Full transcript
0:00All right, guys, it is time again for my
0:02monthly business update to let you know
0:04how my publishing business is going as
0:06I'm building it. And once again, we're
0:09having another month, just like last
0:10month a little bit, where I haven't
0:13actually put a lot of work into this
0:14because I've been focused on my Story
0:16Hacker membership instead. That's going
0:19to continue to be the case for this last
0:21month and this month and probably next
0:22month.
0:23But after that, there's going to be a
0:26lot of movement in this space. And
0:29believe it or not, this month actually
0:31ended up being surprisingly good, even
0:34though I put extremely small amounts of
0:37work into it this month, it still ended
0:39up being a pretty good month for me. And
0:42let's talk a little bit about why that
0:44is. All right, first let's go to the
0:45spreadsheet. All right, so here we are
0:47the spreadsheet and so what we're
0:48reporting on this time is the revenue
0:50for February. Obviously, because
0:53February is a smaller month, we normally
0:56expect revenue to be just a small
0:58percentage less. But this month actually
1:01ended up being a pretty good for me. So,
1:03first of all, let's talk about titles
1:04published four, technically, in
1:06February. And the reason I say
1:07technically is because I don't really
1:09count these as what I would say flagship
1:12or tent pole books. These are just
1:14little short guides that I've published.
1:16They're very short. I publish them for
1:18$5 a piece. They're non-fiction books.
1:21And what they are are these genre
1:23guides, where I've gone and used AI to
1:25actually analyze on a scene by scene
1:28basis what's going on in the top sellers
1:30in a particular genre. So, I go to that
1:32genre, I find where the top sellers are,
1:34I do a scene by scene analysis of those
1:36top sellers, and then I kind of compare
1:38and see what tropes are they using, what
1:39plot and then everything are they are
1:41they using. Most people would just go to
1:45a tool like Perplexity and be like,
1:47"What are the tropes for this genre?" I
1:49don't do that. I actually go to the
1:51books themselves and then analyze and
1:53say, "What tropes are in these books?"
1:55So, it's a far more accurate genre guide
1:58than what you would get just by, uh, you
2:00know, researching it on the internet. I
2:01published four of those in February.
2:03There are a lot more coming. My plan is
2:05to do 100 of them. They're relatively
2:06simple for me to make and, uh, and I use
2:09them inside of my own writing process.
2:12So, with that in mind, I published four
2:14of those. That accounts for some of the
2:16increase that I've seen this month, or
2:18in the month of February, I should say.
2:20But, uh, it doesn't account for
2:21everything. So, let's go next to Amazon
2:24ads. This is another thing I've
2:25literally done nothing on my ads
2:27account. I just let them continue to run
2:29as they were running. I probably need to
2:32hire some of this out at some point.
2:34Although, I do want to learn it
2:35properly. So, anyway, that is there. Uh,
2:38I spent three and $136.30,
2:42which is in the ballpark of what I spent
2:44the last couple of months. So, nothing
2:46has really changed there. For fiction
2:49revenue, I'm happy to say nothing has
2:51changed there really, either. And this
2:53makes sense because I have not put out
2:55any new books. It's nice to at least see
2:57that things are staying consistent to
2:59the fact that I have not put any new
3:01work out, uh, or any new published books
3:04into my fiction in the last couple of
3:06months, and yet they're still staying
3:08consistent. It's pretty good. Uh, that
3:09means that all of this money that you
3:11see here is from work that was done a
3:13long time ago. It's completely passive
3:15income. Now, $129 might not seem like a
3:17lot, and it's not. I obviously want that
3:20to be a lot higher.
3:22Uh, I ultimately want to get my
3:23publishing business, I'd say to about
3:2520K a month would be my normal goal. I
3:28know plenty of authors that do that. I
3:30just need to be a little bit more
3:31intentional about my releases, which is
3:33something that's going to be happening
3:35in the near future. All right, but now
3:36the big one, uh, non-fiction revenue
3:38essentially doubled last month. Now, I
3:41can't I haven't really done as deep of
3:44analysis to really be able to tell you
3:46why it doubled, cuz that's doubled is is
3:49big. I only published these four in the
3:51month of February, which means, and I
3:54did look at those four, they did account
3:56for some of that revenue, but certainly
3:57not all of it. Like if you you
3:59subtracted it, it's still be several
4:01hundred dollars over what I had the
4:03previous month. And what I think has
4:05happened here is a lot of my older
4:07things, especially the genre guides I
4:08had published previously, are really
4:10starting to take off. I think a lot of,
4:14you know, word of mouth gets around. I
4:16did a couple of videos in February that
4:18didn't really promote those books, but
4:20they did talk about them briefly and,
4:24uh, I didn't even have a link to the
4:25books in my descriptions, but if people
4:28had gone to my account, they could have
4:29found them. And I think that started the
4:32Amazon marketing engine to roll. This is
4:35one of the nice things about publishing
4:37on Amazon versus publishing on just
4:39whatever platform
4:41is that Amazon's algorithm, say what you
4:42will will about the company, Amazon's
4:45algorithm, once it figures out that this
4:47particular type of reader is liking this
4:49particular type of book, you start to
4:51see a lot more
4:52of those readers start to come in. And
4:56Amazon finds those people and markets
4:57the book to them, knowing that they are
4:59likely to buy that book. Quick break.
5:01Most people watch these videos not long
5:03and then don't actually write. I built
5:05my Story Hacker membership to fix that.
5:07For just $9 a month, you get all of my
5:09books, which are, over $200 if you
5:12bought them on Amazon, as well as the
5:14bulk of my courses and a community of
5:15writers all helping each other win. And
5:18that's all inside the community, so
5:19you've got one place to go and get your
5:21dream books written. If that sounds good
5:22to you, just hit the link in the
5:23description, join the $9 tier, and we'll
5:26get you on boarded.
5:27And,
5:28uh, it works the same way on like how
5:30the YouTube algorithm works. You know,
5:32YouTube will show you videos that it
5:34thinks you will like, and Amazon's
5:36algorithm works much the same way. So,
5:39it's pretty cool. Uh, really happy with
5:41this number considering I put almost no
5:43work into this last month other than to
5:45publish these four genre guides. And I'm
5:47really,
5:48uh, optimistic. Now, each genre guide by
5:50itself, I've published,
5:52uh, six or eight of them or so,
5:55uh, up to this point. Each one by itself
5:58does not generate a whole lot of money.
5:59All together, they are doing pretty
6:01well. Enough so that I know that once I
6:04publish 100 of these, that whole series
6:07will probably be a very, uh, fairly
6:08profitable niche for me. So, I'm I'm
6:11really encouraged by that. I think
6:12that's great. And 100 is not going to be
6:14enough to get through all of the
6:15subgenres on Amazon, but it will be
6:17enough to cover all of the major ones
6:19that most people are going to be
6:20interested in enough to actually spend
6:22$5 on a book. By the way, if you don't
6:25want to spend $5 on each of them, you
6:27can actually get all of them at no extra
6:29charge when you join my Story Hacker
6:30Gold membership. Just thought I'd, uh,
6:33throw that out there. Actually, it's not
6:34Story Hacker Gold anymore. It's, uh,
6:36it's just Story Hacker right now. Going
6:38through some shifts at the moment, and I
6:40will you will probably have heard of
6:41those. I'm going to do a live stream
6:42soon. By the time this video comes out,
6:44uh, you can check that live stream out.
6:46Out, it'll be out before this video.
6:49All right, audiobook revenue is delayed
6:51a month, so I'm obviously not able to
6:53get February's yet, but I was able to
6:55get January's, which was 43. And that's
6:59kind of consistent with where we've been
7:01before. So, that just adds on to what I
7:03had previously reported for my revenue
7:05in January. But even without the
7:08audiobook revenue, the revenue I'm
7:10reporting here is, and this is income
7:12minus expenses, so everything all
7:14together, $938.81.
7:17Uh, my notes here is like, once again, I
7:19did not
7:20work on the publishing business other
7:22than to publish the four genre guides.
7:24So, let me, um, walk you through a
7:26little bit of the future for this. I
7:28know some people are a little
7:29disgruntled that I have kind of not been
7:32working on this as much. I kind of made
7:34a big deal of it last year that I really
7:36wanted to make these changes, and I
7:37really do. For one, it's one thing to
7:40say, "Oh, here's how you can write a
7:42book with AI." I've never really
7:44reported to do more than that. I just
7:46teach people how to write with AI
7:48effectively, how to use AI effectively.
7:50It's another entirely to say, "Here's
7:51how you make money with these books."
7:54Which is never something that I've
7:56claimed to teach people. I, as through
7:58my time at
7:59I it was something that I was
8:02I knew all the theory. I'd spoken to
8:04high-level authors. I knew everything
8:05that I'm supposed to know, from a,
8:08intellectual theoretical standpoint, but
8:11don't have the experience to really say,
8:13"Yeah, like I I've made 10K a month with
8:16this, or 20K, or or even 5K." You know,
8:195K is a life-changing amount of money
8:21for a lot of people to make 5K from a
8:22hobby, right? So, I mean, as an
8:25entrepreneur, my goals tend to be a
8:27little bit higher, but still, 5K is is
8:31life-changing amount of money. So,
8:34I will say for the month of March, I've
8:37already published a few more of these
8:39genre guides in the month of March.
8:41There's going to be more coming. But
8:42what I have decided to do, at least in
8:44the short term for the next couple of
8:46months, is focus on the non-fiction
8:47thing just for a little bit. Put out all
8:49of these genre guides. I have two other
8:51books, like more mainstream books,
8:53books,
8:54for authors that I want to write. Those
8:57shouldn't take me too long to do once
8:59I've started the process. I want to
9:00write those two books and then get all
9:03of the genre guides either published or
9:05scheduled, so they could be for
9:07pre-order at least. And once I've done
9:09that, then I'm going to focus back on
9:11the fiction for a while. The reason I
9:13want to get all the non-fiction out
9:14right now is because, A, it's doing
9:16better. And I have this YouTube channel
9:18partially thank for that, because it's
9:20my opinion, if you want to get into
9:22publishing non-fiction, especially in
9:23today's climate, where not non-fiction
9:25sales are actually declining overall, a
9:27YouTube channel to pair with it is
9:29almost essential in my because YouTube
9:31is so good at finding that correct
9:33audience. And you can also test ideas on
9:35YouTube to see like what are people
9:37resonating with. That can help you craft
9:40your book. So, I would say pairing a
9:42YouTube channel, if you want to write
9:44non-fiction, having a YouTube channel,
9:45to me, in my professional opinion,
9:49almost a necessity. Of course, there are
9:51other ways you can do it, but I would
9:52say it's probably the easiest way to do
9:54it. Go make a YouTube channel. Figure
9:56out what topics and ideas are resonating
9:58with people, write your book as you're
10:01going through that learning process, and
10:02then you can promote the book to that
10:04audience, and the book will have such a
10:07bigger chance of selling. I do not
10:09promote my books very often on this
10:10channel, my non-fiction books, and yet
10:12they still sell pretty well from just
10:14random people finding me who saw YouTube
10:16videos and then went to find my Amazon
10:18and then bought my books. The reason I
10:20don't promote them that much is because
10:22I give them away for free inside of my
10:24membership. Not free, but no extra cost,
10:26right? If you actually totaled up the
10:29cost of all the books that I'm giving
10:30away for free in that membership, it's
10:33over $200 if you count the David Farland
10:35books, which I recently licensed to be
10:39able to do those. There's four books
10:41that you can get in there. So, that's
10:42like 40 bucks right there for those
10:44alone. And then you If you count the
10:46genre guides and my other mainstream
10:48books for authors, it's over $200. And
10:51now we have a new tier, so you can
10:53actually get all of that for $9 a month.
10:55You can get all of the books and
10:56everything. So, pretty good deal in my
10:59estimation. But enough about that.
11:01So, to get back to the plan, the plan is
11:03to get all of those non-fiction books
11:06done, and it's not like I'm never going
11:08to write non-fiction again after that,
11:09but I'm going to take a break from it. I
11:11am probably going to hire somebody
11:14like Brian Cohen and his Amazon Ads
11:17School. They do done for you ads, so I
11:20might hire somebody to run the ads to my
11:22non-fiction just so I don't have to
11:23worry about that, and it can continue to
11:25grow and grow without me having to spend
11:27the time or the oversight on it. I would
11:29still like to learn Amazon Ads, but I
11:31would probably put more of my personal
11:32focus on the fiction and getting out
11:33more titles on the fiction. As far as
11:35the fiction side of things go, it's not
11:37like I'm abandoning that completely
11:38because I do work with ghostwriters, and
11:40I have two ghostwriters right now who
11:42are excellent, and they are working on a
11:45couple of book ideas that I've had. Why
11:48do I work for with ghostwriters when I
11:50have AI? Well, you know, I try to do a
11:52mix of things. I try to do a mix of me
11:54writing the stuff directly without AI. I
11:56try to do a mix of writing with AI. I
11:59try to do some writing with ghostwriters
12:01as well. As an entrepreneur, I do I
12:04think identify a little bit more as an
12:06entrepreneur and publisher than I do as
12:08an author, although I try to do writing
12:10as well just because storytelling is an
12:12obsession of mine, and you can't really
12:15learn all the ins and outs of
12:17storytelling without doing some writing
12:18yourself, I believe. However, when
12:20you're an entrepreneur, you realize, you
12:22know, you've heard the phrase that time
12:23is money. In my estimation and
12:25everything I've learned and just from
12:26common sense, that's not true. Time is
12:28so much more valuable than money because
12:31in the world, money, I mean, people just
12:34keep printing money. There's no finite
12:35limit to how much money is out there.
12:38There is absolutely no limit to wealth
12:40that one can achieve. You can always
12:42make more money. Time, however, is
12:44different. Every second of time that
12:46ticks away is a second that you have
12:48lost, and you will never get it back
12:49again. You have a limited amount of time
12:51on this planet, and because of that,
12:54time is infinitely more valuable than
12:56money. As a result, I find that
12:58ghostwriters are the best way to get the
13:00most quality books for the least amount
13:03of time on my part so that I can focus
13:05on other things in the business, the
13:08things that only I can do, the things
13:10that that I want to do. And don't get me
13:12wrong, I would
13:13I still write
13:14even without AI. I still write because I
13:17want that experience, but I don't have
13:19enough time to write multiple books per
13:21month, you know? That's all I would be
13:23doing if I needed to do that. So, right
13:26now I do have some two ghostwriters in
13:28particular
13:29writing a couple of projects. They're
13:31They're doing an excellent job. I'm
13:32really excited. I'm going to maybe
13:34concentrate my focus because I have
13:36multiple eras in my fiction universe.
13:39I'm thinking of maybe just going
13:41chronologically through those different
13:42eras. I think it'd be kind of fun. So, I
13:45have an era that's going to involve some
13:47kind of Brandon Sanderson-esque epic
13:49fantasy, but focused on mythology, some
13:52romantasy books in there that also focus
13:54on mythology, and
13:56some tie-in non-fictions like history of
14:00the era and and just like I don't know.
14:03It's not like quite a fiction book, not
14:05quite a history book, but like this
14:07reporting on the stories of the
14:09mythology, the actual stories, rather
14:11than these fictional interpretations of
14:13them. So, that's my plan in my head at
14:16the moment. Hopefully, this has been a
14:18interesting, useful video for you, and
14:21I'll see you next month for the next
14:22one, although I will be traveling a lot
14:24over the next 30 days. So,
14:26unfortunately, not much is likely to
14:28happen while I'm traveling. I'm going to
14:30a mastermind in Ireland, and then I'm
14:32also going to be going through just a
14:35Southern States vacation with my family
14:37for a little while. And so, we'll be
14:39doing that. So, anyway, hopefully this
14:41was useful for you. I'll see you in the
14:42next video.