How to Fall in Love with Marketing Your Book

Book marketing is not supposed to be fun. Or at least that's what most of us think as authors. Except Russell Nolte, our guest today, has what I think is an incredible view on this, which is that secretly, everyone loves marketing their book. The key is actually doing the things that get you excited and leaning into the things that you feel comfortable and can actually market your books in a way that feels authentic and that actually can get you readers. And today, that's what we're going to be talking about. We're covering a wide scope of topics and from the 10 marketing strategies that work, all from how to run your business, the different business models and revenue streams you can have as authors, all the way down to the new mindset that it's taking in this era of indie publishing to succeed as an author. Russell is amazing. He has incredible insights on both the business and the craft of publishing, and I'm really excited for this episode. Russell's a great friend of mine. He's one of my favorite people in this industry and in his work in the author stack and now his new hapless membership, he's done so many just fascinating things in this community. Between the conferences, he's run along with Monica Leonel with everything he's done. So I'm just super excited for this episode. If you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, I would love if you did. You could also review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps us out. When new people find this pod and they see that other authors have already enjoyed it, it just gives them a warm feeling inside that beyond the book's the place for them. And it is. Because beyond the book, we're on a mission to help writers turn their stories into empires by not only marking their books better, but expanding beyond books into different revenue streams and even into different IP formats entirely. That's exactly what I'm doing with Craterwood, by the way, helping turn books into movies. And that platform's getting really close. Actually, at the time of recording, it's not in beta, but when this goes live, it will be in beta, which is so exciting. So anyways, I hope you enjoyed this episode with Russell. Russell, you are easily one of my favorite people, not only in publishing, but just to talk to, because you are brilliant and you're basically an encyclopedia about this industry, but you've also written so many books on so many different topics in authorship. If I had to start with one right now, what do you think it would be? Or maybe not me personally, but if you're speaking to the audience. Which one should they start with?

I'd thrive as a writer in a capitalist dystopia for sure, because it is the first book of its kind that actually tries to dissect the underlying problem with the publishing industry and in creatorship in general without trying to take down the world that we live in. So a lot of people read it and are like, oh, this is not a takedown of capitalism. I'm like, no, the book is thriving in a capitalist dystopia, regardless of whether you think it's a utopia or a dystopia. Like, we live in capitalism, and this is how to thrive in it.

Okay, first of all, I'm definitely with you on the capitalist dystopia at times, for sure. It can certainly feel like that. And I think right now in publishing, we're at this particularly weird time. And there's also things particularly weird about publishing compared to other industries. I know you're well aware of these dynamics, and I'm curious if you had to describe to someone, you might train to be a carpenter or a plumber, a teacher, all these great jobs. Right now you train to be an author. And our industry functions very differently, even in the context of capitalism, compared to these other industries. What about authorship and publishing is different from being a teacher or plumber?

I actually don't think that it operates differently. I think the power law curve dynamics are just exponentially worse in publishing than in most other, but not all, other industries. So the power law curve is. I'm not going to get into the whole thing, but it's like the people at the top make the most, and then it's a very drastic drop down to the people that make nothing. And most of the money, like 80%, 90% of an industry's money is made by the top 10% of the operators in that industry. There's just like a lot more money in other industries overall. And the winners, like, if you are the hundredth best plumber in Topeka, Kansas, you're probably still making 50 grand or 20 grand or like, livable wage. If you're the hundredth best romantic fantasy author, you're making like 10 grand, 5 grand, 2 grand. So, like every. Everything you inch up just is so much more drastic in publishing than like in tech, where even if you're the 5 millionth best tech company, you probably still have a valuation in the millions. And like, you probably still have a staff of five people. So it's not any industry, because movies has a very high power law curve. Like creative industries tend to have a very big power law curve. And then when you take into account that the scale you need to hit, whereas you need to hit, okay, so you want to write one book a year, which is impossible, but let's just say you want to make one book a year. In KU, you need 50,000 people to read that book. Like, basically you need 15,000 people or so to buy that book from you. And even if you write 12 books in a year and you say, oh, every person, that's still thousands of people have to read those books. And when you are working in other industries, some of them you could be a millionaire with one client. You just make, one person pays you a million dollars, like, or a billion dollars. There are companies out there where they have 100 clients and each of them pays them $100 million. And so I think it's not a prop. I think it is unwise to tell people that the industry is unique because then they're like, my struggles are unique. And it's like they're so boringly common that like every industry has it. It's just ours is worse, especially because of the scale you need to hit. But if you go to a finance company, there are very few companies at the top who have all the clients. And like your financial advisor have 10, 20 clients and they survive because 2% of 10 clients that each have a million, they can live off that amount. You just can't live off 20 readers. And it's, you can read, you can sell off 20 publishers, but those publishers still have to find readers.

So what should our goal be then? If it's hard to make a living, Right, And I think so much of success is being a writer is couched oftentimes in the indie author community purely in terms of money and traditional publishing. It's maybe a bit more status oriented around getting certain awards and lists and getting the right agent and the right publisher behind you. But regardless, not everyone can have the top publisher behind them. Certainly not everyone can make $100,000 in the genre they're in. So what should be our goal as writers?

Okay, so I work with a lot of writers and to say we should have one goal is tough. But I did write a book that's coming out either late this year, early next year, called the Six Figure Author Stack. My general philosophy is that there are six areas which you need to optimize if you want a six figure career. Retailers is one so you can use that casual fandom to get people to your site to become real fans. Of your work. Then there's subscriptions, crowdfunding, direct sales on your website. I break up two different kinds, which is like special offers and landing page sales, like a series landing page and. And web store sales and then conferences and conventions or live events of some type. And you can do all of these things and each of them has a different function which we can talk about, but they all serve a very specific function to bring people into your world and give you more leverage points. If a industry needs high leverage points to succeed, which we all. I think any person who's in publishing, even if they don't think and the word leverage points, then the goal of that industry should be to create leveraged assets. The more leverage assets you have in a very high leverage industry, the better off you will be.

Break that down for me. Leverage. Explain it to me like I'm five answer. What even is a leveraged asset? Just so we understand.

Sure. Okay. So a leveraged asset is something where the effort doesn't increase with the amount of proportional to. I'm trying to do this in a way that's not going to sound like a. Okay, so I'm just going to give you an example. If you have a hundred people on your email list, it takes almost no additional effort to. No additional effort to send that email to a thousand people. Then a hundred people. If you have 500,000 people that follow you on Instagram like you will, that post you make is still. Is still that effort. I don't like the social media thing because then someone else can mess with your leverage. So Instagram is a leveraged asset. The problem is because you do not own the chain of custody from beginning to end of that person. You do not own the ability to scale. Instagram owns the ability to scale circle which is like you build your own social media platform or substack on some level. Although not their notes feed, there are social media platforms that are leveraged asset. But the idea is it takes you minimal additional effort to do the work. Think of a 401k. If you get 8% on $100, that's $8. If you make 8% on a million dollars, that's considerably better. You are still making the same number of trades and getting the same result, but your result is just better. Does that make sense?

It does. And this sounds. It sounds like the classic the rich get richer saying. But it reminds me of a recent podcast you recorded. You are a co host with Lisa Vino of the six Figure Author experience which is an amazing podcast. I'll Link down to it in the description. Folks can go listen to it themselves. But you and Lee were both talking about both of your arcs, right, in terms of your career arcs of getting. There's always a moment, this about everyone, where you've never written a page, and you write a page and you write a book, and then you publish a book. And you particularly also having so much experience in the comic side of publishing and creating. And you both said something that really stuck out to me, which is that for years, right, you invest in your business for growth and you make an amount of revenue. And this is not just y'.

All.

This is a nature of any business, including all authors. You make an amount of revenue. That sounds impressive, but what you're actually taking home is a small amount of that, and it's in pursuit of that investment growth. So what I'd love to hear about is actually how you've invested in growing your author career throughout the years and how that's evolved. Because I'm confident when you talk about those six pillars of direct and retail and Kickstarter and subscriptions, all that. I don't think you also placed all of those bets at once either.

No. Okay. So I have this program called Hapless, which is based on the Happy Compass, H, A P, I. And one of them is prioritization. The P is prioritization. And, like, in general, I do nine things world class. And of those, it takes me.

Class is actually awesome.

It takes up a business, like, nine or 10 years. And, like, I spend one year building basically every single one. You only need one to thrive. You need one thing. So the first one was conventions. When I started doing conventions, I made about $50,000 a year at conventions. I did all the conventions. And so I kept reinvesting in conventions.

Yeah.

And then once I had the conventions up, I don't. I'm not a. I have a lot of chronic illnesses. So doing conventions is rather hard for me. So I wanted to get more online. So I started doing Kickstarter and started doing one Kickstarter a year. And then one year, I did three Kickstarters a year. And then for the third year, I made $100,000 on $50,000 on Kickstarter. And I was like, awesome. I do Kickstarter now. And, like, I went all in on, like, learning Kickstarter, but I was still doing conventions. This is the thing that most people miss is they don't master the one thing before they move to the next thing. They're like, oh, cool, conferences. But I could go to convention. By the end of it, my, like, big run, which ended basically in the pandemic, and I did 150 or 200 shows, something like that. I could show up two minutes before a convention and no, I just, I knew what I was going to make. I knew I. By the first hour of that convention, I knew what I would make walk away with by the end of it most of the time. Because, like, I mastered doing the. Like, I was not the best person at the convention. I did not make the most money, but I knew that my. What my thing was and how to sell my books better than any other human being that was there commensurate to how they felt. People make more money, but no one knew how to sell their books better than me. So, like, once I had that and it was going on autopilot and I could just be like, okay, I'm going to these 10 shows. Here's my money. Now I'm doing Kickstarter. I started, like spending all of my time doing Kickstarter, like, until the pandemic, and I was like, I don't have time to do conventions, so I'm going to reinvest all of it into Kickstarter. The funny thing is I was already going to make that move in 2020. I just was going to have conference conventions underneath it. So what happened is all of the PPP money and all the money that came in replaced that money for me that was coming to conventions. But I was planning to make this transition anyway because I saw the writing on the wall. Not a pandemic. It's just like I was not able to. I was getting less. I was getting logarithmic instead of exponential returns from doing the work. And I hate doing things. I hate doing things when the return.

Becomes a nature of conventions. Meaning, like, if you're trying to gain more leverage in something you're building is convention something that you'd say is harder to build leverage over time.

I think that everything goes logarithmic. Every kind of growth is logarithmic. Everything start if you want to be able to determine what the next thing to do is, what your next move is. The best way I have found is to look at all of the things you do and find out what has the most exponential growth currently, which I consider exponential growth. When something is above 2x return, if you put in one unit of effort, you get two units of effort back. That would be like exponential growth. The higher you dig in on that, the more time you have before things get arithmetic, which is I put in one unit of effort, I get out one unit of growth. So and. But everything eventually will become logarithmic because you will expand the audience inside of that pool. So if you are in conventions, you then have to go to. You start locally, then you go regionally, then you go nationally, then you go internationally, then you open up different countries and different things. And that's how you grow. Like, there's a finite number of people that live in Los Angeles, so you can only ever grow to the people that exist in Los Angeles at that time. And only probably 1 to 3% of them will care about what you do at max. So if you get 1% from San Francisco, 1% from LA, 1% from. From Seattle, and these are. And Seattle then pulls from Portland, and all of these things don't pull from each other. That is how, like, musicians grow and that is how you can grow conferences. You can also say, oh, I have new prints every time I come to a show, so I have. I now can do. Or I have a new line of business. But if you're just like most people, just say, oh, I'm not getting the return I used to on TikTok. And it's like, you never will, ever will get exponential growth. The goal is to find something that has exponential growth and then master it before it goes logarithmic. So you can jump to the next thing and have the logarithmic stuff support you while you're getting the next growth lever up. So I don't know. That probably was way too, like, wonky for people listening to this. Maybe. But that is how I think about growth. And it started with conferences, conventions, and then it went to Kickstarter, and then Kickstarter started to taper off and I added substack in there. Then we added courses back, and then I had a conference and we added all of this stuff. And then we realized that, like, a thing had become, like, all of the things that we wanted to do had become logarithmic and there was just no other growth to do. And we were like, my. And that's how I think about all of this stuff. It's not like, how did you. I re. I. I invest energy into exponential things and then I offload them before they become logarithmic. And I do that over and over again.

No, it actually makes a lot of sense. I'm going to use an analogy that I think a lot of us listening, especially like in the author space, innately understand, which is there was a period of time where it was an exponential thing to do just to post your. The ebook and the Kindle store. It was a little bit more complicated than that, but you'd get a lot of traffic for doing that. And you. There was exponential growth in that. Then eventually there's not that many new readers going to be flooding the market forever. So that still grows, but starts to not become more logarithmic. And there's also a lot of books that go there. So then that becomes a less useful channel. So now this kind of brings me to two questions. One is, I think as a listener, I'm listening to this going, okay, Russell, tell me where the next place is for next commercial growth. And my part two to that is. Is that not the right question?

It's not the right question one, but only because there are none. Like, we have spent 20 years. And this is true in, like, tech and basically every industry that I follow. It's like the tools have all been made. I don't know, like, AI does new stuff. But, like, really, like, when is the last time past AI You've been like, oh, there's a new thing that is happening. It was video for a while. It was podcast before then. It's. All of the stuff exists and people can no longer lie to you that X is the magic bullet, which is, this is a great time to be in, like, a creatorship. For this reason, it is so easy to have shiny object syndrome to say, oh, this isn't working. And so, like, Kickstarter, this happened to us. And I would be like, Kickstarter is not going to save you. Like, it can fulfill this function for you, but do not rely on it. And yet people rely on Kickstarter. And then they're like, my Kickstarters are down 25%. It's like I told you for four years, for 10 years, this would happen and that you needed to add another thing to your business. But everyone wants to think that the new Willow Winters thing, the new Lisa Vino thing, the new Russell Nolte thing is going to save them. But it's. No one can lie to you anymore because nothing is new. There's not. I don't know what the next new thing is. Okay, fine, it'll be another AI Be another thing. But until there's like, Smell o Vision or something, what are they going to do? Like, we've even had things like the 3D revolution and that hasn't done anything like Army VR. All this stuff is out there. Crypto everything that, like, someone can do for the most part, big Innovations, which is one reason I think tech is like freaking out right now. Because what am. What is the. The snake oil that I. That they. That you sell? Like, it's all there. So though it's the wrong question because the. What you need to do? Okay, like, can we talk about marketing for a second? I'm going to. Okay, so everyone likes marketing. This is my hot take. Everyone, actually, everyone loves marketing. Okay, but here's the thing. While they all define marketing similarly, if you ask them to define the actions you consider marketing, everyone will have a different thing. And I'll be like, okay, what are the things you like doing? And I define like as two things. One, you enjoy the action, and two, you get a positive feedback loop from it. You can like a dog all you want, but eventually if it bites you and pees on your leg and snarls at you for a while, you're going to stop liking it as much. So there are plenty of things that I like that don't have a positive feedback loop and have a positive feedback loop that I hate. But they are also overlap of these things. And if you are putting one unit of effort in and getting two units of effort out and more people are hearing about buying, guess what that is? That is marketing. Like your marketing. Like, marketing is getting more people to know about you or your business. Writing a great book is marketing because every time you intentionally try to make your book better in a way to get readers to love it more, read it more, read it faster, share it more. All of that intentionality is marketing. I'm sorry, I know everyone's listening to this. No, I don't like marketing, but I think you're right.

We have. Maybe there's some truth to this, but there's the common notion of you have your business hat and then you have your creative hat. You take one off, put it on. I've personally never like, whatever someone wants to resonate with. There's no one right way to think or feel about anything. But in general though, I really do resonate with what you're saying because I've viewed marketing and product as intertwined and like, they need to be like the creative process, the readers itself. Because that's all that I view marketing as really. And sounds like you're saying the same thing. It's like, it's about connecting with readers. And it's however you do that you connect with readers. And you writing that story is a way of connecting with readers as long as you somehow share it with them. If it just stays on your laptop in a PDF. And I suppose then maybe that that did not become something you marketed, but it can be.

So I'm going to tell you the fun, the funnest part of this. Like all books, every author is in product led growth. Every single author. And if you are not studying how companies like Dropbox and Facebook and Slack scale their product led growth team, you are leaving a huge opportunity on the table. Because people always say, how do you grow a book business? And I'm like, there's 9 billion models. Just like everything that's ever been product led growth. Every person who's ever talked about product led growth, every strategy. Do you know what the best way to bring people in that make sure that everyone who reads your book shares it with three to seven people.

Yep.

And then it will exponentially scale up. And we've known that since Facebook told us that in like whenever they reveal, whenever they like 2010, 15 years, we've known that is the best strategy to get someone to read more books as the best strategy.

That's not changing exactly.

But because it didn't say I don't know the person in Nora Roberts, because Nora Roberts didn't do it, it's like, oh, like it can't be because Facebook is not a book. But there are only like 10 good marketing strategies in the whole world. And like you can, I would contend there are five because that's our author ecosystem is about. But maybe there's six, maybe there's 10, maybe there's 20. But there are generally few paradigms that work. And every author is trying to get someone to read their book and have that person share it with more than one other person. And as long as that is your goal, you are in a product led growth business.

100% agree with you. And there's this word I love. It's called the K factor, which is for how many people take an action, download a product, read a book, how many people are they going to share it with organically? And that's the K factor to numbers. So maybe if you have over one person sharing with it on average, then you're basically viral and could grow unlimited. There's obviously moments where your K factor is above one. There's moments that are less than one. Most time it's going to be less than one, to be clear. But there's a big delta between one and zero and you want to be as close to one as possible. Now you mentioned earlier this notion of building relationships with like your fans. Right. And going from like casual fans on retailers to I don't think you explicitly said the word superfans. And I don't want to put any words in your mouth, but this idea of not being a casual reader. Right. And that you're going to be closer to. There's a different level of support that comes there when thinking about product led growth. I think what's true with tech, and it's definitely true in authorship, is that not all readers or in the tech world, they say users. I really hate that word. But users are created equal and meaning that you'll have some users in the world of tech who spread something like wildfire and who refer a lot of people and who engage in a particular way the product. Whereas you'll have some people who like disengage very soon. That's not a bad thing that people disengage. Right. But what's tough in the author world is like actually understanding, like, who are the people? Who are the super engagers, the super fans maybe? And then how do we like actually find more of them? What do we do with these people? And you said something that stuck out to me earlier, which is that you know how to sell your books better than anyone, which to me signals that you know who your people are. But that's hard, like actually knowing who your people are and knowing who these superfans are, because in a weird way it seems like it's going all back to that.

Oh, it's only hard if you don't talk to them. Like they all want to hear from you. Like how I decided how I got my super fans. I released three books. One was called Ichabod Jones Monster Hunter, which is a psychological horror. One was called Katrina Hates the Dead. And it was like more action horror, more like mainstream. And then I released a novel called My Father Didn't Kill Himself. And I looked at two things. Wow. A lot of people didn't buy that third book. Why? And they all told me, you should make a book with monsters in it. And I was like, okay, like a comic with monsters. And that became Monsters and Other Scary Shit that became my biggest hit. That broke my career open. And then I looked at that and said, okay, there's an art style here on this cover. And I have a book coming out later this year called Pixie Dust. So I'm going to make the COVID cover art look like the art style. I'm going to make my story in the book similar to the Pixie Dust book. So all the people that come into it want to read Pixie Dust. And sure enough, boom. That was my first $25,000 graphic novel. But that was only one of two things I looked at. This is another thing that told me some people did buy all three. I was like, okay, so you bought my psychological horror, you bought my action comedy. And she bought my, like weird epistolary novel to all them blog posts. And they all, like, had the same thing. And I was like, I then went to people and I did a lot of conferences at the time, so I did that. But I also did online and was like, I gotta ask, man, what the heck? Why did you, like, nobody bought this book, but 150 people did. And what is even going on here? They all told me what they liked about it. They told me what they didn't like about it. And across doing a hundred of those interviews, just talking to them, a type arrived. Most of them were tattooed. Most of them worked in creative industries or were creative. Like, most of them were like anti authoritative, practical. Like, they didn't. There were no bs. They wanted to go deep on really weird stuff like death and grief and loss. And all of that stuff informed all of the books that I've ever written. And if this was turned slightly, you would see Melissa the Wannabe, my mascot.

Yes, Wannabe.

That is the mascot of my ideal person. And it has nothing to do with demographics and everything to do with psychographics, which is what's inside. Like, the feeling that my books gave the transformation that they gave the things that people wanted to hear about from me. And that stuff is still the stuff people want to hear about me now. So I actually think that is not true. It has actually never been easier to find who your superfans are. The problem is, one, you're too scared to reach out. And two, like, you don't put out enough varied product to see who actually will follow you everywhere and who doesn't.

Oh, there's a few nuggets of gold in there. Let's start with this. You don't put it out enough varied product. I'm always on the lookout for, I'll say, like, contrarian views in a good way. And you are obviously someone who is like a generator for contrarian thinking, which is great because I think that we need more of that in the world and that's what we need more as creatives. The standard advice is kind of against what you just said, and I want to know why you said what you said. Because the standard advice is, Russell, if you want to make it as an author, pick a sub genre. Write the same book over and over. Again, in different series, similar tropes or whatever. And you're saying write varied product, which to me implies not the same subgenre. So am I reading into this or if I'm not, tell me why you have this contrarian view.

I think that for if. Okay, so I'm not putting you on.

The spot, by the way. I agree.

Yeah. I'm trying to think of how to say this simply because it's not a super simple thing, but here's the thing. Everyone who has that view thinks readers don't read across genre. And they're wrong. 100% of them are like, they are all wrong. What tends to happen with readers is they get stuck in their brain on a series on a genre for three, six, eight months. But, like, they might be watching way different movies. So many people I know read, like, sweet romance and horror movies. So many of them like. And you would never know that until you actually talk to them. So, like, they don't want you to write other things because they want to save you from pain. But pain is growth. Put out those books. And here's the other thing. On retailers, you don't know the data, so you can't see what. Who bought all three books of those books? I only knew because I was running Kickstarters, where you get the data. I was doing conventions where I saw people buy. I was doing things that I knew. When I looked at people's eyes and they picked up one book and that was like, this one. And I was like, do you want to hear about the other ones? And they were like, yes, There was a certain kind of person when I talked to them. Not that I looked necessarily, although lots of them had tattoos and such. But they were like, I like this one. I'm like, what about this weird mystery novel? And they were like, yeah, I like that too. All of it's just so wrong. It's just. And it's so ingrained in your brain that everyone I talk to is like, but people don't read across genres. I'm like, do you? And they're like, of course I do. And I'm like, like, the thing you are saying is irrational to you. Like, your lived experience is that you have read two books, List your five favorite books. I'll bet they're in at least two different genres.

I. That at least. Yeah, I'd be willing to put money on that. For almost everyone. That's. That makes just intuitive sense. It also seems like a sort of algorithmic trap. I'm reading this book right now called Algospeak, which I know you're also like a master.

I read that. Yeah.

It's a good book. Yeah. It's like almost writing in the same genre as a form of Algospeak, where we're shifting what we're doing to try and service some algorithm that boxes us and that we kind of obfuscates data from us. Now talking to customers, because this one, like, there's a few levels here. So one is if you're at a convention, it feels obvious to me how you would talk to a customer. You're probably not going to just be like. And don't talk at all. You're going to. You're going to have a conversation while you have them booked. But if you're not signing in a convention, how do you talk to customers?

So if you. These are customers that would be in your orbit already somehow, because they have. These are people who have been in your audience. Okay. So in my case, they were people who had been in my audience a minimum of a year and six months because that's how long it took me to release these three books. It has to be someone who bought a book and also wanted to continue to hang out with me and bought a second book. So I don't. Like, they bought three books from you. Like, they bought three books from you in a year. Like, you think they don't want to talk to you. We spent all of these time, for instance, in Facebook groups being like, oh, I got to come up with content. But nobody cares about your content. They care about the connection you make in that group. If you reached out and was like, hey, man, I want. What are your three. What are three of your other favorite. But can you answer five questions for me? What they do, what everyone does, is they ask. They send these terrible surveys and then no one gets back to them. And of course they didn't because surveys are worse. They're the worst way to get customer data of anything that I've ever seen. They are abysmal. But just because no one reached. You just emailed those people and were like, hey, like this in your. If you have email, you will see who your five star, four star, three star people are. Someone's opening every email and they bought three of your books. They probably want to hear from you more. And you just be like, hey, I'm planning my next series. I'd love to. Would you answer a couple of questions for me? By the way, this is Russell, not like some bot. And they are like, we are so scared of our Audience. Oh, what if I say something wrong? But you only keep them by saying things that are right if they. If you say things that are wrong and they leave. They weren't in your audience to begin with because they might be a buyer of your books, but they are not in the people that like, you should target to have a super successful career. Career. Because the people that are going to have a super successful career are the ones who stay with you for 10 years. And like, there are some things that will break people's bonds if you break the trust thermal therma clean like you will if you say something wildly like, different from the beliefs that your books espouse. But in general, once you have a fan, they stay a fan. If they do not stay a fan, they are not a fan.

Okay, I'm so with you. And this is a really valuable thread because point here that is stuck out to me, which is it feels like you're describing what empathy really is. And I think a lot of what maybe the world is missing in our capitalist dystopia right now. Like this mindset you're describing, Russell, is so intuitive, it makes so much sense that it feels crazy. Which was kind of where we are now, right? Like, actually talking to people, caring about them, understanding who they are and what they want is like a farcical, scary thing. And also something that, like, we don't. I don't blame folks, myself included at times as well, but if you're listening and going, this sounds crazy, no one's also probably ever done this to you in your whole life. Most people don't actually do what you're.

Describing or for long enough or they do it as like a trick. So I'll tell you. Yesterday I went to have lunch with my friend and she was going to be half hour late because we got our schedules confused. There was a Barnes and Noble. I went inside, I was like, that looks nice. I'm going to buy this for her. I bought another thing for her. And then I went in the back and I saw my friend who's writing a light novel and I was like, oh my God, they have a light novel category. Just like, took pictures of all the books in case she wanted them for research and send it to her. And those are just like, things you can do. Those are like things you could do when you have 10 people in your audience. If you have one person in your audience, you could also scale them because, like, very few people. Someone reached out earlier today or a couple days ago, and after she unsubscribed she stopped becoming a paid member. I was like, I'm just having a really hard time. Do you have another pay? I was like, you are having a hard time. I just give you 90 days for free of this author stack. Because I don't know, like that's what you should do for people. And over a long enough time horizon, these things are the things that pay off and they make it like doing this work worthwhile because like 10, 15 years ago, someone told could do enough 10 people in your audience. If you have one person in your audience, you could also scale them because like very few people. Someone reached out earlier today or a couple days ago and after she unsubscribed she stopped becoming a paid member. I was like, I'm just having a really hard time. Do you have another pay? I was like, you are having a hard time. I just give you 90 days for free of this author stack. Because me still the best advice that I've ever heard which was if you want to scale, you need to do the unscalable. And the only unscalable thing is meeting somebody one on one. And I can't do it all the time. It is a lot harder for me now. But I like to believe when I'm in a converse, I don't know, like that's what you should do for people. And over a long enough time horizon station like this, like I'm in the conversation. When I'm at a conference, I'm in that conversation. And then years later if I'm like, oh, like I'll give you a great example. Somebody had decl. Had a payment that was, that kept getting. I had a Kickstarter and at the end I kept trying to collect payment for like a month and like it kept being declined and I was just like, I'm just, it's $10. Like this person's been in my audience for 10 years. Okay, like I'm just gonna give you $10. And now you don't have a problem. Now you just have a book that you want. And those are just to me that is why we have a business to do inefficient things. And we are caught up in a world that is for efficiency and in a world that everything is efficient. Inefficiency is the flex.

I actually couldn't agree more. It's something that I personally do. I think I've had even just the last six months, at least 151 on one conversations with writers. Done 12 dinners now. I'm huge on that as well. But now I start to wonder because what you're describing to me, talking about the positive feedback loop here, at least earlier you mentioned that. And it's a great framework. Like you're talking about a relationship feedback loop. Right? That's really important. And to do that you have insight into your customer, like an understanding of who bought your book or at least who's on your list and their level of engagement. This is something that we don't have on retailers. And framing it in like the capitalist dystopia, like it's almost like the system that a lot of us sell in incentivizes almost boxes us into maybe these sorts of dystopian, you could say the dystopian tactics or maybe at least just like non relational tactics, like they prioritize efficiency and effectiveness at the cost of humanity. So in that couching it in those terms, right, we are told to start on retailers. Direct is often something we do later. I know that's what the industry kind of dichotomy is like. You start the retailers and you go direct. Do you recommend that?

Well, I can't. I wasn't on retailers till two years ago. So I instill much of my books aren't on retailers and I'm slowly releasing them. I'm not the right person to say there. I can say there are like two or three genres, sub genres that make sense to be on retailers because the retailer audience is there buying. If you are in contemporary romance, like there's a ton of audience. If you're especially like mafia romance or wolf like shifter romance, like man, like retailers can give you an a huge advantage. That said, most people do not get an algorithmic advantage by being on retailers. And my whole thing is if you are not getting an advantage from a platform, you do not owe it anything and you do not owe it any energy. So maybe you should be there to have like casual fans get it or just. It was weird when I had 68 books out and none of them were on retailers and people were like, how are you speaking at all of these conferences? I had to put them on retailers, but like they just are there. I don't put ads behind them because I hate ads. Like I don't focus on them. Like I'm not going to send anyone from here to like my retail space. They can find it if they want. But like I am looking for the 1% of people that are listening to this that are like, yes, that's amazing because I built my business on the understanding that you will be here for 10 years. That's why I can do things like all of this stuff. Like, I don't care. Like, hapitlist is $300 a year. That is vastly under what it should be. But I am assuming that if you join Hapless, you will be in there for at least five years or ten years. And so that's $3,000 over ten years. And that's pretty good. If I get 300 people there, that's 100 grand a year. How much money do I need? Which is the final thing that I will say is like this, like, efficiency at all costs, like you must be at all algorithms is built under the assumption that money and line must go up. But like, money and line doesn't have to go up. Like, I am very happy to make between 100 and $150,000 a year. I just need to figure out how to get my profit margins right. But like, I go out to dinner. Like I went to Europe this year. Like, my wife also has a good job. But like, you can have a good job too. This is not a job thing. But you can get a good job. Like, you can get one. And like, both of you could have a good job if you have a spouse or like, maybe you need 250. I can tell you what you don't need. 2.5 million. Yeah, like, I can tell you what you don't need. 25 million.

And yeah, it's fine, but it's not going to affect your lifestyle.

So what My thing is, if you don't like a thing, meaning both you don't enjoy it or, and, or you don't get a positive feedback loop from it, you should not be there, or you should be there and put zero effort into it. And instead, because we are one person, pick one priority every quarter and focus on that. And if that first time you focus on it, it does do it for a second quarter and then make a decision. And if it doesn't work, then find another priority. But we are in this world where you have to do 900 things and you should spend one year figuring out one thing that you really like and get positive feedback from, and that will do more for your career, meaning both you don't enjoy it or, and, or you don't get a positive feedback loop from it, you should not be there, or you should be there and put zero effort into it. And instead, because we are one person, pick one priority every quarter and fear than literally anything else you can do.

So, I mean, yes, traction, it's so key. And getting that Momentum, even just emotionally, right? Like, it's tough when you're trying to balance 10 different plates, trying to hit some arbitrary goal, when it's like, what if you did the one thing that fuels you? Now tell me about this happy compass. Like what we talked about, prioritization.

But what is the H, The A focus on that. And if that first time you focus on it, it does do it for a second quarter and then make a decision. And if it doesn't work, then find another priority. But we are in this. Okay? So the happy compass is four cardinal directions that lead your career. H is heart. These are the projects that you care about world, where you have to do 900 things. And you should spend one year figuring out one thing that you really like and get positive feedback from and that will do more for your career and your audience care about, resonate with deeply. A is audience having an audience growing an audience having people that really are excited to be there. P is prioritization. Picking one thing and sticking with it for at least three months. And I is income. Making the money that you want. And if you plot all four of these pieces, it will give you guidance for where to go next, what to do next, what the next step is. If you don't think that people are resonating with your books, well, like, that's probably the first place you should go. If you don't have a beer, then literally anything else you can do.

So, I mean, yes, traction, it's so key. And getting that momentum, even just emotionally, right? Like, it's tough when you're trying to balance 10 different plates, trying to hit some arbitrary goal, when it's like, what if you did the one thing that fuels you? Now tell me about this happy compass. Like what we talked about, prioritization. But what is the H, the A.

Big audience, like, you should do, audience before income. And. But like, prioritization is only a function of you are not doing enough of the things you like doing to succeed. If you are not succeeding, you are not doing enough of the things you like doing to succeed. Because if you are, and you are likely doing all of these things that you are not, do not like doing, they are weighing you down and they are preventing you from being the eye. Okay, so the happy compass is four cardinal directions that lead your career. H is heart. These are the projects that you care about being on a hundred podcasts or like, whatever the thing is, that is your growth lever that work and your audience care about, resonate with deeply. A is audience having an audience growing an Audience having people that really are excited to be there. P is prioritization picking once and that you like. I like doing podcasts. So one quarter I did a hundred podcasts, one quarter I did substack, multiple quarters I did. But I only did substack a second quarter because I was like, wow, this finally is having success. I'm going to try another quarter of doing this. So it's heart projects that you love and your audience loves the people to resonate with your work and buy it. The priority for what you're going to do to get to where you want it, what can give you the thing and sticking with it for at least three months. And I is income making the money that you want. And if you plot all four of these pieces, it will give you guidance for where to go next, what to do next, what the next step is. If you don't think that people are resonating with your books, well, like that's probably the first place you should go if you don't have a most exponential growth now and income how much money that you are making so that you can support your lifestyle.

I love it. It makes total sense and it's I think helpful to have a compass when increasingly, although we have more awareness that we don't have to jump into every little thing. You know, there's more voices yelling louder than ever to pull us in their direction. But it's about finding your compass which is in your direction, which is big.

Audience like you should do audience before income and but like prioritization is only a function of you are not doing enough of the things you like doing to succeed. If you are not succeeding, you are not doing enough of the things you like doing to succeed.

So key now I would love to know how you evolved into actually coming up with hapless because you've been around the block talking in this industry and sharing your insights for a very long time. I'm curious what made you feel like hapless is something that people need right now and I'm sure you need it. So what made you need to become a habit?

So it came from having projects fail and succeed over time, from talking to my audience. Because if you are and you are likely doing all of these things that you are not doing, do not like doing. They are weighing you down and they are preventing you from being on a hundred podcasts or like whatever the thing is that is your growth lever that works and that you like. I like doing podcasts. So one quarter I did having them and gathering them in places and talking to authors and realizing that like they're all pulled in a hundred directions and none of them are having the success they want, but they really want to do one thing. And if you are taking writing as your one thing, you have to also take either a hit in audience and other things if you're not making money already or that you're going to make that book the hookiest book that you can and double up in your like hookiness thing, which is probably where you're going to start. Because as we talked about, product led growth is the thing and. But I don't. I just did a hundred podcasts, one quarter I did substack multiple. It's so much stuff. The negative of my career has always been that like I quarters I did, but I only did subsec a second quarter because I was like, wow, this finally is having success. I'm going to try another quarter of doing this. So it's hard projects that you love and your audience loves the people to resonate with your work and have 500 things. And it's overwhelming to figure out what I do. And every time I seem to pick a lane like Kickstarter or substack, the minute that it starts to get any traction, I'm like, I don't like that. But it's all because they were never the end goal. The end goal was like, how do you actually have a career that lasts for 20 years? My original podcast, the Complete Creative was very much about this towards the end. And most people said you have to have the strength to burn it down and rise it back up again. Others said when things are going well, like when buy it, the priority for what you're going to do to get to where you want it, what can give you the things are when I get uninterested in the thing, I move and change direction. But mostly it's that it has to be said like nobody else is saying most exponential growth now and income, how much money that you are making so that you can support your lifestyle.

I love it. It makes total sense and it's I think helpful to have a compass when increasingly, although we have more awareness.

Like I don't understand why no one else is saying it, Michael, but like I will say it because it needs to be said. And Monica during our partnership was always like, why do you say something that you know is not going to get traction? And I said, because it needs to be said. There needs to be a person. What ends up happening is you over index on money and then you run away and you're like I'm going to be in my happy little bubble doing I'm going to go on 10 yoga retreats. And then like your money suffers and you're like oh my.

That we don't have to jump into every little thing. You know, there's more voices yelling my God.

And then you take 10 business courses and you're like oh my God, I'm over indexing here now louder than ever.

To pull us in their direction. But it's about finding your compass which is in your direction.

And like the secret is that we all live in this world where we can try.

So key now I would love to know how you evolved into actually coming up with hapless because you've been around.

The block angulate ourselves and we are multitude like we are. I don't know if you saw the Life of Chuck, but it was great for this. Like this is the thing that it had. It's like one of my favorite movies of all time. But like we moved. We can be here and then here. When I was much younger, I was much more on the hyper growth, hyper monetization and hyper growth side. And now I don't have to do that because it's been 15 years and I like there's nothing else that I want to try or do or like.

Whatever the talking this industry and sharing your insights for a very long time. Curious what made you feel like happily is something that people need right now and I'm sure you need it. So what made you need.

Need the other thing? I just like I'm in like a happy bubble here currently. But we are all on this parallel at all times between growth and monetization.

To become a capitalist.

So it came from having projects and almost everyone I've ever talked to is wants to do both things fail and succeed over time from talking to my audience and I have not in my life met somebody who can do both at the same time effectively. What I mean by that is that if they just focused on growth or monetization, they would not be better off. So there are people that may be able to break even on ads, but like they're really just trying to fuel growth, right? Like they're not. And like people that are monetizing really have having them and gathering them in places and talking to authors and realizing that like they're all play like they're not growing as much because when the number one thing you can do to grow is hold it a hundred directions and none of them are having the success they want but they really want to do one thing. And if you are taking writing as your one thing, you have to reduce friction. And the number one friction point is money. So the minute you bring money into the equation, people unsubscribe at massive levels. It's better for you to pick a side. Have to also take either a hit in audience and other things. If you're and be like, I'm in a growth period now for the next month and then I have a monetization event and I'm just going to go all in on monetization and then I'm going to have another growth event and I'm going to move here throughout the course of the year. And like it's just so obviously the best way. And no one says it. They all say go and run ads, then do an ad every six to eight weeks. That is dumb. You could get so many more people if you just did attention domination, which is an old Frank Kern thing from years and years ago, which is like if for to not making money already or that you're going to make that book the hookiest book that you can and double up in your two weeks or for a month. You are everywhere. Then people are like, oh God, I like hookiness thing. Which is probably where you're going to start because as we talked about product. Got to get that book. I got to get that thing. I got to get that thing. I got to go there. And if you just don't let growth is the thing and. But I don't. I just did so much stuff. The negative of my career has always been that like I pull all of it out whenever willy nilly it like isn't as effective. So you can be much more effective if you're just like, hey, we've got a sale for these two weeks. I'm going to send you 500 emails in these two weeks. And then for the next three months be like, okay, how do I find more people so that when my monetization event happens I can go through them as well. I have 500 things and it's overwhelming to figure out what I do. And every time I seem to pick a lane like Kickstarter or substack, the minute that it starts to get any traction, I'm like, I don't like that. But it's all because they were never the end goal. The end goal was like, how do you actually.

Yeah. You also see when you actually concentrate on not only yourself getting into monetization mindset, but then also your readers. Like there's this thing happening. Like you mentioned, there's something about not just attention, domination, but creating the action and the ritual to like we're paying now versus hitting them with little trickle. Sometimes you need to be upfront, like this is a launch, here's a new book versus just, you know, not making a big deal about anything. Now is there anything when it comes to where you're going in your writing career, in your next stages of being a happist that you wish you could.

Tell actually have a career that lasts for 20 years? My original podcast the Complete Creative was very much about this towards the end. And most people said you have to have the strength to burn your younger self, your younger creator, everything, everything, everything. I would say that you need to over index and turn it down and rise it back up again. Others said when things are going well, like when things are, when I get uninterested in the thing, I move and change direction. But mostly some point, if you look at every successful author, almost all of them either have a thing they're doing that's not the authorship. Like Tim Ferriss, like he's like doing a hope he's built out or like they have one or two books or like Simon Sinek or something. Like their living is not writing the book, they're writing the book is fueling.

All of the other groups holding.

Yeah. Which is what people always say, what about this person? They're just like, maybe they're not writing anymore. Did you ever think about wrote one book and then they just were like, oh, no one's buying it. So I just stopped doing things. Things that's also possible. Like a lot of people write one or two or three books. But it's that it has to be said like nobody else is saying in general. Every author has a signature series that is an author. Like they all have a 10 or more book series that has more than a million words in it. And when you see seeing it, like I don't understand why no one else is saying it, Michael, but like I will say it because it needs to be said. And Monica, during our partnership was always like something that is across every author for the last hundred years. Why do you say something that you know is not going to get traction? And I said because it means a thousand years maybe. But like really the last 30 years as attention has gotten more scarce, it's more and more important to have these things. There are many ways to have a signature series. You can have an anthology series, it's all set in the same world. You can have A serial series where it takes place one after another. Probably you need a signature series. A lot of capitalists is just you are not a special snowflake. Assuming you are like all of this, I can have a different cover or have a different thing or have a different. This is all like, but I'm going to be different. But what if we just started with the assumption that you were going to be the average launch of an author. You probably want to be said there needs to be a person. What ends up happening is you over index on money and then you run away and you're like I'm going to be in my happy little bubble doing I'm going to go on 10 reach yoga retreats and then like your money suffers and you're like oh my. Sell 100 to 200 bucks your first time out. You probably should launch several. My God. And then you take 10 business courses and you're like oh my God, I'm over indexing here. Now other books before you're going. You are going to find several other books before you find success. You probably will have three to five years before you become a full time author. And like all of those things are being. If all of those things are true, then probably you need a signature series because you can. There's no expectation to make money until you are running ads to a book that has a four book series or above. Like some get successful on one or two or three. But like in general you are not going to break even on ads until you have four or more books in a series. And like the secret is that we all live in this world where we can triangulate ourselves and we are multitude like we are. I don't know if you saw the Life of Chuck, but it was great for this. Like this is the thing that it had. It's like one of my favorite movies of all time. But like we move, we can be here and then here. When I was much younger I was much more on the hyper growth, hyper monetization and hyper growth side and now I don't have to do that because it's been 15 years and I like there's nothing else that I want to try or do or like whatever the other thing I just like I'm in like a happy bubble here currently. But so if that is true, which it likely is because that is what most people across all things especially if you're not in like romance or thriller or like a super hot niche, like it's probably going to take you four bucks or more. So you're all on this parallel at all times between growth and monetization. And almost everyone I've ever talked to wants to do both things. I consult with a lot of authors and they all are like, my books aren't breaking and I have not in my life met somebody who can do both at the same time effectively. What I mean by that is that if they just focused on growth or monetization, they would not be better off. So there are people that may be able to break even on ads, but like they're really just trying to fuel growth, right? Like they're not. And like people that are monetizing really heavily, like they're not growing as much. Because when the number one thing you can do to grow is even on ads and I tell them across the board, how many books are in that series to reduce friction? And the number one friction point is money. So the minute you bring money into the equation, people and they're like two or three, I'm like, there is no expectation for success if you are doing that. And this is why it is so important to do those things because they allow you to isolub scribe at massive levels. It's better for you to pick a side and be like, I'm in a growth period now for the next month and then I have a monetization event and I'm just going to go all in on monetization and then I'm going to have another growth event and I'm going to move here late. Problems? Maybe there is a huge problem in book two of yours throughout the course of the year. And like it's just so obviously the best way and no one says it. They all say go and run ads, then do an ad every six to eight weeks. That is dumb. You could get so many more people if you just did attention series. I don't know until you at least do the minimum required to have success. If you are not, if you do not like Kickstarter domination, which is an old Frank Kern thing from years and years ago, which is like if for like you just left off a thing like there's no two weeks or for a month, you are everywhere. Then people are like, oh God, I gotta get that book, I gotta get that thing. I gotta get that thing. I gotta go there. And if you just don't expectation for success. I look at direct sales pages all the time that people say is done in my pull all of it out whenever willy nilly it like isn't as effective. So you can be much more effective if you're just like hey we've got a sale for these two weeks I'm going to send you 500 emails in these two I style and I swear to God I want to slap them every single one of them. So there's this is an insult. There's no way that this sales page is done with anything that I teach you just weeks and then for the next three months be like okay how do I find more people so that when my monetization event happens I can go through them as well I yeah.

You also see when you actually concentrate on not only yourself getting into monetization mindset but then also your readers like there's this thing happening like you mentioned.

There'S just not possible because like you cannot get here following the steps that I showed you.

If there's something about not just attention domination but creating the action and the ritual to like we're paying now.

You don't have a sales page that converts then I don't know if your ads are good.

I don't versus hitting them with a little trickle sometimes you need to be upfront like this is a launch. Here's a new book versus you know not making a big deal about anything now is there anything when it comes to where you're going in your writing career in your network if your email.

Sequence is good once you're the reason that Kickstarter is great is because you can it's a sales page that converts like they already know it's their whole thing is converting sales page so you.

Can then say X stages of being a hapless that you wish you could.

Tell your younger self your younger self everything, everything, everything. I would say that you need to over index at some point if you look at every successful author almost all of them either okay I'm going to take this now I'm going to work on my email list. Oh it's not converting very well. Oh there's not a lot of sales oh not a lot of people are following my page. Cool. The expectation is have a thing they're doing that's not the authorship like Tim Ferriss like he's like doing a hope he's built out or like they have one or two books like Simon Sinek or something like their living is not writing the book they're writing the book is fueling all of the other holding yeah which is what people always say what about this person they're just like maybe they're not writing anymore. Do you ever think about wrote one book and then they just were like oh, no one's biased that I will across four emails sending to my audience I will get a hundred followers to my pre launch page if that does not happen and I made a pre launch page that is verifying it. So I just stop doing things that's also possible. Like a lot of people write one or two or three books but in general every author has a signature series that is an author. Like they all have a 10 or more book series that has more than a million words in it. And when you see something that is across every author for the last hundred years viably or like solid, then there is another problem. But until you have that page that is like solid, whether you have a thousand years maybe, but like really the last 30 years as attention has gotten more scarce, it's more and more important to have these things. There are many ways to have a signature series. You could have an anthology series, it's all set in the same world. You can have a serial series where it takes place one after another. Probably you need a signature series. A lot of capitalist problem is unknown and I think so many people say they have a problem without any. But if you really undertake the underlying thing there is no just you are not a special snowflake. Assuming you are like all of this, I can have a different cover or have a different thing or have a different. This is all like but I'm going to be different. But what if we just started with the assumption that you were going to be the average launch of an author. You probably will expectation they would have success not ever, but taking the steps that they did a hundred percent sell a hundred to two hundred bucks your first time out, you probably should launch several.

Yeah, no, I'm. I think that's a hard thing to say, but it's the right thing to say.

Other books before you're going, you are going to find several other books before you find success. You probably will have three to five years before you become a full time author. And like all of those things are being. If all of those things are true, then probably you need a signature series because you can. There's no expectation to make money until you are running ads to a book that has a four book series or above. Like some get successful on one or two or three. But like in general you are not going.

And it makes me now wonder when we are thinking about our career like different stages and chapters. It seems like building a signature series is one of those things that once you do it can afford you a sort of freedom to focus on maybe.

Priority to break even on ads until you have four or more books in a series. So if that is true, which it likely is because that is has different.

Things in your life and that's something to nail down maybe earlier rather than.

Later, that's really smart. And I tell this to people all the time because what most people do is they take their money and they spend it on goods and services. All of it and more. Well, 10 years ago I not only started investing, but I started reinvesting money from my business to buy back my time. So I make roughly the same amount that I did in 2017 when you isolate for just wannabe press money. But it takes me so much less time and effort to do it, which is how I can go to a movie every day and spend an hour talking to one fan that emails me what most people across all things, especially if you're not in like romance or thriller or like a super hot niche, like it's probably going to take you four books or more. So I consult with a lot of authors and they all are like my books aren't breaking even on ads. And I tell them across the board how many books are in that series and they're like two or three. I'm like, there is no expectation for success if you are doing me and just give them free stuff. It's if you are not like a lot of people say. And this is why it is so important to do those things because they allow you to isolate. I hate running ads for people, but I like I'm good at them. It's okay if you want to relate problems. Maybe there is a huge problem in book two of your series. I don't know until you at least do the minimum required to have success. If you are not. If you do not like Kickstarter but run ads for your own series, you need to take the time, the money that you had. Like you just left off a thing like there's no credibility that you have with running ads and buy it with the series. Make expectation for success. I look at direct sales pages all the time that people say is done in my style and I swear to God I want to slap them. Every single one of them. There's. This is an insult. There's five books in that series. Make them sing. Make something so that in two no way that this sales page is done with anything that I teach just years and I personally think in two year blocks. So I don't know why two years but it's just not possible because like you cannot get here following the steps that I showed you to. If you don't have a sales page that converts then I don't know if your ads are good. I don't know if your email sequence is good. Once you're the reason that Kickstarter is great is because you can. It's just in general, most of the things that I do take two to three years to know if they are going to be sales page that converts. Like they already know it's their whole thing is converting sales page so you can then say successful but if you know that you hate ads. Okay, I'm going to take this now. I'm going to work on my email list. Oh, it's not converting very well. Oh, there's not a lot of sales. Oh, not a lot of people are following my page. Cool. The expectation is that I will across four emails sending to my audience I will get a hundred followers to and you like this thing then you should and you know what? My pre launch page if that does not happen and I made a pre launch page that is verification you need to do to become successful and as you are building this you keep viably or like solid then there is another problem. But until you have that page that is like solid whether you have a getting more and more success then like you just take this money and invest in this money problem is unknown. And I think so many people say they have a problem with invest here until this thing pays off. And like I have done this so many times. I do not any expert but if you really undertake the underlying thing there is no expectation they would have success not ever. But taking the steps that they did 100% like running mailing list builders but I did them for years. I do not like running ads, but I did them for years.

Yeah, no, I'm. I think that's a hard thing to say but it's the right thing to say.

It was like a free 40 to $50,000 of revenue that I could use to write the book.

And it makes me now wonder when we are thinking about our career like different stages and chapters. It seems like building a signature series is one of those things that once you do it can afford you a sort of freedom to focus on maybe prioritize different things in your life. And that's something to nail down maybe.

And they took very little of my mind space. If I just spend an hour doing this BS stuff in the morning, I can then have the rest of the day for my own mind space. And nobody earlier rather than later. That's really Smart. And I tell this to people all the time because what most people do is is they take their money and they spend. Also says that you should do that. And so I'm saying it here because apparently I'm just going to tell you everything it on goods and services, all of it and more. Well, 10 years ago I not only started investing, but I started reinvesting money from my business to buy. No one else is saying if you want to do if you like. I back my time so I make roughly the same amount that I did in 2017 when you isolate for just wannabe press money. But it takes somebody being on your email list for somewhere between six months or a year before they can be reliable. It takes me so much less time and effort to do it, which is how I can go to a movie every day and spend an hour talking to one fan that emails mail buyers. So that is the. If you imagine you have four launches, four launches a year and just give them free stuff. It's if you are not like a lot of people say the first one, they get on your list and they're like oh, you're cool. I hate running ads for people, but I like I'm good at them. It's okay. If you want to run ads for your own series, you need to take the time, the money that you had, the stability that you have with running ads and buy it with the series. Second one, maybe they buy book one. The third one they're like ah, I bought book one. I'm gonna five books in that series. Make them sing, make something so that in two years and I personally think in two year blocks, so I don't know why two years but in a buy and four they'll know whether they want to buy it or not. And it doesn't matter if it's Kickstarter, doesn't matter in general, most of the things that I do take two to three years to know if they are going to be successful. But if you know that you hate ads, people do not read books for a year, six to 12 months, book funnel, whatever it is. And so if we know that information and we know that they. If you want to be a best selling author and you like this thing, then you should and you know what you need to do to become successful. And as you are building this, you keep like now you physically can't do it. If you're not one already getting more and more success then like you just take this money and invest in this money and invest here until this thing pays off. And like, I have done this so many times. I do not. You need to plan as if, like in a year you're going to be there, which means finding, like running mailing list builders. But I did them for years. I do not like running ads, but I did them for years. It was like a free 40 to $50,000 of revenue that I could use to write the books. And they took very little of my mind space. If I just spend an hour doing this BS stuff. People now, but really it means finding people now. And then in a year you'll be on the journey to become a full time author. And then in another year, because it generally takes a year for someone to stabilize on your left in the morning. I can then have the rest of the day for my own mind space. And nobody has to. Whereas, like, if your list is a thousand people and you make it to 10,000 people tomorrow, else also says that you should do that. And so I'm saying it here because apparently I'm just going to tell you everything that no one else is saying. If you want to do if, like, it takes somebody being on your email list for somewhere between six months or a year before they can be reliable buyers. So that is if you imagine you have four launches. Four launches a year. Oh, these people are not reliable buyers until they've been on your list for a year. Which means, like the first one, they get on your list and they're like, oh, you're cool. The second one, maybe they buy Book One. The third one, they're like, ah, I bought Book One. I'm gonna. You can't predict money based on this number. You predict it based on this number where your list was a year ago. And then you're like, okay, I have 10,000 people on my list now. But like, they have been there for three days, so I'm gonna buy it. And four, they'll know whether they want to buy it or not. And it doesn't matter if it's Kickstarter, doesn't matter. People do not read books for a year, six to 12 months, book funnel, whatever it is. And so if we know that information, and we know that if you want to be a bestselling author like now, you physically can't do it if you're not one already. How can I make sure in a year the right people here are worthwhile so that I can make them. You need to plan as if, like in a year you're going to be there, which means finding people now, but really it means finding people now and Then in a year you'll be on the journey to become money like that I should. At 10,000, having 10,000 people on a list. Like people got all the time. I built lists for people and they would just be like, it's not converting. I'm like, you've had it for three days. How many emails have you sent? Zero. Full time author. And then in another year, because it generally takes a year for someone to stabilize on your list too. Whereas, like if your list is a thousand people and you make it to 10,000 people tomorrow, these people are not reliable buyers until they've been on your list for a year. Which means, like you can't predict money based on this number. You predicted based on this number. How many emails are you going to send? 0. I'm just going to send one to have a sale. Then it's going to take you 10 years to get where your list was a year ago. And then you're like, okay, I have 10,000 people on my list now. But like they have been there for three days. So how can I make sure in a year the right people here are worthwhile so that I can make the money like that I should at 10,000, having 10,000 people on there.

The email point is so huge. You have to build a relationship with people, you have to build trust. And it's like a little popcorn popper. You don't just run people through a funnel and they don't just obey your commands of when to buy. People are human beings that will buy things when they want to and that's.

Probably a list like people got all the time. I like built lists for people and they would just be like, it's not converting. I'm like, you've had it for three days. How many emails have you sent? Zero. How many emails are you going to send? Zero. I'm just going to send one, have a sale, then it's going to take you 10 years to get there.

The email point is so huge. You have to build a relationship with people, you have to build trust. And it's like a little popcorn popper. You don't just run people through a funnel and they don't just obey your commands of when to buy. People are human beings that will buy things when they want to. And that's probably not going to be when you want. It's going to take time and they're going to delay things. They're going to be like, oh, that was cool, I forgot about that. And probably not going to be when you want. It's going to take time and they're going to delay things. They're going to be like, oh, that was cool, I forgot about that. And most people are like that. Like, most people don't just buy it. Most people who want to buy a thing don't buy the thing the first time they hear about it or without. Lots of coaxing, lots of trust building along the way.

I always say the launch should really be the case you are making for the book or the project or whatever you're doing. So, like, I just did a launch for happiness, and in no world did I think that that was going to be a good launch. I hoped it would be better than it went. But, like, really what I wanted was to introduce people to all of the angles that they could think about capitalist. So hopefully one of them will latch on. And so it was like 16 emails. Did they need 16 emails? Yes and no, because, no, nobody needed all 16 emails. But somebody needed each of those 16 emails. And it might be 30, it might be five. But so often the people miss this thing where it's like, some people will just see creator wood and be like, amazing. But, like, a bunch of them will be like, I don't. It's. It's fine. I don't know, like, why do I need it? And what the people that say, what do I need? It is 60% of people, each of them have a different angle of what they care about. And so, like, when you launch something, when people think about, like, you send daily emails, I could never do that. I say, that's really sad because, like, when I send emails, it's to educate somebody on a different angle or, like, why these characters are important or something you might not know or something somebody else said that might convince you that this is something for you. Like, I can't convince anyone to buy, but I can influence the information that they know and the education that they get around the product so that next time I launch or next time I have a thing, they are informed and they're like, oh, one of my favorites was why should I ever read anything besides romance? Because you're a head CIS white guy and you're totally going to Fridge, whoever the. I'm like, my books are all noble, bright fantasy, which means, like, as with, like, only two exceptions, the good guy wins at the end. Like, so, like, the lead character can't get Fridge because it's a noble, bright book. That's the whole. That's the whole point of noble, bright fantasies. So these are all things, though, that I know how I look like the kind of person that fridges women in all of their books because historically, people that look like me fridge women in all their books. So if I want to convince somebody that's not true, I have to tell them that it's not true. And I have to tell them why it's not true. And maybe if I'm like, this book's not romance, but it is noble, bright fantasy. So maybe I'll give it a try as long as I can make that connection to that this is the underlying point, then I open up a whole lot of stuff. But like, the. Which is why I like Kickstarter so much. The launch is the beginning. The launch on Kickstarter is how you educate people, how you get them in the right shared language so, like, they can talk about your stuff everywhere.

And of course it's the beginning too. Because if we're building leverage assets in our business, like for that all of the leverage, it's not. There's no leverage if the asset is not an asset and just returns everything at launch. No. So this is amazing and I'm curious, speaking of your launch and everything you've been doing with hapless, there's a lot of. There's tools, conferences, programs. You've done many different things for authors. A membership community, which seems to be a lot of the foundation of the hapless, is a community wrapped into a bunch of things. But it's a membership fundamentally, you pay and you get annual access is really interesting because it's something that. And I think Russell Nilty fashion is weird, but in a good way. So tell us about what happily.

Okay, so in general, I told you, appilist is about finding one priority and using it and leveraging it for over time and building leverage assets. Assets like that is the whole thing. Like, you can go off and never join habit list. Like, it's fine. What hapitlist job is one the resources that you have. So I've written 10 books on authorship. I have a course on Kickstarter on direct sales. I have resources on like how to build a business, how to build an audience from scratch. I have hapilist. So the first thing that we want to do is triage, which is you have a problem that like has been plaguing you. It could be your Kickstarter launch is bad or whatever. The thing is often never join habit list, like, it's fine. What happylists like, aside from retailer launches not being good, because the problem with that is usually like your cover sucks, your blurb sucks, or Your look inside sucks or you don't have enough books in a series to be successful. And like my sucks not to the genre specifications. If you're only on retailers, congratulations. I just told you how to succeed on retailers and there is some stuff on retailers but there's a problem that you have and so the resources inside hapless are for or to triage your problem. Number one, it's usually either membership or, or Kickstarter. It's usually Kickstarter because people failed their Kickstarter and like to stabilize you and but this is where most programs end and I actually, I say this with all love in the world. Do not care about 1 and 2 because 1 and 2 is solving a first order problem and you can solve a first order problem very easily online. So my goal is to help you plan for the 5th order problem you do not know about yet and introduce you to ways to grow that you will never even hear about because you're siloed in your own 10 person bucket. So that is the overall work and why I want when people email me and say can your membership do this thing? I say it can, but you shouldn't join because you're fundamentally thinking about this as a one year program. And my goal is to price it in a way that it is an easy yes every single year because it helps you provide the underlying thing for your business. So like Michael Evans of the world should be the people inside happily list because they think on a more longitudinal time horizon. I'm not saying that it's bad to have a immediate thing. It's just like you probably are not going to last more than one year with that kind of thinking in the program because you're going to burn through everything immediately. And the whole thing is you pick one priority and it takes you a year to master it. So like you just keep going deeper and deeper on it. And if there's six pieces, it's going to take you at least six years to get through it because like you're mastering, you're going to master it. So that is the. But the stuff is just I have all of these materials. Then there are workbooks. There are every quarter we do a strategic workbook together, whether it's the author stack framework or something that will overall help you plan the next quarter and where to go next. Then there are also technical workbooks which are about writing a better book, Kickstarter memberships, other stuff. So like you do. Additionally, I have a bot that I have paid good money for someone to construct that has been trained only on my work. And you have access to it, unlimited access to it 24, 7, 365 to help personalize all of this stuff for you then. Because none of that is enough because you're just going like the. Then we have monthly breakthrough sessions. There's two this month and those sessions are meant to get you around other groups of authors who are also meant to be. We're trying to build a similar thing to you, but with very different point of view. So it's based on the breakthroughs that we did at the Writer MBA conference, but digitally. I figured out a way, I think, to do digitally and have it be impactful so it could happen over and over again online instead of just a one time. So now you're in like these small groups with three other people who are on a similar journey to you. You have access to their ecosystem, you have access to the stage of their career. Because that's like a big baseline. Are you. Which of the five ecosystems are you? Are you one to five? Like how advanced are you? But mainly just what is your vibe? What is the thing that like when I say my biggest problem, there's going to be hopefully four big answers. And this is very different than most things because I try to bring in people that are outside. I want people that think differently. I want to fill it with people who think differently. Because then you get out of your bubble and you're not going to hear just write five books in a series and stage of their career. Because that's like a big baseline. Are you, which of the five ecosystems are you? Are you one to five? Like how advanced are you? But mainly just what is your vibe? What is the thing that like when I say my biggest problem, there's going to be hopefully four big answers. And this is very different than most things. Wait till a trend ends. If you have 500 people like that, it's not going to be helpful, even if they're all high level authors. So I want people in IT who want to do a bunch of different things. And that's how I believe like the seed amount of people have done. So it's based on I do, I have resources and books and other stuff. You do the workbooks and the chatbot and then we do breakthrough sessions together so that you have that accountability. And you can say, I tried this thing, it didn't work out. Or Russell Bot told me to do this thing, it didn't work out. What am I missing?

No, it's great. It covers the full stack journey of what an author needs to succeed. And I love it. So that'll be linked down below. I know you also run the Author Stack. Awesome newsletter.

Also the Author Stack. If you go to the author stack.com There is a paid option which has most of those. A lot of those resources. So there's two levels of. So capitalist is run through the Author stack. And when you can just get. There are two levels. One is I'm just beginning. All of that stuff is so over my head. Like, I'm overwhelmed. We have a ton of resources on the beginner section, like my fundamentals, Kickstarter courses and some of my early books. The things that can get you ready to do a career. So I don't just say don't join. I say join at the membership level, regular membership level. You have access to hundreds of posts at that point. And then all of the most powerful transformations are in the capitalist level because you need a base of information to. So for this, a lot of free resources, then there's some paid resources and then there's. The biggest transformations are going to be at the capitalist level when you're ready for them.

Makes total sense. I love it. No, it's great. It'll all be linked down below. I've been a member on the Author Stat newsletter now for. Since you started it, I think, because you rebranded it a little bit ago. And Russell, as always, like, absolutely fantastic. Having you on this was amazing.

I love it. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. Amazing in the best way. Russell always shares just a mountain of information and I love how he frames things. I love his views. He's not afraid to speak his mind. I think so many people in publishing just follow, like the one path to do things. And Russell's always out here sharing different ways of thinking about the world and this industry that are just so needed, so huge. Thank you again for Russell coming on. And yeah, that's it for this episode. I've got some new episodes coming. We're in a weekly flow now that I had a brief period in May where I was really struggling to be weekly with the podcast. It was like April into May because I was doing some traveling. And then I was starting like a second company, which is Craterwood. And between author, psychic and creator Wood, I was drowning. But huge shout out to James. He's the assistant at Author Sidekick and Creatorwood. Amazing, amazing. And he's been helping me with everything, including being able to, like, really get back into being consistent with this podcast, actually being ahead. Like, we are now ahead on episodes where they're edited. Not just recording ahead but editing ahead which is just new for me and amazing. I'm just so pumped to like keep this going and see what happens. We recently crossed the 10,000 download threshold and I think now we're like approaching 12,000. So I'm just really excited to have all of you here with us. As always, let me know if you have any questions and they can help. I have a few big launches specifically for authors outside of creator Wood coming in the second half of 2025. I've been building up to a lot. I released this deck of cards. It's the 50 marketing superpowers. It's totally free if you sign up to the author Sidekick.com Newsletter, but there's also the physical cards. I have much bigger releases than this coming for authors. Probably expect to hear two big things in Q4, which I'm really excited for. So in the meantime I hope everyone has an amazing rest of their day. And as always, don't forget, together we are boundless.