Episode 244: Art as a Business with Jessica Abel

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Hello, everybody. You can find us.

The S is so long in your last name. How many S's are there?

800.

800? 800. It's the longest last name on the planet. Who thought. You think it would be like that? You think it'd be a. A polish name like Michalowitz or Ukrainian? It's. It's Irish, right? Air English. Yeah, English, surprise. The English will do anything to warn upmanship other people.

800S'S, they ruled the world for a long time. That's how.

Yeah.

Anywho, you can find us on itunes. Stitcher, tunein, radio, Spotify, iheartradio, Alexa, anywhere, any podcatcher.

You know, now I'm thinking that music may not work for us. I love it. I mean, I listen to this. I love it. I love that. The only problem is we don't have, like, an in and out to it. Like, that's the one piece we have which is a great in. Yeah, but we need the to that. Can we hire a musician to do this? Like, Tom, we want something like this.

Maybe one of our fans can do it.

Yeah. Okay. That's a great idea. But we don't have time because this doesn't come out till March. All right, well, we need music. I love that, though. That's. That's my favorite so far. Kelsey.

Yeah.

I want to bribe our listeners before we kick off the show. And I got to ask you something. I think I figured something out as I was going to get our sushi today.

Oh.

So here's my question. Here's the bribe first.

Yeah.

Well, we are giving away any one of my books published by Penguin. And when I sound like I'm disparaging penguin, I hurt the ones I love. Like, I love penguin.

I know I do the same thing, right?

You, like, make fun of me so much.

I'm like, she really cares.

She really cares for me.

I mean, that's what my family does, literally.

Right. If you care for someone, you hurt them. We all know that. That's a rule. I mean, if you're really.

I don't do that to anybody.

I don't care about no like, everyone knows that, like, if you really love someone, you hurt them. Yeah, Right. I mean, it's basically the rule of love. So I love Penguin. And so Penguin, we've kind of, like, milked the Penguin teat, so to speak, and they send books out for free, but it's very limited. Before they get, like, upset at us. And I, like, now we're doing the blame game. Like, oh, they call me Mike. Why do you keep on shipping out these individual books to people? I'm like, oh, Kelsey, that's her fault. They call you and say, why are you doing this? Like, oh, Mike, he misunderstood. So we're doing the point the finger thing. That can only go so fast.

Wait, I can do that.

Oh, you haven't been doing it. Yeah, blame me. It stretches it a little bit longer. You can milk it. Just one more pop. Well, I think this is where we're approaching the end. Now you can get a free copy of one of my published books from Penguin if you do a simple bribe. Go to our podcast. Post wherever you listen. Stitcher.

Itunes.

Itunes. There's gotta be one more Spotify. Yeah, you always gotta give.

I actually don't know if you can't do it.

Okay. Go anywhere.

You can't actually read on.

So wherever you can, yes, technically. Review the book. Do a review.

Do it on our site.

Yes. Yeah, but that's kind of.

I know.

That's okay. We don't care about our site. Go to other sites and then post it. Take a screenshot of the completed post. Like, people are like, oh, I was typing it in. Like, no, no, no, no, no. You got to actually post it. Take a screenshot email to Kelsey. It's K E L S E Y A Y R E S is her last name. S s, s, s 800 times.

Don't do that. It's just K E L S E y@mike michalowicz.com send.

All right, that one works too. Send a screenshot there and then tell us your mailing address so we can mail you the book. Now here's the one thing that stinks. You got to be in the US Shipping International. We just can't do it. We can't. We can't milk Penguin that much. So. I mean, some people tried to get it, but you gotta be in the US that's our ethical bribe. Or unethical. I don't know if it's really ethical, quite frankly. Here's what I found out, Kels.

What'd you find out?

I discovered what the worst birthday is for Every single human being on this planet. What 25th birthday, you want to know why? The day you turn 25, J bone, you start degrading, your body starts falling apart. I myself, I have a 17 year old son. Yesterday, the kid sits there, he plays video games. I don't think he moves like slugs have more of an exercise regimen than him. He sits down next to me. I'm like, who is this guy? So I push him a little bit to elbow him because he smells like a 17 year old. I elbow, I'm like, oh my God. I just elbowed like muscle on top of muscle. And then I grab his arm. Like, what? This guy's like, are you on steroids? It's because he's 17. Every day of your life until you're 25, your body is working for you. It's like, I'm going to build muscle, we're going to look great, eat those Cheetos. We're cool with it. And then the day you turn 25, your body's like, I'm going to cling onto these Cheetos a little bit more.

This is a proven fact. This 25.

Yes. It's law. It's human law. I mean, even the police enforce it. I saw this guy down the street and he was like running, going for a jog and he looked really svelte. And the cop pulled him over and said, how old are you guys? Like, I'm 26. He's like, no, no, sit down. Eat these Cheetos right now, you son of a bitch. That's how it works around here.

I always heard that was like 30.

Well, you heard wrong. You don't know the law. It's 25.

And you know, I think you've met people younger than 25 that have maybe.

You know what, maybe that's your nonsense bullshit British heritage. Oh, and where I come from, it's 30. And we use many S's at the end of our name to extend our names.

Well, I'm glad you figured out the facts of life.

You know one more thing you can do, Kels?

What?

You can go to mikemicalitz.com or the shortcuts. Mikemotorbike.com we have a free copy of Surge, another one of my books, totally free. So you can go there and download it. You can literally get one book by doing one little thing for us, and then you can get another book by doing nothing. Just go to mikemcalowitz.com, actually, you got to give your email address. So that's the hook, and then we'll email you. Surge. All right, we're good. Oh, do we have English or mail? Yeah, yeah, been waiting.

This comes from Jay Rocca.

Hey, Jay. What's up, brother?

Another itunes reviewer. So he says, upon finishing Profit first, I jumped right into the podcast and have been binging it ever since. I love the banter and the realness aspect to the show that you don't hear much on other business podcasts. The guests are phenomenal and very knowledgeable, as well as entertaining, bruh.

Oh, we got to do inappropriate laugh button again. Like when someone says something serious. Now we hit this like, your show's amazing. That's not.

I like how you talked through that but didn't actually do it.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. So I want to thank our corporate partners, which I know last week I said, we got to get more corporate partners, you know, but that hasn't broadcast yet, so we're recording these in advance. But I think if you're a listener to the show and you want to get great exposure for your business, what better thing than to have someone promoting you from their heart? I mean, I love nextiva and her true voice system. I mean, every time I make a.

Call on that, I'm like, sells itself, practically.

It sells itself. Like, you can actually hear the person's real voice. And then when it comes to receipt bank, I just use it. Today when I ran out to get the sushi, they gave me a receipt, and they said, do you want to keep this receipt? I said, I just want to take a picture of it. And they said, why? I'm like, I suffer from asphalts. And they're like, what? I'm like, this is a real issue. And now I feel uncomfortable at my own sushi store. This is really uncomfortable for both of us. And then I had to explain, and I'm actually getting a little emotional just thinking about explaining my issues. You know who's solved that for me?

Who? Please tell me who.

Receipt Bank. And listen, we'll promote your business just like that.

Fictional stories that go on and on.

And on and on and on and on. Okay. Her name is Jessica Abel. And you're like, oh, it's Jessica Alba.

I said that?

Really? Oh, no, it was me. Was that me? I mispronounced her name. It's Jessica Abel. Jessica Abel is an author of the graphic novel oh, La Perdita. I hope I said that correctly. And two textbooks about making comics, drawing words and writing pictures and mastering comics. Her book out in the Wire is about how the Best radio producers in the world. Not us Use story to keep us listening. Sea cows. It's that sushi story that kept you in.

Yes.

She has a blog and her book growing how to find creative focus when you're drowning in your daily life. And Jessica has implemented profit first, her own version of it, in her business. And we're gonna discover how you, my creative friends, can do the same for yourself. A big welcome to the show. Welcome, Jessica.

Welcome, Jessica.

Hi.

Thanks for having me.

How are ya? Hey, did I pronounce? Is it La Perdita?

Yeah, that's fine.

Oh, is that. Is that a Spanish word for something specific?

It means the lost one. So the main character is a young American woman who sort of almost on a whim, moves to Mexico City. And then she has a absentee Mexican father, but she's, you know, an Anglo kid and sort of trying to find her identity there. And because she's very naive and has a lot of preconceptions about how this should all work out, things go very badly.

Oh, this is. This is good already. So have you visited Mexico City?

I actually lived there for a couple years, yeah.

Bingo. Bingo. Because I hear when an author writes a fiction story that many authors actually are expressing their own personal experiences. Is that what you're doing?

No. Thank God you weren't.

La Pertina.

It is absolutely fictional. Absolutely 100% fictional. Yeah.

But you reference stuff in Mexico City that you've experienced. I mean, you must know the culture and flavor to express it.

Oh, yeah. I mean, well, I know it as an expat, you know, as she is. So definitely I couldn't have done this book without having lived there. It's totally informed by my experience there. But my experience was, you know, I'd say 95% positive. It was awesome. I loved it. And so it was not. The story is not about what happened with me.

So you're a cartoonist, an author, a comic artist, which I don't. Maybe that's the same as cartoonist. What is it? What's the life of being a creative in that nature, especially the business life? What's it normally like?

Oh, it's challenging, to say the least. So being a cartoonist is being an author, because when you say cartoonist, you mean the person who both writes and draws, as opposed to a comics artist who might be somebody who only draws?

Oh, I did not know that.

That differentiation, I mean, you know, it's pretty interchangeable, but, you know, it's a little bit. There's a little bit more to it. So anyway, when you're a cartoonist, you have, you know, the same need to develop stories and books. Fiction or nonfiction? You know, out on the Wire is nonfiction. La Perdita is fiction. I've done a whole bunch of different things as well. My newest book is called Trish Trash Roller Girl of Mars. So, you know, kind of all over the place. So you write the book, you develop the characters, you think about the world, you do all the things you need to do as an author, and then you have to draw it. And it's just a very lengthy and demanding process, which means that in an ideal world, you'd get paid for that labor by selling more books or charging more for them or getting paid more in advances. But in the real world, you don't. You are more likely to get paid less for it. Well, I don't know. Less. I'm just making that number up. But certainly not more than any other author. And I've never worked in the traditional. Traditional comic book world, really. You know, Marvel, DC Comics. And that's a whole different model. It's paid by the page, generally speaking. But, you know, I'm much more. I've been published by our. You know, we are. We are co publishees of the Penguin Random House.

Oh, world.

So out on the Wire is Broadway Books, and La Perdita is Pantheon. So those are different imprints of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Now, I have total respect for you. I did before, but now.

Now you know that we actually are. Yeah. I don't think there's a word for being co publishees, but anyway, published by the same publisher. And so, you know, you know how that whole system works from the inside, and it's. You know, I was. I've been able to get what people think of as good advances for my books, for the kind of book that I do but never sold. Massive numbers. And so I don't generally earn book. I don't earn out, which means pay back the advance. So. And that's much. That's way more typical for authors than. Which I'm sure your situation is that you make royalties on your books because you, you know, sell large numbers.

Yep.

But for the vast majority of authors, they never sell out. They never earn out.

So we got to call an audible right now. We got to get Jessica on author up. Could you make a note of that, Kelsey? So we have Jessica, just so you know. And now our listeners know we have another kind of sister podcast we're doing about authorship because there's so much misunderstanding about it. And I'm Doing it with my, my co writer. But I come from a business, you know, nonfiction. She comes from some fiction. But you introduce yet another thing, this creative component. I'd love to have you on the show, so just.

Yeah, I'd love to do that.

So what I don't know about writing books is you have to put all the effort in up front. And I. Tell me if this is true, Jessica, for you, like with the first book you write, it's not like, you know, Penguin or anyone comes to you and says, oh, here's a wad of money. Go write the book. You have to prove yourself. So, oh, yeah, it's years of effort. At least in my case, it was actually almost five years of effort to write books and then promote them before I ever caught the eye of someone. And the hope is to get the money on the back end in these little micro transactions. Oh, hopefully someone will spend $20, my book, which means I'll net $4. And you gotta do this over and over again to make your money. Is that the same kind of life that you had experienced or have experienced?

I mean, pretty close. I started in the comic book world, but in alternative underground comic books. So my first publisher to speak of, I had little stories here and there, but my first publisher was Fantagraphics Books, which is, you know, really well known sort of alternative underground publisher. And I had a series with them of individual comics. And so, yes, I still had to produce them ahead of time. And I had to self publish as a mini comics artist for, you know, five years before they picked me up. And then I worked with him, them for about five, six years before I published with Pantheon. So, you know, it was a long transition to being what we now think of as being a quote unquote, traditionally published author.

So how do you.

And that's what I mean, how do you last when.

When you're going from publisher, publisher kind of scratching along in the beginning?

Well, that's the thing. This is so, you know, the thing I didn't understand. And nobody tells creatives, like, nobody talks well, nobody tells anybody this, really. I mean, I think your book is one of the, you know, sort of a great primer on, like, how does this all work for me, it was anyway, because I don't. I think most people are not ever taught about how any kind of business model works. Like, what is this thing? How is it supposed to work? How are you supposed to make a living from this? It's just like you get a check, you spend the check. There's no Understanding of how to plan your life if you're not in a salary job. And I teach art and that's one of the ways I've made a living in the midst of all of this other stuff. So initially I had a day job and then I was teaching adjunct, then I was not teaching, and now I'm actually a full time professor as well as running my own business. And that's one of the typical ways that artists will make it work is by teaching or doing some other, you know, running art camps or doing private lessons or doing some other kind of art related thing that's typically extremely badly paid. And you know, the same for authors, you know, teaching writing workshops and doing other kinds of things like that. And, and it's, we're just not taught how to do this. Like when you get an advance and you know, even so you've already worked on the book for X amount of time, even if you're an established author and you can get an advance, you know, while you're working on it, you get a third of it up front. When you sign the contract after you've done a whole bunch of work on the proposal and the, you know, first chapters, you get a third of it when you turn it in. So in my case, three years later, and then you get a third of it when it's published. So in my case like six months after that.

Right, so Pantheon's giving you a third? A third, A third. I only get a quarter. Quarter, quarter. I'm getting ripped off.

I got a good agent. What can I tell you?

Oh my God. I get a quarter on signing the contract, quarter on delivery of the manuscript, quarter on print date, and then quarter one year after print date.

Yeah, well.

Oh my God. I want your agent.

You can question this.

Nobody, that's why.

Okay, but then I never see any, I never see a penny after that. So, you know, it evens out.

Yeah.

And you know, one day I might, it's, it's not, you know, I'm still in the system and everything, but it's like I just never ran the numbers and said, you know, if this is my advance, then how many copies do I need to sell? If I need to sell, you know, 25,000 copies or 50,000 copies of this book in order to earn out 100,000 copies of this book. How am I going to do that?

Yeah.

You know, out of, outside of like a bolt of lightning. How does this happen? And then if I'm not going to do that, how do I figure out, you know, I Get a big hunk of money. Now, how do I make that last over time? How long is it going to last? How much? How many other things do I need to do? Like, how is this going to work?

And so how did that work in the past once you started getting these advances? I know a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to show say when a big chunk of money comes in, it seems to be a big chunk of money going away within weeks or months. How was your experience when you got those advances in the past?

I've always been really disciplined. I was raised well by my mom, who was a freelancer also.

So she knew it.

Yeah. And so she knew, you know, like, I always balanced my checkbook. I always, you know, was paying attention to these things, but I always felt this underlying anxiety. Is it enough? You know, what's going to happen? And that's. It really distorts your thinking. It really distorts the choices that you're making and that I felt that just for so long, just having no transparency into my numbers at all. But. So when I would get a big chunk of money, I would. I'm sure I would spend more than I would otherwise have spent. But I didn't spend it all out. You know, I would put it in the bank and, you know, basically continue in the same way and just using, you know, I used Quicken for years. Miserable. Just like, trying to track everything and put things in categories and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So.

Welcome to our new sponsor, Quicken. By the way. So you off air, you were sharing that there's this kind of headbutting between the concept of being an artist, a creative, and being in business that. That they don't go together. It's. It's water and oil or whatever they say.

Well, that's what people think anyway.

Yeah. Why is that? Why do they think that?

You know, I don't. I mean, I think it's because there's so much mythology that goes into this. It's just so damaging. But it's, you know, the idea is that artists need to be in their own zone. And if you're thinking about numbers, you're thinking about audience, which means you're distorting your work. You're not thinking about the work itself. You're thinking about, you know, how are you going to sell it? What's the value? And I think artists throughout history have done that anyway. Even artists who we think of as being the most kind of, you know, in the high tower are, you know, they're making work that Matches the needs of a high end collecting community, you know, if they're painters or something like that. Right. So I don't think that, you know, the idea that anybody can be isolated from that is, I think, just a misperception. But there's this basic feeling like an artist needs to stand away. An artist is, you know, this whole right brain, left brain thing, which is just bunk anyway. It's not even scientific. It has nothing to do with anything. The idea that artists are not capable of this, that we're too spacey, we're too, you know, just creative. And being creative is just the opposite of numbers and, you know, making calculations and, you know, making decisions in this kind of orderly way. And frankly, I think it's a way of keeping creatives down. You know, I think it's a. We are the ones who create the vast majority of value that's exchanged in our culture and we are the ones who are not getting paid, you know, when this all comes.

It's true, right?

Yep.

I mean, and creatives. What about creatives like someone who creates advertisements and stuff? There's tremendous value in that. Do you feel that there's a certain point where people kind of jump the shark and they leave behind the true essence of what being a creative is and then go into this commercialized version? Or is that also a myth?

Oh, yeah, no, that can totally happen and you have to be on guard for that. But the idea that you're not capable of making those distinctions or even within your own work, saying, well, this work that I'm doing right now is a little bit more on that end of the spectrum. And this other work is, you know, it's on the commercial end of the spectrum. And I'm doing it for an audience. And I understand that this work over here is work that's really much more self directed and, you know, whatever. I think we're capable of doing that, you know, we can understand those things without having everything be spoiled, even in an individual book proposal process. You know, my book out on the Wire stems from work I did in the late 90s with Ira Glass on this American Life about how they make their show and that. So I made a short comic with him, 30 pages or so that just sort of got sold from their website for 10 years. But it was the only text at the time out there about how do you make this kind of narrative radio? And so, and I flatter myself, it's pretty good too. So, like, people kept buying it, you know, and it became the text for anybody who wanted to learn this kind of work. And I saw that there was really a market need for more information about how to make great narrative radio and went to Ira with it. And he was like, I'm not getting involved in that again. That was a lot of work. And so, you know, he's a busy man. But so I basically altered the proposal so that it was. He didn't need to be in the creation side of it. He. I would interview him and he would be involved, you know, in that sense. And he was totally interested in that and wanted the book to exist and was supportive of it. And then I went ahead and did the book. And so the whole proposal was like, there's a market for this. People want this. There is. You know, something's happened. This was in 2011 or so, so it's pre podcast, boom. But it's still, you see things, you know, things are coming down the pike. And so that inspired my effort to put the proposal and sell it. But once I sold it and I was working on it, it was entirely a creative process from inside me. And what I wanted to say about narrative and how I saw the information coming from these different podcasters and producers and how I could pull it together into something coherent, something really a real statement about what are the elements of narrative and how do you make it well, and that's a dance you have to do. So then it's done and I turn it in and then it's like, well, what's the COVID gonna look like? And what, how do we write the marketing copy? And I'm again thinking, what's the value and how do I communicate it to people? So, you know, and even while I'm in the middle of it, and I'm very much going from my own creative heart and making the work, I'm thinking, is this communicating? Will people understand this? Yeah, you know, and I think that all of those, that complexity is something you live with as a creator.

But this stuff, you know, you're sharing also off air. This stuff's not taught in creative school. You go there and they want you to really step into self expression, I think. And you're not learning anything about finances. So a lot of creatives listening to this right now are like, you know, I just gotta do the best of what I am and maybe someone will find me. But it sounds like you, you're using profit first and maybe other systems. How did you bring in that business aspect into your business yet not lose the creative side, not sell out?

I just don't think it is it's not. It's irrelevant. You know, the idea of selling out, like, because you're trying to make a living and feed your family is like, I mean, give me a break.

Yeah.

And it's, it's a shaming kind of thing that creatives throw at each other. And, you know, again, I think it's a control mechanism. I think it's all about, like, stay in your lane. Don't try to do something different. Don't, you know, don't take control of this aspect. And I resent it, frankly. And I teach. I do teach to my students. I teach professional practice. And, you know, how to think about this as a business from day one when they meet me, because I feel like when students, if somebody is out there and wants to make art or some kind of creative work, because I also teach a lot of people in my, you know, my own program, my coaching program that are trying to build businesses and doing other work that is inherently creative but is not quote, unquote, art. But at art school, if you're going to go to art school, you are declaring by showing up and paying mega bucks for it and getting into debt for it that you want to be in business. You know, you want your art to be a business. And kids do not understand this. You know, parents come to, you know, admissions and they say, what are the career prospects?

Right.

You know, and I'm like, it's entrepreneurship. You know, you have to build something that will work. And there's so many different ways that that can happen. There's. There's such a huge variety of ways people can make it work, but people tend to go, okay, well, then I'm going to graduate from art school. I guess I've got to get an adjunct teaching job because there's nothing else I can do, or I'm going to go work at an art center supply store because I don't know how to do anything else. And that's. It's not true, you know, it's. It's, again, it's a sort of control mechanism. So I think I got off your original question, which was like, how did I do it?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, to be in my bonnet. What can I tell you?

Yeah, it's interesting. I met a guy who was a rock stacker. These guys who assemble rocks, like it's used gravity to, you know, have the rocks stick together effectively.

Drywall.

Yeah, not even drywall. He was just building these artistic forms.

Dry stone. I mean.

Yeah, yeah, dry stone. Dry stone.

Yeah, yeah.

And he looked at me and says, you know, it's a shame I'll never make money doing my passion and my challenge to him. I said, well, is there anyone doing this that's making money? He goes, oh, here's one guy. He makes a million dollars a year because he makes these magnificent sculptures out of just using gravity as the adhesive. One of them looked like a hot air balloon and was not that size, but it was close. And he was covered in National Geographic and people are touring to see him. And he's made all these ways of making income from it, teaching others to do this and doing exhibitions. And my thought back to this particular fellow was, hey, if that guy can do it, why not you? And I assume, Jessica, in any creative market, you probably have those really successful creatives that have made this into a business. Is that true?

Absolutely. But people who haven't made it assume that that happened via a lightning strike.

Right, right. The good luck. Exactly.

Yeah, just good luck. Or they just happen to be charismatic or something. But people, we are creative and creating a business is a creative act. Like figuring out how to do this is all about creativity. It's all about really thinking through the options.

Awesome. Yeah, you got the hallelujah button for that one. It's totally true. You're creative, so do it. Now, let's talk about specifically what you did. I know you've implemented Profit first. You have your own version of it. How did you doubled your revenue, You've increased your profitability. Tell us the secret, so to speak.

Well, I just started actually paying attention to the numbers and the ratios the way you talk about in Profit first. So, you know, I created a spreadsheet and put in, you know, track, started tracking numbers by quarterly and that now I'm doing it monthly. You know, what's my revenue, what am I spending on X, Y and Z. And you know, I, I have percentages that I'm trying to hit. So I'm not doing it with a bazillion different accounts the way you recommend because I always felt comfortable doing it with tracking rather than doing it with physical accounts. Like, I'm not somebody who feels tempted to empty the account if it's sitting in front of me. And I use YNAB for that. I, you know, divide stuff up using.

We had the founder, Jesse come on her show and share about ynab.

I love ynab and especially for people who are sort of small time businesses like me, not small time, but small businesses, you know, single business, fairly, not uncomplicated, you can use it as A business. And I find it amazing to get the kind of transparency into what's happening in my business six months out, which I just never had before. It was my biggest frustration in the past.

And how do you handle the seasonality? I don't know if it's like seasonality.

Well, that's how I do it. So when I. So right now I am still an author. You know, I have books out there. I'm, you know, thinking about a new book. I have a new book coming out actually in a few days. You know, Trish, trash is coming out in a few days. But I have started a business business in the sense that I started first a course and then a group coaching program called the Creative Focus Worksh, which is designed to help creative people create space in their lives for the really big projects that never seem to get finished and help them really do the work that matters to them. But this program is a twice a year program that I launch. And so the next launch is going to be in late January. And so when I have a launch I get a big chunk of money coming in and then, you know, some people pay monthly, so I get a little bit monthly after that and then it trickles out, you know, and then I have another launch. And so it's in some senses, although it's more frequent than in advance for a book. It's the same kind of the basic thing where I get a big chunk of money and then I have to make it last. And so what I do is I have all these percentages every month when money comes in, I put a percentage into a savings account, a savings line in ynab for taxes, for profit, for, you know, salary and various things that I need. Also I save for all of my subscriptions, digital subscriptions. So like, which I have way too many of as usual. But you know, tracking expenses, tracking teams, saving money for, you know, contractors that I work with. And so when I get, you know, I have a great month and I'm, you know, it's like a big five, five figure month and I'll like divide it up and it just sits there, you know, and gets spent down over time. And because I'm tracking in a spreadsheet over an annual basis, I can see where I'm at in terms of percentages. And I also can schedule out payments to various things over months ahead. So I can look in, you know, February and see like, well, I better make $3,000 if I'm going to make February, you know, but I know that number.

I love it. We kind of just give our listeners a puritanical version of this. We, Kelsey, got in a $60,000 royalty check for profit first, I think three months ago or something. Right. We have an account. What's the account called?

Drip.

Drip, yeah. So we have account called Drip. We put the 60,000 in there, and then every two weeks, every 10th and 25th, or we're doing. Are we doing weekly? We do weekly. We take out a sliver of that, and we're doing it over six months because we know in six months. Because you can. The one benefit of being an author is, you know, what your sales have been. And royalty checks get delayed, like a long time, like six months to a year. So you actually know what's coming the next time. So we can anticipate to some degree, but we've carved that money up in the past, like a $60,000 check. I'm like, whoa, my God, I'm rich. And then all the money's gone within a day. Now it's like, oh, we got pay three people's. Four people's salaries. Now with J Boner on board, you know, we gotta pay four salaries. We got to cover expenses. We had to get some equipment, and just to Jessica's point, sell profit and tax and pay our taxes. Right. And distribute profit. We had to carve this money up. So what happens is from the drip, it goes to our income account, and then from the income account, it goes based upon the profit first percentages to our different accounts. So same thing. YNAB is a very comprehensive tool. So, Jessica, what do you suggest to. Creatives are listening. Like, how do they even get started? Maybe this is too much to take on. Why now? It sounds like it's so complex. Profit first. It's so many accounts. Is there a shortcut to getting started?

Hmm, That's a good question. I mean, I think the short answer to that is you have to start adding up your numbers. You just have to start. I guess number one is have a separate business account have won. You know, which I didn't. I didn't. I didn't need it, because I did it. I did the separation. Like, within my system, within Quicken, I would have it categorized out, but once I did it, I was like, why didn't I do this a million years ago? This is so much easier. It's, you know, so much more transparent. And so have two accounts. That's the first step. And then when you have those two accounts, when money comes in, you divide things up into these percentages. And I think Having separate accounts like you recommend is probably a really good idea for a lot of people because it helps them see, you know, where, like when it's in their tax account, they know they can't touch it. And that's always a big problem. So have at least a tax account separated out and that would be like, at that basic level, that's going to help a ton. But if you don't know what your monthly expenses, your average expenses are, you should know that that's something you can totally figure out from your bills in the past. The problem is that if you're not using any systems at all, if you're not using ynab, you're not using some other kind of tracking thing, even Mint whatever, then doing the work of figuring out what your expenses is feels completely overwhelming.

Right, right.

If you don't understand the principle of categorization of. Of expenses, like this is this kind of expense. This is the, you know, grouping things together and having them clump together in some kind of automated system. It's just. It's like an impossible task. It's completely ridiculous. So I wonder if those are basics, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, that's extremely helpful. I wonder. Tell me if this is true, that as you do this in your business, you get a real sense of what your creative work is producing and you're doing other supplemental work, you're doing the teaching and so forth. But I presume you also have a measurement now, knowing that if your books perform a certain level, if your cartoons perform at a certain financial level, that that will then adequately supplant the need to be teaching and you can kind of further ramp up the work in that area. My question is, do you have a better sense of what and how much profit and revenue is being yielded by your core creative activities?

Yes. So in addition to the monthly tracking, I also have a different spreadsheet that I use where I break down my revenues and expenses by project. And that's a little more complicated to put together because how do you define what expenses for what thing? I have a sort of baseline of subscriptions and things that I need for lots of different things. I just put that in, just divided by percentage or whatever into the different columns. But even if you have just kind of a rounded number, you can look at, you know, you can look at this as, you know, basically, even if you aren't doing this scientifically, you know, basically how much time you're spending on one thing and versus another thing, if you're spending 25 hours a week on one project and 10 on the other. You know that it's like a lot more on one than the other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

At least you've got that. So then if you figure out the numbers, like how much money is coming in for this thing and how much am I spending on putting it together and how many hours you can figure out an hourly. Hourly rate for what you're doing and see whether it's worth doing.

Yeah, I love that. See whether it's worth doing. Jessica, I'm looking at time we actually got a role. I want our listeners to pick up your book. So we have a broad type or mix of entrepreneurs that listen in. So why don't you just kind of go through your books? You have La Perdita. What else do you have? I don't know. Why?

Well, the things that are probably going to be most relevant for your listeners are out on the Wire, the Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio, which is a comic book and is about, you know, it's the narrative techniques of 25 of the best podcast and radio producers love it. And then the other one is Growing Gills, which is a book about creative focus, how to make time for your big creative projects, and that includes building a business. How do you make time for the strategic, big thinking stuff you need to do as a business owner to really make it work?

I love it.

And if you're a creative out there and you're listening and you're like, I have no idea what Jessica was talking about, which I don't know why you'd be listening to this show if you didn't. But anyway, if you are, I also have a post which I'm sure you guys can link to, where I have, like a little basic spreadsheet to figure out what your business model is.

Yeah, for sure. What can you get? Tell us the link on the air. Is it like some long, nasty thing?

Yeah, let me see if I can get the link.

Nasty.

Nasty girls, Nasty boys.

Oh, yeah, it's easy. Jessicaable.com. that's J, E S S I C A B E L dot com. Business models.

Okay. Business models. And yeah, we'll absolutely put that in the show. Links. Jessica, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Jessica.

Thanks a lot. This was really fun.

Yeah, it was cool. All right, Kelsey, here. You know what we're going to do, Kelsey? We're going to recap what we learned from Jessica. We are going to thank our corporate partners and do we have a listener mail again today? Okay. We have a good flow of listener mail.

Yeah.

Cool. First, let's thank our corporate partners. You know, I need the new sound effect. I need the corporate partners. Do you want to talk about them?

Yeah, sure.

All right, why don't you tell us about them?

So first is nextiva.

Yeah. I heard they have some special features on their phone system.

Yeah, like this True voice feature.

Oh, yeah, everyone knows about that.

Yeah. So it's your actual voice.

Yep.

Not some weird crazy thing that happens on everybody else's phone.

Isn't that crazy?

It is. Who knew it existed?

Even though we're podcasts, like, you know, we have this equipment here is worth, I don't know, five, six thousand dollars new. Right. We've the voices. It sounds good, but it's not our true voice. Yeah, right. Jeremy, you can't get anywhere even when you're talking to someone face to face. They've discovered scientifically it's not their true voice.

Only through Nextiva.

Only through Nextiva's voice phone system.

Yeah. Amazing.

Amazing. Nextiva.com.

Nextiva.Com.

Yeah, the other one is definitely sound hotter in person. Thanks, J Bone. Did you see J Bone?

Your real voice is as I'm talking at all.

It's not really. Not as I'm talking about the money that came in and distributed. He starts scrolling something down his notepad there. He holds up. He goes, I'm cheap, by the way. So he's a cheap, cheap date. All right, so what. So what's our other sponsor?

Russi Bank.

They have some amazing benefits too.

Yeah, like they prevent scoliosis.

Yeah. Did you hear about that?

Yeah, I did. And as well. I'm sorry, ass welts.

I cannot hear you. It's not coming through.

Ass welts.

Really? So here's what. Jeremy, make sure we cut that out because we're going to make that one of our sound effects. Like when someone. When a. When a guest says something like. And we disagree. 8th of you saying ass. Well, I heard there is now scientific literature in the Boston Medicine Journal. Journal. There's always a dentist journal saying that scoliosis is. First of all, it's deadly. A lot of people didn't know that. Secondly, there's been no solution for this. Like nothing. They tried operation until we're see Bank.

Yeah.

You're jumping the shark.

I had to cut it off.

Don't you want us to promote your business this way? Think about the business that'll flock to you.

Yeah.

Email Kelsey.

Kelsey, you have no control over narrative.

That's the only rule. We'll mention your name but we could slam you, make fun of you, but people will be engaged, and trust me, we'll love you too, because we actually love both these companies and we use their businesses. So if you're interested, email Kelsey. You know the email by now, kelsey with a kikemcalowitz.com, just say, hey, want to sponsor a show or two? And we'll line you up. All right, Kelsey, what'd you learn today?

So what'd you learn today?

Oh, you're good. I. How you do with your gritting your teeth.

What did you learn today that's the most effective way to sing? Don't you know it is. So first of all, I love that she wrote a comic book for an informational book on how to do radio narrative. Like, that's so smart.

Yeah.

And so effective. Right?

Yeah.

But more importantly, I love how she said creating a business is a creative endeavor. So as a creative, you are perfectly aligned to being a business owner. Like, that is a complete myth that you cannot do it. And I feel like, like she explained using a system like ynab, and profit first takes away the scary aspects of numbers. Right. And money.

Yeah.

Because it really gives you so much clarity, and it takes that emotional stress away. Like, anybody can do it. You have complete control and power to do this and to live the life you dream, doing the thing that you love, you know?

Yeah. You know, I wonder if we should talk to Penguin, because Jessica and I were both working with Penguin, different imprints. I'm with portfolio. She's with Pantheon. But one thing Michael Port did with his book. Book yourself Solid. Is he produced a. Sorry. Released a cartoon version. I wonder if we do a cartoon version of Profit first.

Yeah.

Can you make a note of that somewhere? Just write something somewhere, somehow. But maybe Jess could be interested. But maybe I gotta talk with Penguin first and see if we can persuade them. So here's my big takeaway, Kels. That there is this insidious kind of clawing at each other as creatives.

Yeah. Right. I don't like survival of the fittest. Like, I'm gonna knock you down because I can't do it.

Yeah. Or you're making money. You're making money selling jewelry. You're. You're. You're. You're a sellout. I was trying to call. I didn't call you. A worse word.

But do you remember, like, listen to this. Prior to recent years, I think particularly, like, the punk rock movement, where, like, nobody could sign with a record label, otherwise they sell out. Like, how silly is that?

So Silly, right?

Don't take this opportunity to make money. I mean, and I totally get it. You don't want to compromise the art that you're creating. But I feel like if. Rather than that be the narrative, rather than that be the thing that gets talked about, it just be like, make sure you have a good lawyer representing you that in your contract right from the jump, you can't compromise your music. You know what I mean?

Yeah. There's something.

Make money doing the thing that you love without compromising your art.

And shame on the people who don't commercialize it because you're not exposing to the masses.

Right.

You know, Green Day is a punk band. And I know, well, they. They're sellouts.

So much shit for being sellouts.

They're sellout. There's got so much crap for that. And they're like, oh, well, listen to their music. It's top 40 pop stuff. It appeals to the masses. And so people are being turned on to a new, new. But the punk genre, right, that would normally listen to Janet Jackson, Nasty Girl. Yeah, Nasty Boys.

But either way, they've also created their own sort of niche, right? They've created this more pop punk niche that didn't necessarily exist prior to that.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think. I think that it's. It's a shame that. That when one person starts to pursue the financial opportunities to turn this into a business, that the rest of community is trying to pull them back down. They should elevate, they should exalt the person. They should say, how did you do it? We all should do this. It's a shame. So that was the big aha. But you know what? It's not just creatives. It's in every community. I was touring in Europe and I think it was. I think it was Germany, but actually maybe it was Netherlands. I can't remember. Somewhere in Europe, I do the Profit first presentation and I'm like, let's do this, guys. Let's increase profit. At the very end, a few people came up to me and said, we can't talk about profit here. We're embarrassed to be more profitable because then our colleagues and friends will pull us down. And they actually had a term for it like gesinkta gazoinkta or something.

You know, something that sounds. Right.

It sounds pretty accurate that when someone starts to excel, their community pulls them back down. There's that analogy with crabs. When a crab tries to crawl out of bucket, the other crabs pull it down. Same thing.

Yeah.

Jeremy, you want to say that I Feel like.

I wonder if that's indicative of a more, you know, socialist society or a less capitalist, you know, like, I think U.S. america, like, a free market.

It could be, but I think us Americans are weirdos. I think we still had that cowboy kind of mentality. I think even democracies that are based upon capitalism, I think there's still this social influence and power that pulls you down. I don't know, know. Jay Bone, what'd you want to say as you die for that microphone? Another word for the T shirts. It's gesiente. Yeah, could you write this stuff down because you're not on top of this. Thanks.

It's like steel trap. Yeah, I don't need to write it down.

It's gross that you say that, because I don't fall for that. All right, we want to know.

I remembered every single word that you made up, so.

And the thing is, you actually do. All right, guys, so we want to know what you learned, too. You can share that in the reviews and all that stuff. I do want to answer listener mail real quick. Right? You've got mail pattern baldness.

Okay, so this one comes from.

I pushed wrong button. Okay, there it is. People are laughing. Yeah.

So this comes from Dave King. He writes, we are now moving into the black. Thankfully. I want to set up a profit account, but was wondering if I should pay off my line of credit first or do both.

Dave, Dave, Dave, always take your profit first. I don't care how much debt you have, how much credit lines maxed out, you must start taking profit first. Now, we're not gonna ignore that debt, but if we don't get in the habit of starting taking profit today, you'll never get there. I bet you. I bet you, Dave, your entire business life, since you've had that debt, you've been trying to whack it away, right? But it's not going away. So here's what we're gonna do. We're set that profit account, allocate money toward profit starting immediately. Then when profit distribution comes out, we actually use it to pay debt. You. A small portion of it still goes to you. But now we're in the habit of building profit. We will use it to eradicate debt. And when the debt's gone, you now have established such a strong profit habit, that next check after all the debt's gone goes to you. So profit first, always. All right, Kels, anything else you want to start sharing before we wrap up?

That's it. But please leave us a review and take a screenshot and send it to me. Kelseykemcalowicz.com I couldn't say anything better than that, Kelsey.

All right, Kel, as always, a joy, J Bone, a joy. And I'll see you guys next week.

Bye.

All right, later. All zinc. The kazink.

It's the wrong music.

Oh, it's the wrong music. Yeah, it is the wrong music, but we're in that. We're in that kind of stage where a. A moth or caterpillar turns to a butterfly. It's like there's larvae over us. We look disgusting. Yeah, it's all mixed up together there.

For yourself. Bum bum.