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We are all about helping people tell a better story and today's guest is all about storytelling. Stephanie Mojica helps professionals through the process of writing and publishing their book.
Come as you are with the courage to speak up and tell a better story. A raw and real podcast from two courageous women making an impact in their communities by helping guests share their unique stories.
Your hosts Jenny and Sarah are soul sisters with a passion for creating a space for authentic storytelling. Their guests will make you laugh, cry, and leave you with all-the-feels while you learn from thought leaders like entrepreneurs, influencers, coaches, real estate moguls, speakers, reality stars, and creative geniuses.
welcome to the girls who do stuff.
I have Jenny Midgley.
I am Sarah Madras
And this is a show where you come
as you are with the courage to
speak up and tell a better story.
And today's guest is all about
storytelling book specifically.
Yeah, the pressure's on Stephanie.
You can tell good stories.
So Stephanie, please tell our
listeners who you are and what you do.
All right.
So my name is Stephanie Mojica.
I'm a book editor and
book development coach.
And what that means is if you're thinking
about writing a book stuck in the
middle of writing your book, or just
write your book, I can help you out.
So my specialty is helping coaches,
consultants, podcasters, and business
owners write and publish that book so
they can increase their visibility,
credibility, and market reach.
In other words, stand out in the crowd.
So that's what I'm about.
And I'm also a digital nomad.
Tell us where you're handling you.
Tell us where you're recording from.
So I'm in Suriname.
It's very small country in south America.
A lot of people never heard of
it's near Brazil and Guyana.
Nice.
And how did you end up.
Oh, but yeah, I've been traveling
well a little over two years ago, I
left the United States, my country
of birth and just started traveling
throughout the Caribbean, Latin America.
But I've been down here longer than
I planned because of the pandemic.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
So when you were choosing this
adventure, what made you choose there?
Is that a better way to say it?
So I started off in I went to a few places
in the U S and Canada, and then I started
off in Trinidad and then I was going
to stay in cert on for three weeks on
the way to Brazil, but then where I was
going in Brazil, this was in summer 2019.
Yeah.
2019 had forest fires.
So I decided to stay in Suriname
longer in the hopes of going
to Brazil in March, 2020.
They all know what happened.
And
so after the French Guiana, another
country, a lot of people I've heard of a
couple of times in the middle of all of
this or not in the middle of the pandemic.
But before that, But yeah, my original
plan was to make a trail through
Northeast, south America and the
Caribbean and wide up in Brazil.
And now what they're
handling the pandemic.
I don't have a place.
Yeah.
We might want to just say,
Hey, that would fly over.
So since you help everybody else
with their books, I'm curious if
you could only write one book.
That's from you not
helping others, but yours.
What would that one book?
People ask me that a lot.
I have written a couple in my name.
I've written some under pen names.
I've written a bunch
seven as a ghost writer.
And I was actually asking my audiences
on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn
recently, what they would want to hear.
Some people want to hear
how I've made my business.
And some people want to hear
all the travel stuff, especially
to fairly obscure places.
So I haven't decided yet.
I'll just be honest.
If it's going to be like the next
one's going to be a business book
or something about my travels.
I think it would be a really cool, like
integration of talking about like how,
you built and maintain this business and.
Managed to travel to all these cool
places and how those experiences of travel
impacted your, your way of interfacing
with clients and like tying that together.
I think that'd be cool.
I feel like that's one of
those professions, right?
That like people will go into it and
I want to be a lawyer or I want to
be a teacher, I want to be like, and
then you go into it and then somebody
opens your eyes to like this subset of
something that, nobody's when they're a
little kid, I want to be a book editor.
When I grow, I want to be a ghost writer.
You have to be like exposed
to, and then recognize that's
like going to be your path.
Yeah, I would say so actually I was
talking to, I was doing an interview
the other day where they were like,
how'd you become a book editor
It was just like college be it around
writers in the family who needed help.
Then like when I was working
for these papers, especially the
smaller ones, having to edit other
people's work when the boss wasn't
around and things like that.
If you could, since your degrees
in journalism, if you could change
things about how journalism is
right now, what would you change?
My problem is.
I don't want to sound
like I'm being exclusive.
When I say this, I want
to word it carefully.
there's a lot of people posting stuff
on social media, calling it journalism
when it's not like they're just posting
things before checking the facts.
There's no sense of ethics.
For a lot of folks, I just saw
an article the other day that was
like, journalism used to be the
unbiased, holy grail of ethics.
And now journalists aren't even
bothering to hide their bias.
People are like, I'm
gonna be real about it.
Versus like I'm going to, do things
the way that they, I don't know.
I don't know.
I want to say, should be done,
but do things in a way that
is ethical and still provides.
I don't know.
And I like, Tucker Carlson won
a lawsuit because is he, he was
sued and he's my show is not news.
It's entertainment.
But people it's on a news channel.
So therefore or a channel
that's labeled as news.
So people are going to take that.
Cause what the news is
now not ramp what we grow.
Even when we grew up with right.
Yeah, . My issue with it is we, even at
the smallest newspaper I worked at, cause
I started off a big papers and as the
industry downsize went down to the small
papers, that's not usually how it works.
It's usually the other way around,
, we had to sign an ethics agreement
that we could not post political.
Stuff on social media and that
we need to be careful what we
said about our personal lives.
And I see, I do have some friends
who are still working journalists.
I see one of them volunteering for
political parties and be in public battle.
We weren't allowed to give their nations.
The I give you firsthand information.
I'm not going to name names, but there
is a newspaper editor in Kentucky
who is working for the libertarian
party as a volunteer and like posting
all sorts of libertarian stuff.
Not that I'm saying I'm against,
you know what he's posting.
It's just the fact that he's engaging
has really changed right now.
Yeah.
So in the age, and are you seeing this
too in the age right now of especially
with the, the coaching industry and
online Businesses and things like that,
that it's becoming, and I'm trying to
pick my words carefully so that it's
an accurate reflection of my heart's
intention that it's becoming very trendy.
And it's almost oh, it's
really trendy to write a book.
So everybody write a book
because then that makes you
like more legitimate credit.
It gives you credibility and legitimate.
And talk to me on what
your thoughts are on that.
Before the pandemic, there were
about 1 million people calling
themselves coaches on LinkedIn.
When I checked about six weeks ago,
there were over 6 million people
called themselves coaches on LinkedIn.
The coaching industry is not regulated.
Not that I'm saying
certifications to be all end all.
I have a few, but it's not
the big ones that some people.
A little snobbish about
they say, I can help you
get a six figure business.
Here's my problem.
A lot of these people have not had a
six figure business except telling other
people how to get a six figure book.
And I have an ethical issue with that.
As far as writing the book, I have
had clients like I had one who was
living Uber eats and he wanted to
have a coaching speaking business.
So we spent about a year together,
really work on his book and it's not
just the book that's going to make
you really turn down a platform.
We had to do book launch parties.
We had to contact the media.
He got on the 700 club,
went for him and his niche.
It was a holy grail, got in a lot of
these papers and things like that.
And it depends just
writing and publishing.
It's not necessarily going to
guarantee you a bunch of success.
It's what you do afterwards.
And during it too, because you
just drop it on lots of say Amazon
for six simplicity and thick, a
bunch of book sales and people are
going to come flock at you then.
No.
And then you're going to go
and say, yeah, so and so I paid
so-and-so to help me write the
book and nothing happened with it.
It's like any kind of coaching.
I can't force you.
To go do the marketing
actions that you need to do.
And that's why sometimes
coaches get a bad name.
But I also think, I think that
there's multiple parts of this, right?
So it's like all those people that
are calling themselves a coach
for lack of a better title, right?
Like I've had other people say
aren't your marketing coach.
And I'm like, but I'm not , I do strategy.
I will educate, but I'm not
going to call myself a coach
because that's a different area.
And I understand the difference
in the titles and I understand the
semantics and anyone can call them
a coat, call themselves a coach,
and I'm not trying to be anyone.
You know what I mean?
So I think that there's that part of it.
And then I think there's a part of it.
That's like for people.
Especially over the last year we're
told over and over again by all
of these other people online that
oh, you have a marketable skill.
You can coach other peoples to do that.
Like there, there are several well-known
experts that were saying, if you
have this in this niche that you're
in and you have been successful in
it, and maybe it's the difference of
how you define success versus those.
Coaching people to six figures when
you haven't gotten six figures maybe
your success was, reaching a certain
number of clients or whatever it was.
And then that's how you defined it.
So then you're going to turn around
and tell other people how to do it.
And I think that there's, it's so variable
and multifaceted that it is, but it's
shocking that there were 600% he's in.
That's very shocking.
Yeah.
It may be more by now, right?
And I love what you said about, it's
not just about I have two questions
follow up on what you just said,
because I love what you said about,
it's not just, oh, you write a book
and then like it's magic, right?
It's all the steps that
you have to do afterwards.
So one it's, what are those
kinds of steps afterwards?
To make it successful.
Yeah.
And that's why some people say I
should call myself a consultant,
but for marketing purposes, it
seems to be easier to say carrots.
I haven't decided all that.
So there's some steps you can take.
Like for example, people need to
be doing podcasts, book tours.
I can't tell you how many
people just don't ever get to
talk about their book anywhere.
There's people who don't
even tell their friends.
Family, you can send like an email.
You don't have to have like email
marketing permission to drop email to
your friends and family and tell them
I wrote this book, blah, blah, blah.
Because a lot of people
aren't going to buy it.
If they already know love, like
whatever and trust you, I find
that people are also shy about
saying that exists on social media.
There's almost like a fair
degree of feel like they look
arrogant or something, but know.
Even some of my past clients, I see
them mentioned a book on social media,
like once a year, but even though
the book was published five years
ago, just for this example, there's
still tons of people that are in
your network, who haven't joined your
network later, who haven't bought yet.
Because the books I help people
write are pretty much evergreen.
It's like I've helped people in
their memoirs, business books,
et cetera, have edited countless
poetry fiction, et cetera.
So it's not so much stuff where it was
less evergreen announced off the market.
So it's just, it's possible to relaunch
your book or just keep talking about it.
And then another thing is people
aren't contacting the media.
Unless they have somebody like me
beating it into them or doing it.
Because even if your local newspaper
will probably write an article about
the fact that you wrote a book,
because a lot of people, especially
in smaller towns, Don't do it.
Like one of my clients, I was talking
about the one who ended up in 700 club.
He was living in Florida at the
time, but he was born in Kentucky.
So I said we need to contact media in
Florida where you live now and Kentucky
where you were born and people don't
think about things like that without push.
Yes.
Love it.
Love it.
And I think it's really relevant to one of
the things that you just said struck me.
There are let's say YouTube for for
example, because you, when you produce
content on YouTube, it is just as
likely that you're going to have a
video that's five years old, that will
start getting garnering millions of hits
just because of the viral cycles, that
it will, that you can produce a video
today that will hit those viral cycles.
So it's that same
consistency piece, right?
Like you have to still be promoting
yourself and then people will go and look
for the other things that you've done.
And so when you've written a book,
even if it is especially with evergreen
content and to keep putting that out
there, every speaking engagement you show
up in and you can buy my book and every
promotion, every appearance you make and
you can buy my book because you're right.
You don't know when people are
going to enter that circle,
enter your network there.
Yeah.
And I think that's so important.
Like I want all the
listeners to take away.
Like you don't know when people are
finding you, what do you exactly
then with the speaking engagements,
I'll just give another example.
So most of my clients published
through Amazon Kendall and they have
a digital copy and a print copy.
It's called print on demand.
So you don't have to pay a bunch
of, might have books print up
front, please stay away from people
who are telling you to do that.
That's my tip.
But seriously.
So once you have the Amazon author
account, you're the owner of the content.
One of my clients loves doing this,
especially when there's not the pandemic
he'll order, like a hundred books
at cost, which I think last time I
talked to it was like $3 and 86 cents.
He'll take it with him
to his speaking events.
And sometimes he'll sell a hundred
books at the cover price, which is $15.
So he just made $1,200 plus all the other
opportunities because people love that.
Especially in person now that things
are getting back to person, they want
to take a selfie with the author.
They want him to sign a book.
They think that's, if you have it in
front of them, especially if you have
a captive audience, people will buy.
It's not like you're
asking them to pay 50, 60.
It's the grocery lane checkout theory.
They put all of that really
quick candy stuff at the at,
because it's those impulse buys.
So after people are emotionally
charged, after listening to you speak,
they're going to be more likely to
buy your book right then and there.
Yep.
Yep.
Talk to me about the difference
between the person who's saying.
I have a book inside of me that
I have to get out like that, that
it's more of an internal thing.
And then the people that are
like, oh, I wanna write a book.
I want to write a book and be published
so that I can be rich and famous.
Yeah, I have run into both and I've
run into some sort of accommodation,
the person who really wants to get
the book out and it doesn't have to
be necessarily an altruistic motor.
Some people just really want to
get the book out because they
want people to know who they are.
But some people also have a compelling
desire to tell certain stories.
And some people like me
just grew up always knowing
they wanted to write a book.
So I think the difference is the
people who like to worry about the book
itself, making them rich and famous.
Usually don't in my experience plays.
I don't want to buy, takes personally
out there, but in my experience of
people who are focused on the money
from the book sales, the followers,
the likes don't write as authentically.
Yeah.
And they don't realize
they're editing themselves.
They're really worried.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
When people are I'm coaching, they're
like, I need to write a book so that, and
I'm like, do you want to write a book?
Because you feel like you need to
get that out of you or do you, and
they're like cause then I'm legit.
And then I make money.
And I'm like, that's what I say.
I'm like, the book is not going
to make you rich and famous.
So your $15 book to be that,
let's just do the math.
I'm like, let's just do the math.
And so if that's your car, gas is $3
that it's really the $12 per book profit.
If you want to be rich and famous, you
have to sell, a million bucks and be
in New York times best selling author.
Yeah.
If you're selling directly on Amazon,
not doing it the way, so my clients
do it and you get 70% of the profit
after they take out the book fee.
So it's eight something, a
book, which is still good.
It's amazing.
Especially compared to those traditional
publishers, you can get in with them, but
it's probably not going to make you rich.
Now I will say that in some
circles, it does give legitimacy.
And I'll give a couple of examples.
So my, one of my coaches, I have a couple,
I am what I am not one of his coaches.
He believes in sell and something that
I don't use for myself, but one of my
coaches like love speaking on the stages.
That's her thing.
During the pandemic, she really
had to revamp her business.
Things have been on zoom for
like last, what year and a half.
So these organizers were getting
inundated with requests, from people
wanting to speak people, calling
themselves coaches, et cetera.
And she told me about two events, not
to name names, of course, that they
literally had on the application.
If you do not.
Book or some kind of national
media that proves your legitimacy.
We will not consider application.
So there is a benefit because it
shows you have, you're not just, you
didn't just hang your shingle out
yesterday because you lost your job.
And you're saying you're kept.
So there is some legitimacy,
it shows you have system.
You should be incorporating clients'
stories, but obviously this is
mainly for the coaching industry.
So it just really depends on who
you are and what your goals are.
I've turned down, clients who I could
tell really did not want to write a
book and were just doing it because
their family was begging them to do.
Or they thought they would
become rich and famous.
I'm very ethical.
If you're telling me you're gonna go
take out a mortgage or, not that my
prices are high, she told me you could
take out a loan, get the credit card out
or, I'm feeling I'm very good feeling.
People's energy.
I'm feeling that you don't want to do it.
Somebody else is telling you to do it.
Or you just think it's
going to be a magic bullet.
I will very lovingly turn you down.
Yep.
Yep.
Love it.
In your entrepreneurial journey, what
has been your helping people share their
truth and speak their truth all the time.
So what was something for you
that was your truth that you found
hard to share and then found the
courage to do it actually I've been
speaking up more about racism lately.
I am Latina, I'm also indigenous
my mother's white Jewish
Irish, a bunch of things.
And the past five, six years
have been really difficult for,
people of all minority races.
And I think sometimes the issues that
Latin X people suffer are compounds.
By the perception that Latin X people
in the United States, especially weren't
born there, which is not always true.
So it adds a layer of complexity
because I don't see people, not
that I'm there, but I'm still
obviously in touch with people there.
I've never seen people rallying
around Latin X people and their
rights, and it's really sad.
I think there's a perception still that
people who are Mexican Honduran, whatever.
Weren't necessarily weren't born in
United States, which is patently false.
So it's complicated.
And I try not to get crazy political,
cause I don't want to harm my
business, but at the same time, I'm
also realizing when I've worked with
people in the past that didn't have
similar beliefs and values to me.
I don't think I could do that today.
I radically all my clients today
share the exact same value.
I think it's coming with
that awareness of right.
It's coming from that awareness of
like attracts as part of that journey,
the reason that you started trying.
Yes, I was living in Kentucky.
That was last place.
I've lived in the United States.
So that tells you a lot.
There was starting to be listeners.
We love you.
And we are not we would love
to visit you in Kentucky.
Oh, most of my best friends
are still in Kentucky.
I have the great love of
my life is in Kentucky.
We're just friends now.
I love a lot of Kentucky, but
I also there's a lot of things
about it that I don't like.
And.
All this to be Frank, I think it's
83% of the state voted for somebody
who was screaming about building
a wall to keep the Mexicans out.
Yeah.
So nevermind.
I was going places where my
partner and I were going places.
Yeah.
People.
Yeah.
I'm not even going to go there.
Oh my God.
I'll get ill, but seriously.
So my ex partner and I, who is
a tall Kentucky white man, very
liberal, by the way, like I said,
not everybody meets the stereotype.
We would go places and people would
start saying stuff to us about it.
It was just very strange and
I was no longer feeling safe.
And I was like, I want to go,
I'd stayed the Caribbean and this
part of the world in a grad school
and knew that the perceptions
of race were totally different.
So I decided I wanted to start exploring
the relationship wasn't working out.
I was yeah, and I was
about to be 40 at the time.
So I'm like, if I don't do this
now, I'm never going to do it.
So I think.
Awesome.
And it's funny because everywhere I've
been outside of the U S they think I'm
a white person, just because I've from
United States, but in my home country,
my mother's white, most people like,
oh, it's one of those Mexicans, right?
Yeah.
Wow.
And I've never went no matter what.
Yeah.
For you, what have been your
biggest takeaways on your travel?
My biggest takeaways is that
a lot of people are very calm.
And they don't really have a fair
advantage, say we do because of
where they were born in the world.
Another thing is there is a
strong perception that all white
Americans are rich interesting.
And these parts of the world, my landlord
and I were talking about that day.
He's a white man from Holland and
we joke, We get the white price.
They don't have the prices listed
on lot of things outside of us.
So the shopkeeper will look at the
person and say what the price is.
So usually when I need like a car
service or some, I will send a local
friend of mine to go get it done.
And it's usually about a third
of what I would have paid.
So that kind of stuff bothers me.
That's super interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like the wedding tax.
Yeah.
The pink check.
Yes.
The pink tax.
Yes.
Yes.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Your experiences is very interesting and
very unique to the fact that like you are
a woman and a minority ethnicity within
your country of origin, however and
you had to leave your country of origin
to go somewhere, to feel safe, right.
Where you are then treated as like.
The opposite of how you were
treated in your country of origin.
Like I was like, I'm trying to
wrap my head around it and I
feel like that's a logic, right?
Like it just it's mind boggling.
I'll tell you a story.
So a friend of mine and I decided
to go to French Jada she's a black
Surinamese citizen, and we were not
told by Surinamese authorities that she
needed a visa to enter French Ghana.
Because there's been problems
with illegal immigration.
From Suriname differentiate yada.
So we get to the border and
they're trying to send her back.
And I was able to talk the
police office, police officers
into letting her in the country.
And they didn't think I understood
what they're saying in French, but
they said it's a rich white lady.
I really don't think she's trying
to sneak this girl into the country.
Just let them go.
She had the girls probably getting
paid to travel the slave, which
was not true by the way I did.
Is that it was your lady's
man living with you.
That's pretty cool.
That's pretty much what it adds to.
They're like, okay,
just don't do it again.
Next time.
We're going to remember.
Cause it's a small border
and a small country.
They were like, They're
like have a good trip.
And wow.
We were just, it was mind boggling
because they were ready to send
her back until I stepped up with my
American passport and my, oh my God.
That's, it is, it's I feel like we
can have so many more conversations
about just like dichotomy of
that, and the differential that,
like, how do you reconcile that?
And what impact does that have on you?
To me,
it makes me feel bad for her.
People are assuming that
she's up to no good.
That she's just like
somebody made or something.
It makes me feel bad about that.
It does it also what privileges
white privilege is very real.
No, I've never experienced it in my
own country, but I experienced to
here, technically I'm a minority,
but because I'm perceived as of the
superior race, it ties into colonialism.
It ties into slavery things
that state academically as well.
It's extremely complicated.
It's every us dollar I make
is 24 and local dollars.
But I know people here who
make 15 local dollars an hour.
So yeah, by their standards, I'm
very rich, not by mine because
I can't go purchase a home.
The prices of home ownership
in this country are exorbitant
compared to the local economy.
So it's set up just like the S
really rich foreigners it's set up
where like rich foreigners can, or
the only ones who can buy property.
And unless you wanted to live far outside
the capital city and out in the jungle,
which people do, but it's just it's all
relates to colonialism and slavery and
it's a very complicated thing that will
probably take a lifetime to unpack.
Yup.
Yup.
It's fast.
I love these conversations.
Yeah, I really do.
Cause I feel like we can talk
about maybe that's your next book.
Let's talk about, all of these
weird things that happened when
you traveled all of a sudden you
went from the non privileged to the
privileged and the, bananas anyway.
All right this has been a
fascinating conversation.
What's next for you as far as the
next steps are and other than you
writing a book what's some fun things.
I will be doing start a podcast
near the end that a year it will
be called, get their attention.
Now with Stephanie Mojica.
It's gonna, I haven't either all the
details yet, but it's probably going to be
geared toward authors or aspiring authors.
So that's coming up.
I have a group and one-on-one programs.
I have a group more called six months
from book idea to final chapter.
We'll be doing a stomach
probably November.
That will be geared probably toward
coaches and such, looking for
leads, different ways to find leads.
So yeah, if you're interested in find
out about this stuff, you can find
me on Instagram, you can check out my
free book, three things you must know
before writing your book, which is that.
Get their attention now.
Dot com slash book.
Their attention now.com/book and yeah,
I'm all over Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, very active clubhouse.
Checking out this new app at
the day we're recording this.
There's a brand new app called greenroom.
It's 40 hours old, not wild about
it yet, but I, so I'm probably going
to stick with clubhouse, but it is
curious because it's like the Spotify.
And I do have podcasts for clients
cause I'm helping some folks turn
their podcast transcripts into books.
So I'll probably devote like maybe 30
minutes or an hour, a day degree room.
But yeah, clubhouse is
usually where I'm at.
That's really been successful for me.
Cool.
That's how we found her.
That's how Stephanie and I
became connected was in a room
with Jenny right now is in Lex.
So if you listen to their episodes yeah.
And I was just, yeah, they worked
for me now, they helped me put on
my helmet and then I was an Alison
summit and I might be a Jenny summit.
And I think Ellis is going to
hire me to turn her podcast.
Love it.
Thank you so much, Stephanie.
We're joining us today.
We had a blast.
It was very eye opening as well.
Thank you for always
being, bringing the truth.