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