Day 4 - Fear, Failure, and How to Build Your Audience

If you see the links below under “what I did today,” you’ll see that I watch a lot of videos. I don’t want you thinking I sit on my butt all day watching YouTube. I have a rather long train commute to and from school. Watching videos passes the time. 

Today was a big day. It didn’t start out that way. In fact, this morning I was feeling frustrated and ready to take a permanent break. Is it all that bad? No. There’s just a lot going on in my personal and family life. Between school and real life, it’s getting hairy out there. I’m learning to do for me. See, I have spent most of my life doing things for everyone else. Helping my friends and families, being available, and not following my dreams. It’s taken me a long time to realize I was just scared. Scared of what? I have no idea. Failure is (actually) no big deal. My whole life, I’ve been terrified of failing and come to find out, it’s nothing. Everyone tells you that failure is part of the deal. It’s what they told me when I was a kid. I’m now trying to think why I was so afraid of failure. I guess I didn’t want to look ignorant. I was poor growing up. I didn’t want to be stupid AND poor. I also wasn’t the hot chick. I didn’t want to be mediocre. Who does? Fear is a powerful decelerator. It keeps us stagnant. Keeps us from growing. I made myself the family kick-stand because I feared failing. I can waste time blaming myself or get on with things. 

Now as an adult, I realize failure IS part of the deal, but here’s what that means: Think of it like a video game. Every time your avatar dies in the game, that’s failure. What do you do? You re-start. You keep going. I don’t know how many times I’ve played the same level of Left 4 Dead, died a million times, and kept playing for hours. Eventually, I beat the game. Yep, that’s it. If you keep playing, you’ll beat the game. After a while, you learn there is always a zombie horde at the end of the park. Either a Tank or the Witch will spawn in the middle of the cornfield. You learn and you figure out the patterns. Once you get that down, you learn how to defeat the bosses. At the beginning of the level, I picked up a chainsaw because I knew I’d need it at the end. Simple huh? I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to figure this out. I try not to chastise myself, but it sucks. If I knew then what I know now - said every human being on earth. I’m teaching myself to accept the present for what it is. Life will continue to barge into my plans. I can’t let it. Not anymore. Even so, stress is real. It must be dealt with and life doesn’t stop because you want to write a book. 

As I said, today was a big day. I’ve been exploring Nick Stephanson’s Your First 10,000 Readers mostly out of curiosity. I heard him on a podcast yesterday and wanted to see what he’s all about. Nick has written six books, but it’s likely most of his money comes from selling a $600 course in e-book publishing on Amazon. I watched an hour long webinar (he provides for free). Here’s his plan in a nutshell: 

Get people on your mailing list. 

It’s the fundamental rule to ALL marketing. No matter what you’re selling, it’s a numbers game. If you have a hundred subscribers to your list, it’s just math that at least a few will buy your product. Turn that hundred into a thousand, your sales go up. One thousand into ten thousand. You get the picture. You’re not playing to the whole mailing list. You’re playing to a few willing buyers. And there will always be a few willing buyers if your product is good and you’re not acting like a used car salesman.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, you must have something to offer your subscribers. There are only so many behind-the-scenes emails you can send. I know some authors who email pics of their cats to their mailing list. That’s just fun. You must offer your readers something in exchange for their personal and private email addresses. What, exactly? That’s where it gets tricky - which is why some authors go into teaching. Others give away free books, chapters, and scenes. But it’s not just good content. At its most rudimentary level, it’s bribery. Hence, giveaways. Giveaways bring in the people, some of them will stay, some of those will buy your books. Math!

Tonight I’ve started my fist giveaway. I was cleaning the house and found a grip of $10 and $20 Starbucks cards. Why not try those? Here’s the plan as I understand it: 

• Bribe readers with free goodies and get those email addresses

• The readers you keep are your future customers. Be nice to them. 

• Market to your new fan base with cool content your readers will love

• Collect riches like Scrooge McDuck

Nick has lots of other complicated tips to keep, entertain, and retain your mailing list subscribers. His method is by selling courses. He’s no longer a fiction writer. He’s an educator. There are obviously more steps in between the “market to your new fan base” and “collect riches” parts. I don’t know those yet. We’ll see how this giveaway pans out. I’ll be running more all month long so I suggest you enter. Why not? I figure, readers love their coffee. I love coffee. Let’s do coffee! I can promise you this: If you trust me with your email address, I will do my very best to make it worth your while. How do you feel about cat pics?

I’m also in the process of putting together the Melanie Squad - a private group for fans who want to help spread the gospel of Melanie - and write reviews - but will also get a free copy of the e-book. Want in? Send me your email and I’ll add you to the list. Remember, this is a transaction. That’s how this all works. Get it? I give you something for free, you give me something for free. And that’s Marketing 101. Remember economics class? This is trade and every online entrepreneur guru will emphasize mailing lists. Nick Stephanson puts it in a nicer way, but I’m laying it down for you true and trying not to waste your time. Math! You really can’t get something for nothing. I give away a Starbucks card, I get people on my list. Simple trade. You have to come up with your own giveaways, but I hope this has made it simple to understand. Get people on your mailing list. Keep providing good content and freebies. Keep them on your list by being awesome. Sell books. The key here is having good books to sell. If you’re just writing knock offs, forget what you just read. Now, let’s see if it works.

Here’s what I did today:

• WENT to Starbucks to determine the value of some Starbucks cards for an upcoming promotion. I have a grip of cards. Stay tuned. Soon as I figure out how to use Sumo King (giveaway app site), I’ll get it online.

• WATCHED: Pre-recorded webinar from Nick Stephanson. Some OK information in there. Nick does provide some good info, but he’s also selling a $600 course. You’ll get some decent resources if you can handle the hard sell.

• WATCHED: What Does It Really Mean to be A Best Selling Author. VERY informative. If you read yesterday’s blog post about wannabe teachers, this is good to know. It doesn’t take much to be a bestselling aurhor and many authors use the term deceptively. Although technically true, it’s like if you give your mom a “World’s Greatest Mom“ mug, it doesn’t actually means she’s the greatest mom in the world…just you think so.

• WATCHED: How to Publish a Book on Kindle Direct Publishing 2019 - Amazon - Full Tutorial Chad Tennant has a voice that might lull you to sleep, but there this is important information. ⭐️ MUST WATCH.

• WATCHED: Three different videos from Self Publishing School. It’s OK. Chad Tennant is better. See link above.

• SET UP my first giveaway - $10 Starbucks card. It’s running now. Go enter!

• Posted about the giveaway on Twitter and a few giveaway groups on Facebook.

• DISCOVERED Calibre. Still trying to figure out what it’s for. It looks like you can store and edit books with it. This was one of the apps Nick Stephanson recommended and there are a few tutorials online. Needs more research.

Day 3 - The Problem with YouTube Teachers

As I’ve been researching for this project, I’ve discovered there are a MILLION self-publishing educators online. Do you look them up before or after you watch their videos? At all? Do you ask, “What qualifications does this person have?” I do. I look up almost every writer I watch on YouTube. You know what I find? Omitting the rare super beast, almost ALL of them have one to two books published. That’s it. Having one book published makes you competent. It doesn’t make you a pro. Even if that book sold twenty-thousand copies and has a zillion reviews on every platform, you are still not a pro. One of the fundamental problems with the internet is unskilled teachers acting as though they’ve earned a four-year degree by doing very little. Let’s look at an example: If my friend knits one scarf and then teaches a class on the subject of knitting - it’s not that she doesn’t know how to do it, she’s just not a pro. The old adage must still be true: Those who can’t do, teach. I wouldn’t expect my friend to sell courses on how to knit because she completed one scarf. Is it even a good scarf? I must buy it to find out. Honestly, who will buy the books of every YouTube teacher they come across? Most of us just watch the video and move on. Maybe some people stick around. I won’t.

This is where critical thinking comes into play. A lot of YouTube educators say things like, “I’m going to show you how I published my book” or “I’m going to help you publish your book.“ Think about that for a second. That’s not misleading, but it positions them as an authority on the subject. I did it, so can you. By positioning yourself as a teacher you gain credibility because we trust teachers. Wait! You’re thinking, They don’t call themselves teachers. They call themselves “coaches” or “consultants.” You know why? The words coach and consultant make us think about guidance and they’re less formal. Anyone can call themselves a consultant and no one is claiming to teach, they’re just passing along friendly information - for $250 bucks an hour and a decent paycheck from YouTube. Capitalizing on naïve writers is gross. 

There is a dizzying amount of courses out there. Who are these coaches? Why are we listening to them? Because they claim to have tons of subscribers and sales and we want tons of subscribers and sales. We believe in them. It sounds good, their numbers look legit. It’s marketing. Just the way Coca Cola convinces us we need it in our life; that it’s necessary for happiness. Perhaps some authors are great at marketing and only semi-decent at writing. It takes many hours to plan, record, and edit a YouTube video. You’re telling me these writers are putting up daily and weekly videos AND managing a successful e-pub business? Really? Why isn’t their hair falling out? What exlir of vitality are they consuming? Or are they losing their shit behind the scenes?

Watching these perfect animals leads to “not good enough-itis” which we all experience at one point or another. We can’t compete with tens of thousands of subscribers. Most of us struggle to put one book up. When the kids are screaming and the house hasn’t been dusted in a month, how the hell am I supposed to write a series and manage twelve social media accounts? And then, am I supposed to start a YouTube channel too? All while looking adorable with ring flash lighting dressed in cute clothes and sitting in front of cool furniture that wasn’t picked up on a curb? Oh shit. What about taxes and business plans and return on investment? What about my day job? I’m ignoring my family! I just want to be a writer. Is this what it means to be a writer in 2019?

Calm down, Melanie. 

The big question here is: Why does anyone think completing a thing makes them qualified to teach? Like with the friend/scarf analogy. My friend might be great at making scarves, but is she an expert scarf maker? Shouldn’t she qualify as a novice or amateur? The unscrupulous part is, none of these authors tell you they’re novices. They want you to believe they’re pros. And maybe they believe they are, but are they? Do they have degrees in creative writing? Secondary degrees in marketing? Teaching credentials? What, exactly, qualifies them to capitalize on teaching after one book? What, in their minds, allows them to write one fiction novel, sell ten thousand copies, and then peddle $250 courses on e-book publishing? No seriously. Think about it: Would you take a master class from J. K. Rowling? Hell yeah! John Smith who wrote a 50 Shades knock off and got lucky? Maybe John Smith is just a kick ass marketer. Maybe all ten thousand of his “sales” weren’t sales at all. Maybe he did a free giveaway. Maybe he bought all those email addresses. How do we know? We don’t. Isn’t omitting the truth the same as lying?

Choose your information wisely. Don’t fall for novice teachers making less money on books and more money on courses. It’s a racket and it’s pissing me off. Why? Because, while I think my friend could technically teach a class on knitting scarves, she doesn’t claim to be an expert. And maybe these YouTubers don’t exactly claim to be experts, they often omit the fact they’ve only written one book. With the democratization of the internet comes an infestation of unskilled educators. And we’re just taking their word for it. Perhaps it’s because self-publishing is not easy and they feel all that blood sweat and tears must amount to more than one moderately popular book. They have to make a living, don’t they?

Let me repeat that: THIS IS NOT EASY. This is hard as hell and it sucks your soul out through your skin. So why do it? If you’re writing to make money, you’re in the wrong business. I write because (I swear to God) if I don’t, I’ll die. And it’ll be a slow, painful death. It’s been this way my whole life. I am knowingly throwing myself into the hellfire of self publishing because I’m curious. That’s all. I just like to see what’s around the next corner. Am I a master? Hell no. Do I know what I’m doing? I already told you I don’t. Can I teach you about story structure? I can teach you what I know. I know plenty about the technical side of writing and I have good tools in my tool belt, but I am not an expert. I am a skilled novice. If my Dad teaches me how to adjust a timing belt, does that make him a teacher or someone sharing a skill set? Here’s the difference: My dad isn’t teaching me to make a buck. He’s teaching me because sharing information is a fundamental part of being human. It’s how we learn. Mom didn’t teach me how to talk when I was a baby because she wanted to capitalize on talking babies. I don’t know. Maybe she did. If I make a dollar from selling Lessons in Love, I’ll be super stoked. I’m not here for the money. I’m sharing because I think readers will find this information valuable. I also really like sharing and blogging. If I’m real, I like the attention. I’ve been blogging for many years in various capacities. Does that make me an expert? It means I know a lot, but I’m not an expert. I’m also not trying to pass myself off as an educator and I’m not selling a six-week course.

Truth is, the self publishing world has been exploited to death. As I understand it, the self-publishing gold rush was around 2013. It’s now 2019 and the market isn’t just flooded; it’s Katrina-level flooded. This goes for all creative industries. Online consultants make it look easy: Publish Your Book in Ten Steps! I can tell you, now on Day 3, there are over ten steps. Try, ten thousand. 

So what qualifies someone as an expert? To become an elementary school teacher, you need at least a bachelor's degree - although some institutions require supplemental certification and child development credits. At bare minimum, that’s four years to teach little kids about basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. So when an author spends six months to a year contending with the self publishing world, puts a Lightning Thief rehash online, sells a bunch of copies, and realizes there’s more money to be made in selling how-tos…it begs the question: Are you even a writer anymore?

The self-publishing field seems to have more burn outs than successes, but you still have to out-dance the future burn outs. If you make it to the finish line, you’re awesome - but you’re not qualified to teach. Not yet. One piece of advice I often come across is to promote your book by promoting your website. How? Blogging. One way authors get new likes and subscribers is by sharing information - like I’m doing. You want to keep those eyeballs on your product and viewing those pop up offers. If you can get readers back to learn more from you, they’re likely to buy your books. Logically, it makes sense, but I don’t know. Others ahead of me reflect on the gauntlet they’ve just completed and think, I got it done. I need blog content. I can share what I learned! I’m not saying authors start out to scam you, but the result of the grueling effort to publish a book must make dividends somehow - and if it ain’t through book sales, it’s through knowledge sharing. 

One book is a great accomplishment and I don’t want to diminish that. However, there needs to be more truth in advertising. When you see a YouTuber has 100k subscribers, ask yourself why. Vet your teachers like you would a doctor. Your career is on the line and time is precious. I will help you weed through it. Together we will scythe through the thicket and find our bliss together. Writing is about bliss. Don’t be discouraged by the sheer (insane) number of self publishing authors. Just keep swimming. When you see a YouTuber teaching others how to sell books online, look them up. Make sure they’re as skilled as they act. Don’t just take their word for it. Of course, no one is going to say, “Hey y’all. I just published one mediocre book! Pay me money to teach you how!” Be discerning. 

Just remember, self-publishing a book on Amazon makes you smart, but doesn’t make you Stephen King. It just means you successfully navigated the video-game like maze of the e-pub world - with each level getting harder and harder as you go along. It doesn’t mean you suck, but it can’t mean you’re a pro. It just means you’re capable of sticking it out. Hooray for you. You get a cookie. This leads to a whole other topic of what success actually is. I can sum that up very easily: Success is not giving up. I just saved you fifteen minutes watching a TED Talk. You’re welcome. 

Agree? Disagree? Agree to disagree? I welcome your feedback because part of learning is listening to other opinions.

What I did today:

• Watched: How to Format a Book in Word | A Step-by-Step Tutorial Very helpful. Vivien has one book listed on Amazon and claims to have quit her job to become a full time writer. From one book? Anyway, she’s decent at formatting and the video is helpful. I assume she’s realized there’s more $$$ in YouTube than writing.

• On the train - Listened to Self Publishing School SPS 028: Getting Your First 10,000 Readers with Nick Stephenson - Looking into for more information. Nick has 10+ books listed on Amazon and seems to have switched gears to teaching.

• Spent more time on this blog post today than anything else. Probably not a smart idea. I’m in school and felt a little overwhelmed today.

Day 2 - Getting Organized, Launch Teams, and Giveaways

Today has been like: Uh what? It’s only the second day and I’m already wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. This is good. It makes for good drama. All writers know there is no story without conflict. I have conflict. What I really need to do is create a timeline, but I’m finding it difficult to get that sorted. There are thousands of websites with help on the matter, but it’s information OVERLOAD. Some of these sites are like: Step 4: Launch your book! - yeah, ok. And how exactly do I do that? I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kind of person, but I also have dyslexia and I need step by step directions. I need things to be explained to me. It makes sure things take longer. But I’m also stupidly ambitious. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I can do 30 days. I still have to edit the story. I’m a trained copy-editor, but I still want someone else to go over it. I figure, I can get by with someone on UpWork since I already write fairly clean copy. Just one other set of eyes.

And today I learned about Launch Teams. These kindly volunteers should (if all goes well) review your book for you and help spread the word. Apparently, they love you so much they spread the word about your book the way Tinkerbell spreads fairy dust. Are there really people who do your promoting for you in exchange for a free e-book? Who are these saintly souls? Where do they dwell? Must I go on a quest to find them? Are there a certain number of holy ones I must find? Water, fire, earth, air? It sounds too good to be true. If you have a kick ass launch team, email me and let me know they’re real. I don’t believe it. I’m a cynical person to start. Launch teams sound like Santa Claus to me and I want to believe.

I read (see link below) an article on how to promote my upcoming novella and I’m getting some good ideas. There is a high possibility I might be doing some cool giveaways soon. I just don’t know how. I want to do it. Pesky knowledge isn’t in the old thinker yet. When I find out, you’ll find out. If you have any great ideas, send them my way.

Later that day…

OK. I’ve decided to do a giveaway, but I must now learn how to hold one. I’m finding some good resources (some links below). There are lots of websites where you can advertise your giveaways, but some of them charge for the privilege. So far, ContestGirl.com seems the easiest to use and is also free. 🐦 Follow on Twitter and 📸 Instagram to find out when the giveaway is launched.

Here on Day 2, I have learned something valuable: I am a disorganized person. How I get anything done is a miracle. It must be tenacity. I’m making lists, keeping track of everything on this blog and figuring it out. My plan for today was to plot out the month and I didn’t get very far. Mostly, I spent time reading about, testing, and figuring out how to do giveaways. Plus, working on the site and social media. It was a productive day, but I still don’t really have action goals or a solid to-do list.

What I did today:

BEFORE SCHOOL

• Created new Books page

• Wrote blurb for Lessons in Love for Books page - will use this blurb for marketing

• Added “current costs“ to About page. I’m going to tell you every cent I spend on this

• Tweeted about 1st blog post. I have no followers yet

• Posted on Reddit r/selfpublishing a notice about my site, got some good feedback

• Created “Archive“ page for older posts

• Thinking about promotions I can do…

• Posted on Reddit asking about promotions I can do

• Read: 10 Ways to Blog Your Book to Increase Sales Without Being Pushy or Annoying - Helpful!

• Emailed AWeber about possible charge (set up and cancelled same day, don’t want to be charged)

AFTER SCHOOL

• Tweeted about the new page being added.

• Confirmed I’m not being charged by AWeber

• Emotionally getting a handle on how much work I actually have to do

• Trying to plot out the month. It’s hard. Like, really hard. Can I do this?

• Switched over an old Finsta to the now public Melanie Brodie account. Follow me.

• Announced this project on my personal Insta to friends and family - to hold me accountable

• Read: Everything You Need to Know About Organizing and Timing a Giveaway - some good tips on how to do and schedule a giveaway

• Read: Blog Contests: What They Are and How to Find Them - Good info

• Checking out www.ContestGirl.com for giveaway promotion. FREE. Looks legit

• Discovered GiveAwayTools.com to automate giveaways. Unfortunately, their sign up form isn’t working properly. Have sent an email to support ⬅️ Update: Never heard back.

• I now have 2 followers on Twitter. I have about 89 on Instagram from my old account. I expect most of them to jump ship now that I’ve changed the content

• Scheduled Twitter notice about this post via Buffer

TOTAL COMBINED TIME SPENT TODAY: Approx. 4 hours with some breaks.

Day 1 - Journey of a Thousand Miles

First blog post, day 1. My name is Melanie Brodie and I’m a writer. I’ve decided to dip my toes into the self-publishing world and I know nothing about it. Almost nothing. I know very little about it. If you’re a reader, welcome. I hope you like what I write. Sign up for the newsletter and I’ll be sending out early chapters soon. If you’re a writer, welcome to you too. I’m going to be sharing my self-pub journey here. You should also join the Readers Collective or follow on Twitter if you want to track my progress.

I’m learning as I go and have decided to share my experiences, tips, resources , everything free of charge. I can’t stand it when someone writes a moderately successful book and then makes the rest of their money selling courses. Information is meant to be shared. So if you’re new to the self publishing medium, I hope you’ll get something out of this.

Thirty days. That’s how long I’m giving myself to publish my first novella. I wanted it to be a novel, but the story itself dictated when it would end. So novella it is. I’m currently in the editing stage of the novella and am starting on setting up my marketing whatevers. Campaigns? OK.

Here’s what I did today:

• Set up simple Squarespace site - I am familiar with Squarespace and already have an account.

• Set up Gmail account

• Set up Twitter account

• Transfered Dreamhost DNS to Squarespace - complicated

• Signed up for AWeber, set up simple marketing list - 14 day free trial

• Work on, design, website. Keep it simple.

• Installed AWeber Code into site

• Created spreadsheet to track expenses - have spent $37 so far

• Created circle profile photo in Canva

• Gave myself a 30 day deadline

• Posted too much on Twitter, decided it should be a daily blog

• Fiddled with AWeber’s design tool to make newsletter form look nice

• Lots of website tweaking - wrote “about page“

• Watched how to set up newsletter on squarespace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imlBHC44FCE - useless unless you use Mail Chimp or others connected to SquareSpace.

• Blog post #1

• First major snag: AWeber is more expensive than Squarespace’s internal newsletter. Further, I would have to upgrade my plan to use the code required for AWeber. Now cancelling my account. Squarespace’s internal marketing seems pretty good so far. It looks like AWeber is keeping my $19 for the first month even though I just set it up today. Squarespace newsletter costs $7 per month.

Do I know what I’m doing? No. Am I crazy? Maybe. Today was all about setting up my online universe. I’m still on the fence about setting up Facebook and Instagram accounts. Social media is a lot of work and I only have an arbitrary 30 days to go. I may not know what I’m doing yet, but I will. This is an experiment. I don’t claim to be a guru or some magical self-publishing wizard. Do you ever read articles about self-publishing and think: This person assumes I know what *KDP stands for. Doesn’t it feel like an insider game? I’m not trying to bad-mouth the teachers out there who know their stuff, but self-publishing has a steep learning curve and a million little tasks. Those who have been doing it for years come from a place of excellence and assume their readers know what’s called what. I’m starting at zero. I know nothing. I am unknown and I want to learn. I’m just like you. I’m fairly confident I won’t do everything right, but this blog will keep me accountable. Sharing means I have to keep track. I’m not inherently a planner so this is new territory for me. Tomorrow, I’ll be setting up a list of goals. I don’t usually do that. Tonight I tried to sit down and write it out, gave up, and started writing this blog post. Maybe I should call this blog: Self Publishing for Procrastinators.

This is an ongoing journey. It’s not intended to TEACH anything. It’s about sharing the ride. I hope you’ll come along. If you have questions, I’ll answer them to the best of my ability or point you in the right direction. Let’s help each other out. If you see me making heinous mistakes, let me know. We are all writers and readers. We all have one thing in common: A love for the written word. Until tomorrow.

*KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing