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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: Email newsletters are the most important tool of any author anywhere, bar none, period.
0:06: Period.
0:07: Because they are the only way that you can own.
0:12: A way to contact your audience.
0:16: Social media, you don't.
0:17: I chose that model now, 56 years later, when Facebook advertising absolutely has changed.
0:23: All the things that we've learned to do to make ads successful in the past are.
0:27: Now completely worthless, and now we have to relearn and re-optimize everything through different systems.
0:34: Hey, folks.
0:35: Welcome to the Book Funnel podcast where indie authors get real-world advice on writing, publishing, and growing a career on their own terms.
0:43: 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.
0:51: Each episode, we aim to bring you insights from authors, experts, and industry insiders who have been there, done that, and then some.
0:59: My name is Jack.
1:00: I am our lead author sports specialist here at Book Funnel, and I am joined today, as always, by my co-hosts, Kelly Tanzy and Emma Allison.
1:10: And our guest for this episode of the Book Funnel podcast, the USA Today bestselling author of the Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus series, someone we know well here at Book Funnel, cherished by the Book Funnel team, Lydia Shearer.
1:22: Thank you, Lydia, for being here today.
1:24: Good to be here.
1:25: Thanks so much for inviting me on.
1:27: Honestly, it'd be awesome if we could have done this in person at Author Nation, but I know everybody's so pressed for time.
1:32: We will, we will have to plan that for this, year if you happen to be.
1:36: Be there.
1:37: I know I was thinking, I was thinking that too.
1:39: Like there's a handful of people.
1:41: It would be fun to do some, some podcasts in person, have a different dynamic.
1:45: It's kind of great.
1:46: But anyway, for the folks in the audience who maybe aren't familiar with you and what you do, I don't know who that would be at this point.
1:52: But anybody who doesn't know, you give me way too much credit.
1:56: I'm being tongue in cheek.
1:57: I know, but just, just tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do.
2:03: I'm a hybrid author.
2:05: That means I have indie published books and traditionally published books.
2:08: my indie stuff is in the Love Lice and Hocus Pocus universe, which has multiple series.
2:12: It's urban fantasy, some cozy vibes, some epic vibes.
2:16: Lots of humor vibes.
2:17: There's a snarky talking cat in it.
2:19: So if you like magic and and cats and snark, you'd probably enjoy it.
2:23: It's sold close to a million copies across all the series, and that's all indie published.
2:28: That's all delivering ebooks through Book Funnel.
2:31: And so I have plenty of experience selling direct and using the Book Funnel service, which I believe I've been using since 2016, so it's been about a decade now.
2:40: Yep, since the inception, yeah, since the inception.
2:42: We actually checked out my My author number wasn't it like 666 or something?
2:47: I'm pretty sure it was.
2:48: I'd have to look it up.
2:50: It was close.
2:50: Maybe we looked up somebody else's number and it was 666, but it was, it was down there in like the, the low, the low hundreds or the hundreds anyway.
2:58: I've been around for a while and so I also though, I also do some traditional publishing, co-authored, I have co-authored the Transdimensional Hunter series with John Ringo through Bain Books.
3:08: That's a game lit kind of lit RPG style.
3:12: Fiction adventure and the last book of that series comes out next Tuesday.
3:16: So if you like lit RPG or if you like just science fiction adventure in general, it's got some military science fiction angle there, lots of humor, lots of monster killing.
3:26: It's kind of Ender's game meets Pokemon Go and check out the dimensional Hunter series.
3:30: That's fun.
3:31: That's fun.
3:31: Now we're gonna talk about direct sales.
3:33: We're gonna talk about newsletters.
3:34: We're gonna talk about all that stuff, but it sounds like we have one topic we have to get out of the way.
3:40: Which is your recommendations on the diet you should feed your cat.
3:43: OK, now you're bringing this up.
3:44: Well, so we were talking, yeah, of course you had to, of course you did.
3:48: So we were, to give our listeners context before we went on live, we were talking about, you know, what we're talking about today and what we're not talking about today, and I'm like, but wait, can we talk about the diet that we feed our, you know, can we talk about what Food diets, not what foods are, sorry, raw food diets.
4:06: Anyway, I tell people to feed their cats the healthiest thing that they can afford, and that is important, both healthy and you can afford it.
4:14: So that is not going to be the same for everybody.
4:16: But if you can afford raw food, it's really good for your cats.
4:20: It is, it is very, I mean, it's cat food, dry cat food is the equivalent of McDonald's meals for your cats.
4:26: Yes, they'll survive, and we're kind of just used to at this point, the, you know, deaths and early diseases that kind of come along with cat ownership, but cats in the wild that are not like hurt by predators or or die early because of like the predatory nature of it, they could live.
4:44: Do I hear kitty?
4:46: I hear somebody's cat.
4:48: Nice, nice.
4:50: Yeah, I mean, cats, cats can live 20 years easy if they've got a good diet.
4:55: So anyway, I love cats.
4:57: I have talking cats in my book, so I, I like to do research.
5:00: I was trying to get a strawberry the other day.
5:03: Like it was legit.
5:04: I was standing at the fridge eating strawberries.
5:05: It was legit crawl.
5:07: I'm like, it's a strawberry, bro.
5:08: I know.
5:09: Like I know cats who will eat lettuce.
5:11: I, so I think cats, cats are carnivores.
5:15: However, domesticated cats can be very curious and have very curiously munch on things, and I think it's fine to let them do that, assuming it's not certain foods.
5:25: Yeah, there are certain foods they need to stay away from, obviously.
5:27: , certain things that can be poisonous to cats, but just in general, I think it's fine to let your domesticated cat be curious about foods opportunistically omnivorous, yeah, as long as they're not like becoming a part of their diet, like they're just to taste, just to play with, you know, yeah, yeah, no, my, my mother breeds Bengal kittens.
5:47: Nice, has a whole Bengals are awesome.
5:51: She doesn't do as much as she, as she used to.
5:53: She's, she's nearing retirement now, so she's kind of slowing things down.
5:58: But fed them, still feeds them a, a raw diet, has to process everything, and for it's not just for one cat, it's for, you know, all those cats.
6:06: It's a lot of work, but it's, it's worth it, yeah, when you can do it in bulk, it, it makes it easier.
6:10: So yeah, all right, but let's pivot from that, right, because this is the book funnel podcast.
6:16: I wanted to get that in there.
6:17: It felt relevant because, you know, cats are a big thing for you too.
6:21: Funny little aside here.
6:23: Well, let me, let me tell our audience, my talking cat in my book series is Sir Edgar Allan Kipling, magical talking cat extraordinaire, and he says things like, Pride is unbecoming to humans.
6:33: Only cats and dragons do it justice.
6:35: And, if you wanted sympathy, you should have adopted a dog.
6:38: So here's his, here's his, here's his three rules of cat.
6:41: I don't know if you guys can see that or not.
6:43: We can never beg.
6:45: Never back.
6:46: Yeah, I love you.
6:48: Yeah, never explain anything unless absolutely necessary because he can talk, but he's not actually gonna like satisfy you with what he says.
6:54: He's just going to be mysterious because he's a cat, right, for those listening to the podcast and not able to view it, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, Lydia's holding up a mug.
7:05: I'm assuming this is a mug of your own creation, which you can get on my website.
7:10: Yes, so I, if you check out her website, you can find it there with the three rules of 30 ounce.
7:15: It's a 30 ounce, no, it's a 20 ounce mug instead of an 11 ounce mug.
7:19: It's a 20 ounce, yeah, so it's nice and big, yes, for those caffeine addicts.
7:22: Like, that's the, yeah, that was still caffeine at any rate.
7:28: Let's dive into this direct sales conversation because you know like you said you sold nearly a million or it's not, it's not a million, yeah, it's not a million yet.
7:38: I don't wanna, I don't wanna, yes, we're approaching it.
7:41: I say nearly a million.
7:43: No, I mean, I don't think anybody's sitting there going, I mean, Lydia, technically, it's only 998,000, right?
7:49: Like,, yeah, that's, that's still very impressive.
7:54: And when you go over that mark, let us know because we'll, we will throw you a party will.
7:58: No, when I go, when I go over that mark, I, I recalculate every year when I go over that mark, I'm gonna be buying myself something really nice, like maybe not, maybe not really nice because I hate spending money, but I'm gonna buy myself like, I don't know, 20 pounds of chocolate or something, you see, see how fast I can eat it.
8:11: Perfectly, perfectly reasonable.
8:13: That's legit.
8:14: That's legit.
8:15: But like you said, a lot of those delivered through Book Funnel, and I remember when I joined the Book Funnel team, because I actually joined, you'd have been using Book Funnel for a few years, I joined Book Funnel.
8:26: Oh, about 2018, 2019, and I was in reader support, and, you were one of the authors whose readers we had to help on a regular basis, like a daily basis, my little old lady readers.
8:38: Oh, they're so sweet.
8:39: I love them so much, but they don't know, they don't know.
8:41: I, yeah, and I don't wanna, this isn't a complaint that was just because you were doing so much volume of sales that you're gonna have a certain percentage that are gonna need help getting that file side loaded.
8:52: It's It's just a numbers game, really.
8:55: It's a very small percentage of people that have trouble with the process, but when you're selling thousands of copies, you know, it's the total volume is gonna be larger.
9:03: So, I knew your name.
9:05: Very early on when I came, were you one of the Jamie?
9:09: Yes, yes, I mean still to this day I'm occasionally a Jamie, but more often than not I'm Jack in support these days.
9:16: But, but yes, one of the Jamie.
9:18: So what I guess got you on that path to direct sales?
9:22: What led you there?
9:24: What was the decision making process and like, oh, you know what, I'm gonna do this direct sales thing.
9:28: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:29: Well, funnily enough, it was a Facebook ad.
9:31: So the direct sales that, we do, and I say.
9:35: Whenever I say we, I'm talking about me and my husband David Scherer, who's the, marketing director of Chenworth Press, which is the name of my LLC which I publish my books through.
9:44: So David does, runs all of our Facebook ads, does all the fulfillment for all the books we sell, that sort of thing.
9:49: And so that's what I mean by we if I ever say we.
9:52: So we got into direct sales in 2019 after I saw a Facebook ad for a course teaching it.
9:58: At the time, I had already been running Facebook ads to my Amazon page.
10:04: After I learned how to build and run Facebook ads through Mark Dawson's self-publishing for authors, sorry, ads for authors course.
10:11: He's, he's got a self-publishing course and then he's got an ads for authors course.
10:15: So I'd taken those in like 2017 or something like that and was one of the early people on that, on that platform, which is amazing.
10:22: And I love that buying at once gets you a lifetime access to the modules, which they update every year, which is really important because platforms change and rules change and Right.
10:34: All sorts of strategies change.
10:36: So anyway, at that point, I had slowly been realizing that sending ads to Amazon pages was not futile, but very frustrating, and I couldn't handle the margins.
10:48: I, I needed to be more profitable than just hoping and praying, because it was very hard to optimize, meaning you didn't have the tools to say, hey, I'm gonna do this ad in this.
10:59: With this text and this picture.
11:01: Let's see how it does.
11:02: OK, now I'm going to tweak it.
11:03: Did that make it better or worse?
11:04: Let me tweak it again.
11:05: Did that make it better or worse?
11:06: Like it was very difficult to track that sort of thing and to make those determinations and to methodically go about advertising in a way that was profitable.
11:14: And also, I wasn't getting any customers.
11:17: I wasn't getting any long-term ownership of my platform or any newsletter subscribers or anything.
11:23: I was just sending traffic to Amazon.
11:25: And so I did not like that model at all, and I didn't know yet what to do about it, but then that ad showed up for me on Facebook.
11:32: Steve Piper runs the ammo course, and I was like, Whoa, direct sales.
11:38: Like, I can sell directly to my readers, and I can like own their, they would be my customers, and I knew instantly that's what.
11:45: I needed to do.
11:46: I've always been an entrepreneur.
11:48: My dad is a small business owner.
11:49: I, like, I feel like I was born to be a small business owner.
11:51: This is just in my blood.
11:53: So I knew, like, immediately that's what I needed to do.
11:55: And I vetted Steve and his course.
11:57: Like, I investigated to make sure it wasn't some kind of scam because there are absolutely scams out there.
12:02: Yeah.
12:02: And I was nervous, but I took a dive in and I took the course, and barring a few little setbacks that were my fault because I had done some backend technical stuff wrong, and I eventually got that figured out.
12:13: Once I had my system set up, I made that money back within a month or two that it cost me for the program.
12:19: And then I went on to sell almost a million books over the past 55 to 6 years.
12:25: So direct sales was something that I knew instinctually that I needed to get into, that that was.
12:30: Like, that was the model and the platform that I wanted for myself.
12:34: I'm a mom of 4 boys, and my husband and I are both fully self-employed.
12:37: This is what we do for a living.
12:38: and it's the only thing we do for a living.
12:40: It's not like we have some other gig, like real estate or, not to just real estate, of course, real estate is a great job to have.
12:48: Just that this is our passion.
12:50: And so I'm only saying this to emphasize that the things that we're working on and that we're doing are in order to allow us to focus on this as our only passion.
12:59: Pursuit as opposed to being a side gig where we're having to do a full-time job elsewhere to, you know, feed our kids, pay our mortgage, pay for school.
13:09: So this is what we do for a living, and I wanted to build a system that can, that could enable us to do this full time, and direct sales was my solution to that because I've always felt it was very important that you own your own customers because I chose that model now, 56 years later, when Facebook advertising.
13:28: Absolutely has changed.
13:30: It is very frustrating and can be very difficult because of the way they've shoved AI into everything, and they're taking away your ability to make all of these tweaks and changes to the Facebook ads yourself.
13:41: Now, you have to rely on algorithms to do it for you, which isn't categorically bad.
13:46: It's just all the things that we've learned to do to make ads successful in the past are now completely worthless, and now we have to relearn and re-optimize everything through different.
13:56: Systems like through chat GPT, we have to actually, so David has to train chat GPT to train Facebook to run our ads properly because Facebook doesn't know shit about my books or who my target audience is, and all their guesses about it are wrong.
14:14: But we can't directly interface with Facebook's algorithms that run their ads.
14:19: So we have to train another AI.
14:20: David does all this.
14:21: I don't touch generative AI.
14:23: I can't stand it.
14:24: I don't touch it at all.
14:25: Why I'm glad I'm married to my husband David.
14:27: He does it.
14:27: He's very, he's very techie.
14:29: He loves it.
14:29: He thinks it's, you know, not loves it like unequivocally approves of it in every way for every reason, just he's really into the tech verse and knows how to use it wisely.
14:38: So he's training Chatchi about our books and like who our target audience is and what our keywords are and all this other stuff so that it can then make ads and things that will trigger the right stuff in Facebook's algorithm in order to show our ads to the right people.
14:52: So all that said, The ad landscape is always changing, but despite the ups and downs in that, because I've spent all this time selling directly to my own readers, I have a newsletter list of 60,000 people.
15:05: And that's who I launch my books to.
15:08: So when I'm set, when I'm, when I'm releasing a book, I'm not running Facebook ads to sell that book, though I could.
15:13: I just, I don't think that's money well spent.
15:15: I'm launching that book to my built-in audience that I wouldn't own and could not reach directly whenever I needed to if I had been sending all that traffic to Amazon or Kobo or like whatever it was.
15:28: So that Kind of my business strategy and the model that I've been building for the past 7 years now.
15:34: I mean, I started in 2019, so yeah, it's about 7 years now, and I've been using Book Funnel to do all of my, ebook distribution and ebook technical support for that entire time, and I have never had a single complaint about you guys.
15:47: Like, I'm totally serious.
15:49: There's never been a moment when I've been like, dang it.
15:52: This thing about Book Funnel really annoys me.
15:54: I'm gonna stay with them because they're the only option, but I really don't like it.
15:57: No, there's nothing.
15:57: There's literally nothing.
15:59: Now, nobody extracts just that clip.
16:02: No, but, but if anybody is wondering if you guys should use Book Funnel, the answer is yes.
16:08: The other reason I love Book Funnel so much, since I'm already talking about this, is because it is an Amazing alternative to people using the Kindle app, which, by the way, if you didn't know, they have started putting an ask this book function inside the app, which is an AI generation bot that reads your books, yours and the author, read your books without your permission.
16:29: You can't opt out.
16:30: And it generates its own answers that you can't control, and that you can't.
16:34: Nothing.
16:35: They're wrong half the time, and who knows what Amazon is doing with that data that it is scraping from your book?
16:41: Who knows?
16:44: It's it's the entire author audience, Lydia.
16:47: I've seen that where somebody was like, this isn't even happening in my book.
16:51: It gave like a breakdown and it wasn't even right.
16:55: So.
16:55: Yeah, not all like Kindle devices that are older, I don't think have the functionality.
17:00: I think they were beta testing the function in some.
17:04: I've heard some people the app doesn't show up or the function doesn't show up in their app.
17:09: However, it is an important issue because it is borderline copyright infringement and the Author Guild is looking into lawsuits against it.
17:15: And if we don't push back against this sort of encroachment, then Amazon will just Keep going.
17:20: So yes, let's not inflame people.
17:22: Let's not be, you know, let's not lose our heads.
17:24: But it is something I hope more people learn about and push back on because I think it is very important for the indie community that we not allow big companies to just, especially the, the inability to opt out of it.
17:35: That's the thing that to me is like if an author's like, Oh, that sounds interesting, I'm willing to let you experiment with, then that's fine, but it's the issue of consent.
17:43: The sense that I think for me is the sticking point.
17:45: If you're going to do something like that, you need to get my consent first because I'm the one, Jack.
17:51: You don't own this book.
17:52: I do.
17:52: Yeah.
17:52: This could potentially be a great option for people who maybe have reading challenges or like people like my husband who are ADHD or dyslexic who just have trouble like remembering names and stuff like that.
18:04: It could be a really helpful thing.
18:07: But not allowing authors to choose if their work is included in this, that's what is borderline illegal in my opinion.
18:14: So Amazon could probably fix this whole issue if they just made it optional and gave authors the chance to opt out and take it, take their books out.
18:21: But anyway, moving on an optics standpoint, yeah, I know.
18:24: Yeah, moving on to Book Funnel, who's so amazing.
18:27: Well, and I should say that was not like we did not pay Lydia to be here or say.
18:32: Lydia, come on the Book Funnel podcast and make us look really good, you know, but thank you for your kind.
18:38: Yeah, I'm very passionate about alternatives.
18:40: I'm very passionate about monopolies not being able to force customers into using their products because there are no other options.
18:47: So I think I really, really appreciate Book Funnel's existence because it gives indie authors options and it gives readers options to be very mindful in how they consume their fiction.
18:58: And I think that's important.
18:59: So yay, book funnel.
19:01: I'm a huge fan of Book Funnel, guys.
19:03: You're right, podcast people, they had no idea I was gonna say all this when I came on.
19:06: This is all me.
19:08: Now you, you, you're taking it back to ad strategies and Facebook and all of that and all of the annoying shifts in the marketplace.
19:16: If you happen to be Emma, who is launching a new Shopify store, just happen to be, or any other author launching their first Shopify or Direct.
19:25: Store, what ad strategy, marketing platform, marketing strategy would you recommend that we focus on first as baby Shopifyers?
19:36: Yeah, so, that is difficult.
19:39: It's difficult to break into that because my answer previously would have been.
19:44: Just try Facebook ads, even though it seems scary and intimidating, because you can start with very low budgets, and you can, like, even with small spends, you can get some really good results.
19:56: If you're, if you're just willing to go in there, monkey around a little bit, figure some stuff out.
20:01: There are free courses that give you just basic information that I think any person who's motivated and a little bit of tech savvy can work with.
20:08: However, at this point, with The way AI has taken over some of the, so much of the functions, and because I ran all our Facebook ads for a year back in 2019, 2020, before my husband, before I was making so much money.
20:23: I was making more money than my husband and told him to quit his job and come work with me and take over our marketing operations so I could focus more fully on writing.
20:29: So since then, he has become the marketing expert, but it has changed so much from what I did when I was running them that I now don't.
20:38: have any personal experience about what it would feel like coming on as a brand new person and trying to like unwind all of these AI options and, and optimize that.
20:47: So that's not to say that you shouldn't consider Facebook ads as a strategy strategy, but I would say that it would be much more important to investigate a reputable paid course to guide you through that.
20:59: Otherwise, you may just be spending a lot of time frustratingly spinning your wheels and wasting money.
21:04: In ways that could be avoided if you just invest a little bit upfront.
21:08: I'm not necessarily recommending Ammo by Steve Piper as what people should do.
21:13: I think it's a really great course, but there are a lot of great courses out there.
21:16: The great thing that Amo does that I think some other courses don't do is that it focuses specifically on helping you get a direct sales funnel set up as opposed to just teaching you about how to run Facebook ads.
21:26: So it's more of like a holistic, you know, here's how you get set up as an independent author to run your sales as opposed to just here's how to do the ad part, and I think that's really, really helpful.
21:37: So that is an option, but of course not all authors have, you know, a couple grand to lay down on a course.
21:42: You mentioned your newsletter.
21:43: Your newsletter is now, of course, over 70 years, 60,000 words strong.
21:47: So if you are a baby author, I would assume I'm going to guess you may advise to not slow down on building your newsletter because of course you can always advertise to them or launch your books to them.
21:59: Email newsletters are the most important tool of any author anywhere, bar none, period.
22:05: Period.
22:06: Because they are the only way that you can own.
22:11: A way to contact your audience.
22:14: So social media, you don't bring my shit out.
22:17: Just keep going with my newsletter.
22:19: Yes, OK, yes.
22:20: So social media you don't own.
22:22: It can be choked at any point.
22:24: You could be barred for whatever reason, sending customers to retail platforms, you don't have their information.
22:29: Yes, people could follow you on Amazon.
22:31: Yes, Amazon will notify them when you release a new book, but that's no guarantee.
22:35: You can't contact them about sales.
22:37: You can't contact them about merchandise or any.
22:39: That stuff.
22:40: So yeah, it's really just email.
22:41: I know SMS, like texts is becoming a little bit bigger, but personally, I get really frustrated at, at businesses texting me.
22:50: It's super annoying.
22:51: And I think a lot of people feel that way as well, whereas email is, is, it's less personal and more of like, hey, people expect to get marketing.
22:58: So while it's certainly not a foolproof, like, one for one, if I have your email, I'll always be able to contact you.
23:04: Obviously not.
23:04: People don't open it, there's spam filters.
23:06: It is the only way.
23:08: Currently available to contact customers that you can own.
23:12: So, always be looking for ways that you can build that.
23:15: Have a system in place, whether it's free or paid, that you, you know, like a newsletter provider, do regular newsletters.
23:21: Doesn't matter.
23:22: Regular means once a quarter, once a month, twice a month, doesn't matter, but it has to be regular, or people will tune you out, lose track of you, forget about you, and the fact that you have their email won't do you any good, because now they're just ignoring it.
23:36: So whatever that regular is for you, just stick to it.
23:40: Emails don't have to be super long and involved, they don't have to like tell all your deepest secrets, just give people, like, think about what interests you.
23:49: You know, I like seeing cute cat pictures and I like funny things, so I put funny things and cute cat pictures in my newsletters.
23:57: Like I, I obviously have an update section.
23:59: I like to know what's going on for authors who are writing stuff that I want to read, and so I just, I'm not my target audience necessarily, but also like I, I am kind of like I.
24:08: Things that I love to read and so I know a lot of my readers share a lot of my same interests, and I've built a brand over years and so I know that my fans like cats, for instance.
24:16: So I'm always putting in pictures of my cats and telling about the antics of my cats.
24:19: I tell about my kids' antics too sometimes.
24:22: In fact, where is that picture?
24:24: My 5 year old recently drew me a picture.
24:29: That looks like the house is wearing something suspicious.
24:34: Boy, you gotta save that one.
24:36: Don't lose track of that.
24:37: Oh no, I'm keeping it.
24:38: So what's funny is the pen underneath it is very clearly a door, but when he painted it, now it looks like the house is wearing a thong.
24:47: And so I put that in.
24:48: Yes, for those who can't see it, my, my 5 year old painted me a picture of a house wearing a thong, giant purple thong, but I put that in my newsletter.
24:54: People thought it was great.
24:55: People were giggling and snickering and, you know, in their replies.
24:58: So yeah, I mean, my kids provide lots of amusement, and I, and I don't like, I don't, I never use my kids' names.
25:03: I never give personal details about my kids.
25:06: I never talk about their.
25:06: Birthdays and never talk about like what grade they are in school, none of that.
25:11: So no names, no ages.
25:12: I don't usually show the faces of my kids once they get beyond about 2 years old because those faces can be used to steal identity.
25:19: When they're about 2 and under, they're still baby-ish enough that they can't really be used, and babies are super cute.
25:25: But yeah, so, so I'm very, yeah, I'm very.
25:27: Conscious, but I have nicknames for all of my kids.
25:29: I call them the Dread Pirate crew, you know, and, and people love kids.
25:34: Like, that's pretty universal.
25:35: Like most people have kids or have a niece or nephew or have seen, you know, little kids be silly.
25:40: So just think about what you do in your life that's fun and silly.
25:43: Cats.
25:44: If you have a garden, if you're passionate about gardening, if you really like knitting or crocheting, like, you know.
25:50: Just put stuff in it and be regular about it and be authentic, right?
25:52: And, and, a thing here that I think to connect this to the direct sales piece, you know that the majority of your subscribers came through your direct sales store.
26:02: That's how they got on your list in the first place.
26:05: And so.
26:06: I think that maybe gives you also, I, I, I feel like some authors when they've got their newsletter, they feel like they've got this pressure to now push the sale.
26:14: But when you know that your subscribers have already bought from you in the past, I bet you can kind of sit back and relax a little bit, and just be like, oh yeah, this is when the next book comes out.
26:22: And oh, here it is, and it's less salesy or you don't, you feel less of that pressure because you have more confidence in their, their buying behavior.
26:29: I think though that that is a bigger, I think that's more of a mindset thing than it is a once you know where your subscribers come from.
26:38: Because obviously if you've sold, if a person has sold nearly a million copies of a product, I feel like there's no way you can honestly look at that and tell yourself, again, if you're being honest, and tell yourself, my product is not good enough because it's like, really, like a million people.
26:54: I disagree with you on that.
26:56: and so, obviously, there's all sorts of mental health struggles that people out there have to struggle with.
27:00: I mean, I still have imposter, syndrome myself.
27:04: I mean, I think every author has imposter syndrome that they struggle with at times, but I think that any author who, can just pull out a little bit and just look at the bigger picture and remember that it's not about It's not about whether or not you're worthy.
27:20: You are worthy because you're a human being and you're beautiful and precious.
27:24: But as far as your readers are concerned, it's not about like worthiness.
27:27: That's not, they're your, they're your customers.
27:29: They don't owe you anything.
27:30: Never ever owe you anything.
27:31: It's just about creating a product that you love and that's fun.
27:34: And then if the target audience is the kind of audience that likes that, then they're going to come and they're going to read it.
27:40: And if they don't like.
27:41: Like it and read it.
27:42: It's not because it's bad, but you should always check your work and, and get good feedback on it to make sure your writing and your cover and everything is up to snuff.
27:51: But it's because it's not what they would like anyway.
27:53: Like, that's the whole thing about art is we have different tastes.
27:56: And so I think a big part of growing in your author journey is getting to the point where you can grow past feeling like rejection.
28:04: is a personal commentary on you yourself or your worth or your something like that.
28:09: It's just like, well, that wasn't my target audience.
28:12: OK, bye, have a nice life.
28:14: Go find books that you enjoy, sweetheart.
28:15: Like I've got, I've got people who like my stuff.
28:17: That's fine.
28:18: And, and my, and my tribe is out there, and I, when I go to conventions, like I can spot them.
28:23: I'm like, oh, yep, that person, they're gonna love my books.
28:26: Like, hey.
28:26: Do you like to read?
28:27: Come here, let me tell you about a book.
28:29: Like, because people wear different fandoms and stuff and their clothes and their costumes, and you can kind of tell, but it's, it's, it's fun when I'll spot that person and wave them over and they end up buying my whole book series and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I knew.
28:41: I was at a, I was doing a, a table at a local event selling my books and I saw a guy walk by with a Wayland Utani trucker hat.
28:49: If you know, I'm not even gonna explain that, but I'm like, yep, you're my customer.
28:53: Get over here.
28:54: And he does, he did.
28:55: He bought it.
28:55: Yep, yep.
28:56: Anybody who wears cat ears, I automatically have to talk to them, right?
29:00: So I, I think, I guess that the point I was, I was trying to make there is just that for a lot of us.
29:05: Authors, they're not, I'm not, I'm not trying to say that like the solution to every author's problem is to do what Lydia Shearer did and do it exactly the way she did.
29:14: But you have, you can, you can, it's, it's maybe you, you know, you have that confidence that The majority of your list has bought from you in the past, and for a lot of authors, they're at that, that early stage where maybe they don't have that many customers.
29:30: Maybe they haven't been doing direct sales, and so their, their mailing list, there's this kind of, they're in this kind of limbo where they're like, who are my customers, who aren't my customers?
29:39: To what level do you kind of track the buying behavior in your newsletter?
29:45: Like, do you have that connected to automations, or is it?
29:47: I don't.
29:49: I should, I don't.
29:51: So there's, there's, there is an entire realm of optimization that I could be doing in my business that I don't because I'm trying to write books, and I'm also raising 4 kids.
30:03: And so there is potential there in theory, like, I, I've, I've thought about before bringing on a team, trying to hire like my publishing business, hiring.
30:13: People to work with my systems and all.
30:16: And so there's all sorts of potential there that I could do.
30:19: But the question is, do I have the capital to sustain that for long enough that it would take to build enough of a stable income stream to maintain that long term?
30:31: And also, do I want to manage that?
30:35: and I don't.
30:36: I really don't.
30:37: And that's a different answer for every single person.
30:40: Because some people love offloading stuff onto teams.
30:44: I don't, I prefer doing stuff myself.
30:46: I like having my finger on the pulse.
30:48: And so there are some things where I just look at it and realize, you know, I'm never gonna do that.
30:52: Yeah, I could probably sell more books if I did, but it's just not.
30:55: Instead, instead, I am, you know, playing.
30:58: Card games with my kids, you know, yeah, no, I love that.
31:01: I love that.
31:01: I, I've got a webinar for you potentially then because it's not, it's, it'll be the beginning of February.
31:08: Do you?
31:09: Yeah, I do try to track total lifetime value of each customer.
31:14: They do, they do get tags.
31:17: You know, for sure, it's just I don't do, I don't do anything with that.
31:20: I don't like, I don't segment my newsletter list.
31:23: That's a, that's a big no no, supposedly like you should segment you're like, I don't do that.
31:28: I'm just like, all 60,000 of you, you're getting exactly the same thing.
31:32: Everybody, once a month, here's my newsletter.
31:34: And I could probably, there's all sorts of things I could do, and it, and it would, and it would help my margins, and I just don't have it in me.
31:42: I don't have it in me.
31:43: I'm a mom.
31:44: I have too many plates in the air.
31:46: I have no spoons left.
31:47: It's just not happening.
31:48: And I think that some people just have to realize that and understand and accept that their, their author career, it goes through seasons just like life goes through seasons.
31:58: And right now I'm in a season where I am.
32:01: loving my family and raising my kids, and I will just be content with a certain level of career success and not like waste any of my mental, emotional energy pining after the more that I know I could do, or the more that I have the potential for that I am not doing and just think, hey, you know, one day when my kids go off to college, you know, maybe I'll do things differently and I'll, you know, maybe I'll travel more, maybe I'll do more, like, I'd love to get over to Chicago and do San Diego Comic-Con or something.
32:26: And that's never something I'm going to do while I have kids in the house.
32:29: Like, it's just, I'm never going to make it over there.
32:31: So yeah, it's just, it's just realizing the seasons of life and doing what you can as best you can and not letting your mental energy be sapped away by being upset or anxious about things you can't do.
32:41: Yeah, you don't have to do all the things.
32:43: Yeah, you, you definitely don't.
32:45: I do not do all the things.
32:46: I was thinking about when we had Becca Simon and when she was talking about how there are some people who are just never satisfied.
32:53: She's fabulous people should check out her website.
32:55: She's awesome.
32:56: She's incredible.
32:57: So yeah, she was saying that like we had her on the podcast a couple of times now, and she was like, a lot of people will just never be satisfied.
33:05: They can sell a million and they're just never satisfied and it's not enough and they have, and at some point you have to go, what is, where does your career need to be in order for you to protect your mental health, to protect your, you know.
33:18: What can you actually accomplish?
33:20: Giving yourself like, reasonable, attainable goals and meeting them and then making new goals, but not like reaching for, it's, it's just never enough.
33:30: Like that constant state of unsatisfaction is just not good for us either.
33:34: So knowing, it's really great to hear you say, like, it's really hard to be a mom and, and to run this business and to go, yeah, I could probably be doing that, but I'm OK that I'm not.
33:45: I mean, there's a part of me that's not OK that I'm not because I am an overachiever, but like, but it's not a part that I allow to, yeah, draw to pull down my mental health.
33:56: Honestly, of all the mental health struggles that I struggle with, that is, that is like down so low I don't even notice it on a day to day basis.
34:03: And, and, and it has taken some time and some discipline getting it to that point where I just have to let go and move on with what I'm able to do.
34:10: Yeah, so I was gonna ask you about, since you've been in the direct sales market for such a long time considering, you know, pretty much from the market, yeah, yeah, when, when it very first started of what is direct sales and what is it, how has it shifted, not, not with Facebook ads and everything, but how is The buying process for your readers?
34:30: How does that look and how did it change since you were probably one of the first ones who were, hey, buy my book from me and then I'll, we'll help you put it on your, your Kindle or whatever.
34:43: And how does that look different as compared to today with more maybe with more books or whatever?
34:48: Yeah, so just, just when I started in 2019, there was definitely less options for authors to fulfill paperbacks that was not either printing, Printing stuff from Amazon, like getting your author copies from Amazon and shipping them out of your basement.
35:04: I think Lulu's been around pretty much the entire time.
35:08: I've never used Lulu, not because I think they're a horrible company, but just because it makes your margins so razor thin that I felt like it was, and also, yes, they do customer service kind of.
35:18: Of sort of, but then you still have to be pulled into some things that they can't resolve, and it just almost feels like a waste of, you know, a waste of my margins.
35:26: But mostly because when I got started publishing in 2015, I am a people person and both my husband and I enjoy direct, like talking to people and selling in person.
35:38: And so we from the get-go, we were definitely involved in those physical events in comic cons in like local book fairs and stuff like that, and I needed physical product for that.
35:49: So I have always had around books in my basement.
35:53: And so when we got to the direct sales.
35:54: Part.
35:54: I'm like, well, I already have these books.
35:56: I already have systems in place of people I order them from and all that.
36:00: Let's go ahead and just fulfill them ourselves and just figure out how to do that.
36:05: So the first couple of months, I was handwriting addresses on my packages.
36:09: Do not recommend.
36:12: Yeah.
36:12: Definitely do not recommend.
36:14: That didn't last very long.
36:16: And soon we, we found, you know, various systems and various programs like we use pirate ship, for instance, for printing labels.
36:24: Love pirate ship.
36:26: And there wasn't as much of that around and available when we first got started, so it was a little bit of a juggling process of figuring out the right tools to use and some hiccups in it.
36:36: And, and we focused on ebook sales at first.
36:38: We didn't really lean into selling the paperbacks as much at first, and then we had to go, like, I hate ordering paperbacks through Amazon.
36:47: They're pretty awful.
36:49: And so I Just looking for someone who could match the prices for the longest time because Amazon literally had the best price per unit around for a long, long time.
36:56: But finally, now there's enough indie authors in the business to get enough business to indie printers who normally would only work in big, like thousands of copies at a time.
37:08: And if you needed to order 100, they had to charge you through the roof because they weren't set up to do those small lots.
37:13: Well, now there's Enough demand for small lots that these indie printers can offer really great prices for those smaller amounts.
37:19: So back when I was starting, I, I print through, indie book Services, Believer's Book Services, Dave Sheets.
37:25: I'm sure you guys have, maybe Jack at least.
37:27: Jack, have you met Dave?
37:29: He's big and blonde, super muscled, lots of tattoos, really cool guy.
37:33: He was, he was, he was a vendor at Author Nation.
37:37: So like if you looked up his picture, you'd recognize Dave.
37:39: Anyway, Dave is awesome.
37:41: They're an awesome business.
37:42: And when I first ordered from them, I think my first print run from them was 3000 books, because anything less than that, Amazon's prices were better.
37:50: Now I can order 50 to 100 books from them, and they'll match Amazon's prices.
37:55: So that's fantastic.
37:57: And, and so that's changed a lot, your options for what you can do.
38:00: And of course there's Book Vault now and all sorts of different fulfillment services that didn't exist before.
38:06: There's a lot more easier to use apps out there and services like Pirate Ship that can make fulfillment a lot easier.
38:12: Obviously, Book Funnel has grown in sophistication and in different tools that you have.
38:18: For instance, I was super stoked when you guys brought on audiobooks.
38:20: You started distributing audiobooks.
38:22: Yay.
38:23: That was so exciting, so I was really excited when you guys started doing that.
38:27: I'm a little bit, like I'm still frustrated with the audiobook situation just in terms of if you have Audible, you cannot get your books off Audible and do anything else with them.
38:36: I mean, you can, there's like apps that can kind of jailbreak your your audiobooks, but then it's super clunky and just big files and Yeah, so I, I hope that someday, by the way, here's a question for you, Jack.
38:47: I just had this question.
38:48: I was about to email help at bookfunnel.com and then forgot about it.
38:51: Is there a way for me to download my ebooks from my Kindle because now Amazon will let you and put them on my book Funnel app.
38:58: Is there any way to do that?
39:00: So at this point, no, there's no way to sideload into the Book Funnel app.
39:03: So you have to funnel.
39:05: Does book funnel ever have the plan, I guess I should say you could in a way, no, no, no, no, no, not in the way that would be a good idea, readers right?
39:14: I know, I know.
39:15: I want, I wanted to address this because there might be some authors out there thinking, well, I could just upload the books to my author dashboard.
39:21: Don't do that.
39:21: No, no, no, that's illegal.
39:23: That's illegal.
39:23: Don't do that.
39:24: Don't.
39:24: But for readers at this time, no, there is, there is not.
39:26: It's, it's basically you get them through book funnel and then send them elsewhere.
39:29: But do you ever intend, do you ever?
39:32: And I'm making that available.
39:33: The reason I ask is the ability to sideload into the book, the reason I ask is because I would love to never use the Kindle app ever again for my entire life.
39:42: I do not like what Amazon stands for.
39:45: Yes, it's very useful for a lot of people.
39:46: I don't want them to not exist.
39:48: Like, I, I wish them well if they'll just be ethical, but I don't want to use their technology.
39:53: But I don't have an option right now.
39:55: So I'm curious if Book Funnel is ever going to make that an option.
39:58: I know it is something that we have had.
40:00: Requests for for since we've existed.
40:04: And so it's something that comes up every now and then.
40:07: It's not something that I think is necessarily like really high priority on our development roadmap because we're really interested in, obviously, we care, we care about readers and we have features we want to release for readers.
40:18: We want to optimize the book funnel app and honestly, just keeping the book funnel app in the Android and iOS ecosystems just up to date, just so it can keep running is that is a full-time job.
40:29: We have one of our engineers, Ryan, by the way, props to Ryan because he's awesome, who basically keeps the app on both of those stores because you can't, you have to.
40:39: They roll out new changes, things stop working, but something like that is, is something that we're not, I don't want to say that.
40:45: I don't want to shut the idea down, say we're not opposed to it, but I can't say like, oh yeah, that's on our roadmap, and we're gonna do that for sure.
40:52: but we know that it's a request.
40:53: Yeah, the reason I ask is because with audiobooks, for instance.
40:57: I have, I have a lot of trouble selling audiobooks direct because people are just so used to the monopoly that Amazon has with its Audible app that if there was a way to take all of my Audible books and go put them on, you know, a book funnel, I would just use the Book Funnel app.
41:16: If I could go put all my Kindle books over on my Book Funnel app, I would just use the Book Funnel app.
41:19: But it's not a huge deal.
41:21: I don't mind using two apps.
41:22: I just tend to forget about, like, I'll be reading one book.
41:25: And then forget which app I have it on and then get distracted and it's OK.
41:30: It's just one of those pie, not pie in the sky, it's one of those like dreams at some point in the future to have an independent app that is fully like integratable with other platforms, which of course Amazon doesn't want because you're their rival and they don't want their customers to take their books over to you and it's interesting to be quite honest with you that because the backbone of Book Funnel, we're going back, this is a history lesson, kids.
41:54: The backbone of book Funnel is the ability to sideload into the Kindle app, and that is something that Amazon has allowed.
42:02: And, and quite frankly, at any point in time, it's something we're aware of.
42:07: They could just be like, nope, no more, no more sideloading.
42:10: You have to get it through the, the Kindle store, and that would, like, I think at this stage.
42:15: In book funnels, you know, life cycle that that wouldn't be a problem.
42:19: If anything, no, no.
42:21: And if anything, I think it might help because you'd have these readers who are used to that and suddenly realizing they can't anymore.
42:28: And now that this, I guess, come a little bit more aware of what, what's going on in the ecosystem.
42:33: I think a lot of readers, and not that they need to, they don't even need to concern themselves with this kind of stuff.
42:39: Authors are more tuned into it.
42:41: But readers, they, you know, they're, they're just reading books, they're listening to audiobooks, they're just doing their thing.
42:47: It's not that they don't care, it's that it's not directly affecting them.
42:52: And so they shouldn't have to care.
42:54: Like they shouldn't need to care, right?
42:56: Like us as the providers should give them a seamless, enjoyable experience where they don't have to, like to deal with this headache.
43:01: And that's what I wish I could give that experience.
43:04: I wish I.
43:04: I could give to my readers, but I mean, that's not the world we live in.
43:07: So, and that's OK because I, I like healthy competition that creates better products for our readers.
43:12: I just don't like monopolies that like try to squash competition, right?
43:18: But we're, we're very aware of moves that Amazon has made and is making, and we take those moves into account.
43:27: No, OK, well that's all I can say, yeah, just to kind of wrap up Kelly's question just about how, direct sales has changed, I think it's, it's changed a lot for the better.
43:36: I I am really encouraged to see how many readers are no longer surprised or confused by direct sales, to where I don't have to be like, oh yeah, you can buy it directly from me, and they're not like, What?
43:48: That's a thing.
43:49: Now it's like, oh yeah, I would.
43:50: To support the author directly.
43:51: Like, tell me how to do it.
43:53: Not everybody understands how Book Funnel works, but people are much more used to now buying direct on like small business websites and going direct to authors.
44:02: And so it's, it is, I have been at the tip of the spear training readers for the past 6 years, 7 years about how to buy direct from authors.
44:11: And so it is definitely encouraging that nowadays.
44:15: Congratulations.
44:17: you're welcome.
44:17: So that's in that way, it has really grown and it's, it's blossomed, I think, in a really beautiful way because you can set up it quite easily and with a very low cost, you know, you're on Shopify store to put your products up there and to make them available and readers will see that and not instantly be like suspicious and like, oh, what's this, what's this website over here?
44:35: Like I don't.
44:36: You know, I don't recognize that URL.
44:39: Like they, they'll be like, oh, it's the author, you know, it's the author's name, you know, Kelly TanNZ.com or whatever.
44:44: And so I think that collective building of trust among the reader community has been really great for the direct sales endeavor.
44:50: Right now it's just a matter of, you know, for, for me and where I am in the author career, it's just a matter of maintaining my list, making sure my readers feel consistently connected to me as my customers and as my fan base.
45:03: it's about Adding new readers because obviously there's always attrition.
45:06: There's always people who, you know, get distracted, get bored, they move on to other interests.
45:10: That's totally fine.
45:11: That's just a part of life.
45:12: So I have to always be thinking about how to add readers and then also fighting the whole spam filters and like that whole game, which I absolutely loathe.
45:20: Like there is probably there are things that I could optimize that would make my emails more deliverable that I really should make time to optimize, and I hate it so much.
45:29: I don't usually, but it's like, I try, like I, I try.
45:32: Oh yeah, there, there's, and it's constantly evolving on you mentioned the spam filtering.
45:36: I, I write our bulletin half the time when it gets sent out for book funnel, and we include links to some YouTube videos and recently found out that Gmail is marking, I think it's Gmail or it's just some other inboxes are marking YouTube short links as spam.
45:53: So this would be like links that when you go press the share button on a video, and it's Gmail.
46:00: Which is Google and YouTube, which is good, and it's still marking it makes no sense.
46:04: I at least that's what I think it was, but that I just bring that up as a point to be like it wasn't that way before and now it's gonna be constantly changing and evolving and reassessment.
46:15: Let me tell you something else that makes me, makes me want to gnaw my fingernails off and scream into the void.
46:21: So now you can shop directly in Chachi PT and so I, as a Shopify store owner and being told that I have to read over all the terms and conditions I need to agree to so that Shopify can sell my products and make them available directly in Chat GBT.
46:37: And I have this long list of to do's that Shopify wants me to do to optimize all of my products for showing up in sales lists on within chatbots.
46:47: Because now you can directly purchasing, because you can go to chat GBT and say, hey, I want this thing.
46:53: Please give me a list of options with recommendations and reviews, right?
46:57: So if someone went into Tachi BT and was like, Hey, I love cats.
47:00: I want to read books about cats.
47:01: Give me recommendations.
47:03: My book, Chachi BT could pull my product from my site and show up in Chachi PT and say, Hey, here's Lydia Shear.
47:09: She writes Bashful Talking Cats, you know, and then underneath, like the next person, like, you know, Molly Fitz, who writes like cute cat mysteries, you know, here's her book.
47:17: And, and so I loathe.
47:20: AI and artificial intelligence, like, not because it's categorically evil in any way.
47:25: It's honestly, I mostly hate it, not because of what it is, but because of what it becomes when it meets human fallenness and stupidity.
47:33: Human fallenness, what AI technology does is it emphasizes and makes bigger, what's that word?
47:40: It magnifies, yes, mom brain.
47:43: Sorry, I have 4 little kids that keep me up at night.
47:45: Whatever trait you bring to it, it magnifies.
47:47: If you come to it as a foolish user with not a lot of wisdom or discernment around how to use the technology, it will magnify that, take advantage of you, and awful things will happen.
47:56: If you come to it as a savvy user who understands how the technology works, what its limitations are, and how to be a wise user of the internet in general, then you can use it to do really amazing things.
48:06: And so it's unfortunate that in general, a lot of humanity these days are pretty.
48:13: Foolish and pretty undiscerning.
48:15: And that's not a diss on any one particular person.
48:17: It's just the state of the world right now, which has a lot of reasons.
48:20: We don't need to get into that.
48:21: But already my book has been stolen by major companies to scrape for data, to build LLMs.
48:27: I have been part of class action lawsuits, and now Amazon is generating answers about my books within their app that is lying to readers about my books.
48:36: And obviously, it's not maliciously lying.
48:38: It's just It's dumb.
48:40: It doesn't understand context.
48:42: Like I have gone into the Kindle app, bought my own books from Amazon because I, I haven't, you know, I could, I guess I could go buy my books for myself and sideload it into my Kindle, but whatever.
48:52: I'm not going to all that trouble.
48:53: It makes more sense to just spend 7.99 and put it on my business as a business expense and just go into my own books and I like go to ask this book and I'll ask it things that I know my readers have asked me.
49:05: And it doesn't understand context, and I don't think it can pull from entire series.
49:09: It can only pull from that book.
49:11: And so it'll give completely legitimate sounding answers that are completely wrong, and it'll just make stuff up.
49:18: It'll make stuff up.
49:19: It'll come up with quotes that don't exist, that don't exist.
49:24: It's so frustrating.
49:26: And so I am very wary of a Generative AI putting my products and representing my products to other people in their apps.
49:35: And so that is a realm of direct sales that is, that people are going to have to face coming up.
49:41: And it's potential.
49:42: There's potential there, but I don't want to deal with the headache.
49:45: And can I just opt out?
49:46: Can I just opt out of this?
49:47: I can't.
49:47: I, I can't, unfortunately.
49:49: I mean, I, I could see, yeah, you're right, there's potential, but I think you've got to, you've got to iterate that process so many times to finally figure out the sweet spot.
50:00: Of, you know, recommending and selling products directly in that context that the potential to do damage with each of those iterations along the way, yeah, and it, and it's, it's that thing where you were talking about at the beginning where I have to just pick and choose what I'm able to do as a mom with limited time, and this is just one more of things on the pile of stuff that I feel like I do not have.
50:21: Time for, and yet it's quite important.
50:24: It's not like fire burning down the building important, but it's like, I really should pay attention to this, and everything in me loads it and wants to ignore it.
50:32: So that's just, that's a challenge.
50:34: It's just something to be aware of.
50:35: That shouldn't hold anyone back from doing direct sales.
50:37: it just means that we have to be savvy business owners and that we have to be Aware that this is not easy.
50:43: If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.
50:45: My career is not an easy one, right?
50:47: I am not successful because it was easy.
50:49: I am successful because I'm effing stubborn and I love what I do, and I never sleep.
50:55: I go to bed around 2 or 3 a.m. and get up at 8 every single day, and that's not very healthy.
51:00: So don't do what I do.
51:05: But you, I wanna shift into the conversation here a little bit about connecting with readers, cause I think this is kind of relevant to the AI conversation.
51:12: , because a lot of concern, we're just talking about AI in general, a lot of concern for authors is, OK, somebody's gonna come along and they're just gonna push a button and generate a book, and they're gonna do that 3 times and they're gonna have a trilogy and they're gonna sell, they're gonna, they're gonna be able to wear the skin suit of an author, right, and go out there and have all the success that I don't have, and that's gonna be stealing from me.
51:36: I, I'm presenting that fear, maybe slightly exaggerated, but I know it's a very real thing.
51:42: I don't think it's exaggerated.
51:43: No, I don't think it's exaggerated.
51:45: I am a successful author who sold nearly a million copies of my books, and I fear that too.
51:50: Yes, no, I, I'm not saying that nobody has the right to fear it.
51:52: I'm saying I'm not trying to make it seem like pantomime, like I'm trying to mock those who have that fear.
51:58: I'm just trying to express it in the most, you know, I guess, clear way possible.
52:03: What do you do, because we've talked about your newsletter and like cat pictures and talking about stuff and like that's going on in your life and so forth.
52:10: That's a way to connect with readers.
52:12: What, what are some other strategies you have for connecting with them?
52:15: I know you do stuff in person and whatnot.
52:18: Yeah, well, this is a hard topic because not all authors want to connect with their readers, and I don't mean that in a way like they don't want to, they don't appreciate their readers or they don't want their readers to be happy.
52:29: Like it's not anything like that, it's that maybe they're very private people, maybe they're introverted, maybe they don't feel comfortable carrying on carrying on conversations and all this other stuff, and I, and I, I sympathize with people who I feel like, my gosh, like if I want to be a successful, successful author, you're saying I have to go out there and talk to people and be friends with people and like share things about me, and that just feels insurmountable because they don't want to be that kind of person.
52:53: So I, I, I sympathize with that and I see you, and I would say that don't let that hold you back because there are ways around that, because I think for those people, I think possibly that they feel afraid or held back or, discouraged because they feel Like something is being asked of them or something's being required of them that they don't want to share.
53:15: And I would say, you have written books, and those books are sharing a deep, intimate part of your soul.
53:21: You probably don't think about it that way, but they are.
53:24: They're revealing your opinions, your hopes and dreams, your fantasies, your, your joys and your longings and your fears, and your crushing betrayals.
53:36: And so, if you can do that, Then you can create a brand and a persona that is not inauthentic, that it's not a lie, but you can create a brand or persona to interact with your readers through.
53:48: In a way that's sustainable for you and that might look like, for instance, there's one author that I follow called, can't remember her name right now, but she reminds me of Gayle Carragher, kind of has like the Victorian, she's has got like Victorian paranormal romance, and she has a whole like kind of Victorian era version of herself that she uses to interact with her readers to where it's her.
54:12: She doesn't pretend that, you know, She, you know, she's an introvert, she's very private.
54:19: She doesn't go into details, but she kind of gives everything that Victorian patine to where, you know, she's throwing in these embellishments that are something that connects with readers well without feeling like she's having to tell.
54:34: You all about her day or tell you all about her beliefs or anything like that.
54:38: She can embody a character that is inspired and driven or directed by her.
54:43: There's a difference between that and like someone saying, Hey, Chachi PT, please write me a newsletter as a Victorian heiress.
54:52: To send to my readers.
54:53: Now, you could generate that and then you could take that and you could edit it to make it sound more like you, and if that is what you need to do for your business because of time constraints or whatever, then you do you.
55:03: Personally, I don't like the idea of doing that, not because it's inherently bad in any way, but more like, yes, you're editing it to make it your own, but the foundation.
55:16: is not yours, and you might not be writing things or sharing things or being an authentic part of yourself because you're not even given the opportunity to grow that framework in your own mind and in your own brand, and instead you're taking another creature's like a machine's framework that's been handed to you and building on top of that, if that makes sense.
55:39: And so, you know, not to get into AI tools and how they can or, or, or, you know, are aren't useful.
55:44: That's a, that's a really personal choice, a low generative AI, and so I don't engage with them at all, even though they could make my business, more efficient, or they could save me time in some ways.
55:55: It would strip the humanity of my brand.
55:57: It would literally strip the humanity of my brand.
55:59: I cannot.
56:00: I've been doing this long enough that I can't function interfacing with those tools and still be myself.
56:05: Maybe if I was starting from the beginning and, and started through those tools, but then it would just become that tool, you know.
56:11: and so.
56:13: With connecting to readers, I would say just talk about what you love, because your passion is what you put into your books, and so just keep putting that passion out there in whatever form you're comfortable with in your newsletters and in your social media interactions.
56:25: Whatever it is you're passionate about, that's why your readers love your books, because you're passionate about the stories that you create.
56:32: So keep talking about what makes you passionate, whatever that is.
56:35: Whether that's cats, dogs, birds, knitting, gardens, zodiacs, signs.
56:41: Your kids, you know, your master's in biology, like whatever it is, it doesn't matter.
56:46: Whatever passionate thing your readers have fallen in love with that is in your books, keep talking about that.
56:51: For instance, I put cats and tea and love of like history and like libraries and stuff like that in my urban fantasy.
57:00: And so that's mostly what I talk about on social media.
57:02: I did not put my love of insects or my love of music or my love of, I mean, another example doesn't immediately come to mind, Zelda or something.
57:14: I, I didn't put those particular things in my book series.
57:16: I love those things, but I don't talk about them, not because I'm hiding it, but just because that's not the thing that I already connected with to my readers through my fiction.
57:23: So take that passion in your fiction that's already connected to your readers and.
57:27: Continue those threads just in the realm of newsletters and social media.
57:31: That was a long answer.
57:32: I hope that was helpful.
57:32: Yeah, yeah, I, I think for, for some authors there's maybe a challenge too of, like you mentioned, not necessarily being your target audience.
57:40: And so I know for myself as an author and an author who reads selectively.
57:45: Right, I am not a voracious reader.
57:48: I do not read double digit books every year like a lot of readers who would read my genre do.
57:54: I have to find ways to relate to my readers other than like that.
57:58: Did you read this book?
57:59: That's really cool, right?
58:00: Like I, and so I see what you're saying here.
58:03: I think for some authors, maybe that's the missing link is like, OK, you might not exactly, you're an author, and they're, they're readers, and those aren't, there's a Venn diagram there, but it's not a circle.
58:16: But what's that 3rd circle?
58:18: Where you do overlap and you can relate to them like, like you said, cats and tea and that sort of thing with, with sci-fi there's so many different things there that you can, you can kind of connect with on every genre has them, yeah, fandoms.
58:33: I mean, because you're a fan too, you're a reader too, and you could work that into how you interact with your readers.
58:39: Another thing I would say is don't be afraid to share and.
58:42: Talk about your research and your writing process.
58:45: Now, not in the sense to where you're boring readers who really aren't there to hear about like your business, but more in the, in the sense of, hey, like, I had to do a deep dive research into, like, crime stat maps, because, it had, it related to a chapter that I'm writing and like, oh wow, I learned this thing.
59:05: Well, that's really interesting.
59:07: And that's not a great example because like crime, I mean that's not a really fun topic, but that's just the most recent thing that I was having to look into, you know, I have some Arthurian lore in my urban fantasy series, and that's lots of fun to talk about and a lot of my readers love like the Mists of Avalon and, and they're excited about the Pendragon Cycle, adaptation that I think Daily Wire did or something that's, that's been releasing recently.
59:28: And so just talking about kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit on your research and how you do your writing.
59:35: I have, I have a plot wall.
59:37: See those sticky notes over there on the wall?
59:39: This is my plot wall.
59:41: I used to plot entirely on my computer.
59:43: , but I think the process of giving birth to 4 babies and all the ways that hormones have changed my brain has made it very difficult for me to visualize and stay, like actually figure out plot points on a computer screen.
59:57: It's just not concrete enough to me.
59:59: I need to write it down and have cards and that sort of thing, so I make, so I make a plot wall.
1:00:04: So for anybody who's just listening, I've angled the camera so they can see the wall.
1:00:08: You can also see my kids' art on the wall.
1:00:10: My kids draw me lots of pictures.
1:00:12: So in the blue tape, I have along, a vertical line along one side.
1:00:16: I have the progress of the novel, so 0%, 25%, 50%, etc.
1:00:21: and then each of those lines, color-coded, vertical columns of sticky notes, is a plot thread.
1:00:28: So I have a main plot thread, I have like the romance plot thread, I have the antagonist protagonist like struggle plot thread, you know, and then I'll have like Side plot threads, that, you know, maybe only take part in part of the book, and then I just write the beats or the, the progression of those plot lines on those sticky notes to help me get a big picture skeleton structure of how is this progressing?
1:00:51: What am I aiming for?
1:00:52: What are the main high points I need to hit along the way.
1:00:55: And so anytime I'm struggling with, OK, what am I doing next?
1:00:59: Like, where am I?
1:01:00: What am I supposed to be doing right now?
1:01:01: What's this chapter?
1:01:02: Where's this supposed to be going?
1:01:03: I can turn around and look at that plot wall and remind myself, OK, here's where I am.
1:01:07: Here's the major plot points that I'm working toward.
1:01:09: Here's the ones that I'm in the midst of right now in this section.
1:01:12: And I it enables me to reorient myself to like refine where I'm going.
1:01:16: So it's like a map.
1:01:18: and I've been doing that about 2 years now.
1:01:20: I think I started after I had my 3rd kid when I was pregnant with my 4th.
1:01:24: and I'm sure it's something that other people have done.
1:01:27: Like, I'm not, I didn't discover.
1:01:28: This, this isn't like novel or whatever, but it's something that I started doing when I realized that I could no longer follow a plot outline that is on a computer screen and just my brain no longer computes it.
1:01:38: And so that's an example of something that I can put pictures of that and I can talk about that process with my readers, and it's an interesting thing for them because they like hearing, wow, what is it like being an author?
1:01:49: And then some of my readers are authors or are hopefuls, you know, they're creative people who have stories in their.
1:01:54: and they get ideas and they like engaging in that way.
1:01:57: So that's just another example of how you can connect with your readers without feeling pressured to spill your guts or let people into your lives that you don't feel comfortable, like, opening up about whatever it is.
1:02:08: You know, your brand is whatever you make it to be.
1:02:10: And so just find that Venn diagram of what you're passionate about and what's in your books and what your readers seem to respond to.
1:02:16: I've also been doing this long enough that I, I, I look at what my readers respond to.
1:02:20: On social media.
1:02:21: I look at what gets the most comments.
1:02:23: I look at what people talk about, what people say they like, what people will get excited about, and I try to lean into that.
1:02:29: It's kind of like writing to market.
1:02:31: It's not about writing books just because you think they'll sell well.
1:02:36: It's about finding the Venn diagram between what you're passionate about and what the market is passionate about and what you can write, what you enjoy writing.
1:02:45: OK, so, so, I always make these podcasts about me.
1:02:49: I understand that viewing audience.
1:02:50: I, I, I'm self-aware.
1:02:52: Yes.
1:02:53: How do authors who are direct selling, how can we support each other as far as cross-promo, collaborate, collabs, because of course, the indie author community is already really supportive, but it's all kind of geared towards Amazon or even wide, but specifically for direct sales.
1:03:09: What can we do to help each other?
1:03:11: Well, so I've started trying to lean more into To doing swaps with other authors, newsletter swap mentions with other authors.
1:03:19: I used to have kind of a personal policy of I didn't want to recommend any book that I hadn't read myself.
1:03:24: And while I still believe that, like, that's my ideal, I have realized that I don't have time to read all the books that I would like to recommend.
1:03:34: And it's a little, it's almost like being a mom and being like, OK, I don't like, I don't want my kids to get hurt.
1:03:39: Like, I don't want to let them try.
1:03:40: Anything that I haven't tried myself first to make sure it's OK.
1:03:43: It's like, well, yes, you might save them from having a bad experience that way, but also you're keeping them from having lots of good experiences because you don't have time to go out and do all the things that they're going to do.
1:03:54: And so I've kind of shifted my stance, even though I don't really like saying, hey, you might really enjoy this book without me having read the book, and being able to say, Hey, I loved this about this book.
1:04:04: I know my audience.
1:04:05: This is what I think you'll like about this book.
1:04:07: I have to Kind of let go and be like, hey, this is a book of an indie author friend of mine.
1:04:11: It looks really cute.
1:04:12: it's the kind of genre that I know you guys like, and they're great people.
1:04:15: Check it out.
1:04:16: Here's a link to their website.
1:04:17: and so I've started doing that, just as a newsletter swap.
1:04:20: I've come across some authors who like charge money, like $5 to be featured in a newsletter.
1:04:25: if you want to make that choice, it's obviously up to you, but that's not, you know, that's not why I do it.
1:04:29: Honestly, my newsletter is so big that I, I have not met any, I have not met a single author.
1:04:34: OK, let me put it this way.
1:04:35: I've not met a single author out there who would share the size of their newsletter, who I have swapped with, who is anywhere close to the size of my newsletter.
1:04:42: I suspect that most authors are a lot less open than me, and so don't talk in as specific numbers as I do, which is totally fine.
1:04:52: I am always curious how big people's newsletters are, cause I'm all, I like printing the data.
1:04:56: I like being like, hey, OK, so it's this size.
1:04:58: Here's your open rate.
1:04:59: Here's your click rate.
1:05:01: Like, here's What to expect because I just, I'm always writing those numbers for myself and so it's just interesting to me to kind of look at that data for other people.
1:05:08: But anyway, doing these letter swaps is a really great opportunity for people as long as you have a professional looking cover, then, you know, you can just whip up a link either directly to your Shopify store or you can set up like a landing page, or it could be a book funnel page, funnel.
1:05:23: send people over to book Funnel to, and then just go and just move through that way, that route.
1:05:29: You can even find swaps on the book funnel.
1:05:31: Yes, yes.
1:05:31: Well, so, well, so I, and I'll mention I have been doing 3 to 4, book funnel group swaps in every monthly newsletter for the past 5 years.
1:05:42: So promos or swaps, so the group promos, the group promos, so I, I have, I have notifications set up where Book Funnel emails me every time a, a group promo is set up that is within the genres that I've selected, and I just scan them and I participate in whatever ones that I want.
1:05:58: I usually take a glance at them.
1:06:00: I make sure the books in it are stuff because at this point I've been doing it so long there's some people who just do regular group promos that I've participated in enough that my readers aren't interested.
1:06:08: Like if they wanted those.
1:06:09: Books, they've already gotten them.
1:06:10: So I do have to pick and choose and kind of look, hey, you know, am I, are there new books showing up in this program that I haven't seen before?
1:06:16: And so I, I just pick, you know, it could be 2, it could be 3, it could be 4.
1:06:20: I try not to do more than 4 because that gets a little overwhelming, but I, as a reader, love free promos where I'll just scroll through.
1:06:26: Oh hey, that cover looks cool.
1:06:27: Like I'll download that.
1:06:28: Yeah, I might never read it, but it'll be there when I'm, hey, I'm bored.
1:06:32: Let's go look and see what I have in my book funnel app, you know, that looks interesting that I'm in the mood.
1:06:36: For that kind of thing.
1:06:38: So, obviously it's not like a huge read-through opportunity necessarily because with free books it never is, but it's been something I've been doing for a long time and I always get a slow trickle of newsletter subscribers through that.
1:06:48: And I always make it optional.
1:06:49: I never make it a requirement to sign up for a newsletter to get the free ebook that I provide, because I want quality over quantity because I have to pay for quantity, and I would rather you not be there unless you wanted to be there.
1:07:01: So that is something that Book Funnel does.
1:07:03: That is really great.
1:07:04: And then I'm just using Book Funnel's landing pages if you want to do swaps.
1:07:08: I usually do one or two indie-author books that I that I recommend, and it could be like a series.
1:07:13: It could be a single book.
1:07:15: A lot of indie authors would like whip, whip up a graphic in Canvar or whatever they're using, and you know, I just ask other people to share it, share my stuff in their newsletter.
1:07:23: I'm actually doing a group promo for my book release next week.
1:07:26: I've got the 4th book in my transdimensional hunter universe coming out that's lit RPG.
1:07:31: Adjacent kind of game lit.
1:07:32: And so I've organized a group promo of indie authors who write in that genre of 99 cents, like just kind of 99 cents, and I'm just hosting it on my website, and I'll share that with my newsletter.
1:07:42: And so all my readers get, you know, 2099 cents books, that they can, you know, choose from.
1:07:48: Some of them are free and get to enjoy that.
1:07:50: And then I get my book, hopefully, hopefully everybody shares like they're supposed to, get shown to all these other little RPG authors, and I get fresh audience.
1:07:58: To my book.
1:07:59: So those swaps are definitely not dead.
1:08:01: That's not a thing of the past.
1:08:02: That's a really present thing that is very useful and very beneficial for indie authors to work together on.
1:08:08: Now it does take some time.
1:08:10: I have been needing to train my VA how to do this and how to vet people for a while so I can hand this off to her, but I just haven't gotten around to it, and, and that's a me thing.
1:08:20: I don't like, I like doing stuff myself.
1:08:23: So whether or not I do that, that's a personal.
1:08:25: That's a personal thing with me.
1:08:27: If you, if you have a VA, which is a virtual assistant, absolutely this is the kind of thing they can do.
1:08:31: Just give them, write, write an OP, an operational procedure document where you tell them, Hey, these are the genres to look for.
1:08:37: These are the tropes to look for, you know, go find indie authors that have this looking book on Amazon.
1:08:43: Go to their website, go to their contact forum, copy and paste.
1:08:46: This email in it, ask if they'd like to swap, you know, here's the details, here's the criteria, and then for anybody who replies, like, you know, you, you can set all that up to kind of automate it because I already have a VA responding to customer support emails, for my people who buy my books, and she also responds to comments on my Facebook ads just to help, you know, get conversations going and to answer questions and stuff like that.
1:09:07: I'm slowly training my 16 year old because she homeschools.
1:09:11: Good for you.
1:09:12: And she, I let her do her more or less because that's how I was at her age, whatever, and I, I, I'm starting to like, so she's picked.
1:09:21: She says I suck at like what do they call flat lays, the photography, so she's Taken over like the book photography and the video shoots and things like pictures, pictures.
1:09:33: Yeah, she's taken that over.
1:09:35: So now she's doing and they're really good.
1:09:37: I'm like, yeah, good for her.
1:09:39: Good for her.
1:09:40: You do that then once I realized you could do something, I walk away.
1:09:43: I don't even mess with you.
1:09:44: Yeah, that's great.
1:09:46: That's great.
1:09:47: Yeah, I do.
1:09:47: I do, if you go to my website, store.
1:09:50: Lydiascher.com, and let's see, look at maybe the bundles tab.
1:09:55: All those product pictures are stuff I did myself.
1:09:57: I have a little tea cabinet over here that I, I, I get, I put some antique like doilies on and I set my book books up and everything and, make them all prettified and everything.
1:10:08: So cute.
1:10:08: The lighting isn't great because I don't have any kind, I haven't bought any kind of ring.
1:10:12: Light or anything like that.
1:10:13: The lighting is pretty terrible, but I just, I do a little bit of authentic, yeah, it is authentic.
1:10:17: OK, I'm gonna be shy because that's no, this thing is, there's nothing I wouldn't even be worried about that.
1:10:23: You've got the, I see the Doyley, and then there's these bundles of books that are tied with a ribbon and doesn't look all slick and producers like we're indie authors.
1:10:36: We're in a real physical object, and I will tell you.
1:10:37: I started out with pictures just taking it on my iPhone of holding my book up with my hand next to my cat's face, and that was how I sold my books for a long time.
1:10:46: You can still see some pictures.
1:10:50: Those pictures, if you go to the paperbacks tab and look at some of the paperbacks, they'll have a second picture available, and I think that second picture is me holding the book up next to my cat's face, I think.
1:10:59: I think those pictures are still there.
1:11:00: I might have deleted them.
1:11:02: Yeah, there we go.
1:11:03: Is that the one?
1:11:04: Is that the fluffy gray one?
1:11:06: Is it the fluffy gray cat?
1:11:07: That's gadgets.
1:11:08: That's gadget.
1:11:09: Yes, yes, lighting is terrible.
1:11:11: That thing here, I guess that's another thing in the authors, if you're going to direct sales, you don't have to spend money on professional photography, smartphones, some really good lighting, chotchkes, or bad lighting.
1:11:23: I have bad lighting.
1:11:24: You're doing a thing here that I have been like, OK, this is a thing that I've had like in the back of my mind.
1:11:30: It's one of those little things like.
1:11:32: I get these little brain itches and I've gotta, I've gotta scratch them, and I knew that somebody out there was doing it and I should have put 2 and 2 together and reached out to you before this.
1:11:41: You're selling tea.
1:11:42: I am indeed selling tea.
1:11:44: Isn't that awesome?
1:11:45: Because it's a direct tie-in.
1:11:47: I love it.
1:11:48: I have a, I have a character who drinks freeze dried coffee after the apocalypse.
1:11:53: So, like, OK, you know, I'm not even a coffee drinker myself, but the thought came to cross my mind at some point in the future, not right now because I don't need to worry about that.
1:12:01: But like, hm, so when you're, you're, you're white labeling, I'm assuming, or how are you sourcing that?
1:12:07: Yeah, so it's a white label.
1:12:09: So I go to a tea company that has that service available.
1:12:12: I Create a blend that is something that, and I've also pulled my readers where I'm like, hey, what are your favorite flavors?
1:12:19: Like, what do you most want in a tea?
1:12:21: And I'll have different categories of like, so I've done an herbal, I've done a rooibos herbal, I've done a chai, I'm going to do an English breakfast next, and then I'm gonna do some kind of berry herbal, and that's like a sweeter kind of thing.
1:12:34: And so I'll just go and think, hey, what is the Standard.
1:12:37: What's the gold standard of English breakfast teas that are the most popular?
1:12:40: What ingredients do they use for that?
1:12:42: Where do they get their tea leaves?
1:12:43: Like, what's the flavor profile of that?
1:12:45: Because I myself drink tea and I really like tea.
1:12:47: And so this kind of information is stuff that not only I'm interested in, but I do need to know, and some of it I already know just from my own drinking habits.
1:12:55: That's not it, don't clip that's my drinking habits, my tea, tea drinking habits.
1:13:01: So, I heard drinking habits.
1:13:03: So I'll look, so I'll look at like the flavor profile of some of the most popular English breakfast teas.
1:13:08: I'll look at like Twinings and PG Tips and, and those big companies, and then I'll go and look for the people I get my white label from and look what they have available.
1:13:15: Now.
1:13:15: Obviously there's limitations.
1:13:16: They might not have all the.
1:13:17: Flavors available that I'm interested in, but I will make a custom blend and say, hey, here's what I want in it.
1:13:22: I'll order samples, I'll brew it myself, I'll taste it.
1:13:25: I'll decide if I like it, decide if I want to add something, take away something, and I'll just, I'll settle on a blend that I like.
1:13:30: And then I just whip up these labels in Photoshop.
1:13:32: I've been using Photoshop for 4 or 5 years now, just because, like, this is before Canva was available.
1:13:39: Canva can pretty much do everything that I need to do in Photoshop, but I've been using Photoshop for so long now, it's just too much work to go relearn Canva, so I just keep using Photoshop.
1:13:47: So I'll just whip up my labels in Photoshop, and just upload them, and they make the tea and stuff the pouches and print it with my, my white label on it, and then ship it to me, and I, and I get out, I get about 250 to What's the most they do?
1:14:03: 500?
1:14:04: I don't know.
1:14:05: I'll get like 250 pouches at a time, and that'll last me, and that'll last me, you know, long enough that it's not super annoying having to reorder, and then I just sell them alongside my books and just ship them out with my books.
1:14:15: So once you have the system in place, it's easy to just add in different products.
1:14:20: Now my merchandise like mugs and t-shirts and stuff, I do that through Printify because ordering all of those in bulk and storing those.
1:14:28: When they don't sell a lot of, it's just not worth the time and money.
1:14:32: It works better to print on demand through a service for that.
1:14:35: I don't have any of that merchandise because it makes me money.
1:14:37: That's just for super fans to have fun with, and that just builds your super fan base.
1:14:42: That's not like a money-making enterprise.
1:14:44: The tea is a little bit different because it's a consumable, right?
1:14:47: And, and I'm looking here at your merchandise name of the tea company because I'm opening up tabs for everything.
1:14:55: Like, no, I've got pirate ship Adagio Piper.
1:14:58: I've got Geo, I think, and it's like, and the website I think is like Adagioxl.com is their, is their bulk, it's their wholesale website for tea sellers.
1:15:11: This is low key a master class.
1:15:13: If you're paying attention to details, you are getting mythology here.
1:15:17: Like you guys, you guys should be paying me for this.
1:15:20: Yeah, I know, they've got.
1:15:21: No, no, you shouldn't be paying me for this because I do this.
1:15:24: I do this, yeah, I do, I do this out of love, but no, I did actually teach an author 360 class for a year, back in, I don't know, 2023 that I, I partnered, me and David partnered with Steve Piper and a couple other indie authors, Innis Johnson and Who else?
1:15:40: Was it just, I think it was just Ennis Johnson was the other teacher, and we did a, we did like an author master class, publishing like 360 like all the way from beginning to end.
1:15:49: And I, I've taught, I've taught this stuff before and did get paid, but unfortunately after it was done, we were all like that was so much fun.
1:15:55: Also, I want to get back to writing, so we all just went back to writing.
1:15:58: , yes, no, we kind of know how that feels here to some extent at Book Funnel.
1:16:04: It's sometimes when your focus is on helping all the indie authors, you sometimes feel like, you know, it's like the cobbler's children have no shoes type of situation, yeah, yeah.
1:16:14: So are you the book funnel children, the book funnel children who have no books?
1:16:18: Well, no, we have plenty of books.
1:16:20: I mean, I'll speak for myself.
1:16:22: I'm not gonna speak for Kelly or Emma, you know, you know, sometimes I, I don't, I didn't need to mean to make this all about me.
1:16:30: Now I'm feeling a little awkward.
1:16:31: Shine, shine, OK.
1:16:33: The point being that for, yeah, for folks who are, you know, in the thought of like helping authors, if you, if you're doing that and, and teaching what you've learned.
1:16:43: That's another, that's like a separate business in and of itself.
1:16:46: And so for authors who are like, maybe I could teach a course on this thing that I'm successful at, just understand it's gonna, it's gonna pull energy away from that other thing that you're doing, which it does for me personally.
1:16:58: I know with our webinars, our podcast, not so much, but it's a creative endeavor still, and that it still costs energy creative, yeah, it costs energy.
1:17:07: Yeah, I could teach this, and if I took the time and money.
1:17:11: To actually build a business off of teaching, I could probably make almost as much money as I'm making writing and selling books, but I would not be publishing 3 to 4 books a year anymore, and my other side would suffer.
1:17:24: And though I like teaching, it's fun for me, it's not my passion.
1:17:27: It's not my ultimate passion.
1:17:29: It's not what I want my career to be retirement plan, right?
1:17:32: If you get to that stage of your life, you're like, I don't, I don't need to write as much.
1:17:36: I can slow that down and that's not going to happen.
1:17:39: I will stop writing and publishing when you pry the laptop for my cold dead fingers, right, right, right, but everybody, everybody's different, but, but yeah, for, for sure, It's something that not everybody's in that position, but some authors will do this too.
1:17:55: Like they'll, they'll create a social media account and start talking about like being an author, and then they build a following of people who wanna hear about how to be an author from them, and then they kind of inadvertently stumble into this like guru role that's It's now they've given themselves this other job, so I've, I've seen that before too.
1:18:15: yep, just seen it myself.
1:18:16: Oh, I'm trying to avoid it.
1:18:17: I love, I love teaching.
1:18:19: I really love teaching, and it just brings me such joy to teach.
1:18:22: But yeah, I don't want to do that.
1:18:24: I wanna write made up stories.
1:18:26: Come on guys, let me write my makeup, my made up stories.
1:18:30: Right, right now I'm, right now I'm working on a book, that's book 2 in a backstory trilogy for one of my characters.
1:18:36: he stumbles.
1:18:37: His parents die when he's 16, and he stumbles on witchcraft and is drawn into this plot to try, not really plot, but this thing to try and resurrect his dead parents through demonology.
1:18:49: it goes horribly wrong, obviously, as you might imagine, And he barely escapes with his life.
1:18:54: And now in book two, he's trying to hunt down the person who was responsible to get revenge.
1:18:59: The first book is called Accidental Witch.
1:19:00: The second book is called Accental Vigilante.
1:19:02: So you might imagine how, you know, he, what he ends up doing.
1:19:05: and so I've been, I was researching crime statistics in Atlanta to figure out where I want to put a specific location for like some witchy activity.
1:19:12: So anyway, that's, that's what I want to be doing with my time.
1:19:16: Guys, not that I don't love this podcast.
1:19:18: I appreciate you guys inviting me on here, but I want to do this like once or twice a year.
1:19:22: Not every day is my job, right, right.
1:19:24: No, I, I can understand that.
1:19:26: I can understand that.
1:19:27: Well, Lydia, thank you for joining us here.
1:19:30: Thank you for having me, today, Kelly and Emma.
1:19:32: Yeah, no, it was, it was a good.
1:19:35: We went all over the place, which is totally fine.
1:19:37: Yeah, we do that sometimes too.
1:19:40: You guys asked what was, what was on your heart and mind, and that's, I think that's what readers want to hear, you know, right?
1:19:44: We, we like to, we like to kind of leave it just as an open-ended conversation here so we can kind of meander a little bit.
1:19:50: But before we do go, before I let you go here, anything you would like to shout out or share with our audience?
1:19:58: Yeah, if you like the idea of a book series that enters Game meets Pokemon Go with some Mean Girls and Monster Hunter thrown in for good measure, you should definitely check out the Transdimensional Hunter series that has 4 books.
1:20:09: The 4th and final book comes out next Tuesday.
1:20:11: It's available anywhere you can buy books, published by Bane Books and It's very fast paced, very exciting.
1:20:17: There's a snarky AI, which is hilarious.
1:20:20: I'm writing this book series that's set 20 years in the future, except the things I'm writing about start happening right now, dang it.
1:20:27: I started writing the series in 2019.
1:20:29: We didn't have agentic AI in 2019, and now it's here, and I'm like, dang it, stop happening.
1:20:35: So that was, that was not very fun.
1:20:37: When I was writing book four.
1:20:38: I was actually wrestling.
1:20:39: with current day event problems, and it was like, not yet.
1:20:43: This is not supposed to happen till I was dead.
1:20:45: So, you guys might enjoy that book series.
1:20:47: It's co-authored with John Ringo, who is a New York Times bestselling author.
1:20:51: And then I have the pre-order up for book 9 of The Lily Singer Adventures, which is the main book series in my Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus universe.
1:21:00: it stars a wizard, a witch, and a snarky talking cat.
1:21:03: And if you like humor, And cats and like epic urban fantasy that has a lot of heart and found family and really amazing character progression.
1:21:11: I am known for my intricate, intricate plot progression that always pays off because I do not drop plot threads because of that plot wall.
1:21:21: See the plot wall?
1:21:22: and I'm known for, really great, character progression over a long series.
1:21:27: Book 9 is on.
1:21:28: Order right now, which is titled Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus Avalon.
1:21:32: So if you like Arthurian lore, you might really enjoy this book series as well.
1:21:36: So you can pre-order that on my website.
1:21:38: It's not even up on the retailers yet.
1:21:40: I'll get to the retailers eventually, but since I'm direct sales, I encourage people to get it direct from me.
1:21:45: So my website's just store.
1:21:47: Lydiacherer.com, just my name, and if you Google Lydia Scherer or snarky talking cat, you'll probably find me.
1:21:52: Excellent.
1:21:53: Excellent.
1:21:53: Well, thank you again, Lydia, for being our guest today.
1:21:57: Thank you, of course, to my co-hosts Emma Allison and Kelly Tanzy.
1:22:02: I could not do this without the two of you.
1:22:04: And thank you to you, our viewers.
1:22:06: If you're watching here on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the channel and like this video.
1:22:11: Also, leave a comment with your number 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 takeaways.
1:22:15: There are probably a lot you could take away from this episode of the podcast.
1:22:18: Podcast.
1:22:19: So, put those in the comments before you go.
1:22:22: If you are listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else that you listen to the Book Funnel podcast, please follow us there and leave a review.
1:22:30: It really does help.
1:22:31: From all of us here at Book Funnel, I wanna thank you for watching and listening, and we'll see you all in the next one.
1:22:38: Thank you for watching.
1:22:40: Check out these other videos from Book Funnel, and don't forget to subscribe to the channel.