48: Stacy Juba: Published Author to Freelance Editor and Online Course Creator

Welcome to the Course Creators MBA Podcast. I'm your host, Destiny Kopp and in this podcast we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. But before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my Course in a Box program which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week. Course in a Box is on the AppSumo Marketplace at a special deal and the link for Course in A box on AppSumo is in our show Notes. And today we're in the middle of our Course Creator series where I'm chatting with ordinary course creators just like you. We're going to talk about their journey in their online course business, how they got started, the challenges they've experienced, and how they overcame them. These are real discussions with real people. And let's get started. And today I have Stacy Juba with me. And Stacy published her first novel at age 18 and over the years has written sweet and sassy chick novels. I'd love to read one of those mysteries about determined women's sleuths and entertaining books for young adults and children. She's also a freelance developmental editor, creator of online courses for writers, and an award winning journalist who has published more than 3,000 articles in newspapers and magazines. She is founder of Shortcuts for Writers and her goal is to take the writing and editing tips she learned in the trenches and simplified them for her clients and students. Her signature course, Book Editing Blueprint, a step by step plan to making your novels publishable, empowers fiction writers to think like an editor so that they can save time and money. And Stacy, thanks so much for joining me. I'm super excited for our discussion here.

Oh, thank you for having me. Thank you for the nice introduction.

As you know, I'm in the middle of writing. My book is almost done. So this conversation is extremely interesting to me and I'm excited to jump into this with you. But before I begin, and I have a ton of questions for you before I begin, can you tell me a little bit more about you, how you got started? What were things like at the beginning of your journey?

Well, I've been writing books, you know, as you said, for a long time. Had my first book published when I was 18 that did well, but then there were several years of rejection, so a lot of ups and downs. And while I was writing on the side, I also worked for a newspaper, got into journalism and then I had my kids and started working from home and did some freelance writing for a parenting magazine and then branched out into editing newsletters. And I did did a lot of health writing, writing health articles. And then by that time I had published several more books, A combination with traditional publishers, small presses and indie published. And I built up a lot of experience. So I started doing developmental editing, working with fiction and nonfiction writers in various genres. And then eventually I branched out and launched my business Shortcuts for Writers and started working on online courses as well. So it's been quite a journey.

Yeah, I would say. So what is developmental editing? I'm not familiar with that term.

Well, there's different types of editors. There's developmental editors, line editors, copy editors, and proofreaders. So I do developmental and line editing. So developmental editing is just giving like a broad overview of the whole book. So for fiction it would be looking at the characters, the character development, the plot, the pacing, the dialogue, the technique, the word choice. For nonfiction, again, it would be like the structure, how it's presented, how well does it flow. And then for both fiction and nonfiction, I also can do some line editing. And that's something I can do with writers where the manuscript is more further along. If a manuscript needs a lot of big structural changes, lots of big rewrites, then the writer wants to focus on those first. Because if you start working on the line editing, all those little changes could become obsolete if you're doing major rewrites. So for authors, if we've gone through a few drafts or if it's a more advanced author, then I can work on line editing with them. And that's tightening sentences, make them flow better, pumping up their word choice. So that's sort of like the creative, I'm kind of more on the creative side. And then copy editors would focus more on the like grammar, the punctuation, the continuity details, and just the smaller aspects. Like for a non fiction book, the copywriters would kind of, some of them might verify their facts or you know, look for vague or like ambiguous sentences and that kind of thing. So they're kind of looking for more of the smaller things while I'm looking at more the broader aspects of the book.

I had no idea there were so many different types of editors. So you published your first book at 18, then you started working from home. You had, you know, children and you were doing some freelance work. You were also publishing additional books. I know you said you had some, some years of rejection, but you sounds like you kept at it and wanted to stay on that track when so you were working as freelancer. And then at some point, and tell me a little Bit about when did you transition into.

Moving?

Maybe moving from a freelancer working for firms to helping other people with their. With writing their books. Tell me a little bit about that process. And that happened.

Well, I had. I'd had. I had like a few regular clients for my freelance newsletters that I was doing. One of them I had for about. Probably about 10 years because I actually had worked for them full time before I had my daughter. And then I worked for them on a freelance basis and then they started doing that newsletter in house. So I was looking for a way to kind of fill that gap in my income. And I started. Started seeing a lot of freelancers around this time. Like, the self publishing was really taking off like Kindle and Nook, and there were lots of opportunities opening for authors that weren't there. Like when I was starting out in the early 1990s, self publishing was like, you know, you'd have to invest a lot of money up front and buy hundreds of copies of your book and, you know, sell them from the trunk of your car. Whereas now it's. It's print on demand for the print versions is the ebook version. So I've seen a lot of freelancers springing up in different aspects of publishing, like different. Different kinds of editors, formatters, cover designers. So I decided to kind of venture into. Into editing. And that went really well. And I started building my client list and getting testimonials. But then I was. One thing I was noticing was that first of all, editing, it's expensive. I mean, I think my rates are reasonable. But still, most authors need multiple rounds of editing. I think a common misconception is that for a beginner writer is that they'll hire an editor and often they'll start with the wrong kind of editor. Often they'll go straight, like to a copy editor, thinking that all they need is grammar and punctuation to be fixed in. And they don't realize all the structural issues that the manuscript has. And you know, sometimes they don't really. That doesn't really register with them until they publish it and they start getting negative reviews on Amazon. Or they go with a small press that might not prioritize editing and they get negative reviews. Or they start sending it out to agents and publishers and it keeps getting rejected. So a lot of authors underestimate that and don't realize how expensive the editing process is. And they often, when they do hire a freelance editor, oftentimes they'll hire the wrong kind or they'll hire one just way too early. When when what they have is essentially a rough draft. And I'd say for most of the beginner writers I've worked with, most of them will have needed at least four rounds of developmental editing. I've had some that were starting for score one and would have needed like, ideally like seven or eight round, because it was just almost like I was privately teaching them the craft of writing. And, you know, obviously if a round of editing is hundreds of dollars, most writers can't afford that. And then eventually they would need to go on to do some copy editing and proofreading, so it can be expensive. So I realized that a lot of editors, a lot of authors needed a stepping stone to working with an editor. And that's when I started thinking about becoming an online course creator so that I could create a course that would kind of be like their prerequisite to hiring an editor. You know, that they once have gone through that, they'll have a. They'll be able to do a lot of self editing on their own so that they can bring their manuscript up to a higher level before they actually start putting money into the editing process.

So let me ask you this. You mentioned that a lot of this started right when the self publishing was taken off and you were seeing a demand in the marketplace. What year was that? I don't even remember when that started.

I think it was about 2012, around that time.

Okay, so around that time you started seeing this demand in the marketplace, you started doing some freelance and just working with clients. Right, you're working with clients by this point, helping them with their editing. When, at what point did you decide or did you determine based on what you were seeing and working with those clients that you, you know, that an online course would be beneficial for them and that there was a need in the marketplace for that?

I think it was sort of. I realized it would be mutually beneficial. When my kids were younger, there was a limit to how many editing clients I would take on. You know, I might do like one or two a month. But then as my kids were in school for the full day, I started taking on more clients. And first of all, like, for myself, I realized that there's only. There's only so much editing I could do in a week without feeling burned out, because I put a lot of creativity and energy. You know, it's really time consuming and I want to give my best to each book. And I was doing like maybe two edits per week. So I was finding that, that that was just too much. And also when I was looking Sort of at my end of the year, profits, so much was taken out in taxes. And then there was the expenses of like maintaining my website and my email lists, ConvertKit, things like that. I really wasn't making as much money as I should have been for the amount of work I was putting into it. And then meanwhile, because I was working with such a. So many clients in so many different genres, I was seeing that they were all making the same kinds of mistakes. And I actually had a word file where I would paste just information, general information that I was pretty much putting in each editorial letter, like the commonly overused words. I was seeing authors who were telling rather than showing just all kinds of things. And it's just regardless of what genre it was, you know, whether it's a mystery or a romance or a time travel book or a nonfiction book, I was just seeing very similar mistakes. And that's when I realized that this could be mutually beneficial product if I put out so that I could kind of scale my business and work with more clients without burning myself out and give them something that they really needed because they were spending so much money on what was essentially a rough draft and then finding out that this draft really would need multiple rounds of editing. Typically you would just go back and forth with the editor a few times and you know, depending on your level, and get feedback and, you know, the author would make the rewrites based on what the editor's suggestions were and then send it back and then eventually reach a point where the developmental editor, or in my case I can do developmental and line editing where I would say, okay, I think, you know, you're ready to go to the next step. And if there's someone who has trouble with grammar and punctuation, then the next step will be for them to hire a copy editor and proofreader, you know, and so it's a big investment for them. So I just felt like it would be a win, win situation.

So what was that time. Time frame you started? You kind of, your. This part of your business kind of started flourishing as, you know, after 2012 when self publishing took off. How many years was it before you said, you know, oh, this, this is, you know, would make a great course. I really see a demand for that and this would really help people.

It was in the back of my mind for years, but it didn't really. I didn't really start actively pursuing it till around 2017. Yet again, my. My younger daughter was my younger daughter actually. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in kindergarten. And she's 13 now. But like, it was so basically when I, you know, there was a year where I just didn't do much. And then after that is when I started branching out into editing and finishing a book I had written. So I just was kind of starting up slow. And then as I got more comfortable with her diabetes and, you know, it got her on insulin pump and all the technology and she started, you know, doing well with it, and then she was in school for the full day and everything, then I was able to gradually start, I guess, get more ambitious with my. With my business. So I started doing a lot of. I spent a couple of years probably just testing the waters, taking a lot of free webinars on online course creation, learning about funnels, and just learning about the different, you know, teachable versus, like, thinkific and, you know, all the different platforms. So I spent a lot of time just in that research phase. And then around 2018, I bought Divi software because I knew that I needed to. I needed like another website. Basically. I had my staceyjuba.com website for my books and I had like an editing tab in the navigation bar. But if I started branching out into online courses and everything, it just. The website would just kind of be too all over the place, you know, with fiction books and online courses and editing. So I realized I needed to move my editing and the online courses over to another site. And I didn't want to hire a designer for it because I was. By this time I was pretty comfortable with WordPress. But I had never really built a site from scratch before. So I bought the Divi software because it was a drag and drop software and I designed the website. So I spent a lot of time just learning how to do that and researching, like other online course creators and, you know, listening to your podcast, all kinds of things, just learning about lead magnets and like writing website copy, you know, and because it was kind of a totally different approach than my website that's aimed at readers where I'm just trying to hook them on a story or a genre that they're interested in. This is like, I've, you know, it's a totally different marketing slant. So there was just a lot to learn. So I kind of took my time before jumping into it. And then it took me a while to actually create the course. Probably took me at least a year. And it was just a lot of learning about the technology. Like, I knew nothing about video and nothing about audio, so I was watching YouTube videos, trying to figure out the best kind of microphone to get and webcam. So it was just so much to learn that it was just kind of taking it one step at a time so that I didn't make any, you know, I felt confident that I was making the best decisions.

Well, what I like about what you just said there is you educated yourself on all the different aspects from what I'm. From what I'm here, the online course creation, but also more importantly, all the marketing aspects, the sales funnels, the lead magnets, and everything else that is required to set up an online course business that you may have not had to focus on in the past.

Right, right. So in the past, my newsletter was basically just, you know, I'd have a lead magnet, but it would be like a deleted scene from my book or a sample chapter. This. I had to come up with something totally different and start a Facebook group. And you know, because I wanted to build my audience before, before I had something to sell, I wanted to kind of have an audience in place and where I started building a relationship with them. So, you know, I didn't intend for it to take me so long to get started, but as I learned more and more, there was just so many aspects. So I, you know, I just kind of did the best I could, breaking it down, working on one step at a time.

Well, and I think we have to give ourselves grace. Right. Things come up in family life. It came up for you. It's come up for me in the past. I mean, you know, life happens and you know, you got to take it at a pace that you feel comfortable with. So you got really serious about creating your online course in 2018. You did, you know, took some time to educate yourself. Tell me when, what, when did you actually launch it? When was it ready to sell?

I launched my Facebook group in like spring of 2019 and then I launched the course in March of 2020 actually right as a pand was starting. So it wasn't the. Literally, I was in the middle of my sales funnel, my sequence when everybody started going into lockdown. So it wasn't the ideal time to launch a course, but it still did. I think it still did well, but it was exciting and it was like a learning curve just going through my first launch.

How did you launch it? Tell us a little bit more about those details.

Well, I first, I really worked beforehand on like the pre launch. So I developed a lead magnet, a free five day line editing class. And I really focused on publicizing that class and getting people on my email list and then my Facebook group. I. I really focus a lot on like friending other writers on Facebook and then sending them invitations to my group and just talking about my free class on different like writers groups where they allow like promotion on certain days and just really focus on having an audience to launch to. And then I had, I had some blog posts that I wrote that was sort of like in the pre launch phase, you know, getting people interested, just kind of talking about different aspects of editing and sharing my own story about, you know, how I'd been overwhelmed by editing in the past. I created like a trailer for the, for the class and put it on YouTube and then I made some videos. I could take a tour, like giving a tour and then like a sample lesson. And at the time I was, I was, I wasn't ready to jump into Facebook Live. You know, that was something I started getting into. Probably the end of last year I started thinking, okay, you got to start going live. But I did start making videos and making YouTube videos. So I just kind of started with pre recorded videos and then eventually I, you know, built up my courage and started doing more live videos in my group. So I started posting the videos in my YouTube channel, uploading them to my group. And then I had like a, it was a couple week sequence where I had had all these templates I'd collected over the past couple years of just different, different emails that worked well for a launch. Like, you know, really hitting the pain points and making them, making them, you know, understand why they needed the class. And in a lot of cases, I mean most. So many writers that are beginners didn't realize what the editing process was like. So I had a few emails that kind of just explained about the going back and forth and, you know, how, what the costs are. I had some slides showing like at the Editorial Freelancers association showing the different costs of editors, the different kinds of editors. Like the average cost, like I think for a developmental editor was something like $45 to $50 an hour. And that could only be like five pages in that hour. So I think just showing that those kind of numbers help people to really people who hadn't started working with an editor yet made them realize that, oh, maybe I shouldn't jump into this, you know, because so many people just hit type the end and then a week later they're hiring an editor. So it's just a lot of education in my blog posts and videos and email sequences. And then I had a limited time, I had a sale and I had some bonuses. I contacted a lot of other service providers like cover designers and website designers. And they all came up with different bonuses, like cheat sheets for working with a cover designer or thinking of a cover concept or what should go into your author website. So I had a whole bunch of bonuses that I put like on a private password protected page. So if you bought during that, you know, during that, those two weeks, you get access to that. So and then I just had like the reminder emails toward the end because I'd heard and I found that it was true that a lot of people tend to buy either right at the beginning or at the end, you know, in the last couple days. And I thought that was definitely true. So I had a couple reminder emails, you know, on that last day and posted a lot of reminders on social media that time is running out. So I found that having a deadline was really an important part of it because, you know, when, when they saw that deadline, that's when a lot of the sales happened.

And I think that's an important point. I mean, you have to have, for launches like that, you need to have a cart open and a cart close date to kind of force that, force that decision. So I like, I like everything you said there. And I think it's important for us to emphasize something that you did which was building an audience before you launched so you actually had somebody to sell to. I like what you did with your Facebook group and all the networking that you did. So you just made sure that, you know, and you went out to the right places, right? You went out to these writer groups and these other groups and, you know, promoted your lead magnet. I think you had a really great lead magnet. So it's a writing course. Was it a course that's on like teachable or thinkific? Or was it like an email course that you were providing people?

It was an email course. I remember that I had, I attended like a webinar on free email courses. So basically when I knew that I wanted to launch some kind of court, you know, course, I started like a Trello board where I just pasted like all kinds of information. So when I did, when I was ready to start working on it and start working on like the marketing of it, I had all these templates in Trello and I had one for like launching like a, like a five day email course that would eventually, you know, you could transition them into your sales funnel for a paid course. So it's a five day course where they get emails delivered to their inbox every day and there's actually a couple introductory emails before the Actual lessons start, and then there's like a bonus where they get like, a cheat sheet at the end of everything they learned. And then I incorporated that into my Facebook group. Like, I use the units a lot in my Facebook group. So I have a unit where the people who are going through the line editing class can go into that unit and then post their homework. Like, revise sentences, like a before and after sentence. You know, they could post it and then they could read what other people have posted just to kind of help reinforce it. So I was getting a lot of great feedback on it on the class people. To me, it was just like, such easy concepts. But for a lot of beginner writers, they hadn't. They didn't realize that they were using, like, the word look. How many times, like, one of the things in the class was, look, check and see how many times you're using the word look and how many times you're using the word eyes. Like, if you write fiction. And a lot of people just couldn't believe how many times they were using it. So just so they felt like they were making, like, right there, that one small thing had a big impact on them because it was something they could just easily go and fix now that they had their attention, their attention drawn to it. So that's what I tried to focus on with the course was like, I just pulled some things out that I was teaching in the line editing module of the full book editing blueprint course and just highlighted them so that hopefully they would see a few things in their own manuscript that they could start working on fixing right away. You know, words to cut out, words to improve. And I found that they really liked that because it was, like, actionable and it wasn't overwhelming, which is little things that could that made them feel that their writing was improving. And then I also had, like, a free book blurb toolkit which was sort of directed people to my Facebook group. Like, if. When I was promoting my Facebook group, I would just say, like, if you become a member of the Facebook group, you can go to the unit section and then there's a free book blurb toolkit which kind of guided them through writing their back cover copy or the product description you would see on Amazon. It just had like a sort of like a outline to follow. And I kind of take them through a little hunt on Amazon where they find other books in their genre so that they can really hone in on the different approaches that other successful authors in that genre take. And then I can guide them to how they can apply that to their own book blur. Regardless of whether they're in, whether they finish the book or whether they're in the middle of it, whether they're just thinking about writing a book, a lot of them realize that a misconception was that you have to wait till the book's done before you write the book blurb. But I think by going through that unit, they realized that just thinking about all of that really helped them to sharpen their idea, because a lot of times as an editor, I'll see a blurb that doesn't match what's in the book, you know, and it just really helped them to tie it together. So I think just having those free resources that were simple things that they could start doing immediately to notice improvements sort of helped to kind of warm them up to purchasing the full class, because they had already seen some progress.

So you mentioned that you launched. Your first launch for your online course was in March of 2020. And I think we all remember what happened in March of 2020. I know I'll never forget because I was right in the middle of my. The virtual summit that I was doing, and everything just, you know, the whole world closed down. Are you. Do you feel comfortable talking about your launch numbers and the price point of your course and tell us a little bit more, you know, in the students that you had join in your first launch?

Yeah, I had. I was going to sell the course. The regular price would be like 1 97, and then the launch price was 129. Plus they would get the access to the limited time bonuses. So I did have a lot of people join. I think I made close to, like, close to $5,000 on that launch, which it wasn't as much as I hoped. I was hoping for more. But again, it's not like it's a $1,000 course that I'm selling, you know, So I think for the amount of people that I had on my email list, I probably had about three or four hundred writers on my email list at that time. And then my Facebook group Now has about 1500 members. Were probably around that time, it was probably closer to like, 600, 700 members. So I think for the audience that I had, I think it was, you know, a successful launch, especially when it was, like, during a pandemic, because it was. It felt awkward, you know, promoting something when we all were in such a state of uncertainty. But I was. I couldn't postpone it because I was already in the middle of it. So I did wind up. I wound up, like, extending the. The price, like, maybe for a couple of weeks after that. You know, I just sent an. I think that. Yeah, that's what I did was the last couple of. Only because it was just the start of this pandemic, and people were, you know, a lot of people were kind of already out of work or home for a while. I extended the closed cart date for that price by a couple weeks. And some people were appreciative of that because they had just been so distracted by all the pandemic news and everything. They weren't focusing too much on Facebook or their emails, and as they were home, they were realizing that they wanted something to do to fill in that time. So I did wind up extending the closed cart date, just not give them more time to kind of assimilate everything with all that was going on.

So tell me a little bit more. So you launched in March of 2020. Did you launch again last year, or what was your plan? Or what did you do for the rest of the year with your online course?

I had a. Like, a Black Friday sale where I. I think it was. Yeah, it was like, November and December where I had, like. I marked it to, like, 119, and it was like, buy one, give it to a friend so that two people can enroll in it together. I was just trying something I had seen in that price point was really attractive for people, and I had a lot of people join. But I noticed that a lot of people didn't bring a friend. So I thought that was interesting that, you know, that they could either, like, just give it to a friend as, like, gift, or they could split the cost, you know, and, you know, one of them could just pay for it, and then they could kind of settle up amongst themselves. So I thought that was interesting because I had seen someone else doing that, and I thought, oh, that's a great idea. I want to try it. So I don't think I would do that again because I, you know, I don't think, like, the buy one, get one really was what was what enticed them to purchase it. But, you know, having the sale, the discount, and the deadline did help with that. And then I also launched another class around that time. It was early December, called the Energize youe Writing Toolkit. Cheat sheets for character motions. And that was something I'd been working on for a while, but it kind of got cabled because it was just so much work going into, you know, all the marketing of the book editing blueprint. But that's Like a hundred page PDF that I created that focuses on nonverbal communication and body language. Like, because I just. A lot of writers tend to use the same body language or nonverbal communication phrases like she walked across the room or he smiled or she glared at him. So I kind of broke it down into different emotions and came up with fresh ways that they could say this and you know, just to kind of enliven the emotion in their manuscript. And then I created a couple videos and some little assignment. So it's sort of a combination ebook and mini course. So I launched that in December and like I had it on sale and, you know, that did really well also. Yeah. So Nano, is that answer your question?

Yeah, so that's. That's perfect. So what do you see as next steps in 2021? What do you have on your roadmap? What do you plan on doing with your courses or the other side of your business that you're. You're still offering with the services?

So I'm still editing, you know, now it's probably one or two manuscripts a month right now. And I might increase that down the line once I've. My priority now is focusing on adding more courses. I did launch an affiliate program last summer, so my courses are hosted on thinkific. And I upgraded, I was on the free plan and I upgraded to the next level so that I could have an affiliate program. So started seeing, probably. And I didn't start seeing much action on that until. Until like November, December, when I was having those sales and then launching that new class and I was seeing the affiliates sales coming in. So yeah, I have like a little email list of my affiliates and tell.

Us a little bit more about that. Where did you find them?

Some people who have gone through the course, like, I offered them the opportunity to be affiliates and I have it right on my website. You can be, you know, if you're interested in the affiliate program. Some like, I'm on some different Facebook groups, like a mom, mompreneur kind of Facebook groups where they have different, like collaboration threads where I would post if, you know, you know, have an affiliate program if anybody works with writers. And you know, I had some people approach me who, who did other aspects of author services who were interested in being affiliates. And then I appeared like a lot of podcasts and YouTube shows last year and a lot of those hosts were like creativity coaches or writers themselves or had, you know, writing coaches. And a lot of them became affiliates. So. And I have like a whole list of contacts. I do want to approach. You know, again, I have a trello boarded just people I want to network with. Or you just kind of start out, like following them on Instagram or Facebook and just getting to know more about them. And then sometimes I'll send out like a, you know, email just telling them about my program and seeing if they're interested in being an affiliate. I haven't done too many of those cold emails yet because I've had so many other things to focus on. But that is one of my priorities this year. It's just start building my, you know, my partnerships and my affiliates. I think it's, you know, it's a win, win situation. I offer like a 50%, you know, commission. So that's definitely a goal.

Huge bonus and incentive for them. I'm a huge fan of using affiliates to sell your online course.

Yeah, I think there's definitely a lot more I can explore with that. There's just. There's just so many different avenues, like small, small presses, author groups, other service providers, or, you know, proofreaders, copy editors, people who don't do the kind of editing that I do. And, you know, so I think this is just a mutually beneficial relationship that I definitely want to make more connections and then I want to keep building my Facebook group. Working on deadline funnel. Right now I'm in the process of testing out, having a deadline with that so that. So that I'll be constantly, like, every day I'll be, you know, in theory, every day. I've been launching book editing blueprint to a new group of people who've gone through my line editing class. So I'm working on that. I'm really excited seeing where that goes. And then I have a trip wire, my energize your writing toolkit. It's also, I have it set up as a tripwire on my site so that if once they sign up for my line editing class, they'll get like a timer where they can get the toolkit at a discount for like 20 minutes. So that. That's something I just set up like last month. So I'm still kind of testing it out to see how that works, but I'm just kind of trying different, different things and, you know, seeing what seems to be the most successful.

Well, what I'm hearing from you is you're continuing, number one, to educate yourself, and you're also continuing to test and figure out what's working and what's not working, because something that might work for me might not work for you. And, you know, you have to Figure that out for your own niche. As our closing question here, what advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there who are working on growing their online course business? What would you say to them?

I think having a Facebook group was really effective for me and just building engagement in that group. Again, I started it before I had something to promote so that they don't just associate me with trying to sell them something. They. I think they associate with me with trying to help them. I genuinely want to help them. I have, like, weekly prompts, like a motivational Monday where they can kind of post their goals for the week and then a weekend wins, where they can, you know, share something they're proud of, or they can share a link to their book. And then I use Post Planner as a scheduling tool where I just schedule, like, every. Every few months, I'll just kind of find a bunch of, like, interesting articles, blog posts on other sites that I think would be of interest to them. And then I just schedule them so that I have a couple posts per week. And then that way, if I. If I'm not constantly trying to focus on finding things to post about, if that's all sort of automatic, then I can really focus on engaging with them in the comments. I noticed when I post videos in the group, especially live videos, I'll see a correlation, like to the people who are joining my email lists on that day or, you know, shortly afterward, or I'll see an increase in sales. So I think if you're nervous about doing videos and Facebook lives, I think that's something. Try to focus on getting over. That's something I've had to focus on getting over because I'm very introverted. You know, writers just like to, you know, sit at their computer, right? And actually having to, you know, you know, go live is very intimidating to me. But I think that I've definitely seen an increase in sales when I do video. So that's something I'm going to be working on. It's just batching a lot of video ideas and YouTube ideas and just, you know, I think that's a good thing to focus on. And definitely having a good lead magnet like I did with the class, something that's really relevant to, you know, who your audience is, know who your audience is, and know what their pain points are. Because I'm a writer and I've been through it so much, I really know those pain points. And then, you know, coming from the other side of being an editor, you know, I kind of opened my eyes to like how it wasn't just me. I think a lot of writers just think who are going through something or, you know, having trouble with some aspect of the book. They think, oh, it's something, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Or they don't realize, you know, that so many other people have the same pain points that they do. So I think you just have to know what the pain points are for the audience you're working with and the product that you know that you have, the course that you have and be able to, you know, to show them that you know what they need, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Stacy, I know that I'm going to be checking out your resources. Can you let people know where they can find you?

Yeah, they can. To find my books, they can go to staceyjuba.com and then if they're interested in my courses and editing, they can go to shortcutsforwriters.com and then if they click on the freebies tab, that'll take them to where they can sign up for the five day line editing class. Or if they want to go join my Shortcuts for Writers Facebook group, there's a link there.

Perfect. And I will make sure that those links are in the show notes so everybody has it. Course creators, thank you so much for joining us today. If you have any questions questions about course in a box which is offered on Appsumo, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or DM me on Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Stacey. We'd love for you to rate and review the podcast on itunes or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.