Latest / The Daily Writer / Behind the Scenes of Indie Author Magazine | Chelle Honiker

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Behind the Scenes of Indie Author Magazine | Chelle Honiker · The Daily Writer

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, today I'm really excited to bring you this conversation with Shell Honiker, publisher of Indie Author Magazine.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: She has a real passion for serving and empowering authors, and in her role as publisher, she helps authors navigate the business of storytelling with confidence and strategy and community.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've been a subscriber to the magazine for a couple of years now, and if you're looking for a fantastic resource to help you navigate the sometimes complicated world of being an independent author, you don't need to look any further because Indie Author Magazine will give you an incredible bang for your buck.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do subscribe, I highly recommend the print version, which I receive.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, it does cost more than the digital version, but personally I love getting stuff in the mail.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I truly do.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they do a really, really nice job on the print version of Indie Author Magazine.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And plus it's, you know, and I think it helps support uh Shell and the team more uh when you do the print version.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to support things that are really cool.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if you sign up, make sure I get the print version.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I highly, highly recommend it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in this conversation today, Shell and I dive into her journey of starting this incredible publication, how each issue comes together, why it's so awesome to be an indie author, and as you can imagine, lots of other topics that are involved in this conversation today.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have been sitting on a great idea for a while and you've been afraid to take action, this conversation with Shell is going to inspire you to finally get moving toward your dreams.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, of course, I want to encourage you to subscribe to Indie Author Magazine, and you can do so by visiting indieauthormagazine.com.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, here's my conversation with Shell Honiker.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Shell, I'm so excited to have you here on the Profitable Writer Podcast.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: We've been trying to line up this interview for a while and finally magic happened.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And here we are.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad to be here.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it did take us a minute to find some time together.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I am a proud subscriber of Indie Author magazine.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love it, and it feels like I'm getting something special in the mail every time.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because you don't just it's not like those sort of regular magazines where there's a label on it and the US Postal Service, no offense to postal workers, they sort of mangle everything.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: It comes in this really nice box, and I feel like, oh, I'm getting like something really special.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd love to dive into why you created this in the first place, how you go about it, you know, all the things.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe if you can take us back to why you first created this to begin with.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was born of boredom, I said.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was um May of 2021 when we launched.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just about to turn four, four years old.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was born out of necessity.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: There were a bunch of us that had met at conferences and we'd gone to uh 20 Books, Edinburgh, and had just a really amazing connection there.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'd all gotten together at um SPF in London and chatted there.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we came back, uh, you know, the COVID times happened.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: There were some of us that came back to the states and had decided that this was like a thing that we needed because there was more context.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was stuck in Ireland actually, uh, right after the self-publishing formula conference in March of 2020.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to go on to uh Scotland and then I was going to come back to the States and could not.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: My flights were canceled, my airline eventually went bankrupt, and I ended up stranded in Ireland.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have to say that in air quotes because I ended up at a Airbnb on the coast of Ireland in a little town Karnlock who completely welcomed me with open arms, this poor little refugee.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started to Zoom with all of the friends that I'd met at all of these different conferences, and we were sharing tips and tricks and tools and software and courses and all the things, and that became a spreadsheet, that spreadsheet became a website, and that website became a magazine.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it was just born out of boredom and necessity, really truly.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when people think about becoming authors, yes.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, you're a fan of indie publishing, hence the the name of the whole magazine.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um why do you feel like authors should go the indie route as opposed to traditional publishing or even hybrid or other publishing models?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I should have asked that question first.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's that's actually a great question, but let me just preface that by saying we don't define india as equitable or or equal to self-publishing.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: We look at indie as a spirit, and so indie authors are taking charge of their careers.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we do have indie authors that are self-published or hybrid published or trad published.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: That that really is not the the uh the genesis of indie for us, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I probably I probably should have named it Storyteller Magazine because now it really is less of uh author and more of storyteller in the sense that they're telling stories in an audio format, telling stories in video format, telling stories on podcasts and serialization and lit RPG and comics, and you know, there's thousands of ways now for all of these folks to tell stories.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't have named it in the author magazine because that's really much more limited than what we really are and what we see as our readers, because our readers are also listeners and our readers are also, you know, viewers.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very, very, yeah, it was it was uh misnamed, I think.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I still love the name of it because I love the way that you describe that it's really more of a spirit.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So how can somebody and I'll go down a little rabbit trail here, which I sometimes do on this podcast.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody is traditionally published, how can they still have the spirit of an indie author, even though they don't they don't have control over their books like they would if they were just just self-published in general?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think they have they still have control of their fandom, right?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: They still have control over making connections with their readers and finding people to really enjoy and love their things.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even though they don't necessarily have those rights, they still own their imagination and they still own how those stories came to be.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, as we're all trying to wrap our brains around what AI means, those relationships are going to become more important.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you can have a spirit of indie just by the fact that you really are trying to delight your fans.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And however, you get the stories in the hands of your fans and followers, uh, that that's really what defines you as an indie.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you can be indie and trad published, and and you can really just sort of learn how to take control of that relationship that you've got.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately that's the only thing that you do have that's that's tangible, that's worth anything.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's really, really true.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I work with a lot of authors and talk to authors all the time, uh, as you do as well.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Something that I see a lot is um a lot of creatives and authors are kind of introverted.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe they hold back, they don't feel super assertive, or they don't feel they're intimidated by the idea of running a business as opposed to just writing books.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: What would what is your experience over the years?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And how does somebody go from being how can you stay an introverted creative while also very successfully having that indie spirit?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because that does require some assertiveness, it requires some business, some business skills, it requires you know doing things that are by definition kind of uncomfortable.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So how how can somebody bridge that gap if they're an introverted creative type?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would back up before I would even say that and say, if you just want to be a storyteller, and if you don't have any um aim to actually sell a lot of books or be a bestseller, then just enjoy the journey, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just enjoy the fact that you can get lost in your imagination and tell an amazing story, and the fact that you can publish it and hand it out at Christmas is great.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's more than what most people do.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say don't get caught up in the um the movement that says that you have to be a bestseller in order to be a success, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Define success for yourself.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: If, however, you do want to be a commercial success and you do want to sell books, then you have to remember that you are a publisher that also writes.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is uh you have to you have to treat your business as a business.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't take credit for that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tony Lee said that um a couple weeks ago on on Facebook, and that has stuck with me because that is a very succinct way to put it, right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You are a publisher that also writes.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you treat your business as a business and you think of it as a commercial endeavor, then that commercialization has to come first.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you are an introvert, there are some things you can do to kind of put yourself out there.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one way, and I speak from experience, is you can create an avatar.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can hide behind one of your characters.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: One of your characters could be the person that posts on your social media.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the characters can be, you know, someone that writes your newsletter.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you can hide behind your imagination in really interesting ways that way.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to put everything out there yourself.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can use that as an extension of your imagination and your storytelling capabilities.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I say that I speak from experience about that because when we first started the magazine, I did not want to be the face or be out there as you know, the person out front for the magazine.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like it was sort of an amalgam of all these 26 authors that started the magazine and now 85 that write for us.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so we created Indy Annie, and she's an avatar, and she's the one that's written our newsletters, and she's the one that's posted on our social media for the last four years.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, by necessity, I'm sort of out front now.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when we first started, it was Indie Annie.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh I'm holding up her like little pink glasses.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um I love that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: When when we would get, she's a drunk aunt, right?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's the drunk advice-giving aunt.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: She's hysterical.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's not me, and I've never written her, by the way.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we we we did that just because we wanted it to be again, sort of an amalgam of everything.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: But funny story, when we go to conferences and when we go to things, I'll put those glasses on our table and someone will come up and say something about Annie, and I'll go, oh, she was just here a second ago.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Where'd she go?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: She just, oh, look, she left her glasses here and wandered off again.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you can have fun with it if you're an introverted author and you can create, you know, some mystique around your persona.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to give everything away.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be an influencer um and you know, make 12,000 TikToks yourself and share what you have for lunch.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, who knows if TikTok will even be here tomorrow or the next day.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's so many, it goes back and forth so much, who even really knows?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like a it feels like a a foreclosed mall over there right now.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of, yeah.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious about about the the process that you go through whenever you put together an issue.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, this is not just a digital magazine.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, for those who are not familiar with Indie Author magazine, it's print, which I I don't know this for sure because this isn't my lane.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm imagining that involves a whole additional set of logistics that are much more complicated than sending out a PDF file.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious if you can just walk us through what it's like to put together a print magazine because I think a lot of our listeners will be curious about that, but also maybe at some point some of them will consider doing their own magazine with their own niche or specialty.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm just kind of curious about that process.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So uh you would be surprised to learn that the process isn't much different than what an indie author, a self-published author does every single month.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way that it works for us is we have an editor-in-chief, Nicole Schroeder, who is absolutely genius.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she is the one that makes sure that we get all of the articles in on time.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then once we she edits them and once they're ready to go, we take all of those and compile them into a beautifully designed magazine.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we use Lulu.com, Lulu printing, uh, for our print on demand.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we print on demand instead of printing, you know, huge numbers of copies and then distributing them.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: We actually use Lulu.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So anybody could do that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: It just happens that our size is an eight and a half by 11 with a glossy cover, but any author can can do it and take advantage of theirs.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were by far the easiest partner for us to work with.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: They were fantastic to us when we first started putting it together and they gave us a lot of tips on how to format it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: They were, you know, wonderful to us.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've stuck with them now for the last four years.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we do when we when we do it, it's all done.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: We have automation.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Automation is sort of my, you know, bread and butter.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's how I geek out.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have it automated.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when someone purchases a copy or when the subscription renews, we use their API and it sends it and and ships it.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't have to do anything automatically.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: But they have they have mechanisms through WooCommerce and Shopify.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So were we using that, we would do that.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: We did that for a few years, but then I changed it uh to be a little bit simpler process.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we do it the we print it the exact same way.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: We put it together, we format it the exact same way, we put it on Ingram Spark, we put it on KDP, we put the articles themselves on our website, which is powered by Ghost, used to be WordPress, but now it's Ghost, and uh and then we um distribute through BookFunnel.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So exactly the way an indie author self-publishes is exactly the way we do it.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course it filters out to our apps, and then we take all of the articles and convert them to voice, and then that becomes our podcast.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: That is absolutely amazing.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: So for everybody listening, go back and listen to the last you know four to five minutes of this because what you've done is walk through uh this really cool process where you are taking the same basic content and it's going out in all these different forms and places.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: That is cool.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea you were repurposing stuff that much.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Repurposing it a lot.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Part of the reason uh so we've always we've always sort of done that part.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: We always wanted to be in all the places, and primarily it was because we have a lot of readers and listeners and viewers that are that have neurodivergencies.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we've always made sure that our website was fully accessible.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: We did the audio versions of all of the articles because we know that there's folks that have ADHD or they have you know autism or for whatever reason don't like to sit down and read articles.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we wanted to make them available in audio versions.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we've been everywhere from the start by design, um, but we have been able to automate so much of it that it really doesn't take us.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It used to take us about two days to publish the magazine, uh, and now it takes no no joke, about 30 minutes.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: About 30 minutes from start to finish.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that includes building our socials, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I have an automation in make.com that automates the entire publication from start to finish, including now the design.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but I want to take a moment to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: As a writer, you not only want to write great books, but you also want them to look professionally formatted and give your reader a great experience.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why for years my go-to choice for book formatting software has been Vellum.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Vellum gives you the power to build, style, and preview your book and have more fun than you ever thought possible while doing it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Vellum is the go-to choice for Mac users who care about creating beautiful ebooks and print books and they want to save tons of time in the process.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Best of all, you can download Vellum and play with your book's formatting to your heart's content, and you only have to purchase when you're ready to publish.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do, Vellum can create ebooks and print books for every platform.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: To download Vellum for free, visit trivellum.com/slash Kent.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's trivellum.com slash Kent.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's get back to the conversation.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And how far out do you plan the editorial content of the magazine?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I assume it's probably several months.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: For okay, so you so right now we're recording this at the the tail end of January.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um what issue are you planning right now?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we plan the themes of the issues every year.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: We do an annual planning session and we sit down and we say, uh, January is this, February is this, March is this.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we go all the way through, and then we have the covers set at the end of the previous year.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: So in November of 2024, we had already set the entire theme and covers for 2025.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have a lot of articles that we can batch, for example, all of our advice columns come in.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are done now for the entire year.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, then we have different sections.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a wellness, health, and wellness section that's pretty much done.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we batch all of the issues and all of the articles.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we actually put the issues to bed probably 60 days before the next.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: So right now we're working on April, for example, and everything for April, right?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but again, we we batch a lot of the content and Nicole really handles and Grace Snoke, our production coordinator, between the two of them, they're the ones that are sort of directing traffic and making sure that everything is in there.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: We send out articles to our uh writers about once a quarter.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll say, okay, these are the holes we need to fill, these are the articles that we want, and then we have them um come back to us and tell us what their pitch is, what their angle would be for it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then Nicole creates creative briefs for each of the authors individually with all of the great ideas that come from our writers, and then they write to that, and then it sort of moves through production.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a pretty well-oiled machine.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when we first started, it was kind of like putting on a show in Old Man Miller's Barn.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was all hands on deck, but now it's it's pretty, pretty streamlined, pretty simple, pretty seamless.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we're really, really, you know, it it's I don't want to say it's easy, but I won't say that it keeps me up at night anymore.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I nothing's on fire like it was at the beginning.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: There were a lot of things that just, you know, we were building a business and a product at the same time.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a lot of stuff that we had to learn.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And but it's uh today it's a breeze.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Today it's today, it's a dream.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I get to wake up and play with my best friends as a job every day.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's the greatest job ever.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the greatest.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, how many do you have a stable of writers who create all the content for the magazine, or do you have different people every issue?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we do know that as a I should know that, but I don't know.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we have eight, it was always it was because they are indie authors, everybody that writes for us is a writer and an author in their own right.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: We designed it so people could roll on and roll off of the magazine.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we will send out an email and say, All right, these are the articles that we have.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Are you available to write for this issue?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we have 82 people in the stable of writers.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then they will come back and say, Oh gosh, no, I've got a release, or you know, I'm just finishing an anthology, or I'm, you know, going to Cosumel.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever it is, we have people that come on and come off.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so every quarter, people can choose what they want to write and how they want to write it.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, like so, for example, we have David Vergoots, who has written continuously for us, and David has just, you know, stumbled on he has Scare Mail, which is a horror letter series um that has absolutely taken off.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now he has seven full-time employees.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: He went from part-time author to seven full-time employees for this business.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, now he can't write for us, which is very I mean, it's the greatest thing, but also, oh man, I get real mad about it sometimes.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: People get so successful, but I can't help but cheer for him at the same time.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a rolling list of folks, and we're always looking for more writers, always, always, always.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have special series, like for example, Honoree Corter came on and she wrote a prosperity series for us for an entire year.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: She wrote 12 wonderful articles for us for an entire year.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we do have limited series with writers that come on that have special subject matter expertise and share that with us so graciously.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're really, really grateful.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is such a generous industry.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there's something about authors and book people that is different than other industries because there's like an unlimited pool of people who like to read books.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if if person A likes my books, well, they're Might like this other guy's books or this other gal's books or whatever.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's funny because people who buy books and really love books, we buy a lot of books.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's kind of like the well is very deep in terms of the products that we love to consume.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the thing that's so interesting and unique about our industry is that we're not competing for one widget sales, right?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're not all selling a pen and there's one pen, and or you know, I have a pen shop and you have a pen shop, and you know, Joe's only going to buy one pen.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how it works.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: The way that it works is our product is a satisfied reader.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so we each have one piece of what makes that a satisfied reader.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like you said, if I have a book and then someone else has a book in the same genre or a similar genre, you know, we can partner up and keep that person coming back again and again.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, in that sense, you know, in marketing, we've always looked at it as a funnel, and we get people in the top of the funnel and we move them through, through, through, through, and then the bottom is one sale.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our industry is more like a flywheel.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the flywheel says, all right, today they're gonna buy my book, and then I'm gonna pass them over to you, and then they're gonna buy your book, and then pass them over to the next person, and they're gonna have that podcast, and then they're gonna go to the next person, and they're gonna see that video, and then you know, you keep them in a circular uh uh sales system as opposed to a singular sales system, and it works much better because none of us can write enough books to satisfy the reader, like we'd have to churn out one or two books a week in order to keep some of these whale readers happy.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not gonna happen.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: So let's collaborate.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we we do a fairly good job of it in this industry.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of strictly based competition in this industry.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking of competition, who do you consider the main competition to in the author magazine?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it like other, do you have other magazines that you feel like are direct competitors, or is it more just people's time and attention that's splintered amongst so many different things?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So time and attention mostly there are other magazines, um, but we're partners with them.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, Ally uh has a magazine called The Indie Author magazine that's part of their membership, but they write for us every month and we write for them every month.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so our yeah, so our model has always been to shine a light on and collaborate with people that are doing amazing things.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so we feel like there's no other place that does better advocacy than Ally.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there's other, there's not really another business journal or business magazine.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's writer magazine, there's literary journals, but there's not anybody that's doing strictly what we're doing in that sense.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's certainly not anybody that's doing it in the sense of, you know, we spotlight things on our website, but we also have our YouTube channel and we also have short form video, and we also have our podcasts, and we also have our apps.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have our sister website, Indie Author Training, and we also have direct to readers.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So our platform has always been an agnostic um bridge between all of those good things, right?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't look at ourselves as competition in that strictest sense.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that just goes along with our industry in general, right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've always, we've always been generously shared with and generously given to.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just feel like it's our responsibility to continue that and to continue to pass that on.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's why we don't do gotcha journalism, right?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of there's a lot of bad actors, there's predatory practices, there's all kinds of things.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And with the finite resources we have, with the you know, finite column space and oxygen in the room, we want to shine a light on people that are doing amazing things instead.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's why we take more positive uh angles on on really everything, and you won't see us give any column space to things that are bad.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not gonna happen.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not that we're polyanning, it's just in a world where you can go find out all the negative, right?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of negative.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's an interesting thing about the news is you know, if you get on someplace like whatever your flavor of choices for news, Drudge Report, Fox News, CNN, MSNB, MSNBC, whatever it is, it's all negative.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, every single bit of it is here's what this person did, here's this tragic thing, here's whatever.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I've never understood why, as humans, we're so drawn to negative news.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why do people eat that up in a way that we don't eat up positive news?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the answer to that is.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have an answer for that, but I do know.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, it's it's always been if it bleeds, it leads, right?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's been the the the common thing.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think when we went to a 24-hour news cycle, the companies, because that's what they are, um, felt compelled to fill it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't fill it with puppies and kittens and you know, clouds and rainbows and have people tune in for whatever reason, but there's a lot of of space that they need to fill.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, they had to compete and we got rid of the fairness doctrine, and there were, you know, all these all these things contributed to where we find ourselves.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do know also is that um I'm big on mindset.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I always have been really, really big on mindset, and and I kind of like the woo part of things.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I know when I shut off notifications, when I shut off the negative emails, when I stopped watching and consuming that, my mindset went through the roof, and my bank account went through the roof, and my satisfaction and happiness went through the roof.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I was in Europe this summer for eight weeks, and I I purposely didn't look at a single, and and it's and I realize that that's very privileged to be able to do that, to be able to check out and not pay attention to those things.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, for my own mental health and for the health of my business, I can't focus on those things.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: If I focus on those things, I become I become depressed and obsessive and frustrated and angry and tired and sad.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't pour from an empty empty cup.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like my job is to help as many authors as I can reach their dreams and do amazing things.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't do that if I'm lying in bed scrolling TikTok and sad.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've been there.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've been there.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to do, it is easy to do, it's very easy to do, and it's very easy to do by design, right?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's designed to suck you in and keep you scrolling, it's designed to keep you there.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's all all social media is designed to do that.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's um, yeah, they they they know exactly what buttons to push, they know exactly what ads to serve.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: We've given them all of that information.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: They know exactly what we what we crave.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, buck the system and uh and you'll be much, much happier.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I cannot stress that enough.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it was because we went through, I have a book club that meets every Saturday, and we went through a few books and we challenged one another.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: There were eight of us, and we challenged one another.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, okay, turn that off.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I can't turn that off.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you crazy?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't I have to know what's going on.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, just do it for a month.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I did it for a month, and at the end of that month, I was like, oh my God, it was like detoxing from all the sludge in my brain.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was night and day.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I listen to the Mel Robbins podcast.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I uh have the I have the TED app on my phone and I have the masterclass app on my phone.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when I when I obsessively go to reach for something, I've deleted apps off of my phone that used to give me that jolt, and now I replace it with something else, right?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've also loaded on my granddaughter has um flashcards uh for four languages.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: She's three and she's learning Spanish.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I will just go on Duolingo or get on the kids' flashcard app or do anything because the itch is still there to scratch, but I just feed it something else now instead.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that is so important to maintain your mindset because if you want to be a successful author, no matter how you publish or whatever you're writing, yeah, you've got to maintain that that positive spirit because there's so many people, you know, if you take the average person who is an author or they want to be an author, there's nine out of ten people in their life are gonna say, Oh, you shouldn't write a book.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Why would you want to do that?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's too hard, it's blah, blah, blah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've got all these people who don't share that dream many times in your personal life.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've got to keep your mind set up.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's really important.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you, the very first person that really, really um drove that point home with me was Honore.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: I met Honore at the Smarter Artist Summit years ago, and she was so positive.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, that's what I want.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's you know, you are the product of the five people that you surround yourself with.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: She was obviously surrounding herself with positivity.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: She obviously had people that challenged her and elevated her.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: She was such an inspiration to me, even back then.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: This was like 2016, 2017.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought that that is somebody to pay attention to in this space in terms of prosperity, in terms of because you again, you only have that many column inches, you know, to use the newspaper term in your brain as well.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are you feeding your brain to keep yourself positive and moving forward?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we had that book club and we went through those exercises, and I genuinely thought that it wouldn't make a bit of difference, and I genuinely thought that, oh, I had it covered.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know how close to burnout I was, I didn't know how close to, you know, just serious depression I was.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was very, very close to all of those things and didn't realize that I was marching toward it willingly by having all of these outside negative influences that were, you know, feeding my brain.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I sort of pushed it away.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds so simplistic, but it was, it was honestly, I can't even, I cannot even tell you.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was really like night and day.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of that 30-day experiment, I I just I felt more positive, I felt more upbeat.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I started to seek out.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: I get a newsletter every day that's all the good things that are happening in the world, right?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's so funny how many good things are happening in the world.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really funny because you have to go seek out the good things that are happening in the world.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I remember during the pandemic, John Krasinski did a good news only broadcast for a little bit.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he and his wife and he would just sit there and read the good news for a bit.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then he stopped.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of bummed, but um, yeah, you have to look, you have to go look for it.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's also why we've always had a health and wellness section in the magazine, because a lot of authors, this is a very solitary profession by nature, right?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're not, unless we co-write or ghostwrite, there's not a lot of collaboration when you're in the creative space or the creative process.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's but even still, you still have to sit down and you're still just the one writing the words or dictating the words or doing whatever to get them out on the page.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a very solitary practice.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: You also sit for long periods of time.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: So um I was really grateful that I chatted with a guy named Roland Denzel, the indestructible author, very early on who said, go get a standing desk.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have a standing desk here and I stand up and at a couple of points I had a treadmill under my desk, but I almost killed myself twice.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was not a successful uh adventure for Shell.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I do have a treadmill.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's in another room now.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't try and walk and shoe gum at the same time because that did not work very well.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: But we we in the magazine and in my career, I really do try and pay attention to stopping and drinking electrolytes and stopping and drinking water and getting up and taking breaks and going for walks and paying attention to what I'm eating because you know I don't I don't have an HR uh team to help me remember to do nice things for myself and take good care of myself.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is a solitary profession for most of us.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's very true.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Shell, this has been fun.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've really enjoyed having you here on the show today and learning more about this.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, where can people go to learn more about Indie Author magazine and also most importantly, how can they subscribe to it?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, indieauthor magazine.com.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: We make it real, real simple.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of friction.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: So indieauthor magazine.com is the place to come.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can also learn about indieauthor training at indieauthraining.com.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's our sister project where we've got all kinds of training courses and motivational videos and webinars and things there for folks.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, those are the two the two core places.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks again for being a guest today.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: I have loved this conversation.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate so much what you were doing.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks for sending a little magic into my mailbox.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I get those new issues, I just love that.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's it's brilliant.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you again.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have been so kind to send notes to tell me what you thought and different different things about articles, and that that lights up my day.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you as well.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, thank you again.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good day.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, my friend, thanks again for joining me for another episode of The Profitable Writer.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again to Shell Honeker as well for joining me on this episode.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure to visit indieauthor magazine.com to check it out and subscribe.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.