Full transcript
0:00Today, we're walking through my process
0:01and my plan in order to create a author
0:05business for fiction specifically that
0:07is making me at least $16,000.
0:10Why $16,000? Well, just have to watch
0:13and find out. And that's $1,600 a month,
0:15by the way. So, for a long time, I have
0:18been really dissatisfied with the way
0:21the author and fiction business runs in
0:24general. Mainly because it's based
0:27around an e-commerce
0:29model where you make money by selling a
0:30specific product, and those products are
0:33really low priced, usually like $5 or
0:36less for fiction books. Sometimes you
0:38can go as high as $10, but really it's
0:41like it's a small amount. And the reason
0:43that's difficult to make profitable is
0:45because if you really the only way to
0:48make good profit off of any kind of
0:51product out there is to run ads to it.
0:53And when you have such a small
0:55small product and a and a price that is
0:59so small, it's really hard to be able to
1:02make profitable ads for those small
1:05products. There are ways to make it
1:07work, and people certainly do make it
1:08work, but I feel like the margins are
1:10just so small that it's not worth it to
1:13a lot of people. Add to that the the
1:16process of creating a book is a super
1:20time-intensive process. I know for
1:22myself, if I wanted to, I could create a
1:25product like say an online course or
1:28something like that that is that takes
1:31takes me the same amount of time as
1:32writing a fiction book, but I can sell
1:34it for $200.
1:36That's much easier to make profitable
1:38with ads cuz you have $200 to work with.
1:40As long as you're spending less than
1:41$200 to make one sale, you're making a
1:44profit. With books, you have $5 to work
1:48with or maybe 10, maybe a little bit
1:49more if you have a series. So, anyway,
1:51I've been really dissatisfied with this
1:52model, and what I want to do is go to a
1:55more subscription model first because
1:57subscriptions, love 'em or hate 'em,
1:59they are by far the most stable form of
2:03income for entrepreneurs.
2:05That's why everybody's doing software
2:07products or communities or other type of
2:10membership models because these create
2:13more stable recurring income.
2:17I have found that to be the case for my
2:19Storyteller business, and so I've
2:22actually found quite a bit of success
2:23with the Storyteller business. So, I
2:24want to be able to translate those same
2:26skills over to my fiction business. So,
2:28let's get into what I'm planning on
2:30doing to to do that.
2:32First of all, this is the platform I'm
2:35using. This is a platform called School,
2:37and School is a absolutely fantastic
2:40platform. It is a community platform
2:42first, meaning so it kind of functions
2:45similarly to a lot of course platforms
2:48out there that you may have heard of
2:49before like Kajabi or Teachable or any
2:52of those. But
2:55in addition to that and and rather like
2:58as its main thing,
3:00School is all about community. So, it's
3:02like taking the best aspects of Facebook
3:04groups
3:06and the best aspects of a course
3:08platform like Kajabi and putting it all
3:10together. And I have found I I moved my
3:13Storyteller group over to School about a
3:15year ago, and I I have never regretted
3:18that decision once. It has been one of
3:20the best decisions for my business that
3:22I have ever done. And School is just I
3:24think a it's a rapidly growing platform
3:27cuz people are figuring out just how
3:29great it is. You'll see it in YouTube
3:32instructors a lot.
3:34But it's it's I think underrated in the
3:38author community. I've even had some
3:39people come to me and say that they
3:40don't think I should do this on School
3:42because readers are more used to maybe
3:44joining a Patreon or or a Discord or
3:46something like that. And I my answer to
3:48that is I'm sorry, but there's no way
3:51I'm going to Discord or to Patreon after
3:54having had my experience with School.
3:56School is just so much better than those
3:58platforms, and it's my intention to help
4:00readers understand that so we can start
4:02getting more readers on this platform.
4:04Now, that can be a little bit scary to
4:06me because
4:08usually if nobody's done something yet,
4:10it means that you don't have proof that
4:13it will work.
4:15And
4:16and so I don't have proof that this will
4:18work. But already I've seen some amazing
4:21things starting to come to fruition that
4:25I think is going to really blow this
4:26thing up. So, I'm not going to go into
4:28all the ins and outs of the School
4:30platform and how it works, but you can
4:32see some of the different tabs and
4:34things here. Just trust me that it is a
4:36fantastic platform for community, and I
4:39intend to sell this as kind of a
4:40community first reader group that also
4:43happens to have a whole lot of books
4:44that you can buy. So, this is a graphic
4:46that I had designed for me
4:48of all of the different books that you
4:50get inside of this group. Some of them
4:53are not out yet, but they will be soon,
4:55obviously because I already have covers
4:57for them. So, they're they're in the
4:58process but going to be coming soon.
5:01And so, I think it's really cool
5:03graphic, by the way. I love this thing.
5:05But let me explain exactly what I'm
5:08doing and why I'm doing this. So, in
5:10School, when you join School as a group
5:14creator,
5:15you get automatically put into this
5:18School group called Schoolers, which is
5:20basically it's a group for all the
5:21people that own a School group.
5:24Pretty simple. And every quarter School
5:26does this competition called the School
5:28Games. And
5:30there's various categories, and the top
5:32five from every category ends up going
5:34to a all-expenses-paid trip to LA to
5:38visit School HQ in LA, get a one-day
5:41mastermind with Alex Hormozi, and they
5:42get this really awesome School Games
5:44trophy. Also, a whole lot of street
5:46cred.
5:47And
5:49my Storyteller group is in the tech
5:51category, which is very very
5:53competitive. Already in the last 7 days,
5:57these people have picked up Okay, well,
6:00maybe not the last 7 days, but their
6:01total
6:02monthly recurring revenue growth over
6:05since the beginning of October already
6:07exceeds what I'm making in the
6:09Storyteller group. But
6:12it's so this is a competitive category.
6:15However, the hobby category is far less
6:17competitive. You can see the monthly
6:18recurring growth since October is a lot
6:21less. And if we look at the winners of
6:23the last quarter,
6:25you see the top person made about 16
6:2916,000 of monthly recurring revenue
6:32to win the School Games. So, that is why
6:34my goal is $16,000. I want to get to
6:36$16,000
6:38by the end of this quarter, which means
6:40by the end of the calendar year. And I
6:43have some work to do because
6:45it hasn't grown yet. I have only been
6:47doing preparation over the last couple
6:49of weeks
6:50here in October. I should have started a
6:52little bit earlier, but I think we can
6:53still make it if all goes well.
6:57So, these are the people that I'm having
6:58to
7:00compete with this time around.
7:03These are the different groups in the
7:05hobby category.
7:06But anyway, that's why I set the goal of
7:08$16,000. Now, in order to get into the
7:11top five, I could probably win with
7:13maybe eight eight or 9,000 instead. Let
7:18me look at the the last quarter again.
7:20Yeah, so the last one that
7:23fifth place had just under $8,000. So,
7:25if I were in that range, I would
7:27probably be okay, and I'd still get the
7:30trophy and get to go to LA and all this
7:31stuff. But really, like who wants to be
7:34number five, right? We want to be number
7:36one. So, I'm going for 16,000, maybe
7:38more. Now, I know this video is going to
7:40sound a little bit like I'm rambling a
7:42little here and there, but please hear
7:43me out. There's some important
7:44background information that I need to
7:46give you first before I go on. Firstly,
7:47I want to introduce you to this fellow.
7:49His name is Goose.
7:50I doubt that's the name he was born
7:52with, but that's the name that he goes
7:53by, and he was I I don't think he
7:56officially works for School anymore, but
7:58he used to. He's very high up there.
8:00He's good friends with the founder and
8:01all of those people, and he's been going
8:03around the world literally doing this
8:05world tour meeting up with other School
8:09creators. And I actually went to one of
8:10these meetups in New York City a while
8:12back and got to meet him, and
8:16he was absolutely generous enough to
8:17actually give me a little bit of
8:18coaching on some of what I'm doing,
8:21which I did not ask him for at all. I
8:23was not planning on it being like I I
8:25did say like, "Hey, can can we go over
8:27some stuff?" And I thought like maybe
8:28over dinner tonight, right? But he was
8:31kind enough to actually give me a couple
8:33of coaching sessions since we met. And
8:36and that's like that's been really
8:38helpful. I'll go over some of the stuff
8:39that we've come up with in a second. But
8:42the second little bit of background
8:43information I need to introduce you to
8:45is
8:46there is this group called Grow with
8:48Evelyn. It's mostly about using ads to
8:50grow your business.
8:52There's various different ways that you
8:53can do it,
8:54including running ads to a School group.
8:58And I recently posted in here. Evelyn is
9:02the
9:04she is the person that runs the ads for
9:06School. So, she's very good. She is was
9:09also one of the first winners of the
9:11School Games. She knows what she's
9:12doing. She's excellent with ads. So,
9:15that's just another another little bit
9:16of background information that I'll come
9:18back to you later. So, back to my
9:19coaching with Goose. So, Goose
9:23I showed him this group, and I I told
9:25him what I wanted to do with it, and he
9:26actually got really excited. He was just
9:28like, "We have a lot of authors who are
9:31learning self-publishing or how to write
9:32books, but we don't actually have any
9:34authors that are putting their universes
9:36on School and having like reader
9:38groups." And I was just like, "Yeah,
9:40that's why I want to be the first one to
9:42do that." And he said like,
9:44"Go ahead, work on your offer, work on
9:46your page, get it ready to launch, and
9:48if I like it, I will send it up the
9:49ladder to Sam." And if you don't know,
9:51Sam is the CEO of School. And maybe get
9:54his help along the way. And just like,
9:55"Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. I
9:57wasn't asking for any of this, but here
9:59I am being coached by one of the top
10:00people in school."
10:02Um so, I made a couple of changes
10:05and uh started working on my offer.
10:09Now, one of the things that Goose told
10:10me that was really important to me was
10:13uh this idea that he said, "You need to
10:15focus on the things that you do best and
10:17go really hard on those things, but
10:19you're also going to need other things
10:21helping along the way. So, uh you're
10:23going to need to get other people to
10:25help you and invest at least like 30% if
10:28not more of what you're making from
10:30school back into this business." And I
10:32was like, "Okay, that for me means I'm
10:33going to be focusing on YouTube and I'm
10:35going to be focusing on um
10:38on writing books, the the stuff that
10:40actually goes in the community. But, I
10:41also knew I really needed to have an ad
10:43strategy. I'm going to need to run ads
10:45to this thing." So, back to Evelyn's
10:48group. What I did is I went into this
10:50group and I posted this post here. I
10:52said, "Hi all, I've been mostly a lurker
10:54here, but I was wondering is it
10:55acceptable to ask if anybody would be
10:56willing to help me run ads directly to a
10:58new school group I'm creating. This
11:00would be a paid gig, of course. I'm
11:01starting a brand new group in the hobby
11:03category and it's my goal to have it win
11:04the school games by December, which
11:06means I need about 16K MRR.
11:08Why don't I just do it myself? Because I
11:10was counseled by an expert in school,
11:11yada yada yada yada, you get the
11:12picture." So, I was just asking for
11:13help.
11:15I was expecting just some random member
11:17of the group who knew what they were
11:18doing and who had gone through Evelyn's
11:20courses to come and actually help me
11:22with this uh this project.
11:25I was not prepared for Evelyn herself to
11:28actually reach out and say she's got
11:29something interesting. I'll reach out.
11:31Well, she did reach out and she told me
11:34that she's working on doing some case
11:36study courses and be willing to help me
11:38out as long as I allowed her to document
11:40the process and put it in her community.
11:42I was just like, "Heck to the yes." So,
11:45um so, we're actually starting to work
11:48together. We're just about to start
11:49running ads. By the time this video goes
11:51out, we may have started them already.
11:52And so, that strategy is absolutely
11:55killing it right now. And over the last
11:57week, I've really had to scramble to get
11:59some of the assets ready for this thing.
12:00So, like this image here, uh some
12:02testimonials, this awesome uh trailer
12:06for the group, which I showed off in
12:09another video about uh doing AI video
12:12book trailers.
12:14Um that's in here, plus a little like
12:16video message from me
12:18um you know, wearing my uh my Gondorian
12:21helmet here.
12:23Um
12:24uh
12:24just kind of going over some of the
12:26stuff that's in this group. So, I had to
12:27prepare all of that
12:29uh in order to just kind of get people a
12:32sense of of what's needed.
12:34And also,
12:36uh work on the offer. So, let's talk
12:38about what I'm actually doing. What's my
12:40strategy to actually get up to $16,000
12:44in by the end of December in monthly
12:46recurring revenue?
12:48Um so, it's currently priced at $9 a
12:50month. And if you can do the math,
12:5316,000 divided by 9 is an astronomically
12:56large number. It comes out to about uh
12:5817,000 or 1,778
13:00people that I need to get in at seven at
13:03$9 a month. That's a lot of people and
13:06it's going to be quite the numbers game
13:09to get that many people, especially when
13:11you consider that some people are going
13:12to leave while others come in. And so,
13:14getting to that level growth is very,
13:16very difficult, at least in the short
13:18term. So, one thing Goose advised me
13:20when he was coaching me is he said,
13:22"What could you create to give to
13:24somebody at a $1,200
13:28annual offer?
13:30If we were to say we need 12 $1,200 for
13:32a year, which comes out to $100 a month,
13:36um
13:37what would I include in that kind of
13:39like a big high-level offer?" And so, I
13:43gave it some thought. And uh what I
13:45ended up coming with up with was this
13:47author offer. So, for the $9 a month,
13:50you get every fantasy book that I and my
13:52team have written. And uh there's a new
13:54fantasy book every month. We also do
13:55weekly nerd chats.
13:57Um I'm just calling them nerd chats cuz
13:59I don't necessarily have a structure for
14:01them yet. We're going to kind of figure
14:03that out as we go.
14:04But, at the very least, it's a great
14:05place to just come and talk nerdy stuff.
14:07Like it doesn't even have to be about
14:08these books. It can be about the the
14:10latest um
14:13uh
14:13like what's going on with Star Wars or
14:16DC or Marvel or anything. Um that kind
14:19of stuff. Uh but, for the $1,200 a year,
14:22so usually an annual option is like
14:25cheaper than 12 months of the nine $9 a
14:28month, right? Well, this is a little
14:30different. You're getting tons more
14:32stuff if you go for the $1,200 a year.
14:35So, this is like an upper tier,
14:36essentially.
14:37So, for the $1,200 a year, you get
14:39everything you get in the monthly, of
14:41course, plus a lot more stuff. Uh the
14:44big one is a character named after you
14:45in a future book. Uh I got this idea
14:47from a friend of mine who was doing a
14:49Kickstarter and he was selling this as
14:51an add-on to his Kickstarter or as a
14:53tier of his Kickstarter for $1,000.
14:56And people were paying that. So, I
14:58thought like if I included it as just
15:00one of the things you get for $1,200,
15:02that would actually make it pretty
15:03valuable.
15:05Uh and then you also get your name in
15:06the acknowledgements of every book we
15:08publish while you're a member.
15:10Uh and you get to join a private
15:11mastermind to kind of just talk about
15:13where we're going with the future of
15:15this fantasy universe. So, additional uh
15:17meetings with me, essentially.
15:19And up to four special edition
15:21hardcovers shipped to your door each
15:22year. This is my first foray into
15:25physical goods. Um so, we'll try to
15:28produce three or four of these a year.
15:30These will not be available anywhere
15:32else. This is a absolute exclusive to
15:34the Fantasy All Access Library.
15:36Uh plus, and I'm only doing this for the
15:39the next week or two,
15:41I'm including a private one-on-one
15:42session with me. This is just an extra
15:44incentive for people to act now and I
15:47will do this now and probably do it
15:49again towards the end of the month.
15:51Uh but, this is something that I don't
15:53do a lot. Uh in fact, I pretty much
15:56eliminated all private one-on-ones with
15:58people. So, if you are interested in a
16:01private one-on-one with me, this is the
16:03only way to get it.
16:04Um and so, I'll leave this uh for at
16:07least the next week or so for those who
16:08are interested.
16:10Um and and by the way, I should say this
16:13is primarily for fantasy readers, but
16:14really, if you want to support me at all
16:17and you don't want to do it through the
16:18Storyteller Group for whatever or in
16:20addition to the Storyteller Group,
16:21please, you're welcome to come in. This
16:23is um probably more for the authors out
16:26there who enjoy fantasy, but I'm sure
16:28there's stuff that you can get out of
16:30this. Um
16:31I'm sure like if you want to get that
16:33private one-on-one session with me,
16:34that's only available here at the $1,200
16:37a year plan
16:38uh in addition to everything else that
16:39you get here. So,
16:41that is the offer I came up with. I'm
16:43sure I will adjust it and change it as
16:45we kind of figure out what people like
16:47and what people don't like. We'll we'll
16:49figure that out.
16:51But, at the very least,
16:53that's the situation we have right now.
16:54All right. Now, you heard me say earlier
16:56that the two things that I'm going to be
16:58focusing on the most is writing books
17:01and doing YouTube videos. So, this is my
17:03plan. And right here, what you can see
17:06here is this is an end-to-end automation
17:08that I created all about uh helping me
17:11create YouTube scripts and um as well as
17:16um SEO articles that all have something
17:20to do with a given topic. So, I'm going
17:22to walk you through this really quick.
17:24Um
17:26but, it's not really that important. The
17:27the main thing that you get out of this
17:28is that this is creating a very
17:30important
17:31uh very well-configured
17:33YouTube script for me, so that I don't
17:36have to spend too much time on it. It
17:37also does all of the research for me.
17:39Uh I also sometimes provide it with
17:41certain sources that I want it to to go
17:44through. So,
17:45um my plan for YouTube is I'm actually
17:49creating not one, but two YouTube
17:51channels.
17:53And on these channels, I'm going to be
17:55producing not one, not two, not three,
17:58but seven videos every week, essentially
18:01one video a day, on both channels.
18:04That's not something that's normally
18:06doable for most people. I'm only able to
18:08do it because I have these automations
18:11that help me out. Uh I do a lot of the
18:13topic research. I put all of that
18:15research into these automations and it
18:18spits out the script, essentially.
18:20Uh and it's done I've done a couple of
18:22these now. They're actually really good
18:24and they're accurate. I know because I
18:25know these topics a lot of the time and
18:28I can tell when when it's wrong about
18:30stuff. And so,
18:32so far, this has been a fantastic
18:34automation. I'll just briefly run you
18:36through this. So, I give it a topic in
18:38this form here
18:39and then it goes through and does a
18:41Perplexity deep research.
18:43From there, it uh it creates the
18:46document where the YouTube script is
18:47going to go. It writes a bunch of intros
18:49based on a bunch of intros that I give
18:50it that are high-performing.
18:52Um it does an analysis of those intros
18:55and uh chooses the best one. Then it
18:57writes a script. Then it writes the
18:58titles, uh like 10 possible titles for
19:01this script.
19:03And uh writes a bunch of metadata, like
19:05a description and hashtags and other
19:07things to go with it and then puts dumps
19:09all that into a document. Then it loops
19:11back around and we do the a similar
19:13process to create an SEO article, which
19:15goes on my website storytellingdb.com.
19:19Uh I'll show you an example of what this
19:21looks like. So, for instance, we have
19:23Middle-earth books and shows in
19:24chronological chronological order. Uh
19:26this table isn't in most of them. This
19:28is something else that I created
19:29earlier. But then here, in every one of
19:31these articles, is an ad for the group
19:35uh as well as
19:37um the
19:39uh
19:39there will eventually This this video
19:41actually hasn't been released yet. Uh
19:43so, there will eventually be
19:46a um uh a copy of my video embedded in
19:50this article. So, it kind of all messes
19:52together and so we're getting SEO
19:54traffic as well as just regular YouTube
19:56traffic. And again, I'm producing one of
19:58these every day for two different
19:59channels. One is centered on the lore of
20:02various fantasy franchises like
20:04Middle-Earth and one is centered around
20:06the concept of mythology because all of
20:09my books kind of exist in a shared
20:10mythological universe. So, I figured
20:12there's some overlap there. I'm not sure
20:14which one will perform better. I will
20:17probably once I get a sense for which
20:19one is performing better. Uh
20:22not just in terms of number of views,
20:23but in terms of how how many of those
20:26people are coming into my group. I will
20:29probably focus more on one or the other
20:31and maybe focusing a little less on
20:33others. But for now, it's one book or
20:35one video every day in each
20:38uh in each channel. So, those videos
20:41actually will start going out on
20:42Saturday.
20:44This Saturday, which should be tomorrow
20:46as this video comes out. Which leaves
20:49the other thing that I'm working on,
20:50which is actually going through and
20:51reviewing books. Now, I have a bunch of
20:53books that were written by ghost writers
20:54that I just need to read through
20:57um and make sure they're all good and
20:58edit those up. But I also have a few
21:01AI-written books that uh
21:04uh function a little bit similarly,
21:05although they require a little bit more
21:07editing than a ghost written book does.
21:09And this is one that I'm currently
21:11working on right now. This is book five
21:12in my Fairy Queen series.
21:14Uh yesterday I edited the first 10
21:16chapters, which is about 17 a little
21:19over 17,000 words.
21:21And about a quarter of the book.
21:23Which means if I keep this up, I will
21:26have finished this book in three more
21:27days.
21:29Which is pretty cool.
21:31If I do say so myself. So, I'll be going
21:33through these and some of the ghost
21:34written books and uh some of the other
21:36content that I've written myself and
21:39adding that to the group as we go. I'm
21:41planning on releasing three books in the
21:44group each month for the next 3 months.
21:47Just to kind of like uh bulk out the
21:49content that we have there. So, that's
21:50where we are at. That is a long ramble
21:54about my plans and everything I'm doing,
21:55but I hope this was exciting for some of
21:57you. If this works,
22:00this is going to open the floodgates for
22:02authors to have an entirely different
22:04revenue scheme
22:06uh for their books. Where we're not
22:09really selling books as so much as we're
22:11selling the community around a specific
22:13author or a specific genre.
22:15And books are just bonuses on top of
22:17that. They are the marketing for the
22:19group. So, it's still scary to me
22:21knowing that this has not really been
22:23done before, but I think that's just
22:25because school is kind of a uh still a
22:27newish platform. People don't really
22:29realize how much better it is than
22:31Patreon or Discord
22:32uh and all of those other platforms.
22:34It's just so It's just so much better.
22:36Like you guys don't even know.
22:38Um
22:40Uh so, I I think once people get the
22:43hang of this, more people will be coming
22:44in and doing this for their universes.
22:46But I intend to be the person that
22:48proves it, that proves that it's
22:49possible. And uh we're just going to see
22:51how this goes. We've got somebody on
22:53ads. We've got me on the YouTube going
22:55like crazy and just cranking out a whole
22:57bunch of stuff. And uh we've got me also
23:00writing a bunch of books
23:02as well as editing a bunch of books and
23:03publishing a bunch of the books that go
23:05in this group. So, that's what we're
23:07what we've got going on
23:09in this group. I hope that was useful
23:10for you and I'll see you in the next
23:12video.