Speaker 1: 0:37

Hi everyone, welcome to the Author Wheel podcast. I'm Greta Boris, USA Today Bestselling Mystery Thriller. Author.

Speaker 2: 0:45

And I'm Megan Haskell, award-winning fantasy adventure author, and together we are the Author Wheel. This week we are excited to be talking with Amazon ads and blurb writing guru, brian Cohen. It's been a big goal to have him on the show, so we're excited to talk with him and have you hear what he has to say about all things copywriting and ads and business. But before we get into that, greta tell me what's been going on.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Well, I don't have a lot to say because I've been kind of focused on redoing the house my husband painted the entire downstairs and rearranging furniture and getting new art and blah, blah, blah and trying to get it done so that I can actually put the tree up, so getting ready for Christmas and shopping and all of the craziness that goes with the holidays. I will say, though, I just started yesterday kind of getting organized and my seven deadly revamp, you know, taking that series and revamping it, yeah, and which I think might be interesting for listeners to kind of go with me on that journey, because it's sort of a big deal taking an old series and giving it an entirely new, giving it a facelift, you know. Anyway, so back in season one, episode seven, sarah Rosette. We talked to her about her book on how to write a series.

Speaker 1: 2:16

She's pretty brilliant and she uses Trello, which is actually a free app. I'm sure there's a paid version that I'm only using the free app. That's very interesting because you can create boards and lists within the boards and it's kind of a cool organizational tool. It is not made for writers, for writing, it's made for business in general, I think, but she uses it to plan series, and so I decided to give it a whirl and it's really working well. I'm super excited about it. That's great, yeah, so I think she talks about it a bit more in season one, episode seven. So for listeners who are interested, give that season a listen and jump on over to Trello and give it a look, see what you think. So, anyway, that's all I'm doing. What are you up to? I think much more than me.

Speaker 2: 3:13

Yeah, I've been kind of run around like a chicken with my head cut off, to be totally honest. But that's okay, I kind of like it that way.

Speaker 1: 3:21

That's sort of our MO in life. Anyway, I wouldn't know you if you had your head on.

Speaker 2: 3:26

I mean right, yeah. But so the big thing that I've been working on has been the new Clarify, Simplify, Implement Substack Newsletter. So if you haven't gone and checked that out yet, please do it's. I have, I think. As of this recording, I wanna say there are four articles up now and I have a whole long list of more to come for December. I'm gonna be focusing a lot on sort of reflecting on the year and how to plan for 2024. So kind of all that like strategy planning, good stuff. But if you're interested in my take on the writing and publishing industry, it is a free subscription. You can also opt into the paid versions of that and support me and the author wheel and everything we're doing. I set up the tiers so far as $5 a month or $50 a year, so it's basically buy us a coffee. That's all good. Other than that, I'm still writing fiction every morning. I've kept up that habit, kept up the consistency. Even during Thanksgiving and our Vegas trip I managed to get at least a few words a day.

Speaker 1: 4:53

Good for you.

Speaker 2: 4:53

Well, yeah, except one of those days was in Vegas. I literally wrote 16, one, six words, but I counted it, I counted it.

Speaker 1: 5:04

But the fact that you were awake and cognizant, based on some of the evenings we had in Vegas, I think that's quite an accomplishment.

Speaker 2: 5:12

So Well, thank you, thank you, me too, I mean. And I kept a streak alive and I think that's kind of the important thing right now for me is just keeping up that consistency in those daily wins. So that's been good. Go you, Thank you. Thank you All right. Well, I think there's nothing else to report this week, so let's get on with the interview. Brian is the founder of Author Ad School, Best Page Forward and the Author Ad Agency. He's also the co-host of the Selmaur Books Show podcast, which just finished its 500 consecutive week, which is mind blowing. It's staggering Knowing now, knowing, how much work goes into each of these episodes. The fact that you've never missed a week is just mind blowing. So congratulations.

Speaker 1: 6:02

Thank you, kind of makes me want to take a nap, oh yeah, yeah, I'll send a pillow, I'll send something.

Speaker 2: 6:09

Thank you Well welcome. We're really excited to have you here today. Thank you for joining us. This is cool.

Speaker 3: 6:16

Yeah, I'm really happy. I'm really happy to be here y'all. Thanks for having me on let's party.

Speaker 2: 6:21

Absolutely All right. Well, I have been listening to the Selmaur Books Show for years. I think you know that you were one of my early inspirations to actually treat this like a business, so that was cool.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Yeah, nice, so we're excited. I would definitely say you are one of my virtual mentors. You may not have realized it, but I definitely followed so much of your advice and I've done the not Author Ad School, but the five day challenge, and I've taken so many of your workshops. I have book blurbs. I mean I feel like listeners, you need to hold onto your hats. We have so many things we can talk to Brian about today. Get out of pencil and take notes.

Speaker 2: 7:05

Yeah, absolutely so, brian. Why don't you start? We'll start with our generic questions and then, as usual, we'll go off on all of our little tangents here. But what is your writing and publishing story? How did you get to be the Brian Cohen?

Speaker 3: 7:23

Oh, my goodness. Okay, well, I started with a blog 2008 or so. I will admit to being on a temp assignment working the phones for some kind of company I don't even know what it did and I've been wanting to start a blog for a long time and I was like, well, no one's calling. It was the week before Christmas, no one was calling and I was like, fine, I'll start my blog now. And so I got paid like 40 hours that week. To you know, someone from that company is going to track me down at some point.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Well, we won't name names.

Speaker 3: 8:00

Yeah, we won't name names. I can't even remember the name, but I worked about 40 hours that week on setting up my blog. It was nice to get paid for that, and those blog posts that I wrote over the next couple of years ended up being my first book in 2010. Wow, wow, yeah. So, like dozens and dozens of posts, I just had to fill it out a little bit, flesh it out a little bit to get to 1000 creative writing prompts, because it was a creative writing blog and I, you know, I didn't really expect to become an author from that. I was just trying to help writers, which, of course, you know has followed me for the last 13 years. Since then, in 2010, I published it. Kdp wasn't even called KDP yet. It was like Amazon publishing services or something. And create space? Was it create space back then? Well, there was create space. This shows my age in the industry. Create space was not yet owned by Amazon. Yeah, it was just a company in Charleston, south Carolina.

Speaker 2: 9:08

That's how I used to. I used to print my. My paperbacks was through create space before Amazon bought them. So yeah, we're old school. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3: 9:18

I can barely stretch.

Speaker 1: 9:20

I had one book in create space too. That's right, it's old school here. Anyway continue, brian. We interrupted.

Speaker 3: 9:27

No worries. So I really liked the process. I mean, a lot of us, I think, have fallen in love with the publishing, publishing process at this point and I really wanted to keep doing that. But I also, you know, I could see thousands and thousands of authors were getting into this whole thing and I I really like helping people. I I always enjoyed writing fiction, but I never got the full satisfaction out of entertaining readers that I did out of helping authors.

Speaker 3: 10:00

And so over over these last 13 years since I published that book, I I've published a bunch of them, several dozen, most of them being four writers either writing prompts or later later in my career, about ads and email, marketing and and other wonderful stuff.

Speaker 3: 10:20

And honestly, to this point, it's like now, most of the writing I do, I write webinars, I write, you know, the training that I do for people a lot of it for free, which is awesome.

Speaker 3: 10:35

The emails that go out to people I get just like it's crazy, we were all at, you know, 20 books and I get amazed by the people who reach out to me and say, like you know, hey, I've been, I've been reading your emails for six years or something like that and and I'm like I don't know who you are and that's just so cool that you you read this all the time and it's kind of fun. It's like I put a lot of work into the emails, I put a lot of work into the webinars and it's fun that just like hundreds or thousands of people are checking out each one and some of them might never like work with me in any capacity, but it's really cool to have my writing reach those people, even if you know they didn't pay a dime. They didn't, they didn't purchase anything. I'm just really happy to hey, like, like you said, grant, I'd be kind of that, a silent mentor from from across across the country, and it's just really awesome to have that opportunity.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Yeah, it's kind of my this whole writing thing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, whatever. It is kind of mind blowing to, to to think that these people you've never met, probably will never meet thousands of them. You're Vulcan mind melding with them on something and they're like in your head and it's just this one of the things. I know this is a complete tangent, but just throwing it out there, it's one of the things about writing that I love and also scares me, is it? Just really kind of mind blowing that, that, that, that happens.

Speaker 2: 12:17

Yeah, I agree, and I think it's so interesting to that like as a I'm going to say writing mentor that you are, you're able to reach those people and help people. Whether or not you know it, you're helping people and that's so key and that's so that's becoming more and more a part of my, you know, philosophy, or what I'm really enjoying as well, is this idea of like with readers. You're entertaining them and it can be helpful, it can give them that escape and I've always enjoyed that. But now, to have more direct impact on writers, where you're influencing their day to day life and their activity and how they're approaching their work, I don't know. That's really satisfying, it's really cool.

Speaker 3: 13:04

Yeah, couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2: 13:05

Yeah, absolutely Well and I will say too so I have sizzling synopsis, your book on how to write a sizzling synopsis.

Speaker 1: 13:13

I read it almost every single time I write my book. Blurb I read it.

Speaker 3: 13:18

I mean, maybe not cover to cover.

Speaker 1: 13:20

But I'm like, okay, what did he say about this?

Speaker 2: 13:23

again Like oh yeah, and I have your more recent one on email marketing and newsletters and I did your ad school and I will say that of all of the virtual writing gurus will call them that are out, there. I really find your work very actionable and very approachable. You know people you can actually like dig in and it's useful in the moment and it's wonderful that way. So thank you.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Yes, absolutely, you're so welcome.

Speaker 2: 13:55

So the next question that we always ask is what has been your greatest roadblock and how did you overcome that to get where you are? So what would like struggle thing? What did you just have to like deal with?

Speaker 3: 14:13

I mean I needed, I needed help, I needed, I needed, I had so many ideas. I still have so many ideas. You know, if you're if you're a Clifton strengths beckasim fan, I'm number one strategic and I know a lot of authors are high strategic and so I'm always coming up with ideas and plans. And I think my ability to help authors really grew when I when I got help and virtual help, got got assistance, got got people who were really interested in in supporting kind of the, the idea I had, the vision I had for things like ad school, because I definitely tried to do it all on my own At first I tried to make it not just self publishing, self marketing, self self coursing, self, everything, and it was just too much.

Speaker 3: 15:18

And I think my heart was in the right place because everything I was trying to do was in the service of helping people but I could not possibly deliver as much as I wanted to. But until I got some help and I know that a lot of authors out there are towards the beginning of their journey and might not be able to afford help but even there our way is to get free help Beta readers and critique groups and and masterminds that that you can just set up. You don't have to pay somebody for like these kinds of things. Like I told the story a million times on a million different podcasts and now you get it too. Best page forward writing the book blurbs was all an idea that came from a mastermind that was somewhat run by Simon Whistler, the self rocking, self publishing podcast from yesteryear. Now he's a big YouTube star. But connecting with others and not just trying to do it all on my own was probably one of the best things I did for my writing and my, my business and your sanity probably as well.

Speaker 1: 16:42

And my sanity, yes, yes, and your head of hair, all of those things, yeah, that that's been kind of a reoccurring theme for a lot of the people that we've interviewed Is that you can go along so far on your own and then if you want to grow, you can't do it all on your own anymore. You've got to get. You got to get that help and I would argue, even in the very beginning at least, like you said, the virtual help, like the help if you don't have the money to pay for it. Like you have so many fabulous free things, like your five day ad challenge. I mean it's like it's like a full course. So you have all those videos in there and you know it was, I thought it was terrific. And and then people have a lot of books out for authors that are reasonable. You know that's not very expensive and all those things. That is a good, a good bit of advice.

Speaker 2: 17:45

So so quick question on that. Specifically how did you actually make the decision when it came to hiring someone? How, what was the tipping point or what was the trigger that actually had you going? You know what I can hire someone. I'm going to hire someone. This is going to increase my business, or how did you make that decision?

Speaker 3: 18:08

I think it was out of desperation. I think I was so so, overload, overloaded. Every time that I made major hiring decisions in my business, it was due to overwhelm. Yeah, and I probably should have done it months earlier, and I think that's true for a lot of authors who are overwhelmed. But. But the problem is here's the big problem If you are hiring when you are overwhelmed and overloaded, you might hire someone good, might hire someone bad, but sure as heck your hiring process will be rushed.

Speaker 1: 18:46

Yeah, that's a really good point.

Speaker 3: 18:50

Yeah, so you've got to Every time I've had need on my team. Now, if my my person I spend the most time with on a regular basis, that isn't isn't my wife, which is Charlene. Charlene is my kind of my COO, if you will, and she is always like we need someone. We better get this person quick. I'm like we got to slow our roll here because we need to try to pick the right person and then you can set up a good process and it can still not work.

Speaker 3: 19:25

But what I have found is the best process for finding someone good is sometimes having them work for you for a while and then you see that they have more in them. Several people like the you know, those of you who know ad school like Megan, like Quinn, who does our Friday marketing sprints and who is now one of our author ad agency account managers. They started as a student and then a volunteer and then they became a six figure author and the things that Quinn achieved and then Quinn wanting to help other authors, just like we all do, like seeing that, made me realize oh, you know, quinn is awesome. I'm going to stick with Quinn for as long as they'll stick with me, and I think that seeing what people do over time is the greatest indicator of whether or not they're going to be.

Speaker 2: 20:29

They're going to be solid for you, which goes back to your point about time and not rushing things, because you, in order to build those relationships, you have to network, you have to try things out, you have to start slow, start small and let that grow naturally. It's hard to do, so it is.

Speaker 3: 20:50

Yeah, so, hard. But, patience is the best thing. Patience isn't easy.

Speaker 2: 20:57

No, no, especially in our industry. But it is a virtue.

Speaker 1: 21:02

Well, I think. I think what happens sometimes too is we get this sense of FOMO, you know, like if we don't do this thing, whatever the thing is, and it has to happen now, because if we don't do it now, you know we're going to miss the boat or something like that. And then we, you know, race ahead to do something. And, honestly, I think one of the things I really love about the Selma book show and the things that I've read from you and your philosophy is, I feel like it's more like no, let's build something sustainable, not jump on the next huge fast trend.

Speaker 1: 21:39

It's like do ads work overnight? No, because do you know what you're doing overnight? No, you know. I mean, everything has a progression. And this idea that you're going to race into something, throw a bunch of money at something or time at something, and somehow it's going to blow your career up, because XYZ author blew up their career with one book, you know where. Everybody's looking for that quick fix. And I think that is. It's dangerous. It's a good way to waste a lot of time and money and make mistakes.

Speaker 3: 22:15

Yeah, yeah, it's the sustainability that mean. You said the big buzzword right there Something sustainable. It's not something a lot of us are looking for, but it might be what all of us need. That's a good point.

Speaker 2: 22:32

Well, so okay, so you've decided you need to hire someone. You've decided you know you need to delegate, you need to expand your mindset so that you can find the person. You're building that network. How do you actually do that? It's not easy.

Speaker 3: 22:53

I mean, I think a good pool of people is sometimes your own readers and your own fans. Sometimes there's someone in the mix that that's a good fit. I found a lot of people on my team from students and readers and whatnot, and then you want to see them do a lot of things. You do see them do a little bit of work. You want to see that they'll actually follow through on something, and so I like to give applicants a sample task to see if they do things the kind of way I want to like. But even then you still don't know.

Speaker 3: 23:32

You have to be patient. You have to assume that even if you put in the effort, you put in all the effort to hire the right person, it still might not work out. But I remember one of my best project managers. She ended up being someone who applied and I kind of wasn't sure. But I ended up hiring them for kind of just like a lesser role and they just were so great over time and it goes back to well, let's see how this person does over time to see if they're the right kind of person. But hiring is definitely a pain. Hiring is hard and if you make it a process rather than a panic, it is more likely to work.

Speaker 1: 24:24

So a lot of our listeners are probably newer writers kind of coming out of the box, and so what would you like if you were going to give them some of your best? Because now we've kind of like segwayed into hiring virtual assistants and stuff and they're not probably the vast majority of them. They're not there, but that doesn't mean they don't need help, they do. So what would be some of your best tips or advice that you would give to newer writers, like maybe even looking back on your own career and saying I wish I had done this sooner instead of waiting until I was desperate or in a panic or in a bloody mess, you know?

Speaker 3: 25:09

Yeah, I mean. My best tip is to be malleable is to be open to other people's ideas. The stubborn people sink Stubborn people sink. If you're too stuck into your own ideas, you're not really going to work well with others, first and foremost, but you're also just unlikely to hear feedback. That could be extremely beneficial. I love now working with my team because they'll tell me if I'm wrong. That's perfect.

Speaker 3: 25:47

They'll save me time from screwing something up, and I think that every time you hear that you're not doing something, the way that's going to help you succeed and every time you listen to that you get a little better.

Speaker 3: 26:09

Every time you don't listen to that, you get stuck deeper into the mud. And I think that because now this is such a long game, it's going to take most authors several years to really get traction. If you get stuck in your own vacuum, that you're marketing in a vacuum, you're writing in a vacuum, you don't get any feedback in any point of the process. You are going to be disappointed in your results. So I think being malleable and being open to feedback is essential, whether you're even in just in a critique group or you're with other authors or you post in a group. The worst feeling is you see someone post in a group requesting feedback and we've all seen it and then you can tell that the person is not going to take any of it because they really just wanted to be validated and have people tell them their ideas are amazing which I get psychologically, but it's not going to help you.

Speaker 1: 27:28

I was at a little writer's meeting in a coffee shop not that long ago and there was a woman there who had one book published. She couldn't figure out why it wasn't selling. And then she started talking about the publishing journey and how she hired two different editors that had really good backgrounds and it worked with lots of people and she was like but they were just wrong. They were telling her to fix her book and they were just wrong. So she fired them and then her cover was awful, awful. And one of the women there works with her cover designer and said, oh, that cover designer won't work with her anymore because she forced her to make something that she was embarrassed of it. So it's exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 1: 28:16

She had such a no, I know what my cover should look like. It's the worst cover you've ever seen in your life, or I know how it should be edited, but it's your first book and you're firing professionals who are trying to help you. So I definitely seen that. I couldn't agree more. It takes a little humility and being willing to hear the hard word.

Speaker 3: 28:41

You need to come into this with a beginner mindset, not an expert mindset.

Speaker 2: 28:46

Yeah, and I think that's true, even when you are farther along in your career, it doesn't really matter how long you've been doing it. There's always something to improve on and there's always something that other people will know or do or be better at than you are. So part of it is filtering who those people are and the correct advice to take. Because, it's true, you shouldn't listen to your great aunt Helen who thinks that your thriller should be less or just should be cozier. Right, that's not necessarily the best advice, but if you're hiring a professional to give you critique and they're saying, well, you've got a plot hole here, you got to fill this in, that advice is probably good. So, understanding that filtering process and then taking the good advice yeah, no matter where you are in the career, in your stage, because I think the best authors always take criticism to heart if it's appropriate criticism.

Speaker 2: 29:54

And when they don't, or when they don't get that feedback anymore, big name authors remain unnamed, who have big traditional deals and their editors are afraid to edit them anymore. And all of a sudden you're going. Really, I think that needed a little extra work on that most recent release. So just something to keep in mind. For sure is just that we all need it. We all need to be open-minded and we all need to be willing to hear the criticism which is so painful.

Speaker 1: 30:29

So painful. Yeah, it's awful. When I first started publishing, I would see my editor's email come and I'd be like I'm not going to open it. It would take me like 24 hours to build myself up to open it, because I knew it was going to be like oh my gosh, I don't want to hear this.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Well, to this day, when I do get feedback from anybody about anything, I read it and then I don't do anything about it. I set a mental time limit. I cannot act on it or shout about it or cry. I read it and I close it and I walk away for at least 24 hours before I take action, because it takes that time to get past my own ego and my own struggles or my immediate knee-jerk reaction. They're wrong. No, no, you just got to take a moment, take a breath and then get back to it after that, because it is emotional. We work in a very emotional industry.

Speaker 3: 31:35

Yeah, that's for sure, that is for sure.

Speaker 2: 31:38

So why don't you tell us a little bit more about your author ad agency and how you can be hired to help authors with their advertising Sure?

Speaker 3: 31:52

So this is something we started late 2022. And we really wanted to help authors who are at a higher level. We have all the three wonderful stuff for new folks and for folks who are learning the marketing. We have ad school and some coaching options for people who are trying to go higher. But then people who are already having great success but have no time. What do they do?

Speaker 3: 32:29

We started this author ad agency to run Amazon ads for authors who are already having some success. They're earning $6,000 a month in royalties or higher, because we have to charge a fair bit for our services and we don't want to take all of somebody's royalties in order to pay for something. So we have that kind of cap in there. It's been really great. We have a couple of people who just have had these amazing months or these amazing launches, and we know that they were so busy in the writing and the marketing process that there is no way they would have been able to hit those numbers without that assistance, without someone in there making the ads, without someone in there contributing to the number of eyeballs on those books. We have spaces open. We have some spaces open. Basically, people can just email us and we can set up a meeting.

Speaker 3: 33:44

We don't have anything too fancy, just email us at Brian at sellingforauthorscom Cause, you know, we don't even really have a page for it because it's just not, there's not so many authors who find out about it or at that royalty amount. But we've really loved the ability to kind of help people, no matter where they are, and to be able to do that and see people. I mean, some of our agency clients are people who joined the free course years ago and we're able to use that information to help them to write the books they needed to write in order to see some really great numbers and we even like full circle kind of moment Authors a lot of authors, you know when they're first thinking about writing, they want to get the Trad Pub deal. They maybe don't know any better or something. That's me. Yeah, we've all been there. They want to get the Trad Pub deal.

Speaker 3: 34:50

And we just had a client who's been self publishing since 2015 and she's had such great success with her books and after Ad School, after success on TikTok and after the agency that she just was in a bidding war with a new series and got picked up by Penguin Random House. That's amazing. It's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2: 35:18

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:19

So like just be able to help someone to realize that dream. And she's going to keep writing indie for her other stuff, so she's not. We didn't turn her to the dark side or anything.

Speaker 2: 35:33

Oh, we're agnostic over here.

Speaker 1: 35:34

I actually yeah. I am hybrid and I love the idea and the concept of being hybrid, you know, because that is another way of getting help. Yeah, that's what we were talking about. I mean, you have to pay for help one way or another. So maybe you pay for some of your help, you pay for it with royalties. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3: 35:54

Yeah, no great point.

Speaker 2: 35:56

But I think that's what I find so lovely about your ecosystem that you've developed over the years is that you did kind of start out with you know some of the free or less expensive options and you've grown along with your clients so that now you have this really nice vertical stack of you know. Wherever you are in your business right now, there's something that you can offer to help those authors get to that next level. So whether you're starting out with the you know the five day challenge and then buying the book and then buying the course and then moving your way up, each level kind of gets you that next to that next stage, which I think is just from a nonfiction author services perspective, it's brilliant, obviously. But from a you know, customer perspective, I think it's also brilliant just because there's always you can build that relationship. You can see that full circle loop as people go through your information and get to the point that you know now you are, you are their outsource.

Speaker 3: 37:06

Right, yeah, late last year we did try to make the whole staff possible, because now after AdSchool there's one-off coachings. But now there's the Groundbreakers is the name of our coaching group for folks who've been in AdSchool for a bit and last year I started doing my own group, the Pathfinders. We got the Groundbreakers and the Pathfinders and so we-.

Speaker 2: 37:39

What's the difference between those two?

Speaker 3: 37:41

So the Groundbreakers there's no income requirement or anything. You can apply for it. We're about to open up here for the end of the year, going into January. Groundbreakers is a six month program with sessions from Jen LaSalle, who runs Beyond the Book on Wednesday nights in AdSchool and she's a fantastic women's fiction author and just like the mom you want in your corner kind of person. And then Pathfinders is just for authors who are earning over $2,500 a month in royalties and that's a year long program. With me we're just about to wrap up our first contingent there and that's been really, really rewarding, getting to work with the same people consistently for the whole year. And then, yeah, and then the agency after that. You're right, we've got them all covered.

Speaker 2: 38:40

We've got them Every stage. Every stage, wherever you're at, we got help for you. Amazon ads help. You're the guy to go to.

Speaker 1: 38:49

Exactly Well, and I do. I also love what you had what we were talking about earlier with hiring people. You know that sometimes the very best way to do it is to spend some time, but it does give people an opportunity because you know they can work with you with your five day challenge and they get a taste, you know, of what you do. And they're like, yeah, this guy speaks to me because we all learn. We all have different learning styles and there are some people that you listen to what they have to say on a topic and you go, oh yeah, I can relate to that. And there are other people who can be giving great information, but their delivery style, the way they do it, whatever it's like, I just zone out, I don't know what you know.

Speaker 1: 39:33

So it gives people a chance to really know, like and trust you. So that's a good. That's a very it's a very good. That's interesting your Pathfinders thing. I'm gonna like try to get my income earning to a stable enough place where I might be a plie. I'm just gonna work on that. Brian, he gave me a challenge.

Speaker 3: 39:55

It gives. I like I always resisted it and that was the thing that held me back from, you know, charging what these kind of services would be worth. But it's like I never wanna put someone out. You know, I never want someone to take their whole royalty check and then give it to me. I don't want that to happen, Like obviously earlier in your career. There's not much of a choice with that, but on a recurring monthly basis. I don't really want that. But when I thought, okay, well, what if I put some of these income caps in there so that I wouldn't feel bad, I would never take more than like 20% of what someone is earning, with hopes to boost that, obviously, and make that back. But doing that last year was really a game changer as far as just and helping the people where they are and being able to offer those services has been really, really cool.

Speaker 2: 41:08

Well, and the other kind of way to look at it too. So for listeners out there, whatever stage you're in is the stage you need to be in, right? So, trying to overreach and jump the level like if you're trying to jump up two or three stairs you're going to trip and fall I'm just saying right, so I like that, you have like, because you have those requirements. You're saying this is a risky business, right? Advertising. There's no guarantees, you can't promise anything, so the best you can do is work at the level that you're at to hope for or to work toward that next level.

Speaker 2: 41:50

And yes, like the ad services, whichever level you're at, it's going to help you get a little bit better, right? So if you do the five day challenge, you're getting started. You're at that level, you're learning, you're picking things up. You might have to spend a little bit of money, you might lose a little bit of money, but it's going to be. You know, risk, reward, it's trial and error. You're investing in your business but then, as you get bigger and you get better and you start doing more and now you've got more sales and now you've got a big enough income to truly hire that out it can really like jump you, jump you up at an appropriate pace.

Speaker 3: 42:29

Yeah, no, I think that's a your stair analogy is so good.

Speaker 2: 42:34

Yeah, I have good analogies.

Speaker 3: 42:38

Yeah, if you go up too many old trip, it's really good. You must be a writer.

Speaker 2: 42:43

If I, if I, I'm going to pat myself on the back. I'm good at analogies.

Speaker 3: 42:47

You are, you are.

Speaker 1: 42:49

I did want to say one more thing, too, as, speaking of analogies, because I'm good at them too- we all are.

Speaker 2: 42:56

We're all writers Because we're writers.

Speaker 1: 42:58

But I also think it's very similar to starting out with fiction writing, right Like when you, when you start out, you you can't replicate. You know what you're usually a reader, you know what you like, but to replicate what you enjoy, I just it just takes time and it takes work. And I think the advertising it's just also a skill set. I mean, it's the whole thing, it's a skill set. And I do think sometimes people are jumping ahead of themselves and then they throw up their hands and they go.

Speaker 1: 43:34

I am a son ads don't work, or Facebook ads don't work, and it's like well, have you looked at your series page? Have you looked at your covers? Have you looked at your blurbs? How about the writing itself? You know, it's like we, we want to leapfrog over all these places and and be somewhere. We're not. And and I think this like the overarching message of this whole episode today, I think, is that patience, one thing at a time. Do it slowly, whether you're hiring somebody, writing fiction, building a career or advertising your books, everything is just a process and and there are skills, and we've used this, this one, this comparison, in the past as well.

Speaker 2: 44:18

It's like if you're learning a musical instrument which we both did in our past lives right Like in my current life. Well, yeah, you're current, you're current life. I'm still playing. I just don't play like for anybody else, so anyway, another discussion here another side note.

Speaker 2: 44:35

But when you're first learning, you're not going to be, you know, playing Rachmaninoff on the piano. You're going to be playing Mary had a little lamb when you start out, and so you have to kind of treat it the same way. It takes every skill set, and they're all skill sets. Every single one takes that time, takes that patience, and we're not patient people. But we have to try, because you can't, you can't start from the beginning. You can't start from nothing and expect to be an expert at it. You just can't.

Speaker 3: 45:02

Yeah, very true. Very good analogy.

Speaker 2: 45:05

Got myself on the back again.

Speaker 3: 45:07

I played the clarinet.

Speaker 2: 45:09

So there you go. Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, I think that kind of wraps us up here for today. Any other final questions? Greta?

Speaker 1: 45:19

Well, just, I would just love Brian to kind of give in a rundown overview of all the stuff that he has.

Speaker 3: 45:28

Oh my gosh, do I have yeah?

Speaker 2: 45:31

Can you name them all?

Speaker 1: 45:34

No, no point people to some of the things you think would be the most helpful, and I would say one that he should be listening to the Selma book show for sure. Yes, 100%.

Speaker 3: 45:45

Yep Selma book show dot com. It's available wherever you listen to the author wheel that's right.

Speaker 3: 45:54

So you can probably find it there. And then the five day challenge. Next one will be in January. That's at authorsadvertisecom, and if you heard things like author ad school or this page forward blurbs or ground breakers or pathfinders or the agency, just email us, brian bryan at selling for authorscom, and ask about it, because we'll point you in the right direction. It's just so fun to offer all this stuff and you know what? I wouldn't have been able to do it without some serious help.

Speaker 1: 46:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:39

There you go. Way to bring it back to the beginning. Love it.

Speaker 1: 46:41

Yep Good job.

Speaker 2: 46:43

I love it.

Speaker 3: 46:44

The wheel. The wheel has turned.

Speaker 2: 46:46

The author wheel.

Speaker 3: 46:47

This is why we are the author wheel Exactly.

Speaker 2: 46:50

Again, another well metaphor, I guess. Yeah, there we go. We're too clever for our own good sometimes, regardless. Well, to all our listeners, thank you so much for joining us today. All of the links will be included in the show notes, so please go check that out. And, in addition, don't forget as always, we have our five days to clarity how to write your. I'm screwing up the title. I'm sorry, I'm screwing up the title. I messed it up.

Speaker 1: 47:20

Sorry, if you didn't screw up the title, I would have. We've changed the title too many times, but it's basically about author clarity and how to discover and write your mission statement and an author tagline. And it is free on the other wheelcom yes, how do I do? Is that okay?

Speaker 2: 47:42

I think that was all right. I don't know. People are going to get confused. Go to the show notes. It's there. Yes, it is, and until next time, keep your stories rolling.