Podcasts about Print on demand

What does it really take to build a multi-six-figure author business with no advertising? Is running your own warehouse really necessary for direct sales success — or is there a simpler path using print-on-demand that works just as well? In this conversation, Sacha Black and I compare our very different approaches to selling direct, from print on demand to pallets of books, and explore why the right model depends entirely on who you are and what your goals are for your author business. In the intro, Memoir Examples and interviews [Reedsy, The Creative Penn memoir tips]; Written Word Media annual indie author survey results; Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition; Business for Authors webinars; Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant; Camino Portuguese Coastal on My Camino Podcast; Creating while Caring Community with Donn King; The Buried and the Drowned by J.F. Penn Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it's delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Sacha Black is the author of YA and non-fiction for authors and previously hosted The Rebel Author Podcast. As Ruby Roe, she is a multi-six-figure author of sapphic romantasy. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Two models for selling direct: print on demand vs running your own warehouse. Plus, check out Sacha's solo Rebel Author episode about the details of the warehouse. Cashflow management Kickstarter lessons: pre-launch followers, fulfillment time, and realistic timelines How Sacha built a multi-six-figure business through TikTok with zero ad spend Matching your business model to your personality and skill set Building resilience: staff salaries, SOPs, and planning for when things change You can find Ruby at RubyRoe.co.uk and on TikTok @rubyroeauthor and on Instagram @sachablackauthor Transcript of the interview Joanna: Sacha Black is the author of YA and nonfiction for authors, and previously hosted the Rebel Author podcast. As Ruby Roe, she is a multi-six-figure author of sapphic romance. So welcome back to the show, Sacha. Sacha: Hello. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. Now, just for context, for everybody listening, Sacha 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 are going to come at this from a slightly different angle in our discussion today, which is really about two different ways of doing selling direct. I want us to start though, Sacha, in case people don't know your background, in case they've 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? Sacha's Indie Author Journey Sacha: No, I really haven't. 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. 2017 I first self-published and then two years after that, in 2019, I quit the day job. 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. 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 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, and so on and so forth. 2022, in the summer, I made a realisation that I'd created another job for myself rather than a business that I wanted to grow and thrive in and was 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 nonfiction, and — I poured everything into writing what became the first Ruby Roe book. I published that in February 2023. In August/September 2023, I stopped all freelance work. 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 see that she had the potential there and I was making enough to scrape by. And there's nothing if not a little bit of pressure 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 the eighth, I went viral. And then what's relevant to this is that two days after that, on December the 10th, I had whipped up my minimum viable Shopify, and that went live. Then roll on, I did more of the same, published more Ruby Roe 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. The Ten-Year Overnight Success Joanna: So great. So really good for people to realise that 2013, you started writing with the intention, like, seriously, I want this to be 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? Sacha: Almost like we all need 10 years. Joanna: Yeah. I mean, it definitely takes time. So I wanted just to set that scene there. And also that you did at least a year of print on demand Shopify before getting your own warehouse. Sacha: Yeah, maybe 14 months. Joanna: Yeah, 14 months. Okay. So we are going to revisit some of these, but I also just want as context, what was your day job so people know? Sacha: So I was a project manager in a local government, quite corporate, quite conservative place. And I played the villain. It was great. 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 like that. The Importance of Business Skills Joanna: 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 revisit that. Sacha: How did I not realise that?! Joanna: I thought you did know that. No. Well, oh my goodness. And let's just put my business background in context. I'm sure most people have heard it before, but I was an IT consultant for about 13 years, but much of my job was going into businesses and doing process mapping and then doing software to fix that. And also I worked, I'm not an accountant, but I worked in financial accounting departments. So I think this is really important context for people to realise that learning the craft is one thing, but learning business is a completely different game, right? Sacha: Oh, it is. I have learnt — it's wild because I always feel like there's no way you can learn more than in your first year of publishing because everything is brand new. But I genuinely feel like this past 18 months I have learnt 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 exhausting in terms of learning. It's great, but also it is a lot to learn. There is just so much to business. Joanna's Attempts to Talk Sacha Out of the Warehouse Joanna: 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? Sacha: Oh my goodness, me. I mean a lot. There were probably two dinners, several coffees, a Zoom. It was like, don't do it. Don't do it. You got me halfway there. So for everybody listening, I went big and I was like, oh, I'm going to buy shipping containers and convert them and put them on a plot of land and all of this stuff. And Joanna very sensibly turned around and was like, hmm, 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. Joanna: Try it, try it before you really commit. 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 are 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 Bookfunnel for ebooks and audiobooks and I use BookVault 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 to show people that there are gradations of selling direct. Why Sell Direct? Joanna: 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? Sacha: I think, 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 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. I have some readers who have been on my website who have spent almost four figures now. I mean, that is just — 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 access to readers is a huge reason for doing it. Customising the Reader Relationship Sacha: And also I think that you can, 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. We are able to customise 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 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 romance pop sockets, 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 access to it. Joanna: Yeah. 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 pallets of books as Sacha does. 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 BookVault custom printing and bespoke printing. The Speed of Money Joanna: 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 are selling direct — you can set up your system so you get paid like every single day, right? Or every week? Sacha: Yes. Joanna: 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 are 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 could 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. Sacha: It is, but it's also very dangerous. I know we might talk about cashflow more later, but— Joanna: Let's talk about it now. Managing Cashflow With Multiple Bank Accounts Sacha: Okay, cool. So one of the things that I think is the most valuable thing that I've ever done is, someone who is really clever told me that you're allowed more than one business account. Joanna: Just to be clear, bank accounts? Sacha: Yes, sorry. Yeah. Bank accounts. And one of my banks in particular enables you to have 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 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 actual release day. But that has enabled me to have a little savings 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 doing financially. Understanding Cashflow as an Author Joanna: Yeah. And this cashflow, if people don't really know it, is the 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 run some ads one month, you're going to have to pay, let's say Facebook or BookBub or whoever, that month. You might not get the money from the sale of those books if it's from a store until two months later. In that case, the cash flows the other way. The money is sitting with the store, sitting on Amazon until they pay you later. This idea of cashflow is so important for authors to think about. Another, I guess even more basic example is you are writing your first book and you pay for an editor. 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. I think this understanding cashflow is so important at a small level because as it gets bigger and bigger — and you are doing these very big print runs now, aren't you? Talk a bit about that. The Risks of Print Runs Sacha: Yeah. So one of the things I was going to say, one of the benefits of your sell direct model is that you don't have to deal with mistakes like this one. So in my recent book, Architecti, that we launched at the end of September, we did a print run of a thousand books, maybe about 3,000 pounds, something like that, 2,000 pounds. And basically we ended up selling all thousand and more. So the pre-orders breached a thousand and 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've saved a bit more money on it per book. So you don't — if you are doing selling direct with a print on demand model, 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 benefits and disadvantages to doing it each way. Obviously, I'm getting a cheaper price per copy printed, but not if I mess up the order numbers. Is Running a Warehouse Just Another Job? Joanna: So I'm going to come back on something you said earlier, which was in 2022 you said, “I realised I made a job for myself.” Sacha: Yeah. Joanna: And I mean, I've been to your store. You obviously have people to help you. But one of my reservations about this kind of model is that even if you have people to help you, taking on physical book — even though you are 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 have continued — you have pretty much decided to continue with your warehouse. So why is this not a job? What makes this fun for you? The Joy of Physical Product Creation Sacha: I wish that listeners could see my face because I'm literally glittering. I love it. I literally love it. I love us being able to create cool and wacky things. We can make a decision and we can create that physical product really quickly. We can do all of these quirky things. We can experiment. We can do book boxes. So 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's going to assassinate somebody. We've actually designed and had that coin made, and it's my favourite item in the warehouse. It's such a small little thing, but I love it. And so there is a lot of joy that I derive from us being able to create these items. Sending Book Mail and Building Community Sacha: I think the second thing is I really love book mail. 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 sending out lots and lots of book presents to people and we get to add more to it. So some of the promises that we make are: I sign every book and we give gifts. We have character art and, like I've mentioned before, pop sockets and all these kinds of things. And I get tagged daily in unboxings and stories and things like this where people are like, oh my gosh, I didn't realise I was going to get this, this, and this. And I just — it's like crack to me. I get high off of it. So I can't — this is not for everybody. This is a logistical nightmare. There are so many problems inherent in this business model. I love it. Discovering a Love of Team Building Sacha: And I think the other thing, which is very much not for a lot of authors — I did not realise that I actually really like having a team. And that has been a recent realisation. 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 that also helps me continue because I have a really great team. Joanna: I do have to ask you, what is a pop socket? Sacha: It's a little round disc that has a mechanism that you can pull out and then you — and it has 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. I don't know how else to describe it. It just helps you to hold the device easier. Joanna: Okay. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was confused. I'm like, why are you doing electrical socket products? Know What Kind of Person You Are Joanna: But I think this actually does demonstrate another point, and I hope people listening — I hope you can sort of — why we are 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 Sacha's thing and there's all these little stickers and there's lots of boxes of little things that they put in people's packages, which make people happy. And I'm like, oh, I just don't like packages of things. And I mean, you geek out on packaging, don't you as well? Sacha: Oh my goodness. Yeah. 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. And one of the things that I'm booked to do is an advent calendar. And that was what drove me there in the first place. I was looking for a manufacturer that could create an advent calendar for us. I have two. I'm not — I have two advent calendars this year because 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, what toy do you remember from your youth? And I was like, oh yeah. The only one that I can remember is that I had a sticker maker. I like — that makes sense. You do like stickers. And I do. Yeah. Digital Minimalism vs Physical Products Joanna: Yeah, I do. And I think this is so important because I love books. I buy a lot of books. I love books, but I also get rid of a lot of books. I know people hate this, but I will just get rid of bags and bags of books. So I value books more for what's inside them than the physical product as such. I mean, I have some big 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 just how much you like all that stuff. So if you are listening, if you are 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 are not interested in all that. Or even if you are, you can still do a lot of this print 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 liked? The Draw of Customisation Sacha: Yeah, we did, but I think for me it was that customisation. We are now moving towards — I've just put an order in this morning for 10,000 customised 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 — you know, we wouldn't have control over what was sent. So much 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 from me, and it was driving me bonkers not being able to say yes. But also being able to send a website mailing list sign-up 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 more customisation and things that we could do if we were controlling the shipping. Also, I wanted to pack the boxes, 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. Print on Demand Is Still Fantastic Sacha: Look, don't get me wrong, if I suddenly wanted to go off travelling for a year, then maybe I would shut down the warehouse and go back to print on demand. 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 authors' models. So it's fantastic. I just want to do more. Joanna: Yeah. You want to do more of it. Life Stage Matters Joanna: We should also, I also wanted to mention your life stage. Because when we did talk about it, your son is just going to secondary school, so we knew that you would be in the same area, right? Sacha: Yeah. Joanna: 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 going to do it, it needs time, right? So you are at that point in your life. Sacha: Yeah, absolutely. We — I mean, we are going to move house, I think, but not that far away. We'll still be in reachable distance of the warehouse. 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. Growing the Business Year Over Year Sacha: And then you also have to be able to iterate and add more products. Like you were talking earlier about increasing that average order value. And that does come from having more products, but more products does create other issues like space, which may or may not be suffering issues with now. But yeah, so for example, 2024, which was the first real year, I did about 73 and a half thousand British pounds. And then this year, where — as we record this, 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. And that I do think is about the number of products and the number of things that we have on there. Joanna: And the number of customers. I guess you've also grown your customer base as well. And one of the 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 are selling a lot more of your backlist as well. So I think as time goes on, yeah, you get more books. Kickstarter as an Alternative Joanna: But let's also talk about Kickstarter because I do signed books for my Kickstarters and to me the Kickstarter is like a short-term ability to do the things you are doing regularly. So for example, if you want to do book boxes, you could just do them for a Kickstarter. You don't have to run a warehouse and do it every single day. For example, your last Kickstarter for Ruby Roe made around 150,000 US dollars, which is amazing. Like really fantastic. So just maybe talk about that, 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. Pre-Launch Followers Are Critical Sacha: Yeah, so the first thing is 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, 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 1,501 pre-launch followers. And when you times that by 75 and you add on seven grand, it makes more or less exactly what we made 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. Early Bird Pricing and Fulfillment Time Sacha: 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 one, so that's really important. The second thing is it takes so, so very much longer than you think it does to fulfil a campaign, and you must factor in that cost. Because if it's not you fulfilling, you are paying somebody else to fulfil 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 fulfil is directly proportionate to the size of the campaign. That's one thing I did not even compute — the fact that we went from about 56,000 British pounds up to double that, and the time was exponentially more than double. So you do have to think about that. Overseas Printing and Timelines Sacha: The other lesson that we have learned 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 fulfil, 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. Reinvesting Kickstarter Profits Sacha: 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 everybody would want to do if they don't have a warehouse. However, we are stockpiling merchandise and books so that we can do mystery boxes later on down the line. It's probably a year away, but we are buying extra of everything so that we have that in the warehouse. So yeah, depending on what you want to do with your profit, for us it was all about buying more books, basically. Offering Something Exclusive Sacha: 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're not 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? Reward Tiers and Bundling Joanna: Oh, well I think all of mine together add up to the one you just did. Although I will comment on — you said something like 75 pounds per pre-launch backer. That is obviously dependent on your tiers for the rewards, 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 boxes like you have. So a lot of it will depend on the tiers. Some people will do a Kickstarter just with an ebook, just with one ebook and maybe a bundle of ebooks. So you are 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, here's my AI tip for the day. What you can do — what I did with my Buried and the Drowned campaign recently — is I uploaded my book to ChatGPT and said, tell me, 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 as upsells, or you can just, for example, for me, when I did Blood Vintage, I did a horror bundle when it was four standalone horror books in one of the upper tiers. 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. Focus on Digital Products Too Joanna: So again, yours — 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 the digital side of things. Is that something you are thinking about now? Sacha: 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. And since somebody very smart told me to have upsell apps on my website, we now have a full “get the everything bundle” in physical and digital and we are now selling them as well. Surprising. Definitely not you. So yeah, we are looking at it and that's something that we could look at next year as well for advertising because I haven't really done any advertising. I think I've spent about 200 pounds in ads in the last four months or something. It's very, very low level. 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 are spending, I don't know, four pounds 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, but it just hasn't been something that we've done a huge amount of. A Multi-Six-Figure Author With No Ads Joanna: Yeah. 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? It's Not Luck, It's Skill Set Sacha: Do you know, this is okay. So I don't think it's luck. I don't believe in luck. I get quite aggressive about people flinging luck around. I know some people are huge supporters of luck. I'm like, no. Do I think anybody can do it? Do you know, I swing so hard on this. Sometimes I say yes, and sometimes I think no. 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. It is video footage. It is static images. I am extremely comfortable on camera. I am an ex-theatre 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. Consistency Without Burnout Sacha: And the other part of it is because I am comfortable at doing it, I enjoy it. It 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 the 19th, 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 it's easy for me because I am good at it. Reading the Algorithm Sacha: The other thing that I think goes in here is that I'm very good at reading what's working. So sorry to talk Clifton Strengths, but my number one Clifton Strength is competition. And one of the skills 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 can, it's the same skill set but applied to the algorithm. So I am very good at dissecting viral videos and understanding what made it work, in the same way somebody that spends 20,000 pounds a month on Facebook advertising is very good at doing analytics and looking at those numbers. I am useless at that. I just can't do it. I just get complete shutdown. My brain just says no, and I'm incapable of running ads. That's why I don't do it. Not Everyone Can Do This Sacha: So 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 QVC 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 on these lives. I can't think of anything worse. I will do a live, but I'll be signing books 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 ah, 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. But no, and I know that I don't want to crush anybody listening. Do you like social media? I like social media. 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 are good at, find out where your skill set is, and then lean in very, very hard. Writing to Your Strengths and Passion Joanna: I also think, because let's be brutal, you had books before and they didn't sell like this. Sacha: Yep. Joanna: So I also think that you leaned into — yes, of course, sapphic romance is a big sub-genre, but you love it. And also it's your lived experience with the sapphic sub-genre. This is not you chasing a trend, right? I think that's important too because too many people are like, oh, well maybe this is the latest trend. And is TikTok a trend? And then try and force them together, whereas I feel like you haven't done that. Sacha: No, 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 sapphic romance 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, I'm going to do it then. And rightly so, everyone was like, well, there's no evidence to suggest that this is going to make any money. You are taking a huge risk. And I was like, yeah, but I will. 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 that is why it's just felt so easy to market. Lean Into What You're Good At Sacha: It's like you, with your podcasting. Nobody can get anywhere near your podcast because you are so good at it. You've got such a history. You are so natural with your podcasting that you are just unbeatable, you know? So it's a natural way for you to market it. Joanna: Many have tried, but no, you're right. It's because I like this. And what's so funny — I'm sure I've mentioned it on the show — but I did call you one day and say, okay, all right, show me how to do this TikTok thing. And you spent like two hours on the phone with me and then I basically said no. Okay. 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. 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 yeah, it's so important to find, well, like you said, what does not work for you? What is fun for you and when are you having a good time? Because otherwise you would have a job. Like to me, it looks like a job, you having a warehouse. But to you, it's not the same as when you were grinding it out back in 2022. Packing Videos Are Peak Content Sacha: Completely. And I think if you look at my social media feeds, they are disproportionately full of packing videos, which I think tells you something. Joanna: Oh dear. I just literally — I'm just like, oh my, if I never see any more packaging, I'll be happy. Sacha: Yeah. That's good. The One Time Sacha Nearly Burnt It All Down Sacha: I have to say, there was one moment where I doubted everything. And that was at the end — but basically, in about, of really poor timing. I ended up having to fulfil every single pre-order of my latest release and hand packing about a thousand books in two weeks. And I nearly burnt it all to the ground. Joanna: Because you didn't have enough staffing, right? And your mum was sick or something? Sacha: Yeah, exactly that. And I had to do it all by myself, and I was alone in the warehouse and it was just horrendous. So never again. But hey, I learned the lessons and now I'm like, yay, let's do it again. Things Change: Building Resilience Into Your Business Joanna: Yeah. And make sure there's more staffing. Yes, 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 Probst, which she talked about hitting massive bestseller lists and doing just incredibly well, and then it just dropped off and she had to pivot and change things. And 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 sapphic romance suddenly drops off a cliff? What are you doing to make sure that you can keep going in the future? Managing Cash Flow and Salaries Sacha: Yeah, so 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 — because I am responsible for other people's income now — that I'm not about to shaft a load of people. So that really helps give you that risk reassurance. Mailing Lists and Marketing Funnels Sacha: The second thing is making sure that we are cultivating our mailing lists, making sure that we are putting in infrastructure, like things like upsell apps. And, okay, so here's a ridiculous lesson that I learned in 2025: an automation sequence, an onboarding automation sequence, is not what people mean when they say you need a marketing funnel. I learned this in Vegas. 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, 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 take more advantage of the customers that we've already got. Standard Operating Procedures Sacha: It's also things like organisational 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 2025 and I sat in a session all on — this sounds so sexy — but standard operating procedures. And now I've given my team the job of creating a 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 to things like passwords — who, if I unfortunately got hit by a car, who can access my Amazon account? Stuff like that, unfortunately. Joanna: Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, that would be tragic, wouldn't it? Sacha: But it's stuff like that. Building Longer Timelines Sacha: But then also more day-to-day things is putting in infrastructure that pulls me out. So looking more 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 we've got a book box launching next summer. And we both had the realisation — I say we, me and my operations manager — had the realisation that actually we ought to be commissioning the cover 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 rigour in what we do and when. We now have a team-wide 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. Personal Financial Resilience Sacha: 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 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, I am not a financial advisor, but I do invest money. I serve money that I 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 taking advice from 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, a down year, for example, you've got enough cash and equity inside the business to cover you during those lower months or years or weeks — or hopefully just a day. Different Business Models for Different Authors Joanna: Yes, of course. And we all hope it just carries on up and to the right, but sometimes it doesn't work that way. So it's really great that you are doing all those things. And I think what's lovely and why we started off with you giving us that potted history was it hasn't always been this way. So if you are listening to this and you are like, well, I've only got 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. It's got no packaging that I deal with. Or you can go even further like Sacha and Adam Beswick and Willow Winters. But because that is being talked about a lot in the community, that's why we wanted to do this — to really show you that there's different people doing different things and you need to choose what's best for you. What Are You Excited About for 2026? Joanna: But just as we finish, just tell us what are you excited about for 2026? Sacha: Oh my goodness me. I am excited to iterate my craft. And this is completely not related to the warehouse, 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 are also looking at things like book boxes. So we are doing a set of three book boxes and these are going to be new and bigger and better than anything that we've done before. And custom tailored. Oh, without giving too much away, but items that go inside and also the artwork. I love working with artists and commissioning different art projects. But yeah, basically more of the same, hopefully world domination. Joanna: World domination. Fantastic. So basically more creativity. Sacha: Yeah. Joanna: And also a bigger business. Because I know you are ambitious and I love that. I think it's really good for people to be ambitious. Joanna: Oh, I do have another question. Do you have more sympathy for traditional publishing at this point? Sacha: How dare you? Unfortunately, yeah. I really have learnt the hard way why traditional publishers need the timelines that they need. This latest release was probably the biggest that — so this latest release, which was called Architecting, is the reason 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 are listening and you are like, oh no, no, no, I like the immediacy of being able to finish, get it back from the editor and hit publish — this ain't for you, honey. This is not for you. Joanna: Yeah. No, that's fantastic. Where to Find Sacha and Ruby Roe Joanna: So where can people find you and your books online? Sacha: For the Ruby Empire, it's RubyRoe.co.uk and RubyRoeAuthor on TikTok if you'd like to see me dancing like a wally. And then Instagram, I'm back as @SachaBlackAuthor on Instagram. Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Sacha. That was great. Sacha: Thank you for having me.The post Two Different Approaches To Selling Books Direct With Sacha Black And Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

In this episode I'm sharing 5 print on demand niches that you can target to increase your sales in the near future

Watch me dive into the cruise niche on Amazon and Etsy to find easy print on demand designs that anyone can start selling right away. This is one of the most profitable evergreen niches—and I'll show you why.

Ryan Hogue Explains Why Your Money Is Worth Less Than A Big Mac In episode 136 of The Side Hustle Experiment Podcast  John (https://www.instagram.com/sidehustleexperiment/ ) and Drew  (https://www.instagram.com/realdrewd/) talk with Ryan (https://www.instagram.com/ryanhogueofficial/) Ryan is a 7-figure Amazon FBA and Print-on-Demand seller, YouTuber, educator, and one of the most productive entrepreneurs in the online business world.We talk about how he went from web developer to successful e-commerce entrepreneur, how he thinks about productivity, discipline, and beating imposter syndrome, and why he believes most people fail before they ever give themselves a real chance.Then the conversation goes deep — AI, distraction, truth, money, inflation, Bitcoin, the housing market, and what the next decade could look like for entrepreneurs. This is one of the most honest and wide-ranging episodes we've ever done.Don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and hit the bell so you don't miss future episodes with top entrepreneurs and creators.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Ryan Hogue's Journey02:58 Transitioning from Web Development to Entrepreneurship05:46 Productivity Hacks and Time Management Strategies08:41 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Building Confidence11:27 The Impact of AI on Productivity and Society14:10 Navigating the Challenges of Social Media and Distraction28:04 The Influence of Information and Technology30:21 Consciousness and AI: A Philosophical Debate32:17 The Economics of AI and Investment Trends38:06 Navigating the Investment Landscape: Bubbles and Strategies43:59 Bitcoin: The Future of Wealth Preservation50:36 The Role of Robotics in Daily Life54:48 The Practicality of Robotics in Daily Life57:28 The Illusion of the American Dream01:00:19 Navigating the Housing Market Dilemma01:01:13 The Future of Work and Economic Stability01:03:33 Understanding Inflation and Asset Bubbles01:07:49 The Value of Real Estate vs. Investments01:11:51 The Role of Algorithms in Financial Markets01:15:06 The Challenges of Short Selling and Market Timing01:17:59 The Importance of Questioning Everything#makemoneyonline  #sidehustleexperimentpodcast #sidehustles Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sidehustleexperimentpodcast/ Listen on your favorite podcast platformYoutube: https://bit.ly/3HHklFOSpotify: https://spoti.fi/48RRKcPApple: https://apple.co/4bmaFOk Check out Drew's StuffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/realdrewdTwitter: https://twitter.com/DrewFBACheck out John's StuffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sidehustleexperiment/Twitter: https://twitter.com/SideHustleExp FREE ResourcesFREE Guide: How to Make Money Reviewing Products https://bit.ly/3HIGFSP

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Sarah Potter is a professional witch, intuitive tarot reader, and spiritual guide who combines ancient wisdom with modern mysticism. She is the author of Sober Magic: Using the Tarot and Ritual in Your Journey Away from Drinking. Sarah also writes Tarotscopes for Astrology.com and Bust Magazine, is the creator of the Cosmo Tarot deck for Cosmopolitan, and leads Full Moon ceremonies with the Asbury Hotel. Her work includes guiding rituals, offering personal guidance, and hosting events to help people connect with their intuition, manifest desires, and live intentionally. She is based in New York City.On this episode, Sarah discusses how witchcraft can support one's sobriety, the Fool's healing journey, and the sacred relationship between 12 Steps and the tarot.Pam also talks about the magic of the Temperance tarot card, and answers a very special listener question about rituals for celebrating a milestone birthday.Check out the video of this episode over on YouTube (and please like and subscribe to the channel while you're at it!)Our sponsors for this episode are Woodland Magic, Weiser Books, Immaculate Design, BetterHelp, and Sister Temperance TarotWe also have print-on-demand merch like Witch Wave shirts, sweatshirts, totes, stickers, and mugs available now here, and all sorts of other bewitching goodies available in the Witch Wave shop.And if you want more Witch Wave, please consider supporting us on Patreon to get access to detailed show notes, bonus Witch Wave Plus episodes, Pam's monthly online rituals, and more! That's patreon.com/witchwave

In this episode, Lauren & Matt peer into their crystal balls for a look into the future (or make some very sound projections grounded in knowledge and experience). We take turns sharing our insights and expectations for what's to come in the publishing industry in 2026, including: 

In this video, I break down exactly how to grow your clothing brand, streetwear brand, or print-on-demand store on social media in 2026 — the same strategy I used to generate 1.5M+ organic views in 30 days and land one of the biggest orders in my brand's history (7 hoodies, $537).Make Designs (with discount)

Summary

In this episode the hosts dissect a $19 million “painting‑on‑demand” e‑commerce business making ~$15 million in sales and ~$3.67 million in earnings, and debate whether the price tag is justified given a crowded market and uncertain moat.Business Listing – https://mailchi.mp/websiteclosers/new-deal-alert-online-art-gallery-ecommerce-brand-handmade-paintings-collection-strong-repeat-order-rate-3600-48-star-reviews2?e=42dc999128Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.

In this episode the hosts dissect a $19 million “painting‑on‑demand” e‑commerce business making ~$15 million in sales and ~$3.67 million in earnings, and debate whether the price tag is justified given a crowded market and uncertain moat.Business Listing – https://mailchi.mp/websiteclosers/new-deal-alert-online-art-gallery-ecommerce-brand-handmade-paintings-collection-strong-repeat-order-rate-3600-48-star-reviews2?e=42dc999128Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.

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Is it possible to generate sales within 24 hours of launching a print on demand product? YES! You can copy the fastest way to make POD sales that I've ever tested, using Nano Banana Pro

Erika Kubick is an author, artist, recipe developer, and practitioner living in Chicago. In 2015, she founded Cheese Sex Death as a blog devoted to educating, exciting, and empowering cheese lovers everywhere. Since then, she has amassed an international following and published two books: Cheese Sex Death: A Bible for the Cheese Obsessed in 2021 and, her most recent, Cheese Magic: Seasonal Recipes, Plates, and Pairings out now. Her mission is to inspire others to connect with the natural world through food, ritual, and other earthly pleasures.On this episode, Erika discusses the connections between cheese and witchcraft, divine dairy deities, and magical feasting for the holiday season.Pam also talks about “fromage mystique,” and answers a listener question about simple rituals for burnt-out witches.Check out the video of this episode over on YouTube (and please like and subscribe to the channel while you're at it!)Our sponsors for this episode are Woodland Magic, Spells for Success, BetterHelp, and the 2026 Many Moons Lunar Planner, and Mithras Candle.We also have print-on-demand merch like Witch Wave shirts, sweatshirts, totes, stickers, and mugs available now here, and all sorts of other bewitching goodies available in the Witch Wave shop.And if you want more Witch Wave, please consider supporting us on Patreon to get access to detailed show notes, bonus Witch Wave Plus episodes, Pam's monthly online rituals, and more! That's patreon.com/witchwave

#681 Think you need a warehouse full of inventory to start a product-based business? Think again! In this episode hosted by Kirsten Tyrrel, we're joined by Ryan Hogue, a 7-figure print-on-demand entrepreneur, who breaks down exactly how to build a profitable online store without ever touching inventory. Ryan shares why visibility is the real name of the game, how to do product research that actually leads to sales, and the key platforms and tools to get started — even if you're on a tight budget. He also pulls back the curtain on how he's automated 95% of his business using AI, and what most beginners get wrong when launching. Whether you're brand new or ready to scale, this is your step-by-step blueprint for turning simple designs into passive income! (Original Air Date - 4/15/25) What we discuss with Ryan: + Why visibility matters most + Low startup cost breakdown + Best platforms to start with + Redbubble vs. Etsy vs. Amazon + Common beginner mistakes + How to research winning products + Scaling with AI + automation + Text-based design strategies + Trend vs. evergreen products + Profit margin realities explained Thank you, Ryan! Check out Ryan Hogue at ⁠RyanHogue.com⁠. Follow Ryan on ⁠YouTube⁠. Watch the ⁠video podcast⁠ of this episode! To get access to our FREE Business Training course go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MillionaireUniversity.com/training⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. And follow us on: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tik Tok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To get exclusive offers mentioned in this episode and to support the show, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠millionaireuniversity.com/sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Want to hear from more incredible entrepreneurs? Check out all of our interviews ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Lauren interviews everyone's new favorite author…Matt Briel! Lauren & Matt talk through the experience of writing, editing, and publishing a book. Hear firsthand how Matt developed a writing practice that worked for him, what it was like working with a professional editor and beta readers, and where he found the motivation and inspiration to get his book published. Check out Matt's new book Profit On-Demand: The Creator's Guide to Building a Profitable Business with Print-on-Demand. Watch the video episode, streaming now on YouTube. Dive Deeper

Now That We're A Family Print Magazine: Receive Powerful Biblical Family Encouragement Order the magazine print issues here: Winter: https://www.nowthatwereafamily.com/offers/pYsZRqup/checkout Fall: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/68e3399759c51375f39d8d72 Summer: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/685dc0aa325904060f51e397 Spring: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/67c7787bc67c2e1cbaac0640 - Megan and her family make their home in the hustle and bustle of rural Lancaster County, PA. She is married to Josh Fox, her hardworking contractor husband who makes all of her house project dreams come true! She has also made a home on YouTube where she shares Mennonite cooking, modest fashion, effective homemaking routines/strategies, home makeovers, and living life intentionally and to the fullest as a mom of 4 young kids. Although she would much rather have you over and serve you a fancy iced latte in her freshly remodeled kitchen, she would love to connect with you online, virtual though it may be! Find her on YouTube and Instagram or on her website where you can find tons more delicious and constantly-distracted-mom-proof recipes! Website - https://meganfoxunlocked.com/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@MeganFoxUnlocked Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/honey-im-homemaker/id1704756841 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/meganfoxunlocked/ Any Day Block It Off Planner - https://meganfoxunlocked.com/product/new-any-day-block-it-off-planner-2/

As the weather turns cold, I'm going deep into Printful's catalog and sharing my top selection for cold-weather. Make sure to list your best selling designs on these warm print on demand products ahead of winter!

Self-published authors Anne Ditmeyer and Martin Lake share what it really takes to go indie, from choosing platforms and budgeting for editing, design, and ISBNs to redefining success, avoiding scams, and playing the long game of finding readers and building a sustainable writing life.  You'll learn:Why Anne and Martin chose self-publishing over traditional routes and how they framed readers as their gatekeepers.How both authors define success beyond bestseller lists, from “book as business card” to improving the craft across 25 books.The real timelines of an indie career, including slow early sales, backlist effects, and why self-publishing is a marathon, not a sprint.What a realistic budget looks like for editing, design, typesetting, audiobooks, and print on demand, plus where they chose to DIY or outsource.How they use platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing, Lulu, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, and Shopify, and why most sales still come through Amazon.Practical approaches to marketing that do not require a huge following, including series, mailing lists, events, workshops, and using your existing communities.The role of ISBNs, imprints, metadata, and print on demand for getting into libraries and bookstores, and why in-store placement is harder than it looks.Red flags to watch for with third-party “publishing services” and why due diligence can save you thousands in fees and frustration.   Resources and Links:

In this episode I'm sharing 5 print on demand niches that you can target to increase your sales in the near future

Original Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie Hansen:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, a lot of cookbook authors, manufacturers, and people who are doing cool things with food. And Ashley Russell came across my desk, and she has a cookbook that's called “What's Cooking Good Looking”. And I was first of all, captured by the illustrations in the book you are working on or have. They were very. How do I describe them? They were like tattoos. They were adorable, and they are original art by @sadpuppytattoo. When Ashley describes the banana bread of her grandmas, she was generous enough to share the recipe here.Ashley Russell:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Tell me about the book and how you decided to illustrate it the way you did. And then I wanted to talk to you specifically about self publishing a book, because I think a lot of people think about it, but they're not sure how to do it. So I just wanted to get your feedback.Ashley Russell:Totally. So I started this book inspired by my grandma. She passed away in 2024, summer of 2024. And it was almost immediate, was like, we have to have all the family has to have our recipes. And so she had a really cute little vintage recipe card box, and the whole process just sort of unfolded over the past year and a half. It is definitely a lot of Southern cooking. She's from Texas, but lived the past 30 years up in northern Washington. And her and my mom and her siblings lived all over the country.So there's just a little bit of everything in there from, like, recipes she got from neighbors or things that she learned from different parts of the country. So it's a really fun, like, eclectic mix of American cooking. And it's just so much her. Like, there's sugar and everything, and it's just. I'm so happy to have all of the family favorites in one place. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Did you work with members of the family, or was it primarily. Did it fall on you to compile everything?Ashley Russell:I definitely compiled everything, but my family was there every step of the way. Like, my grandma wrote in cursive, and I couldn't always read it.Stephanie Hansen:A lot of our grandmas wrote in cursive, and it is hard to read.Ashley Russell:It's so hard to read. And so we started this text group, and I would be like, does anyone know what this says? And then also things like vegetable oil or sweet milk or, you know, polio olio. Exactly. What is that?Stephanie Hansen:It's shortening. But, I mean, nobody knew.Ashley Russell:Nobody knew. And so it was a lot of just, like, you know, there were puzzles to it, and it was funny, and it brought us together and it kept us talking about her. And then, in addition to the community that I reached out to here in Portland, all My family members helped recipe test because it's like they remembered how it was supposed to taste. So it was almost like, you know, I think that this is missing this because she didn't write everything down. Like, a lot of things lived in her head.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Did you ever done this before or anything like this? Do you. What's your background?Ashley Russell:No. So I worked for a decade in costume design. I worked on a lot of small budget indie film and tv. And so I think I'm used to like, okay, we have this big hurdle of a project ahead. But I've never, I've never written a book. I've never written a cookbook. And the whole process was such a journey, but it, it was all so much fun, I think, because I was like learning and uncovering things about my family along the way. Yeah.Ashley Russell:So.Stephanie Hansen:Well, the creative process too, I think, is. Know you talk about being a costume designer. I didn't really think about writing a cookbook or recipes or being a recipe developer as a creative endeavor until I kind of started doing it more. And then I was like, oh, yeah, this does require creativity. And this is where that, where I scratch that itch.Ashley Russell:Yes, totally. I agree with that. It is super creative. And I never realized that either. I have a few cookbooks, but in this process, it made me realize, like, what little magical creative books they are and how much, you know, there's people's dreams and they nourish us and they're little windows into different parts of history and people's lives and they're just pretty cool. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:And people talk about like, I'm, I'm in the process of. I just released a book in September, so I'm out at bookstores and grocery stores and selling the book everywhere. And a lot of people are like, oh, you know, nobody really needs cookbooks anymore. And I was like, well, actually, you can always look up a recipe on the Internet that's there, but the narrative, the piece of how that fits into their life, the memory that that recipe brings or that combination of spices that transports you to a place that is what is unique about a cookbook. It's. It's so much more than just the recipe. And if you're not jazzed by any of that, then, yeah, it's probably not for you.Ashley Russell:Totally. Yes. Like, you have to be inspired by it. Right. And like, I don't know, I get pretty annoyed with recipes online. There's a ton of pop ups and your phone, you know, has the auto timer and it has to face ID every two minutes. I. It's just when you have it in a cookbook, it's almost like the record version of like a Spotify song.I don't know, like, you sure? Yeah, yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Like, and you can get a song but you don't have it in the context of all the songs in the record and that the artist had. Yeah, it's very similar, actually.Ashley Russell:Totally. And like, people love listening to records and collecting records and I really just think it's, it's, it's a similar. Comes from a similar place.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Okay. So your book, what's Cooking Good Looking? It is a spiral bound, which I thought was an interesting choice that I want to ask you about. And it's also got these illustrations. Did you illustrate it or did someone else? They're real cute. They're like tattooed inspired and they're kind of jazzy and it kind of. It had like a hipster core vibe to it.Ashley Russell:Yes. So my boyfriend's brother's sister, so more or less my sister in law. I've known her for six years now. She's a tattoo artist and she does a lot of florals and she did like a food flash at one point. And I've always loved her art. And when I was first starting the book, I was in Canva and I was like, oh, clip art's cute. And I was like, you know, I don't know if I would ever release a book with clip art in it, you know, And I wasn't sold on doing photography. I knew how specific and it had to be.Ashley Russell:Like, people have nailed food photography. If I was going to do it, I wanted to make sure it rocked. And so I asked her one day, I was like, would you want to illustrate this book? And she was like, oh my God, yes. And her tattoos are in black and white already. So it kind of, it transferred pretty easily into print form. And so I was able to use all of her tattoo library, like things she had already drawn. And then she drew things specifically for the book as well. And I just think it looks awesome.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it really does. It's real sweet. And what about the choice of spiral bound? And can you talk, can you make that be the introduction of talking about like how you decided to self publish and did you go out and try to find agents or did you go right to self publishing?Ashley Russell:Sure. So I in the past couple years have been really inspired by Rizzo prints and graphic novels and a lot of small press publishing and super inspired by vintage cookbooks. And a lot of them are spiral bound or they're notebook bound. And it's. It's kind of like, it gives it this retro feel, and it's kind of an homage to all of, like, the women's groups and church groups that did cookbooks over the decades. But I also think it's super functional in the kitchen. And I had a graphic design friend mention to me that she loves when a spiral bound is a color that totally offsets the book. So my book is, like, very black and white and yellow, and then it has this bright red spiral binding.And I just think it makes it pop. Like, it's. It's fun and practical. So as far as self publishing. So when I started this, it was really just a project for my family. It was really just, you know, I wanted them to have all the recipes. I. I wasn't even sure if I was going to print it.And as the process unfolded more, I realized more and more that I wanted to make this a book. And I wanted to put my heart in this book. And I wanted to share who Wanda and our family is with the world. And it really was just like a flower slowly blooming. Like, every week would be like, oh, I have to put the ingredients in the order of the method. Oh, you have to do this. Oh, people like, you know, like, you want everything in a recipe on one page. You don't want to have to, like, go back and forth.And it became this really fun project puzzle for me to be like, maybe I can create a cookbook. And so I didn't reach out to agents or anything, because I think the main important part was for this book to be about my grandma and come from me. And I was worried that having an agent or a publisher might dilute that a little bit.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, they'd have feedback or input or change things. Sure.Ashley Russell:Yeah. So I was able to work with a lot of friends, family, and get a lot of feedback throughout the entire process. I hired an editor, and so there was that constructive criticism, but I didn't feel like the voice or the vision was changing for profit, per se. And so self publishing is what I stuck with. And I think that in order for me to print this book the way I wanted to and for it to look the way it does, I don't know if I could have convinced a publisher to get on board with that.Stephanie Hansen:So then you make that decision and you've got your book assembled or your PDF pages, essentially. Did you tell me about, like, did you go out and just Google, like, how to self publish? Did you figure out, like, how to print on Demand was there color considerations. Kind of walk me through that process a little bit.Ashley Russell:Sure. So I did start looking up print on demand and I started Googling, you know, how to write a cookbook. I listened to Maggie Green's podcast Cookbook Love, like, religiously. I got books on the subject, and I really just created, like, it was my own research project. And I was learning as I went. What turned me away from doing, like, on demand printing or online publishing was that I really wanted it to be spiral bound. I knew that from the beginning almost. And I really wanted to do a mixture of Rizzo printing.Ashley Russell:And I wanted the paper. I just wanted everything to be really high quality and feel like her note cards, feel like her recipe cards. And I didn't think I would get that with online printing. So I went and talked with a few print shops here in Portland, Oregon, and Brown Printing, like, got the project right away. And I've been working with them for the past several months to get it printed.Stephanie Hansen:Have you. Have you printed, like, X amount and you're kind of selling stock as you go?Ashley Russell:Yeah, So I, you know, budget has been a concern throughout this whole process. Like, anyone who's made a cookbook knows it gets very expensive between recipe testing. And I did end up doing photography. I did it myself. All of those things really add up. And so I did an initial print run of 300, which is almost gone at this point. I just picked it up in the beginning of the month. And Brown's doing another run of.Ashley Russell:Of, 300 for the 1st of December so I can have more for the holidays.Stephanie Hansen:And then do you package them up and ship them when people make an order? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because people don't think about that. But you have to buy, like, special envelopes. You have to go to the post office. There is a category for media mail that makes it a little cheaper, but it's still. It's a process.Ashley Russell:It is a process. Like, every bit of this has been such a process. And so, yeah, my. My limit, I had about 180 orders to ship out when I got all the books from recipe testers. Order, pre-orders, family, you know, you name it. And our whole. Our whole living room and kitchen was just, like, stacked with boxes and you.Stephanie Hansen:And they're bigger than you think.Ashley Russell:Like, they're bigger than you think and they're heavy.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. And a box of like, 15 books is, like, a big box. And they're everywhere.Ashley Russell:They're everywhere. Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of like if you're an Etsy shop owner, you know, kind of our pain, I guess. But, you know, you're doing. You're the manual labor and you're the author and you're the publisher, you know, so you're doing everything. And I lugged them all down to the UPS and USPS and shipped them off. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Where do you go from here with it? Like, you gotta sell through your next 300, obviously. Did this, like, create a pathway for you, or is this where you'll end this journey and just one and done. And it was great.Ashley Russell:Yeah. So when I first started, I had over 300 recipes from the family. And I reached out to my first editor contact and they were like, whoa, that's a lot of recipes. They're like, books are usually like 75 to 150. And I was like, oh. And like now seeing this printed and it's 260 pages, like, I get it. But at the time, I was like, I just wanted to have everything. And so I have at least one other book of Wanda's on the horizon.But for now, I'm really just trying to put myself in. What if I had a publisher? What if I had an agent? What would they be doing? So it's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of reaching out to retail stores, seeing if I can get an interview on a podcast, trying to put my book out there in ways that I know of and seeing where it lands. I have. There's about seven stores in Portland that are carrying the book right now, and they're all stores I really love. And that's super exciting.Stephanie Hansen:They carry it on consignment or do you sell them to them outright?Ashley Russell:It depends. So a couple are wholesale and a couple are consignment. Wholesale obviously works better for us, but I'm just happy to have the book out there. I think it's a good time of year. You know, she made all these dishes for Thanksgiving and. And Christmas, so it's the. It's the time to have it in your kitchen.Stephanie Hansen:Do you. Can you talk about, like, how much you make per book?Ashley Russell:Sure. So if I'm talking just printing costs to do the 300 with the brown printing and the riso printing I did by hand at outlet PDX, we're looking at about $20 a book. And I have the book priced at 38. So because I'm not splitting this with any publisher or agent, that means technically $20 profit goes back into my pocket. But at this point, we're still paying off all the production costs, and it also doesn't include that dollar amount. Doesn't include, like, my labor. So when you really figure it out, it's probably. Or food.When you really figure out the numbers. This first round probably cost me about $50 a book to make, you know, and then the hope is, over the years, if continuing to sell copies here and there, you break even, or maybe you make a few dollars.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it's. It is kind of like that. As you get, like, past Wanda's story, do you see this being a journey you'll stay on, or is it really just. I'm curious if it ignited something in you because you seem like a creative person.Ashley Russell:Yeah. Like, I've always wanted to be a writer, and it's been pretty daunting. My grandma always encouraged me to be a writer. This feels like that first step. I also like the idea. I've heard a cookbook is, like, the best business card, you know, And I think that's, like, a great way to look at it, too. It's something that I've made that I can say, you know, I wrote this, I've made this. I'd like to do this project.Stephanie Hansen:And fascinating, because that is for. For me personally, I wanted to have agency in the cooking space, and I wasn't. And I wasn't a writer, so I was like, how am I going to get that? I wanted to have a television show. I wanted to do more podcasting, specifically about food. I had a radio show about food, but I needed to have more autonomy, and that's how I started.Ashley Russell:Totally. That makes sense. Did you. Do you feel like that helped achieve some of the dreams you had?Stephanie Hansen:Oh, for sure. I have a TV show now, and I wouldn't have had the TV show if I hadn't have written the cookbook, I don't think.Ashley Russell:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Because even though I'm a home chef or a home cook and not a chef at all, actually having the book gives you some credibility of why this person's gonna invest in you and put you on television station. 88 markets. I don't think they would have done that if I wouldn't have had the book.Ashley Russell:Totally. And honestly, like, I think being a home chef, you almost write a better cookbook because you can anticipate what other home chefs are going to be confused by or what they need written down.Stephanie Hansen:Well. And a lot of the best chefs, who I have much admiration and respect for, their books are really challenging or technical and. And that's great. Like, maybe that's who they're writing them for. But some of my favorite chefs, I get their books and I keep them because I love the photography and I just admire so much of the skills and what they bring to the party. But very few of them I actually ever cooked out of.Ashley Russell:Yeah, they're like these beautiful aspirations.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, they're aspirational books, for sure.Ashley Russell:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Can you talk a little bit about Wanda? Just your grandma? Like, you just have a real spirit about you that must come from her. And I'm just curious why she was so meaningful to you outside of just being your grandma.Ashley Russell:Yeah, totally. So I was raised by my mom. It was just me and my mom and I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents. I think when you're set up in that sort of one parent system, I was either going with my mom everywhere or I was spending summers at my grandparents, and those summers at my grandparents. I, I feel like as an adult, I'm sort of chasing that feeling, you know, of, of being, you know.Stephanie Hansen:Really? Yeah. Oh, that's so touching.Ashley Russell:Yeah. I mean, it's true. Whether it's cooking in the kitchen or laughing with my grandpa. You know, my grandma taught me how to sew, and later on in life, I worked in costumes and I used to bake with her, and now I'm making this cookbook. She meant a lot to me. And I know, I know both of them meant so much to our whole family that I don't want, I don't want us to lose that, and I don't want anyone that comes next in our family to not know about it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Yeah. What a beautiful sentiment. I, I just the I, the what you said, just, I've been chasing that feeling is really. I wrote my book for very similar reasons. You know, my mom had died early of breast cancer, and I wanted to document family recipes. Yeah, just the way you said that was really beautiful, so. Oh, that's so nice.Ashley Russell:I, I, whether or not we're aware of it, that we're, we're kind of doing that right. You know, where's your happy place? What makes you, what brings you happiness? And those memories really do as, as I'm sure other memories for other people do for them.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. All right. Well, I have loved hearing your story. I knew right away when the book came across my desk and you reached out to me directly, I was like, oh, yeah, I do want to talk to her. I want to figure out, like, what inspired her to take this on. Because it is a labor of love, you. Even if, I mean, I don't I've not read a statistic, but like most cookbooks and most cookbook authors are not getting rich by writing cookbooks. They're using it to parlayed into other things.So it's usually not actually a money making endeavor. It's more a creative process and something that you do as a labor of love. And I think a lot of people that love cookbooks may be listening, you know, have wanted to do this. So I wanted to like, really document, like, how did you do it and what did you think about and how did you decide to put it together? When you put your list of recipes together, was it obvious what was going to make it?Ashley Russell:Yeah, you know, it started with what are the family favorites? What, what do we have to have? And then it was with, you know, what turned out really well in recipe testing. And from there, like, you know, the, the, the baking section's over half the book. Yeah. And then it was sort of trying to round out the other sections of the book. Yeah. And they were recipes that could stand the test of time and that people would still want to make and also that my, my grandma would enjoy another favorites. Oh, yeah. So I mean, her banana bread is like, I knew I wanted to start the book with her banana bread and end it with sweet tea.That's my grandma to the core. And then in between, you know, there's so many great home cooked meals, home cooked desserts. She had a famous chocolate pie, famous pecan pie. Her Italian cream cake is to die for. It's like a coconut cake. Um, my aunt Angie, her oldest daughter, said that people used to request that she make that. So that was fun to learn and to put in the book.Stephanie Hansen:And now you know how to make all the things too, or a lot of the things.Ashley Russell:Yes. My family's like, well, I guess you're cooking for Thanksgiving now because you know all of her recipes.Stephanie Hansen:Oh, that's so great. I really enjoyed talking to you. It is Ashley Russell. The book is I wrote the what's Cooking Good Looking? Sorry. It is a really beautiful, fun, different way to approach this topic of cookbooks. And I was really. I'm impressed by what you did and I know your grandma would be, she would love it. She'd be real proud of you.And it's really nice to talk with you and share your story. I'll put a link to the book in the podcast notes and put that all together and hopefully we'll help you sell through your next 300. Ashley.Ashley Russell:Thank you, Stephanie. I really appreciate it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it was great. To hear your story and to just spend time with you. Good luck.Ashley Russell:Thanks. Have a good day.Stephanie Hansen:All right. Bye.Ashley Russell:Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Original Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie Hansen:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, a lot of cookbook authors, manufacturers, and people who are doing cool things with food. And Ashley Russell came across my desk, and she has a cookbook that's called “What's Cooking Good Looking”. And I was first of all, captured by the illustrations in the book you are working on or have. They were very. How do I describe them? They were like tattoos. They were adorable, and they are original art by @sadpuppytattoo. When Ashley describes the banana bread of her grandmas, she was generous enough to share the recipe here.Ashley Russell:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Tell me about the book and how you decided to illustrate it the way you did. And then I wanted to talk to you specifically about self publishing a book, because I think a lot of people think about it, but they're not sure how to do it. So I just wanted to get your feedback.Ashley Russell:Totally. So I started this book inspired by my grandma. She passed away in 2024, summer of 2024. And it was almost immediate, was like, we have to have all the family has to have our recipes. And so she had a really cute little vintage recipe card box, and the whole process just sort of unfolded over the past year and a half. It is definitely a lot of Southern cooking. She's from Texas, but lived the past 30 years up in northern Washington. And her and my mom and her siblings lived all over the country.So there's just a little bit of everything in there from, like, recipes she got from neighbors or things that she learned from different parts of the country. So it's a really fun, like, eclectic mix of American cooking. And it's just so much her. Like, there's sugar and everything, and it's just. I'm so happy to have all of the family favorites in one place. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Did you work with members of the family, or was it primarily. Did it fall on you to compile everything?Ashley Russell:I definitely compiled everything, but my family was there every step of the way. Like, my grandma wrote in cursive, and I couldn't always read it.Stephanie Hansen:A lot of our grandmas wrote in cursive, and it is hard to read.Ashley Russell:It's so hard to read. And so we started this text group, and I would be like, does anyone know what this says? And then also things like vegetable oil or sweet milk or, you know, polio olio. Exactly. What is that?Stephanie Hansen:It's shortening. But, I mean, nobody knew.Ashley Russell:Nobody knew. And so it was a lot of just, like, you know, there were puzzles to it, and it was funny, and it brought us together and it kept us talking about her. And then, in addition to the community that I reached out to here in Portland, all My family members helped recipe test because it's like they remembered how it was supposed to taste. So it was almost like, you know, I think that this is missing this because she didn't write everything down. Like, a lot of things lived in her head.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Did you ever done this before or anything like this? Do you. What's your background?Ashley Russell:No. So I worked for a decade in costume design. I worked on a lot of small budget indie film and tv. And so I think I'm used to like, okay, we have this big hurdle of a project ahead. But I've never, I've never written a book. I've never written a cookbook. And the whole process was such a journey, but it, it was all so much fun, I think, because I was like learning and uncovering things about my family along the way. Yeah.Ashley Russell:So.Stephanie Hansen:Well, the creative process too, I think, is. Know you talk about being a costume designer. I didn't really think about writing a cookbook or recipes or being a recipe developer as a creative endeavor until I kind of started doing it more. And then I was like, oh, yeah, this does require creativity. And this is where that, where I scratch that itch.Ashley Russell:Yes, totally. I agree with that. It is super creative. And I never realized that either. I have a few cookbooks, but in this process, it made me realize, like, what little magical creative books they are and how much, you know, there's people's dreams and they nourish us and they're little windows into different parts of history and people's lives and they're just pretty cool. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:And people talk about like, I'm, I'm in the process of. I just released a book in September, so I'm out at bookstores and grocery stores and selling the book everywhere. And a lot of people are like, oh, you know, nobody really needs cookbooks anymore. And I was like, well, actually, you can always look up a recipe on the Internet that's there, but the narrative, the piece of how that fits into their life, the memory that that recipe brings or that combination of spices that transports you to a place that is what is unique about a cookbook. It's. It's so much more than just the recipe. And if you're not jazzed by any of that, then, yeah, it's probably not for you.Ashley Russell:Totally. Yes. Like, you have to be inspired by it. Right. And like, I don't know, I get pretty annoyed with recipes online. There's a ton of pop ups and your phone, you know, has the auto timer and it has to face ID every two minutes. I. It's just when you have it in a cookbook, it's almost like the record version of like a Spotify song.I don't know, like, you sure? Yeah, yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Like, and you can get a song but you don't have it in the context of all the songs in the record and that the artist had. Yeah, it's very similar, actually.Ashley Russell:Totally. And like, people love listening to records and collecting records and I really just think it's, it's, it's a similar. Comes from a similar place.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Okay. So your book, what's Cooking Good Looking? It is a spiral bound, which I thought was an interesting choice that I want to ask you about. And it's also got these illustrations. Did you illustrate it or did someone else? They're real cute. They're like tattooed inspired and they're kind of jazzy and it kind of. It had like a hipster core vibe to it.Ashley Russell:Yes. So my boyfriend's brother's sister, so more or less my sister in law. I've known her for six years now. She's a tattoo artist and she does a lot of florals and she did like a food flash at one point. And I've always loved her art. And when I was first starting the book, I was in Canva and I was like, oh, clip art's cute. And I was like, you know, I don't know if I would ever release a book with clip art in it, you know, And I wasn't sold on doing photography. I knew how specific and it had to be.Ashley Russell:Like, people have nailed food photography. If I was going to do it, I wanted to make sure it rocked. And so I asked her one day, I was like, would you want to illustrate this book? And she was like, oh my God, yes. And her tattoos are in black and white already. So it kind of, it transferred pretty easily into print form. And so I was able to use all of her tattoo library, like things she had already drawn. And then she drew things specifically for the book as well. And I just think it looks awesome.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it really does. It's real sweet. And what about the choice of spiral bound? And can you talk, can you make that be the introduction of talking about like how you decided to self publish and did you go out and try to find agents or did you go right to self publishing?Ashley Russell:Sure. So I in the past couple years have been really inspired by Rizzo prints and graphic novels and a lot of small press publishing and super inspired by vintage cookbooks. And a lot of them are spiral bound or they're notebook bound. And it's. It's kind of like, it gives it this retro feel, and it's kind of an homage to all of, like, the women's groups and church groups that did cookbooks over the decades. But I also think it's super functional in the kitchen. And I had a graphic design friend mention to me that she loves when a spiral bound is a color that totally offsets the book. So my book is, like, very black and white and yellow, and then it has this bright red spiral binding.And I just think it makes it pop. Like, it's. It's fun and practical. So as far as self publishing. So when I started this, it was really just a project for my family. It was really just, you know, I wanted them to have all the recipes. I. I wasn't even sure if I was going to print it.And as the process unfolded more, I realized more and more that I wanted to make this a book. And I wanted to put my heart in this book. And I wanted to share who Wanda and our family is with the world. And it really was just like a flower slowly blooming. Like, every week would be like, oh, I have to put the ingredients in the order of the method. Oh, you have to do this. Oh, people like, you know, like, you want everything in a recipe on one page. You don't want to have to, like, go back and forth.And it became this really fun project puzzle for me to be like, maybe I can create a cookbook. And so I didn't reach out to agents or anything, because I think the main important part was for this book to be about my grandma and come from me. And I was worried that having an agent or a publisher might dilute that a little bit.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, they'd have feedback or input or change things. Sure.Ashley Russell:Yeah. So I was able to work with a lot of friends, family, and get a lot of feedback throughout the entire process. I hired an editor, and so there was that constructive criticism, but I didn't feel like the voice or the vision was changing for profit, per se. And so self publishing is what I stuck with. And I think that in order for me to print this book the way I wanted to and for it to look the way it does, I don't know if I could have convinced a publisher to get on board with that.Stephanie Hansen:So then you make that decision and you've got your book assembled or your PDF pages, essentially. Did you tell me about, like, did you go out and just Google, like, how to self publish? Did you figure out, like, how to print on Demand was there color considerations. Kind of walk me through that process a little bit.Ashley Russell:Sure. So I did start looking up print on demand and I started Googling, you know, how to write a cookbook. I listened to Maggie Green's podcast Cookbook Love, like, religiously. I got books on the subject, and I really just created, like, it was my own research project. And I was learning as I went. What turned me away from doing, like, on demand printing or online publishing was that I really wanted it to be spiral bound. I knew that from the beginning almost. And I really wanted to do a mixture of Rizzo printing.Ashley Russell:And I wanted the paper. I just wanted everything to be really high quality and feel like her note cards, feel like her recipe cards. And I didn't think I would get that with online printing. So I went and talked with a few print shops here in Portland, Oregon, and Brown Printing, like, got the project right away. And I've been working with them for the past several months to get it printed.Stephanie Hansen:Have you. Have you printed, like, X amount and you're kind of selling stock as you go?Ashley Russell:Yeah, So I, you know, budget has been a concern throughout this whole process. Like, anyone who's made a cookbook knows it gets very expensive between recipe testing. And I did end up doing photography. I did it myself. All of those things really add up. And so I did an initial print run of 300, which is almost gone at this point. I just picked it up in the beginning of the month. And Brown's doing another run of.Ashley Russell:Of, 300 for the 1st of December so I can have more for the holidays.Stephanie Hansen:And then do you package them up and ship them when people make an order? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because people don't think about that. But you have to buy, like, special envelopes. You have to go to the post office. There is a category for media mail that makes it a little cheaper, but it's still. It's a process.Ashley Russell:It is a process. Like, every bit of this has been such a process. And so, yeah, my. My limit, I had about 180 orders to ship out when I got all the books from recipe testers. Order, pre-orders, family, you know, you name it. And our whole. Our whole living room and kitchen was just, like, stacked with boxes and you.Stephanie Hansen:And they're bigger than you think.Ashley Russell:Like, they're bigger than you think and they're heavy.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. And a box of like, 15 books is, like, a big box. And they're everywhere.Ashley Russell:They're everywhere. Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of like if you're an Etsy shop owner, you know, kind of our pain, I guess. But, you know, you're doing. You're the manual labor and you're the author and you're the publisher, you know, so you're doing everything. And I lugged them all down to the UPS and USPS and shipped them off. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Where do you go from here with it? Like, you gotta sell through your next 300, obviously. Did this, like, create a pathway for you, or is this where you'll end this journey and just one and done. And it was great.Ashley Russell:Yeah. So when I first started, I had over 300 recipes from the family. And I reached out to my first editor contact and they were like, whoa, that's a lot of recipes. They're like, books are usually like 75 to 150. And I was like, oh. And like now seeing this printed and it's 260 pages, like, I get it. But at the time, I was like, I just wanted to have everything. And so I have at least one other book of Wanda's on the horizon.But for now, I'm really just trying to put myself in. What if I had a publisher? What if I had an agent? What would they be doing? So it's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of reaching out to retail stores, seeing if I can get an interview on a podcast, trying to put my book out there in ways that I know of and seeing where it lands. I have. There's about seven stores in Portland that are carrying the book right now, and they're all stores I really love. And that's super exciting.Stephanie Hansen:They carry it on consignment or do you sell them to them outright?Ashley Russell:It depends. So a couple are wholesale and a couple are consignment. Wholesale obviously works better for us, but I'm just happy to have the book out there. I think it's a good time of year. You know, she made all these dishes for Thanksgiving and. And Christmas, so it's the. It's the time to have it in your kitchen.Stephanie Hansen:Do you. Can you talk about, like, how much you make per book?Ashley Russell:Sure. So if I'm talking just printing costs to do the 300 with the brown printing and the riso printing I did by hand at outlet PDX, we're looking at about $20 a book. And I have the book priced at 38. So because I'm not splitting this with any publisher or agent, that means technically $20 profit goes back into my pocket. But at this point, we're still paying off all the production costs, and it also doesn't include that dollar amount. Doesn't include, like, my labor. So when you really figure it out, it's probably. Or food.When you really figure out the numbers. This first round probably cost me about $50 a book to make, you know, and then the hope is, over the years, if continuing to sell copies here and there, you break even, or maybe you make a few dollars.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it's. It is kind of like that. As you get, like, past Wanda's story, do you see this being a journey you'll stay on, or is it really just. I'm curious if it ignited something in you because you seem like a creative person.Ashley Russell:Yeah. Like, I've always wanted to be a writer, and it's been pretty daunting. My grandma always encouraged me to be a writer. This feels like that first step. I also like the idea. I've heard a cookbook is, like, the best business card, you know, And I think that's, like, a great way to look at it, too. It's something that I've made that I can say, you know, I wrote this, I've made this. I'd like to do this project.Stephanie Hansen:And fascinating, because that is for. For me personally, I wanted to have agency in the cooking space, and I wasn't. And I wasn't a writer, so I was like, how am I going to get that? I wanted to have a television show. I wanted to do more podcasting, specifically about food. I had a radio show about food, but I needed to have more autonomy, and that's how I started.Ashley Russell:Totally. That makes sense. Did you. Do you feel like that helped achieve some of the dreams you had?Stephanie Hansen:Oh, for sure. I have a TV show now, and I wouldn't have had the TV show if I hadn't have written the cookbook, I don't think.Ashley Russell:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Because even though I'm a home chef or a home cook and not a chef at all, actually having the book gives you some credibility of why this person's gonna invest in you and put you on television station. 88 markets. I don't think they would have done that if I wouldn't have had the book.Ashley Russell:Totally. And honestly, like, I think being a home chef, you almost write a better cookbook because you can anticipate what other home chefs are going to be confused by or what they need written down.Stephanie Hansen:Well. And a lot of the best chefs, who I have much admiration and respect for, their books are really challenging or technical and. And that's great. Like, maybe that's who they're writing them for. But some of my favorite chefs, I get their books and I keep them because I love the photography and I just admire so much of the skills and what they bring to the party. But very few of them I actually ever cooked out of.Ashley Russell:Yeah, they're like these beautiful aspirations.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, they're aspirational books, for sure.Ashley Russell:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Can you talk a little bit about Wanda? Just your grandma? Like, you just have a real spirit about you that must come from her. And I'm just curious why she was so meaningful to you outside of just being your grandma.Ashley Russell:Yeah, totally. So I was raised by my mom. It was just me and my mom and I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents. I think when you're set up in that sort of one parent system, I was either going with my mom everywhere or I was spending summers at my grandparents, and those summers at my grandparents. I, I feel like as an adult, I'm sort of chasing that feeling, you know, of, of being, you know.Stephanie Hansen:Really? Yeah. Oh, that's so touching.Ashley Russell:Yeah. I mean, it's true. Whether it's cooking in the kitchen or laughing with my grandpa. You know, my grandma taught me how to sew, and later on in life, I worked in costumes and I used to bake with her, and now I'm making this cookbook. She meant a lot to me. And I know, I know both of them meant so much to our whole family that I don't want, I don't want us to lose that, and I don't want anyone that comes next in our family to not know about it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Yeah. What a beautiful sentiment. I, I just the I, the what you said, just, I've been chasing that feeling is really. I wrote my book for very similar reasons. You know, my mom had died early of breast cancer, and I wanted to document family recipes. Yeah, just the way you said that was really beautiful, so. Oh, that's so nice.Ashley Russell:I, I, whether or not we're aware of it, that we're, we're kind of doing that right. You know, where's your happy place? What makes you, what brings you happiness? And those memories really do as, as I'm sure other memories for other people do for them.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. All right. Well, I have loved hearing your story. I knew right away when the book came across my desk and you reached out to me directly, I was like, oh, yeah, I do want to talk to her. I want to figure out, like, what inspired her to take this on. Because it is a labor of love, you. Even if, I mean, I don't I've not read a statistic, but like most cookbooks and most cookbook authors are not getting rich by writing cookbooks. They're using it to parlayed into other things.So it's usually not actually a money making endeavor. It's more a creative process and something that you do as a labor of love. And I think a lot of people that love cookbooks may be listening, you know, have wanted to do this. So I wanted to like, really document, like, how did you do it and what did you think about and how did you decide to put it together? When you put your list of recipes together, was it obvious what was going to make it?Ashley Russell:Yeah, you know, it started with what are the family favorites? What, what do we have to have? And then it was with, you know, what turned out really well in recipe testing. And from there, like, you know, the, the, the baking section's over half the book. Yeah. And then it was sort of trying to round out the other sections of the book. Yeah. And they were recipes that could stand the test of time and that people would still want to make and also that my, my grandma would enjoy another favorites. Oh, yeah. So I mean, her banana bread is like, I knew I wanted to start the book with her banana bread and end it with sweet tea.That's my grandma to the core. And then in between, you know, there's so many great home cooked meals, home cooked desserts. She had a famous chocolate pie, famous pecan pie. Her Italian cream cake is to die for. It's like a coconut cake. Um, my aunt Angie, her oldest daughter, said that people used to request that she make that. So that was fun to learn and to put in the book.Stephanie Hansen:And now you know how to make all the things too, or a lot of the things.Ashley Russell:Yes. My family's like, well, I guess you're cooking for Thanksgiving now because you know all of her recipes.Stephanie Hansen:Oh, that's so great. I really enjoyed talking to you. It is Ashley Russell. The book is I wrote the what's Cooking Good Looking? Sorry. It is a really beautiful, fun, different way to approach this topic of cookbooks. And I was really. I'm impressed by what you did and I know your grandma would be, she would love it. She'd be real proud of you.And it's really nice to talk with you and share your story. I'll put a link to the book in the podcast notes and put that all together and hopefully we'll help you sell through your next 300. Ashley.Ashley Russell:Thank you, Stephanie. I really appreciate it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it was great. To hear your story and to just spend time with you. Good luck.Ashley Russell:Thanks. Have a good day.Stephanie Hansen:All right. Bye.Ashley Russell:Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Use these 10 strategies to drive traffic to your print on demand store and convert qualified potential customers into happy buyers!

STOP selling apparel in your Print on Demand Etsy Shop. (I literally couldn't believe Heather said this.) Tune in for 2026 Print on Demand advice you don't want to miss from HeatherStudio. She's sharing why she's steering away from apparel and what she suggests instead for more sales and faster success. **"How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy" is not affiliated with or endorsed by Etsy.com    STUFF I MENTIONED:  ❄️ BLACK FRIDAY SALES: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/black-friday-sales     ➡️ Join the Template Drop Membership for weekly templates (commercial use): https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/offers/b2jFEqce/checkout   ➡️Check out ProfitTree's new product research tool ETSY RADAR: https://lifetime.profittree.io/?via=lizzie87 Get the best profit tracking tool to help you know your numbers AND a product research tool for a one time fee of $67. (completely insane) ✅FREE Etsy Ads Masterclass: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/request-etsy-ads-masterclass    ⭐ FIND HEATHER: Tech MegaSeller Program: https://heatherstudio.samcart.com/products/tech-megaseller-program Use code: lizzie100   LEGACY SPECIAL for pay in full - Print on Demand Academy: https://lizziesmiley--heatherxstudio.thrivecart.com/printondemandacademy3/?coupon=PODALEGACY  Heather's course—Print on Demand Academy 3.0: https://lizziesmiley--heatherxstudio.thrivecart.com/printondemandacademy3/ FREE—POD Crash Course: https://studio.heatherxstudio.com/etsypodcrashcourse Heather on Social: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@itsheatherstudio Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsheatherstudio/   FAN FAVORITE RESOURCES:

In this inspiring alumni episode, Polly sits down with Robyn, the creator of The Essential Planner, to discuss her journey from failed print-on-demand attempts to creating a luxury-quality product with confidence. Robyn shares how burnout and motherhood led her to design a planner that helps women align their goals with their values. You'll hear how she found her dream printer, funded her first run through Kickstarter, and turned her vision into reality with the support of Print School and Launch School.

In this episode, Matt & Lauren explore one of our current favorite industry trends: the resurgence of print magazines! We talk through the many ways creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses are using print-on-demand, and: Why print magazines are making a comebackHow creators are publishing, selling, and distributing magazinesDifferent types of magazine products Watch this episode on YouTube!Dive Deeper

There's currently a way to set yourself apart from your competition selling embroidered print on demand products through Printify. This not only yields a pricing advantage, but also opens the door to offering personalization that otherwise would not be viable

✨ Suis-moi sur Instagram : instagram.com/laurita.socaliente/ Venez je vous fais gagner 10 ans de thérapie en 20 minutes, avec un podcast décousu, comme on les aime ! On aborde divers sujets, vous trouverez forcément votre bonheur. - Parfois, c'est une bénédiction de ne pas comprendre quelqu'un. - Certaines personnes aiment leurs problèmes - Out, les gens qui vous font vous questionner sur si vous êtes ami(e)s - Si vous avez les mains gelées, l'eau froide paraît chaude - Les gens marrants ont grandi dans des environnements "pas marrants" - Vous êtes une personne différente pour chaque personne que vous rencontrez. - Ceux qui veulent te voir gagner, t'aident à gagner. - Comment juger le choix de quelqu'un quand on ne connaît pas ses options ? - Arrêtons de négocier avec la version la plus faible de nous-même Et bien d'autres réflexions. A tout de suite ;)

I used Voc AI to study thousands of Amazon product reviews & comments, using the new Review Monitoring feature, and implemented what I learned to improve my own print on demand listings. Now my POD listings convert like crazy!

In this episode I'm sharing 5 print on demand niches that you can target to increase your sales in the near future

Ken Brock, co-owner of RODTEES and Your Logo Wear, joins The Best of LKN podcast to share a 37-year journey in custom apparel—from San Diego roots to building a thriving fulfillment and branding shop here in Lake Norman. He and his wife, Kim, run a true one-stop operation: in-house screen printing, embroidery, laser engraving, leather-patch hats, stickers, and banners, plus print-on-demand and drop-ship services for artists, schools, events, and brands nationwide. Their car-culture niche helped seed an online engine that still powers the business today.Listeners will hear why the couple chose North Carolina in 2010, what they love about the seasons and small-business ecosystem here, and how serving local companies creates a built-in business network. Ken also talks shop—what's hot now (hello, laser-engraved tumblers and patch hats), why they keep production in-house, and how thoughtful product ideas and social content spark win-wins for clients. Along the way, he reflects on family, travel-soccer life, and the “80% and go” mindset that's guided their ventures.Want to connect or order? Visit rodtees.com .---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Lake Norman's #1 Podcast & Email NewsletterThe Best of LKNhttps://thebestoflkn.com/Hosted by:Jeff Hammwww.lknreal.comSupport the show

In deze aflevering neem ik je mee in mijn ontmoeting met de Nederlandse fotograaf Vincent Mentzel. Een man met een ongelooflijke carrière bij NRC en een scherp oog voor menselijkheid. Hij herinnerde me eraan hoe belangrijk het is om tijd te nemen, respect te tonen en mild te zijn – als fotograaf én als mens.Ik vertel hoe dit gesprek me raakte, waarom ik geloof in langzame, eerlijke content zoals deze podcast, en hoe ik bewust kies om te investeren in wat op lange termijn waarde brengt. Want echte verbinding ontstaat niet in haast, maar in aandacht.Daarnaast nodig ik je uit voor de online masterclass met Raisa Zwart op maandag 10 november om 15u. Raisa deelt hoe zij haar fotografie wereldwijd laat verspreiden via print on demand – een prachtige manier om een extra, passieve inkomstenstroom op te bouwen als fotograaf.

CAConrad has been writing poems for over 50 years and working with (Soma)tic poetry rituals for over 20 years. Their latest book is Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return (Wave Books / UK Penguin 2024). They won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Creative Capital grant, a Pew Fellowship, a Lambda Poetry Award, and others. The Book of Frank is now available in 9 different languages, and they coedited SUPPLICATION: Selected Poems of John Wieners (Wave Books). They also exhibit poems as sculpture with recent solo shows in London's CHAMP LACOMBE, MOCA-Tucson, Fluent in Santander, and Batalha Centro in Porto. They teach at the Sandberg Art Institute and De Ateliers in Amsterdam. They are on Instagram at CAConrad88.On this episode, CA discusses their lineage of occult poets, spirit-led writing, and how they came to develop their (Soma)tic poetry ritual practice.Pam also talks about the magic of solitude, and answers a listener question about needing alone time for one's witchcraft.Check out the video of this episode over on YouTube (and please like and subscribe to the channel while you're at it!)Our sponsors for this episode are Weiser Books, Spells for Success, Immaculate Design, BetterHelp, and Mithras Candle.We also have print-on-demand merch like Witch Wave shirts, sweatshirts, totes, stickers, and mugs available now here, and all sorts of other bewitching goodies available in the Witch Wave shop.And if you want more Witch Wave, please consider supporting us on Patreon to get access to detailed show notes, bonus Witch Wave Plus episodes, Pam's monthly online rituals, and more! That's patreon.com/witchwave

In the grimdark shadow running, cyber punkish future of 2077, a group of mercs enter the 00 Casino and Resort, off strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's a fight night across town, and as a partner casino, the 00 has a cool 100 million cred in their vault to cover bets, to say nothing of covering table games and any other treats kept safe. While this group takes over the building to rob it, it becomes apparent that they are not the only people inside capable of meting out violence...Slasher Flick is a game of blood curdling horror by Cynthia Celeste Miller and Spectrum Games. The game is available in pdf from DriveThruRPG, and in physical as a print on demand book from Lulu.Greg - GMBen - Primary - Foxtrot / Bruce, The Merc (Troll)Secondary - Picket / Dick Miller, The Safecracker (Human)Dan - Primary - (Black) Hat / Antoon Zoticus, The Hacker (Human)Secondary - Oculus / Hugo Mazhar, The Sniper (Human)Ethan - Primary - Wand / Lightouch, The Mage (Elf)Secondary - Wright / Charmine Winger, The Pilot (Elf)

I'm sharing my favorite "shortest path to profits" approach for selling print on demand ornaments this Q4. In this video we'll cover how to sell "static" design ornaments, which require the least amount of effort and allow us to capitalize on the holiday season spike in demand

Etsy's recent earnings call revealed some alarming information for print on demand sellers about the contraction in both sellers and buyers on Etsy in the previous quarter.

It's spooky season, and Midjourney's acting possessed — new UI, style creator, and a personalization trick you weren't supposed to find.Drew and Rory break down why Midjourney's entire system is quietly evolving—from Style Creator and V6 personalization inside V7 to what V8 might unlock. They also unpack Figma's surprise grab of Weavy, Adobe Max's wild AI experiments, and Google's Pomelli quietly rewriting ad generation. This episode connects the dots: how personalization, node-based canvases, and real creative workflows are converging into one massive shift.Topics: Midjourney V8, Style Creator, personalization, V6 profiles, V7 update, Weavy Figma acquisition, Adobe Max AI, node workflows, Pomelli AI ads, Magnific Precision V2, creative OS, AI image generation, design evolution, Google Pomelli---⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour00:00 – Halloween cold open, 80s kid-movie nostalgia (Stranger Things, Sandlot, Little Giants)04:18 – AI → physical: tees, stickers, and print-on-demand in minutes06:05 – Midjourney Office Hours: UI first, then V8; timing shifts to Jan-Feb range07:45 – New UI before V8; hopes and fears about “chatty” editors09:28 – Style Creator incoming; sharing styles like SRF codes; what creation might look like12:17 – Editing wishlist: Nano-style natural-language edits, object/text consistency14:01 – Character & product consistency: why keyframes still morph and how to fix it15:32 – Typography rant: fonts, spacing, and why AI text still isn't there yet20:21 – Live unlock: using V6 profile codes inside V7 (and what counts as an “image”)28:07 – Upscale behavior confirmed; where Magnific/Topaz still help33:31 – Magnific Precision V2: Sublime vs Photo; smart grain and practical settings37:13 – Weavy → Figma: why a 13-person team got acquired in 4 months40:00 – Aggregator era: Runway, Freepik, Adobe, node canvases, and UX moats44:23 – Adobe Max recap: node workflows, Surface/Trace/Light tools, image→3D, camera moves51:10 – Live lighting tweak (Light Touch) and perspective shifts; finishing vs. generation1:01:33 – AI → physical again: Womp and useful 3D prints (beyond desk toys)1:04:18 – Google Pomelli: drop a URL, get brand-on-voice ad concepts fast1:10:04 – T-shirt workflow: face/style refs → Printify in ~1 hour1:16:28 – Wrap: “weeks are short” in AI; Midjourney says V8 is their most exciting yet

In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi Member Q&A podcast, hosts Michael La Ronn and Sacha Black discuss how an author can find a reliable publishing mentor, when to seek paid help, and low-cost community options to avoid overspending. Other questions include: Does ALLi maintain a vetted list of book contests, and where can members find it? Can you change your Amazon list price without matching the printed barcode price? Which review routes are worth it—editorial reviews vs. reader-review services? How should authors handle translations and run ads in languages they don't speak? Can you include color photo inserts with print-on-demand and still distribute on Amazon? How much lead time should ARC readers get, and do launch-day reviews matter? And more! Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-Publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of nearly 2,000 blog posts and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need. And, if you haven't already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. About the Hosts Michael La Ronn is ALLi's Outreach Manager. He is the author of over 80 science fiction & fantasy books and self-help books for writers. He writes from the great plains of Iowa and has managed to write while raising a family, working a full-time job, and even attending law school classes in the evenings (now graduated!). You can find his fiction at www.michaellaronn.com and his videos and books for writers at www.authorlevelup.com. Sacha Black is a bestselling and competition winning author, rebel podcaster, speaker and casual rule breaker. She writes fiction under a secret pen name and other books about the art of writing. When Sacha isn't writing, she runs ALLi's blog. She lives in England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son. You can find her on her website, her podcast, and on Instagram.  

In this episode I'm sharing 5 print on demand niches that you can target to increase your sales in the near future

I'm sharing my favorite way to monetize Thanksgiving as a print on demand seller, including a single design template that can we scaled out to 30+ different designs that customers LOVE + incentivizes them to purchase multiple products in a single order!

You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠!In this episode, I talk to Asa Donald is one-half of Backwards Tabletop, the publisher of the Backwards Universe of American horror games and Rust Never Sleeps, a solo mecha game. Their current project is Spine, a dark solo RPG about losing yourself in a book. Asa Donald on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/backwardsttrpg.bsky.social Spine (Digital): https://backwards-tabletop.itch.io/spineSpine (Physical): https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/68ec499e9e0b692d084d6b6c Show Notes:Asa's series on Bookplay and interviews with other designers: www.backwardstabletop.com Pale Fire by NabokovGames MentionedYou Will Die In This PlaceNormalityWisher Theurgist FatalistHarvestWreck This Deck (and Wreck This Book)Seven Part PactThe Sun's RansomYazeba's Bed and BreakfastIf you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter

Summary Discover how Passive Income Angel hit a $10K month on Etsy by mastering trends, timing, and creative strategy. In this episode, Cody Berman dives into Angel's journey from early struggles to thriving in the print-on-demand world. She reveals how to spot seasonal product trends, time listings 8–12 weeks before holidays, and use micro niches to boost visibility and sales. Learn how AI tools, personalization, and bundling can set your shop apart — and why understanding keyword research and aesthetics across holidays can unlock year-round sales.

In this episode, Polly Payne teaches you how to print and sell a beautiful luxury planner! Polly shares her exact process for creating high-end paper products—from choosing the right printer to packaging, pricing, and selling online. You'll learn why print-on-demand isn't ideal for luxury paper goods, how to confidently work with overseas printers, and how to launch your product successfully.   If you've ever dreamed of creating your own planner, devotional, or guided journal, this episode will show you how to do it with excellence, not perfection.   ✨ SIGN UP NOW FOR OUR PRINT YOUR THING CHALLENGE: https://www.dreamprinting.co/challenge   What You'll Learn: The difference between print-on-demand and bulk overseas printing How to cut printing costs and improve quality Tips for designing, funding, and launching your first product Why perfectionism holds you back—and how to move forward How to sell authentically through education and storytelling   Resources from Today's Episode: ✨ Free Print Workshop: https://www.horacioprinting.com/workshop ✨ Apply for Print School: https://www.dreamprinting.co/ ✨ Get Your Paper Fix: https://www.horacioprinting.com ✨ Email: hi@dreamprinting.co ✨ Follow on Instagram: @_print_school   About Polly: Polly Payne is the CEO and founder of Horacio Printing. She's sold more than 57,000 Dream Planners worldwide and now helps other dreamers do the same through her program, Print School.   #smallbusiness #plannerbusiness #dreamprinting #PrintSchool #faithbasedbusiness #stationerylove #plannercommunity

Watch me build a fully functional print on demand store with trending designs from Amazon, using Everbee store to host the e-commerce site!

In this episode I'm sharing 5 print on demand niches that you can target to increase your sales in the near future

Now That We're A Family Print Magazine: Receive Powerful Biblical Family Encouragement Order the magazine print issues here: Fall: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/68e3399759c51375f39d8d72Spring: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/67c7787bc67c2e1cbaac0640Summer: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/685dc0aa325904060f51e397

The Death Witch, Loretta Ledesma, also known as Loo, is the founder of The Mile High Conjure Gala, a Santa Muerte Devotee, and a co-owner of The Cauldron Black. She has a deep relationship with the spirit world, ancestors, and is a lover of plants and a seeker of justice. She approaches the work from the Conjure tradition and has a close open relationship with the dead. Loretta walks her spiritual path comfortably with less freely talked about workings. She is also a maker of traditional oils, powders, waters, and other fine provisions.Loretta is a legacy student of Conjure Man Professor Charles Porterfield. She has learned from and sits at the table with some of the most sought-after teachers and elders in Conjure. Her goals in the work are community building and participation, and reclamation of the magic that runs through all our veins. On this episode, Loretta discusses her relationship to death, her approach to justice magic, and how she's thinking about Samhain during this transitional and historical time.Pam also talks about honoring her creative ancestors, and answers a listener question about cohabitating with a non-witch neatnik. Check out the video of this episode over on YouTube (and please like and subscribe to the channel while you're at it!)Our sponsors for this episode are Witch Baby Soap, Mithras Candle, BetterHelp, and Immaculate Design.We also have print-on-demand merch like Witch Wave shirts, sweatshirts, totes, stickers, and mugs available now here, and all sorts of other bewitching goodies available in the Witch Wave shop.And if you want more Witch Wave, please consider supporting us on Patreon to get access to detailed show notes, bonus Witch Wave Plus episodes, Pam's monthly online rituals, and more! That's patreon.com/witchwave

#637 Ever wonder how a side hustle born in a guest bedroom can grow into a nationwide licensed apparel brand? In this episode, host Kirsten Tyrrel sits down with entrepreneur Megan Smalley, founder of Scarlet & Gold, to explore her 13-year journey building a thriving apparel company that creates products people actually want to wear. Megan shares how she evolved from running a small side hustle out of her guest bedroom to managing a licensed apparel brand serving universities nationwide. She opens up about the twists and turns of entrepreneurship — from shutting down her business during motherhood, to relaunching with a print-on-demand model, to scaling into wholesale and overseas manufacturing. Megan also offers valuable insight into leadership, building team culture, managing growth, and breaking into the wholesale market. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, this episode is packed with real-world lessons on pivoting, perseverance, and creating meaningful products! What we discuss with Megan: + From guest bedroom to national brand + Building licensed collegiate apparel + Transitioning from retail to print-on-demand + Overcoming challenges during motherhood + Scaling through wholesale and manufacturing + Breaking into the NCAA licensing space + Managing a growing in-person team + Creating strong company culture and values + Wholesale tips for boutique partnerships + Lessons on leadership and business pivots Thank you, Megan! Check out Scarlet & Gold at ScarletandGoldShop.com. Follow Megan on Instagram. Watch the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠video podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this episode! To get access to our FREE Business Training course go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MillionaireUniversity.com/training⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. And follow us on: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tik Tok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To get exclusive offers mentioned in this episode and to support the show, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠millionaireuniversity.com/sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Want to hear from more incredible entrepreneurs? Check out all of our interviews ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elisha & Katie Voetberg's New Music Singles: - "Mom Of Boys" - https://open.spotify.com/track/00wqGeAlcghPjCBlotocAf?si=112a19d40af048c1- "This World Needs to Change" - https://open.spotify.com/track/6fHGmsJhNtfG7kfKJkJtnI?si=6920bf23f397460c - "Love We Choose" - https://open.spotify.com/track/4s1xxoEIpYyVzcIHqBHAUE?si=14a19b319c63435b- Now That We're A Family Print Magazine: Receive Powerful Biblical Family Encouragement Order the magazine print issues here: Fall: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/68e3399759c51375f39d8d72 Spring: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/67c7787bc67c2e1cbaac0640Summer: https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/685dc0aa325904060f51e397 - Mentioned during podcast: - "The Compound Effect" by Darren Hardy - https://amzn.to/3Jc1O8J - "The Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod - https://amzn.to/3IIP5dH - "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss - https://amzn.to/4n4xxXp - "The 10X Rule" by Grant Cardone - https://amzn.to/4oaunSW - "Rhythms for Life" by Alastair Sterne by https://amzn.to/47mEkae - "Socrates' Children Box Set" by Peter Kreeft - https://amzn.to/4og8Ub7

Kate Belew is an author, poet, and Witch. Her work exists at the crossroads of creativity and magic. She has taught and facilitated circles and workshops worldwide since 2017. She is dedicated to the spirit of poetry, the sacred wild of the planet, and seeks enchantment in all she does. She is a forever student of the plants and the stars. She has an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and is an initiated Green Witch. Her new book, Word Witch: How to Call Upon and Cultivate the Creative Magic Within You is out now.On this episode, Kate discusses the magic of wordcraft, how she works with creative ancestors, and why poetry is perhaps the most spellbinding form of writing. Pam also talks about the connection between language and spells, and answers a listener question about sacred and mundane ways to help with writing. Check out the video of this episode over on YouTube (and please like and subscribe to the channel while you're at it!)Our sponsors for this episode are Weiser Books, Witch Baby Soap, The Meta Muse Tarot, BetterHelp, Robin Rose Bennett, and Mithras CandleWe also have print-on-demand merch like Witch Wave shirts, sweatshirts, totes, stickers, and mugs available now here, and all sorts of other bewitching goodies available in the Witch Wave shop.And if you want more Witch Wave, please consider supporting us on Patreon to get access to detailed show notes, bonus Witch Wave Plus episodes, Pam's monthly online rituals, and more! That's patreon.com/witchwave