Speaker 1: Episode three thirty eight Frugal Side Hustles self Publishing with
Speaker 1: MK Williams.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity and liver life. Here your hosts
Speaker 2: Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and today we have the next
Speaker 1: in our Frugal Side Hustle series. Every other month we
Speaker 1: highlight a side hustle that is low cost to start
Speaker 1: but actually does have the opportunity to elevate into a
Speaker 1: full time income if you want it to be, or
Speaker 1: it can just make you side hustle part time money.
Speaker 1: So a lot of these are not going to be
Speaker 1: quick money there. If you want to make money tomorrow
Speaker 1: or this weekend, this series isn't for that. But this
Speaker 1: is something if you spend three to six months, you're
Speaker 1: going to start to see a return on your investment.
Speaker 1: Those are the parameters for the series. And self publishing
Speaker 1: is definitely something that if you do the right things
Speaker 1: can definitely become something where you make great side money
Speaker 1: or even full time money.
Speaker 3: I'm hearing so much more about self publishing and writing
Speaker 3: books or even digital products. We don't talk about that
Speaker 3: as much in this episode, but I think a really
Speaker 3: helpful even vision to create. If you do have this
Speaker 3: as a hobby or a passion project, this is that
Speaker 3: extra oomph you might need to consider doing it to
Speaker 3: its fullest extent and actually seeing what kind of influx
Speaker 3: of money you could make off of this in the
Speaker 3: long term. But first, this episode is brought to you
Speaker 3: by DP E and D and T. Do you know
Speaker 3: what that means? Could mean you have your own house,
Speaker 3: your own car, two jobs, working hard, or it could
Speaker 3: mean you're not heavily influenced or controlled by others, but
Speaker 3: able to think freely and be confident in yourself. And
Speaker 3: speaking of thinking freely and being competent in yourself, it
Speaker 3: does require community too. We're not entirely independent. We're interdependent
Speaker 3: in its most healthy version. Our listener special it's coming
Speaker 3: up October thirty first, Yes Halloween, and we want you
Speaker 3: to share your spooky, strange, bizarre money stories with us.
Speaker 3: Did you find money in a weird place? Did you
Speaker 3: have to pay a fee with a weird name? What's
Speaker 3: the weirdest pumpkin spice thing you've ever seen? For sale?
Speaker 3: Everything's punk and spice.
Speaker 1: Oh much, everything.
Speaker 3: Has anything having to do with money. Ever happened to
Speaker 3: you that you now look back on and laugh? That's
Speaker 3: really what we're looking for. So make us laugh. Think
Speaker 3: independently on this one. You know we like Lucy goosey stuff,
Speaker 3: and submit it for our Listener special with the best
Speaker 3: spooky season money story will win one of our Frugal
Speaker 3: Friends T shirts. So use the Bill of the weekline
Speaker 3: Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash bill today through September nineteenth.
Speaker 3: This is twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Sorry no, sorry today Tember nineteenth.
Speaker 3: Sorry today September nineteenth through September twenty eighth, So you've
Speaker 3: got that ten day almost ten day window, nine day
Speaker 3: window to leave your spooky story. We can't wait to
Speaker 3: hear them. The best one's going to get a T shirt.
Speaker 3: A lot of them will be featured on the podcast
Speaker 3: Listener special episode. This is exciting. Do it through the
Speaker 3: Bill of the week line and based on how spooky
Speaker 3: the stories are, we'll definitely know that it's not your
Speaker 3: bill of the week, but if there's any confusion, we'll
Speaker 3: just drawn it as the bill of the week too,
Speaker 3: And that's fun.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. We'll also see the length of it,
Speaker 1: and so Bills of the week are typically short, and
Speaker 1: we figured that these ones will be longer, so be fine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're very excited. We do a listener special
Speaker 1: every year where you guys call in record and this
Speaker 1: is meant to make you laugh. Something that you can
Speaker 1: listen to while you are trick or treating with children,
Speaker 1: maybe yours, maybe somebody else's. Get candy, Get laughs. Frugal
Speaker 1: friendspodcast dot com slash bill.
Speaker 3: Be spooked out by money.
Speaker 1: Yes, but seriously, what is the weirdest punk and spice
Speaker 1: thing you've ever seen for sale? I can't even think
Speaker 1: of it right now, but I'm sure sometime in the
Speaker 1: next seven days you are going to see it on Instagram,
Speaker 1: now that we've said it. Anyways, this episode is for
Speaker 1: writers self publishing obviously writing books, both fiction and nonfiction.
Speaker 1: So both fiction so fantasy, horror, fun stories and nonfiction.
Speaker 1: So the things that we write money, self help, fitness,
Speaker 1: wellness whatever, both of them are in this episode. The
Speaker 1: two caveats we will make so if you are somebody
Speaker 1: who wants to write, loves to write, but after this
Speaker 1: episode you're like, ooh, I do not want to project manage.
Speaker 1: Then hit up episode two fifty seven, which is our
Speaker 1: Frugal Side Hustle episode on freelance writing with Miranda Marquitt.
Speaker 1: That's going to be for you. If you are someone
Speaker 1: who has an audience, maybe you have a small side
Speaker 1: business and you're just looking for ways to maybe elevate that,
Speaker 1: you can try self publishing. But if it seems like
Speaker 1: a little too much work for what you have time
Speaker 1: for in your business, it's already kind of taken off.
Speaker 1: Hit Up episode two forty two, that's our Frugal Side
Speaker 1: Hustle series on digital products with led Op. That might
Speaker 1: be more for you, but this one, digital products and
Speaker 1: self publishing can definitely play together very well. Uh So
Speaker 1: those are some good ones to queue up after that.
Speaker 1: This was such a fun episode. MK is such a
Speaker 1: good friend and always have wanted to get her on
Speaker 1: the show, but for a while we were never doing
Speaker 1: things like this, and once we saw the Frugal Side
Speaker 1: Also series saw how popular it was, we finally I
Speaker 1: got a chance to text her and be like, I
Speaker 1: need you, I need you on the show.
Speaker 3: We always needed you and now it's on the show, right.
Speaker 1: This is so true. I always needed you in my
Speaker 1: life and now I need you on my show. So
Speaker 1: m K Williams. In addition to being a very great friend,
Speaker 1: she is a full time self published author. She is
Speaker 1: the creator of Author Your Ambition SO, the series of videos,
Speaker 1: books and courses that help authors self publish. She is
Speaker 1: also working with an agent for a traditionally published book deal,
Speaker 1: so she has and after we finished our interview with her,
Speaker 1: she was giving us tips for traditionally published book deals too.
Speaker 1: So wherever you are on the spectrum of wanting to
Speaker 1: write a book, MK is the go to. She's got
Speaker 1: over twelve thousand subscribers on YouTube. People love her and
Speaker 1: we are so honored to have her on Frugal Friends.
Speaker 3: Let's do It.
Speaker 1: MK, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are so
Speaker 1: excited to finally get you here. I feel like you've
Speaker 1: been there since, You've been around since the beginning, and
Speaker 1: that's so rare and so fun, and now you're here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm actually like talking with the Frugal Friends, not
Speaker 4: just listening and pausing and responding back and then resuming
Speaker 4: the podcast and then texting you and like, hey, I
Speaker 4: just said this hahaha, and we actually talking to all time.
Speaker 4: I'm so exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh man, So I am very excited to have
Speaker 1: this conversation. As someone who is self published and you
Speaker 1: have self published, we have similar I mean you've done
Speaker 1: fiction and nonfiction. I have only done nonfiction, so I
Speaker 1: only have a little bit of experience to speak from,
Speaker 1: but still very excited to talk about this topic. So
Speaker 1: let's start out what do we mean when we say
Speaker 1: self publishing and who should consider this for a side
Speaker 1: hustle because it's probably not for everyone. So what is
Speaker 1: it and who might be best fit for it?
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, that's a great starting question. So self publishing
Speaker 4: is when you the individual, say I am going to
Speaker 4: write and publish this book, and I am going to
Speaker 4: do the creative part of the writing, editing, revising, and
Speaker 4: I'm going to do the distribution of finding the right
Speaker 4: platform to put the book on, make sure that if
Speaker 4: somebody wants to buy it, it is delivered to them
Speaker 4: appropriately and really wearing all the publishing hats. So thinking
Speaker 4: about like somebody like Stephen King, he does the writing,
Speaker 4: he does some promotion. He doesn't really need to promote
Speaker 4: any more because Stephen King, but like his publisher does
Speaker 4: all the work of making the book up a book
Speaker 4: like a physical book or an ebook file. When you're
Speaker 4: self publishing, you're doing all the work yourself. Now you
Speaker 4: can outsource it, but you're still the project manager. So
Speaker 4: say you're outsourcing into a cover designer, you're outsourcing to
Speaker 4: an editor. Okay, that's great. You still have to manage
Speaker 4: the timeline and follow ups and things like that. So
Speaker 4: that's what it means to self publish. I would start
Speaker 4: first with who it's not good for. So if somebody
Speaker 4: wants a side hustle or they can start making money tomorrow,
Speaker 4: maybe even like next month, this maybe isn't for you,
Speaker 4: because when you think about writing a book, and writing
Speaker 4: a book that you are proud to put your name
Speaker 4: on takes time, and it takes revisions and it takes edits.
Speaker 4: And so I'd say, if you are somebody who's always
Speaker 4: wanted to write a book, and hey, this is maybe
Speaker 4: a path for me to start to test out my chops,
Speaker 4: can I write a full length book? Self publishing can
Speaker 4: be a great way to go. I think if you
Speaker 4: already have a content business where you have a blog,
Speaker 4: you have a podcast, you have things you're already saying
Speaker 4: and you say, well, some people like to learn from
Speaker 4: listen to my podcasts, and so I'm like, you learn
Speaker 4: from reading books. Hey, I have all this content, I
Speaker 4: have all my scripts. I can repurpose those into a book.
Speaker 4: I think that person is going to have an easier
Speaker 4: time getting the book across the finish line and starting
Speaker 4: to see revenue faster than somebody starting from my dream
Speaker 4: is to write this next huge book series, fantasy series,
Speaker 4: romance series. I have no followers. You know that person
Speaker 4: that's a passion project that will one day hopefully net
Speaker 4: them something. But just having different expectations based on where
Speaker 4: you are audience wise, where you are experience wise. But yeah,
Speaker 4: if you need money tomorrow, like, don't this isn't This
Speaker 4: isn't going to get you money tomorrow.
Speaker 3: It's not a quick money maker. You mean they're lying
Speaker 3: to me on social media when they're all like, yes,
Speaker 3: do this, do this earn six figures a month?
Speaker 4: Yes, they're lying or they're exaggerating.
Speaker 1: I actually don't know anybody saying you could earn six
Speaker 1: figures a month tomorrow from writing that's.
Speaker 3: True, that's true, five figures, five figures.
Speaker 4: There's this new trend, oh no, called low content books
Speaker 4: or notebooks, and so you can do notebooks or what's
Speaker 4: considered low content book.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: You probably just have the names of each of the
Speaker 4: twelve months, things like that, and you can produce that
Speaker 4: and you could theoretically create this and put it up
Speaker 4: on Amazon KDP the next day or the same day
Speaker 4: and start selling. The downside is everybody and their brother
Speaker 4: can make a notebook, So what's going to make your
Speaker 4: notebook special? And when you have the same quality as
Speaker 4: everybody else using print on demand, it's like, okay, well
Speaker 4: what are the design features? Why should somebody buy your notebook? So, yes,
Speaker 4: you can do it quickly, but then there's a lot
Speaker 4: of hustling of ads and things like that. So how
Speaker 4: much are you really netting after all that? But yes,
Speaker 4: I have seen what kind of jolt refers to as
Speaker 4: the kind of bombas to go, you can write a
Speaker 4: bestseller in thirty days, and like, I bet it's not
Speaker 4: going to stay on the bestseller list after that first day,
Speaker 4: right because you wrote it in thirty days.
Speaker 1: And see that that's a big distinction. Because when you
Speaker 1: first release your book, you can give it away for
Speaker 1: free for five days. Amazon allows you to do that
Speaker 1: and every book can be a bestseller in those five
Speaker 1: days if you pick the right category, and so that
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons. Like, so my book The
Speaker 1: No Spend Challenge Guide is a bestseller on Amazon and
Speaker 1: consistently is a bestseller, but that means very little because
Speaker 1: everybody else can say they're a best seller because they
Speaker 1: took a screenshot in the first five days of release.
Speaker 1: So what's more important than anything like bestseller or whatever
Speaker 1: is I think the money that you make from it
Speaker 1: on a consistent basis. But that's what I love about
Speaker 1: self publishing is that having a book allows you to
Speaker 1: go onto podcasts more easily, or to get onto like
Speaker 1: bogs or YouTube and all these other things, and vice versa.
Speaker 1: If you're a content creator, just like you said, MK,
Speaker 1: it allows you to create content. And sometimes the biggest
Speaker 1: struggle for a content creator is what do I put
Speaker 1: out there? So if your end goal is to write
Speaker 1: a book, that's exactly what I did with the No
Speaker 1: Spend Challenge gud I was like, what do I write
Speaker 1: on my blog? I was like, okay, No Spend Challenges
Speaker 1: really helped us cut our spending and figure out what
Speaker 1: we wanted, what we loved spending on that was literally
Speaker 1: the tiniest inkling before values based spending was ever a thing.
Speaker 1: For frugal friends, I wrote this values this no Spend
Speaker 1: Challenge guide based on this, and so I took about
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen blog posts with this arc of going,
Speaker 1: like you could read the no Spend Challenge Guide for
Speaker 1: free on my blog if you went through these, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty blog posts. But I repurposed them and made
Speaker 1: them more cohesive for the book and put that out
Speaker 1: on Amazon with not a ton of extra work because
Speaker 1: it's work I was already doing and I didn't need
Speaker 1: a big audience. Didn't have an audience at all at
Speaker 1: that time, and Amazon had the audience just to like
Speaker 1: some optimization to tap into the right audience there. So
Speaker 1: it was this beautiful thing like I had the content
Speaker 1: but not the audience, and I was able to get
Speaker 1: that audience from Amazon. So I love that about self publishing.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about in the nonfiction versus fiction
Speaker 1: space for that, since you straddle both.
Speaker 4: It depends, It really depends. So I would say for
Speaker 4: the fiction space, there are certain fiction genres that's self publishing.
Speaker 4: They can be super successful, super lucrative, and so I
Speaker 4: really nerd out on the stats. Right, So the average
Speaker 4: American reads twelve books a year. It's one book a month,
Speaker 4: but that's the average. There are people way on the
Speaker 4: other end who are like, I haven't picked up a
Speaker 4: book since I graduated high school. And then there's people
Speaker 4: on the other end who are reading a book a week,
Speaker 4: and those people read romance, and that genre can do
Speaker 4: gangbusters with self publishing because you have these readers like,
Speaker 4: every week, I need a new book, and I want
Speaker 4: it in this specific trope, so please give me more books,
Speaker 4: and so they can do really well. Science fiction series,
Speaker 4: fantasy series can do really well on the fiction side.
Speaker 4: And I keep emphasizing series because your first book, if
Speaker 4: you have no followers, you are hustling. You are on
Speaker 4: social media, you're talking about it, you're making other author friends,
Speaker 4: you're connecting. Okay, great, people write the first one, oh,
Speaker 4: the second book's coming out, the third books coming out,
Speaker 4: the series is complete, and so there's lots of strategies
Speaker 4: to do that. And that's where serial readers, like voracious
Speaker 4: readers love series because like, I already like it, I
Speaker 4: know the characters. Boom, give me number two, give me
Speaker 4: number three. So that can be very profitable. But say
Speaker 4: you're listening this to you're like, okay, but in my heart,
Speaker 4: I don't want to write a non fiction book. I
Speaker 4: don't like I'm an expert. I don't want to write
Speaker 4: any of those genres or a series. In my heart,
Speaker 4: I want to write this like deeply literary, beautiful coming
Speaker 4: of age story. If that's the book in your heart,
Speaker 4: that's awesome. If you want to self publish, it awesome.
Speaker 4: But the way that people who read those types of
Speaker 4: books find books may not be through self publishing indie
Speaker 4: author promotional channels, and so sometimes it's going back and saying,
Speaker 4: what's the best for this book? And so I think
Speaker 4: people come at this two is one is I've heard
Speaker 4: I can make money self publishing. I've always been interested
Speaker 4: in books. I like to read.
Speaker 1: I'll write a book.
Speaker 4: And then there's people who come from this who are like, no,
Speaker 4: my burning passion is writing. And so for those for
Speaker 4: the people who are love to write for the sake
Speaker 4: of writing and want to write a novel, they can
Speaker 4: self publish. They can say yeah, I did it, Like
Speaker 4: I prove to myself, I can do it, I can
Speaker 4: get it done. I think they're going to have more
Speaker 4: anxiety when things maybe don't go well, or the first
Speaker 4: day it's maybe not a huge success, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I have to keep marketing this book forever, versus the
Speaker 4: person who's like, well, I tried this and I made
Speaker 4: something and that was kind of cool, and let me
Speaker 4: like optimize it and gamify it. And so I think
Speaker 4: if you're somebody who's kind of in the middle, I
Speaker 4: love to write a lot to be creative, but I
Speaker 4: also like to gamify things. I think that's the sweet
Speaker 4: spot with fiction self publishing, where you're probably going to
Speaker 4: enjoy it a bit more. You're still going to feel
Speaker 4: like I'm creating something, I'm growing in my writing craft,
Speaker 4: but I'm also learning how to optimize for ads and
Speaker 4: keywords and that's kind of cool too. So if you're
Speaker 4: you're kind of in that middle, you're probably going to
Speaker 4: find it much more enjoyable than if you're kind of
Speaker 4: on either side.
Speaker 3: So for the person who was thinking, yeah, I think
Speaker 3: I want to write a book, I think self publishing
Speaker 3: is going to be the best route for me. Where
Speaker 3: should they start? What is step one for them?
Speaker 4: I'd say step one with self publishing is writing the book.
Speaker 4: So with traditional publishing, sometimes you're writing the book first,
Speaker 4: sometimes you're writing a proposaler pitch. With self publishing, the
Speaker 4: first things first you have to have a book, and
Speaker 4: that is I always say that's the hardest part. I say,
Speaker 4: that's the first twenty four miles of the marathon is
Speaker 4: writing the book. And there will be days when you
Speaker 4: want to write the book and I can't put words together,
Speaker 4: and so those are the days that it's really good
Speaker 4: to start doing some book homework. Research is what I
Speaker 4: call it. Okay, so I know I want my book
Speaker 4: to be on Amazon dot com. How do I get
Speaker 4: it to Amazon dot com. I can go through a
Speaker 4: platform that Amazon offers where I can publish directly. I
Speaker 4: can go through other websites that are called aggregators that
Speaker 4: are really meant to be author first and forward and
Speaker 4: they can get my book to Amazon and Barnesonoble and
Speaker 4: Apple and Google and bookshop dot org and all these
Speaker 4: other places. And so really starting to understand what is
Speaker 4: the goal for the book and therefore what options will
Speaker 4: help me succeed with that goal. If your goal is
Speaker 4: to go to Barnesonnoble dot com and see your book
Speaker 4: there because you grew up nerding out going to Barnes
Speaker 4: and Noble. Okay, well Amazon can't get you there because
Speaker 4: Amazon and Barnes and Noble don't like each other because
Speaker 4: one is cannibalizing the other's business. So figuring that out,
Speaker 4: or if your goal is you know what proof of concept,
Speaker 4: I just want it out there. I want to say
Speaker 4: I'm done. I want the path of least resistance. Amazon KDP,
Speaker 4: which stands for Kindle Direct Publishing super Easy gets you
Speaker 4: to Amazon dot com and all the associated like dot co,
Speaker 4: dot UK, dot CA, dot AU, all the other websites
Speaker 4: as well. You probably want to decide do I want
Speaker 4: this to be a print book? Do I want to
Speaker 4: be an ebook? Do I have an audiobook? So there's
Speaker 4: a lot of different decisions to make as an author,
Speaker 4: and there will be times when you're creatively sapped, or
Speaker 4: maybe an editor's looking at your book for revisions and
Speaker 4: you're like, Okay, this is my time to decide what
Speaker 4: is my plan? And I think it's really important, especially
Speaker 4: for new self publishing authors, to have a plan that
Speaker 4: makes sense for them for their workload. They want to
Speaker 4: take on their goal for their book, for their actual
Speaker 4: book and not get swayed by this is how you
Speaker 4: make six figures in one day on Amazon, because that
Speaker 4: person has a very different goal for their book. And
Speaker 4: so I see this happen all the time with newbie authors.
Speaker 4: They had planned, they loved it, they were all for it.
Speaker 4: They started to like spend money based on that plan.
Speaker 4: They said, well, I listened to this one podcast and
Speaker 4: this person said I should only publish on this one day,
Speaker 4: and that day passed and that was last week, So
Speaker 4: I have to wait a whole year to release my
Speaker 4: bookgain because I was the best day to release books.
Speaker 4: And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, so that's don't
Speaker 4: do that. Don't don't just listen to one person. And
Speaker 4: I like to say, it's like when you're taking a
Speaker 4: test in high school. Don't look at somebody else's paper,
Speaker 4: look at your paper. Focus on what you need to
Speaker 4: do for your book. Because their books are everybody out
Speaker 4: there to read. Their books for everybody out there to write,
Speaker 4: and each are going to be strategically a little different.
Speaker 4: So starting the research of what do I want, how
Speaker 4: do I make it happen is a right starting place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're also mentioning, and I know I only asked
Speaker 3: you for the first step, and you did give me
Speaker 3: like steps one, two, and three. Thank you. I'm soome
Speaker 3: And so now no, no, that's perfect because now I'm thinking, okay, well,
Speaker 3: what's four and five? You're mentioning editors and some of
Speaker 3: these different people that might be involved in the self
Speaker 3: publishing process. How might someone find those additional supports that
Speaker 3: they would need even though they're primarily doing this thing
Speaker 3: on their own.
Speaker 4: So there's a couple routes, and I would say for
Speaker 4: the person who is being uber frugal, you can easily
Speaker 4: go into authors writers' groups and meet up with people
Speaker 4: to be critique partners. So that is where two authors
Speaker 4: are maybe three or four in a group together and
Speaker 4: they're exchanging chapters, they're exchanging entire books, and that other
Speaker 4: person is saying like, hey, you lost me here, or hey,
Speaker 4: I really don't understand why this character suddenly just did
Speaker 4: like a one to eighty and did this, and helping
Speaker 4: each other not just from a grammatical point of view,
Speaker 4: but from a story structure point of view. There's really
Speaker 4: great websites like reid z that where you can find
Speaker 4: professional editors and things of that nature. If you want
Speaker 4: to invest in that if you have the money to
Speaker 4: invest in it. I always think you're going to get
Speaker 4: what you pay for. Right when you get the free
Speaker 4: review from a friend, They're probably gonna take their time.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe something comes up, you don't hear back
Speaker 4: from them, maybe you don't feel like it's as thorough
Speaker 4: a review as if you had paid for it. So
Speaker 4: keeping that budget in mind for what you want to
Speaker 4: invest in the book, you can find people who can
Speaker 4: help load and no cost. You can find people who
Speaker 4: can help at a reasonable cost. There are price points
Speaker 4: for everybody on reids. If you don't already know somebody
Speaker 4: and they've been vetted to say hey, based on their experience,
Speaker 4: based on your word count, your page count, this is
Speaker 4: how much it would cost. So Readsy's a really great
Speaker 4: marketplace to start at that's specifically for authors. I know
Speaker 4: a lot of people also like to use Fiver. I
Speaker 4: like Reids just because it's like specific fib or you
Speaker 4: can find jobs for anything. But I like reads because
Speaker 4: it's specific for authors. Yeah, I found an editor on
Speaker 4: upwork once. I used a friend for my two favorite books.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's hard to find a good editor. But
Speaker 4: it is so integral. That's why when you find one,
Speaker 4: you stick with them and you pay them whatever they
Speaker 4: ask is what I have found.
Speaker 3: So cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, so yes, first we write the book. That's that's
Speaker 1: the first thing I would say. Also, maybe if you
Speaker 1: do have an audience at any point, and we did
Speaker 1: this when we were kind of trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what our traditionally published book would be, just asking your
Speaker 1: existing audience, no matter how small it is, has anything
Speaker 1: I've ever written impacted you? Or like, what is one
Speaker 1: thing that I have said or recorded or anything what
Speaker 1: stands out the most. What's something that you remember or
Speaker 1: that you loved the most, Because that's going to give
Speaker 1: you a really good starting point for what the book
Speaker 1: should be about. Because we thought we wanted to go
Speaker 1: one way with our traditional book, and then everyone kept
Speaker 1: saying values based spending and we're like, well, yeah, that
Speaker 1: is whenever we go on another podcast, that's all they
Speaker 1: asked us about. So that's what people need. That's where
Speaker 1: the hole in the market is. That we really feel, well,
Speaker 1: the market doesn't need another standard personal finance book. That's
Speaker 1: not what people come to us for. So there's a
Speaker 1: line you have to straddle between what do people remember
Speaker 1: from what you said, and what do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about for the next two to three years, Because
Speaker 1: it doesn't stop at writing the book. It's you're going
Speaker 1: to be marketing it for the next two to three years.
Speaker 4: No longer hopefully depends Yeah hopefully so, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It is a fine line. Back to the topic of editors.
Speaker 1: Self publishing is a very affordable side hustle. You really
Speaker 1: could do it, and people do do it for absolutely free,
Speaker 1: no money spent. But if you want to make money,
Speaker 1: it does behoove you to invest some money. So what
Speaker 1: are the most important things people should be investing in
Speaker 1: and what are some of the things that they can
Speaker 1: skip on paying for?
Speaker 4: So I would say your cover art is very important.
Speaker 4: That is the face of your book. People do judge
Speaker 4: books by their cover. That's why it's a phrase. So
Speaker 4: the cover should look good. It should look well done
Speaker 4: to the professional. I made the mistake on one of
Speaker 4: my early books of doing it myself, and you know
Speaker 4: what it looked like. It was diy I didn't look good. No,
Speaker 4: I will say to your point, yes you can do this.
Speaker 4: DIY bootstops. Spend nothing in money, spend everything in time,
Speaker 4: try to learn all the programs, do it all for free.
Speaker 4: And the nice thing with self publishing is you can
Speaker 4: release a second edition later with a nicer cover with
Speaker 4: updated formatting. So I will say that anybody who's listening
Speaker 4: to this, like, well, this is my dream and now
Speaker 4: I feel like I don't have money to invest. You
Speaker 4: can do that. I say anything with books like, you
Speaker 4: can fix it. On a long enough timeline, enough money,
Speaker 4: you can fix it. So yeah, I say the cover
Speaker 4: is very important. I personally am of the mindset of
Speaker 4: I want my books out as wide as possible. I
Speaker 4: don't want to be beholden to just Amazon, and that's
Speaker 4: based on my strategy for my fiction books, and I
Speaker 4: also use it for my nonfiction books. And so for me,
Speaker 4: I invested in my ISPNS, I own my ICPN. I
Speaker 4: did not get the free one from Amazon, because if
Speaker 4: I had, I could only have my book on Amazon.
Speaker 4: You can't take it with you somewhere else. I couldn't
Speaker 4: have the library purchase it. Well, some libraries now have
Speaker 4: an acquisition system through Amazon, but some of them don't.
Speaker 4: And so I was like, well, if I want to
Speaker 4: be in the database that libraries purchase from. Overdrive Hoopla, Biblioteca,
Speaker 4: Baker and Taylor, all of those. I need to own
Speaker 4: my ipan so I can put it multiple places. So
Speaker 4: that was something that was important for me to invest
Speaker 4: in when I was still doing my own formatting asking
Speaker 4: friends for help with editing. I still paid for my
Speaker 4: I spans and my cover art like and I am
Speaker 4: super frugal as Jenkina test, but those are things I
Speaker 4: invested in, so I would say, if nothing else, those
Speaker 4: are the most important. And then from there editing is
Speaker 4: very important, and I will say my experience has been
Speaker 4: even if maybe the story isn't tight right, if there's
Speaker 4: plot holes, if there's things that developmental editing, story editing
Speaker 4: could have worked out. If those are there, but the
Speaker 4: grammar's perfect, some readers will be like, it was great,
Speaker 4: I loved the book, whereas they could that same person
Speaker 4: could get to the final page and there's a period missing,
Speaker 4: and they'll be like, one star. There was one TYPEO
Speaker 4: And I'm not going to tell you where it is.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say that the one star
Speaker 1: reviews that I see on self published books are grammar,
Speaker 1: and those one star reviews will kill the business of
Speaker 1: that book. Everything could be great. They got a lot
Speaker 1: out of it. But if you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: grammatical stuff going on, someone who would not have reviewed
Speaker 1: it will give it a one star review, which is
Speaker 1: worse than them just not reviewing it.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, so I will definitely say. And the great
Speaker 4: thing is that copy editing or proof editing where you're
Speaker 4: looking for grammatical errors, is less expensive than story and
Speaker 4: developmental editing. So I would say, as you're working up
Speaker 4: the task of okay, I have a bit more to
Speaker 4: invest in this book, or I have a bit more
Speaker 4: to invest, you know, definitely go with ISPN cover copy editing, proofreading,
Speaker 4: and then the developmental editing. I haven't mentioned formatting for
Speaker 4: the books. I bootstrapped a lot of my formatting. And
Speaker 4: this is where it goes from like the Google doc
Speaker 4: or the word doc you wrote it in to an
Speaker 4: actual like clickable ebook file or a printed like PDF
Speaker 4: that you will submit to the printer. And some books,
Speaker 4: like you would kind of expect in like a fantasy book,
Speaker 4: that there'd be like little added details and maybe there's
Speaker 4: like a map of like the land fictional place. I
Speaker 4: don't know. In the fantasy books, like formatting is much
Speaker 4: more important whereas in a nonfiction book, unless you have
Speaker 4: a lot of graphs and charts, it's mostly text, you
Speaker 4: may not need to invest as much in formatting. And
Speaker 4: again this always goes back to like, well, it depends
Speaker 4: on your book, It depends on your goals, it really does.
Speaker 4: I know people who, yeah, they put out their first book,
Speaker 4: they didn't spend a dime. They went crazy doing everything themselves.
Speaker 4: They learned a lot. In the next book they said, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm going to invest a little bit here and there
Speaker 4: to go easier the next time. I know somebody who
Speaker 4: for her first book went three thousand dollars into debt
Speaker 4: because she paid for every little thing, and she was like,
Speaker 4: I want to try this marketing thing. I want to
Speaker 4: try this marketing thing. And a lot of them didn't
Speaker 4: have the ROI, and so now she's like pinning all
Speaker 4: her hopes on the rest of the series to just
Speaker 4: get back to even so you can spend a lot
Speaker 4: really quickly. And that's where I do suggest, Like I
Speaker 4: mentioned joining writers' groups on Facebook or elsewhere, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you can find critique partners. You can also ask like, hey,
Speaker 4: I just got quoted this price for cover, is that
Speaker 4: a good deal? Is that a bad deal? Has anybody
Speaker 4: worked with us cover artists before? Like, will they actually
Speaker 4: get me what they're saying? On time? I find other
Speaker 4: authors are very willing to help each other and talk
Speaker 4: to each other and share tips or share this work.
Speaker 4: This didn't work, So yeah, always ask around before you
Speaker 4: just click buy on anything. Yeah, who do you recommend
Speaker 4: for where to find a cover artist? I like to
Speaker 4: work with two different teams for covers. One is one
Speaker 4: hundred Covers and started because they started just doing ebook
Speaker 4: covers for one hundred dollars, which is a ridiculously reasonable price.
Speaker 4: They definitely have self publishing prices, so one hundred covers
Speaker 4: is great, and now they've expanded they'll do the ebook,
Speaker 4: the print, the audiobook, little social media extras and you
Speaker 4: can and go up in the packages with that, which
Speaker 4: is really nice. And then I also like to work
Speaker 4: with formatted books, so they did all my book formatting
Speaker 4: sorry a couple years ago, and now they offer covers
Speaker 4: as well, so they're both great teams. They both have
Speaker 4: really affordable pricing, whereas there are one off sites that
Speaker 4: I know people have worked with to get their cover done.
Speaker 4: But I like these teams because they know the self
Speaker 4: publishing platforms, so every time I've gotten a file from them,
Speaker 4: cover interiors otherwise, like, I have never had an issue
Speaker 4: with an upload, which.
Speaker 1: Is so nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so nice.
Speaker 1: I have worked with both of those as well. One
Speaker 1: hundred Covers did all of my covers until the second
Speaker 1: edition of No Spend and then Formatted Books did the
Speaker 1: formatting for the second edition of No Spend. So and
Speaker 1: very very reasonable pricing. No reason not to go with them.
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's so helpful to know the background of all
Speaker 3: of this. Somebody could say, yes, I can write, that's fine,
Speaker 3: I know how to literally type in a docum on
Speaker 3: my computer. But if you're going to go the self
Speaker 3: publishing route, you're kind of like gceing your own project here,
Speaker 3: And okay, what is some of the back end stuff
Speaker 3: that I'm going to need to know about? And you've
Speaker 3: laid it out so so so well, and you've helped
Speaker 3: us to dispel the myth of making five figures monthly
Speaker 3: on even just a digital product, which is great. Thanks
Speaker 3: for dispelling those dreams, But also, can you thread the
Speaker 3: needle here for us that Okay, we're not going to
Speaker 3: overnight be multimillionaires, but there can be some money made
Speaker 3: here in the self publishing world. I know that it's
Speaker 3: really hard to give hard figures, so I'm not asking
Speaker 3: you for that, but a general sense of helping us
Speaker 3: to set expectations on what kind of return on investment
Speaker 3: we could see with self publishing. How long does it
Speaker 3: typically take to start making money? If it's it's not
Speaker 3: going to happen in a month, like how long? Then
Speaker 3: what do you have to say about that?
Speaker 4: Well, a few things, So I will say. Even if
Speaker 4: you have no dedicated bill audience for your fiction or
Speaker 4: nonfiction book, nobody knows who you are, but you do.
Speaker 4: You got some family, right, They're gonna pity buy your book, right,
Speaker 4: They're gonna buy it. It's gonna mess up the algorithm
Speaker 4: because your uncle really likes to read crime thrillers. But
Speaker 4: you just wrote romance and now Amazon doesn't know what
Speaker 4: to recommend. But he bought it right because he cares. Right,
Speaker 4: Your uncle bought it because he cares. So you will
Speaker 4: see on Amazon KDP right away. Hey, you got a sale.
Speaker 4: You don't get paid for sixty days. So even if
Speaker 4: you're the wild magical unicorn, you post it, it goes viral.
Speaker 4: You still don't actually get paid for sixty days. So
Speaker 4: I would say if there's anything you are putting maybe
Speaker 4: on a credit card or something like that for the
Speaker 4: cover and things like that, no, you're probably gonna have
Speaker 4: to be paying that credit card off before you or
Speaker 4: that bill's gonna come due before you ever get paid,
Speaker 4: because it takes sixty days for Amazon to pay out
Speaker 4: and some of the other platforms take up to ninety days.
Speaker 4: So that's how long it takes you to actually see
Speaker 4: the money hit your bank account, whether it's ten cents,
Speaker 4: but it's ten dollars, one thousand dollars whatever, as far
Speaker 4: as true income coming in, like you've paid off the book.
Speaker 4: That's always a really fun moment where you're like, I'm
Speaker 4: officially no longer in the write on this book. That
Speaker 4: celebrate that moment as an author, because you're like, sweet,
Speaker 4: everything else is gravy. There is a common well it's
Speaker 4: a Facebook group, but it kind of came off of
Speaker 4: this idea of twenty books to fifty k. And so
Speaker 4: this idea is that when you write twenty books ideally
Speaker 4: in the same genre, not necessarily the same series, but
Speaker 4: kind of for the same audience, that you could be
Speaker 4: gendering up to fifty K year, which is a salary, Like,
Speaker 4: it's definitely not nothing, but twenty books that's a lot
Speaker 4: of work.
Speaker 3: That's a lot. That's a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it kind of grows exponentially, so it's not
Speaker 4: this linear like, oh, I'm going to make x amount
Speaker 4: with each book. It's kind of slow, slow, slow, slow, slow,
Speaker 4: And then you're going to pick up that ground swell.
Speaker 4: And a lot of that's going to come from people
Speaker 4: really like the new stuff you're putting out, more people
Speaker 4: are talking about it, they go back to read the
Speaker 4: old stuff. Having that big backlog can help. And so
Speaker 4: that's where I said it in the beginning, like, if
Speaker 4: you want to make money tomorrow, this isn't for you.
Speaker 4: This is going to be years of invested time. And
Speaker 4: hopefully with each book you put out, you're enjoying the
Speaker 4: process more. You do have a more dedicated readership, you
Speaker 4: feel like your craft as a writer is growing. It
Speaker 4: seems to be true definitely on the fiction side. I
Speaker 4: see a lot of people talk about that. As far
Speaker 4: as nonfiction, I don't know many nonfiction authors who write
Speaker 4: twenty books. I guess the chicken soup, the chicken soup
Speaker 4: people for the soul.
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, I don't know how many people
Speaker 1: could write twenty books in their genre of nonfiction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like five would be a max. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you've kind of given them your whole brain at that point.
Speaker 4: But for a nonfiction author, they probably have other lines
Speaker 4: to their business where okay, you're producing content there, you
Speaker 4: probably have a podcast in these day and age, the
Speaker 4: private block of other things where that book income is
Speaker 4: going to be one pillar, whereas the fiction novelist is
Speaker 4: that might be it. So keep writing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I find a lot of nonfiction the book
Speaker 1: is maybe a lost leader. It's something they can give
Speaker 1: away for free, even to get people on their newsletter,
Speaker 1: to get people into paid consulting, coaching courses, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But it is great. It is a lot easier as
Speaker 1: somebody who's unknown, who's just starting out to get onto
Speaker 1: people's radars if you have a book that has some
Speaker 1: five star reviews on it, because again, anybody can put
Speaker 1: a book onto Amazon, but if your book has some
Speaker 1: five star reviews, then that's when people start to I think,
Speaker 1: take you seriously, That's what I thought, like I made it.
Speaker 1: I think that was my one goal when I published
Speaker 1: was to get thirty five star reviews, and so that
Speaker 1: was my hole when I published. My whole thing was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you are my advanced readers and the first like ten
Speaker 1: people to review. And like, I didn't say, like first
Speaker 1: people did give me a five star review because that's
Speaker 1: against terms of services, but yes, the first like ten
Speaker 1: people to give a rating and review of the book,
Speaker 1: we'll get a you know, we'll get in drawing for
Speaker 1: an Amazon gift card. So yeah, I gave an incentive
Speaker 1: to my early readers to review, just to get those
Speaker 1: ratings and reviews quickly and in quantity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ratings and reviews are the lifeblood for authors, So
Speaker 4: I would definitely say, I know a lot of people
Speaker 4: do talk about Amazon advertising. You can advertise your book.
Speaker 4: I think it's better if you have more reviews before
Speaker 4: you start advertising. Some people say no day one, when
Speaker 4: you have new reviews, people are like, oh, it's okay,
Speaker 4: there's no reviews that literally came out today. Advertise. I think,
Speaker 4: in my experience, I have not seen them perform as
Speaker 4: well when they didn't have a lot of reviews already
Speaker 4: on there. But it's kind of like it's a chicken
Speaker 4: and egg thing. Another thing, if yes, whoever is listening,
Speaker 4: whether you want to write a book or not, go
Speaker 4: and leave a rating or review. You will make that
Speaker 4: author's day.
Speaker 1: You will.
Speaker 4: They will be doing the happiest stands ever, even if
Speaker 4: it's just the rating. Even if you don't time to
Speaker 4: write the review, it means a lot to them. Don't
Speaker 4: tag them in a negative review. That's kind of ruin
Speaker 4: their day. But leave a review. It's social proof. And
Speaker 4: even if you didn't love it, but you say I
Speaker 4: didn't love it, but I could see how somebody who
Speaker 4: also enjoys X y Z would like this book, that's
Speaker 4: helpful to the next person who's gonna read.
Speaker 3: That very true.
Speaker 1: Same with the podcasts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, podcasts need them to they need the good ones
Speaker 3: makes our day, it does you know what else makes
Speaker 3: our day? And you can leave us a good review
Speaker 3: for Yeah, the bill of the week.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 2: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 2: is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your
Speaker 2: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 2: that bill anymore.
Speaker 3: Dust bills, butfalo bills. Bill clion this is the bill
Speaker 3: of the week, mkay.
Speaker 1: Every week we invite our listeners and or guests to
Speaker 1: give us their bill for the week, and we would
Speaker 1: love to hear yours.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: I've been thinking a lot about this, a lot, a lot,
Speaker 4: because I remember early days of the podcast when y'all
Speaker 4: didn't have guests yet. I called in and I was like,
Speaker 4: it should be bills bills, bills by Destiny's Child.
Speaker 3: When we get as I do remember that one that
Speaker 3: was you awesome.
Speaker 1: And it's the reason we had to do a disclosure
Speaker 1: on the actual bill recording page to not sing songs.
Speaker 4: To you to monetize. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. Well,
Speaker 4: then I will not make that the bill of the
Speaker 4: weekend because I was like, I mean, it's a classics
Speaker 4: news child.
Speaker 1: We just can't sing it, like we just can't like
Speaker 1: sing the copyrighted material. At past a certain time, I.
Speaker 4: Was doing spoken word poetry.
Speaker 3: So now is that true? Isn't there?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: What's how does however SNL gets away with.
Speaker 1: Stuff like unless it's a parody.
Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't make a parody. I was just doing
Speaker 4: spoken word poetry of I.
Speaker 3: Don't know how you mean when I'm doing it. It's
Speaker 3: a parody, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: And he who didn't realize I got you into that
Speaker 4: much trouble. So I won't make that my bill of
Speaker 4: the week.
Speaker 1: No, no, no trouble. It's just that we didn't realize
Speaker 1: that was a thing that would happen.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, I I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, or
Speaker 4: could happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was thinking about that one again, but I
Speaker 4: don't want to copycat myself, so I picked Bill Nye,
Speaker 4: the science guy. He's a great Bill. Heck, he's a
Speaker 4: great Bill helped a lot of people.
Speaker 1: He is and definitely won't need like a legal disclosure
Speaker 1: for that one. He's a treasure.
Speaker 4: Helped us learn about.
Speaker 1: The water cycle.
Speaker 4: Yes, just learn about science. It's great.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love Bill Nye. I would watch him after
Speaker 3: school on the Telly FLD tube and eat goldfish. It
Speaker 3: was my after school snack, goldfish and Bill Nye. We
Speaker 3: love bills that are Bill. Wow, people named Billy.
Speaker 1: I watched Power Rangers after school, which was a rand
Speaker 1: to watch Power Rangers? That makes sense or Rugrats? Were
Speaker 1: you allowed to read Harry Potter?
Speaker 3: I don't even know if it was out yet. I
Speaker 3: feel like I was too old too.
Speaker 1: I'm four months older than you, and the first Harry
Speaker 1: Potter book came out when I was in fifth grade.
Speaker 3: Okay, then I'll go with option B. It was never
Speaker 3: on my radar to want to read it, so I
Speaker 3: don't know. Oh man, Okay, we digrass things. MKA for
Speaker 3: your bill. If you all listening, want to save us
Speaker 3: from our misery over here and leave your bill because
Speaker 3: you've got something better to say than we do, that'd
Speaker 3: be awesome. We believe you. And if your name is Bill,
Speaker 3: you know, you know the drill, you know what to
Speaker 3: do Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill. We're waiting
Speaker 3: for you, and now it's time for your road.
Speaker 4: There was a Harry Potter character named Bill, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: well Bill Weasley.
Speaker 1: That's okay, that's what I was thinking. I didn't read
Speaker 1: the full series, Jen, you don't remember. I did.
Speaker 3: Remember he was in the Schmiggid's Camp school.
Speaker 4: This is as vulnerable as you need to get right now, Jill.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna get a one star review for that.
Speaker 1: Your vulnerability limit and you didn't even try, all right,
Speaker 1: So for the Lightning round, we will all answer this
Speaker 1: question what's a topic or genre you've never written on
Speaker 1: but maybe would like to in the future. Maybe sky's
Speaker 1: the limit mka.
Speaker 4: So I've been thinking about this because I have a toddler.
Speaker 4: I'm a stressed mom. Okay, I'd like to read books
Speaker 4: that are in my genre, like dark, twisty sci fi,
Speaker 4: specultarve fiction. But some days I just want to read
Speaker 4: like a cute little rom com. They meet in a
Speaker 4: cute little town. Well they hold hands. I don't know,
Speaker 4: let's find out, all right, And so I think it
Speaker 4: could be fun one day to maybe write like a cute,
Speaker 4: little little hallmarky rom com. It's just cute and it's happy,
Speaker 4: and you know you're gonna get a happy ending, okay,
Speaker 4: like they're gonna they're gonna be together. You look kiss you.
Speaker 4: You don't know. You gotta read, you gotta find out.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think that's something I might do. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously, like it's a cute rom com.
Speaker 3: If it's anything else, then it's not a cute rom Colm.
Speaker 4: No, exactly. Yeah, So it's like I could my dark
Speaker 4: and twisty heart do it. I don't know, but maybe
Speaker 4: one day I'll find out.
Speaker 1: If you listen to our book club episode from a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago. You know that I'm in my uh
Speaker 1: Taylor Jenkins read Era and she is. I love her
Speaker 1: because they're love stories, but they're like not the the
Speaker 1: love story isn't the main character. It's the side piece,
Speaker 1: and you know what's you kind of know what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: and then but then you kind of don't. Okay, So
Speaker 1: like sometimes you think you know and it's right, but
Speaker 1: then sometimes it's not. She throws you from a loop.
Speaker 3: Okay. You could do a like choose your Own Adventure
Speaker 3: where all of the dark, twisty things that you wanted
Speaker 3: to do could be done if you go in this
Speaker 3: direction after page whatever three hundred I thought, or you
Speaker 3: finish it off with the cute rom com I don't
Speaker 3: know what.
Speaker 4: That's a lot before you get to choice, like do
Speaker 4: they end up like do they end up just ignoring
Speaker 4: each other or getting into a fight and not communicating
Speaker 4: and never getting together just yes? Or do you get
Speaker 4: a happy I don't know.
Speaker 3: I kind of like that, like all the different ways
Speaker 3: that could have gone.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I know Jill will buy that book.
Speaker 4: I don't know if anybody else will but I know, Jill.
Speaker 3: I'd read. I'd read both endings.
Speaker 4: Okay, well that's good because you have to.
Speaker 3: You'd have to.
Speaker 1: That's cute rom coms for me. Actually, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go off and left field and uh. I talk a
Speaker 1: lot about reading Taylor Jenkins read. But actually I think
Speaker 1: one day maybe I would like to write a Christian nonfiction.
Speaker 1: Hold up, hold up, before anybody says anything, I just
Speaker 1: feel like values based spending has a lot of correlations
Speaker 1: with living like a faith based life, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I could write something with my same passion, like
Speaker 1: in my other passion. So like maybe one day down
Speaker 1: the road, when I'm on my deathbed and I don't
Speaker 1: have to hear what happens to the book.
Speaker 3: Here's everything I learned throughout my life. Come, come, children listening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to.
Speaker 4: I don't want to know what happens to the book
Speaker 4: after that one gets written.
Speaker 3: Live the radical middle with your beliefs. That this is
Speaker 3: how you talk in my mind, Yeah, as an elderly person.
Speaker 4: When you're on your death that I mean, yeah, thank you, Jill?
Speaker 1: All right you.
Speaker 3: Sports sports fiction, don't kidding?
Speaker 4: Surprisingly lucrative genre.
Speaker 1: It's so funny, I didn't know because you dressed so
Speaker 1: chaotically when the Eagles went to the Super Bowl. I
Speaker 1: was I didn't expect that, and so you said that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my gosh, is this this
Speaker 1: is a side of Jill Shee hiding and it's coming
Speaker 1: out like a tiny bit at a time, Like it's
Speaker 1: like your true self. You're too afraid to be true too.
Speaker 3: That's mostly a joke. I have a real answer. But
Speaker 3: while we're on this topic, there is a side idea,
Speaker 3: and it's not necessarily for writing a book. It's more
Speaker 3: of maybe a social media account or a very very
Speaker 3: short podcast or vlog. I am notoriously known for like
Speaker 3: watching athleticism happen and thinking that it's not that difficult,
Speaker 3: or like my commentary on sports is like, what's the
Speaker 3: big deal? What are we looking at here?
Speaker 4: Jen?
Speaker 3: You've experienced this not just sports, No, I like I
Speaker 3: came over to your house to watch what's the gym
Speaker 3: thing you do that's super intense and you flip tires
Speaker 3: and stuff? CrossFit? Oh my word, CrossFit competitions. That's a
Speaker 3: thing like how good do you exercise? And it's like
Speaker 3: become its own thing and I'm like, I don't get it.
Speaker 3: So people around me who have heard me comment on this,
Speaker 3: they're like, this is super offensive, but you should probably
Speaker 3: like we we should elevate that voice. But then they
Speaker 3: also want to humiliate me in you know, like a
Speaker 3: friendly kind of way, where then I do these things
Speaker 3: Like I also was watching a slam dunk competition with friends,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I don't get it, Like can't everyone
Speaker 3: slam dunk? Like can't a lot of people slam dunk?
Speaker 3: Did you get to the point where you can slam dunk,
Speaker 3: especially if you're a professional basketball player? Like how is this?
Speaker 3: Like isn't this happening all the time? And they're like
Speaker 3: this is really hard and blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I feel like, given enough training and
Speaker 3: time dedicated to this thing, I could slam dunk. And
Speaker 3: everyone's like, one hundred percent, no, you can't. But I
Speaker 3: just I feel like I also I feel this way
Speaker 3: about a lot of things, Like I'll, yeah, I'll see
Speaker 3: a tiny vehicle, an electric car, and I think I
Speaker 3: could pick that up, like one hundred percent I could
Speaker 3: pick it up. I could hang it on my wall.
Speaker 3: I think I can do these things.
Speaker 1: This is Jill's toxic trade. If you ever wondered what
Speaker 1: her toxic trait is, this is and it's not just
Speaker 1: sports or physical athleticism. We were out like at dinner
Speaker 1: one night and Jill was like, I don't know why
Speaker 1: it's so hard to tile my house. Somebody else was
Speaker 1: tiling her house and she's and she's like, I can
Speaker 1: file this whole thing in a day. And I was like,
Speaker 1: and granted, also would like to point out the tile
Speaker 1: Jill's house is covered in. It's twenty four by twenty
Speaker 1: four two by two feet.
Speaker 3: And I did, I did move it all whatever. I digress,
Speaker 3: but that is like, that's this other thing I might
Speaker 3: pursue someday, is like Jill trying to dunk, Jill trying
Speaker 3: to run the Boston Marathon, Jill trying to and I
Speaker 3: know now I will fail at all of it, but
Speaker 3: it would be kind of comical. What I would actually
Speaker 3: like to write this is going to be a complete
Speaker 3: left but it's gonna believe me, yeah, is children's books.
Speaker 3: I will love to write children's books. And now that
Speaker 3: I've said what I said, no one's gonna trust me
Speaker 3: to like write a book that they would ever trust
Speaker 3: reading to their children. But I swear I have it
Speaker 3: in me, you do. I think that children's books are
Speaker 3: so adorable and endearing and they simplify complicated concepts and
Speaker 3: I love it and I'd love to do that someday
Speaker 3: that I do believe you can do. Thanks, Jen's that's
Speaker 3: something you could handle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you are right in thinking fifty words done to
Speaker 1: us three hundred and thirty seven episodes, But we finally
Speaker 1: figured out what your toxic trade is.
Speaker 3: Thinking I can do too much?
Speaker 1: Yeah, thinking you can easily mostly related to sports, other
Speaker 1: things that people train their entire lives for. Speaking of
Speaker 1: doing hard things that people train their entire lives for. MK,
Speaker 1: you have an a fantastic YouTube channel that kind of
Speaker 1: fills in all the gaps that we left in this
Speaker 1: episode for anybody interested in self publishing? Can you tell
Speaker 1: us where to find all that and any other wisdom
Speaker 1: you have to impart?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Absolutely so. I'm everywhere online as at one the
Speaker 4: number one MK Williams. I used to say it because
Speaker 4: I was the only one, and then there's a guy
Speaker 4: from England who's also MK Williams. So if you find
Speaker 4: at MK Williams online. It looks like a dude, that's him.
Speaker 4: If it looks like a very feminine, long brunette hair female,
Speaker 4: that's me, then you're in the right place. On YouTube.
Speaker 4: Just search I'm K Williams author your ambition. Most of
Speaker 4: the questions you just have about like where do I
Speaker 4: start with self publishing? Should I go with Amazon KDP?
Speaker 4: Should I go with something else? What is Amazon KADP?
Speaker 4: I'm gonna pop up, you'll find me. So, yeah, that's
Speaker 4: what I'm kind of known for in the self publishing space.
Speaker 4: A lot of people talk about like strategy and like
Speaker 4: bigger business concepts. I am down in there with the
Speaker 4: nitty gritty of like this is the exact button you
Speaker 4: push when you get this error message. So I'm there
Speaker 4: to help. I'm there to help with the things that
Speaker 4: you know you need to plant, and then I'm there
Speaker 4: to help in the panic moment when you're just like
Speaker 4: trying to upload and you've got the bround bag you're
Speaker 4: like heaving into and like why won't it work?
Speaker 1: So and trust me, the error message will come up
Speaker 1: and you will need to know what button to push.
Speaker 4: That not even a joke that's happen to everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody has it. Yeah, so mkay, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming and talking to us about self publishing.
Speaker 1: And definitely if this is something you want to try out,
Speaker 1: head to her YouTube. Every question that you have she
Speaker 1: will have answered absolutely.
Speaker 4: And if I haven't, then comment and I'll make that video.
Speaker 3: Yes, beautiful. Thanks, Okay, I thanks for having me. Wow.
Speaker 3: I know Jen you have self published your own books
Speaker 3: and there's just such camaraderie there with you and MK.
Speaker 3: But I feel for me having not gone through that
Speaker 3: process in the past. So much was answered for me,
Speaker 3: even making me think, ooh I should do this.
Speaker 1: I know we're it's something that you think you could
Speaker 1: do better than us.
Speaker 3: Is that I never said better. Here's the thing I
Speaker 3: never said better. I can't dunk better. I can't run better.
Speaker 3: I just think I could run. Given enough training, I
Speaker 3: could dunk.
Speaker 1: And I can qualify for Boston. No, not just like
Speaker 1: the hardest marathon to qualify for.
Speaker 3: That that one. I'm actually going to talk realistically and say, like, no,
Speaker 3: that's not for me. I do not like running. I'm
Speaker 3: not even gonna try. Don't think I could do it. Cycling,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, Anyways, what I'm trying to say
Speaker 3: is this is a great episode in my perspective, having
Speaker 3: never self published before, I feel like MK really helped
Speaker 3: me to understand the process and almost like ignited a
Speaker 3: desire that I am sure anyone who even tuned into
Speaker 3: this episode is like, Okay, these are the steps that
Speaker 3: I need to take. There are people I can hire
Speaker 3: in the process, so all of that is so helpful.
Speaker 3: And I love that you can write a book, you
Speaker 3: could have a you could write a book that others
Speaker 3: could purchase without going with a publisher, like a traditional publisher.
Speaker 3: You can do it all on your own, and I
Speaker 3: love that that's available to the common person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love that if you've got a five
Speaker 1: year plan to get out of your job and you
Speaker 1: love writing fiction, this is a viable way for you
Speaker 1: to get out. Like writing twenty books over five years
Speaker 1: is doable. I mean some people will write a book
Speaker 1: a month, like if they're just like fast writers. There's
Speaker 1: definitely check out the twenty Books to fifty k group
Speaker 1: on Facebook. It's a very inclusive, welcoming group and you
Speaker 1: can just glean people's wisdom. There are a ton of
Speaker 1: full time authors in there that exclusively self published on Amazon,
Speaker 1: and you can get a bunch of tips there, but
Speaker 1: it is something it's not going to get you probably
Speaker 1: unless you're like Colleen Hoover. It's not going to get
Speaker 1: you out of your job in Oh actually, I take
Speaker 1: that back. It probably took her longer. Not going to
Speaker 1: get you out of your job in like a year.
Speaker 1: It can get you out of there in five, even
Speaker 1: if you're Colleen Hoover. So probably nobody gets that reference.
Speaker 3: And I have noid. Fine, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Like the guy who wrote The Martian you remember that movie?
Speaker 3: Oh the movie? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that started I think as a blog and then
Speaker 1: self published book. Yeah, so you never know where your
Speaker 1: work could go. So thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: We love reading your kind reviews, especially love this one
Speaker 1: from Jordan B. A Different Voice in Finance. I listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast when I need motivation to stay committed
Speaker 1: to my budget and financial planning. They have some fun
Speaker 1: tips and conversation. Jen and Jill encourage people to decide
Speaker 1: on their own. I respect that I can listen to
Speaker 1: a variety of financial advice and take what applies to
Speaker 1: me to my situation. It's not a competition. There's room
Speaker 1: for several voices in the finance world, and Jen and
Speaker 1: Jill are good ones that work quite well for me.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Jordan, such a balanced, logical, kind review. Well done, Jordan,
Speaker 3: and I respect you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thanks everyone for listening. If you did enjoy the show
Speaker 3: and you want to leave a review, like Jordan b
Speaker 3: where it's just giving helpful information on what people might
Speaker 3: like about the Frugal Friends podcast, that rating and review
Speaker 3: does help us, it helps other potential new listeners, so
Speaker 3: we'd love you to do that. That would be so
Speaker 3: great and so kind of you.
Speaker 1: And if you've left a rating review already for our show,
Speaker 1: thank you. And please help another podcaster or author by
Speaker 1: leaving a rating and review on something that they have
Speaker 1: written or recorded. It is such a kind gesture. Those
Speaker 1: ratings and reviews are foundational to creating a business around
Speaker 1: any piece of content. So yeah, please go do that
Speaker 1: for somebody.
Speaker 3: See you next time.
Speaker 4: Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 1: Jill. I'd like to read this email that we got
Speaker 1: from our lawyer this morning. It sounds I know I
Speaker 1: already told you about it.
Speaker 3: We're reading it out loud to our listeners.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not going to read the whole thing because
Speaker 1: it's a little out of context. But imagine it's a
Speaker 1: Wednesday morning and you're waking up and you see an
Speaker 1: email from your lawyer that's titled Frugal Friends Reference, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, like what money do I
Speaker 1: owe to you for?
Speaker 3: Basically and an invoice for two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: But the email she sent was she got a Choose
Speaker 1: Fi newsletter. Choose Fi another great personal finance podcast, and
Speaker 1: she got their newsletter and it referenced Frugal Friends in
Speaker 1: a member win. So it wasn't just the podcast mentioning us,
Speaker 1: it was them featuring a win and has to do
Speaker 1: with the side Hustle series, so they said short quote
Speaker 1: to quote. Part of this, the short version of how
Speaker 1: this came to be is that while I was a
Speaker 1: longtime FI enthusiast, I stumbled upon a Frugal Friend's episode
Speaker 1: that led me to Talent Stacker, which led me to
Speaker 1: Choose Fi. The enthusiasm we got from listening to Choose
Speaker 1: a Fi helped fuel the pivot in her career, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure is the person's partner. But we did our
Speaker 1: frugal side hustle series back in January of this year
Speaker 1: was Salesforce with Bradley Rice of Talent Stacker. So that
Speaker 1: frugal side hustle series was the catalyst that led somebody
Speaker 1: to change her career.
Speaker 3: Wow, mind blood boom. That's the kind of lawyer email
Speaker 3: you want to right, That's the.
Speaker 1: Kind of lawyer you want, the one who's going to
Speaker 1: see your name somewhere and send it to you because
Speaker 1: it's nice to be excited yourself mentioned somewhere.
Speaker 3: We've got a great community, even amongst the lawyer we employ.
Speaker 3: I mean, not like full time. She's not our employee.
Speaker 3: We don't run into that in any legal a lawyer
Speaker 3: on staff at Could you imagine, though, I mean I
Speaker 3: could see it being necessary between you and I. The
Speaker 3: things we say have live.
Speaker 4: Us Goldie and our lawyer.
Speaker 3: Because we refuse to change our ways.
Speaker 1: Because we refuse to comply anywhere, and we get sued
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 3: I refuse to back down from thinking that I could
Speaker 3: pick up an electric vehicle and hang it on my wall.
Speaker 1: Crosted has sued her, The Boston Marathon has sued her,
Speaker 1: the Eagles.
Speaker 3: That's just bragging rights when you can get sued by
Speaker 3: the Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 1: You have to be so obnoxious.
Speaker 3: No, I think it would be like not being obnoxious enough. Oh,
Speaker 3: would be right.
Speaker 1: You didn't. You didn't climb up enough light poles that
Speaker 1: you said you wouldn't. You said you could climb up
Speaker 1: a light pole because you saw everything else doing it.
Speaker 3: I do think I could. Yeah, I think I could
Speaker 3: do that, assuming it's not greased up like they did
Speaker 3: at the super Bowl. It's not greased up, I could
Speaker 3: climb a light pole.
Speaker 1: Can't wait to see that one day. Will video it
Speaker 1: for all of you, promise
Speaker 4: And the litigation that ensues after