Episode 170 / Fantasy and sci-fi author Jamie Davis joins us to share insights on author branding, diversifying income, plus the best and worst advice he’d been given.
Find out how Jamie reaches his core readers and stays engaged with his audience, while also branching out into diversifying his income streams. Learn about promoting Kickstarter with additional content, and why failure can be a necessary step for growth.
We also talk about his upcoming Kickstarter, selling direct through his WooCommerce shop on his website, and how he plans to add subscriptions to his author business.
Author website:
Jamie Davis website: https://jamiedavisbooks.com
Jamie Davis Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/podmedic/created
💜 🎙 Become a supporter of the podcast! We can’t wait to give you a shoutout in a future episode. https://wishidknownforwriters.com/support
TimeStamps:
Sara Rosett [00:00:13]:
Well, today we’re excited to have a returning guest, Jamie Davis. Hi, Jamie. How are you?
Jamie Davis [00:00:18]:
I am fantastic. Thanks for having me back.
Jami Albright [00:00:21]:
You’re welcome. And we are so glad you’re back. And interestingly enough, the first time we interviewed you, I was at my mother’s, and I am at my mother’s today. Something about being at my others brings Jamie Davis to the table.
Jamie Davis [00:00:35]:
Well, just another Jamie in the house, right?
Sara Rosett [00:00:38]:
I know I feel left out when we do these interviews, so here, let me read your bio, and then we’ll get into the questions. Jamie Davis is a nurse, retired paramedic, and author. He loves everything fantasy and Sci-Fi, especially the places where stories intersect with his love of medicine or gaming. Jamie lives in a home in the woods in Maryland with his wife, three kids, and a dog. He writes urban contemporary he writes urban and contemporary fantasy. He writes urban and contemporary paranormal fantasy stories, as well as lit, RPG and Sci-Fi space westerns, among other things. He’s a very busy person.
Jami Albright [00:01:21]:
Yes. You do a lot.
Jamie Davis [00:01:23]:
I do. And I don’t want to tell people to write different genres, but I go where my muse takes me, and so far, it seems to have worked okay.
Jami Albright [00:01:31]:
That’s awesome. Well, give us a quick update of what’s been happening to you since you were last on the podcast in September of 2020.
Jamie Davis [00:01:42]:
It’s funny. That was, like, right in the midst of the pandemic. So I think I have to say the first thing that I did since I’ve seen you is I survived the pandemic. I was going to say and I don’t just mean that, like, physically. I mean, I actually had ups and downs in my business from the pandemic. I stopped writing for a little bit in there and had to really refined my focus and where I was writing and how I was writing and when I was writing in the day. And all those things changed a couple of times in there. And I know I’m not the only author that went through that. I think it’s important to mention that the pandemic affected all of us on a professional level as well as a personal level.
Jami Albright [00:02:26]:
Absolutely.
Jamie Davis [00:02:28]:
I just actually just finished book number 50 that I’ve written.
Sara Rosett [00:02:33]:
Congratulations.
Jamie Davis [00:02:34]:
And I’m happy about that. And I want to just say that it’s just a number. Celebrate all of your books finished. Whether it’s book number one, book number three, or book number 50, they are all worth celebrating and absolutely all accomplishments. And I write as fast as I can write, and there are people who write way faster than I do, and I don’t know how they do it. So we all have our point where we have to just kind of settle in.
Sara Rosett [00:03:01]:
So how long have you been publishing books, though?
Jamie Davis [00:03:05]:
Since late 2014.
Sara Rosett [00:03:07]:
Okay, so you’ve been at this a while, but that’s still a good amount of back catalog for readers to dive in.
Jamie Davis [00:03:19]:
I think something for writers to aspire to is building that back catalog, because every book becomes part of your back catalog. Every book you finish becomes another opportunity for readers to find you and another opportunity for readers to fall in love with your writing. And I think that every book is just another avenue for coming into your universe.
Jami Albright [00:03:44]:
That’s great.
Sara Rosett [00:03:45]:
I love that.
Jami Albright [00:03:46]:
Now, do your different genres intersect in any way?
Jamie Davis [00:03:52]:
You know, it’s funny you say that. Just like a month ago, I had a beta reader that I sent a story out to, and they just sent back, and the first thing they said was, it’s just another great Jamie Davis books. And I think that even though I write space westerns, I write stories about people and people in situations, and there’s similar themes in all my books and similar character focuses in all my books. And I think that that comes back to why I am able to successfully write in multiple genres. And it doesn’t mean that people read all of my genres, all my readers. But I do have a core group of readers who seem to just like everything that I do when I venture into something different and new. So I have to take that as a win. But that’s just something I never really thought of it, because I actually went back and asked them, I’m like, what do you mean by a Jamie Davis book? And they just said, It’s just fun, and I come away feeling good, and that’s something that I want. My brand is fun, fantasy, and Sci-Fi reads, and I think I’ve accomplished that. If somebody says feel good at the end of reading one of my books, then that’s what I want.
Sara Rosett [00:05:18]:
And you can use that, like, in reviews and your copy to let people know, because I think that’s what people are looking for. They’re looking for a feeling. And not all books of any type of genre give you the same feeling, so you can use that to pull in those readers who are looking for that.
Jamie Davis [00:05:34]:
Right.
Sara Rosett [00:05:34]:
Very smart.
Jamie Davis [00:05:35]:
And I think it’s a point that really figure out what your author brand is is such an important thing to do. And I didn’t do it early on, for sure. I mean, I came up with the idea of fun, fantasy, and Sci-Fi reads about three years ago, like, right before the pandemic. So it’s something that thinking about what your brand is and what it is to be your books might help you define that.
Sara Rosett [00:06:02]:
I think that’s very true. So what is the most important lesson that you’ve learned recently? It could be from the pandemic or since then.
Jamie Davis [00:06:14]:
I was thinking about this when you sent me the question, and it really has lately been that don’t turn your back on the basics. I’ve been doing this for a while. It’s coming up on ten years next year and I get distracted by the shiny objects. Somebody’s got success with TikTok, so maybe I need to do TikTok, maybe I need to do this or do that. But because I only have so many hours in the day, something has to give. So I figured out recently I had stopped really actively building my email list. So when I went back, I’m not gaining more followers than I’m cutting off when I go through to clean out my list. And that is something that I kind of let fall by the wayside because I’d gotten distracted from just some of the basics and I actually wrote them down. I said that I started looking at growing my audience and my email list, write my kind of book and focus on reader engagement and experience. And those are the three things that I think I did really well early on. And those are the things I need to really focus on staying engaged and doing all the time.
Jami Albright [00:07:33]:
And especially at a time like this where it’s pretty unsure what’s happening. I think all the marketing sort of things have nothing’s changed drastically. And I think when things feel stagnant, that’s when we need to look at the basics too. I mean, we should always focus on it, but if you don’t know what to do, go back to that.
Jamie Davis [00:08:04]:
That is so true.
Jami Albright [00:08:05]:
I think that’s true. Plus with AI and everything, and I’m not terrified of AI for anything, but I do believe that figuring out what your readers want and giving that to your readers and connecting with them is what is going to set us apart from the machines.
Jamie Davis [00:08:30]:
Let me tell you a funny AI story, because it happened today, before this call. A group of authors and I are writing in a shared universe right now, and we decided as a fun thing, to try to write some reviews as dead authors. And so I was like, I was thinking about how I was going to do it and I was like, this is what AI is for.
Jamie Davis [00:08:54]:
And so I put in the details of one of my friends books and their characters in a brief prompt into Chat GPT and said, written in the style of William Shakespeare. And it kicked out the most on target, hilarious review of their books written by William Shakespeare. It had four suits and D and vowels. It was just spot on perfect.
Jami Albright [00:09:22]:
That’s great.
Jamie Davis [00:09:23]:
That’s exactly what we can use AI for and be comfortable as authors using those tools to do fun things with our books.
Sara Rosett [00:09:31]:
Yes, I agree. So creative too. So much fun, too.
Jami Albright [00:09:36]:
So you said that during the pandemic you had to kind of redefine and look at things. Has your business model changed recently?
Jamie Davis [00:09:48]:
It has. I know we’re going to talk more about this later on, but it’s really been about really diversifying how I generate income as an author. And for me, that’s not going out and starting a course or teaching something, and I’m not putting down anybody who does that. There are a lot of great authors out there who are able to pass along their knowledge in a way and should be paid for that service that they provide. But for me, it’s about figuring out ways to meet new readers and meet new audiences in different places and ways. And so I’ve branched into Kickstarter, which we’re going to talk about a little later on. I sell Direct on my website for some of my products, and some of my books and all my audiobooks are direct on my website. So there’s that method and then connecting with readers in subscription models, that’s something that I’m branching into after the Kickstarter, that’ll be my fall project, to develop a subscription for the fans that want that extra something from me. This is a way to reach and give them that opportunity.
Jami Albright [00:11:02]:
Right. And you’re actually doing that now. You’re on vacation and on your way home, you’re going to stop and have a reader meet up with you.
Jamie Davis [00:11:12]:
And I’m excited about this. So the reader and his girlfriend that I’m meeting with, they’re both really big fans of mine, and he’s actually an admin in one of the admins in my reader group on Facebook. So he helps moderate the group for me and stuff and puts posts in there when he’s reading different things. And that’s great and I really appreciate his help. He’s also the person who bought the biggest ticket item on my last Kickstarter.
Sara Rosett [00:11:39]:
Wow.
Jamie Davis [00:11:40]:
And I’m like, if someone’s going to spend $500 on me and I’m 2 hours away from them when I’m on vacation, maybe I can stop and meet them for lunch. And he was so excited that he’s surprising his girlfriend. She doesn’t know that they’re meeting me for lunch. And my wife and my daughter and her wife are going to be with me. So we’re all going to just kind of sit down and have a group lunch at the Cracker Barrel off a 95 on the way home. And I’m so looking forward to having the opportunity to meet them and in some small way make their day, which I don’t quite understand, but that’s okay. I guess I’m a little too humble in that respect. But I think that there are ways that we can reach our readers in different ways. And as a male, it’s easier for me to meet people in public in places like that. I acknowledge that. But I think there are ways that any author can set up an opportunity to meet up with their readers, even if it’s on Zoom. I know Martha Carr has regular monthly pizza parties on Zoom that she holds, and what a great idea, right?
Jamie Davis [00:12:54]:
So there are ways to do it without actually meeting in person. There are ways to do it safely, but engaging with their readers is something we can all improve upon.
Sara Rosett [00:13:04]:
Going back to the AI thing, this is going to be more important. Maybe not necessarily meeting up in person with your readers, but like letting them know that there’s a real person behind the books. And that’s one way to do it is to meet them in person or to have a Zoom call or something like that. Or I can’t think of anything else right now. I was going to mention Zoom for people who are less interested in spending two or 3 hours with somebody that they essentially a stranger, but they know you. But it’s kind of like an interesting situation. But I’m sure there’s other ways you could connect where you’re emphasizing that you’re a person and in real life, even.
Jamie Davis [00:13:49]:
Upping your email game is a way to do that. If you’re not comfortable meeting face to face in a Zoom call, I think you can definitely do it. Even through your emails or the way you post on social media places, there are different ways to let more of your authentic self show through that will connect better with readers.
Sara Rosett [00:14:13]:
We also like to talk about what we’ve learned and one of our questions is always like, what mistakes have you made? So we want us to know how you view mistakes and how do you cover when things recover, when things go wrong.
Jamie Davis [00:14:29]:
It’s interesting because I’ve been in business off and on different ways through most of my adult life. And some of the best early advice I got for business in general was to fail forward. And idea of, yeah, you got to get yourself back up, but fall, fall forward, fail forward. And, and in the sense that your failures are going to happen, it’s it’s how you learn from those failures. It’s how you take what caused that failure and what can you do to either make it not happen again or when it happens again that you benefit from it. And I think that there are opportunities to do that. I wrote some things down because I wanted to make sure I said this. I have 50 books. Are all of them amazing? Best selling ventures into literary? No, they’re not. I have two series that no matter what I do, I can’t get them to sell. One of them has a lot of critical acclaim. In other words, the reviews are great. But just for whatever reason, I can’t get new readers to read them. I can get my existing readers, some of them, to read the books and they love them when they get to them. There’s another one that’s just a stinker. I love it. I love the characters. I thought it was going to be a hit. I know it misses now on some of the market stuff for the genre and it’s just a stinker. I think if it’s your first series that’s going to be hard for an author.
Jamie Davis [00:16:09]:
For me, it was like my third series. And so it was hard because I thought, oh, I can write Gold. I wrote this third series and it just didn’t do anything. It was hard at the time to really understand why, and now I just write it off. It is not my best work. I need to acknowledge that. I need to figure out what I did wrong and fail forward and write the next series and make it better and make that Jamie Davis experience book more of what is authentic for me.
Sara Rosett [00:16:42]:
This makes me think of I think it was Deanna Roy we were talking to, and she talked about how some of her books are for cold audiences and some of her books are for warm audiences. And I was like, that’s a new way to think about that. Because if we concentrate on the ones that we know will draw in the readers to pull them in, then we can focus our marketing and stuff on those books. And then once they’re in, we can say, oh, and I also have these. Instead of trying to make all of our books entry points to our world, some of them are just do better jobs at that than others.
Jamie Davis [00:17:15]:
I love that idea of cold and warm books. That is such a really novel way to think about it. And it is true about that one series. If I get my readers, existing readers, to go over and try that series out, I get very positive responses back from my existing readers. But for a new reader, cold, to me, they just don’t seem to go beyond book one.
Sara Rosett [00:17:40]:
And we all have books like that that are like that’s for the fans.
Jami Albright [00:17:44]:
What’s the best and worst advice you’ve ever been given?
Jamie Davis [00:17:51]:
Oh, this. This I wrote down because I got it.
Sara Rosett [00:17:55]:
Hope I didn’t give it to you.
Jamie Davis [00:17:58]:
The best advice I’ve ever received, and I got it from Craig Martel, from over 20 books. And that is the best advice is for an author, for me to climb my mountain and not somebody else’s mountain. That we all have our own challenges and our own struggles and our own obstacles that we throw in our own way. And it’s for me to figure out how to get to what my best goal is. My best self is whether that’s professionally or personally or whatever. Like I said earlier, there are people who write slower than me and have wonderful success. Jamie, you have great series of books out there that my wife loves and tons of people love. Thank you. You’ve done it differently. And I shouldn’t try to write your books and you shouldn’t my books.
Jami Albright [00:18:54]:
Right.
Jamie Davis [00:18:55]:
So figure out what success is for you and then go ahead and move forward on that path. That was the best advice I received, and I think it holds true because it’s something that mountain will change over time. Stay focused on what it is for you to make it special. The worst advice, and this is very specific, but I had somebody convinced me to try to do more of a traditional PR approach to writing and do the blog tour and write a press release and send it out. There are people out there who like, I hired somebody to do it. And they did all the things that they said they were going to do for me. So I don’t want to say, like, they didn’t do their job because there are people out there who work very hard at this. And she did her job 100%. It just flopped. It wasn’t what I needed to connect with readers. And I think, really think long and hard about spending that money when you might be better off spending that towards learning, teaching yourself how to make your Facebook ads more profitable or something like that. Because that was a fail forward for me. I tried it. And sometimes you’re going to spend money on stuff that’s not going to work. And this is one of those situations for me where the traditional PR route just didn’t work for me.
Sara Rosett [00:20:29]:
Now you can kind of mark that off the list. And later, if you want to circle back, you can. But you’ve tried it. So that makes sense. So let’s talk about your Kickstarter. So you have tell us about it’s coming up soon when this episode goes out. It’ll be launching pretty shortly after that.
Jamie Davis [00:20:47]:
Just about a month after this episode goes live on July 11, 2023, the Kickstarter will launch. It’s a brand new series that’s a side series in one of my existing universes. That’s kind of fun. So people, existing readers, I think it’s going to be a treat for them. I’ve got a couple of nice Easter eggs thrown in there. For my existing readers, it’s the story of for those of us of a certain age, it’s Mr. Mom and Uncle Buck meets Supernatural.
Jami Albright [00:21:18]:
Oh my gosh, I love that.
Jamie Davis [00:21:22]:
It is the series I was born to write. I was Mr. Mom for 18 years, raised my kids while my wife worse, very hard in her corporate job. And I’ve done all the things, I’ve made all the mistakes. I’ve been that awkward guy, hanging out with everybody else’s wife.
Sara Rosett [00:21:41]:
The PTA meetings and stuff.
Jamie Davis [00:21:43]:
PTA meetings and stuff. So this is a series that’s about an uncle who gets custody of his niece and nephew after their parents die. And he finds out they’re half Faye and he gets indoctrinated into the magical world immediately. And there’s a sister in law who he has assorted history with that wanted to be guardian and isn’t the guardian. And she’s of course full Faye. And they will have a long, slow burn romance over the course of the series where they just never quite get there.
Sara Rosett [00:22:21]:
Nice. Well, this isn’t your first Kickstarter, right? You’ve done another one?
Jamie Davis [00:22:25]:
No, I did another one. The first Kickstarter I did was three omnibus hardcover editions for my existing series. So there are nine books in that series. So I bundled them three books into an omnibus hardcover. And so there were three of them. Three times. Three is nine.
Jami Albright [00:22:41]:
That works.
Jamie Davis [00:22:42]:
And it really went very well. I was very surprised that it did as well as it did. I was hoping to make maybe hit like $2,000. I made almost $7,000 on it. On the Kickstarter, people were happy to spend the money. It was $75 a book, including shipping in the US. To get them. So if you wanted all three, it was $150 or no, $225. I can’t do math, that’s why I’m an author.
Jami Albright [00:23:15]:
I was going to say I don’t math. I just nodded my head.
Sara Rosett [00:23:18]:
Me too.
Jamie Davis [00:23:21]:
And it went really well. It also was something that taught me to really think hard about what other things people might want if they didn’t want the hardcovers, were there other things that they so I had a logo pin, enamel pin made up. I had some side things. I wrote some extra short stories for people that had read the books but wanted to participate and contribute, but wanted something new along with their contribution. So I wrote some additional short stories and that was something that was fun for me to revisit some side characters and some situations from the original series that went really well and that gave me the impetus to say this is a way that I can reach people in a different way and prelaunch a series. So that’s what I’m doing with the upcoming Kickstarter is I’m pre launching that series on Kickstarter six months before it goes live on anywhere on and other store.
Sara Rosett [00:24:23]:
So that was going to be my next question was like how does that fit into like you said, you’re also thinking about doing subscriptions. So are you going to pre launch, then launch wide and then how does it all fit together?
Jamie Davis [00:24:39]:
I’m going to prelaunch on Kickstarter and they will have the ebooks in hand by early September and they’ll have the print books in hand by the end of September. Beginning of October. The books are written. I’m writing book three now. So the books will be written before the series starts. The audiobooks are already started, so the audiobooks will be part of the Kickstarter too. I’m doing the whole package and the opportunity here is to reach those core readers that really want things early, that want to get their hands on these books before anybody else gets them and they can sit there and say, hey, I read these before anybody else got them. And then what the next step will be. I’m going to launch a subscription in the fall that will start giving people access to my draft chapters as I write them over time. And then they’ll also get the finished books at the end as they’re put out. That’s the plan for that. I still haven’t fleshed it out fully, but it’s going to be at least on a very basic level, at least that for the initial opportunities.
Jami Albright [00:25:49]:
Right.
Jamie Davis [00:25:50]:
And then this series will then start launching in January 2024, two weeks before each book launches. I’ll make it available for that limited time on my website, direct to my readers via my email list.
Sara Rosett [00:26:04]:
So if they didn’t pick it up at Kickstarter and they weren’t on the subscriptions, then they can get it.
Jami Albright [00:26:09]:
Then they can get it. Great.
Jamie Davis [00:26:11]:
And I can still make that additional money on direct sales from, again, my core readers who didn’t want to do Kickstarter. It’s really about meeting people where they are. Some people don’t want to sign into a new platform.
Jami Albright [00:26:29]:
Yes.
Jamie Davis [00:26:30]:
And then they’re okay buying direct from me, but they don’t like PayPal, so they’re not going to do it this time, but they’ll buy from Amazon. Okay, well, then they’ll wait two more weeks and then I’ll pull it off my store and put it on Amazon in Ku and do the full launch where a books comes out a month for three months. And then I’ll do the next kickstarter is already going to be scheduled for the following July, where I will do the next three books in that series and wrap up that series and it follows the kids as they grow up through school. So book one is the oldest child is four, then she’s in first grade, then she’s in fourth grade, and she’ll be in middle school, then two books in high school and graduation and that whole nonsense. It’s going to be fun to kind of follow them. And so I’m hoping the plan is that the next Kickstarter people will be really primed to have the opportunity to get in early on the next Kickstarter.
Sara Rosett [00:27:33]:
That’s great.
Jami Albright [00:27:35]:
Are you creating extra content for this Kickstarter?
Jamie Davis [00:27:44]:
So the Kickstarter versions of the paperbacks will have each of them will have a short story in them.
Jami Albright [00:27:52]:
Okay.
Jamie Davis [00:27:53]:
And I will pull those out when the books go on Amazon. So the only people who get those short stories as part of those paperbacks will be the or the ebooks, too, obviously, but they will have the short stories as part of their content package.
Jami Albright [00:28:10]:
Okay.
Jamie Davis [00:28:11]:
And then those short stories may become available later on, but they won’t be ever bundled as part of this package again.
Sara Rosett [00:28:19]:
So your Kickstarter editions will be special in that they’ll never probably have that opportunity to get that together again. They may be able to buy it later in some other format, but to get it packaged together like that, right.
Jami Albright [00:28:35]:
I love that. I think that’s a very smart idea.
Jamie Davis [00:28:39]:
The short stories for me, and I think a lot of romance I know a lot of romance authors do this, where they have the epilogue chapters or the little the side stories, what happens after the fact. These are opportunities, especially because years pass between each of these three books. It’ll be an opportunity for me to write a little bit about what happened in between, share that with the readers.
Sara Rosett [00:29:07]:
Okay, well, I have one other question about Kickstarter. I don’t know if Jamie’s got it anymore, but I was thinking you were one of the early adopters for authors, kind of in our indie world using Kickstarter, and now you’re doing your second one. So do you have anything that you’re not doing that you did? Has your way of thinking about it changed? I’m making notes for myself.
Jamie Davis [00:29:29]:
I think the big thing that changed was that I used it in initially for an existing series because I felt like I had nothing to lose. I already had the audiobooks done. Everything was there. I just kind of wrote a couple more short stories and made it additional content. This is really a different venture in that I’m launching something brand new and it told me there was a possibility that that would be something that I could make work. And I have readers that are already excited about it just from the little teasers I’ve put out there. And just a tip, because the first two books are already written and the first audiobook is done, I already shared it with my beta readers and said, here’s book one, let me know what you think. And then I put these teaser posts up there and they all commented, oh my God, you’re going to love this series. I already got a people it’s already got a little bit of buzz written about it because of and again, you got to be willing to give some things away for free. As a business and as an author, you have to be able to give that teaser out there and when you’re doing free books, giving away the first book to a few readers that are going to be engaged with the process. And I have no doubt that these people are going to go in and join the Kickstarter even though they’ve already gotten book one, because I think they’re those types of fans because they love.
Sara Rosett [00:31:14]:
Your books and they want all the special stuff they can get.
Jamie Davis [00:31:18]:
I think it’s just one of the things I’ve been doing is paying attention to other Kickstarter, either in publishing, but also in other things that have to do with fantasy and Sci-Fi. So like the gaming Kickstarters and things like that, just looking and seeing what they’re doing, where are their reward tiers, I think that’s something that everybody can do. It doesn’t take long to do a little research on your Kickstarter app on your phone while you’re waiting in the doctor’s office or waiting to pick the kids up at school or whatever it might be. Take some time to look at some other Kickstarters and figure out what they’re doing, that might make sense to say, oh wow, I could do something similar to that in my reward tiers. And that would be something that’s a little different.
Sara Rosett [00:32:10]:
And something I didn’t know is like you can create a tier and launch your thing and then if nobody signs up for that tier, you can archive that and change it and create a new one. Like if somebody purchases that tier, you cold still archive it, but you’ll still have to fulfill to them. But if nobody has purchased it, you can just delete it basically and buy something else. So I didn’t realize that when I started.
Jamie Davis [00:32:38]:
And I think that’s especially if you’re doing a longer Kickstarter, you can really learn from the early adopters what works and what doesn’t work and make it a bonus thing like, hey, we’ve added new tiers, right. For those readers that already joined or were looking at it, they’ll come back and reread it and look at it again, give it a fresh look. So I think that’s a great idea. Don’t forget to do that.
Sara Rosett [00:33:06]:
That’s for sure. And you said you’re doing yours for 21 days, right?
Jamie Davis [00:33:10]:
21 days. I did the first one for 17 and I was thinking, I’m going to do it for 17, and then I said, no, I’m going to try 21 days full three weeks. One of the things I did in the first one that worked really well was I wrote most of my content ahead of time. And I’m going to tell you to do something that is counterintuitive to a lot of us in the author business. I emailed my readers every single day during the Kickstarter.
Jami Albright [00:33:45]:
Okay.
Jamie Davis [00:33:46]:
And I cringed and thought, this is it, I’m going to cut my list in half. Watch this, they’re going to leave. And droves, I think over the total Kickstarter, I lost ten unsubscribes. Wow, nice. Now I warned them ahead of time.
Jami Albright [00:34:01]:
If you tell them ahead of time, they’re a lot more receptive than you think they will be.
Jamie Davis [00:34:07]:
I did that. I said, hey, I’m going to listen, my Kickstarter is going to start and I’m going to put out there a lot of different things about why this Kickstarter is important to me. And if you just want to delete those emails as soon as they pop up, go ahead and I’ll go back to my every two weeks email newsletter after the Kickstarter is done. But I wanted to give you a heads up that you’re going to get a lot of emails from me. Yeah, I think all you have to do is just tell them and that’s what I did. So I’m going to pre write a lot of the content so that I can basically just cut and paste out of a file to create my next newsletter the morning of or the night before. Set it to schedule and go. And then a lot of them write themselves. Honestly, if you’re afraid of where you’re going to come up with the content, a lot of them write themselves. At least four of my emails were, oh my gosh, we’re almost to the next funding level. I can’t believe we got there this fast.
Jami Albright [00:35:08]:
Right?
Jamie Davis [00:35:10]:
If you haven’t jumped in yet, now’s your chance. And those kind of emails were kind of fun for me to write. I was excited about it.
Jamie Davis [00:35:18]:
So it made it a lot easier. Some of them are the easiest emails I’ve ever written.
Sara Rosett [00:35:24]:
And you’ve already done all the hard work with creating the page. So you can just pull something from the page and say, hey, this is what I’m excited to share with you. This today, or this week, or whatever.
Jamie Davis [00:35:36]:
Introduce each of your characters separately in a separate email. There’s lots of different ways you can do it. And like you said, Sarah, to do that, pull the content directly from your page because don’t assume that everybody’s read your whole Kickstarter page. Scroll all the way to the bottom and pull that stuff out of there where hey, today we’re going to talk about the digital reward tiers or the physical reward tiers or why are you going to like these enamel pins or whatever the case may be?
Jami Albright [00:36:05]:
I think that’s true. Because long emails or blog posts, I was just thinking the other day, I really hate them. I hate them. I don’t read them, I skim them because I don’t like big. I’d rather and then a lot of times if I get an email, I’ll go to my computer because it seems like less. I am so overwhelmed by this big chunk of text that I don’t know.
Jamie Davis [00:36:34]:
But anyway, there’s a lesson there though, Jamie. A lot of people are overwhelmed by big blocks of text. So make sure you use a lot of white space when you write your emails. Make sure you’re putting a lot of returns in there to make sure there’s plenty of space between the paragraphs. Because you can skim a paragraph with two or three sentences and get the gist of what it says very easily, but if it’s a big block of text, you’ll get lost halfway through.
Jami Albright [00:37:02]:
That’s absolutely true. Well, you talked about selling your books on your website, but you have a shop on your website and you sell merchandise, correct? Yes, go ahead.
Jamie Davis [00:37:15]:
I was going to say I have a WordPress site and I use the plugin for WooCommerce. And so I basically am running the store myself and I collect payments direct through using PayPal. I use printful to fulfill that’s. Another plugin that works with WooCommerce and Printful.com is the people I use to print and create all the things that I’ll opt to sell. And interestingly enough, it was one of those things where my daughter in law convinced me to do it. And I was like, okay. She was helping me with my website and some of my design stuff and she just put it up there and I just started announcing it. So I always have a link at the bottom of all my newsletters to a product on my page and I try to change it up every now and then, but sometimes I get lazy and it stays the same product. But invariably when I send my newsletters out, I sell one or two.
Sara Rosett [00:38:20]:
T.
Jamie Davis [00:38:21]:
Shirt or a baseball cap or a mug. Right now I’ve got audiobook bundles you can only get from me. So like, nowhere else can you get the entire nine books series of extreme medical services than on my website in audiobook. And it’s cheaper than a credit, but I figure it’s a great way to get people to come use my store and those books are there, all my audiobooks are available on my website, so I try to do it that way. I don’t pimp it, but I always put it at the bottom of my emails to say, hey, here’s a product for you that’s on sales this month, or here’s a special or something. Right.
Jami Albright [00:39:09]:
Can you tell us why you decided to do WooCommerce instead of Shopify?
Jamie Davis [00:39:15]:
I don’t think Shopify was really on my radar when I first did this. It was probably almost a year and a half ago. And I know Shopify, for the author brands at least, has been something that’s been relatively I know Joanna Penn just started talking about it like a year ago.
Jamie Davis [00:39:33]:
So it wasn’t really on my radar. And I’ve always been a person who’s been more of a DIY kind of person regarding my website.
Jami Albright [00:39:41]:
Right.
Jamie Davis [00:39:41]:
So I’m more comfortable using plugins and setting things up for myself and handling things from a business sense on my own. But I think shopify is a great option for people that want kind of a more of a plug and play opportunity for their books and their content and their other stuff that they want to sell.
Sara Rosett [00:40:00]:
I was glad we were going to talk to you and touch on this because shopify is great and I mean, I’m working on a store for myself, but the WooCommerce, it’s a plug in, right, so is there a cost to it?
Jamie Davis [00:40:15]:
No.
Sara Rosett [00:40:15]:
You can just use that and set it up. You have to set it up yourself and manage it.
Jamie Davis [00:40:22]:
It’s like any other plugin, you have to make sure it stays updated. Every now and then the WooCommerce will say the update will come back and say you must now update your database. So you have to do that too. But I’m on my website every couple of days at the minimum. So if it’s not something you’re prepared to stay on top of, I cold. Definitely do something a little different, maybe something that’s a little more let somebody else handle the back and yeah, but.
Sara Rosett [00:40:50]:
I mean, if you’re trying to save money, that’s a great way to do it, because shopify has a monthly fee or annual fee that you have to pay. And a lot of people that it might be better to start on WooCommerce and see if there’s interest and then maybe move to shopify later if you want to be more elaborate. But then you’re trying it and finding out without spending a ton of money. So I think that’s a great option.
Jamie Davis [00:41:14]:
And WooCommerce has premium plugins that you can get. I don’t use them, but they’re there. Like, they can handle shipping for you and things like that. But first of all, most of my things are either digital products or printful will fulfill them for you, so you don’t have to worry about that end of things. Really. I don’t think there’s anything that you can do elsewhere that you can’t do with WooCommerce out of the box with the free version.
Jami Albright [00:41:44]:
That’s great.
Jamie Davis [00:41:46]:
You can do coupons, you can do sales. You can do all kinds of things, group discounts or things like that. You really have a lot of control.
Sara Rosett [00:41:56]:
Are you using book funnel for your digital fulfillment?
Jamie Davis [00:41:59]:
Yes.
Sara Rosett [00:42:01]:
Can’t go wrong with book funnel.
Jamie Davis [00:42:02]:
Can’t go wrong with Damon. God bless that man. I think I met him what was it, Jamie, in 2016, when he wrote 2016 Summit? And I first heard about book funnel there, and I’ve never looked back once it was available. I watched him. He continues to innovate. Somebody puts a bug in his ear about something, he figures out how to make it work.
Jami Albright [00:42:27]:
He had just started it before the Smart Artist Summit because people were talking about it, and I was like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, because I hadn’t put a book out yet. And when they explained what it does and why he did it, the author wasn’t having to tell people how to side load things onto their readers. I was like, oh, now I get it, because that would be a nightmare.
Jamie Davis [00:42:55]:
I feel like we’re the grandparent author sitting there going, remember when you had to email the reader to file, and then you had to explain to them how to put it on their Kindle.
Sara Rosett [00:43:06]:
Books funnel back in the Dark Ages. So, let’s see. There was something else I was going to ask you about your store. Oh. One thing that people are always curious about is taxes and getting started, like sales tax and all that. What advice would you have for people who are thinking about this? But they’re like, oh, I don’t know.
Jamie Davis [00:43:26]:
Contact the tax professional. Perfect. I don’t want to give any kind of things that might sound like advice, so I will say, talk to your own accountant. If you’re in business, you should have an accountant and contact them and explain to them what you’re trying to do and find out from them what the requirements are for your state, your jurisdiction, or your country. Everybody’s got different thresholds for how much you need to sell in a year to have to pay that state tax. And then I just know in the state of Maryland, anybody that lives in Maryland, I have to automatically collect sales tax for, and everybody else, I have to watch the numbers.
Sara Rosett [00:44:09]:
Right.
Jamie Davis [00:44:12]:
So that’s kind of where I fall.
Sara Rosett [00:44:14]:
I discovered that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Did you feel the same way?
Jamie Davis [00:44:19]:
I feel the same way, but I don’t want to give brand advice, so I will just say, talk to somebody who knows what they’re talking about, because what I’ve learned and what I know may not be because I have somebody that handles all that stuff for me. So I don’t want to give you bad advice.
Sara Rosett [00:44:37]:
Well, that’s great. Jami, you got any more questions about the store?
Jami Albright [00:44:41]:
No, I don’t. I think you’re just doing amazing things. I’m so happy for you. And, I mean, I knew you back in the day. Yeah, I love it. So, if you were starting over today, what would you do differently? Jamie?
Jamie Davis [00:44:57]:
Wow. If I were starting over today, I think I’d trust myself better. I kind of was very doubtful of what my opportunities were in this business early on and didn’t really trust in who I was as a storyteller, and maybe that’s something I had to travel through anyway to get to where I am, but I wish I could have trusted my voice a little bit more. Would have been more important to me. Part of what’s been a joy of that process has been all the people I’ve met along the way. You two, from that very first opportunity, where I got together with authors for the first time and moved forward from there. The 20 books conference is coming up. I’m I’m one of the assistant directors of that conference, and I hope people will come to that. It’s just any opportunity you have to meet with other authors, whether they’re Indie or Tread or hybrid. Do it. Take that opportunity. Because we really bond well together, and we are isolated too often.
Jami Albright [00:46:13]:
And just remember, everybody’s just as nervous as you are.
Sara Rosett [00:46:17]:
Yes. And you won’t regret it. I think that just meeting with other authors in person is always a good thing. Well, tell people where they can find about you and your books and your Kickstarter.
Jamie Davis [00:46:30]:
Okay, well, you can find me and my books@jamiedavisbooks.com, jamie Davisbooks.com. So Jamie and I spell our names a little differently because my mom was on drugs. And you can also get to my Kickstarter@jamiedavisbooks.com. Kickstarter that’ll always point to my most recent Kickstarter.
Jami Albright [00:47:01]:
All right, perfect. That’s great.
Sara Rosett [00:47:02]:
Perfect. Well, thank you for coming back and talking to us again and just sharing so much. We’ve had a great time, and I think it’ll be really helpful for everyone. I think it’ll be really good.
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