Episode Summary
Money… it’s what we want. And in the self-publishing space, few people know more about developing a money mindset than author and entrepreneur Honoree Corder. In this episode of Draft2Digital’s Self Publishing Insiders Podcast, we’re talking about tips and best practices for putting your writing to work, to bring in more of the green stuff.
Episode Notes
Money. It’s a word that dredges up all kinds of emotions. And few authors understand the money mindset (and how to change it) more than Honorée Corder. In this episode of Self Publishing Insiders, we’re talkin’ money, and how you improve your relationship with it.
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Transcript
Kevin Tumlinson 00:00
Hello everybody. Yeah, so it says we’re live and I’m gonna just trust that we are. So thank you for tuning in to Self-Publishing Insiders with Draft2Digital. And toay I got a really special guest because this happens to be, I know I say this about practically every guest, Honorée, but I mean it when I say it about you, one of my favorite people on the planet. Honorée Corder, welcome to the show.
Honorée Corder 00:26
Hi, we have been friends for a decade, Kevin Tumlinson.
Kevin Tumlinson 00:29
I mean, when you think about it, we were recently at the Career Author Summit near Nashville. Which happens to be your hometown, that area that we were in. I don’t want to give any secrets away, but you live in the area. And yeah, that was something that came up, right? Like, here we were in a group, a big room full of authors who were essentially where you and I were, when we first met. It was a bizarre feeling to be the speakers at an event for a group like that.
Honorée Corder 01:07
Right. I think we’re the OGs.
Kevin Tumlinson 01:08
We are the OGs, that’s how I describe us too. Yeah, we go all the way back. So, you and I met at, and you’re gonna have to help me remember the name of the, it wasn’t yet called the …
Honorée Corder 01:19
Columnists’ Summit.
Kevin Tumlinson 01:20
Columnists’ Summit. That’s what it was. Which became the Smarter Artists Summit. Before, you know, this was the self-publishing podcast, guys. There were like 25 of us in that room. There was me, you, several others. But Damon Courtney was also in that room. And that room, that day, was the birthplace of BookFunnel.
Honorée Corder 01:40
Yes, BookFunnel.
Kevin Tumlinson 01:41
So we really have been tapped into the foundation.
Honorée Corder 01:47
And I use BookFunnel every day. Thank you, Damon Courtney. Every single day. And everyone who I interact with who’s an author, I’m like, do you have BookFunnel? And they’re like, what’s BookFunnel? Like, oh, I’m gonna change your life today.
Kevin Tumlinson 02:01
First of all, how have you not heard of this yet? Because I mean, I for one talk about it all the time. We’ve had Damon on the show multiple times. So.
Honorée Corder 02:11
Because, probably, the person I work most with is the professional who is writing their first book. So they’re not indie author folks like we are. They’re not writer folks like we are. They’re professionals who then say, I need to have a book, and then they take my course. And so then I introduce them to BookFunnel. But they’re not living in the author world. So they don’t know what a KDP dashboard is. I have to explain keywords and categories and HTML code and all that kind of stuff.
Kevin Tumlinson 02:44
That’s good, though. What I’m seeing more and more, and we’re gonna jump into our topic, I promise everyone, but what I’m seeing more and more is people who normally would have gone the traditional route are discovering some, we’ll just say perks, to going the self-publishing route. But they, unlike us, like we when we came into this, we sort of, I mean, I had a traditional contract at one point. I think you did too, right?
Honorée Corder 03:13
No, no, no. So I started indie publishing in ’04.
Kevin Tumlinson 03:18
Okay. 2004. Well, that’s before me then. I thought I was an old timer in this business. But yeah, so.
Honorée Corder 03:26
’04 was my first book. And then ’09, and then off to the races
Kevin Tumlinson 03:32
And you’ve been self-publishing the whole time?
Honorée Corder 03:34
The whole time. Well, because you were legit. I didn’t fancy myself a writer or an author and didn’t call myself an author until seven books. So my psychology needed some work, honestly. It never occurred to me to get an agent. And because writers were people that went to college and took writing courses and were journalists and went to journalism school. or went to, like, gosh, I’m not even thinking of it. But like, where do you go if you want to become an actor? Like, there are a couple of universities, like one in New York and one in LA, that’s where you go if you want to do that. I didn’t do any of those things. So I thought, well, I’ll just stay down here in loser land where you indie publish, and just … But I didn’t realize, but that’s what I was thinking Kevin. But I didn’t realize that I had made money. Like, I had sold 11,000 copies of my first book in ’05, like physical copies before Kindle. I didn’t realize that there was a whole thing. It wasn’t until I was at that conference, and I met you and those 23 other people that I realized that it’s a whole thing and they’re my people. There are book people.
Kevin Tumlinson 04:51
Yeah, yeah. Was that kind of when you finally said “I’m an author,” is when you found out that …
Honorée Corder 04:57
I think so yeah, I think about that time. I had this … By the time it was 2011, I had Tall Order, the Successful Single Mom book series. So I had, you know, 8 or 10 books, and it was book 7 when I was at a networking event, and someone asked me what I did. And I said, I’m a business and executive coach and a speaker, motivational speaker, corporate trainer. And the person I was with said, and she’s an author. And the person we were talking to was like, you’re an author? You’ve written a book? That’s really cool. And when we left, she was like, way to bury the lede. Because being an author is that cool thing that everybody wants to hear about. “Oh, you’ve written a book? I’ve always wanted to write a book, talk to me about writing a book.” But I was just being every person. Oh, everybody’s a coach and a speaker, right? I hadn’t connected the dots quite yet. So 2011, going to that conference, discovering the Self-Publishing Podcast guys, meeting you, meeting some people that I’m still really good friends with, like you, to this day a decade later, that was really a turning point for me in learning about things like BookFunnel, and that kind of stuff. So yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson 06:11
See, and I think there’s a lot of lessons to unpack from that brief introduction there. Because one, I yanked my headphones out of my ear. Don’t do that, by the way. That’s an uncomfortable thing to do. Especially because I wanna hear you. You went to that, what was at that time a fairly small conference. I wouldn’t even consider that a conference, frankly. I mean, it was ..
Honorée Corder 06:41
Here’s what I was, here’s what I think it was, because there was something before that.
Kevin Tumlinson 06:46
Yeah, there was like something similar to it one year before.
Honorée Corder 06:48
Yeah, something similar to it, which was world building. So how I had discovered the Self-Publishing Podcast guys was, I had a mastermind that I was in, and one of the guys in the mastermind called me and he said, there’s somebody like you, it’s a guy, his name is Steve Scott. And Steve Scott, then I went and listened to, because podcasts again, podcasts are still new to a lot of people in ’21. But in ’11, podcasts were like, what’s a podcast? And so I went and searched for all the podcasts he’d been on. And he had been talking to the SPP guys. And then I started listening to their podcast. And this was in ’10, I think, I think this was in ’10. Because in 2010, I started listening to their podcast, and they started talking about their event that they were having. And I wrote to them, and I said, I only write nonfiction. I think this is a fiction conference. But can I crash? I’ll pay. Can I come play with the other writers?
Kevin Tumlinson 07:50
That was sort of right at their pivot point when they were, because that summit was really initially all about writing in the world they were creating, right? And I didn’t have any interest in doing that. And I’m sure you didn’t either. I don’t think anybody who was there had an interest in that actually.
Honorée Corder 08:08
Oh, that’s interesting, because I got the impression that that’s what they were having it for. But I just wanted to come be around other writers. And it was in Austin, which is where I was living. And I just, there’s so few people, when you work for yourself, that you can talk to you about what you’re doing and learn from. And I was hungry for community. I was so hungry for it.
Kevin Tumlinson 08:30
Same. And I had been doing the Wordslinger podcast for a while at that point, and a lot of the people who were there recognized me from the show. And so that was interesting.
Honorée Corder 08:39
You are cool and famous.
Kevin Tumlinson 08:40
I was not yet, it was sort of locally famous, in my opinion. Like, you know, if you were part of the indie author community, like that specific group, you may have heard of it. So to meet people who had listened to the show and knew my voice was interesting. I had no idea how far it would go from there. I mean, it was, it really took a corner after that. But yeah, so that was, so to me that the lesson there is, those little events where you get to meet and connect with authors. They’re worth going to. You need to find the crowd that’s at your level and that is like you, thinks like you. Not necessarily exactly like you, but the same goals.
Honorée Corder 09:22
Well aspirational, right? Aspirational folks, and then the folks that are at your level, and then folks you can help.
Kevin Tumlinson 09:30
Yeah. Okay, so yeah, I think is a good segue into our topic, which is, because one of the things you talk about a lot, and I’ve interviewed you several times actually, on Wordslinger podcast. You talked about this on my show, you talked about this at the Career Author Summit, but sort of the money mindset. And I think that’s a very important thing, because the first thing everyone’s going to want to know is how do I make more money? But I think our relationship to money is equally important. Before we get into it though, I have to post this comment. It was the first thing that came up. Gil Jackson on YouTube says, “Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money. From Virginia Woolf.” So Gil, thanks for the quote. And with that said, let’s talk money.
Honorée Corder 10:20
Shouldn’t it be “with your friends”? Wait, never mind.
Kevin Tumlinson 10:24
Do you do it with your friends or for your friends?
Honorée Corder 10:25
With your friends, for your friends, I don’t know.
Kevin Tumlinson 10:26
Virginia Woolf, though. I mean, I did a whole senior seminar on her in college. So it may have been with her friends.
Honorée Corder 10:36
Like, is it before, is that the exhibitionist? Like, we could go down a whole rabbithole not appropriate for TV, but …
Kevin Tumlinson 10:42
This is before. Yeah, we’ll do the. we’ll stop at the NSFW. So, money mindset. Now you wrote, so I was privileged after meeting you … Oops, sorry. I brought the quote back up. After meeting you at that little summit, I was first privileged to be a part of your Prosperity for Writers Group that you did, which resulted in a book that I am, I believe I’ve got a couple of quotes in. And then you were kind enough to do the foreword for my book, 30 Day Author. And that whole thing is about, 30 Day Author not so much, but your book Prosperity for Writers, and that program that you did, is all about changing your mindset toward money. Do you, I don’t want to step on the lede or anything here, but like, what is your kind of philosophy when it comes to money?
Honorée Corder 11:39
Well, my philosophy about money is that money is energy. My thought about money is that money is energy. And that the more you respect money, the less you’re afraid of money. The more you understand it, the better you treat it, the more you will have. And so if you have reservations around or resistance around it, then it’s not going to come to you. And if it does, it’s not going to stay with you. And it’s going to be a cause of constant stress and aggravation, and all those sorts of things. But there’s, but money is not a person. People get mad at money. Like, I got a bill or I don’t have enough money or whatever. They get mad at people who have money or they resent people that have money and all of that just kind of shows up in different ways.
Kevin Tumlinson 12:30
Yeah, yeah. I think they say that’s like the number one fight that married couples have is over money.
Honorée Corder 12:38
Yeah, the number one cause of divorce is not infidelity. It’s money.
Kevin Tumlinson 12:42
Yeah, yeah. So it’s a very personal thing. Yeah. I actually have known couples that split up over the money, but stayed together through the infidelity, so that’s true. That’s weird. Fun facts in Kevin’s life. Not me. Kara and I are good all around.
Honorée Corder 13:02
She’s delightful. It was so nice to see her.
Kevin Tumlinson 13:05
Yeah, and that was the first time you guys had met. She really liked you a lot. I couldn’t get her to shut up about you, actually.
Honorée Corder 13:11
Oh, well, that’s good. If it’s good, then that’s good.
Kevin Tumlinson 13:16
So okay, I like what you said that money is energy. Bizarrely, this is how things work, Honorée. You and I both know this. Bizarrely this morning, as I was getting ready, I always try to watch something inspirational. And one of the videos that popped up, and I can’t remember the guy’s name, of course. But it was like his top 10 rules about life or whatever. And number one was that money was energy. So that’s a bizarre coincidence.
Honorée Corder 13:46
No, I just think people get tripped up over it. And it’s almost everyone. Almost everyone finds themselves at a ceiling or a floor or a plateau or whatever. Or they, there’s a lot of comparison-it is, right? It’s like, there’s the saying, never tell anyone how much money you make. Some people will think it’s too much, and other people will think it’s not enough. And so like, that’s just something that we don’t talk about. It’s something that’s, I’m a lady of a certain age. So you never talk about your age or your weight or your income. Although that’s changed. The kids today now post it on social media, which is interesting to me. Not my preference, but hey, whatever makes you happy. I think when people can come to a peace with money, then they will have more abundance. And also to make more money as a writer, which I think is part of at least what we want to talk about today. And you just watched me talk about it for, I don’t know, 45 minutes, an hour, or whatever it was. The first thing is, you have to believe that it’s possible for you. You have to like, look at somebody else and go, if that person can make a living as a writer … If I want to make a living as a writer, there are things that I need to do, actual things I need to do. Right? But the first thing, before you even do those things, is to think, is it possible that maybe I could make a living as a writer? Okay, it’s possible. Do I believe it’s possible? Okay, I believe I could make money as a writer. And then go and look for—BOLO, be on the lookout for—people that are making money as writers, and there are more and more all the time.
Kevin Tumlinson 15:38
And that comes right back to, and I didn’t mean to cut you off. Go ahead. That comes right back to what we were discussing earlier about going out and meeting authors who are kind of at your level and above, you know? Because that’s how, I love that Jim Rohn philosophy of, you’re the average … is it Jim Rohn or Zig Ziglar who said, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with?
Honorée Corder 16:02
Either one. Jim or Zig, either one, they’re both good. Either one of them. I think it’s Jim Rohn. I think you’re right. Yes, you are the average of the five people, or your income is the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And so choose your intimate circle wisely. Because people who are achieving and making more are going to inspire you to make more. Not because there’s comparison-it is. Just because, like attracts like. Water seeks its own level, birds of a feather, I could go on.
Kevin Tumlinson 16:37
Oh, and I had a whole conversation when I was at NINC with an author talking about how I wanted to upgrade my five, right? Because, you know, I mean, I make money, but I want to make a different level of money. And she’s like, well, and she asked a question that I think is very pertinent, which was, well, what are you doing to be someone worthy of their five? And I think part of that starts with kind of your attitude towards money and not, you’re not just joining in on this to upgrade yourself, but you want to find a way to add to their value and wealth, and everything. So sorry, I kind of took that off on my own there.
Honorée Corder 17:25
I love that. I think that is so valuable, that is so valuable. Because if you’re coming just to take, that’s energy. And if you’re coming to give, that’s energy, right? So yes, if I want to hang out with the JD Barkers, right? Or the Stephanie Bonds, right, the folks at the conference, people who are successful have a place to be, right? Every minute is already spoken for. And they have goals and they have plans. And so to take their eye off of that, to give you their time and attention, that’s, you know, that’s not something to do lightly. So you’ve got to have something valuable that causes them to say, I’m going to not do this other thing that was already planned. And I’m going to talk to you. But I had two really valuable conversations with each of those people at that conference, life-changing conversations.
Kevin Tumlinson 18:20
Yes. Yeah, exactly. Same here. Yeah. And now since we invoked his name, Zig Ziglar, he has that quote that says, you can have everything you want in life if you’re willing to help enough other people get what they want. So I think that that’s a key to, you know, money, to wealth, in whatever form you describe it, because wealth and money are not always synonymous. Money certainly helps with that.
Honorée Corder 18:49
Correct. And also too there’s something, there is a principle about money. And I’m constantly reading, so I could not tell you which book I read it in. But there was something in a book that I read not very long ago, so recently, in the last year. And the book said, once you have mastered money, once you have accumulated wealth and knowledge, you will lose it if you don’t share it. So you are commanded. And I believe the word was commanded. You are commanded to turn around and pay it forward. In other words, you can’t just hoard it. Because that’s an issue, right? Like if you hoard money, or you get rid of money, like there’s all the things, right? So if you have any of those behaviors, it’s just a place for you to have healing. But then once you figure it out, then you have to pay it forward. Which is, I guess, I wrote Prosperity for Writers years ago, but that that was my feeling at that conference. Because half the room was like, we’re making money as writers. And the other half was like, we don’t make any money as writers, but we really want to. And I think it’s just this, it’s just your psychology. You just have to believe you can. Now, you have to still write to make a living as a writer. There is that pesky little daily habit you have to have, writing.
Kevin Tumlinson 20:17
That’s like that whole, writing that story about, or it’s a joke I think, about how the guy was like stranded in the ocean about to drown and he kept crying out to God to help save me, save me. And a ship comes by and says, you need aboard? And he says, no. God’s gonna save me. Helicopter comes and yeah, yeah. God’s like, well, I sent a helicopter.
Honorée Corder 20:35
Yeah, God’s like, I sent a boat and a helicopter. What else can I do for you? Yes, so you have to still, you have to still, once you believe you can, then you have to do the actions. You have to write, publish, you have to write, you have to publish, you have to market. You got to make friends with your peers. You have to have a good bench. Because I have lots of friends who have regular traditional jobs. They don’t, I don’t know what they think I do. I think they think I sit on my front porch all day and watch the deer eat, right? Which is a good portion of my day.
Kevin Tumlinson 21:04
It is interesting, what people think you’re up to.
Honorée Corder 21:08
Right. Well, I love those writer memes, right? It’s like what I do, what people think I do. It’s like, write autographs, and go to movie premieres, and things like that. But you really have to do, I’m
Kevin Tumlinson 21:22
Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was putting this up because I’m about to ask you this question.
Honorée Corder 21:26
Yeah, I just started reading, but you do have to do all of the things in order to be a full-time writer. And it sounds very sexy, like the signing of the books, and you know, all of those things. But there are a lot of hours of alone time where you are just working, where you are just creating, you are just editing, you are proofing, you are marketing, you are thinking, and all of that.
Kevin Tumlinson 21:55
Nobody likes to hear that stuff. So I wanted to pop up this question, and I did not mean to interrupt your flow. So Gil says, “Hi Honorée,” first of all. “The cost of setting up a writing career is prohibitive to all but the well-heeled.” So this isn’t a question, it’s a comment,. But “one of those costs that could be lower is the closed market for buying ISBNs, both in the UK and US.”
Honorée Corder 22:20
I don’t know that I understand, I don’t know that I agree with the first sentence. And I don’t know what the second sentence means.
Kevin Tumlinson 22:27
So I think what he’s referring to is the fact that, in both the UK and the US, you have to purchase your ISBNs, rather than like in Canada, where you’re given one by default when you produce a work. So I kind of see where that’s coming from. So I think that that cost is kind of nominal for most people, but it can be expensive. I mean, you know, hundreds of dollars sometimes. And if you’re buying a lot of ISBNs, you know, I got 50 books. So if I had to buy $100 ISBNs for each book, that’s quite a bit of money,
Honorée Corder 22:59
But they’re not. I get my ISBNs in a block of 100 for $1,000. So it’s $10 an ISBN. I don’t recommend using free ISBNs, I do recommend buying them. But, so a writing business is not unlike any other business. If you wanted to have an ice cream business, you wouldn’t complain that you had to buy ice cream or an ice cream maker. Or you had to have a counter or a cash register or ice cream cups or scoops or paper or anything like that. So being a full-time writer means you’re in business and you have to do the things that businesspeople do, you have to set up a business. And a lot of people, myself included, funded my writing business from another business, and had to do it a lesson at a time and an expense at a time. And it was a while before it was profitable. But I had to, you know, make sacrifices and save and do that sort of thing. Alternatively, you can get a small business loan or something like that. I don’t think that it’s only for the well-heeled. As a matter of fact, I know a lot of people who have bootstrapped it, where they paid for low-cost covers, and they did, you know, cleaned a house to get an editor. You know, cleaned houses to save up money to buy editing services. And so it’s not, it’s doable, it just requires a mindset shift. I think people think because it’s writing, it should be free? I’m not sure. Or that it shouldn’t cost anything. But it’s a business. If you want to make money from a business, you have to put money into a business,
Kevin Tumlinson 24:41
Right. Or something. Money and time are the two costs of business, and they’re going to have a sort of inverse relationships sometimes. But you you’re gonna put one or the other in, and you have to decide which one.
Honorée Corder 24:54
Yep. Or both.
Kevin Tumlinson 24:57
Both, yeah. So Varden on Facebook says, “Money gives me anxiety.” And they laughed about this, but that’s a common thing that happens with authors. Money does kind of tend to give us anxiety. But maybe it’s not money itself. We all want money. It’s everything to do with money, you know. What do you do to earn it? What do you got to do to keep it? What should you do with it when you have it? What would you say to someone like Varden about that anxiety?
Honorée Corder 25:28
Um, so that’s just is an opportunity for healing. So thank you for posting that. Because you’re not the only one, you’re just the one who had the courage to post that. So thank you for that. And I would empower you to read and learn about money, both the energetic side, the metaphysical side, right, the energetic side, and also the practical side. So most people who know me, I will say, like, I’m one part woo-woo, and one part practical, and I meet in the middle. As you pray, move your feet, right? And so I have learned to be very respectful of money. So I have an allocation strategy for before I get money, which keeps me out of trouble. So I know that I don’t ever want to get caught where my accountant is like, it’s time for the check, mwahahaha, right? And I’m like, I’m not prepared. And so I started a practice years ago, where I save. I give, first of all, I’m a tither, if you’re someone who is a tither, you’ll know what that is. Or you can just be a giver. So the challenge with any situation is congestion. And the antidote is always circulation. So there’s a whole lot I can say about that. But it’s like, if you want more money, then you got to put it into circulation, you have to put something into circulation. So the first thing I do when I receive money is to give money. And then I take some and I put it away, right? And then I learned this from Tony Robbins, he’s like, if you’re not going to give or save $10 out of $100, you’re not going to save $100,000 out of a million. So get in the practice of putting some money away. Because when you have a reserve of money, when you have access to money, there is something very calming about, oh, in the event of an emergency, I have $1,000. This is what financial people will say is, have $1,000 in an account in case you need a tire, or your dog needs a vet visit, or something like that. Okay, so this is very practical, basic stuff. But when you do it, you start to feel better. The anxiety goes down. So if the anxiety’s from not having a reserve, then start to work on having a reserve.
Kevin Tumlinson 27:44
Even if it’s just starting with a very small amount.
Honorée Corder 27:48
Correct. Always have a little bit of cash in your house, always have a little bit of cash in the bank, right? So give and save, and then save for taxes. Because if you’re in your author business, you’re 1099 and you’re gonna have to pay taxes at some point. So put that money away, right when you get it. So don’t go, I got $1,000. Go, well, Uncle Sam’s gonna want $250 bucks, so I’m going to put $250 bucks away. And then I have $750 bucks. So then you have, like, then you can spend what you have. And there’s something very empowering, trust me on this. There’s something very empowering about having a reserve of money, that if you need it, it’s there. And you can have access to it right away. And then learn about taking that reserve and growing it, and then growing it massively. So some people grow it massively by investing in real estate, some people invest in the stock market, some people just keep it in the bank account at, you know, 2% interest or whatever the savings rate is. It doesn’t matter. It’s that you want to have a reserve. And if you have debt, get that paid off as soon as you can. But just have a practice for, oh, I’m going to get money. And when I get money, this is what I’m going to do with it. Not oh, the money’s here. Let’s see what happens. All bets are off. Because I don’t know about y’all, but I get 100 emails a day from places I can spend money.
Kevin Tumlinson 29:13
Believe me. Yeah.
Honorée Corder 29:15
Amazon, J Crew, LL Bean, right? They’re lined up every day.
Kevin Tumlinson 29:21
Leroy had a response to Varden that I definitely want to read for the record here. He says that, “Look at money as a resource and look at where your resources being drained. Look for ways to combine things that will reduce your expenditures and add where you want to pour your resource.” So I think that’s excellent advice. So thank you for that, Leroy.
Honorée Corder 29:43
Leroy, thank you.
Kevin Tumlinson 29:46
Yeah, it’s such a touchy subject, and it’s weird that it is. Well, I guess it’s not weird that it is. It’s very personal. And your relationship with money comes with certain anxieties. I love, what’s the guy, I can never remember the name of the guy who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Honorée Corder 30:06
Robert Kiyosaki.
Kevin Tumlinson 30:07
Thank you. And his whole philosophy is that we just, we’ve kind of been set up to fail in some ways when it comes to money, because our attitudes to our money come from our education. Our education didn’t bother teaching us about money. Other than, you know, sort of large-scale economy stuff. I know for a fact that I never got an accounting lesson, I never got anything in grade school or high school when it came to money. And so.
Honorée Corder 30:35
And having a business means you need to know how to how to read a P&L, how to make more than what you spend, or at least plan for that. Like, know where you’re, because we’re entrepreneurs as authors, right? Sometimes book sales are going to be more or less. Income is going to come from different places. I have a time of the year that I tend to make much more money than other times of the year, because of the different pieces of my business and projects that I’m doing. And I just know that, so I’m not doing the same thing in this part of the year that I’m doing in this part of the year, just because.
Kevin Tumlinson 31:13
That is excellent, because … well go ahead and finish your thought. But you got me excited.
Honorée Corder 31:19
Thank you, thank you. Because I know the rhythms, right? I know the rhythms of things. And I also am analytical in a way that, when I have noticed that, like, I like to take off time in the summer. But being an entrepreneur means that I’m the engine of my business. And so if I take time off, then the income takes time off too. And so I’ve started to figure out, like, how can I set things up so that it’s more consistent? So that it’s not like, some times of the year high and some times of the year are low, so making a lot of money, but also making it more consistently is important, as well.
Kevin Tumlinson 32:00
Yep, yep. And the reason I got excited about that is because that’s, that gels with, the idea of seasons, like just because something works in January doesn’t mean it will work in October. And so you need to be prepared and know yourself, know the ebb and flow of your income and your business so that you can prepare for those fallow days. So see, Ace had a question.
Honorée Corder 32:32
Oh, I’ve always loved the name Ace.
Kevin Tumlinson 32:34
Ace Adams too, man. That is an excellent name. Coming in from YouTube, “I’ve begun to realize I’m more of a gambler than a sound business / money manager. Even with my writing business, I’ve tended to fly by the seat of my pants and hoping for the best. How do I change?” First of all, that’s the right question to ask.
Honorée Corder 32:54
That’s great. You have a great name and a great question Ace, thank you. So realization is the first piece right? Like, oh, I realize that I do this. I have this habit, I have this pattern. Hmm. What would be more effective? I don’t live in the world, Kevin’s known me obviously a long time. And I don’t live in the world of good or bad, right or wrong. I always look at things like, is it effective versus ineffective? Right? And if what I’m doing is not effective, how can I be more effective, because I am averse to pain and suffering. So I tend to analyze things and to do kind of a post mortem of everything and go, well what was working that I was doing? What worked when I was successful? And then what wasn’t working as well, what wasn’t working as well? So what do I need to keep doing? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to start doing? Those are all questions you can loop in. And so then is it with your writing business that you’re like, oh, I write when I’m inspired? Or is it that I have a writing practice? Is it that I’m releasing, and when I release a book, then I make income, but then I don’t feel as urgent to write because I’ve released a book and so I need to work on that. So I’d be curious to know which part of flying by the seat of the pants you’re talking about. But I do want to commend you on something that most people would go, well, that’s what he’s commended for? But I am. Because I think hoping for the best is actually a terrific idea. Because a lot of people don’t have hope. And I don’t believe hope is a strategy. Right? I think you actually have to have a plan and a strategy and execute the plan. But if you’re not at least expecting the best, you’re not going to get anything but the worst. Most people are like, well, you know, I hope the worst doesn’t happen. Oh, wait, the worst happened. Well you planted the seed that the worst was going to happen. So it’s no surprise.
Kevin Tumlinson 34:51
Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. It’s sort of, the metaphor for that I think is very appropriate is the idea of, I remember watching, I think it may have been Tim Allen, or it may have been Tim Ferriss. I don’t know. But they were talking about how they were taking a sort of a training on how to drive a racecar. And one of the pieces of advice, or what was drilled into them before they ever got behind the wheel, was that you are going to go in the direction that your eyes go. So that is as true of the racetrack as it is of life. You’re going to go in exactly the direction you’re looking.
Honorée Corder 35:33
And you’re going to find what you’re looking for. Right? So in Prosperity for Writers I talk about BOLO, which is the term I learned from watching hundreds of episodes of Law and Order. Which is a police term, right? They’ll say be on the lookout, BOLO, for the suspect. And so you’ve got to BOLO for people who are making a living as a writer. Because if you BOLO for people that are starving artists, guess what? You’re gonna find them.
Kevin Tumlinson 36:00
Yep. BOLO for dollars.
Honorée Corder 36:03
Yeah, but also for nuggets of information, or a piece of inspiration that can help you. I like that you’re like, I’m watching something to inspire myself in the morning. Like, that’s a really good time to do that. Watch something that inspires you any time you need to be inspired, which, some days it’s more than others kids. Right? Sometimes I need inspiration more than I need food. Especially when you get to that ugly middle part of writing a book, or marketing, or you’re not as successful as you want to be. There are so many different times where it’s tempting to give up, and so you’ve got to be on the lookout for things that are going to keep you going when you want to quit.
Kevin Tumlinson 36:49
Yeah, exactly. This one comes with a book recommendation from Hannah, Hannah Steenbock from Germany. Hello, Germany. So Hannah says, “And I love the book Profit First. It teaches how to allocate money and offers a system to make it easy.” That’s Mike Michalowicz. Is that how you pronounce his name? Michalowicz?
Honorée Corder 37:19
Yeah, Mike Michalowicz. He wrote The Pumpking Plan and he’s got another book coming out. His stuff is really sound, and from reading his books, he comes from a place of experience.
Kevin Tumlinson 37:31
Yeah, yeah. I’m dropping a link to that in the comments if it’ll go through. It’s spinning. So there it goes, it should pop through. So if you’re interested in that, that’s on Amazon. No affiliate link or anything there. Feel free to search for the title anywhere you prefer your books to come from. If I could have created a Books2Read link on the fly, I would of. Oh, feature request, everyone at Draft2Digital. So that’s an excellent book. Um, so yeah, I want to scroll down and see if we got some other questions here. Ace has another comment. “I spent lots of money on Amazon / BookBub ads and really did not understand the platforms. So I was throwing money out there and hoping for the best, like playing slot machines.” That’s a common thing.
Honorée Corder 38:21
So common, so common Ace. And no judgement, I did the same thing, and then learned it, and then they changed it. And by the way, playing the slots is fun.
Kevin Tumlinson 38:32
And we should say, sometimes there’s an element of gambling to this. My definition of marketing is that marketing is improving the odds that the right reader will discover your book at the moment they’re ready to buy it. And so there is an element of luck, if you want to call it that, involved. But what do they call it? They say luck is preparation meets opportunity. So you know, you gamble, but you gamble from a place of, I’ve researched this, I know this about it. And Ace, don’t feel bad about that. Okay, you threw some money away, but you learned something from it, too. So now you’ve got that experience to build on. So now you can go find resources, and YouTube is full of people telling you how to use BookBub ads, by the way, so you don’t even have to pay for anything to learn about this. You can go learn all about BookBub ads. You can also go on our blog. I’ll find the link to that, or if Elyssa is listening, I think she could probably find the link. We just posted a post about how to increase your odds of getting a BookBub featured deal. So go find that on the D2D blog.
Honorée Corder 39:41
BookBub is a kingmaker. I got my first BookBub on my first try on the first day, and everyone hated me, but that was back in the day right, when it was super new. And now I have to apply all the time like everybody else. But it’s a really great, they’ve done a really good job. The BookBub people have done a really terrific job of putting together a resource for authors. And, but and also too, I love what you said about marketing. And I know that the number one way people find out about a book is from a recommendation. Do not underestimate, said another way, take heart in the fact that when you write a really good book, then connecting with your readers on Goodreads, going and doing a book reading at your local library, like connecting with people one on one is also a really good way to market your books. Like it seems like, I’m just gonna do ads, it’s very disconnected. But ultimately, I’ve always just been a boots on the ground person. I’m just always carrying a book around and people are like, what are you doing? I’m like, I’m an author. Here’s my book. Here’s one of my books.
Kevin Tumlinson 40:50
Well I mean, you know, and I’ve run into authors who, they hate the idea of handing out free books like that, right? Because they’re expensive. And I’m like, well okay, think about what you’re saying, because there is an investment that has to be made in promoting yourself, right? You could use BookFunnel, yes, and give your ebooks away for free, and there’s very little overhead to that. I think it’s like 20 bucks a month for BookFunnel. I don’t even remember.
Honorée Corder 41:15
It’s $150 a year for BookFunnel integrated to your email list. I mean, legitimately, it is the cheapest, most effective strategy, and you can put it in an email signature. I mean, so money tools, on your website, all the things. I mean Damon has just done, I’m a huge fan. He’s just done an incredible job of creating a tool that’s reasonably priced for everyone.
Kevin Tumlinson 41:42
Elyssa has posted a, she went and did what I wish I could have done on there. She went and posted a link, books2read.com/profitfirst, which will take you to Mike’s book. Thank you Elyssa. She also did go find the link for that blog post. It’s called the Top 10 Tips to Get a BookBub Featured Deal. So if you go, if you’re listening to the podcast …
Honorée Corder 42:09
There was no thumbs up option.
Kevin Tumlinson 42:14
I know, we need that. She’s a superstar. if you’re listening to the podcast instead of watching, you can go to draft2digital.com/blog and just search for, you could probably type in like 10 tips and BookBub and probably find that right away. So go find that. Some excellent tips by the way, and that’s from one of our contributing writers. So um, I’m just scanning through comments here. Okay, looks like we’ve caught up on questions and comments. If you have another question, by the way, listeners, viewers, go ahead and ask us whatever you want. We got like three more minutes. So I want to make sure we address any comments that come in. But what’s interesting Honorée is, so Kara and I were kind of comparing notes. That conference, by the way, the Career Author Summit, put on by J. Thorne and Zach, what’s his last name?
Honorée Corder 43:09
Bohannon.
Kevin Tumlinson 43:10
Bohannan, thank you. I think I mispronounce his name every time. I probably mispronounced it when I was talking directly to him at that conference. But that was her first conference, she’d never been to an author conference before. So I’m like, wow, this is going to be challenging for you from now on, because that kind of sets the bar kind of high for …
Honorée Corder 43:33
You never forget your first author conference or the cool people that you meet.
Kevin Tumlinson 43:35
You really don’t. I have yet to meet anybody who went to an author conference, especially one around that size, because for various reasons that one was only about, there were 35 people in that room at any given time. And so that’s a smaller one, it’s normally much bigger than that. But that’s a sort of smallish conference, all told. But I think that’s probably the perfect size to aim for, for your first author conference. Because it’s not overwhelming. You don’t get lost in the crowd. You get to talk to everybody. And I think that one of the biggest benefits of that first conference where I met you was, that was by far not my first author conference, but you know, the size of that one meant I got to meet everybody, got to know everybody. I think we were all in a Slack channel together at one point. But you know, because of that I met you, and you’ve been such a wonderful part of my life and author career. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you for everything you do, not just for me, but for the whole author community. I think people benefit greatly just by your presence in the world. So.
Honorée Corder 44:52
Well thank you. I did a lot of work on my money mindset, on my prosperity consciousness, on my writing, on my beliefs, all of those things. And so when I see someone who is struggling with that, I just want to help them, right? I think that’s what happens when anyone does something, when you turn around and go, gosh, how can I help somebody to avoid the pain and suffering and get all the pleasure and the wins and the rewards? So thank you for that, Kevin, and thank you for being my friend for a decade. And here’s to another decade of book writing.
Kevin Tumlinson 45:30
Here’s to 100 decades more.
Honorée Corder 45:35
Yeah, many more decades, of course. All right. Well,
Kevin Tumlinson 45:36
Well I think we’re gonna have to wrap it up. We’re at the end, I don’t want to take up too much of Honorée’s very valuable time. But I want to thank everybody who tuned in, everyone who is listening to the rebroadcast of the podcast. Let’s go through the stuff here. If you would like to find more of these, you can subscribe to us on YouTube and on Facebook. If you go to youtube.com/draft2digital, or facebook.com/draft2digital, you can follow us, subscribe, click the bells, do all the things. And by the way, we now have a TikTok presence. Do not look for me to twerk anytime soon, but we have some people in house who are doing amazing stuff with TikTok. I don’t understand it because I just turned 49 two days ago. It’s outside my realm of understanding. Be sure you bookmark us at D2Dlive.com, because you can get a countdown to every live stream that goes out. And I think that’s going to end, and of course, we already talked about the blog, you can go check out draft2digital.com/blog. We give out so many URLs at the end of this thing. But the most important URL of all is go Honorée at honoreecorder.com, where you can find, you’ve got like your books and all that stuff listed there.
Honorée Corder 46:53
I have all the things. I’m gonna take a picture of us so I can put it on social media.
Kevin Tumlinson 46:57
We need, yeah, we need to be promoting ourselves together more, I think. Because I’ll only benefit.
Honorée Corder 47:05
We got a good photo at the author summit. That was fun. And I posted that.
Kevin Tumlinson 47:07
Good, I forgot about that. Yeah. I love the shot of you with your sunglasses and everything on the website.
Honorée Corder 47:15
That’s my fiction photo.
Kevin Tumlinson 47:21
Yes. All right. But that’s the reality of you, though. That’s what makes that ironic. All right, everybody, make sure you go check out Honorée’s website. Thank you for being a part of the Self-Publishing Insiders, Honorée. Everyone else, thank you for being a part as well everyone, we send you our best and we hope for maximum money in your future self. Take care, everybody.