Children’s Book Author Turns Page to New Income

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

What do you do when you're overwhelmed with life, work, and business? Well, you start another business, of course. Except perhaps you start a different kind of business. Perhaps you pivot, perhaps you make a change. Perhaps you say farewell to something you've been doing for a while, even if it's been working well, because you know there's something better out there.

Or you believe you just have to make a change, whether there's something better out there or not. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and today we're gonna look at a successful children's book author who pivots from making book trailers to coaching other authors with plans of developing an online course. So all good things there, stay tuned, and I'll tell you how she did it. [Music]

Her work-at-home mom, Evie Jones, a career that was non-location dependent, was of vital importance.

With a military spouse, she could never stay in one place for too long, and in fact had moved 12 times over the past 19 years. When she wasn't building Lego castles with her two boys, Evie was also a successful children's book author who helped publishing houses launch book trailers. By all measures, her career was going well. With over a dozen children's books published, Evie had substantial experience authoring, illustrating, and marketing books. She specialized in illustration and found herself booked out weeks or even months in advance with great demand for her service.

But at the beginning of 2017, she realized that work was catching up with her. Sometimes she would go to bed at one in the morning and then get up at five to get some work done before the kids woke up. She couldn't spend much time with her husband, and she also wasn't writing many books of her own anymore. She found she was becoming a victim of her own success. So what do you do when you're overwhelmed with work and business?

Well, like I said, you start another business, but not just any business, a different kind of business. Evie's friends had suggested that she teach others how to launch a career as a children's book author. With her own vast experience and familiarity with the publishing industry, it was a natural change. And Evie was convinced that this was a business she was uniquely qualified to build. Her ultimate goal was to create an online course to teach aspiring children's authors how to write and publish their books.

Putting aside her previous job of working with publishing houses, Evie knew that she had to create her own product since it was something that could grow without exerting a huge toll on her family life. But even with all her experience, she knew that creating an online course right from the start would mean skipping ahead a few chapters. To validate her idea, Evie decided she would first publish a book about publishing a book. This way she could test the waters and establish herself as an expert in this topic. To make sure she addressed the burning pains of her customers, her potential customers at least, she wrote a survey and shared it with different author groups on Facebook.

She then followed up with those who completed the survey, even hopping on one-on-one phone calls with those who wanted to talk more. With this information, she was able to create an outline for her book and self-publish it on Amazon using the CreateSpace program. That book, "How to Self-Publish a Children's Book," completely exceeded Evie's expectations. The surveys and phone calls had another payoff at this stage as she was able to go back and contact that group of people who had already established they were interested in the book. And to ensure that the book would get a wide readership, she priced it affordably.

This sacrificed some initial profit, but the goal of the book was to establish credibility. It also helped that she could update the book at any point to include mention of any other services or products she would launch in the future. This included one-on-one coaching, which she had planned from the beginning to be an extension of the book for customers who wanted more guided instruction. Looking back, she says this was a logical next step since it allowed her to price her services at a premium and learn more about her target market. Still, she didn't lose sight of her ultimate goal, which was to create an online course for aspiring children's book authors.

Since starting this new business last year, Evie has managed to earn upwards of $1,500 a month from the combined revenue of her published book and the coaching. And the course is now becoming a reality. She expects that her monthly income will grow as she scales her efforts and grows her platform, something she was never able to do in her previous business. The success of other authors she's now coached also gives her immense satisfaction that she didn't have before. Evie attributes a lot of this success to having built up career capital.

This phrase or this concept was coined by University of Georgetown professor Cal Newport, who says that mastery and the keys to a good career come from developing experience and expertise. Not only did Evie publish a dozen children's books before she started teaching this skill to others, she also made sure to approach the issue from a beginner's perspective. It's made a big difference in setting her apart from her competition. Like Evie, you too can write a new chapter in your business or side hustle. Just don't be afraid to turn the page.

Well, even when something is going well in one area of your life, doesn't mean it's what you should keep doing if it's not working for other areas of your life. You can be successful in some ways, but if the project you're working on is taking all your time, leaving you stressed out and sleep deprived, then it would be to your benefit to find another project. And you can often do so while still using the same skills or still doing something that you believe in, still working in an industry that matters to you or on a topic or a field that matters to you. There is so much value in being willing to make a change because just because it worked for a while doesn't mean it's going to work forever. And that's okay.

You can do more than one thing. You can do something for a while. You can stop and then do something different. So congrats to Evie and also shout out to Cal Newport. He's actually a friend of mine, an author who's written a number of helpful books.

Two of my favorites are "So Good They Can't Ignore You" and "Deep Work." We will link up those books and Evie's book and her website on the show notes page. That page is sidehustleschool.com/538. Episode 538 is now coming to a close, but thank you so much for joining me for it. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Do something good for yourself today.

This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.