69: Write That Book You've Always Dreamed About: A No-Pressure Guide to Self-Publishing
Have you been carrying around a story idea for years? Maybe it's tucked away in a drawer, saved as a draft on your computer, or still swirling in your imagination. If publishing a book is on your bucket list, this week's episode of the HobbyScool podcast is especially for you.
I sat down with Aaron Schafer from selfpublishing.com to break down exactly how to turn your writing dreams into reality. And guess what? It's more achievable than you might think. Aaron shares some surprising insights about why self-publishing has become the preferred choice even for established authors, and walks us through practical steps to get started – no intimidating publishing house required!
In this episode, you'll discover:
Why you don't need to wait for a traditional publisher to share your story with the world
How to organize your ideas before you start writing (this is a game-changer!)
Practical tips for fitting writing into your busy life
The most important thing to do before you launch your book (hint: it's not what most new authors think)
Whether you're dreaming of writing the next great novel or sharing your expertise through a non-fiction book, this episode will give you the clarity and confidence to move forward.
Key moments from the episode:
[00:04:00] Why successful authors are increasingly choosing self-publishing over traditional publishing routes
[00:08:00] How to get started with your self-publishing journey and the importance of clarity in your book idea
[00:12:00] Essential organizational strategies before you start writing your book
[00:14:00] Understanding your personal creative process and setting realistic writing goals
[00:17:00] The critical importance of having a marketing plan before launching your book
Mentioned In This Episode
Free training (affiliate link): How To Write And Publish Your Book (Even If You Haven't Started Writing Yet)
Why Self-Publishing Might Be Your Best Path to Becoming an Author
Have you ever dreamed of seeing your name on the cover of a book? Maybe you've got a half-finished manuscript hiding in your desk drawer, or perhaps that novel idea has been brewing in your mind for years. If you're like many aspiring authors, you might think traditional publishing is the only legitimate path to becoming a "real" writer. But here's something that might surprise you: self-publishing has evolved from being a last resort to becoming the preferred choice for many successful authors.
In a recent episode of the HobbyScool podcast, Aaron Schafer, Vice President of Sales and Business Development at selfpublishing.com, shared invaluable insights about why self-publishing might be the smartest choice for aspiring authors in today's publishing landscape.
The Changing Face of Publishing
One of the most eye-opening revelations from our conversation with Aaron was how dramatically the publishing industry has changed. Traditional publishers, once seen as the gatekeepers of literary success, now operate more like venture capitalist firms, taking bets on various books and heavily investing only in those that take off. Perhaps most surprisingly, these publishers often provide minimal marketing support – leaving authors to handle most of the promotion themselves.
"Whether you're traditionally published or self-published, you are the PR person, you are the director of marketing for your book," Aaron explains. This reality check has led many established authors to question the value of traditional publishing deals, especially when they can maintain creative control and earn higher royalties through self-publishing.
Getting Started: The Power of Clarity
Before you dive into writing your masterpiece, Aaron emphasizes the importance of getting crystal clear on your idea. For fiction writers, this means understanding your chosen genre intimately. He shared a fascinating example of an author who struggled with dystopian fiction but found remarkable success writing cozy mysteries – simply because that's what he loved reading.
The key? Write what you know and love. Your genuine enthusiasm for your genre will shine through in your writing and resonate with readers who share your interests.
The Writing Process: Embracing Your Creative Style
One of the most liberating pieces of advice from Aaron was about finding your own writing rhythm. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to writing a book. While some authors thrive on the "20-mile march" approach of writing a little bit every day, others might be more successful with intense writing sprints.
Aaron shared his personal experience of trying to write a book for 20 years using the traditional "write every day" approach, only to finally complete his manuscript in two intensive weeks when he embraced his natural tendency toward sprinting. The lesson? Understanding and working with your creative style is more important than following someone else's "perfect" writing routine.
The Marketing Mindset: Start Before You Finish
Perhaps the most crucial insight for aspiring authors is the importance of thinking about marketing before your book launches. Many writers make the mistake of focusing solely on writing, then scrambling to figure out marketing after publication. This approach, according to Aaron, can leave your book languishing in what he calls the "Amazon graveyard."
Instead, develop your marketing strategy while you're still writing. Consider how you'll reach your target audience, what platforms you'll use, and how you'll build buzz around your launch. The best time to market your book is during its initial release when you have the greatest opportunity to build momentum and credibility.
Taking Action: Your Next Steps
Ready to start your self-publishing journey? Here are the key steps to get you moving:
Get clear on your book idea and target audience
Create a detailed outline before you start writing
Understand and embrace your personal creative process
Develop a realistic writing schedule that works for you
Start planning your marketing strategy early
Remember, your book is more than just a creative project – it's potentially the beginning of a new chapter in your life. Whether you're writing fiction for pleasure or non-fiction to support your business, self-publishing offers you the control, flexibility, and potential for success that many traditional publishing deals can't match.
The publishing world has changed, and for many authors, self-publishing isn't just a viable option – it's the smart choice. With the right preparation, understanding of your creative process, and a solid marketing plan, you can join the growing ranks of successful self-published authors who are making their mark in the literary world.
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to the HobbyScool podcast. Whether you're a seasoned hobbyist or just getting started, HobbyScool is the perfect place to learn something new. My name is Dr. Destini Copp and I'm your host of the podcast. But before we jump into our episode for today, The only thing I ask is that if you enjoyed the episode, please share with a friend and give us an honest review on your favorite podcast platform.
This helps us get out the content to more people. I also want to invite you to get on our wait list for our next HobbyScool Online Learning Summit. These are free to attend and you can find the link to join at hobbyscool.com, which is also in our podcast show notes. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode.
And my special guest today is Aaron Schafer.
[00:01:00] Aaron is a blogger, podcaster, motivational speaker, best selling author of the Politically Homeless Christian, and vice president of sales and business development at selfpublishing. com. He has been featured on the Christian Television Network. iHeartRadio, Family Life Radio, and numerous Christian podcasts.
And Aaron, thank you so much for joining me here today. I am super excited to chat with you all about self publishing. But before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people? Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for having me. I always have to pinch myself a little bit that I get to do what I do because so often I think it's easy in life to end up in a, in a job where it's fine.
It pays the bills, you know, you clock in, clock out. And yeah, for me to be able to work with [00:02:00] aspiring authors every single day is, just an incredibly cool experience. So, you know, I, I work with all of the, the product side of the business as well as a lot of our partnerships. I work with our publishing strategists.
My role touches quite a few, different things at selfpublishing. com, but all of them aim towards helping aspiring authors get their work out there. So it's a, pretty neat job day in and day out. Well, I have to say, I am a little bit jealous also that you get to do all of that, that sounds like an amazing opportunity.
And I personally am a huge fan of self publishing. I actually self published a book, several years ago, and it is,, been a blessing to have gone through that process. And today that's what we're going to be talking about. We're going to be talking about self publishing. So you're going to walk us through what exactly does that mean?
How do we go about it? We also have a free training that's coming up next week for folks that they can join just to learn a little bit more about this. We might have people listening [00:03:00] who. You know, have that novel in their head and, you know, they, or maybe they have a half written manuscript in their desk if they want to bring that into the world.
Or we might have people listening who are an online business owner and they're interested in self publishing a book that they can use as a lead magnet or just kind of elevate their expertise, if you would, in the marketplace. But before we get into all of that, walk us through exactly what self publishing is and why somebody would go that route versus traditional publishing.
Yeah, it's a great question. It's something that comes to us pretty frequently. And it's funny to look back, you know, 10, 15 years ago when Self publishing was first becoming a little bit more prominent and it was almost viewed as a second tier option where it's, well, if I can't get signed by a traditional publisher, then maybe I'll go the self publishing route.
And today it's very much the opposite. In fact, you see a lot of very successful authors, authors who have been traditionally published, maybe [00:04:00] with their first book, two books, in some cases, 10, 15 books. That are now actively choosing to self publish, because traditional publishing, the landscape has changed where at this point, so much of what traditional publishers are doing is much more almost like a venture capitalist firm where they're just taking flyers, taking bets.
And then the ones that pop. The books that really take off, you know, they're keeping a higher percentage of the royalties on the back end. And there isn't a lot of marketing muscle that goes behind it. So a lot of authors assume that if I'm with a traditional publisher, they're going to be doing this big press circuit for me.
And then you get in there and you realize. The marketing is up to me. If you're an author, whether you're traditionally published, whether you're self published, you are the PR person, you are the director of marketing for your book. And once people realize that, and they realize the traditional publisher is not doing a lot of legwork to really help their book get, out there in the world.
Then really it comes down to what are the main services they're providing, you know, the cover design, the formatting, getting your book edited, setting up distribution. A lot of those have become [00:05:00] so easy in today's world that a lot of those, very successful authors are asking themselves, well, what is the real value then?
And so we've seen more folks shift into that model. There have been some pretty prominent stories that have been out there in the news as a result of some of these authors that people are asking, well, why would they self publish? And a lot of those, ability to keep the freedom and flexibility are the main reasons why.
And then for folks that don't already have that existing audience, people that haven't already published 10 books and have an email list of 2 million followers, the barrier of entry has now been removed where there's not the gatekeeper saying, is your content worth it?
Are you someone that we are going to choose to feature? And so self publishing the landscape has changed so much. The quality has changed so much that so many folks, whether they're creators early on in the process, or if they're well established authors are opting to self publish instead of going the traditional route.
And you just mentioned something that I was not aware of. I was under the impression that if you went with one of those traditional publishers, that they did a lot of the marketing and the heavy lifting for you. I had no idea that they [00:06:00] didn't actually. Yeah, no, it's, it's such a misnomer.
One of our authors that, was a big success story of ours, a gentleman named Mike Acker wrote a book called Speak With No Fear. If any of your listeners go look it up online, it's pretty frequently a number one bestseller on Amazon to this day, even though it was published back in 2019. He actually used us to publish his first 14 books and they all went great, made really good income.
He built a multiple six figure consulting business on the back of his book as a lead magnet. And then he was having so much success with those first 14 books that he did through us that he, for his 15th book had a traditional publisher reaching out with a traditional publishing deal advance, the whole nine yards, all the things.
And he was pretty excited. It's like, Oh man, all right. I, you know, I've made it quote unquote. And it was funny, three months after his launch, he reached out to me and we were talking and he laughed. It was like, man, I am never traditional publishing again. I, I've made so much more money on my first 14 books.
And I had so much more control and I assumed that they were going to do all this work. And the hard part is with traditional publishing is the, [00:07:00] the, the marketing landscape has changed and the publishing industry at traditional publishers has not. So what they used to do back in the day was, Hey, we, we do a press release.
I don't know about you, Destini, but I can't remember the last book that I ever bought based on a press release. I don't even know where someone would go to view most of those nowadays. And things like a book tour. Well, you know, nowadays what we're doing right now. Is the book tour, you know, podcasts are the virtual book tour and you no longer need a publishing house to line those up.
And so there's so many things like that that are just sort of stuck in, in sort of 1990s marketing. Whereas now it's so much more about online advertising, running Amazon ads, running ads through social media, things along those lines. And traditional publishers don't touch those at all. ~Um, because it's quite complicated, uh, to set those up on the backend and just the managing of them.~
~Uh, ~you virtually never see traditionally published books, being advertised in some of the most profitable and productive platforms. So I love that example that you gave and the fact that he came back and said, he's never going to go with a traditional publisher again, just tells us that. [00:08:00] You know, self publishing is definitely the way to go.
So let's say that somebody is listening here and we have sold them on self publishing. What would you say that they need to do to first get started? The biggest thing I always encourage folks to do is get crystal clear on their idea. Because there is so many different ways you could approach any given topic.
If you're looking for, the nonfiction author out there, and you were saying the business owner, you always want to begin with the end in mind. So let's say you do have a specific offer in mind. You have a course that you sell, maybe it's a coaching program. Really wanting to ask yourself, all right, who is my ideal client?
Because a lot of times what will happen is people will have their ideal client profile in mind and then they end up writing a book not aimed at that ideal client profile. And you really want to make sure there's total alignment in those areas. You then want to say, okay, what would be enough content?
that would hook this person and say, man, this is so good. Like if Destini gave all this out in [00:09:00] just her book, I wonder what she also has. And yet not giving everything in the book because you do want them to then come to your website. You want them to subscribe to your email. You want them to get your newsletter.
You want them to potentially sample of free online course that you have as a lead magnet to take them a little bit deeper in your ecosystem. Then eventually, hopefully they become a paying member of your mastermind community of your coach and course program. And so you want to really begin with the end in mind and ask that question of, okay, ideal client profile.
What in a book, what problem could I help solve in this book? And then you can go from there because once you've got a crystal clear idea and you've got a really good sense of the pain point you're looking to solve on the non fiction side, that goes a really long way. If you're a fiction author, you mentioned that at the top.
This is one of the things that I always encourage folks to do is really, take stock of where do I spend the most time reading myself? We have a thriving fiction school. We have an entire division of our company just for fiction authors and we've helped launch Quite a few six figure [00:10:00] fiction authors, in their career, all self published.
And some of them actually started writing in a different genre, and then where they found their ultimate success was, not where they started. And one of the biggest reasons was they, you know, we had one person came to us, and it was fantasy, genre, and we've had tons of very successful fantasy authors, and his first few books just didn't really click.
But what he loved reading, was romance, and when he understood that genre so much better, he understood the tropes, he understood the storyline, he understood what made a great book, because that's where he spent his time reading. We had another gentleman that wanted to write, originally, post apocalyptic, dystopian, style of genre, which, he loved.
But it wasn't the genre that he spent time in himself. He loved Cozy Mysteries. And when he finally switched and we said, Hey, have you ever thought about just writing Cozy Mysteries instead of writing this dystopian fiction? And he switched over and has now at this point done over 10 Cozy Mysteries, built a full time income on it because it was a genre that he [00:11:00] loved, that he understood, that he knew what he liked reading.
And what we always find with fiction authors, it's not 100 percent of the time. If they can write to a genre that they fully understand, if they can write to a genre that they love themselves, they're just going to be so much more equipped to do it successfully, right out of the gates.
And then maybe down the road, if they want to write that dystopian fiction, they'll be more well positioned to do that in the future. But in beginning with the end in mind, Destini is the key. If you begin with the end in mind and you actually have a goal in mind of what you're trying to accomplish in your author career, it's going to put you in so much of a better spot, I love all the examples that you gave, and as you were going through here, I'm actually interested in writing a novel myself, even though I have, businesses that I run. I'm like, that would be so much fun just to write a novel. And I'm like a Jana Ivanovic type person. That's, I love her book. So I was like, you know, that would be fun to write one of those.
Yeah, absolutely. All right. I love the guidance that you gave us with begin with the end of mind. I think that's Especially important [00:12:00] if we are considering this for our business and how we're going to take somebody on that customer journey there. So let's say that we have an idea for a book. What would be some of the next steps there?
Yeah. The biggest thing that I encourage folks to do is get extremely organized on the front end and in the training we have next week, we're going to go into a lot more depth and detail. I'll give you kind of the 30, 000 foot answer right now. If folks are pretty serious about doing a book in 2025, the free training we have coming up.
Is going to be just really the nuts and bolts and lay out a really good game plan over the course of an hour. At a high level, one of the things I would encourage folks to do, Destini, is get really organized before they start writing. The biggest mistake I find a lot of authors make is they just start writing.
And they get one, two, three chapters in, and then they hit a bit of a roadblock. They hit writer's block, they're not sure where to go next, and then life gets busy. You know, maybe you've got a business, maybe you've got a family, you've got other priorities. And all of a sudden what happens is you look up and three months go by, you haven't written in the last three months.
And then a lot of times three months turns into three years, [00:13:00] turns into your book never gets out there. What I found is that if folks will actually get a little bit more organized on the front end. If they'll outline their full book in advance. All right, here are the 12 chapters. Here are the exact topics I'm going to cover.
Here are the stories I'm going to go into in each of these chapters. Here's some of the main points that I want to hit in each of these chapters. If you already know where you're heading with your writing before you get started, you're so much less likely to hit that roadblock in the middle. And then the biggest thing you have to do if you really want to do this is you have to embrace.
how you personally are wired when it comes to the creative process. Because so often what I find a lot of authors do is they have a tendency to hear something that might work for someone else. And they try to do that in their own life. fail and then feel like it's them. Like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I be more disciplined?
Why can't I stick to my goals more? And they, you know, there's all this self shame, doubt, you know, why can't I do this? When the reality is they were taking a plan that might have been perfectly well suited for that person and trying to overlay onto their life where it really doesn't work. I'll give you an example with my own [00:14:00] life.
When I wrote my book, I had tried to write a book for about 20 years. I love writing. I had a blog for a long time. It wasn't the writing that I struggled with. But when it came to the book, I had heard all these people that were just like, hey, it's a 20 mile march, just every day, half hour a day, make sure you write something every day.
And that sounds great. And for some people, that works really, really well. Some people are built for the marathon. They're built for that slow and steady. Just make sure you do something every day. What I found over the course of 20 years is inevitably I'd fall off the horse. I'd get busy and I would just push it to the side, you know, and they always had good reasons, you know, just got married, just had a kid, just started a new job, all these different reasons would come up.
And for me, what I found is I'm much more wired for the sprint. I am much better if you give me a hard deadline that's two weeks from now, and if I can just put my head down and go. And so for me, after just struggling for the better part of 20 years after I graduated from college, I actually wrote the rough draft for my book that I finally published in two weeks.
[00:15:00] And I just sprinted. And I talked to my wife and said, Hey, can you handle the kids in the morning until 9 AM? And if I can just wake up a little bit earlier and just knock out three, four hours a day for two straight weeks, I think I could get this rough draft on it.
And I did. And it was just two straight weeks, head down focus. We've had other authors do it over a single weekend where they are busy entrepreneurs and it's hard for them to carve out time of the week. So they just say, Hey, I'm gonna take off two consecutive Fridays. And for two weekends, I'm going to go get this thing knocked out and they'll do eight hour days.
Now, for some people, they hear that and say, There's no way I could write for eight hours. My brain turns to mush after an hour and a half. And so embracing how you're wired, understanding what is your creative process, what is your creative rhythm, what phase of life are you in, in terms of your family, your business, all these things influence it.
So at the beginning, try to come up with a writing plan. that you feel like you could truly stick to. Something that you feel like you could actually do. Instead of putting a plan in place, that in your heart of hearts, you know you're not actually going to follow through on. Because I think a lot of us do that.
Especially this time of year, early January, we set goals. [00:16:00] And sometimes we set goals and we get excited about them. But in the back of our mind, we say, Oh man, I'm not sure if come February, that's really going to have staying power. Just because of the phase of life I'm in. Try to make sure that you've actually put together a plan that'll get you there.
And then once you do it, you have to just commit to it, which sounds super basic. But I have found so often in life, if you start something and there's not some real pain, attached to not finishing it, it's so easy to let ourselves off the hook. And so once you start writing your book, I would tell a bunch of people you're writing a book.
I would tell them when you're planning on launching it. It gives you a little bit of external accountability. And then just whatever your plan is, stick to it. And if you do, all of a sudden you'll look up at the end of it, whether it's two weeks or whether it's six months, and you've got a finished manuscript.
And it's exciting, you know, because your book can have a huge impact on a ton of lives. It's been really fun to see what's happened with my book since it came out. So many authors we've worked with. It really is a, Pretty monumental achievement. Once you get it out there. I love all the tips you gave us, you know, [00:17:00] put together your writing plan and just stick to it.
And if you stick to it and then tell others and let them hold you accountable, you'll be much more likely to get it done. And I know that we're going to go into a lot of these tips and how to write and publish your book, even if you haven't started writing yet. So we're going to be covering that. in the training next week.
And, Aaron, before I let you go, do you have any last minute tips for the audience? You know, one of the last things I would say is, one of the most important things, if for some reason you're not able to join the training, just make sure that you realize that the book is just the beginning.
So often people spend so much time thinking about. The writing of the book and that's the thing that kept them stuck for years that when they finally commit to it, they don't think ahead to having a really good plan on the backend to launch it, to market it effectively. And you put all this time, all this sweat equity, all this money.
I mean, you're gonna have to invest into things like a high quality editor and cover designer and where, how am I going to publish it? [00:18:00] And then their book launches and it only sells 50 copies to family and friends. because they didn't have a comprehensive plan on how to get it out there in the market.
So the biggest thing I would encourage folks to do is make sure, you know, whether it is with self publishing. com with us or with someone else, or if you're doing it just on your own and just kind of DIY it, make sure that you don't launch until you have a really rock solid plan for launch and backend marketing.
Because otherwise you just put a ton of time, effort, money into something, that just ends up sitting there in the Amazon graveyard with millions of other books where they go to die. So make sure that you actually have a concrete plan in place. The last thing you want to do is launch your book and then worry about marketing later.
That's what a lot of authors do. The best possible time to market your book is when it first launches. That's the best time to build momentum. That's the best time to build credibility. And if your book is out there nine months and has three reviews.
And then you decide to market it. Everything is more complicated. Everything's harder. Now you're pushing the boulder uphill. So that'd be the biggest last piece. I would tell folks is make sure after you write it, that you've got a concrete plan and how you're going to bring it to market [00:19:00] before you even launch so that you're well positioned to have as much success with your book as you possibly can.
And I think that's a very important point that a lot of us would just forget about, right? We focus more on just writing the book and then thinking, okay, we'll worry about The marketing stuff later so thank you so much, Aaron, for joining us today.
I would invite everybody to join us in the training next week. We're going to be covering how to write and publish your book, even if you haven't started writing yet. And I'm going to put the link for that in the show notes. So definitely check that out. And again, Aaron, thank you so much. Absolutely. My pleasure.
Thank you so much for listening today. Don't forget to sign up for the waitlist so you'll be the first to know when our next free HobbyScool online learning summit launches. The link is in the show notes for this episode or you can go to HobbyScool. com and that's HobbyScool with school [00:20:00] without an H in it.
Talk soon.