← The Amazing Authorities Podcast
The Amazing Authorities Podcast
Viral Pages & Bestseller Dreams — Shanti Hershenson on TikTok, Teen Authorship, and Building a 50,000-Book Empire
00:35:09
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast, where game changers, visionaries, and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms, and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist, and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the go to expert in your space, you're in the right place. Shanti Hershenson, welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast.
- [00:37]
B
Thank you so much for having me. Oh, sorry.
- [00:39]
A
And that's okay. I can. I can absolutely say some of the guests I've had have been terrific. You are by far the youngest, and you can divulge your age or not. It's up to you. It is a lady's privilege to share her age or not. Yet you are the most unique in that you've written how many books?
- [01:03]
B
So I have written 37 books, but of those, 21 have been published.
- [01:08]
A
And what happened to the others?
- [01:10]
B
Oh, they're actively in the editing process or sort of on hold as I try to navigate which projects to work on next.
- [01:21]
A
All right, well, I'm going to push our boundary of a friendship. How old were you when you first started writing books and got it public?
- [01:30]
B
I was 12 years old.
- [01:33]
A
Why are you so lazy?
- [01:37]
B
Could have been earlier. Yeah, I should have done it at 10.
- [01:40]
A
Why? You know, why aren't your parents pushing you harder? I mean, to have an unaccomplished child. What a shame.
- [01:47]
B
I know, right?
- [01:49]
A
Did you just have a natural knack for writing, or what was it that motivated you? Were you a storyteller in your brain? What happened?
- [01:58]
B
I mean, it's really been a constant throughout my entire life. So I have memories dating back to being in early elementary school and sitting down with my paper and binding it together. It was really always a dream of mine that showed up in different forms. At one point, I really wanted to write graphic novels. I've also wanted to write film and television. And I will say, though, writing novels is my favorite. But, yeah, it's just really been this love that's been there for my entire life. I couldn't even really tell you, like, when it started or why, but, like, from my earliest memories, I was really enthralled by books in this sort of, like, ability to create.
- [02:39]
A
What do your parents do? I want to. I want to go to source here. Tell me about your parents.
- [02:44]
B
So my dad runs a software company, and my mom is a retired magician.
- [02:49]
A
A retired magician. Wow. So you were exposed to stories by your mother?
- [02:55]
B
Absolutely, yeah.
- [02:56]
A
Yeah. Because magicians create stories. And take people on journeys, sleight of hand, etc. So that was that the greater inspiration? Because your dad would be much more logic based, I would imagine as a software engineer.
- [03:10]
B
I mean both my parents are like very like creative in their own ways. I will say they both exposed me to a lot of storytelling really early on, whether it was through like books or just like, you know, word of mouth, like sharing stories from their childhood or even just like making things up. And that was really in a way like an early exposure.
- [03:30]
A
Are you an only child or you have siblings?
- [03:32]
B
I have a twin.
- [03:35]
A
Twin boy or twin girl?
- [03:36]
B
Oh, twin sister.
- [03:38]
A
And tell me about her. Is she as different as they come or is she like you?
- [03:44]
B
I mean, okay, physically we don't look anything alike.
- [03:47]
A
Okay, so that's fraternal.
- [03:48]
B
So yeah, most people do not know we're siblings. But yeah, at the core she's also very, very creative in her own way. She's created all kinds of art and jewelry. She's interested in psychology. She's also taking up writing a little bit.
- [04:06]
A
And do you two get along?
- [04:08]
B
We do.
- [04:09]
A
All right. Well that's nice. I mean most twins do that. I find either they're at each other's throats or they're, they're supporting each other. Most of the time they support each other. So that's cool being a twin. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately you have your own identities and you're not identical. I. I thought, oh man, what fun it would have been to have gone through school as a twin. But so you, you went down the writing path and she's gone down more the physical or art. And so it's interesting. You're different. So you wrote how you've written all these books. Some of were in editing. Do you send it off to an ed your each book off to an editor?
- [04:49]
B
Yeah, I work with an editor. We meet twice a week and we go through both like the dev developmental process of making sure like the story makes sense. Because sometimes it's like something will make perfect sense in my. And then someone else will look at it and be like, Chauncey, what on earth are you thinking? This makes no sense. So it's really good to have another pair of eyes developmentally making sure everything continues well. On the other hand, we also proofread and that's also very great because on the other hand I do multiple rounds of self editing and there's always one little thing or just something that I will miss because my eyes are so used to reading one thing and, and I'm so used to reading it how it was supposed to be that I might not even notice the typo.
- [05:33]
A
Well, that's. That that's true. As a published author myself, I know that I went through my own editing. Then I handed it off to a person that I paid to edit my first nonfiction book of about 50,000 words. Then it went to John Wiley and Sons, and they found mistakes you just overlook. You get into that frame freeze of sometimes it's a T W O or T O O or T O and you overlook it. Spell check doesn't get it because those are words and you have to understand context. And getting there, that's a. That's into some of the minutiae. What grade are you in school?
- [06:11]
B
Oh, I'm going into my senior year, actually. I start on Tuesday.
- [06:17]
A
Oh, wow, you're right back. Oh, you're back to school soon. Are you excited?
- [06:21]
B
I am. It's. It's going to be a lot of fun. And it's like, you know, it's that final year of high school.
- [06:27]
A
Are you in AP English or any.
- [06:31]
B
Yeah, last year I took AP English Language. This year I'm actually taking honors American Literature simply because I liked the course material and the readings a bit more than AP Literature.
- [06:43]
A
And what do your, what do your teachers think of you? How do they treat you?
- [06:48]
B
The very funny thing is I have a tendency to not tell my teachers that I write books. And so, yeah, last year I was in a creative writing class and my teacher didn't find out until about December. And so though occasionally I will use it as like an icebreaker or like a two truth and a lie. But a lot of the time my teachers don't know. When they find out, obviously they're very supportive. They'll ask questions about it, we'll talk about it, I'll give them updates. But yeah, it's really funny because it's like. Or sometimes my teachers will find out independently and they'll hear it through the school because I know teachers probably talk about me a bit and it's always a really funny conversation. But yeah, overall my teachers are insanely supportive.
- [07:34]
A
Oh, that's awesome. Now, how about friends? Are they jealous supportive or do they admire you? Because I know that may go all to all angles there.
- [07:46]
B
Yeah, my friends are all really supportive. I. When I met my friends again, I didn't tell them that I write books. And I believe a lot of them found out on their own or like some of them I told. So in one way it's kind of nice to Know that, like, sometimes I worry people are friends with me because they think it's, like, cool or, like, and they don't want to be my friend just because, like, they think I'm a nice person or because they like me as a person. They like my achievements. But my friends are all really great, really supportive. Some of them are writers too, so that's great. I feel like I can really, like, exchange ideas with my friends and sort of talk about the process and really be, like, be surrounded by. By people who are my age and get it.
- [08:24]
A
Have you been bullied because of this? Out of jealousy?
- [08:28]
B
Yes and no. I found actually that I experienced bullying a lot less when I became an author. It was almost like, you know, people kind of. I don't know, I don't know if they had a newfound respect for me or they think I'm like, quote unquote famous. But yeah, no. Occasionally people will make fun of me and they'll be like, why do you do that? You know, it's so weird that you enjoy this. And at the end of the day, I find it amusing because, like, I love writing so much that I can't imagine thinking it's weird that someone else, like, writes and create stories.
- [09:04]
A
Have you considered writing nonfiction? Are they all in the category of fiction?
- [09:09]
B
So I have some books that border nonfiction in that they're based on true stories. I do think it would be really interesting to write a book that is purely nonfiction, either like a story from my life or like my progression as an author, because it is. It's a bit of an interesting story, like when I was writing my first book. But at the same time, I also think it would be really cool to write, like, non fiction, like academic text about, like, history or sort of different, like, different things I'm interested in. And I also think it would be cool to one day write, like, a book marketing guide and share all my secrets.
- [09:47]
A
Oh, I think it would be awesome. So when you talk about book marketing, you. When I did some research on you, you utilize TikTok to sell books. Tell me about that. I want to hear about that. I'm eager to, you know, soak up all the information.
- [10:05]
B
Oh, absolutely. Social media and particularly TikTok has been crucial for me. It's a combination of a couple different things. First off, when I created my TikTok account, this was when BookTok became a thing. And that was, in a way, a subject of, like, pandemic boredom. That then translated into this increased popularity of reading on TikTok. And then that completely changed the publishing industry in that market because what people on TikTok liked then became what was selling really well. And because it became cool again basically to read on TikTok, it also became cool to write. And it became something that more people were trying. And at this time, I created my TikTok account and used that to sell my books. Because again, and this kind of leads me into my second thing is the primary audience on TikTok is teenagers. It's not like Instagram where there's sort of a mix, or Facebook. TikTok is. And of course there are a variety of different ages on that app. But TikTok is for teenagers. That's the main audience. Those are the people that are most present on the app. And therefore it becomes this direct way to connect with my audience and the people who are reading my book and who maybe want to write their own. And once I realized that sort of the combination of the popularity of reading coupled with the fact that I was connecting directly with my readership really allowed for my books to skyrocket and to develop this fan base that continues to support me to this day.
- [11:31]
A
How many books have you sold?
- [11:33]
B
Sold? I just crossed the 50,000 mark a.
- [11:37]
A
Couple days ago with all your books combined.
- [11:41]
B
Combined, yeah, combined.
- [11:43]
A
Wow. Because I know the stats more for nonfiction than fiction. I'm not as dialed in on fiction. I help people write nonfiction books and become bestsellers, which is a. But that comprises 10% of the whole book selling market. Most book sales are in not in fiction. And that's fiercely competitive, clearly. And most people sell 250 books. And that's a. Friends and family and a lot of prayers.
- [12:17]
B
Oh, yeah, it's. It's been wonderful. I will say I've gone. I've like. One of my biggest things has been discounted copies. So it means that because of that I can sell more books. I don't necessarily make a ton of money, but expands the readership to the point where now it's like I have more readers naturally coming and buying my recent books at the full price. So it's overall been this investment that has allowed me to just like skyrocket.
- [12:45]
A
Out of your books. Let's out of the 50,000. And you can ballpark it just for purposes of understanding. For the. Because a lot of my reader or listeners and viewers are authors or want to be authors. Out of your 50,000. If you're to break it up into a pie chart, because I presume you're probably good at math as well, is how many of those Books were paperback versus ebook versus audiobooks.
- [13:14]
B
Okay. I don't currently have audiobooks, so I can sort of take that out of the chart though that is something I really want to do in the future.
- [13:21]
A
Oh, you need to, you're missing on major sales. Major.
- [13:25]
B
I really need to. I've been working on it. I've been in like conversations about it and I've trying to plan which books. But yeah, so I believe I like, I know I checked this the other day. It's about literally 49,000 of those are ebooks and a thousand of those are.
- [13:41]
A
Paperbacks because of your, your, your, your readers, the, the people. Okay.
- [13:47]
B
And I didn't believe that was something that was going to happen. I remember right when I was, you know, 13 years old and meeting with my editor, she told me, she was, she was like, you know, when you publish your book, the majority of your sales are going to be ebook. And I was like, that sounds insane. I, I don't really read ebooks that much. I don't know that many people that read ebooks. No, it's the ebooks dominate for you.
- [14:07]
A
But here's an inch I will be willing to bet and we can circle back in six months from now if you found or if you identify your top one or two books. Start with one, whichever is your best selling book, Shanti. And you make it an audiobook. It will dominate because I believe people will love listening to you, your audience. And I bet it'll be. Overall, it's about 11% of sales of books are ebooks today. In the non fiction category, again I can't address fiction because I'm not an expert there. I know nonfiction, but in the fiction category you're probably going to knock it out of the park. Baseball metaphor of, of sales. And you know, it's a one time investment. It's either you reading it or having somebody else read it. My guess is you're going to have 20% of your sales, another 10,000 copies digitally sold at $5, $10, whatever price point. That's not bad.
- [15:11]
B
Oh absolutely. Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised. I do actually, now that I think of it. I, I have one audiobook and it was an experiment of Amazon's virtual voice. So it's for a book that is for this crossover novel between two different book series of mine. It's not like the most popular book, but yeah, that's my only audiobook if you're interested in audiobooks. But I really do want to work on developing an audiobook. With a real human narrator. Because that's really important to me.
- [15:48]
A
And I think, yeah, humans. Humans are good. AI. Yeah, AI isn't bad. But talk to me about TikTok shop. Other authors have mentioned it and I've read about it. It's our book talk. Is that a place where nonfiction could be exposed as well?
- [16:06]
B
I will say nonfiction has absolutely increased in popularity on booktok. There are so many niches within that. I have definitely seen nonfiction books, you know, being promoted. If you go to the bookstore on, like, the booktok table, the majority of it is genre fiction. And yet there is still a place for nonfiction in terms of TikTok shop. It has been amazing for authors and a lot of authors to sell so many copies. Unfortunately, I am not eligible to use the TikTok shop because in order to, like I have a book on there, but in order to link it to my profile, I need to be 18. And I emailed TikTok and they would not. They would not verify my account for me because I'm under 18. So I cannot personally use TikTok shop until I'm 18. But how old are you now?
- [16:58]
A
17. Are you 16? 17.
- [16:59]
B
I'm 17. My birthday's in October, so I turn 18 in October.
- [17:03]
A
Wow. And you're going into your senior year. So you were. Okay. I graduated high school at 17, so my birth. My birthday is in September. So you started later then. So a little. You're just the opposite. Okay.
- [17:18]
B
I actually, I repeated the grade because I. In Los Angeles, I started school as I was in kindergarten when I was 4, turning 5, and I moved schools. And unfortunately they changed. It used to be you could put your kid in the grade if they had that fall birthday. And then that changed. Where you had that, you couldn't. There was a cutoff. I missed basically where I was now, even though I was in the grade, too young to go to the next one if I moved schools because of, like, the law. So now I'm older.
- [17:49]
A
Your sister. Your sister is in the same school, is she?
- [17:52]
B
Oh, no. We go to different schools just because we prefer different, like, educational environments.
- [17:59]
A
That is bizarre. So wait a minute. Your parents were cool with sending you both to different schools?
- [18:05]
B
Yeah.
- [18:08]
A
Okay. Educational environments. Wow. That's. Do you go to private schools?
- [18:13]
B
I do. Yeah. She does too.
- [18:15]
A
What kind of private schools?
- [18:17]
B
So I go to a more. I want to say, like conventional private school. We have small class sizes and we have more discussion based classes. She goes to a school that's still a bit more like individualized and flexible. So you can, like, really, you know, explore the things you want to and take your time. Whereas I go to a school on a pretty standard schedule. The only, you know, there's, you know, there's a ton of differences between public and private school. Just the main thing for me is I have 12 people in my classes instead of 40.
- [18:46]
A
Wow. Okay. And what's next? Are you going to go to college?
- [18:49]
B
Absolutely.
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A
Where are you?
- [18:51]
B
I literally earlier today was working on my college applications.
- [18:54]
A
Where do you want to go?
- [18:55]
B
My top choice is Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia.
- [18:59]
A
Bran Mawr.
- [19:00]
B
Bryn Mawr.
- [19:01]
A
Bryn Mawr. I'm not familiar with that school. Is it a private school?
- [19:03]
B
It's a women's college, yeah.
- [19:05]
A
Oh, it's a women's call. And what about your sister?
- [19:08]
B
Ooh, I don't know. I don't know if she, like, knows yet. We don't talk about it much, but she also, I bet, wants to go to a small, like, liberal arts college.
- [19:17]
A
You don't want to go together? Would this be strange to be separated from your sister?
- [19:22]
B
I don't know. It's like we're. We're very, you know, we're similar, and yet we're different in our interests and, like, our preferences for location. So, like, I really want to be near, like, a big city, and she doesn't really mind as much.
- [19:35]
A
Oh, okay. Well, that's very cool. What tips do you have for someone who wants to be an author? I mean, you just did it at age 12, you said. Correct. That was your first. Now, writing books is probably much easier. You know, you have to do the first one. Was it challenging to write your first book?
- [19:55]
B
Absolutely it was. I mean, okay. I went into it as, you know, I was in the sixth grade when I started, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was just like, okay, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write, and it's going to be a book. That was pretty much all, you know, I was like, I want to write a book. I want it to be, you know, long enough that it looks cool. Printed pretty much. And I knew nothing about the structure except for what I had read by just reading, you know, books. And so it was a little bit confusing at first. I had to learn a lot about developing my own writing style because the way I was taught to write in school is not how you write a book. It is not how you creatively write at all. You know, you're in school, you're taught, like, oh, this is like, a sentence is like, four sentences and up. You know, your sentence needed to have a subject and a verb. You need to have this, you need to have that. You don't. And in the process of trying to figure out, originally I was like, okay, so I need to have a certain amount of sentences for my paragraphs, so I'm gonna have all of my sentences be very short and simple. And then I realized that it was very choppy and very confusing. And. And I also didn't know what genre I was writing or who I was writing for. So it read at times like a middle grade book. And other times there were these really, like, kind of almost violent things that the characters were going through. And then I took a complete 180 and was like, okay, so I need to write these really long and beautiful sentences. And all of a sudden I had singular sentences that were 50 words long and had all of these sort of em dash is and semicolons and wow, run on sentence. Yeah, it's a. And they were really long and redundant. And eventually I really settled on a writing style. And it was maybe around even by the time I finished that book. I was a lot. It was like a completely different story from. From the beginning to the end, and yet I was a little bit closer. And yeah, eventually, I think, though, what really helped was that I was about 30,000 words in the book, if I remember, and I was like, to my parents, I was like, I should maybe hire, like, a tutor or writing coach. And I met my writing coach, who's also my editor, and we have been working together ever since. That was really great. But, yeah, overall, it was difficult, but it is really a process you have to, like, work through.
- [22:28]
A
All right, I want to switch gears before we wrap up, because this is the most important part. There are people there. Thomas Edison had a quote. It's 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. Now, to compare that to the book to be an author process. Okay, One thing is about writing a quality book. You. You tick the right box of hiring a writing coach slash editor to get that part done. The real work begins when you hit upload. Or is it before the upload? What do you do? What is your strategy for marketing books? Because 50,000 is an impressive number, and that didn't happen just because people like you and think you're cute. You've had to put in the work. What do you do? Shanti.
- [23:17]
B
So it honestly, it starts the moment I write the first word, if not before that, the moment I have an idea. I am constantly thinking about, like, okay, in a way, what will the readers think? You know, I'm always coming up with ideas as I'm writing of like, okay, what can I do to market this? What posts can I make? How can I use this book to, like, you know, sort of try to send a broader message? What, you know, I mean, even, you know, when I was writing, I had this one book I was writing, and I was like, what snacks would be good to have at my book signing? But it's those little details that are crucial. I will say, though, even though I'm thinking, I often think I'm like, okay, how will the readers react? That's not the most important thing for me is writing a book that is marketable. I have plenty of books in my backlog, and I'm like, I have no idea how to market them. They are such projects from the heart. And yet maybe that itself is what's marketable about it. But, yeah, as I write my books, I am constantly. I'm developing the strategy, and thankfully, I've done this enough times that I often reuse the same strategy. I know I want to discount the book a week after the promotion and have it sent out to these newsletters where they have discounted ebooks. So I can get that rush of sales really quickly and therefore develop, like, just gain new readers. And. And I also know that early readership, ARC readers are extremely important, if not actually like the most important thing.
- [24:43]
A
How do you find. Let me interject right there. Sorry.
- [24:46]
B
No, you're good.
- [24:47]
A
For people that may not understand ARC readers, we're going to use acronyms that you and I understand because we're in the publishing world. Advanced reader copy is what an ARC is, ARC reader. Those are people that will then help give you reviews before it's released, just so people understand the vocabulary. How do you find ARCs advanced readers?
- [25:08]
B
Primarily, I find them through social media because the most. The best ARC readers for me are the people who would be reading my book even if they didn't get it for free. They're the people who are interested in the genre, the people who maybe know a bit about me and my work. And so that kind of almost leads a little bit back into like, the early promotion is as I'm writing a book or maybe as I'm editing it, I'm making a lot of videos about it on social media. I am making tiktoks, talking about the plot, the characters, my feelings, and my interactions with this story. And this allows people to connect with the book before it's released. So then When I post this opportunity, they're like, oh yeah, I'm going to sign up for this one. You know, I already have heard a little bit about this book. It's not a random book. It's something that I've been like following on TikTok for the last couple of months.
- [25:55]
A
And how important are reviews?
- [25:58]
B
It's the most important thing. That's one thing I've learned.
- [26:01]
A
Okay, I'm, I am tick, tick, tick, total agreement. Because anybody who's in the publishing space after a period of time, you can't ignore that. So the arcs are important. Do they write reviews for you?
- [26:16]
B
They do, yes, I have them. Basically, they read the book and they leave an honest review on Amazon and Goodreads. And it's great for early momentum and it's also great for the overall amount of reviews because, you know, if people see the books already been reviewed, they're more inclined to review it and add their voice to this rather than being the only review on that page.
- [26:39]
A
How about a content?
- [26:42]
B
So I've dabbled a little bit in A plus content. I'll say that it's not for me. It's not for me. A driving factor. Mainly because when I'm browsing online and looking at books, I'm not necessarily swayed to buy a book because the A content is good. Because the A content cannot exist without a good description. A good cover, however, it adds a layer that is really great for like the buyer seller interaction. And I've used it to add like just maybe one like enthralling quote from the book or a quote, quote from a reviewer. And it does make the page look really nice and it makes it look more dynamic. So in that way it's wonderful. But you can't have convincing A plus content. The book itself is not convincing.
- [27:26]
A
Well, yeah, so it's an add on. So it maybe takes somebody from a content. A plus, the name is great. You're doing the extra in order to get the AP class. You know, it's, it's, yeah, it's getting the 4.3 grade point average, not the 4.0. Talk to me about the book cover and how do you come up with and decide on a book cover?
- [27:49]
B
Ooh. So yeah, another thing, and maybe even it is up there with reviews. I mean, reviews are the most important thing, you know what I mean? Like along with sales. But the book cover in terms of marketing is just as important. And for me, having that magnetic, that interesting book cover, it makes such a difference. I hear it in person where people come up and they just wanna, like, they look at my book covers or I had one of my favorite, like, childhood authors, like, tell me that he really liked my book covers. And it's one of those things that's just like. Cause readers do judge books by their covers.
- [28:29]
A
Of course they do.
- [28:30]
B
People judge books.
- [28:31]
A
Yeah, of course. We all do.
- [28:33]
B
So for me, I hire designers because I also think it's important to have someone design the COVID Unless you're really great at graphic design and you know enough about marketing where you know to like, look at what's popular. But for me, because I, yeah, I know pretty much what works in the markets. I've looked at the top 50Amazon lists, but I can't design, like, I can't. I can't do graphic design very well. So for me, I hire people that both know the market and have just are able to design these beautiful covers. And it's an investment that is so important and definitely just like makes this big difference and also in a way makes people take my books more seriously.
- [29:17]
A
Have you used platforms like Quora, Reddit, or one of the ones that I'm looking at for my podcast, and I've seen some other people do this successfully is Substack. Build your email list. Are you familiar with Substack?
- [29:30]
B
Yes.
- [29:31]
A
Do you have.
- [29:32]
B
I. So I do not have a substack. However, it was a conversation for a while. Instead I have a Patreon. But in terms of Quora in Reddit, I've dabbled a bit in answering questions on Quora and like, trying to engage. It's just, it takes a lot of time for, not like, for a limited amount of exposure. Because rarely when you answer a question on Quora or you're reading, you know, when you see someone answers a question, you're reading the answer. Rarely do you look at them and their credentials. And in terms of Reddit, I have not. I do read a lot of Reddit for different things, but I have not actually used it for my writing, though it's not out of the question.
- [30:15]
A
Neither have I. But I'm considering Substack for the podcast and for future books and recommending it to build email lists. And what's been your experience with Patreon?
- [30:28]
B
So I use Patreon in a way that's a little bit unconventional. And in the future I'm probably going to use it more normally in that I have myself and I'm selling exclusive content across all of my books. But for now I'm actually using it to release a singular project. It's Good Kids bad choices. I have it right here. This is.
- [30:49]
A
That's a big book. Oh my God.
- [30:51]
B
It is a giant book. And that's part of the issue because it is a YA contemporary novel. It has no business being 250,000 words and yet it's the kind of book that builds and builds and builds and builds and despite being very long, is quite concise. And in that regard, I don't want to cut so much of it that it will change the story because to me, that format and that layout of like slow progressing events that lead to this huge explosion is really important. So I am using Patreon to release it two chapters every week to almost like test the waters and test the readership and see how people are reacting and also get a little extra earnings every month. However, it's been great. It's a little difficult to get people to commit to paying a certain amount of money per month to read a single book. So I'm expecting that when I publish it, just as the paperback and ebook, it's going to do a lot better. But it has been a really interesting experience and it hasn't. It's not that it's been like negative, it's just that it could be more powerful. And it's also that I'm still so new to Patreon and I really need to do more research on how to get the like channel out there.
- [32:05]
A
Let me ask this, if you're willing to share, how much have you made off selling 50,000 books?
- [32:13]
B
Ooh, I don't actually know the exact number.
- [32:18]
A
Okay.
- [32:18]
B
Because I don't really, like, I don't really check that much. It's not. I don't keep statistics on the earnings as much as I do the sales just because right now I'm so focused on like building my readership. I will say it is not as much as people are expecting. It is. I make a couple cents per book. I do know that. And that's going to change. Right now my prices are lower to try to optimize the sales and I am planning on at some point probably upping the prices by a couple of dollars. So maybe grab my books while you can't.
- [32:48]
A
That's a good point. But when you add the audiobook to some of these, I would be interesting. I'd love to circle back with you or send me a message, if you wouldn't mind. Adam.
- [32:59]
B
I absolutely will.
- [33:00]
A
Plum curiosity, Shanti, of what are you doing, you know, with the audiobook sales for your market? I have no experience with teen authors. You're my first. Hopefully I'll have more. And if you have others that you know that want to have, I would love to embrace that. I'd welcome it. If you have friends who are authors like yourself that want to have an older guy interview them and give them some exposure, I'd be happy to do it. That's my way of paying it forward. And with the younger generation that I so, so keep me, keep me posted. So I'm going to give you you get I do these special treats for people. You've been a great guest. You get three squeezes and when you have the money answers but 50,000 sales, that justifies five squeezes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of my rubber chicken. It's green for money and 50,000 sales. It's a lot. And I'm just wowed. I'm impressed. I know you're used to that. You're quite prolific and certainly unique. This has been the Amazing Authorities podcast and Shanti, I want you back when you've got some more releases and sales numbers. And to talk about from our conversation today versus what it'll be when you embrace audiobooks because I think it'll make a significant change in your exposure, success and consumption.
- [34:33]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [34:34]
A
Shanti, you've been fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today.
- [34:38]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [34:40]
A
Thanks for tuning into the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay amazing.