This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello there, greetings and what's up, welcome. This is Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Got another story for you today, but also guess what today is? Today is national everything you do is right day.
That is correct, everything you do is right today. I don't know who decides these things, who is behind the national everything you do is right lobby, but it sounds like a good day. Like if you're out there doing stuff and you're wondering, am I making a mistake? No, of course not, you're right. Am I going down the correct path?
Absolutely, because everything you do today is right. You never know what tomorrow will bring, so enjoy this one today. Also, who doesn't love a good romance novel? Long time listeners may recall that last year we had a little special promotion for one of our sponsors. They asked me to share some of my favorite books and I was like, well, I'm gonna pick straight from the romance department, naturally.
So I went out and identified some of my favorite titles. Was just looking through a list of some of those, the greatest hits anyway. There was, of course, Reckless in Texas, the Texas Rodeo series book one. This soldier's email order bride. One of my favorites of all time, Fried Chicken and Gravy, a Christian romance.
And of course, who can forget 3 a.m. Kisses for mature audiences only. As you would expect, sales for those titles went through the roof after being featured on the show. I even bought a special copy of Fried Chicken and Gravy for ACR producer and Whitney, our content manager. Each of them have reread their copy several times.
Just can't get enough of that enthralling story. And today, what does this have to do with today's episode? Well, it does actually have something to do with today's episode because we're gonna talk about a romance novel expert who teaches proofreading for $2,000 a month. In other words, she earns $2,000 a month on the side by teaching people the art of proofreading. She is a Toronto book lover who uses her extensive experience more than 15 years as an editor, proofreader, copy editor.
Is now showing other people how to do that. So if you'd like to get paid to read the next 50 Shades of Grey or actually it doesn't have to be romance. That's just kind of the theme I'm going with here. If you'd like to learn the art of proofreading, that's what she's showing people. Using her skills, making extra money and building an asset for herself.
That is in fact what Side Hustle School is all about. It's not just those 3 a.m. kisses. It's not just whatever's happening at the Texas Rodeo. So stay tuned.
Let's say thanks to a different sponsor and I will bring you that story in just a moment. [Music]
Fawn Bailey loves reading books and has always had a knack for finding pesky typos in them. She was the go-to proofreader for friends and family, freely giving away her special talents until one day when studying media and communications at university, she realized she could be profiting from her eagle-eyed skills. After getting a graduate certificate in publishing, she got her first full-time job as a proofreader at Harlequin, a leading publisher of books for women. At Harlequin, she became enamored with stories featuring strong female leads and tales of romance.
What she didn't love, however, was the nine-to-five lifestyle of the corporate world. That cubicle routine proved to be too confining, so Fawn decided to break out on her own. As a freelancer, she loved the flexibility it brought to what she was already passionate about, reading books for a living, and with her background at Harlequin, she quickly carved out a niche proofreading romance novels. Whenever she went out with her friends, they would get a kick out of telling people that Fawn made money reading love stories. Of course, it was a job, but still, you know, it was true.
Over the years, with all the content being written for both online media and traditional media, the role of proofreading has begun to change. Content creators these days want more than just typo-correctors. They want proofreaders who can go deep into the content, make sure it's a highly polished piece that keeps the writer's voice. Fawn saw these changes. She was part of their development, and she noticed that others were interested in learning more about how to get into proofreading.
They didn't know anything about the field. She also found that the available resources about proofreading didn't go as deep as necessary for most client needs. With her 15 years of experience as a proofreader and copy editor, and now her background as a freelancer, Fawn realized she could teach others how to be successful in today's content-rich environment. The first step was to build a website and publish some free content educating people on the role of a proofreader in order to build up her authority. Luckily for Fawn, her husband is a designer, and he helped her out with both the design of her site and business strategy.
For less than $150, the art of proofreading was up and running. She wrote blog posts on the nitty-gritty of proofreading life with topics like how to be a proofreader without a degree. She created a quiz where people could test their proofreading skills, and she produced a free five-day email course, Intro to Proofreading, that generated leads for later paid content. After a few months of having that website up and seeing people go through the free course, Fawn believed she had validation for a paid proofreading course, so she decided to create Proofreading Pro. She pre-sold this course before actually making any of the content to make sure people were really interested, and the goal was to provide the stepping stones that people needed to get started in the industry.
They would have free lifetime access to the content, as well as a 14-day money-back guarantee. Now, along with people interested in learning about proofreading for the first time, Fawn was also getting feedback from other people in the industry who were already skilled at proofreading, but were more interested in the freelancing aspect. So I've got the skills for proofreading, in other words, but how do I actually find clients? How do I make it as a freelancer? So next, she decided to create an ebook called The Ultimate Guide to Freelance Proofreading, for those who wanted to make a leap to freelancing, but weren't sure how to get started.
The site and both courses have now been up for just over a year, and they're bringing in an additional $2,000 a month in net income. Fawn doesn't spend any money on ads. She just relies on her blog, search engine optimization, and that free email course to bring in sales. She does do some posts on Pinterest, which also brings in traffic to the site, and she plans on growing her social media efforts even more this year. When she first created this side hustle, she was the sole income provider for her household while her husband was in school.
Now that he's finished, she plans to put more effort into it. Her next step is to create a course that delves deeper into what's involved with higher level editing skills. And naturally, she'll focus on that billion dollar industry of romance novels, proving that sometimes true love is worth monetizing. Awesome, congratulations to Fawn. To everybody else, I'd encourage you to check out The Art of Proofreading.
Even if you're not interested in proofreading, you can kind of see how she's put this together. And why does this work, by the way? Like, why is this project successful when something like it might not be? I think it's because the topic relates specifically to employment or to earning extra money, like side hustle school does. I'd imagine that most people who want to proofread or copy edit romance novels are fans of the genre.
They can show people how to make money in a different way or in a specific way, like what she's doing. And that is attractive. I'd also imagine that most people who want to proofread or copy edit romance novels are fans of the genre. If you don't really go into that from the outside, or at least most people don't, perhaps some do. Then I think Fawn has real authority.
Like, she's done this for 15 years. You can kind of clearly see how she demonstrates that authority both in this story and more importantly on her site. Like, if you go to her site, just kind of having stumbled on it, you can understand really quickly who she is, what her background is, why she has skill in this area, the free resources she's offering to everyone. And then last, that classic model of selling information, which is the five-day course. Doesn't have to be five days.
It could be three days or seven days or whatever, but we at Satasil School have a five days to hustle course. My goal with that course is you can actually get some helpful free information through that. And if you'd like to learn more, then you might want to come and join the Satasil Society, which is our paid online community. It's not about tricking people or pressuring people. It's about genuinely being helpful, building trust between readers and listeners or whoever else is out there, and just kind of creating a process of systematic education.
So in short, it is a well-done application of a model that is pretty classic. If you have a skill or some specific knowledge in something like proofreading, probably not proofreading itself, but something entirely different, whatever it is, there are lessons you can learn from and apply from people who are using this model in a totally different topic or field. That's why I highlight a lot of these kind of stories on Satasil School, because if it's classic, it's because it works. Like when I say something is classic, it's not a bad thing in any way. So check that out, much more to come, of course.
As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Check out today's 50 shades of show notes. Those are at satasilschool.com/440, 440. Thank you so much for listening. My name is Chris, Reckless in Texas, Gilibow.
I'm not actually in Texas, but you know, that's the name of the book. In any case, I'll be back tomorrow. This is Satasil School.
