to think I was.
9:42: I want money.
9:43: I see that as a barometer of success.
9:45: But when it comes to deciding what I want to write, all of that goes out the door and it's like a big FU.
9:50: I'm going to write what I want to write, man.
9:51: And that was a hard lesson.
9:53: That was a hard lesson.
9:54: But you can't force your brain to be something it's not.
9:57: No, you can't.
9:58: And it's it's OK.
9:59: OK to be motivated by money because money pays the bills.
10:02: It feeds your kids, right?
10:04: Like there's, there's nothing wrong with making money or we would not be working here and being authors at the same time, right?
10:10: Nothing wrong with that at all.
10:11: But, but yeah, finding what truly, like for me, I know it's like, it's actually that act of connecting with readers and I've the experiences I've had over the last 6 months have proven that to me.
10:20: It's like I do an event, and every time I go to one of these events, I'm always like, cause you have, you gotta get there in the morning, like, when I do these at the mall, you gotta get there before the mall opens, right?
10:30: And, you know, we got, we got kids and everything, so it's a little bit of a hassle.
10:33: We gotta get it, you're right.
10:34: Everybody's got to kind of get ready to help dad get all the stuff to the mall.
10:37: I'm like, OK.
10:38: I'm always like, oh, why am I doing this?
10:41: Like, oh my gosh, it's such a headache.
10:43: And I get set up there and like, you know what, I'm pretty cool.
10:46: Look at this.
10:46: Look at all these books on the table, then somebody else comes by like, hey, you're pretty cool.
10:50: And that's like, right, I'm obviously glossing over a million different interactions that happened there, but that's That's huge to me.
10:58: I was, I had the privilege of being interviewed on a TikTok by a book talker, right?
11:03: Somebody that we might have on the podcast in the near future.
11:06: And like, like one of the, the questions she asked me was like, OK, what can we do to support you?
11:10: And I know there's like a lot of different answers to that, but like my answer is like literally just like, just read the book and tell me if you liked it.
11:16: Like that's good, that's good enough for me.
11:19: That cause that will motivate me to like keep doing this, and that's really what I need.
11:23: And I think when motivation is like one of the biggest keys when you are not a full-time author, you're working full time, and you maybe you have a family, maybe you're in a different stage of your life, right?
11:34: Maybe it's not that you, maybe you're, if you have kids.
11:37: Kids, they're grown, and maybe it's your elderly parents you're taking care of, you know, who knows?
11:42: There's all kinds of situations that can monopolize your time, right?
11:46: And you're trying, you have this, this dream, this aspiration that you're wanting to, you're wanting to become an author, or you are, and you want to become a full-time author, whatever it might be, right?
11:55: Motivation is I think the first piece of that puzzle you have to figure out.
12:00: And then I think the second piece is being real with yourself about how much energy and time do you really have.
12:06: And I know one course that really helped me in my author career was the HB 90 course with Sarah Cannon.
12:11: And don't go out and spend money on all this stuff we spend money on.
12:14: We do it over time and we're not just dropping money here and we build up to this, but she really, it's a system anybody can do.
12:22: She has you just for a week, track everything you do.
12:25: It's tedious as F man.
12:26: Do it for a week, track everything you're doing every hour.
12:31: And it is illuminating because I used to be, I'm high responsibility for clips and strings, if anybody knows what that means.
12:37: I used to beat myself up and plus Achiever about why am I not getting more done.
12:42: And after I did that system tracking for a week, what actually goes on in my daily life, I was like, oh, you actually really only have like 90 minutes a day to work on your author business, wench.
12:54: Like, that's why you're not air quotes, getting done what you think you should be getting done.
12:58: And there's no way.
13:00: There's literally no way to make time appear.
13:03: You have to give up some things in order to quote, make time appear.
13:08: So that's the second thing.
13:09: What motivates you and what do you actually have time and energy for?
13:13: So don't, don't feel bad.
13:15: Like, you're like, I can't do what everybody else does.
13:18: Maybe you have a family.
13:19: Maybe you have, I've known authors who have like.
13:21: Chronic fatigue syndrome, who have other things they're dealing with, like, and that's legitimate.
13:27: So yeah, no, you, you, I think as, as humans just in general, maybe authors are a little, you know, maybe, maybe authors are a little worse at this, but humans in general, like estimating how long, how much time a given task is gonna take, we're way off, man.
13:42: We We have no idea.
13:44: Like, just multiply that by 3, whatever you think it's gonna be, right?
13:49: And so you're gonna have to squeeze in time here and there, you know, if you, if your weekends are free, you know, squeeze some time in there.
13:55: I know you, we.
13:58: This is to go back to the, the question about like, if you love your job, does that make it harder?
14:03: Well, I think, I think it definitely does because you have these two passions that are kind of pulling you in two different directions.
14:09: I think of like, when Brandon Sanderson talks about how he like he worked at a hotel.
14:14: And he could be like writing his, like, he's just working at the desk, from what I understand about this story.
14:20: Somebody correct me if I'm wrong in the comments, but like that's the type of job where, yeah, you could be at the front desk at the hotel and probably, you know, write, nowadays, you can be writing on your phone if you had no tasks to do in that job.
14:33: That's probably not a job that, there's somebody out there that feels passionate about that job.
14:36: I know there's somebody, so I don't wanna say that that's, you know, not the case, but If you're an author, that's probably not a job where you're like, you're super passionate about it.
14:45: You know what I mean?
14:46: And so it's probably easier to, you're not, you know, you're not sinking all of your creative energy into your job.
14:52: And so you still have that creative energy for when you need it to write.
14:55: Yeah, not so much with book funnel and not so much with Book Funnel, especially since we, we love our job.
15:03: And if in my head, it feels like just an extension of being an author.
15:07: Vice versa.
15:08: And so we love our job and we love the authors we help and we believe in the mission.
15:13: So we keep creating more projects for ourselves.
15:15: And Damon, our boss, like the owner, they don't, they don't come to us and say, we want you to do X, Y, we do it.
15:21: And every once in a while I step back and be like, Shahrazad, why are you creating more work for yourself than Shahzad?
15:28: That's my, my legal name.
15:29: But, and then on the other side, I'm like, Because I like it, man.
15:34: So let's that shit.
15:36: Yeah, no, and I've, I've had this experience with other jobs too.
15:40: Obviously, you know, Book Funnel is Something I'm very passionate about, like I've, I've got webinars that I'm planning, like there's creative energy that that requires, right?
15:48: The podcast is a little different because we're having more of a conversation.
15:51: I find personally the podcast to be like creatively invigorating.
15:55: If anything, and the webinars are like something that, and, and I'm not, by the way, I'm not saying this is, this is not a complaint, this is not nothing like that, but it does drain that creative resource, because I'm, I'm making something and, and, and trying, something that I can then present to people, right?
16:12: In, in a past life, I was a martial arts instructor, right?
16:16: And you're teaching primarily kids, but you're also teaching adults, and you have to be creative about the way that you present a new skill, or the way that you are, you know, just running the class, and that sort of thing.
16:29: And that took up a lot of my creative energy.
16:31: And I remember that that time, granted, this was a while ago, but yeah, you, you don't realize how much time and energy those other tasks, you know, take from you, and it's a limited, you are a limited resource.
16:44: At the end of the day, time is limited, your motivation is limited, your energy is limited.
16:49: So you, you can't, like you said, you can't, time doesn't just appear like you have to make it, you have to make it happen, and that sort of thing.
16:57: And the ironic thing is you have to spend, if you don't have working capital, you have to work hard to get the working capital in order to delegate tasks so you have more time.
17:06: So it's like this, this, this weird loop.
17:08: My VA the other day, she was like, oh my God, I love you because you don't make me track your time.
17:13: I'm like, first of all, I'm going to pass on the same love I get from my job.
17:17: They don't make me air quote, track my time.
17:19: Second of all, I know how long that simple, so-called simple canva graphic takes.
17:23: She's like, my other clients are like, they want me to track how many minutes it takes me to do a graphic, and I don't know how to explain to them why it takes so long.
17:31: I'm like, Girl, I get it.
17:33: Like, so authors out there, if you're like, why is it taking me 4 hours to do a simple camera graphic, sometimes it just be like that, man.
17:40: That's normal.
17:42: But that's like, that's an example of what it's like, how you think something is simple, how it shouldn't take time, and then you beat yourself up because you're like, Why such and such and so and so, nah, bro, it's not just you.
17:56: Well, and I think that brings us maybe to the third point here, which is finding those high leverage opportunities, things where you can like, and I think this applies to, this touches every part of the business.
18:07: So, for example, you're talking about a VA, right?
18:10: So, once you can afford a VA even for a few hours a month, yeah, do that.
18:16: Give them the tasks that you don't wanna do, right?
18:19: These the ones that you're not motivated to do, but you know are essential to the business.
18:24: Hand those off to them, right?
18:27: That's, that's a high point of leverage for you, that's high efficiency, cause you're not having to do it, right?
18:32: But I think another, another example of this is like learning dictation, for example, right?
18:37: Where you can, now your writing process can be more efficient, and so, learning how to dictate means that you can get more words done in less time.
18:46: And if your time is already crunched, like, that's kind of the response that you have to have to some of these things.
18:52: When there's all that time pressure, OK, find a way, OK, I delegate this.
18:55: Is there a better way to do this that's more efficient?
18:58: Efficient doesn't always mean faster in the short term.
19:02: But in the long run, cause, you know, I, Emma, we've talked about dictation before, right, but any new process when you're starting out with some new process is gonna have a learning curve.
19:15: Yeah.
19:16: Absolutely.
19:18: I mean, even before I hired my VA, I had to sit down and be like, OK, this is gonna take me a good 2 to 3 weeks to document all of my processes and train her.
19:26: She's fabulous, very competent.
19:29: I'm completely trust her, but I had to ask myself, am I really ready to give up 2 to 3 weeks of my time like from my other goals to train her?
19:38: So that's another consideration, like of any, any time you're optimizing, like that, you think the optimization is going to kick in right away.
19:47: It ain't.
19:47: Yeah, right.
19:48: No, absolutely, it takes time.
19:50: I mean, I, I know a thing or two about that, you know, training somebody to.
19:56: Right, for those who don't know, Emma, I obviously, when Emma and Kelly joined the team, I trained them, and we have, a couple of new members of the team as well, the other support team that I'm training now.
20:06: So, and that's another thing where I know just from that, that has, that has eaten up a lot of my time everywhere, right?
20:14: It's just, it's a very intense period of time, even in the, so you have other major things coming along too, so.
20:23: Yes, yes, the new baby is, is due at the end of May, so my wife and I are, we're, we're at that stage now where I think we're still, It hasn't quite hit us yet.
20:35: It will very soon, you know what I mean?
20:37: I don't know.
20:37: For her, obviously, a little, a little different than it is for me, but, you know, we're, we're still going about our daily lives and everything's gonna change here again in the near future.
20:47: This is kid number 4, so this is not like my first rodeo or anything.
20:51: You're one behind me, Jack.
20:52: You gotta catch up.
20:53: OK, well, but.
20:55: But yeah, it, it's, I know that's the thing too, like you're gonna have life events.
20:59: I think it's very easy to, to kind of take us, and for some people, they like to take a step back and look at the big picture, and be like, oh well, if I just do this and this, and I, if I just put this many hours in a day, if I just like post once a day, if I Just do get this many words a day, but we lose sight of the other moving parts, right?
21:19: Life will happen, and you'll have things come up, and you'll have stress.
21:24: And I know there were, there are certain events that have happened in my life too, where, like, I couldn't even think about writing because there was something going on.
21:31: That demanded that attention and, and you have to, you have to give yourself like, I don't nobody's at the same time, you know, they say nobody's like gonna come to rescue you, nobody's coming to make you do it, but at the same time, like if life happens to you, especially in this industry, I think this is something Becca Simon talked about, like, if your book is delayed, this is not a life and death matter.
21:56: Right?
21:57: I mean, I don't wanna say, I don't wanna say never.
22:00: Right?
22:00: There might be somebody out there who's like, I gotta get that book launched because that's how I'm paying my mortgage, and I get that.
22:08: these are not life and death matters, right?
22:11: This is, that's not the industry that we live in, thankfully.
22:14: So, on the one hand, yeah, nobody's coming to do it for you, you've got to motivate yourself.
22:18: On the other side of that coin though, if something happens, if life happens to you, whatever the case might be, right?
22:25: Like, I don't think anybody's gonna be coming at you with pitchforks.
22:28: I wanted to QTP that for a minute.
22:30: I'm like, oh, that's a different episode.
22:32: Now, let me clarify, let me clarify.
22:35: You've got a pre-order and you've got a delay it.
22:37: By a month.
22:38: I don't think anybody's gonna, you know, get too upset about that.
22:42: Now, you've delayed it for 1 month and then you've ghosted your readers for another 6 months.
22:46: That's something different entirely, right?
22:48: That's a different can of worms.
22:50: I think you should always be upfront and honest with people and communicate with them, but I think most readers are understanding.
22:56: Yeah, they are.
22:58: I've had to, I've had to really learn to, the whole thing, progress, not perfection, because my coach, Chris, he's like, 1% incremental progress every day, 1%.
23:08: And I take that to heart because there are some days at a book funnel, especially because we work from home and so that all gets into the mix.
23:15: It's not like we're going to an office and then everything else gets set aside.
23:18: and of course, we're not talking absolutes, OK?
23:22: We, we're never talking absolutes, but there are some Days where the orange juice just hits the wall, man, and it's like, go from 9 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and you turn around and you're like, What the hell happened today?
23:35: Some days be like that.
23:37: I have had to tell myself, it's OK.
23:40: It's OK.
23:41: Yes, you want to touch the manuscript today.
23:43: You know what?
23:44: You're in bed.
23:45: Read a paragraph of that manuscript.
23:47: Go check your TikTok stats or whatever when you're in bed on your phone, and that's what you did for your business today.
23:53: That's good enough.
23:54: Like, do something if you can, because, you know, there's a part of me that's like, sometimes you really can't do anything and it's valid.
24:02: So that just tells you that everything is so subjective.
24:05: It's like there are no hard and fast rules.
24:08: And it's, it's hard too, I think, for authors at that stage where like, you're having to put in so much effort, you're having to squeeze that every drop of juice, and the traditional publishing world is full of stories of authors who, you know, blood, sweat, and tears and everything, and then they got a publishing deal, and now their life is magical.
24:29: Of course, you hear about those stories, cause you don't hear about the other stories, right?
24:33: But those are very motivating.
24:34: I, I imagine though that there's definitely a veneer that's put over some of those stories.
24:39: Those authors still probably have to work their butts off, right?
24:42: It's, it just becomes their job.
24:44: But we romanticize it a little bit, I think as authors, and like, Be comfortable with putting in the effort and being unseen for a while.
24:54: Be, be comfortable with doing all the work and not getting the recognition for it, especially not getting like the financial payoff that you might be hoping for.
25:05: Just keep building that whole thing, brick by brick by brick, like you said, 1% improvement each day.
25:11: And you will, you'll find yourself in a different place, right?
25:14: Like, I could not have imagined if you told me like a couple of years ago, yeah, you're gonna be selling books at a booth at the mall and you're gonna, right, like, and it's gonna be profitable and profitable enough for you to do it and, right, and you're gonna actually make money as an author.
25:29: I'd be like, OK.
25:30: No, you're, right.
25:31: But I got there once.
25:32: Step at a time.
25:33: You, you know, you, you don't, that doesn't happen overnight.
25:35: It's not a transformation that it just happens.
25:37: No, no, no, very few people talk about the 2030 years before you made it big.
25:44: Like, oh, they're overnight sensation.
25:45: No, they're not, bro.
25:47: They're like 65.
25:48: They've got a backlist of like 100 books from like the 1970s that ain't overnight, bro.
25:55: Right, right, no, absolutely, absolutely.
25:58: And even if, and honestly, you wouldn't want to be an overnight success, most of the time, like, being an overnight success would actually probably be a nightmare.
26:05: You wouldn't have the systems in place, you wouldn't know how to handle it, how to handle yourself, how to handle your money, because imagine getting that flood of money and all of a sudden, and then it's gonna be gone because you're like, I don't know what to do with it, man.
26:17: So yeah.
26:19: Exactly.
26:19: Slow and steady, slow and steady, for sure.
26:23: All right, well, thank you, Emma, for joining me for this episode of the Book Funnel podcast.
26:28: Anything you'd like to shout out before we go?
26:31: No, just book funnel.
26:32: Just book.
26:33: We, we don't do these.
26:34: Do you even book funnel, bro, like.
26:37: We don't do these book funnel only podcasts all that often, but when we get the chance, I was like, I don't know what to do with myself.
26:44: Normally I have the guests like shout something out, but this was a fun conversation, Emma, thanks for joining me as always.
26:50: and thank you to you, our viewers.
26:52: If you're watching here on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the channel and like this video.
26:57: Also, leave a comment with your number 1 or 2 or 3 takeaways from this conversation.
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27:10: It really does help.
27:11: From all of us here at Book Funnel, I wanna thank you for watching and listening, and we will see you all in the next one.
27:16: Thank you for watching.
27:18: Check out these other videos from Book Funnel.
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