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The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Two Different Approaches To Selling Books Direct With Sacha Black And Joanna Penn
01:19:18
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 840 of the podcast and it is Friday 5th December 2025. As I record this in today's show, I talk to Sasha Black, who also writes as Ruby Rowe about different ways of selling direct. As we both do it quite differently, we have lessons learned that will help you figure out what you might like to do and why. Different ways of selling suit different people in different ways and different times. Now remember, most authors do not sell direct anyway, and of those that do, many authors only sell ebooks and audiobooks. Others do print on demand as well as digital like I do, which means you don't have to do packaging and shipping. My stores are jfpenbooks.com and creativepenbooks.com if you want to have a look. Other people only do sporadic Kickstarter campaigns rather than have online stores and other people sell direct in person at live events and markets. So there are many different ways to sell direct if you even want to, and the most hardcore way is to have a warehouse and ship books yourself, which very few authors would ever do. I certainly don't want to do it, but it is for Sasha. She loves it, so it's really fascinating to talk to her about her lessons learned and how she has progressed her author career over the years. She also has an episode on her Rebel Author podcast specifically about the warehouse in detail. So if you want more Sasha, check out that episode too. So that's coming up in the interview section.
- [02:09]
In Writing and Publishing Things, one of the most rewarding and yet most difficult genres to write is memoir. And of course I have my own midlife solo travel memoir, Pilgrimage, which took years to write and was very difficult to wrangle and yet remains one of the books that is most precious to me. And Reedsy this week have a great article on memoir examples. Now this is really useful because one of the ways to write a book and to really or wrangle the material you have into what might be a book is to understand the shape of it, the structure of it, and the way a book works. And finding an example where you go, yes, this is the type of book I am writing can really, really help and this helps with any genre. So when I first started writing thrillers years ago, I used to break down the top selling books and figure out point of view and what happened in a chapter and all that kind of thing. This definitely help with memoir as well. So the Reedsy article has lots of examples, one of them being the event memoir like Salman Rushdie's knife, you might remember the attack on Salman Rushdie and so that is based on one particular incident and then everything around that one incident. Another example is the themed memoir, which is more a series of vignettes around a theme. I'll mention here Ros Morris's Not Quite Lost, which has lots of road trips and what they mean, and also Rachel Heron's A Life in Stitches, a knitting memoir. So both Ros and Rachel have been on the show multiple times. There are lots more examples at the Readsy article link in the show notes and I have lots of interviews on writing memoir which I've shared over the years and I've collected them all@thecreativepen.com writing memoir. I'll put those links in the show notes. Also Written Word Media have released their annual Indie author survey results. 13146 authors took part, 96% of whom are already published. It skews towards serious, prolific indie authors and of course all data is self reported. Now the audience of Written Word Media are often people who have bought their marketing services, so that might be email blasts or advertising, that kind of thing. Now it is a really comprehensive survey, well worth reading in full or listening to the podcast episode from Written Word Media. About that, I'm just going to pick out a few things. First of all, what drives people to write? 40% of respondents said I want to make money from my book, highlighting a strong financial drive for many indie authors. 20% said I want my story to be told, which is more motivation by personal or creative narratives. So two big takeaways on this not everyone is here for the money. I think this is so important to remember. And in fact primarily we're not here for the money. The reason we write is not for the money. The reason we write is because we really want to write and it's what we do. So that is the sort of base level of everything, the joy of the craft and why we love to write things. We just can't help ourselves. Basically that is the truth of it. There are so many better ways to make money than writing and books. So yes, not everyone is here for the money. And even if you are here for the money you're here for the craft first. But those authors who did check I want to make money do make more money on average, because they are more likely to treat their writing as a business, more likely to invest in covers, editing and marketing, and more likely to stick with tactics that actually make a difference. And this mindset is so important in every area, really. I mean, if you're not treating your books as a business, then don't be surprised if you don't make any money. I always find it interesting that people think that somehow they will just make money from books without focusing on how to do that. It is a very different skill, in fact, to write than to actually make money. So you have to do both, really. Money doesn't come by accident for any reason, unless, I guess, you're born into it, which, let's face it, most of us are not. You have to be interested in the way that something makes money in order to get there. So that mindset shift is important if it is something you want to do. And in terms of income breakdown in the survey, over 60% of authors. So most of the authors in the survey make less than $500 a month. Around 15% make more than $5,000 per month. And everyone else is kind of in the middle. And it was interesting because I was at a networking thing last week mostly with traditionally published authors, and one person said to me, oh, I keep seeing all these indie authors on threads saying that self publishing is where all the. And is everyone really making all that money? Like, that's what she asked me. And I said to her, well, it's really just like traditional publishing. It is like a pyramid, which is the same in any industry. So think of the pyramid shape, the much wider at the bottom than it is at the top now. There are a few top earners and then lots of us in the mid list. So, you know, there's a good load of us in the mid list. We make a good living. Mostly nobody knows who we are. Mostly we're not having breakout success. Mostly we are loving our writing, making some money. And then there are a lot of people making very little, and a lot of them don't care. As I just said, they're not focusing on that. And this survey really makes that clear as well. So aiming to be a decent middle list. Indie is kind of between a thousand dollars and 5,000amonth is a great goal again, if that is a goal that you want to have. So back in the survey, authors making over $1,000 a month had more books, often more than 10 books and very often in. They also had an active email list, regular marketing spend, and a business mindset. Those four things I would say really are the key. More books, an active email list, regular marketing spend, and a business mindset. Whatever you want to do, whatever business model you do, those things are important. So of course written Word media's audience is primarily genre fiction. And I would say that nonfiction authors in particular can do well with one book or, you know, three books or not. Not as many books as fiction authors need, basically because they're often upselling to a course or speaking or consulting. So it's not all about the book. Most non fiction authors have a business beyond the book. But yes, in general, having a backlist is important. And books take years to write often and or building up a backlist takes years for sure, but it's the number of years of compounding of everything. So yes, every year you grow your backlist, but you also grow your email list, you grow your network, maybe you go to events, you make author friends, you learn new things, your brand awareness grows. All of it goes together. So that's why being in this game a lot longer makes it much easier, essentially. So in terms of formats, back in the survey, ebooks and paperbacks remain the backbone of indie publishing. Also now, so that was like 90% of people have an ebook and a paperback, and then over half of authors now have at least one audiobook. A third of authors offer hardcover editions, and then only 8% of authors offer a collector's edition. So that would be like my limited edition hardbacks with the sprayed edges and all that kind of thing. But this small segment ties into major industry trends. Special editions with sprayed edges, foil stamping or custom art is a trend and also high, higher margin direct sales at events or via Shopify stores. So yes, that is true, but I think it's really interesting that less than 1 in 10 authors are doing these special editions. I think that's really important. So you remember as you listen to me and Sasha talk about it today, because we do geek out on it, but we know it is really not mainstream as yet. Now, when it comes to generating revenue, Amazon is still the dominant platform for indie authors, with 83% of respondents naming it their top revenue source. And that certainly changed for many of us. But I think it's important to remember that is still the number one. About 30% of authors already sell direct in some way, and another 30% say they plan to start among authors earning over $10,000 a month. Half sell direct. So as I've said before, it really is an advanced tactic. And it's. What you have to remember is it's not selling direct that causes more money. It's almost like everything together. So more books, more, more audience, more marketing, more business skills, all of that come together. So again, back at this networking event, someone said to me, oh, Kickstarter doesn't work. You know, I tried it and I didn't even make a hundred dollars. And I was like, well, do you have an audience? Do you have an email list? And she's like, oh no, I'm traditionally published, I don't have an email list. And I'm like, well you, you, you can't just put a book on Kickstarter or you can't just put a book on Amazon and expect it to sell. And she was like, oh, well, you know, not interested in doing that kind of thing. I was like, okay, fair enough. So that, that'll be why it doesn't work then. So back into the written word media thing. Among lower earners, direct sales are much less common. Also, they say we're seeing a pattern of early stage authors going hard into direct and ending up with boxes of books in the garage and very few buyers. The missing ingredient is usually an EST audience, often by email, and proven demand for your books. So I want to talk about this in particular a bit more as it ties into today's show. And also I got an email this week that made me kind of audibly, gasp ready. You have said that authors who are starting out shouldn't start with direct sales. If not direct, then what? And this is so fascinating to me, and it is both wonderful and terrible that the conversation has shifted so much in this way. And only a few years ago, the only conversation amongst indies was Amazon KU plus ads. And the dominance of the 20 books to 50k movement explains that. And some people had great results that way, but many people didn't. And as ads became more expensive, as KU page reads have gone down, as rapid release became even faster, rapid release and people burned out. And then also on the other side, people want to do more creative things. We got new partners who could help us do these gorgeous hardbacks. We got better other ways of doing stuff and people didn't want to pay, play the algorithm game anymore. The conversation changed. But the pendulum I think, has probably swung too far. And I, I'm certainly take my burden of the blame for that. This happens in everything in politics as well, right? In reaction to one dominant thing, things often swing too far in the other Direction now. I love Amazon. I'm a shareholder on Amazon. I've used Amazon since the beginning, I think it's fantastic. But I've never been all in on Amazon. And just a reminder of my backstory, if you don't know it, back in 2008 I was laid off in the global financial crisis and realized that one company had just taken away all my income. It just bang like that. We were all sent home and I was like, I will never let that happen again. I will never rely on one company for all my money. So I never did. And I never was a right to market person. I never did KU plus ads. But I wanted to say it is still viable. And if you are just starting out, if you're just writing your first book, Amazon is still the best way to just get started. Put an ebook and a print on demand book on Amazon. Totally valid first step because first of all, finishing a book is a big enough deal.
- [14:33]
So you know, you've spent all this time learning, you've learned all this stuff and then self publishing can really seem like a complicated thing. So I would say keep it simple at the beginning. You can dip your toe into marketing by building an email list, but you don't even need a website. Email services have landing page options, so you can just put that at the back of the book. Just have a landing page. You don't even need a full website. So spend your money on editing and cover design and then ebook print on demand on Amazon. Great way to get started. So people saying, oh well, what about all the other things? Well, you can get into all the other things. You might want to publish wide on Kobo and Apple and use drafted digital, get into libraries, all of this. Or go wide with print with IngramSpark or get into audiobooks or sell direct if you want. But all of this takes time. So I would suggest keep it simple at the beginning. Keep writing books, keep building your email list. And if you have an email list that is big enough and you have enough books like at least three, so you can do bundling in a series or at least aimed at the same audience, then you can decide to take it further. And you could sell direct then, but there are costs involved, there's time involved, there's a whole different thing to learn, which is hard and you need to drive the sales entirely yourself, which can be practically impossible if you are a new author because you don't have an email list. And if you're not interested in marketing at all, please don't go anywhere near selling direct.
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Now if this all sounds too complicated, please get my free ebook Successful Self Publishing, which breaks it all down for you. That is at thecreativepen.com SSP4 or you can find it on any of your favourite stores or my website, creativepenbooks.com now I wanted to say all that because the basics are still important. But if you do want to run an author business or you run one already and you want to level it up, I am doing a webinar on business for authors. The same webinar running on two dates. So Saturday 10th of January or Saturday 24th of January, I will cut through the noise and help you level up your Author business in 2026. Now even if you already have a business of some kind and you're like, oh, will it be too basic? I promise you it will be a chance to think about more strategic questions. I will not be doing what you might expect. I think the way I'm planning to do it, there'll be something for people at any stage. So if you want to set yourself up for 2026, come and think about some of the bigger questions. Do some writing around your business. Come and join me live or if you have a ticket you get the replay and the slides and everything. You can find the links at thecreativepenn.com forward/live L I V E and patrons get 25 discount so check the Patreon. If you are a patron before you book, please use that link. If you have any questions you can email me joann@thecreativepen.com I have been running my own businesses for 25 years now and I am actually going to go through the material using my mistakes as a framework. So I think there's a lot to be considering and because there are no rules now like there are just questions and directions for you to take, I'm going to frame this more about a sort of choose your own adventure business. So yeah, that'll be fun. TheCreativePenn.com live.
- [18:15]
In personal news, I am still finishing up essays for my master's degree and I have one more to get done which is how medieval ideas of hell influenced one particular aspect of art history. Which is very fun. But I know you will also laugh at me because I said I wouldn't write any books during this masters but I was in London this week, I was on the train and I just couldn't help myself. I have been circling back to my tall ship horror idea so regular listeners will have heard me talk about this before but in 1999 I sailed on the tall ship Soren Larsen from Fiji to Vanuatu, and I kept a diary of that trip in the South Pacific. And it comes back to me as like a locked room book because you're essentially on a boat in the blue ocean. It's like seven days blue water sailing. And I also love merfolk horror. You've probably heard me talk about this before. So basically killer mermaids and mermen and stuff like that. One of the books I really like is into the Drowning Deep by Mirror Grant. That is a great book. And so I've really sort of been on that train journey to and from. I was noodling my tall ship horror plus merfolk type of thing and I was like, I really just want to write this. I want to take a break from the very, very serious academic writing where everything has citations. And you know, you're reading these papers and I mean the themes. It's fascinating. I'm loving it, I'm finding it fascinating. But I'm not sure the word fun applies. So I was like, you know what? I am thinking that I might, because I've got a bit of time before the next term in mid January, I might be able to get a draft done, but we shall see. I will at least explore it a little bit and there's some themes that will bleed through for sure into this book. But yeah, if you are in the Patreon, you'll have seen me talk about the tall ship as well. I've even done some sort of COVID mock ups and once I do cover mock ups, I just can't help myself. I just like, oh, I really want to write this. So yes, we shall see. But if you just can't help yourself by noodling around these ideas, have fun. It's meant to be fun, right? So yeah, yeah, you never know. That may well be my next Kickstarter. Next year I will get back to my Gothic Cathedral book, but I feel like because that's non fiction, the Masters is definitely taking my non fiction energy at the moment. But then on non fiction and circling back to my Pilgrimage memoir. If you would like a podcast with a very different vibe and you are interested in pilgrimage, I am interviewed on the My Camino Podcast talking with Dan Mullins about walking the Camino, Portuguese coastal route and what pilgrimage means to me and how it helped at a difficult time of life. It's a really personal interview, so I hope you enjoy that. Just search my Camino Podcast wherever you're listening to this and if you want to read some of my fiction, the Buried and the Drowned is out everywhere now and if you'd like me to read you the short stories in my human me voice, you can get the audiobook and the personal author's notes are all in there. So the audiobook is is on probably the app you're listening to this in, but certainly out everywhere in all formats. JFPen.com buried and if you did back the Kickstarter or you have read the book, I would really appreciate a review either on my store or Goodreads or wherever your favourite store is. Thank you so much. You know that helps. And then also circling back to Don's episode a few weeks back on Creating While Caring. There has been such a response to this. So many people emailing, messaging to me, me as well as to Don. And so Don is looking at starting a community. You can find out more@donking.com don with a double n donking.com creating care community donking.com creating care community I'll put that link in the show notes as well. So if you are someone who is a carer of any kind and you're a writer or a creator and you would like some community, maybe check that out. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Randy said the interview with Jamie Metzl was absolutely fascinating and pleasantly positive in an era of negative spin, opinion and news. But now I have to find a few hours to read his books, which sound amazingly thoughtful. Thank you Randy and I hope you find this show in general a positive show. That is always my intention. Ann Karenza emailed and said I had such a laugh with your podcast. I too learned of the Birds and Bees via my older sister giving me a copy of Lace, the sequel by Shirley Konran when we were out of sight staying with our grandparents. If you remember, I talked about this last week with Jennifer Probst and we were laughing about growing up in the 80s and how we all learned about this is before social media people.
- [23:32]
And in fact anyone in their 40s, 50s, 60s would know these books. Any woman I would say knows these books. And yeah, it very very funny to think about that time and how innoc innocent we were for sure. So thanks so much. Also, Carenza sent a photo of the grave of John Eyebrows Thomas a Penzance pirate and smuggler born in 1692, which is very very cool. Love that gravestone. Okay, Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepen.com or on the YouTube channel at the Creative Pen. You can email me send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery, crypt or death culture place. JoannaTheCreativePenn. And remember, if you get a scam email from somebody pretending to be me, it's not me. So you can always email me joannathecreativepenn.com and that is my real email address. I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation this episode is sponsored by Book Funnel and if you do want to sell direct for ebooks and audiobooks, Book Funnel is an important part of your ecosystem, but you can also use it if you're just starting out and want to build your email list and deliver deliver a free ebook to people. So into the ad building, your author mailing list shouldn't feel like you need a computer science degree. You write the books. Book Funnel handles getting them to readers. Would you rather spend your time writing or tech supporting your readers trying to get your ebooks and audiobooks onto their devices? That is now a solved problem. You write the books. BookFunnel handles getting them to readers. Whether you're offering a free short story or exclusive content to grow your email list or selling ebooks and audiobooks direct, Book Funnel makes it simple. Your readers get their book instantly. You get happy readers. Grow your subscriber list and no one has to troubleshoot broken links or help Aunt Carol get her books onto her new e reader or phone. Oh my goodness, the amount of time we all use to spend trying to help people get things onto their phones. Thousands of authors use BookFunnel to deliver books because it works. No tech headaches, no lost subscribers subscribers. No embarrassing can you resend that link? Emails Ready to grow your list the easy way? Start@bookfunnel.com thecreativepen that's bookfunnel.com thecreativePen this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com TheCreativePen thanks to the 25 new patrons who've joined this week. I think that's probably for the business for authors Patreon discount code and you're welcome to come in for that. And thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing, craft and author business as well as AI tutorials. This week I did a post on options for creating mock ups of your book covers for marketing. And coming up this week we have live office hours. The Patreon is a monthly subscription. The equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month. Month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com forward/thecreativepen. Right, let's get into the interview.
- [27:05]
Sasha Black is the author of YA and nonfiction for authors and previously hosted the Rebel Author Podcast as Ruby Rowe.
- [27:13]
B
She is a multi six figure authority author of Sapphic Romantasy.
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A
So welcome back to the show, Sasha.
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C
Hello. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here.
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A
Oh no, I'm excited to talk to you today.
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B
Now, just for context for everybody listening, Sasha has a solo episode on her Rebel Author podcast last week as we record this, which goes into specific lessons around the warehouse in more detail, including financials. So we're going to come at this from a slightly different angle in our discussion today, which is really about about two different ways of doing selling direct.
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A
And I want us to start though.
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B
Sasha, in case people don't know your background, in case they've kind of missed out, can you just give us a quick recap of your indie author journey? Because you haven't just come out of nowhere and jumped into this business and done incredibly well.
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C
No, I really haven't.
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D
Okay, so 2013, I started writing. So 12 years ago I started writing with the intention to publish because I was writing before but not with the intention. 20, 2017, I first self published and then two years after that in 2019 I quit the day job.
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C
But let me be clear, it wasn't because I was rolling in self published royalties or commissions or whatever you want to call them. I was barely scraping by.
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D
And so those are what I like to call my hustle years. Because I mean I still hustle, but it was a different kind. It was kind of grind and hustle. So I did a lot of freelance work, I did a lot of VA work for other authors, I did speaking, I was podcasting, teaching courses, so on and so forth. 2022, in the summer I made a realization that I sort of created another job for myself rather than a kind of business that I wanted to grow and thrive in and was sort of loving life and all of that stuff. And so I took a huge risk and I slowed down everything, and I do mean everything. I slowed down the speaking, I slowed down the courses, I slowed down the non fiction and I poured everything into writing what became the first Ruby Row book. I published that in February 2023. In August, September 23, I stopped all freelance work.
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C
And to be clear, at that point I also wasn't entirely sure if I was going to be able to pay my bills with Ruby, but I could.
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D
See that she had the potential there and I was kind of making enough to scrape by high and there's nothing.
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C
If not a little bit of pressure.
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D
To make you work hard. So that is when I stopped the freelance and then in November 2023. So two months later I started TikTok in earnest. And then a month after that, December 8, I went viral. And then what's relevant to this is.
- [30:06]
C
That two days after that, on December 10th, I I had whipped up my minimum viable Shopify and that went live.
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D
And then roll on I did same kind of published more Ruby Row books. I made a big change to my Shopify. So at that point it was still print on demand Shopify. And then February 2025 I took control and took the reins and rented a warehouse and started fulfilling distribution myself.
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B
So great. So really good for people to realize that 2013 you started writing with the intention, like seriously, I was want this to be what I. What I do. And it was 2019 when you quit the day job, but really it was 2023 when you actually started making decent money. Right.
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C
Almost like we all need 10 years.
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B
Yeah, I mean there's definitely. It takes time. So I wanted just to set that scene there. And also that you did what, at least a year of print on demand Shopify before. Yeah, getting your own warehouse.
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D
Maybe 14 months.
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B
Yeah, 14 months. Okay, so we're going to revisit some of these, but I also just want to as context, what was your day job? So people know.
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D
So I was a project manager in a sort of local government, sort of corporate, quite conservative place. And I was like, I played the villain.
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C
It was great.
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D
I would helicopter into departments and fix them up and look at processes that were failing and restructure things and bring in new software and bits and bobs and like that.
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B
So yeah, yeah, so I think that's important too because your job was fixing things and looking at processes and I feel like that is a lot of what you've done and we'll kind of revisit that.
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C
How did I not realize that?
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B
I thought you did know that.
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A
Well.
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B
And let's just put my business background in context and I'm sure most people.
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A
Have heard it before, but I was.
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B
An IT consultant for sort of 13 years, but much of my job was going into businesses and doing process mapping and then doing software to. To fix that. And also I worked. I'm not an accountant, but I worked in financial accounting department. So I think this is really important context for people to realize that learning the craft is one thing, but learning business, it's a completely different game, right?
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D
Oh, it is. So I have learned. It's wild because I always feel like there's no way you can learn more than in your first year of publishing because you. Everything is brand new. But I genuinely feel like, like this past 18 months, I have learned as much, if not more because of the business, because of money, because of all of the other legal regulation type changes in the last 18 months. It's just been.
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C
It's exhausting in terms of learner. Like, it's great, but also it is.
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D
A lot to learn. There is just so much to business.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So that's one thing. Now, I also want to say for context, when you decided to start a warehouse, how much effort did I put into trying to persuade you not to do this?
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C
Oh, my goodness me. I. I mean, a lot. There were probably, probably two dinners, several coffees, a zoom.
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B
It was just like, serious, don't do it, don't do it.
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C
You got me halfway there. So for everybody listening, I. I went bit big and I was like, oh, I'm gonna buy shipping containers and convert them and put them on a plot of land and all of this stuff. And Joe very sensibly turned around and was like, why don't you rent somewhere that you can bail out of if it doesn't work? And I was like, oh, yeah, that does sound like a good idea.
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B
Is this for you?
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A
Well, try it.
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B
Try it before you really commit.
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A
But.
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B
Okay, so let's just again, take a step back because the whole point of doing this discussion for me is because you are doing really well and it is amazing what you're doing and what some other people are doing with warehouses. But I also sell direct and in the same way as you used to, which is I use Book Funnel for ebooks and audiobooks, and I use Book Vault for print on demand books. And people can also use Lulu. That's another option for people. So you don't have to do direct sales in the way that you've done it. And part of the reason to do this episode was kind of to show people that there are great data of selling direct. But I wanted to go back to the basics around this. Why might people consider selling direct even in a really simple way. For example, just ebooks from their website or what might be reasons to sell direct rather than just sending everything to Amazon or other stores, I think.
- [34:58]
D
Well, first of all, it depends on what you want as a business model. For me, I have a similar background to you in that I was very vulnerable when I was in corporate because of redundancies. And so that bred a bit of control freakness inside me. And having control of my customers was really important to me. We don't get any data from Amazon or Kobo really, or anywhere. Even though all of these distributors are incredible for us in our careers, we don't actually have direct access to readers. And you do with Shopify, you know everything about your reader and that that is priceless because once you have that data and you have delivered a product, a book, merchandise, something that that reader values and appreciates, you can then sell to them again and again and again. Like I have some readers who have been on my website who have spent almost four figures now. I mean, that is just once you. That's one. One person's done that. And I have thousands of people who are coming to the website on a regular basis. So definitely that control and readers is a huge reason for doing it. And also I think that you can, I mean, depending on how you do this model. There are ways to do some of the things I'm going to talk about digitally as well. But for me, I really like the physical aspect of it, but we are able to customize the relationship with our customers. We can give them more because we are in control of delivery. And so by that I mean we could give our art prints, which lots of my readers really value, we can do. You could send those digitally if you wanted to, but we can add in extra freebies like our Romantics popsockets. That makes them feel like they are part of my reader group. They're part of a community. It creates this belonging. So I think there is just so much more that you can do when you are in control of that relationship and in control of the actual access to it.
- [37:02]
Yeah.
- [37:02]
B
And on that, I mean, one of the reasons we can do really cool print books. And again, we're going to come back to Print on Demand. But I use Print on Demand. You don't have to buy palettes of.
- [37:13]
A
Books as Sasha does.
- [37:16]
B
You can just do print on demand. Obviously the financials are different, but I can still do foiling and custom end papers and ribbons and all this with Print on Demand through the Book Vault, custom printing, bespoke printing. But Also, I think the other thing with the money, I don't know if you even remember this because it's very different when you're selling direct. You can set up your system so you get paid like every single day, right? Or every week. So the money is faster. Because with Amazon, with any of these other systems, it can take 30, 60, 90 days for the money to get to you. So faster money, you're in more control of the money. And you can also do a lot more things like bundling and like you mentioned, much higher value that you can offer. But you can also make higher income, average order value per customer because you have so many things, right? So that speed of money is very different.
- [38:10]
D
It is, but it's also very dangerous. I know we might talk about cash.
- [38:13]
B
Flow more later, but let's talk about it now.
- [38:16]
D
Okay, cool. So one of the things that I think is the most valuable thing that I've ever done is someone who is.
- [38:22]
C
Really clever told me that you're allowed more than one, one business account. And at that point I wonder who that could be. I then set up a few different.
- [38:31]
D
Business accounts and the reason that I.
- [38:33]
B
Did it is bank accounts, just to be clear.
- [38:35]
D
Bank accounts, yes, sorry, bank accounts. And one of my banks in particular enables you to have like mini banks inside it, mini pots they call it. And what I do with pre orders is I treat it a bit like Amazon so that money will come in. You know, I do get paid daily, pretty much, but I then siphon it off every week into a pot. So let's just say I've got one book on pre order every week. The team tells me how much we've got in pre orders for that one product and all the shipping money, and I put it into an account and I leave it there and I do not touch it unless it is to pay for the print run of that book or to pay for the shipping. Because one of the benefits of coming direct to me is that I promise to, to ship all pre orders early, so we have to pay the shipping costs before necessarily. Amazon might pay for its shipping costs because they only release on the the actual release day. But that has enabled me to have a little, I guess, saving scheme, but also guarantee that I can pay for the print run in advance because I haven't accidentally spent that money on something else or invested it, I've kept it aside. And it also helps you track numbers as well, so you know how well that pre order is, is doing financially.
- [39:51]
B
And yeah, this cash flow, if people don't really Know, it's a difference between when money comes in and when it goes out. So another example common to many authors is paying for advertising. So for example, if you, let's say you run some ads one month you're going to have to pay, let's say Facebook or Bookbub or whoever that month. But you might not get the money from the sale of those books if it's from a store until two months later. So in that case the cash flows the other way, the money sitting with store, say sitting at Amazon until they pay you later. So this idea of cash flow is so important for authors to think about. Another I guess even more basic example is you're writing your first book and you pay for an editor. So money goes out of your bank account and then hopefully you're going to sell some books. But that might take, let's say six months and then some money will come back into your bank account. So I think this understanding cash flow is so important at a small level because as it gets bigger and bigger and you're doing these very big print runs now, aren't you? Talk a bit about that.
- [40:53]
D
Well, yeah, so one of the things I was going to say one of the benefits of your sell direct model.
- [40:58]
C
Is that you don't have to deal with mistakes like this one. So in my recent book Architecty that.
- [41:05]
D
We launched at the end of September, we did a print run of a thousand books. So I can't remember the exact figures, maybe about £3,000, something like that, £2,000. And basically we ended up ended up.
- [41:17]
C
Selling all thousand and more.
- [41:20]
D
So the pre orders breached a thousand and we. So we didn't have enough books. But what made that worse is that 20 of the books that arrived were damaged because there had been massive rain. So we then had to do a second print run, which is bad for two reasons. The first reason is that one, that space two, the time it's going to take to get to you, it's not instant, it's not printed on demand. But also three, I then had to spend the same amount of money again. And actually if we had ordered 2,000 originally, we would have saved a bit more money on it per book. So you don't. If you're doing selling direct with a print on demand model, the, the number of pre orders you get is irrelevant because they'll just keep printing and you just get charged per copy. So there are kind of benefits and disadvantages to doing it each way. Obviously I'm getting a cheaper price per copy printed, but not if I mess.
- [42:19]
C
Up the order numbers.
- [42:22]
B
So. So this is. So I'm going to come back on something you said earlier, which was in 2022, you said, I realized I made a job for myself.
- [42:29]
D
Yeah.
- [42:30]
B
And I mean, I've been to your store. You obviously have people to help you.
- [42:35]
D
Yeah.
- [42:36]
B
But one of my reservations about this kind of model is that even if you have people to help you, taking on physical. Physical book, even though you're not printing them yourself, you're still shipping them all and you're signing them all. And to me, it feels like a job. So maybe talk about why you are. You have continued, like, you have pretty much decided to continue with your warehouse. So why is this not a job?
- [42:59]
A
What.
- [42:59]
B
What makes this fun for you?
- [43:01]
D
I wish that listeners could see my face because I'm literally glittering.
- [43:06]
C
I love it.
- [43:08]
D
Like, I literally love it. I love us being able to create cool and wacky things. Like, we can make a decision. We can, like, create that physical product really quickly. We can do all of these quirky things. We can experiment. We can do book boxes.
- [43:24]
C
So it.
- [43:24]
D
First of all, it's the creativity in the physical product creation. I had no idea how much I love physical product creation. But there is something extremely satisfying about us coming up with an idea that's so integrated in the book. So, for example, one of my characters uses has a coin. A. Yes. No coin. She's an assassin. And she flips it to decide whether or not she. She's gonna assassinate somebody. We've actually designed and had that coin made.
- [43:51]
C
And it's like my favorite item in the warehouse. It's such a small little thing, but I love it.
- [43:56]
D
And so there is a lot of joy that I derive from us being able to create these items. I think the second thing is I really love bookmail.
- [44:08]
C
There is no better gift somebody can give me than a book. And so I do get a lot of satisfaction from knowing we're, like, sending. Sending out lots and lots of book presents to people, and we get to.
- [44:21]
D
Add more to it. So some of the promises that we make are we. I sign every book and we give gifts. Like, we have character art and, like I've mentioned before, pot sockets and all these kinds of things. And I get tagged daily in unboxings and, you know, stories and things like this, where people are like, oh, my gosh, I didn't realize I was going to get this, this, and this. And I just, like, it's like crack to me.
- [44:44]
C
I get high off of it.
- [44:46]
D
So I can't. Like, this is not for everybody. This. It is a logistical nightmare. There are so many problems inherent in this business model, but I love it. And I think the other thing, which is very much not for a lot of authors, I did not realize that.
- [45:03]
C
I actually really like having a team.
- [45:06]
D
And that has been a recent realization. I. I really was told that I'm not a team player when I was in corporate, that I work alone, all of this nonsense, and I believed that and taken it on. But finding the right team, the right people who love the jobs that they do inside your business, and they're all as passionate as you, is just life changing. And so, yeah, that also helps me continue because I have a really great team.
- [45:35]
B
I. I do have to ask you, what is a popsocket?
- [45:41]
D
It's.
- [45:41]
C
Okay. It's a little round disc that has.
- [45:45]
D
A mechanism that you can pull out and then you. And it has like a sticky command strip back, and you can pop it on the back of your phone or on the back of a Kindle and it helps you to hold it.
- [45:55]
C
I don't know how to describe it. Yeah, it just helps you to hold the device easier.
- [46:00]
B
Okay. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was confused with what I'm like.
- [46:04]
A
Why are you doing, like, electrical socket products?
- [46:09]
B
But I think this actually does demonstrate another point. And I hope people listening. I hope you can sort of why we're doing this partly is to help you figure out what kind of person you are as well. Because I can't think of anything worse than having lots of little boxes. And I've been in Sasha's thing, and there's like all these little stickers and there's lots of boxes of little things that they put in people's packages which make people happy.
- [46:31]
A
And I'm like, oh, I just did.
- [46:33]
B
Don't like packages of things. And I mean, you geek out on.
- [46:36]
A
Packaging, don't you as well?
- [46:37]
C
Oh, my goodness.
- [46:38]
D
Yeah. I.
- [46:39]
C
One of the first things I did when we got the warehouse was I actually went to a packaging expo in Birmingham. It was like this giant conference place, and I just nerded out there. It was so fun.
- [46:49]
D
And like, one of the things that I'm desperate to do is an Advent calendar. And that was what drove me there in the first place, as I was looking for a manufacturer that could create an Advent calendar calendar for us.
- [47:00]
C
I have two. I'm not. I have two Advent calendars this year because I've so. I love them so much. But, yeah, the other thing that I was going to say to you is, I often think that as adults we can find what we're supposed to do rooted in our childhood. And I was talking the other day and someone said to me, do you remember what, what toy do you remember from your youth?
- [47:21]
D
And I was like, oh, yeah. The only one that I can remember.
- [47:23]
C
Is that I had a sticker made.
- [47:25]
B
Sticker.
- [47:28]
You do like stickers and.
- [47:30]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:32]
B
And I think this is so important because I'm, I love books.
- [47:35]
A
Like, I buy a lot of books.
- [47:37]
B
I love books, but I also get.
- [47:39]
A
Rid of a lot of books.
- [47:40]
B
Like, I know people hate this.
- [47:42]
A
I will, I will just get rid.
- [47:44]
B
Of bags and bags of books. So I, I value books more for what's inside them than, than the physical product as such.
- [47:51]
A
I mean, I have some, some big.
- [47:54]
B
Expensive, beautiful books, but mostly I want what's in them. So it's really interesting to me and I think there's a big difference between us is how much you like all that stuff. So if you listening, if you're like a digital minimalist and you don't want to have stuff around your house, you definitely don't want a warehouse, you don't want all the shipping bits and bobs, you're not interested in all that. Or even if you are, you can still do a lot of this print on, on demand. Then I think that's just so important, isn't it? I mean, did you look at the print on demand merch? Did you find anything you, you liked?
- [48:27]
D
Yeah, we did. But I think for me it was that customization we're now moving towards. Like I've just put an order in this morning for 10,000 customized boxes. We've got our own branding on them. We've got a little naughty cheeky message when they flip up the flap. And it's little things like that that you can't, can't. You know, we wouldn't have control over what was sent. So much of, of what I wanted and some of the reasons for me doing it is that I wanted to be able to sign the books. I was being asked on a daily basis if people could buy signed books for me. And it was driving me bonkers not being able to say yes. But also that being able to send website mailing list sign up in, in the box or being able to give them a discount in the box. I mean, I know you do that, but yeah, there was just a lot of more customization and things that we could do if we were controlling the shipping. Also I wanted to pack the boxes like the Books better. So we wanted to be able to bubble wrap things or we wanted to be able to waterproof things because we had various different issues with deliveries and so we wanted a bit more control over that. So yeah, there were just so many reasons for us to do it. Look, don't get me wrong, wrong, if I suddenly wanted to go off traveling for a year, then maybe I would shut down the warehouse and go back to Print on Demand. I, I think Print on Demand is fantastic. I did it for 14 months before I decided to open a warehouse. It is the foundation of most author models. So it's, it's fantastic. I just want to do more.
- [50:02]
A
Yeah, you want to do more of it. We should.
- [50:04]
B
Also, I also wanted to mention your life stage because when we did. Talk about it yourself, son is just going to secondary school, so we knew that you would be in the same area. Right. Because I said to you, you can't just do this and well, you can, you could ditch it all, but the better decision is to do this for a certain number of years. If you're gonna do it, it needs time. Right, so you, you're at that point in your life.
- [50:27]
D
Yeah, absolutely. We, I mean we are going to move house I think, but not that far away. We'll still be in, in reachable distance of the warehouse. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the staying power is so important because it's also about raising awareness. You have to train readers to come to you. You have to show them why it's beneficial for them to order directly from you. And then you also have to be able to iterate and add more products like we were talking earlier about increasing that average order value. And that does come from having more products.
- [51:04]
C
But more products does create other issues like space, which may or may not be suffering issues with now.
- [51:13]
D
But yeah, like so for example, 24, which was the first real year I did about 73 and a half thousand British pounds. And then this year we're in as we record this.
- [51:26]
B
It's.
- [51:26]
D
It. Well, it's actually the 1st of December and I'm on 232,000. So from year one to year two, it's a huge difference. Difference. And that I do think is about the number of products and the number of things that we have on there.
- [51:38]
B
And the number of customers. I guess you've also grown your customer base as well. And one of them, the sort of rules, I guess in inverted commas of publishing is that the money is in the backlist. And every time you add to your backlist and every launch you're selling a lot more of your backlist as well. So I think as time goes on, yeah, you get more books. But let's also talk about Kickstarter, because I do sign books for my Kickstarters and to me the Kickstarter is like a short term ability to do the things you're doing regularly. So for example, if you want to do book boxes, you could just do.
- [52:19]
A
Them for a Kickstarter.
- [52:20]
B
You don't have to run a warehouse and do it every single day, for example.
- [52:26]
A
So your last Kickstarter for Ruby row.
- [52:29]
B
Made around US$150,000, which is amazing, like really fantastic. So I just maybe talk about that, like any lessons from the Kickstarter specifically, because I feel like most people, for most people listening, they are far more likely to do a Kickstarter than they are to start a warehouse.
- [52:49]
D
Yeah, so. So the first thing is kind of even before you start your Kickstarter, the pre launch follow accounts are critical. So a lot of people think, well, I guess there's a lot of loud noise about all these big numbers about how much people can make on Kickstarter, but actually a lot of it is driven by you, the author, pushing your audience to Kickstarter. So we actually have a formula. Now somebody more intelligent gave this to me, but essentially based on my own personal campaign data. So this wouldn't necessarily be the same for other people, but based on my campaign data data, each pre launch Follower is worth 75 pounds. And then we add on seven grand, for example. So on campaign three, which was the most recent one, I had 1501 pre launch followers. And when you times up by 75 and you add on seven grand, it makes more or less exactly what we made on on the campaign. And the same formula can be applied to the others. So you need more pre launch followers than you think you do. And lots of people don't put enough impetus on the marketing beforehand. Almost all of our Kickstarter marketing is beforehand because we drive so many people to that follow button. And then the other thing that we do is that we do early bird pricing so we get the majority of our income on a campaign. On day one, I think it was something wild, like 80%. This time was on day, day one. So that's really important. The second thing is it takes so.
- [54:28]
C
So very much longer than you think it does to fulfill a campaign.
- [54:34]
D
And you must factor in that cost because if it's not you fulfilling, you are paying somebody else to fulfill it. And if it is you fulfilling it, you must Account for your own time in the pricing of your campaign. And the other thing is that the amount of time it takes to fulfill is directly proportionate to the size of the campaign. Like that's one thing I did not even like compute is the fact that we went from sort of 56,000 British pounds up to double that and the time was exponentially more than double. So you do have to think about that. The other lesson that we have learned is is that overseas printing will drag your timelines out far longer than you think it does. So whatever you think it's going to take you to fulfill, like add several months more onto that and put that information in your campaign. And thankfully we are now only going to be a month delayed, whereas lots of campaigns get up to a year delayed because they don't consider that. And then the last thing I think which was really key for us is that if you have some profit in the Kickstarter because not all Kickstarters are actually massively profitable because they either don't account enough for shipping or they don't account enough in the pricing. Thankfully ours have been profitable, but we've actually reinvested that profit back into buying more stock and more merchandise, which not.
- [56:04]
C
Everybody would want to do if they don't have a warehouse. However, we are stockpiling merchants merchandise and.
- [56:12]
D
Books so that we can do mystery boxes later on down the night. It's probably a year away but we're buying extra of everything so that we have that in the warehouse. So yeah, that's like depending on what you want to do with your profit. Like for us it was all about buying more books basically. I think the other thing to think about is what is it that you are doing that's exclusive to Kickstarter because you will get backers on Kickstarter who want that quirky unique thing that they not then going to be able to get anywhere else. But what about you because you've done more Kickstarters than me, what do you think is the biggest lesson you've learned?
- [56:46]
B
Oh well, I think all of mine together add up to the one you just did. Although I will comment on the you said something like £75 per pre launch backer that is obviously dependent on your.
- [56:59]
A
Tiers for the rewards.
- [57:01]
B
So most authors won't have that amount. So my average order value, which I know is slightly different but I don't offer things like book box boxes like you have. So a lot of it will depend on the tier. Some people will do a Kickstarter just with an ebook you know, just with one ebook and maybe a bundle of ebooks. So you're never going to make it up to that kind of value. So I think this is important too is have a look at what people offer on their different levels of Kickstarter. And in fact this is. Here's my AI tip for the day. What you can do. What I did with my Buried in the Drowned campaign recently is you, you know, and I'm happy uploading my book. I uploaded it to chat and, and said, tell me like, what are some ideas for the different reward tiers that I can do on Kickstarter? And it will give you some ideas for what you can do, what kind of bundles you might want to do. So I think bundling your backlist is another thing. You can do them as upsells or you can just for example, for me, I think when I did Blood Vintage, I did a horror bundle when it.
- [58:01]
A
Was four standalone horror books in one of the upper tiers ideas.
- [58:06]
B
So I think bundling is a good way also upselling your backlist is a really good way to up things and also if you do it digitally. So for ebooks and audiobooks, there's a lot less time in fulfillment. So again, yours was, well, you make things hard but also more fun, according to you, because most of it's physical. Right? In fact, this is one of the things you haven't done so well really is concentrate on digital side of things. Is that something you're thinking about now?
- [58:37]
D
Yeah, it is. I mean we do have our books digitally on the website. So the last I only had one series in Kindle Unlimited and I took those out in January. But so we do have all of the digital products on the website and the novellas that we do, we have in all formats because I narrate the audio for them. So that is something that we're looking at.
- [59:02]
C
And since somebody very smart told me to have an upsell app on my website, we now have a full like.
- [59:11]
D
Get the everything bundle in physical and digital and we are now selling them as well. Surprising. Definitely not you.
- [59:19]
C
So yeah, we are, we are looking.
- [59:21]
D
At it and that's something that we could look at next year as well for advertising because I haven't really done any advertise.
- [59:27]
C
I think I've spent about £200 in Amazon ads in the last four months or something. It's very, very low level.
- [59:34]
D
So that is a way to make a huge amount of profit because the cost is so low. So your return if you're doing a 40 or 50 pound bundle of ebooks and you're spending, I don't know, pound four in advertising to get that sale. Your return on that investment is enormous for ads. So that is something that we are looking at for next year. Next year, but it just hasn't been something that we've done a huge amount of.
- [60:00]
B
Yeah. As yet.
- [60:01]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [60:02]
B
Well, just quoting from your solo episode where you say I don't have any advertising costs. Customers are from my mailing list TikTok and Instagram. Now being as you are a multi six figure author with no ads, this is mostly unthinkable for many authors. And so I wonder if maybe talk about that. How do you think you have done that and can other people potentially emulate it or do you think it's luck?
- [60:33]
D
Do you know this is. Okay, so I don't think it's luck. I don't believe in luck.
- [60:37]
C
I get quite aggressive about people flinging luck around. I know some people are like huge supporters of luck.
- [60:44]
D
I'm like no, do I think anybody can do it? Do you know? I swear swing so hard on this. Sometimes I say yes and sometimes I think no. And, and I think the brutal truth of it is that I know where my skill set lies and I lean extremely heavily into it. So what do I mean by that? TikTok and Instagram are both very visual mediums. You know, it is video footage, it is static images. I, I am extremely comfortable on camera. I am an ex theater kid. I was on TV as a kid. I did voiceover work when I was younger. This is my wheelhouse. So acting a bit like a tit on TikTok on a video, I am very comfortable at doing that and I think that is reflected in the results. And the other part of it is because I am comfortable at doing it, I enjoy, enjoy makes me laugh and therefore it feels easy. And I think because it feels easy, I can do it over and over and over again without burning out. I started posting on TikTok on November 19, 2023 and I have posted three times a day, every day since, every single day without stopping. And I do not feel burnt out. And I definitely feel like that is because I, I'm. It's easy for me because I am good at it. The other thing that I think goes in here is that I'm very good at reading what's working. So sorry to talk cliftonstrengths but my number one cliftonstrength is competition and one of the skills that that has is understanding the market. We're very good at having a wide view. So not only do I read the market on Amazon or in bookstores or wherever, I it's the same skill set but applied to the app algorithm. So I am very good at dissecting viral videos and understanding what made it work. In the same way somebody that spends £20,000amonth on on Facebook advertising is very good at doing analytics and looking at those numbers. I am useless at that. I, I just can't do it. I just get complete shut down. My brain just says no and I'm incapable of running ads. That's why I don't do it it so I can anybody do this? Maybe if you are comfortable on camera, if you enjoy it, it's like we've got a mutual friend, Adam Beswick. We call him the QBC book bitch because he is a phenomenon on live videos, on TikTok and Instagram and wherever he can sell anything on those lives. It is astonishing to watch the sales pop in as he's like on these lives I can't think of anything worse. I will do a live but I'll be like signing book and having a good old chitchat. Not like it's like that hand selling. Another author, Willow Winters has done like 18 in person events this year. I literally die on the inside hearing that. But that's what works for them and that's what's helping grow their business models. So honestly, no, I actually don't think anybody can do what I've done. I think if you have a similar skill set to me, then yes you can.
- [64:04]
C
But no, and I know that I.
- [64:07]
D
Don'T want to crush anybody listening but. Do you like social media?
- [64:12]
C
I like social media.
- [64:13]
D
Do you like being on camera? Then yeah, you can do it. But if you don't then I just think it's a waste of your time. Find out what you're good at, find out where your skill set is and then lean in very, very hard.
- [64:26]
B
I also think, because let's be brutal, you had books before and they didn't sell like this.
- [64:33]
D
Yep.
- [64:34]
B
So I also think that you leaned into yes, of course Romantasy is a big sub genre but you are, you love it. And also it's your lived experience with the sapphic sub genre. Like this is not you chasing a trend.
- [64:49]
A
Right.
- [64:49]
B
I think that's important too because too many people are like oh well maybe this is the latest trend that Anna and so is TikTok a trend and then try and force them together. Whereas I feel like you haven't done that no.
- [65:01]
D
And actually I spoke to lots of people who were very knowledgeable on the market and they all said, don't do it. And the reason for this is that there were no adult lesbian romantasy books that were selling. When I looked at the market and decided that this was what I wanted to write and I was like, cool.
- [65:21]
C
I'm gonna do it then. And you know, rightly so, everyone was like, well, there's no evidence to suggest that this is gonna make any money. You're me telling. Taking a huge risk.
- [65:29]
D
And I was like, yeah, but I will. I, I knew from the outset, before I even put a word to the page, how I was going to market it. And I think that feeling of coming home is what I, I created a home for myself in my books and, and that is why it's just felt so easy to market. It's like you with your podcasting. Nobody can get anywhere near your podcast because you are so good at it. You're. You've got such a history, you're so natural with your podcasting that you're just unbeatable, you know, so it's.
- [66:05]
B
Many have tried.
- [66:07]
But no, you're right, it's because I like this and what's so funny. And I, I'm sure I've mentioned it on the show, but I did call you one day and say, okay, all.
- [66:15]
A
Right, show me how to do this tick tock thing.
- [66:17]
B
And you spent like two hours on the phone with me and I was. And then I basically said no. And okay, like I almost tried and then I just went, no, this is definitely not for me. And I think that this has to be one of the most important things as an author. I mean, maybe some people listening are just geeking out over packaging like you are, and maybe they're the people who might look at this potential business model. Whereas some people are like me and don't want to go anywhere near it. And then other people like you want to do video and maybe other people like me want to do audio. So it's so important to find grind. Well, like you said, what does not work for you, like, what is fun for you and when are you having a good time? Because otherwise you would have a job.
- [66:56]
A
Like, to me it looks like a.
- [66:57]
B
Job, you being having a warehouse, but to you it's not the same as when you were grinding out back in 2022 completely.
- [67:05]
C
And I think if you look at my social media feeds, they are disproportionately full of packing videos, which I think tells you something.
- [67:16]
A
Oh, I just, I just, literally, I'm just like, oh, if.
- [67:20]
B
I never see any more packaging, I'll be happy.
- [67:24]
D
Yeah.
- [67:25]
C
I have to say there was one moment where I doubted everything and that.
- [67:30]
D
Was at the end.
- [67:31]
C
But basically, in a bout of really.
- [67:32]
D
Poor timing, I ended up having to fulfill every single pre order of my.
- [67:38]
C
Latest release and hand packing about a.
- [67:41]
D
Thousand books in two weeks.
- [67:43]
C
And I, I nearly burnt it all.
- [67:45]
D
All to the ground.
- [67:46]
B
Because you didn't have enough staffing, right?
- [67:48]
A
And your mum was sick or something.
- [67:49]
C
Yeah, exactly that.
- [67:50]
D
And, and I had to do it all by myself and I was alone.
- [67:53]
C
In the warehouse and it was just horrendous.
- [67:56]
D
So never again. But hey, I learned the lessons and.
- [67:59]
C
Now I'm like, yay, let's do it again.
- [68:02]
A
Yeah.
- [68:02]
B
And make sure there's more staffing. Well, I've talked a lot on this show. Things change, right? Things change. And in fact, the episode that just went out today as we record this with Jennifer Probes, she talked about hitting massive bestseller lists and doing just incredibly well. And then, just then it just dropped off and she had to pivot and change things. And you know, I'm not like Debbie Downer, but I do say things will change. So what are you putting in place to make sure, for example, TikTok finally does disappear or get banned, or that Romantasy suddenly drops off a cliff? Or what are you doing to make sure that you, you can keep going in the future?
- [68:43]
D
Yeah, so I, I think there's a few things. The first big one is managing cash flow and ensuring that I have three to six months worth of staff salaries, for want of a better word, in an account. So if the worst thing happens and sales drop off, you know, because I am responsible for other people's income now, that, that I'm not about to shaft a load of people. So that really helps give you that risk reassurance. The second thing is making sure that we are cultivating our mailing list, making sure that we are putting in infrastructure.
- [69:20]
C
Like things like upsell apps and having. Okay, so here's a ridiculous lesson that.
- [69:26]
D
I learned in 2025.
- [69:28]
C
An automation sequence.
- [69:30]
D
An onboarding automation sequence is not what people mean when they say, you need.
- [69:35]
C
A marketing funnel, people. I learned this in Vegas.
- [69:40]
D
A marketing funnel will sell your products to your existing readers. So when a customer signs up to your mailing list because they've purchased something that they will be tagged and then your email flow system will then send them a 5% discount on this. Or did you know you could bundle up and get blah. So putting that kind of stuff in place will mean that we can make take more advantage of the customers that we've already got. But it's also things like organizational knowledge. My team is big enough now that there are things in my business I don't know how to do. That's quite daunting for somebody who is a control freak. So I visited Vegas in 25 and I sat in a session all on.
- [70:26]
C
This sounds so sexy but standing standard operating procedures.
- [70:30]
D
And now I've given my team the job of creating a sort of process instruction manual on how they do each of their tasks so that if anybody's sick, somebody else can pick it up. If somebody leaves, we've got that infrastructure in place. And even things down, down to things like passwords. If I unfortunately got hit by a car, who acts, who can access my Amazon account stuff, unfortunately.
- [70:56]
C
Yeah, I know. Well, I mean that would be tragic, wouldn't it?
- [70:59]
D
But it's, it's stuff like that. But then also more day to day things is putting in infrastructure that pulls me out so more start looking at staffing responsibilities for staffing so that I don't always have to be there and creating longer timelines. That is probably the most important thing that we can do because. Because we've got a book box launching next summer. And we both had, I say we, me and my operations manager had the.
- [71:29]
C
Realization that actually we ought to be.
- [71:31]
D
Commissioning the COVID and the artwork now because of how long those processes take. So I'm a little bit shortsighted on timelines, I think. So putting a bit more rigor in what we do and when we now have a team wide like Heat Map where we know when the warehouse is going to be really, really full, when staff are off, when deliveries are coming, and that's projected out a year in advance. So lots and lots of things that are changing. And then I guess also eventually we will do advertising as well. But that is a few months down the line. And then, and then on the more personal side, it's looking at things like not just how you keep the business running, but how do you keep yourself running. How do you make sure that let's say you have a bad sales month but you still have to pay your team, how are you going to get paid? So I as well as having put like staff salaries away, I also have my own salary. I've got a few months of my own salary put away. And then investing as well. I know like I am not a financial advisor, but I do invest money I send money that I, you know, pay myself. You can also do things like having investment vehicles inside your business if you want to deal with extra cash. And then I am having to taking advice from like my accountant and my financial advisor on do I put more money into my pension because did I say that I also have a pension so I invest in my future as well, or do I set up another company and have a property portfolio? Or how do I essentially make the money that is inside the business, make more money rather than reinvesting it, spending it and reinvesting it on things that don't become assets or don't become money generating. What can I do with the cash that's inside the company in order to then make it make more for the long term? Because then if you do have a down six months or worse, you know, a down year, for example, you've got enough cash and equity inside the business to cover you during those low lower months or years or weeks or hopefully just a day.
- [73:37]
B
Yes, of course, and we all hope it just carries on up and to the right, but you know, just sometimes it doesn't work that way. So it's really great that you're doing all those things. And I think what's lovely and why we started off with you giving us that sort of potted history was it hasn't always been this way. So if you're listening to this and you're like, well, I've only got like one ebook for sale on Amazon, well, that might be all you ever want to do, which is fine. Or you can come to where my business model is, which is mostly. Even I use print on demand, but it's mostly digital, it's mostly online. Online, it's got no packaging that I deal with. Or you can like go even further like Sasha and Adam Beswick and Willow Winters and. But because that is being talked about a lot in the community, but that's why we wanted to do this was to really show you that there's different people doing different things and you need to choose what's best for you. But just as we finish, just tell us, what are you excited about for 2026?
- [74:35]
D
Oh my goodness me, I. I am excited to iterate my craft and this.
- [74:41]
C
Is completely not related to the warehouse.
- [74:43]
D
But I have gotten myself into a position where I get to play with words again. So I'm really excited for the things that I'm going to write. But also in terms of the warehouse, we've got the new packaging. So getting to see those on social media we're also looking at things like book boxes. So we are doing a set of three books boxes and these are going to be new and bigger and better than anything that we've done before. And custom tailored.
- [75:10]
C
Oh, without giving too much away, but items that go inside and also the artwork.
- [75:15]
D
Like I love working with artists and commissioning different art projects, but yeah, basically more of the same. Hopefully world domination.
- [75:25]
B
World domination, fantastic. So basically more creativity and also a bigger business because I know you're ambitious and I love that. I think it's. Think it's really good for people to be ambitious. Oh, I do have another question. Do you have more sympathy for traditional publishing at this point?
- [75:44]
C
How dare you? Unfortunately, yeah. I really have learned the hard way.
- [75:51]
D
That why traditional publishers need timelines that they need. This latest release was probably the biggest. So this latest release, which was called Architecty, is the reason I that I did the podcast episode because I learned so many lessons and in particular about timelines and how tight things get and it's just not realistic when you are doing this physical business. So that's another thing. If you're listening and you're like, oh no, no, no. I like the immediacy of being able to finish, get it back from the editor and hit publish.
- [76:25]
C
This ain't for you, honey. This is not for you.
- [76:29]
A
So yeah, yeah, I know.
- [76:30]
B
That's fantastic. So where can people find you and your books online?
- [76:34]
D
For the Ruby Empire, it's rubyro.co.uk and Ruby wrote author on TikTok. If you'd like to see me dancing like a wally and then Instagram, I am back at as the good old Sasha Black. Sasha with a C S, a C H A Sasha Black, author on Instagram.
- [76:51]
B
Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Sasha. That was great.
- [76:54]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [76:58]
A
So I hope you found the interview with Sasha interesting. And remember, selling direct can mean many things. You can just do ebooks and or audiobooks. So it's digital. You can do print on demand like I do as well. My stores are at jfpenbooks.com and creativepenbooks.com you can just do sporadic Kickstarter campaigns or you can sell direct in person at events or fairs or markets. And of course, you don't have to to sell direct at all. You can just use Amazon and Kobo or Draft digital or all the normal places that you can sell. There are so many options. I would suggest that running your own warehouse is not one of your options.
- [77:39]
Unless you listen to Sasha and you're just like, wow, this is amazing. I love packaging. I love physical products. I really enjoyed talking to Sasha. I hope you enjoyed listening listening to us. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel, or email me joannathecreativepenn.com and remember, once again, that is my email. So if you get one of those scam emails and it's not from joannathecreativepenn.com you know it's not me. Also, please send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next Monday, I'll be sharing some relaxed ways of writing as we move into the Christmas and holiday period. And remember, if you're thinking ahead to 2026, you might like to join me for my January webinar on Business for authors. Details@thecreativepenn.com live thecreativepenn.com live in the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes@thecreativepen.com podcast and you can get your free author blueprint@thecreativepen.com blueprint if you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X the Creative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook fpenauthor Happy writing and I'll see you next time.