What It's About
A mother makes a career out of telling children stories.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
If you want to teach others something, make sure that you have developed the necessary skill and experience first. Plus, building career capital gives you perspective and confidence that can help you stand out from the competition!
Fun Fact
Before Eevi started helping aspiring children’s book authors, she was creating and launching book trailers for USA Today bestselling authors like Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Debra Webb, and James Hankins. By all metrics, she had a thriving business. It was only when she realized that she couldn’t scale her business that she decide to pivot.
Notes from Chris
Episode 538
For work at home mom Eevi Jones, a career that was non-location dependent was of vital importance. With a military spouse, she never could stay in one place for too long, having moved 12 times over the past 19 years. Besides building Lego castles with her two boys during the day, Eevi was also a successful children's book author who helped publishing houses launch book trailers for their bestselling authors. By all measures, Eevi’s career was going well. With over a dozen children’s books published, Eevi had substantial experience authoring, illustrating, and marketing books in her niche. With her vast experience particularly in the illustration of books, she found herself booked out weeks or months in advance with great demand for her services. But at the beginning of 2017, she realized that work was catching up with her. Sometimes she would go to bed at 1 in the morning, and then be up at 5. She couldn’t spend time with her children or her husband, and she didn’t have time to write children’s books anymore. She found she was becoming a victim of success. What do you do when you’re overwhelmed with work and business? You start another business, of course! A different kind of business. Eevi’s friends had suggested that she could teach others how to launch a career as a children’s book author. With her vast experience and familiarity with the publishing industry, it was a natural change, and Eevi became convinced that this was a business which she was uniquely qualified to build. To date, Eevi has managed to earn upwards of $1,500 a month from the combined revenue of her published book and coaching. 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 authors whom she has coached also gives her immense satisfaction that she didn’t have before. Eevi attributes most of her success to having built up “career capital.” It’s a concept 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 Eevi publish a dozen children’s books before she started teaching this skill to others, she also made sure to continually refine her material by approaching the issue from a beginner’s perspective. It’s made a big difference in setting her apart from her competition. Like Eevi, you too can write a new chapter in your business or side hustle. Just don’t be afraid to turn the page!
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- EeviJones.com: Learn more about what it takes to become a children's author over on Eevi's website!
- CreateSpace: The platform that Eevi used to create the outline for her book and self-publish
- University Lecturer Earns $2,000/Month Writing Children’s Books: An American teaching in Taiwan tells tales of foreign lands, packaging them in a series of books for children back home
- Music Therapist Writes Custom Lullabies For Restless Children: After leaving her day job to care for a new child, a music therapist also creates a new source of income
- Published Author Adds Income Source; Makes Additional $21,000 Her First Year: A successful novelist teaches an online course about productivity for writers, reaching 3,700 students in year one
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Resources
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