The Power of a Permafree Book with Jennifer Waddle

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Welcome to Author Audience, where I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. Today I'm rolling out the red carpet and inviting you into my community for a behind the scenes look at what's working for authors just like you. And I love these episodes because I think it's really important for you to hear from authors that are in a similar position as you know, and that they're finding success and what's working. And so I love these types of case study calls with my members. My name is Shelley Hitz. I'm the owner of Author Audience Academy. And to be honest, the most rewarding part of my job is helping others get results and reach their goals. I love that so much. And so in this episode, I want to position the spotlight on one of my members, Jennifer Waddle. Welcome, Jennifer.

Thank you, Shelley. It's great to be here.

Yes. I'm so excited to have you share more on today's episode. Before we dive in, I just want to share a brief bio about you. Jennifer Waddle is an author, speaker, and contributor who writes books for women in the trenches of life. Her goal is to help Christian women face the issues that stand in the way of who they were created to be. I love that. She's also the kids book author of a brand new series called A Day in the Life of a Little Kid on Amazon. And Jennifer resides with her family near the foothills of Cheyenne Mountain. And you live here in Colorado Springs, right where I am as well. We have attended the same church and you can connect with her@jenniferwatlonline.com so for this week's Center Stage Spotlight training, I'm gonna have Jennifer share a specific success strategy in our interview together. So I'm excited to learn from each other in this episode all about being able to accomplish your goals as an author and some specific strategies that have really worked for Jennifer. So thank you for joining us, Jennifer, and just share a little bit about your journey and what it's looked like.

Okay, So I really want to share this because I think it will encourage so many authors out there. Two years ago, Shelley, two years ago.

I should say just over two years ago, I had zero books published.

Wow.

But I had been writing since I was in grade school and I just didn't know what to do with all that writing. It was two years ago that you and I had a discussion at church and you handed me a business card for someone who could help me actually launch that first book. And I just ran with it and did it. And I have to say, Shelley, two years later, I have 10 books.

And I have at least half a dozen more that are in the works and on their way to being published. So I just have to say thank you. Thank you for helping me all along for that whole journey in two short years.

I know it's been an amazing journey. And you've been part of Author Audience Academy since the beginning and have just taken the information and implemented it, which is so fun for me because I love that. But it's been so neat for me to see. And you've also gotten published on major websites. Great, correct?

Yes. I've had articles published on Gifted for Leadership, which is part of Christianity Today and Crosswalk, and I believe and encourage and I just. Oh, wow. I'm just blessed with abundance of my writing.

Yeah. And that's. It's just been so neat to see you just really grow in that area of writing as you've taken steps that were very scary, that, you know, still you're taking steps that are scary and going out of your comfort zone and trusting God and giving him your writing and seeing all that he's doing. You're now a children's book author. You are, you know, having. You have Bible studies for women that people are being reached all around the world. Did you ever think that you would have this type of ministry? Wow. So amazing. And so you have an author platform, you have a website, an email list, growing email list. So what did it take for you to get to the point where you're at now, today, two years later?

Well, I have to say that a lot of it is trial and error.

But taking steps each day, no matter how small, is really the key. And I think that that's what I did. I mean, there were times when I was sprinting and going 100 miles an hour, and I don't recommend that for the long term.

No, me either.

But do I regret doing that? No. Because I learned a lot along the way and I've learned how to prioritize. I'm still learning how to prioritize.

Aren't we all?

I think the biggest thing is to develop a plan, some sort of plan, and then just stick to it. You can tweak it as you go. Like if you make your stuff, 30 day, 60 day, 90 day plan, and it isn't working. Just Go back and revise it.

Right.

And then just do what's on the list. Because really, I think it's just so important to actually finish what you've started. And that's what really got me going, was to keep that in mind, is just finish what you've started. Finish what you've started. And you can always go back and fix things or change things or tweak things later.

Yes. That is so key. And, you know, how do you think that being part of Author Audience Academy has helped you in that way?

You know, Author Audience Academy has given me direction when I don't know where to go next. It's given me motivation when I'm stuck. And a lot of times I'm stuck because I just don't know. I'm fearful because I haven't done it before. And I need the motivation to say, you can do this even if you haven't done it before, or you can do this if you've done it before and you're just scared because you forgot the process. So that's what I love. Author Audience Academy really helps us complete our books, get them on the market, promote them, and then move forward even after that.

I love that because you talk about direction, motivation, and completion, and that's one of the things I think so many authors are just scattered. You know, we're creatives. We love to have a million things. You know, we have so many ideas, and then it's so fun to start something, and it's not as fun to complete it. I will agree. I'm a typical creative entrepreneur. It's more fun for me to start something new. But what God has shown me over the years is having a focus and being able to be a finisher and complete things before I just jump into all these other things or take time to reflect and plan and say, okay, Lord, is this something youg even want me to do? And. And sometimes, like you said, we look back and we're like, whoa, that was just a bit too much. I just came through a season that I published, like, four books, had four book book launches within a couple months, and it was like, whoa, that was too much even for me, with a team and everything. It was just too much. And so sometimes we reevaluate, and then it gives us wisdom for moving forward. But share with us a specific marketing strategy that you've implemented recently that's really worked for you. You were sharing with me a little bit about this before we started recording.

Yeah. You know, from the very beginning, I've heard you Talk about having a permafree book. And you know, that seems like a term that it was a term I didn't understand. First I figure out what perma free meant, which is always free, right?

Yeah, permanently free.

And then I needed to know like how to do that, how to get that on Amazon, because Amazon doesn't necessarily let you just put your price at zero, Right?

They don't.

And so for me that was like something I just didn't want to do. But I'd heard you talk about the benefits of it for so long. So.

I took the leap and I put my 21 day devotional for women called Discouraged again on Amazon as a perma free book. And how I did that was I first uploaded it to draft to digital and that was my outside platform that I chose. I kind of researched a bunch of them and that one seemed easy to use and comfortable for me. And so I uploaded it there for free. And then once it was on there for a little bit, I contacted Amazon and said, hey, this other site has my book for free. Can I get my price change to free? And they were super great in just immediately implementing that. And now it is a perma free devotional on Amazon. And I have to say, Shelly, it has been number one in women's personal growth for many, many months.

Yeah. And you know, it's neat because what you've done now, and just like a blog, I think of a permanently free book, a perma free book. It's content marketing on steroids because you're putting it on the second largest search engine in the world, Amazon. So it's basically like you've written 21 blogs, but you've compiled them into a book. And now content marketing people can find that information, that content on Amazon every single day, download it, and we won't know until we get to heaven how many people have actually been encouraged or, you know, been impacted because they found that permanently free book. So not only is it a marketing strategy, but it is ministry when you have a Christian book. And so it's just so powerful. And I teach that inside Author Audience Academy and the Author Automation System system and you know, teach a very specific way to do that and what to include in your book and how to, you know, just connect all the pieces. And there's certain things that I'll tell authors like you need to research your target audience or, you know, setting a 90 day goal, getting a perm free book up there. And so many times it's like those big things that will really make the biggest Difference authors resist. And what do you think it is that, you know, authors that are listening that may have resisted some of these big things they need to do, but they're just resisting it. What do you think kind of caused you to want to resist this for a while?

Like I said earlier, it's just the process is unknown to us. And so to have to try to figure out that new process, even though you have walked us step by step through, just feels intimidating. But also, I think another obstacle is that we've gone to all that work to write the book and now we're going to just give it away. So we have to really get over that hurdle as well. And I have to share with you just quickly this week, I mean, I get emails all the time about this devotional, but this week I got an email from a mom who said she gave the devotional to her 15 year old daughter for Christmas. And one night she heard her daughter crying in her room and she went in and her daughter was reading the devotion about being rejected. It had really hit home for her because she was struggling at school with rejection. And so you know what? I don't care if I ever get a penny for those devotions. That is the reason why I wrote it. And so if people, even if you're not writing Christian material, choose your Perma free book because it's going to help someone. And that biggest tip is to make your permafree book a helpful book for people because that reward is far greater than any monetary reward.

Yeah. And you know, it. It really is like we're all motivated by different things. But I think most authors, they want to know that their writing is making an impact and to know that you're making an impact that. I just got chills when you told me that. That was amazing, you know, and it's, it's a ripple effect. I had encouraged you to put that perma free book out there. You finally, you know, took the process and now it's reaching people. You have no idea. That's just one story of the person who actually took time to email you. You have no idea the people who are being encouraged every single day. And for those listening to the podcast, if you're interested, definitely go get that Perma free book because it's something that can encourage you. But in the Perma free book, you can add calls to action to your email list. You can be using it to build your author platform. You can add calls to action to buy your other books. And so there's a very specific strategy that you can use that free content, that content marketing, to sell more books, to build your author platform, and to even potentially sell other products that you have created, which, you know is what I teach in the author automation system. You know, there's so much that you've been doing, so much that you've been learning. Do you have just some closing advice or encouragement for authors right now outside.

Of getting that Perma Free book up on Amazon? I really want to just thank you for your author automation system. And I'm still learning, still going through slowly going back to your training on that. But it is crucial to being a successful author in setting up systems from writing your book, to editing your book, to publishing your book, to marketing your book and getting that set up in an automated system. Because you know what? We are forgetful people. Right. And we'll get done with one book, take a sigh of relief, and a few months later start to tackle that next book. And we've forgotten how we did it. We. But when we set up that author automation, we get everything in place, everything in order, then it just starts working like clockwork and you get more comfortable and you're able to go forth boldly and get more books published.

Yes. You know, keeping track of your systems, that is something that is so key. And being willing to try new things, being willing to try something like a Perma free book. Now, I do recommend you do it in the way that I teach you, Inside Author Audience Academy, with a very small strategy that I share with you, and I'm willing, if you're an Author Audience Academy member, to brainstorm with you. I was just brainstorming with one of our members yesterday about her Perma Free book and her title, but I'm doing the same things. I just published my book Broken Crayons Still Color, and now I am taking that exact same system that I've used in the past for this new book. And so I'm going to be setting up that same system. And once I have it set up what I love about it, you can set it and forget it. Like, you can always feed the system with more traffic. But once I have it set up, that book will continue to reach more people and it will just be a continual cycle without me having to sit behind my computer because we only have so much time. You know, you're a busy person. You have kids, you're involved in the church, you have a family. I mean, you have other things that you're doing, writing other books. And so that's what I love about it. It does take time to get set up in the beginning, but once you have it set up, it will continue to work for you ongoing. What would you say your Take Action tip today would be so.

My Take Action tip? Gosh, I have so many of them and I kind of forgot.

I think you had mentioned the permafree book. Just really taking the step to do that.

Yeah. And I think that you were right. Just go in as an author audience academy member and go in and really follow your step, because that's what I did. I can't remember if it was a webinar that you did. Did you do a webinar on the permafree book?

Yes, yes. We have an entire training on that in the author automation System in Author Audience Academy.

Okay. Because I remember specifically signing up for that webinar and it was one afternoon when I was. I was listening to the webinar while I was exercising.

Oh, hey, multitasking. That's good.

And I. I jumped off the bike and just wrote. Started writing all of your tips down for that Perma Free book. And it was like a light bulb went off. So that's my one takeaway tip, is for them to just go in, review that training and get that Perma free book on Amazon. It is not as hard as you think.

Yeah. And I've heard you say this before. You're not like, your strength is not in the technical stuff, right?

No, Shelly, listen, this is the truth.

Two years ago, okay, when I was first getting started and I got my site up and running, I had to call for technical support. And the poor young guy on the other end said, what browser are you using? And this is the truth. I said, what is a browser? This is two years ago. Wow.

And now you have an international online ministry.

It's crazy. So, yeah, technical is not my strength.

So even if someone is not technically oriented, they can do this.

Yes, they can do this.

And that's what I love about these interviews. Because everyone has different strengths. I personally do have a strength in the technical stuff. But knowing and hearing, and those of you listening, Jennifer did this. She did it. She did the steps. It's on Amazon. It's now a Perma free book that's continually reaching new people, bringing new people to her author platform, introducing them to her books, she can do it. You can do it too.

And I love it. So where can people find you if they want to connect with you online?

Yeah, just go to my website, JenniferWaddleOnline.com that's the best place to find all my books and my speaking events and even my kids books. I have a new link for that series and I'm loving, loving, loving being a kids book author.

I love it. And Jennifer has co authored a book with me and it's taking me a while, Jennifer to get it finished but I'm you know, probably in this next few months we'll have everything finalized. Once I do it the first time, you know how it is, you learn the system the first time, then it will come easier. But she's co authored a book with me and a children's book and so that is so fun and so so many things that God is doing in your life. I love it that you are just branching out and stepping out into the areas that he's called you to be in and he's going to bless that and I just pray that he continues to to bless you. So I just thank all of you that have tuned in and are listening right now. I thank you for being here and I hope that you found encouragement from Jennifer and specific tips and strategies that you can implement and I will see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Author Audience. I would like to invite you to attend one of my free trainings all about how to sell more books without being pushy or self pulling promotional. It's called amplify your message. Plus I will give you two free gifts just for attending, no credit card required. First you'll get my best selling book 9 Strategies to Build and grow your author platform and you'll also get my ebook titled List 5 powerful emails you can use immediately to grow your business. These are basically fill in the blank style templates and they are yours at no charge when you join us. For for the training. You can sign up for my free training by going to shellyhits.com/ that's shellyhitz.com S H E L L E Y h I t z.com amplify this training and the two bonus ebooks are free and I would love to help you sell more books.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.