Navigating the Transition: Career Changes in Writing | JV Hillard

I've got to write a very good book that people want to buy and they're going to want to follow up. So I have to continue to write those books and they still have to be good. And then I've got to make them available. So where do I find them? Like, how do I sell them? So I have them done in audiobook format. I have them done in ebook format so that they're available ubiquitously to folks as part of that too. Because, you know, hey, what if I just like listening to books on my way to the office or on the bus or on the train, right, to work? I might miss that person or those people because I don't have an audiobook. So that was important for me too.

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Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will find how, how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Oak Park, Illinois. I think that's a suburb of Chicago, but I'm not sure, and I don't know that I've been there, but maybe. In any case, thank you for listening. Joining me today is the infamous Joe, J.V. Hilliard. Joe, welcome to the program.

Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate the opportunity to come on the show.

Absolutely. So one of the things we talk a lot about on this show is the entrepreneurial journey. So why don't you start out by giving us a, a synopsis of what got you here?

Yeah, so It was a bit of a change in direction from a career perspective. You know, up until COVID, I was a defense lobbyist and I had my own company doing work for a lot of technology companies that needed access to the Pentagon, White House, the legislature for a variety of reasons. And when COVID happened, everything kind of took a turn and DC was, for all intents and purposes, shut down for a number of years. And in my business, it's a very touchy-feely kind of business where you meet people and you talk to them and you try to influence the outcome of certain things. So for me, my business was consulting. It was right, working with legislators and working with, you know, department agency heads to influence the outcome of a contract or a grant, or discovering that there may be a fit for some of these new technologies that the Defense Department didn't know about, right? Um, but when COVID happened, DC basically shut down. Everything went to variations of this, you know, whether it was Riverside or, or Zoom or whatever it is. So less travel was involved, but there was a portion there for almost a year where there wasn't anything to do. So I took a life passion of mine, which is the nerd side of me, and turned it into a, uh, what I thought was going to be a standalone novel, you know, kicking off the bucket list, that book that I'm always supposed to write. Yeah. But, you know, when I got out into the marketplace, a friend of mine who's a professor read it and she said, you know, this is really publishable and you should really kind of take a look at, you know, doing something with it. Uh, and when I finally met the publisher that I decided to team with, she said, hey, you know what, sorry to tell you, but "Fantasy adventure novels don't come in one-offs. I want a series. Your readership is going to demand a series, so you got to promise me at least 3 books," which has now turned into 4, which is slowly starting to turn into 10 over the next couple of years. And so, my entrepreneurial journey went from what I thought was a very strict, realistic, everyday zero-sum game job as a defense lobbyist. Now, all of a sudden, it's flipped to the other side where it's a little laid back. I do my work out of coffee shops or in my den. Touch base with anybody unless I need to talk to my, my publisher or my editors. And but the principles still apply, right? So whether it's me needing to get revenue from clients to serve them in DC, or it's me finding ways to sell my product so I can get revenue to feed my family, uh, it's the same kind of business, you know, you know, principles apply to this. It's just a different kind of game.

Well, I, I can tell already from your answer that this is going to be a good interview because I've got lots of questions. Okay, so were you an independent lobbyist, or were you working with someone else?

Yeah, I spent the first 6 and a half years of my career working for the— a senator on the Armed Services Committee. And after that, I started my own company. So I always owned my own entity, uh, and then I originally ran that, that first company up to about 30 people. We were in 5 states plus D.C., and I sold that to an international law firm, uh, and then once I got to the law firm, realized there's very little room, if any, for entrepreneurial endeavors. No. So after about 3 years, you know, and certain restrictions were over, I stepped back out and restarted my my company, uh, under the same guidelines that I had the first, uh, trying to kind of get back to what I was doing prior to. So I've always been entrepreneurial. Even the idea of going onto the Hill and doing work there, uh, it's not a 24— it's not one of these like 9 to 5, you punch the clock and you're done, right? Like, you're there until you need to not be there. And sometimes that means you're there, you know, 5 AM to, you know, 11 o'clock at night, or, you know, overnights for votes and things like that. So know, it's just a different kind of world. It's not for everybody, but I really enjoyed it. And then I was able to translate that sitting on the other side of the table and representing clients back to those same legislators, those same committees, those same departments and agencies.

So was there any burnout factor at all and not going back into that gig?

Oh yeah, yeah. So there was several points of pain, right? The first was it's a zero-sum game. Uh, you are fighting for the same thing everybody else is fighting for. No one's your friend. You sometimes have frenemies, uh, but for the most part, you know, it's just as bad as it sounds like it's going to be. It's a, it's a very— you have to have a very thick skin to work in the, in the business. And not just on the sales side where you're competing against others to represent clients, but then working with a bunch of alphas, you know. Yes. I mean, no one there is going to— they, they're just, they're already numb to any kind of influence. It's just a matter of representing that you can do something well for your client and that they trust you. So that, that was part one. Part two was the— as you get older and have a family and you have a house and all this, and I don't live in DC, I live in Pittsburgh, travel gets to you, time away from your family gets to you.

Yeah.

And all those kind of things. And so even though DC for the most part is a Monday through Wednesday thing, you know, when they're in session, and they typically go out of session, have district work periods, you know, over the weekend where they go home too, it's not always that case. And when they're in doing budget cycles or things like that, there's just an ebb float with that creates that, that burnout effect. And so for me, those are the two things that encouraged me not to go back. But the thing that wants me to go back is the money. You know, there's no compare. I can make in one month what I'll make in the 3 and a half years I've been doing my right stuff. It's just there's no comparing it, right? Unless you're Stephen King or someone that's been around forever. There's just— you just can't make, you know, the money is almost a side hustle, you know what I mean? It's, it's, it's really not. So I, I end up doing some, you know, invisible ancillary work for other folks on the side to make money to pay the bills while I'm building this brand that I've got in my new company, which just happens to be an art form as opposed to the art and science of lobbying.

Okay, so you sounded like you, you were writing the book not intending for it to be a business, just to scratch that itch. I want to start with, like, why was that an itch? Like, what spurred that passion?

Yeah, well, it goes back to me being a nerd at heart, right? You know, the DC thing came natural, and I enjoyed it, and I could do it. And it's not for everybody, but so did writing, right? And I've always wanted to be a writer, and I started out young, uh, falling in love with the genre. And then when I was growing up, my uncle was a Marine, and he was paralyzed in war. And when he came home, he was like a second father to me. My mother was his nurse, and I grew up by his side. And he had very limited things that he could do, you know. Some of them were writing, you know. They fashioned a utensil for him to be able to click on a keyboard, and he was able to write. And so he published primarily like short stories and horror novels and things you would find in Pulp Fiction and magazines and stuff like that. But when you're growing up by his bedside, I wanted to be him. He was like my dad, right? So of course I was emulating him. And I was always good at communicating. I was always good at writing, you know. And I won— he snuck me into a 8th grade writing contest when I was in 4th grade and I won it. And then when I showed up to get the award, everybody's like, what hap— what's going on here? You cheated. Yeah, but I, you know, it was— I've always had a passion for it. I've always had a, you know, a talent for it. So I grew up wanting to write it, but, you know, writing is a hard thing. Like, to be successful in any art form takes a lot of luck and a lot of planning, you know. And, you know, you have to work at it and you have to go everywhere and you have to be everywhere. And what I find and what I see in this space was there's a, there's, there's value in knowing what I know about running a business that I see most authors fail at doing because they look at it differently. Like sometimes they write something and they're like, well, I don't care if anybody reads it. It's just my art. Right. Well, you can't make money that way. Like you have to care that people read it or at least that they buy it. Right. But ultimately they're grading your product, right? They're going to leave an Amazon review. They're going to leave a different kind of review. And so for me, It was finding out that I can make money at it, finding the right publisher to walk alongside me so that I understood the marketplace a little bit better, and then putting together what I think is a product that people will want to buy and will want to continue to buy so that I can build on that. I mean, there's no business that starts out day one that's profitable, right? So you have to invest either time or treasure to get it there. And in this case, you know, it's, it's an investment of both. You're, you know, I've got to put some time in. I go to a lot of Comic-Cons, I go to a lot of book signings, I travel around and do things that I might sell very few books at. But I've seen over the last couple of years there's a momentum that's there and people want to follow. And if they like what you're writing, they're going to come back for more and they can't read book 4 without buying book 1. And so once I start to build up that portfolio, now all of a sudden that's where I can make a profit and I can rival what I was doing prior to.

And, and the genre you write in is primarily epic fantasy meets dark fantasy.

So for those that may not know what that is, epic fantasy is like Tolkien. It's, it's a lot of Lord of the Rings. It's very— the world is on, you know, poised on the brink of chaos and heroes have to come along to save it, versus Conan the Barbarian, which is more sword and sorcery, or classical fantasy like Dungeons and Dragons, where you're just going out and you know, fighting things and gathering treasure. Uh, and then the other side of what I do is the dark fantasy side, which I would liken closer to Game of Thrones, which the good guys don't always win. Uh, right. So I've put a spin in my novels that is uncommon in epic fantasy, where you're used to the good guys winning. Here, not all the good guys make it through. And I also like putting a bit of a gothic spin into it. It makes it a little different than what you would see. It's not just the dragons and the wizards. Now all of a sudden you're fighting something that might be likened to, you know, a vampire or something undead or monsters you haven't seen yet. And I bring that in to scare people. I want them to read it, be scared, and then I want the heroes to win eventually, you know. And then they're happy that the heroes, you know, beat the big bad evil guy.

Yeah. Today's episode of The Profitable Creative is brought to you by Core Group. Are you tired of doing it all yourself? Do you feel like you have no plan? Let Core Group guide you to build the business of your dreams. Core Group, your go-to accountant for creatives.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy, and if you're not ready to make that Full Commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. I'm thinking, and this goes— you mentioned Dungeons Dragons. It goes back to a module, D&D module that I bought in like 4th grade. So that would've been, uh, I don't know, 1980, something like that. I don't know. And the module was, you know, set traditional Dungeons Dragons sword and sorcery, but they come across this crashed spacecraft. And I don't remember the name of the module. I've never been able to find it. And I read a book recently. I can't tell you the name of it. I can tell you that it was a trilogy and I can't tell you the author, but it was similar. But, you know, like it was like a society had collapsed but, and a lot of the, the advanced technology was like buried and built over, and there were elements of it that still survived, but it was basically a medieval society. Like, they didn't have running water and, and things like that. That tweak, I don't know, the sci-fi fantasy crossover, I don't know what, what you'd call that, that always intrigued me.

Yeah, that, that happens more than you think. And I think that the module that you're referring to is Expedition to Barrier Peaks. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, and there were a few others that came off of that too, which— and what Dungeons Dragons at the time, owned by TSR, was trying to do was merge the two games they had. They had a, they had a sci-fi game called Star Frontiers, and they had Dungeons Dragons, and they wanted players of one to start playing the other. And so it was an attempt to kind of merge them together and show people that if you might like this, you know, laser gun battle that I've got too, and why don't you buy Star Frontiers as well if you're a fan of D&D. But you'll find a lot of like dystopian fantasy that, that follows along that same realm where it's a lost technology that they mistake as magic, but it's really something that's come from a futuristic society. And, and it's, it's called science fantasy, you know what I mean? So like, they actually, you know, they merge the two together. You get that a lot with romantasy, where it's a fantasy romance like Outlander. All the ladies like that because there's a hot guy in it that wears a kilt or whatever, and she time travels back to see him and things like that too. But those, those are really kind of subgenres of the greater genre that you're referring to. So yes, it's, it's more common than you think, uh, and usually if you have an open mind and you like the fantasy adventure stuff, you're also likely a fan of science fiction, right? It's like me, like, I love Star Wars, I love Star Trek, but I grew up on Harry Potter and D&D. So, you know, for me, I— it's like you're open-minded for both.

I have been on a Timothy Zahn kick for— have you read any of his stuff?

Yes.

Yeah, for, for about a year, and I had no idea he'd written written so much, but I really liked his Star Wars with Admiral Thrawn. Like, that, that whole was really, really good. And, and then when Disney came out with Thrawn and— what show was it that Admiral Thrawn showed up?

Ashoka?

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. I was like, oh yeah, this character is awesome. And as you read the books, kind of to your point, in Ashoka, he's an— he's a bad guy, right? But when you read the books and hear his, his origin story and everything, you're like, I don't know that he's really that bad. Like, you know, he's, he's certainly not nice, but he's not evil.

Well, that's when you know someone like Zahn is doing it right, you know, because it's really hard to develop a villain that is born evil, you know, unless it's like Exorcist and it's a devil. That's right, right. In this case I always like to show the, the side of the villain in the same way you saw Anakin Skywalker. I mean, prior to Darth Vader, he was a good guy, right? He became a bad guy and he saw a path to redemption and he took it to save everybody. And he was kind of the chosen one when it all really kind of came down to it, you know. So there's, you know, there's that too. And so, you know, a Thrawn or a Vader or somebody like that, you want to know what they're— you want to be intrigued by that. You want to know what their backstory is. Like, how did you get here? Yeah, how did you get here? It's exactly right. It's like, would I have made a similar choice? And even at its heart, getting back to what you said earlier, Star Trek is basically science fantasy, or Star Wars is basically science fantasy. You've got these guys with laser swords that are practicing a lost art of sword fighting. Yes, they use the Force that you can't touch. It's a magic, but it's not really a magic. You know where it comes from, and it has— it pulls everything together, you know. And meanwhile, you're on, you know, a Star Destroyer, right? And you're taking those two principles, which is this real ancient mysterious magic that people can't get their hands around called the Force. And there's only a few users of it that understand it well enough to use it, and they happen to control these Star Destroyers and the things that can blow up planets and stuff like that too. So yeah, it's there, it's prevalent. And I think Timothy Zahn does a really good job, uh, in his novels. I know that, you know, another crossover was a guy named R.A. Salvatore who wrote a couple of, um, of Star Wars novels as well, who was really primarily right out of the Dungeons Dragons scene from Forgotten Realms and his Dark Elf trilogies and things like that too. It's a— it's popular, and I'm glad you like them because that's where it gets fun, where you're intersecting those things, you're doing stuff that people might not expect, and that's what I think makes it different and then intrigues people and they buy more and more.

Yeah, and I, I realize we're not talking anything, uh, uh, business related, but that's okay. Um, I also like One of my favorites growing up was Stormbringer and the whole Elric—

Elric, yeah.

Yeah, with that anti-hero kind of— Yeah. Okay. So let's move on to something more concrete. So the business model you said is different than the business model of the business that you had. How hard was it for you to learn and adapt to the new business model?

On a scale of 1 to 10, maybe 6, you know, and I say that because much of the principles that are fundamentally buried in owning a business still exist, right? What's the value proposition? What am I bringing to you? Whether it's a service I was providing before or now it's a product that you're going to buy, and how do I build that product's brand and how do I build my name and find my space in a sea of, of plenty of other authors that are out there, right? So it's a little different than what I was doing before. I was such a specialist. That people would seek me out, right? And it was easier to find some work because there were only a handful of people that knew how to do what I did, right? Uh, this is different. You can run into all sorts of authors all over the place, very successful ones, ones that are just starting out, and there's a sea of it that Amazon has kind of spilled out over, you know, where before you had to get published to see a book on a shelf. Now you can publish your own stuff, right? So it's a little bit different. And for me, I had to learn the basics of the industry, which was hard for me to understand. It's a diff— it's far different than what I was doing, right? So first of all, it's fiction versus nonfiction, you know, that's the basis of it. But secondly, there are ways that you learn that in order for you to make money, you've got to— that's that initial investment that you put in, right? It's like, I've got to write a very good book that people want to buy and they're going to want to follow up. So I have to continue to write those books and they still have to be good. And then I've got to make them available. So where do I find them? Like, how do I sell them? So I have them done in audiobook format. I have them done in ebook format so that they're available ubiquitously to folks as part of that too. Because, you know, hey, what if I just like listening to books on my way to the office or on the bus or on the train, right, to work? I might miss that person or those people because I don't have an audiobook. So that was important for me too.

Did you narrate your own?

No, I deferred to specialists that do that because I wanted it to be done professionally. So even though I— that was— I looked at that as an investment in my business, right?

Yeah.

I went out and got a guy whose voice is very familiar to the fantasy sci-fi world that people would recognize, that would have some gravity to it, so that when the books did launch, people might buy it just to hear his voice. Yeah, right. And, you know, so Victor Baveen, who's my voice actor, has done a lot of stuff in the sci-fi fantasy realm, and so he's been a big help for me, you know. And that's why I sought traditional publishing, uh, because again, if you don't know the horse, you don't make the bet. And I didn't know this marketplace. And so for me to do it as an independent author, which at the heart of what I do, I'm an entrepreneur, you would think that that would be the way I choose to go. Instead, I chose to learn the game before jumping in on my own and The fact that I did that with a publishing house that understands me, understands my genre, knows what my readership is going to like. I, over the last 4 years, have been able to learn that through osmosis and sort of like the Mr. Miyagi Daniel Sun thing, like watching her do what she does, learning that on my side so that as I grow, you know, I might be able to go to a mid-market or a larger publishing house, which she's in agreement with. Like, she doesn't mind that at all, you know, because she helps authors that were like me 4 years ago, right? And that's where she focuses. So, So I learned the trade by watching her, by working with Victor, by working with other editors that understood it a little bit better. And I think that helped me understand the marketplace. And now I'm not as, as, you know, I'm not as nervous about going into it on my own and doing some other things too. But that's why I would grade it as a 6. It wasn't a 10, right? And part of that is also because this community is super supportive. Think, unlike my old job where you were my enemy, this is something I want to tell you how to help you. Like, I want to see you succeed. This is a feel-goody thing. You're going to have me on your show, I'm going to have you on my show, I'm going to see you at the convention, we're going to give a speech together, we're going to work together. It was very collaborative. And so I think that made it more inviting, and really kind of I convinced myself to go in that direction because of that. But ultimately, I think 6 out of 10 just learning because it was a brand new industry for me, something I never thought I'd step foot into, you know. And now that I'm there, I think I got it, you know. I'm not there yet, but, you know, ask me in 2 years, we fast forward it, I think we're going to get this down. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's—

published my book last year, and of course it's not fiction, so completely different, and it was a completely different purpose. Like, I, I didn't have a goal of selling 100,000 books. That was not my goal. But in talking to the— I self-published, but when I was— I hired a publisher to help me with the editorial process and the layout and all that other stuff. And it became evident very early on that writing the book was really— I don't want to say half the battle, it was maybe 30% of the battle. Like, it's the marketing of the book that makes the difference because Frankly, you can have a shit product if you market well, and this is not just books, this is anything, right? Anything. You can sell it, and you can have a great product, if you don't market it well, no one will buy it. So what are some of the unique things, or, or maybe not unique in the whole industry, but what stands out to you that has— excuse me— worked in the marketing and promotion of your book?

Uh, the first thing I would say is the covers. Of the books. Uh, what I learned at a very young age was that when I, when I was— my first, one of my first jobs in high school was working at a bookstore. I did it because I was getting free or very cheap books at the time. But the books that people, uh, bought were the books that had good covers. And my publisher and my editors and others that I worked with really underscored that for me. And they said, look, it doesn't even— what's on the COVID doesn't even need to be in the Unless you see a book on a shelf and that doesn't appeal to you, you're not going to grab it. It doesn't matter what's in it. It could be the best book ever, but if it's a boring cover, they're not going to grab it. So I got striking covers done by illustrators that understood my genre. I paid a little bit more for it, but it worked out. And some of them won awards. And the idea is, oh, you see me on the shelf, then the first— what's the first thing you do? You grab it, you look at the COVID you're like, oh, that's really cool. And then you flip it over and you read the blurb on the back, right? And that 250 words has got to grab you. Yes. Got to reach out to grab you because if it doesn't, you know, and I'm horrible at that. I write 150,000-word novels, right? Asking me to write a 250-word blurb, I freeze up. I stink at it. So I got someone to help me write my blurb, you know, so that it was popping and people would say, oh, I like it. And you find out that there are like word clouds out there that are connected to your genre that you want to use those words. So for me, it was words like adventure, harrowing, chaos, you know, things like that where you would put them in the blurb, make sure that they popped, because if you read that, you'd be like, okay. And so now once you got past the COVID and then you read the blurb, you might open it up and start to read it. And if you like that first chapter and it punches you in the face, you're going to continue reading it. So those are the 3 steps I learned right away, and that's how I started to market it. Secondly, when you're a novice author, you need to find ways to get yourself out in the community so people notice you. And so I use social media. Because social media was free, save for the time cost of money that you put into it, which is your time. But the, the more that you were on it, you would improve your search engine optimization, you would make friends on there, you would swap books, they would, you would, they would follow you, you would follow them, people would give you reviews on there. You would— I found beta readers on there, and it was being active in those communities that drove additional sales and eyes to my site. The third thing was having a newsletter, not a website. The only purpose of my website is to get your email. Like, if you buy a book on my website, great. Outside of that, I don't care. I want your email because you visited my site. And if you bought it on Amazon, I don't know how to get a hold of you, right? So, you know, I know if you came to my site and you leave me your email, I can grab that. And then the next book and the next book, I can— next week I can throw at you.

So do you have the flexibility to offer an incentive on your website with your publisher to capture that email, like a discounted price?

Well, no. I mean, I could do that if I wanted to, but ultimately, you know, I ask them if they want to sign up for a newsletter, or if you want to say, hey, if you sign up for my newsletter, you get book 1 at 50% of the cost or 25% of the cost or whatever it is to get them in the door. Sure. And there are services out there for that, like BookBub and Book Barbarian and others, where you're giving away your book either at zero cost or like 99 cents for a a time, getting people to download it in the hopes that they read it, and then the next one they buy, right? So it's like, for me, I can't sell you book 4 if you haven't read book 1. And so, so if I give you book 1 and that allows me to then sell you 2, 3, and 4 because you read it and you're now addicted to it, then that helps for me. And once you get beyond that first book up and running, people see that you're a legitimate author. They're, they're sometimes afraid that if they buy book 1 that you're not going to finish book 2s and book 3s. And that happens a lot in my game. So, you know, for me, I, I wanted to make sure that I got additional product out, and that's what that's there for.

How quickly did you publish the second book?

Uh, it almost took— the first book took me about a year to get it published. The second one was 6 months. The third one was 4 or 5 months. And the last one took a little longer because I didn't expect to write that. I was already— it was supposed to be a trilogy that became a quadrilogy. But it worked out fine. And I know that in this day and age of millennials and Gen Zs and Gen Alphas not having a— they're used to binging things, right? Yes. They're used to having things on demand. The idea of rapid releasing books is really a big part of what we do these days. But when you're writing epic fantasy, it just takes that long. Even if I wrote a book in 3 months, I still have to get it edited. —right, and that's going to take another 3 months. So for me, 6 months is a good cycle, even though I may lose some of those that don't have the attention span to wait for that, you know. And it just happens sometimes, but it's just the nature of the kind of books I put out. I know a lot of authors that write, you know, 25,000, 30,000-word novels, and that's great, but it's just not the genre that I'm in. Like, when you buy my book, you expect it to be, you know, 500 pages thick.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. What advice would you give someone that was looking at turning in their passion into a business, whether that's writing or— I mean, it really doesn't matter what it is. What advice would you give somebody if they came to you and said, hey, I'm working this gig, but I really don't want to, my passion is X?

What would you tell them? Yeah, so I would answer that in a couple of ways. I mean, first of all, sometimes your passions aren't great businesses. True, right? You know, so you, you might love to do a certain thing that's either super difficult to get into or very expensive to get into, or it doesn't work as a business very well. And so it's okay to maintain that as a hobby. And it can be, you know, you could be hypersensitive to it and just be looking for that stuff all the time. I see people— my brother owns a sports collectible store, and that's the way it is. Sometimes he buys stuff he never will sell, and I'm like, it's a piece, it's a piece of cardboard with a picture on it. Sell it. That's, that's the money. That's your currency. And but he's a collector, right? And some— so sometimes those folks fall into a business that may not be the best for them. Uh, so I would suggest that if if you are going to start a business, make sure it's something, one, you're passionate about, you don't mind doing, like you would do it for free, you know, because you enjoy doing it. But you also know it well enough to get involved in it. Like, I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that they're domain experts or subject matter experts in something, and then they find out they're really not. This is really kind of a hobby. And then when they get into it, there are all sorts of barriers to entry and/or things that they didn't anticipate. And as a result they, they have an issue, you know, with, um, continuing the business. And I would— the last thing I would leave them with is like Cortés burning the boats, right? Like, if you're gonna do it, you gotta do it. There is no going back. If you have one foot in the old job and that's a safety valve for you, and you might be able to go back to that if this doesn't work out, your business isn't going to work. Like, you literally have to be all in. This is the only thing that's going to survive. You have to focus on it 110% of the time because that's what it takes to be successful in business. I'm sorry, like, maybe there's a few people out there that are lucky and can do something and it grows on its own, or, you know, they, they just hit the lottery the one day. I have a lot of friends during the tech bubble that that happened to. They just happened to be at a company, sure, hit it big, and then they tried replicating that second and third time and it didn't work, and they can't figure out what it is. And meanwhile, it's, it's that subject matter expertise that they don't, they don't know, and, and/or the time commitment they were going to put into it. So for me make sure you love it, make sure you would do it for free. If it doesn't work out, it's something that you'd still fall back on and make it a hobby, or make it, you know, maybe a hobby business kind of thing. But also commit to it, be present in it at every moment, anywhere, trying to find a sale, trying to move it forward, trying to market it better, always trying to improve it. It's got to be something that's a 24/7 thing in order for it to be successful, or in most cases it won't be. It's the hardest thing in the world. What's, what's the stat on it? 9 out of 10 businesses fail, and 19 or 18 out of 20 or 19 out of 20 fail in the first 2 years. You know, so realize the odds going in are not good, uh, and you, you've got to be able to put everything you got into it.

Yeah, I had the author Todd Henry. He, he's written several books, um, all nonfiction, but his most popular is The Accidental Creative. And he talks about the Greek word for suffering. I don't— I think it's kairos, or not kairos, pika-ros. Anyway, but, uh, passion. The Greek word for passion actually means to suffer. And he was like, if you're not not willing to suffer for your, your, what you want, you may not have to suffer, but more likely you will. And if you're not willing to do that, then it's not really a passion. And I think, you know, a lot of people do, they, they think, well, I, I know how to cook, therefore I can open a restaurant. No, that, that's not how that works. And I like what you said about like understanding the industry, understanding the business model, how how do people make money in this business? Every industry has got its quirks and you've got to understand it. And if you don't understand it, come alongside someone that can teach you so that you can figure out how to do it. But then also that idea of burning the ships, because it's too easy when you do have that ripcord that you can pull to pull it, like, because you're going to panic. You're going to get into that point where like, shit, this isn't working, what am I going to do now? And if you have that safety valve to say, well, I'll just go back and do X, you will, because that's what your brain is going to tell you to do, right?

It's the safe way out. And I'm not saying that that doesn't work. Sometimes you might have to do that to make some side money, uh, to make it come over the top. But there is going to be something that will challenge you, and you've got to say, you know what, I'm doubling down. I'm going to take that loan against my house, or I'm going to You know, I'm gonna go and do DoorDash on the weekends to make those extra money to put the, the, the dollars into the business. You have to do something. And that happens more than once most of the time. And it sounds simple, like, oh, we're writing. Like, think about this, before you wrote your book, did you, did you know everything that was going to go into that? You're going to write a book, right? No. Then you found a publisher, or in this case you wrote it independently, but you found a publication services company and they found you an editor. Then you had to design a cover, then you had to write a blurb, then you had market it. Then you had to find out how to format it to get it online correctly. And then you had to do— and then, and then, and then, right? And that's the kind of thing that happens where you don't think about it. People think that I get up every day, go to a coffee shop and write. That's not my life, you know. My life is fishing around for the right social media, the right groups on Facebook to sell my book in, or reaching out to the right people to help me collaborate and do stuff, and paying money to travel to a convention to sell books to break even just so I can get in front of 60,000 people at a Comic-Con or a GalaxyCon. Not. Like, there's risk. It's a business, and a lot of people don't see it that way. They see it as, oh, that's so nice, you're an author, how did you— how does that work? Well, it's like any other business. You dig down deep.

My wife was watching, and then she stopped watching, as frequently happens. She'll start watching something and I'm not watching it, and then she gets bored with it, but I'm engaged. And she was watching this, uh, History Channel on Walt Disney, and it was fascinating because there's a lot of his story I didn't know But just the challenge after challenge after challenge, but how much he consistently, he just doubled down and went all in. Like, I would hate to play poker against the guy because he goes out there initially to California and he's got $40 to his name and he buys himself a first-class ticket. He's that sure of what he's doing, right? Uh, 3-day train ride. And then when he trying to get the funding for Snow White, He put all of his money, sold his car, mortgaged his house. Like, again, I mean, time after time again, he was just all in. Like, this is either going to work or I'm out. Like, it was a fascinating story to listen to that journey because I was introduced to Walt Disney, you know, on Sunday nights with— I don't remember what the show was, the Walt Disney show that was on Sunday nights. And you see this guy in his 60s and you're like, like, oh, he's got it made, he's worth at that time tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars, and, and like, oh, that was easy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're just seeing the end product. You're not, you're not, you're not watching how the sausage was made, right?

You're seeing the end of the journey, which everybody wants, but not how it got there, right? Yeah, 100%. And, and that's true for any— I think any good entrepreneur has that story. I heard Mark Cuban say how he used to make basically ketchup and mustard sandwiches, right? It's the same thing, you know. You just believe in something so much, you're all in on it. You just have to have the intestinal fortitude, not only double down but make sure it's not going to fail, right? And there are stumbles. Like, I— there are plenty of those stories. You watch all those entrepreneurial things. I think one of my favorite documentary series was— it has to be about a decade old now— was the, the, the Men Who Built America. Oh yeah. And you watch what Rockefeller did and Carnegie did and how they, and how they got there. And none of them were born that way. They were just— they made themselves that way. And so not to say that you're, you know, that you and I are going to be the next Rockefeller or Disney. That's not what I'm getting at. I'm not. But to be successful in your business, whether it's the book that you have on the wall behind you or the, or the books that I'm writing, you know, you've got to be all in. You've got to say, you know what, I know I'm going to give away this weekend. But I've got to go to the city to sell books and people got to— they have to know me. It's like a band, right? You know, you don't start by opening up at Madison Square Garden. You earn that, right? You work your butt off. You do the Tuesday nights at the local watering hole hoping that someone notices you or that they like you enough they're going to buy your stuff. In this day and age, though, I mean, my books could be sold. I mean, literally, I put out all the sweat and tears that went into that book and it's $4.99. And sometimes Amazon discounts it to $2.99, right? And you're like, what is that? Like, that piece of art, that 500 words, that year I put into it, someone's buying for $2.99? Yeah, and you're getting a buck. Yeah, right, that's exactly right, right? So you got to sell a lot of books.

Oh yeah, a lot of books. Yeah, it's not only believing in yourself but the fortitude of being able to— because Roy's business partner was his brother, and his brother tried to talk him out of stuff all the time. And, and You know, as an entrepreneur, you're going to have loved ones, friends, family that are going to label you crazy and say, I don't understand. And they don't. And that's okay. But, you know, you've got to be able to lovingly say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. Yeah. Even when you don't.

100% true. Or like friends are like, I don't get it. And then they wish they invested. Sure. Like, I'll never forget this. So when I told my mom I was leaving my job on the Hill to start my own company, she was like, well, why don't you—

oh, Joe, why are you going to do that?

Well, why are you— why don't you just go into computers? Was her answer. She didn't know what it was. She just wanted me to go into computers. You should code. And I was like, but I can do this, you know what I mean? And, you know, it took 4 or 5 months for me to get my first couple of clients and the people to trust a 28-year-old kid that was doing this stuff where I had people saying that these guys are a flash in the pan, or these guys are too young to be doing what they're doing. My business partner was 25 and I was 28 when we started, and it was like, who are you guys? Like, that's the one guy, that was his quote in the paper. Who are these guys? These guys are a flash in the pan. Who do these guys think they are? And you're like, and that just fuels it, right? That's just like billboard or built, you know, like in, in the locker room material, you know, and you're just like, oh, you just love But you're right. I mean, people, they don't get it, and sometimes they just never will. You know, some people, it's great. Just get up, do your 9 to 5, go home. I could never do it. It would kill me.

Most people are. And I think, you know, people like us are wired differently and they can't understand. And that's okay. I mean, it's, it's, it's not up to us to convince them. Well, Joe, how do people buy your books, find out more about where you're going to be next?

Yeah, you could find me pretty much anywhere if you do a search for J.V. Hilliard for my books. So if you're an audiobook listener or you prefer ebooks for your Kindle or you want a hardback, you could find my stuff just by Googling the name J.V. Hilliard. I would prefer that you buy it from dragonmoonpress.com where I get the most bang for my buck on my royalty stuff. You could buy it there. But if you are an Amazon shopper or you use Audible or you're at a Barnes Noble, you'll be able to find my stuff there. As well. And/or if you come to my website, uh, jvhilliard.com— I know that's surprising, it's a great one. Yeah, if you go there, you'll be able to buy the books there, and/or you can, you know, leave your name and I'll get back to you. We— I, I am not the author that sends out an email on my newsletter every week. You're not going to find me in your spam. I send it out when I've got something to talk about. And so if you like that, I'm gonna— trust me, you'll get maybe 2 or 3 emails from me a year, just talk about the new thing that's coming and that's it. But, you know, the website will also direct you there, and it also has a button on there for you to find me at speaking engagements. So if you want to find out what Comic-Con or GalaxyCon or DragonCon I'm going to be at next, you can find me there. And/or you can ask me to come and speak at your event too. So if you have a local Viking-a-thon somewhere, or, uh, you, you have, uh, you know, some nerdy Scottish Highland Games, I don't know, yeah, that wants to do that, I'll come out and sell. Just let me know. And If I can make it, I'm going to make it. So yeah, you could find me there. And I'm really easy, joe@jvhilliard.com is my email address. And I try to get back to everybody within 24 hours. I love it.

Thank you very much for being on the show and sharing your experience.

It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

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And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon.

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