Episode 071 - The Provider Side of Author Services with M.K. Williams
March 23, 2021
M.K. Williams talks about what she has learned from her author services business, including the importance of establishing a network within the community you want to serve, the advice to approach people with an offer rather than an ask, the value of her project management background, and the importance of knowing what your time is worth.
M.K. Williams writes suspenseful literary fiction for the contemporary reader. Her fiction work includes NAILBITERS, an apocalyptic science-fiction thriller, ENEMIES OF PEACE, a cautionary tale of the American Dream gone awry, and THE INFINITE-INFINITE, the first in a series of sci-fi adventure books. Her non-fiction work includes writing and self-publishing guides, a budgeting and planning workbook, and THE FIOLOGY WORKBOOK: YOUR GUIDE TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. She helps bloggers and podcasters bring their message to print.
"Really know who you want to serve and who you want to help. I always focus on the word serve. How am I helping that person? Who am I helping?" —M.K. Williams
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Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is MK Williams. Hey, MK, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] MK: Hi, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:09] Matty: It is my pleasure. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, MK Williams writes suspenseful literary fiction for the contemporary reader. Her fiction work includes NAILBITERS, an apocalyptic science fiction thriller, ENEMIES OF PEACE, a cautionary tale of the American dream gone awry, and the INFINITE INFINITE, the first in a series of science fiction adventure books. Her non-fiction works include writing and self-publishing guides, a budgeting and a planning workbook, and THE FIOLOGY WORKBOOK: YOUR GUIDE TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE, and she helps bloggers and podcasters bring their messages to print.
[00:00:42] And so I think you can tell from that bio that MK is a great person to be talking about our topic for today, which is THE PROVIDER SIDE OF AUTHOR SERVICES. And when we talked about this topic, I was very excited because I realized that we've had a lot of guests on who talk about how they can help authors, the services that they provide or services that they've used that they think other authors could make use of. But I'm super interested in talking about when the author is the provider of those services, or maybe not even an author, but someone who's providing service to the authors.
[00:01:16] So obviously you have businesses that involve several streams of income, your fiction and nonfiction books, your consulting work. So to start out, tell me what was the thinking behind when you decided that author services was something you wanted to get into, what was your motivation?
[00:01:33] MK: Yeah, it was something I fell into. I certainly didn't plan it. For me, the dream was always, I'm going to write my books, I'm going to sell them, and that's going to be what magically fuels the ability to be a full-time author. Right. I was just going to sell enough books or maybe license it for movie rights, because obviously I wrote the best book ever, so Steven Spielberg would be calling any second. That was the dream. And what happened was I was three books in, just really realizing, okay, it's going to take a while to ramp this up ...
[00:00:06] MK: Hi, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:09] Matty: It is my pleasure. To give our listeners a little bit of background on you, MK Williams writes suspenseful literary fiction for the contemporary reader. Her fiction work includes NAILBITERS, an apocalyptic science fiction thriller, ENEMIES OF PEACE, a cautionary tale of the American dream gone awry, and the INFINITE INFINITE, the first in a series of science fiction adventure books. Her non-fiction works include writing and self-publishing guides, a budgeting and a planning workbook, and THE FIOLOGY WORKBOOK: YOUR GUIDE TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE, and she helps bloggers and podcasters bring their messages to print.
[00:00:42] And so I think you can tell from that bio that MK is a great person to be talking about our topic for today, which is THE PROVIDER SIDE OF AUTHOR SERVICES. And when we talked about this topic, I was very excited because I realized that we've had a lot of guests on who talk about how they can help authors, the services that they provide or services that they've used that they think other authors could make use of. But I'm super interested in talking about when the author is the provider of those services, or maybe not even an author, but someone who's providing service to the authors.
[00:01:16] So obviously you have businesses that involve several streams of income, your fiction and nonfiction books, your consulting work. So to start out, tell me what was the thinking behind when you decided that author services was something you wanted to get into, what was your motivation?
[00:01:33] MK: Yeah, it was something I fell into. I certainly didn't plan it. For me, the dream was always, I'm going to write my books, I'm going to sell them, and that's going to be what magically fuels the ability to be a full-time author. Right. I was just going to sell enough books or maybe license it for movie rights, because obviously I wrote the best book ever, so Steven Spielberg would be calling any second. That was the dream. And what happened was I was three books in, just really realizing, okay, it's going to take a while to ramp this up ...
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[00:02:00] And I had friends who had a successful podcast and they said, look, we want to write a book based on the interviews. We have a ghost writer who's writing it for us, but they keep sending us these chapters, we just don't have the bandwidth to look at this. Can you help us publish this? Can you help us do this? We'll compensate you, but we don't know what to do and you know what you're doing. And I said, yeah, sure, I'm happy to help.
[00:02:18] And then a couple months later, another friend and asked, and then a couple of months later, somebody else was referred by them. And I thought to myself, I think I have a business on my hands. So I never really set out that, Oh, I'm going to build this empire over here where I'm helping authors. Certainly I wanted to help other authors, and that's when I had started my YouTube channel. I was like, let me just get the information out, let me help people who are looking for it, who feel like they're not getting answers, but then people were, like, can you just do this for me? I understand what you're saying, and I get the strategy, but can you just do it?
[00:02:47] And it was fun. I was happy to help people and I thought, okay, I can make this a business. And I obviously need to be a bit more structured as far as how I'm helping people so I'm not just reinventing the wheel every time. So it wasn't something I set out to, Oh, I have this business idea, I'm just going to launch it. I stumbled upon it and it found me. And I'm really glad for that because I think if I had gone out and tried to say, I'm going to drum up some leads and do some advertising, it probably wouldn't have worked. I think this very organic growth is what's made it possible for me to actually enjoy what I'm doing and helping authors.
[00:03:19] Matty: It is a great indication that you're not going after something that doesn't have a customer base. The very fact that people were coming to you and you were getting those organic requests proves that there is a need for it.
[00:03:29] And one of the things that that reminded me of when you were talking about, you would tell people what needed to be done and they would say, yeah, but can you just do it for me? is I have heard just person after person after person who's in the author services space say, let's say Facebook advertising as an example, but a lot of them will give a lot of free advice or on their YouTube channel, as you have a YouTube channel, and sometimes they'll reference the question they get, which is, well, now you've told people to do it. Nobody's going to pay you to do it. And they're like, Oh yeah, because there's a huge percentage of people who want to understand the work that's going into it, but don't want to do the work themselves. So is that a factor in what you choose to put on your YouTube channel?
[00:04:13] MK: It's not. I find if I'm getting a question enough, either in the comments that I see on Facebook forums or directly from clients, I will then try and script and make that video because clearly if that person has that question, somebody else does. And for me, my mission is to help more authors to get that information out there. And again, I've definitely not found an issue with somebody saying, Oh, I can just watch your YouTube videos, I'm not going to pay for the service. To me, I'm like, sweet. I'm busy. Cool. Watch the YouTube video. So it's definitely been a good balance and it keeps inspiring new things that I realized questions are still out there.
[00:04:45] Or maybe I wasn't explaining it clearly enough to a client. So then I'm like, okay, if I had to script this out for a YouTube video, this is how I would explain it. And then I can say, okay, now I can explain it to my clients as well. So it's a definitely a good virtuous circle there where I'm constantly getting new ideas for topics to cover on the channel based on what I'm helping clients with.
[00:05:05] Matty: Your description of how you got started on this also suggests to me that you had a network of author friends out there because if someone's writing away in their garret, they're never going to have someone come to them and say, Can you look through the material this ghost writer has written? So describe a little bit what the network was that you had in place that enabled you to organically get these requests that led to your business.
[00:05:28] MK: Yeah, so my husband and I are super frugal by nature. And about the time that we got married, we discovered the FIRE community: Financial Independence Retire Early. And this concept that, if you can save your money and live frugally, that you could actually reach financial independence and not need to work, that your money would just work for you. And that was very appealing to us because we were frugal. We had just gotten out of debt before we got engaged. So we had this money we had been putting towards student loans and mortgage that we were just like, what do we do with it? We're so used to, you know, save, save, save. I was like, I don't know what to do. I guess I'll get some manicures, we'll go out to more restaurants. And so we found this goal and at the time I was trying to get my first book published and I said, do you know what -- if financial independence means that I can step back from this well-paying corporate job and pursue writing, let's focus on that.
[00:06:15] So we were very much involved in the financial independence community, and people knew that within that community, that I was self-publishing. It was very small at the time. And so within a niche, I was the go-to person on self-publishing questions within that space. There are other self-published authors in the personal finance and financial independent space, but people kept tagging me. There would be a post on a Facebook group, people like, Oh, ask MK. Oh, go to here, ask MK. And so people knew me within that community for self-publishing.
[00:06:42] And so when the first group came to me and said, Hey, this podcast is really taking off. We want to do the book, I said, of course I'll help. We had been friends, we had been colleagues. I had been on their podcast, so it made sense. And then another friend was launching an online course and they said, I really want a workbook to go with it. Somebody else already had a course. They really wanted a workbook.
[00:06:58] So it very organically flowed within the financial independence community of, Hey, if you need help getting a book out, go ask MK, she can help you. And then it's expanded beyond that, thankfully, because there are only so many aspiring authors within that niche, but it was very exciting to see that I had really good contacts and good friends. People knew me, they understand who I was genuinely. And that I was able to help so many people because the work that they do and helping people get out of debt, get their financial house in order, that's something I believe in. That relieves so much stress from people when they are like, Oh, I don't have to worry about this burden anymore.
[00:07:31] So it was exciting to help them help others, which kind of begat more projects, more projects. It's been fun and every person I've worked with I've really enjoyed working with.
[00:07:41] Matty: It is sort of doubling down on the virtuous cycle because if you're interacting with a group of like-minded people who are doing work that you're behind, then you're naturally going to be getting those organic questions from people who are doing the work that you'd like to support. So I think it's just another example of how important it is not to be the isolated artist in the garret, and to have a community of people around you that can offer these opportunities that might be unexpected.
[00:08:09] MK: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I wouldn't have expected that if I had gone into any of these networking events or just Facebook groups saying, Hey, I can help you do this. I probably get no response, but I just want, and being like, Hey, we just paid off our debt. What should we do next? We were just involved in that community. And so yes, be involved in community, but be involved for the sake of wanting to be in the community and then positive things will flow. I think if you go in with that ulterior motive, that's never going to work.
[00:08:35] Matty: Yeah, I'm going to provide a link to a video I have <Episode 021 - Building Communities in Podcasts and In Person with J. Thorn>, it was with J. Thorn, who I think is also in the FIRE community if I'm correct, and independent of the FIRE community involvement, he had exactly that message, that you go with the offer, not the ask is I think how he framed it up. And ended up, among other things, doing the Writers, Ink podcast with J.D. Barker and Zach Bohannon, because he went in with the offer, not the ask. And I think you're echoing exactly what he said.
[00:09:05] You said you had been in a corporate job. What was the background that you brought from that, that might have helped inform your author services business?
[00:09:12] MK: Some people talk about the corporate ladder. I was on the corporate jungle gym. So I had worked in traditional higher education, I had worked in online education, and I worked in sports marketing, which was a fun leap to make there. So I had a lot of project management skills from the different positions that I held, whether it was CRM, database management, marketing, email marketing, marketing management. So I had some really good project management skills from there. Obviously understanding online education, several of the clients I've worked with have online courses and they are looking to have a workbook that complements the online course that people can use.
[00:09:52] So I think that experience has helped because I understand, Hey, you're putting this out, but you're referencing something that you need to make it clear it's on this video from your course or on this chapter from your course. And also just having the experience of being able to juggle multiple projects.
[00:10:08] I think that's something where I find so many of the authors who now approach me, or just saying, I'm running my own business. I need this book launch to be another line of income for me. I don't have time to do this. I need you to run the project and clearly communicate what's going on.
[00:10:20] Okay. I can do that. So I think all of those skills that led to my success in corporate America, where, you know, again, the jargon, the report to your stakeholders, timelines and accountability, and things like that all led into having a good interaction with my clients.
[00:10:36] And also some of the marketing. I don't do a lot of marketing for my clients. I really just focus on the technical book elements. But I understand what they need, and I'm able to explain to them this ties in here and this ties in here, to be able to give them those reminders of you're constantly marketing your book. It's not just the one time you launch it.
[00:10:55] So it's those little reminders that I can give them. And I think just realizing that, from the roots of my corporate days, the biggest issue anytime a project went wrong, anytime there was a miscommunication, it really just came down to setting very clear expectations and erring on the side of over-communicating would fix that.
[00:11:13] So that's what I try to do with my clients. I try to make it very clear, Hey, this is what we're doing now. This is what we're doing next. Here's why we're doing XYZ. And erring on that side of telling them maybe more than they want to know or care to know about this strategy and the ins and outs, just to make sure that they're clear on what's going on.
[00:11:29] And trying to actually educate them. I try to tell my clients if you want to do another book, I'm happy to work together, but hopefully I've taught you well enough that you don't need to, you just want to. So always trying to have that learning moment which is what I had when I was mentoring people and managing people in corporate America. Let me teach you so that way you can do this for yourself next time.
[00:11:46]
[00:11:46] Matty: Yep. And I think also, even if they don't, they become better clients of your work because they understand more of what's going on. So I think that there are going to be plenty of listeners who were in the situation where they still have the day job and their dream is to become a full-time author, full-time author / publisher, authorpreneur, however you want to frame that up, if they're listening to The Indy Author Podcast. So what would you recommend, while they still have the day job, are there steps they can be taking to lay the groundwork for having these multiple streams of income that we're talking about?
[00:12:20] MK: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it all depends on your writing style, right? So the first focus has to be getting the writing done or else the author part never happens. And figuring out what you like about the process of publishing and self-publishing your books. Is it the formatting? Some people really nerd out on formatting. Cool. If you're great at formatting, some people hate it. They will pull out their hair. They will just procrastinate all day long. Can you offer formatting? Are you really great at graphic design? Could you help people maybe with covers or with some of their advertising? Are you really good at having that critical eye reading through manuscripts? Like you are the grammar queen or king, you will catch things. Could you help people with proofreading? Are you just really good at the technical nitty gritty? Do you just nerd out on the system updates in KDP and IngramSpark that you're just like, Oh, I know exactly what to do?
[00:13:07] So just start to think of what that could be. And as opportunities pop up, like if you're involved in any of the Facebook groups for indy authors, Twitter, even on YouTube, you'll see people asking for help, offer to help. And as people say, Oh, that's really helpful. How much would you charge for that? Have an idea in mind of what your time is worth.
[00:13:25] Because understanding any time you're helping another author, you are not helping the author. that is you. You are not writing, you are not working in your book. So you want to find that right balance of what's my time worth. What am I willing to offer as an author service? If you hate formatting, don't offer formatting. Don't do it because you're going to hate it, the client's going to be able to sense that you're not enjoying the process, and it's not going to be good for either so only offer what you actually want to do and be able to just provide the best quality service.
[00:13:53] And that is going to mean time away from your books. But again, if it leads to that ultimate goal of, well, then the corporate day job can go away and then you can have an entire half of your day to write, and then a half of your day to help other authors, that obviously is going to grow your author business a lot faster. So I would say really focus on what you are willing to offer, the value of your time and just start to put yourself out there little by little.
[00:14:16] You'll be surprised how quickly people will say, Okay, can you help me with that? Can you just do that for me? I was surprised at first, how quickly people asked, and I was like, Oh yeah, I can do that. Yeah. Oh, I can. Yep. I can do that. And so I would say, be optimistic, be open to when people are asking those questions. But you really have to know the value of your time or else you'll very quickly realize you just agreed to do a 10-hour project for maybe a flat $100. And you're like, my time's worth more than $10 an hour.
[00:14:42] Matty: Yeah. I want to end on the, what to charge question, because I think it's so huge, but that's a nice teaser for the conversation. And you've mentioned a lot of things there. Do you have recommendations about whether you believe it's preferable for someone to become a specialist or a generalist if they're hoping to spin up these other streams of income?
[00:15:02] MK: I think it really depends. So for me, I've tried to specialize because I realized very quickly things that I did not enjoy doing that I initially was offering. And I said, Nope, I don't want to do that again. So with every client I've learned something, and I've specialized more. And I found that more people end up wanting that very specialized service in my case. But some people may say, you know what? I love to do all these different things. I love audio book editing and I love formatting and I love line editing. I love it all. And they want to do that. I do think you'll find more success having one specialty because then people are really clear on what you're doing.
[00:15:35] When you try to offer everything, then it's hard to have processes. It's hard to understand how much time is going to go into an individual project. If you try to offer too much, then it's I would charge X for this and Y for this, add them together. Do I offer a discount? Do I not? I find that specializing has really helped me.
[00:15:52] I have a very clear message. It's very clear when I talk with somebody, like here's what I can offer you. Here's what I can do for you. Here are the people I can refer you to, to do these other elements that I'm not going to do. So I think it's more clarity for the client. It's more clarity on my part.
[00:16:06] But I have seen people who do it all and they offer just a full stack service, from very beginning to very end. And they have either subcontractors that handle the other elements, but it's all being funneled through them. So there are successful people out there in our industry who offer the full line of it, so it can be done. But I would say if you're just starting out, maybe just try to offer one thing that, you'd be really good at doing. You can really speak to you and you can deliver just excellent quality on because that's going to lead to more opportunities to then maybe increase.
[00:16:34] Matty: It's bringing a perspective to this of more of the client than the provider. I think that there's a real branding benefit to specialization too, because I often hire people on Upwork and Reedsy and when I'm looking for something, I have a very specific need in mind. And when I go start looking, the more general the person is advertising their offerings, the more skeptical I am. You know, if they do formatting and marketing and something else, and I think how could good are they really going to be at the formatting part?
[00:17:05] But I also think that if you offer the full stack, then you're appealing to a different audience of authors. You're appealing to probably the beginner, because it's the person who's just getting ready to launch their first book, or maybe it's like in the process of editing their first book, who's going to say, Oh my God, I really want somebody to help me with everything. And then the more specialized you get, probably the more experienced a customer you're going to have because they really know what the specific help is that they need.
[00:17:35] And I think some people would prefer one of those clients and some people would prefer another. So that could be another factor and what they think about when they're trying to decide what services to offer.
[00:17:46] MK: Absolutely. And that's really critical is knowing who that ideal client is for you. So after having a few clients, I was able to work with this amazing woman Kelsa Dickey. She runs Financial Coaching, so she helps people with their budget coaching. And she realized at one point that there were more people who needed help than she could ever coach one-on-one. So she now trains people to coach other people, to grow more. And so she had a course, she wanted a workbook to go along with it. It is a beautiful project. It was really well done. I've actually taken several copies that I had of the book and handed them out to people because they were looking to get into that business.
[00:18:20] And at the end of the project, I said, okay, Kelsa is my ideal client. She knows what she wants. She has other lines of business, so she is not going to question my prices. She says, okay, it's worth the investment. Everything about that project start to finish was my ideal situation. So I just put that energy out into the universe of I need to find more Kelsas. And thankfully I was able to find more people who fit not only just the business model, what she was looking for to have done, but also the personality. We clicked really well on a personal level to the point that I would still consider her a friend now that she's no longer a client.
[00:18:51] And so that's something, to your point, really know who you want to serve and who you want to help. The whole point with author services, I always focus on the word serve. How am I helping that person? Who am I helping? And there's somebody for everybody to get the services that they need.
[00:19:05] Matty: I want to jump back to an earlier comment you had made to sort of lead into to the next aspect of my questions. And that is you had mentioned how you're dividing your time between the author services you offer and your writing. What is the percentage would you estimate?
[00:19:19] MK: I think right now I'm at 60 / 40, and that's because I've actually put a halt on taking new clients, which was scary to do. So when I quit my corporate day job in the middle of 2019, the rest of 2019 was going great. I'm signing new people. By January of 2020. I was like, I have too much going on. I need people to stop asking because I was in this mindset of, I have to say yes to every opportunity to have enough revenue to keep going.
[00:19:47] So in January, I said, I'm not going to take on any more clients. Then we all know what happened in March 2020. And I hit the panic button of, Oh my gosh, nobody's ever going to buy a single book I write again, nobody is ever going to hire me again. The opposite was true. I was flooded with people saying, I've got time to write my book, so can you help me get this out? So I spent most of 2020 more busy than I thought I would be. And as I mentioned before, we started recording, I have a baby girl, she's 15 weeks old, and so I realized I needed to start saying no to projects in mid-summer. So that way I wouldn't be overwhelmed.
[00:20:18] So right now it's a good 60 / 40 split where 60% of my time I'm helping clients, I am moving their projects along, and 40% of the time I'm working on my business, which includes my books, marketing, YouTube, all that good stuff. So I like this balance for now, but it's constantly an ebb and flow. I definitely know there's going to be seasons where it's probably a week where it's a hundred percent client work, because the work is lumpy. Sometimes it'll go back to them for revisions. We'll have a deadline, but something will come up in their lives and, oops, I now have three manuscripts that need to be reviewed in this same week. And then the next week it's crickets because all the manuscripts are back, and it's okay, now I can work on my book. It's definitely lumpy, but I find on average, it's a little bit more than half towards the client side. And I'm good with that for now.
[00:21:00] Matty: So for someone who is not in the situation of they're in the corporate job and they're paving the way for full-time career, but they've lost their job. I think a lot of people are in that situation because of the pandemic and now they have 40, 45, 50, however many hours a week where they get to decide how they want to spend it. And here's the secret that we're probably going to share with everyone. You're probably not going to make a living just selling your fiction. I'll give you a moment to comment on that before I ask my question.
[00:21:31] MK: Yes, definitely. The dream of being the full-time fiction author, where you're just sitting back and letting the inspiration soak in all day and writing beautiful words and it magically is enough to live on is definitely a myth. I know there are some authors that do that. I listened to the Six Figure Author Podcast, and there's certainly prolific writers who can continue to do that. But it's more the exception than the rule. So definitely that's not going to pay all the bills unless you magically have very tiny expenses.
[00:21:57] Matty: Yes, you have to have a roaring FIRE to make that work. So for the person who is now out of work and they have this stretch of time and they haven't been thinking in terms of having this be a goal, but now they're in the situation, do you have a different set of recommendations for people who are thinking, Oh, author services, that's something that I can get into to help pay the bills?
[00:22:21] MK: I would still go with the same set of recommendations, is what are the things that you want to offer? And maybe in really lean times you say, I hate audio book editing, but I know I can charge X amount per hour because it is more high-tech. I have the skills, I have the technology to do it, and I now have the time to do it. So even though I hate it, it feels like I'm getting a root canal when I do it, I'm going to offer it. Go in knowing that's a short-term plan for the holdover, because again, you really hating to do that one service, it's going to feel worse than your worst day job. If it's something you genuinely don't enjoy doing, even if you're great at it, even if you have the skills.
[00:22:54] And I definitely wanted to emphasize having the skills and the technology for it, don't start to offer author services for something, and you're just like, Oh, I'll figure it out on the way, because then if it doesn't go well, that client experience is going to be negative. And then when the next person comes to you, if they go and ask previous clients, how did it go, and get an honest review? It's not going to be good. And to the point of getting referrals, all my businesses come from referrals. I haven't had to do a single, lead form, sign up, cold pitching people.
[00:23:21] And so you want to have that good experience. So do something that, you enjoy doing, that you'll be able to provide that excellent service. And again, those first couple of weeks, if you are finding yourself out of work, they're going to be tough no matter what, but don't hit the panic button and start offering anything and everything, and including things that you don't enjoy doing, and you wouldn't be able to do well because that's not going to make it a long-term possibility for you. It's going to burn out and fizzle really fast on your enjoyment level of doing the work and your ability to generate referrals and new clients.
[00:23:53] Matty: It seems as if a way that people can capitalize on some of the changes that have been happening as a result of the pandemic, is that I know I've gotten requests for work through writers’ groups I belong to. And especially after I've given a presentation, if I give a presentation on marketing yourself as an author, then I'll get a bunch of questions about marketing yourself as an author. And with everything moving to Zoom, it opens up a whole new opportunity because let's say you're really good at making book trailers, let's say. You love making book trailers and you could go in the past to a couple of local book clubs and do a little overview of making book trailers, and you might get some clients. But if you can cast your net wider, look up on Meetup, for example, and look for authors groups, then you can be offering to do overviews of making a book trailer to book clubs that are really far afield. And that might multiply the amount of organic requests you get for that kind of work.
[00:24:55] MK: Absolutely. Yeah, there's definitely a way in this more non-contact Zoom world to be able to get yourself out there. And even outside of Zoom, for me, just having my YouTube channel, where I'm talking about these topics, I have people from all around the world who watch that channel who asked questions. So that is the reach of my potential marketing for my services. But also just the information I'm putting out there in my nonfiction books. So I find, if you are comfortable being on camera and the nice thing about YouTube is you can record and edit, if you mess up, you can cut out the mess up and put that in which you can't really do live on Zoom. It's just kind of out there.
[00:25:31] So you can put yourself out there digitally much better today than maybe a decade ago. Where before, yeah, it had to be, you knew a person, you went in person to speak to that limited group of people. So you definitely have a lot of options now to be able to put your expertise out there. And that's what I would really focus on is the topics that you want to be known for, that you want people to come to you for advice. Those are the things you should talk on.
[00:25:53] And again, it's all about that giving. Give the information and give that service to other authors, and you'll be surprised how many people say cool, I'll pay you to do it. I love that you gave me those tips. I totally agree with them. I have no video editing skills. Send them on over. So it's really great that when you give and you give to be able to help others, they will come back and ask for that help.
[00:26:12] So I definitely want to keep reiterating that because I know there's so many people who go in and they make that hard sell right away. They're like, and I just showed you all of this and for X amount, and this can be yours too. I think if you say I showed you all of this, let me know if you have questions, you'll end up getting the ask.
[00:26:25] And I know that goes against what so many salespeople say is you have to make the sale, make the sale, make the sale. That's never worked for me. I've never been a very salesy person. I know some people, it works for them. Great. And that's good for them. But I find that the kind of clients I want to work with are more of the people who aren't necessarily attracted to that hard sales, in your face attitude anyways. So that works for me.
[00:26:45] Matty: Yeah. Another decision that people would need to think about when they're considering author services that they want to offer is scalable or not scalable. So our history is very similar because I left my corporate job in 2019 and I knew I wanted to continue writing my fiction. I knew I wanted to continue the podcast and find ways of monetizing it. And I was thinking of other things that I could do. And editing was an obvious one. And I took a couple of editing jobs and they were fine, but I quickly realized I could only to one editing job at a time. And so I decided that I wanted to set aside anything that was a one-fer and only focus on things that were scalable.
[00:27:26] So in the sense that if I do a podcast episode, I'm doing the same work whether 10 people are listening to it, or a hundred thousand people are listening to it. If I write a book, I'm doing the same work, regardless of if it's 10 or a hundred thousand. You're doing some consulting. So some of your work is not scalable. How have you made that decision in your own business plan?
[00:27:43] MK: Yeah. So this is actually one of the big issues that I'm constantly thinking on. So I would say I get so much energy talking from other authors and helping them. When I'm working with a client, I'm giving them advice, I'm helping with their book, but I am receiving for them so much energy and excitement. To be with that author when they are launching that first book and telling them, you got to celebrate, there's always more work to do, to be with them. I get so excited for it. But to realize that my time is so much more limited now. Being a new mom, I can't take her to a daycare right now because we're in Florida and guess what? Vaccines aren't rolling out here. And that's a decision we've made for our family. So my time really is very limited.
[00:28:19] And so the idea of not taking on client work has been really troubling for me because, you're right it doesn't scale, but it's something I've loved to do. So I've started to focus on these one-hour consults, like quick questions. I’ll help you work on a plan, things like that, but it's not going to be this multi-month sometimes even a yearlong project because of the scalability.
[00:28:38] Whereas I know, Hey, if we have a really great conversation, I can get you a plan. I can answer your questions. That's easier for my time than these long projects that kind of go on for a while. And the scalability I'm constantly thinking about because it's that constant tension between I want to help more people, but I have other priorities over here.
[00:28:57] So I'm constantly evolving my business for that reason. The decisions that I made for my business in 2019 when I launched it are very different than the decisions I would make today, just because of where we are in the world, where I am in my stage of life. And I think that's okay. if you are going to be offering author services, you might say, yep, I want to offer the range. And then I'm going to see what people actually want to hire me for and what I enjoy doing and narrow it down.
[00:29:19] That's the thing with your business. It can constantly evolve. Our writing skills are constantly evolving. The way we're marketing our books is constantly evolving. If you're offering author services, that should be evolving too. You should be refining. You should be able to say, you know what, this season of life, I don't want to offer this anymore. I've had a few bad experiences in a row. I just don't want to do it. Or the technology has changed enough. I don't feel like keeping up with it. Or, Hey, there's something new. I'm good at. That's come out in the indy author space. I can offer this. So you never want to stagnate. You never just want to be static.
[00:29:48] And so the things that don't scale, unfortunately, are the things I'm going to be cutting first, but I do have the hope to be able to add those back in, in the coming years, as I have more options for childcare based on vaccine roll-out and where everybody's health is and financially and all those things. I am scaling back but hoping to scale up again soon.
[00:30:08] Matty: And you'd probably be scaling up at a different tier, because as you get your name out there through the scalable options, and then in six months or a year or five years, and someone hears MK Williams' and they're like, Oh, MK Williams, I'd be happy to pay her a thousand dollars to talk with her for an hour. And you open up more opportunities because you spread the word about yourself through your scalable opportunities.
[00:30:32] MK: Exactly. I don't charge a thousand dollars an hour right now though. That's too expensive. Not yet. No, no, no, much less than that. But yeah, that would be nice one day. And one of the things I've always kept in mind is I am again, a very frugal person, so I think I tend to undercharge for my services. Some people would say, Oh, I would pay more than that. I'm like, Oh, Darn it.
[00:30:50] But I also, I know what the margins are for us authors. I know that when we put out a book if we price it here, Amazon takes this cut. The print charge for IngramSpark is this. I know what the final warranty is going to be for an author. So I do try to keep that in mind that if there's somebody new, starting out, they have no audience. And I'm like, okay, it's going to take you a while to earn back at least my fee, let alone the other things you're putting in. So I do always keep that in mind for my clients. But yes, it'd be lovely if in five years I was able to just be at that top, top premier level. But we'll see.
[00:31:19] Matty: Talk a little bit more about how you're making the decision because in any effort that I've ever done that involved services, the thing I always got stuck on was what do I charge? So do you have any general tips you can share about how people should go about determining that?
[00:31:33] MK: I would say, and I know there's some people who always say, you should pay an independent business owner what they're worth and they should be asking for more. I started asking for less than I should have. And then I quickly learned, okay, I need to charge a bit more next time because this took me longer than I thought it was going to. So what I thought was going to be a one-hour project turned into a five-hour project.
[00:31:51] Okay. It's averaging four to five hours. Every time I do it, I need to price this based on five hours. So I have set at a flat rate for what I find an hour of my time is worth, and then I go from there. So I'll be transparent with people, too. And we're working on a custom plan to say, Hey, I think it's going to take me this many hours. This is my hourly rate. Therefore, this is what the price quote is. That way they understand my time level effort that's going in. And that the work they're getting from me isn't just what they're seeing, when we have conversations, when I'm sending them an email, there's a lot of background work being done that they don't see. So I find that works on multiple levels.
[00:32:25] I do look at the prices of other people who are offering author services. And I don't call them my competition, I would actually consider them my colleagues, because there is more work to be done than I could do. So there have been times, especially in mid-November, I had been putting out all this great energy, and of course, the week before I was due, I had three people send in requests for book formatting. And I said, I can't do it. I could go into labor at any moment, and then your book is going to be in limbo until who knows when.
[00:32:51] So thankfully from doing my research and seeing what other people are charging, I found other people that I saw were doing quality work, and I said, Hey, you should go talk to this person. They still offer author services. I think that they do a great price, go and talk to them. So it helps me on multiple levels to see what other people were charging. And kind of say, okay, so the middle of this range would be here, for that amount.
[00:33:11] And then also just keeping an eye on who's out there doing the same thing, because you will probably get to a time where maybe you're too busy or you're sick, or you just want to take a vacation. And being able to refer somebody is going to be great, because then they're going to remember that you made that referral. That helps that other person out. And then maybe when they have the same situation, they'll refer people back to you. So the price research on what other people are offering definitely helped being comfortable with the price.
[00:33:35] It's very clear when you're like, um, I think, uh, this amount?, um … People can tell that you're not confident in the value. I know every time I speak with somebody, I'm confident in the value that I offer. And I find people who say I don't want to pay that. I'm like, okay, that's fine. You can watch my videos. I have no problem then saying, Oh, let me discount, let me discount. I know I'm offering the best value at that price. And then I'm not hemming and hawing later.
[00:33:56] Matty: And I think also recognizing that they're making a statement about their business, they're not making a statement about you personally, and that you have to separate yourself personally, from the services you offer sometimes.
[00:34:08] MK: Exactly, exactly. And for some authors who are getting started out, to them, this writing books has been a very expensive hobby to date. And so when they hear another dollar amount thrown out, they're Oh, I could do this on my own. And I'm like, you absolutely could, and here's all the information I have where you can learn it. And that's one thing I reiterate to people is, you could figure any of this out, the stuff that I'm going to be able to help you with. It's just how much time do you want to spend doing it? so I have toughened my skin a little bit when people say, Oh, well, so-and-so charged us. And like they do and go talk to them.
[00:34:38] Matty: You had also mentioned in an answer to another question you had been talking about something that might make people change their minds about their service would be evolving technology and they don't feel like continuing to keep on top of that.
[00:34:51] The cost of the technology is a consideration too. And so if people are doing like high-end video editing, then their technology cost is going to be much higher than if people are doing good old fashioned red pen editing. And I think I'm just suggesting that's another consideration people should make -- what's the investment you need to make, and then how is that going to change over time? And in a year or two years or five years, they're going to have to overhaul your video editing setup because technology has moved on. Do you offer services where you're factoring in the technology as well as your time?
[00:35:22] MK: Absolutely. So for a while I was offering the book formatting. And then I realized, okay, the time I'm putting in, somebody could really just buy Scrivener or Vellum. And they would have, I think, even a better formatted book than what I could do. So I was like, okay, so I'm going to have to increase my prices dramatically because of the value of my time and how long it takes. Somebody else could do this better. I'm just not going to offer it anymore. I just, I don't think it's worth it. Now I'm telling people like there are formatting services out there.
[00:35:51] And there are other people who offer very great author services doing formatting, and they do the full stack. And for maybe a little bit more than what would be for the subscription. So I don't want to say just only go with those softwares. There are other great people who are providing that service. But that's something I scaled back on. Cause I was like, you know what? I'm going to have to keep getting better at these skills. I'm going to have to keep learning new elements of it, to keep up with what can be done by these other services. It's not worth it to me to put my time in there. And then knowing what I would need to charge to compensate that time, I'm like, it doesn't make sense anymore. And so that is something that I have had to consider.
[00:36:24] With technology where I've added is for a while I was, making my YouTube videos with a little point and shoot. And the audio and video quality were not good. As I started to be on more podcasts, as I started to say, okay I'm going to record an audio book from one of my own books to test out what that process is and put it on YouTube, I was like, it makes sense for me to invest in a good microphone and a good webcam and actually buy the software that it's going to be easier to edit with and get a light ring. And those are one-time investments that I use weekly. So definitely their cost per use is very low now. So that's where I realized, okay, I can justify this cost.
[00:37:00] And that was something I really thought on for a while. Some people will pro be listening Oh, just click, click buy. Why would you think about it that long? Again, it goes back to my frugal roots. I really am very deliberate about how I spend my time and how I spend my money. So I’m glad I made those investments though.
[00:37:13] Matty: Let's fast forward to a point where people have decided what service they want to offer, they're getting clients. Do you have tips for how formalized you should make the agreement when you take on a client?
[00:37:23] MK: I like to put things in writing and I'm sure at some point it's going to come back to bite me in the butt that I don't have a more formal contract. But I put it on the invoice exactly what the services will be, next to the price line. And then I put on there about no refunds and cancellations. I had a few people who just flaked and then a month later they're like, okay, I'm not doing this anymore. I want my money back. And I was like, but I spent all this time, and I agree that, yes, the end product wasn't delivered, but I spent this time.
[00:37:50] And so just to be done, I was like, okay, here's a refund, but now I've said no more refunds. I want you to be committed when we signed on to do this because I'm going to be committed. So that's something I had to learn to put in writing. But I do go on the less formal side because usually I'm having several conversations, several email exchanges with a person before we agree to work together.
[00:38:09] In a way that's also me verifying that this is somebody I want to work with. So again, it's tough when you are just starting out and you're like, Oh, but I have to say yes to every client opportunity. I would caution to say, you're going to learn a lot from the first bad client. You're going to learn a lot from the first person who says, Oh yeah, just text me this, and then suddenly they are text messaging you at 10 o'clock at night with questions about their book. And you feel like, do I answer, do I not. I'm really tired. I don't want this to become a habit.
[00:38:36] So I've learned to put very good structures in place to say, Hey, this is the way to reach me. And this is going to be our communication schedule. Really keeping that good professional distance and that's something I had to learn along the way. So the first couple of clients you're going to learn from the mistakes, no matter how structured you think you're going to be.
[00:38:52] And I definitely wouldn't delay when somebody says, great, how much is it? Or, good let's get going, send me an invoice. Don't delay on sending that invoice just to make it as picture perfect as you think it should be, and then a week later you send it and they're like, I didn't hear from you. Get that out there have an idea of what should be on there at first. And then with each client, you're going to have an experience.
[00:39:12] I know the Alliance of Independent Authors and then Independent Book Publishers Association, IBPA, they have sample contracts, and they have things that you can reference that can help you to make sure there's things we'll look out for.
[00:39:24] Obviously if you're offering certain services, you don't want somebody to come back and say, this is bad to the point that it hurt my reputation, and now I'm coming after you. That I would say would be very rare to happen, but I know it does happen. So keep that in mind. obviously if you're charging a small amount for a small project, if somebody comes back and says, I don't like this, I'm not happy with this. You can say, you know what, it's not worth a hundred dollars for this argument. Just here you go. Refund. Bye.
[00:39:50] And that's something that's hard to learn, especially when you're starting out and every client and every amount of money you bring in seems so important, but there are times where you just have to say, it's not worth the headache. But I found that I've been able to attract the right clients, so I haven't had that issue too many times.
[00:40:04] Matty: In my very brief period of offering editing services, I basically did two jobs. And I think the one who's going to get complimented will know who I'm talking about. The first guy who I edited, did a developmental edit of his whole manuscript, and he was the dream client. Fortunately, I even recognized it at the time. I'm like, I'm never going to get a better client than this because, his total attitude was, okay, I'm just going to sit here and listen to what you have to say, and I'm not going to respond. Even if it pains me, I'm going to accept that you're the expert and I'm just going to listen. I was like, you're the best.
[00:40:38] And then the second client, I was a little on the fence about, and I said let's do a sample edit. I charged $50 and I can't remember how many pages I edited. And even while I was doing it, I was like, Oh man, I'm not the person to be editing this because it was a very different genre than I write in. And I sent him the edit and he wrote back and told me all the reasons I was wrong. And we exchanged a couple of emails and I finally said, that's the point of a sample edit is to see if you're going to work well together. Obviously, we weren't meant to be. And we ended it on a friendly note, but I think my point of that story is that if you can find an opportunity to do a sample piece of work for someone for a lower rate than you would charge in a normal scenario that's good for both of you.
[00:41:26] MK: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's about the good fit. And that's, again, another reason to know other people who offer the same things that you do is, Hey, here's somebody who maybe works better in your genre. Here's somebody who has a price point maybe you'd appreciate, or maybe two might click better, and refer them somewhere else.
[00:41:42] Matty: Yep. So that sort of covers the other aspect I was going to ask about, which is firing clients. Do you have any tips beyond what you've already said? You talked about the fact that sometimes it's worth taking a little financial hit just to get yourself out of what is obviously not going to be a positive situation for either party. Any other tips on that front?
[00:42:00] MK: I think at that point, always just trying to be professional and courteous and realizing, again, it may not have anything to do with the service and how you provided it and may have to do with where they are in their life. I had somebody who signed on for a full soup to nuts, I'm going to help them get the book done, get it edited, get it out like everything. And they said, you know what? I got accepted to this program and it's for another part of my career I want to grow. So I'm not going to do this anymore.
[00:42:25] And that was tough because I had already invested time and kind of emotions. I was excited for this book. I was like, I want to read this book. I want you to write it. And so for me, it was instead of saying, Oh, good for you, and here's this back, and I can't believe you did that, I was like, I'm really excited for you. The, let me know how this program keeps going. And when you're ready to write your book again, come on back.
[00:42:44] I don't know that they will they seemed pretty hyped on this other one and kind of wishy washy on getting the book done. But it's one of those things where you want to leave it on a positive note and be that professional. It's tough sometimes if you're like, I left this corporate day job, so I didn't have to do this corporate jargon and those kinds of things anymore. But at the end of the day, you are a service provider, you are a business. And as much as the indy author community is growing, it is still small. And so if one person says I worked with them and they were kind of short with me, or they were kind of snarky and not a positive way, that's going to get around.
[00:43:12] So always be professional, always be polite, and understand that it may, like you said, have nothing to do with your business. It may just be where they are in life, may just not be a good fit because of genre or anything else. And sometimes it is, if you weren't offering good value and then you have to sit and say, I did, I, did I do that the best I could? Is there something I could have learned from this? And just move forward because somebody else needs your time and attention. Don't stew on it for too long.
[00:43:37] Matty: Do you quote and charge for all your work on a per job basis? Is it a one-time fee or is it an hourly rate? I know you base it on an hourly rate, but it's a charged on an hourly rate.
[00:43:46] MK: It's not charged on an hourly rate. So I'll quote them based on the time I think it is as here's the full amount. I'll usually offer a down payment and a final payment option. Some people say, Nope, I just want to pay all at once. And I'm like, cool. I will say yes to that. But I usually offer a down payment and final payment option. And then for my hour-long consults, that's just pay before the phone call and that's it. It's just a one and done. So it's easier that way, versus having an okay, I worked this many hours, here's this month's invoice, and accounting for that, because it's lumpy. So it's never X hours every single month, some months are busier than others. So I just do that full amount, divide by half, and there you go.
[00:44:23] Matty: I also think that a benefit of not breaking it out too granularly, this is the playing the devil's advocate against let the client know what's going on behind the scenes, and that is that there's the story about, I know I'm going to get this wrong, but the machine that's acting up and the people come, and they try to fix it. And they don't. And finally he calls the expensive expert, and the expensive expert shows up with his little hammer and dings the machine, and suddenly it's working. And the guy says, I can't believe I just paid for you to just hit that with your hammer. And the guy with the hammer says, you're not paying for me to hit it with a hammer. You're paying for me to know where to hit it with the hammer.
[00:44:57] MK: Yeah. It's the experience.
[00:45:00] Matty: So there are times when I've been perfectly happy to pay $500, a thousand dollars for an author service, even not knowing what's going on behind the scenes, because I trust that I'm going to get a benefit from my business in that.
[00:45:12] MK: Exactly. It's the value. It's that end line value. It's you not having to spend hours learning something new, pulling your hair out to figure it out, going back and forth on it. It's you, do it? You make my life easier.
[00:45:24] Matty: Yeah. And I think sometimes you can only learn by trial and error what that balance is or what the perceived value is of what you're going to be offering to your client.
[00:45:33] You had talked about transitioning away from offering services, to building a network of other providers. Is that related to that kind of a cooperative referral of clients? Are there other aspects of that?
[00:45:45] MK: Yeah, so I realized I should probably be trying to get affiliate relationship set up with some of these service providers. Like last week it hit me, and I was like, I've been sending a lot of business here, and I know affiliate marketing is a thing. I should probably try to set that up and get some money back from all the money I'm sending to this one provider. But they do great work. And quite honestly, I would keep referring them even if they didn't give me affiliate commissions for it.
[00:46:08] So a part of it, yes, is me wanting to step back a little bit and having good people I can refer. Sometimes it's just the services that I offer can only go so far. I know what my design skills are. They are not good, so I want to be able to have individual graphic designers, cover design teams that I can put people out to based on the client's budget and what they need.
[00:46:29] So there's times that I've worked with clients and they say, I want custom interior, custom exterior. I want to work with one graphic designer who's going to do it all. And I've been able to leverage my network to find people who would pitch for that. And then going through that process to help them coordinate with which designer. Understanding all of the book elements but knowing I can't design to save my life. And so this person's going to do it. And then I'll have clients who are maybe on a much lower budget. And I say, this is the company you want to go with. They do great with cover work. They know the ins and outs. You're going to get a great value. So for me, it's just being able to say, I can anticipate the other questions they're going to have and the other needs they're going to have that I can't fill and saying, I know somebody who can do that for you. I know somebody who can do this for you.
[00:47:08] Matty: Those are all just great examples of the importance of being a generous member of the author community and how the good karma comes back to help you over time.
[00:47:18] Matty: The last question I had was that when I was early in my author career and I was looking for the services like we're talking about here, but I didn't have very much money to spend on them, I always hoped for a scenario where somebody would be willing to take a percentage of my profits rather than getting a payment for them.
[00:47:41] So for example, I'd love to sell on Google Play, but I've sold like two books on Google Play in the time that I've been on it, and so if I were to hire somebody to help me get my books more successful on Google Play, I would pretty much know that any other sales I got were as a result of this person's work.
[00:47:58] And I would love to be able to say, I'll split my royalties in some way with you, the more I make, the more you make, and I've never been able to find who does that, is that anything that you've ever considered? And what are the pros and cons from your point of view as a provider?
[00:48:14] MK: Yeah. So I have one ongoing client where we work on a royalty split basis. And it's great because again, the harder I work, the more I can make for them because we're sharing those profits. The downside is with books, they live forever. So these books could be selling next month, next year, next decade. And so this is a long-term relationship I am in with this group. So in that case, I very clearly outlined while I'm actively working for you, this is the percentage I will receive. It's a royalty only. So I spent a lot of time working with no compensation, and then now the books are out there doing well. I'm receiving compensation kind of back due for that time. So as I'm actively working to help promote their books and bring new books on, I received X royalty. If I ever decide, Hey, I want to go live on a desert Island, you won't be hearing from you anymore, bye, there’s another royalty that I'll receive for the life of the book as well.
[00:49:05] And then if for some reason they decide we don't want to have books anymore, we have certain clauses worked out, so that way it's clear, those decisions have been made. So it's difficult when you get into the royalty space, because as authors, we are so excited that we're like, wow, like my entire lifetime, I can be earning these royalties and my children were own them for 70 years.
[00:49:23] Okay. So if you are helping somebody and you're getting a royalty split, how long do you want to work with that person? So that is one thing to keep in mind. I like the idea of doing a royalty split up until X dollar amount to say, Hey, I'm going to help you out. I know your budget is really tight right now.
[00:49:38] I would value this at a thousand dollars, the work that I'm going to do for you. So we're going to do a royalty split until I earn back a thousand dollars or a thousand dollars plus 10%, because I'm obviously not getting compensated right away. So that's where you have to get a bit more creative with how you do it, and understand if it's royalties forever and ever, or royalties up to a certain dollar amount, or royalties for the length of your contract, whatever that's going to be.
[00:50:01] The royalty game goes on a long time. So that's the positive part for the person who's receiving the money, right? Hey, I could be on a vacation and I got paid or it's, Oh, I really just want to turn off, but I can't because I have to still talk to this person and after a decade of working together and making sure I get paid. So that's a very long-term relationship you're entering into when you do royalty payments.
[00:50:24] Matty: Yeah, somebody you obviously want to have some track record with before you start thinking about something like that.
[00:50:30] MK: And good trust, making sure you have that good visibility and transparency as well.
[00:50:36] Matty: Great. Well, MK, this has been so helpful and so interesting. Please let our listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and your work and your books online.
[00:50:44] MK: Absolutely. So I am everywhere online as 1MKWilliams. So 1MKWilliams.com. @1MKWilliams on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.
[00:50:54] My YouTube channel is /1MKWilliams. Author Your Ambition is the name of the channel, and authoryourambition.com is where I have links to all the videos, my non-fiction books, all about self-publishing, and links to my services. If you want to get on the wait list. I used to say I'm 1MKWilliams because I am the one MK Williams, but I found out there's another MK Williams, but he's a dude.
[00:51:14] Matty: That's an important branding distinction.
[00:51:17] MK: I was using it cause I'm the one MK Williams and then one day somebody followed me on Instagram, and it was MK Williams. And I was like, this is weird. I'm not that big to have a spam account. And it was this other sci-fi writer who's a male.
[00:51:29] Matty: Well, he'll just have to be 2MKWilliams. Well, thank you so much. This has been great.
[00:51:35] MK: Yeah. Thank you for having me
[00:02:18] And then a couple months later, another friend and asked, and then a couple of months later, somebody else was referred by them. And I thought to myself, I think I have a business on my hands. So I never really set out that, Oh, I'm going to build this empire over here where I'm helping authors. Certainly I wanted to help other authors, and that's when I had started my YouTube channel. I was like, let me just get the information out, let me help people who are looking for it, who feel like they're not getting answers, but then people were, like, can you just do this for me? I understand what you're saying, and I get the strategy, but can you just do it?
[00:02:47] And it was fun. I was happy to help people and I thought, okay, I can make this a business. And I obviously need to be a bit more structured as far as how I'm helping people so I'm not just reinventing the wheel every time. So it wasn't something I set out to, Oh, I have this business idea, I'm just going to launch it. I stumbled upon it and it found me. And I'm really glad for that because I think if I had gone out and tried to say, I'm going to drum up some leads and do some advertising, it probably wouldn't have worked. I think this very organic growth is what's made it possible for me to actually enjoy what I'm doing and helping authors.
[00:03:19] Matty: It is a great indication that you're not going after something that doesn't have a customer base. The very fact that people were coming to you and you were getting those organic requests proves that there is a need for it.
[00:03:29] And one of the things that that reminded me of when you were talking about, you would tell people what needed to be done and they would say, yeah, but can you just do it for me? is I have heard just person after person after person who's in the author services space say, let's say Facebook advertising as an example, but a lot of them will give a lot of free advice or on their YouTube channel, as you have a YouTube channel, and sometimes they'll reference the question they get, which is, well, now you've told people to do it. Nobody's going to pay you to do it. And they're like, Oh yeah, because there's a huge percentage of people who want to understand the work that's going into it, but don't want to do the work themselves. So is that a factor in what you choose to put on your YouTube channel?
[00:04:13] MK: It's not. I find if I'm getting a question enough, either in the comments that I see on Facebook forums or directly from clients, I will then try and script and make that video because clearly if that person has that question, somebody else does. And for me, my mission is to help more authors to get that information out there. And again, I've definitely not found an issue with somebody saying, Oh, I can just watch your YouTube videos, I'm not going to pay for the service. To me, I'm like, sweet. I'm busy. Cool. Watch the YouTube video. So it's definitely been a good balance and it keeps inspiring new things that I realized questions are still out there.
[00:04:45] Or maybe I wasn't explaining it clearly enough to a client. So then I'm like, okay, if I had to script this out for a YouTube video, this is how I would explain it. And then I can say, okay, now I can explain it to my clients as well. So it's a definitely a good virtuous circle there where I'm constantly getting new ideas for topics to cover on the channel based on what I'm helping clients with.
[00:05:05] Matty: Your description of how you got started on this also suggests to me that you had a network of author friends out there because if someone's writing away in their garret, they're never going to have someone come to them and say, Can you look through the material this ghost writer has written? So describe a little bit what the network was that you had in place that enabled you to organically get these requests that led to your business.
[00:05:28] MK: Yeah, so my husband and I are super frugal by nature. And about the time that we got married, we discovered the FIRE community: Financial Independence Retire Early. And this concept that, if you can save your money and live frugally, that you could actually reach financial independence and not need to work, that your money would just work for you. And that was very appealing to us because we were frugal. We had just gotten out of debt before we got engaged. So we had this money we had been putting towards student loans and mortgage that we were just like, what do we do with it? We're so used to, you know, save, save, save. I was like, I don't know what to do. I guess I'll get some manicures, we'll go out to more restaurants. And so we found this goal and at the time I was trying to get my first book published and I said, do you know what -- if financial independence means that I can step back from this well-paying corporate job and pursue writing, let's focus on that.
[00:06:15] So we were very much involved in the financial independence community, and people knew that within that community, that I was self-publishing. It was very small at the time. And so within a niche, I was the go-to person on self-publishing questions within that space. There are other self-published authors in the personal finance and financial independent space, but people kept tagging me. There would be a post on a Facebook group, people like, Oh, ask MK. Oh, go to here, ask MK. And so people knew me within that community for self-publishing.
[00:06:42] And so when the first group came to me and said, Hey, this podcast is really taking off. We want to do the book, I said, of course I'll help. We had been friends, we had been colleagues. I had been on their podcast, so it made sense. And then another friend was launching an online course and they said, I really want a workbook to go with it. Somebody else already had a course. They really wanted a workbook.
[00:06:58] So it very organically flowed within the financial independence community of, Hey, if you need help getting a book out, go ask MK, she can help you. And then it's expanded beyond that, thankfully, because there are only so many aspiring authors within that niche, but it was very exciting to see that I had really good contacts and good friends. People knew me, they understand who I was genuinely. And that I was able to help so many people because the work that they do and helping people get out of debt, get their financial house in order, that's something I believe in. That relieves so much stress from people when they are like, Oh, I don't have to worry about this burden anymore.
[00:07:31] So it was exciting to help them help others, which kind of begat more projects, more projects. It's been fun and every person I've worked with I've really enjoyed working with.
[00:07:41] Matty: It is sort of doubling down on the virtuous cycle because if you're interacting with a group of like-minded people who are doing work that you're behind, then you're naturally going to be getting those organic questions from people who are doing the work that you'd like to support. So I think it's just another example of how important it is not to be the isolated artist in the garret, and to have a community of people around you that can offer these opportunities that might be unexpected.
[00:08:09] MK: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I wouldn't have expected that if I had gone into any of these networking events or just Facebook groups saying, Hey, I can help you do this. I probably get no response, but I just want, and being like, Hey, we just paid off our debt. What should we do next? We were just involved in that community. And so yes, be involved in community, but be involved for the sake of wanting to be in the community and then positive things will flow. I think if you go in with that ulterior motive, that's never going to work.
[00:08:35] Matty: Yeah, I'm going to provide a link to a video I have <Episode 021 - Building Communities in Podcasts and In Person with J. Thorn>, it was with J. Thorn, who I think is also in the FIRE community if I'm correct, and independent of the FIRE community involvement, he had exactly that message, that you go with the offer, not the ask is I think how he framed it up. And ended up, among other things, doing the Writers, Ink podcast with J.D. Barker and Zach Bohannon, because he went in with the offer, not the ask. And I think you're echoing exactly what he said.
[00:09:05] You said you had been in a corporate job. What was the background that you brought from that, that might have helped inform your author services business?
[00:09:12] MK: Some people talk about the corporate ladder. I was on the corporate jungle gym. So I had worked in traditional higher education, I had worked in online education, and I worked in sports marketing, which was a fun leap to make there. So I had a lot of project management skills from the different positions that I held, whether it was CRM, database management, marketing, email marketing, marketing management. So I had some really good project management skills from there. Obviously understanding online education, several of the clients I've worked with have online courses and they are looking to have a workbook that complements the online course that people can use.
[00:09:52] So I think that experience has helped because I understand, Hey, you're putting this out, but you're referencing something that you need to make it clear it's on this video from your course or on this chapter from your course. And also just having the experience of being able to juggle multiple projects.
[00:10:08] I think that's something where I find so many of the authors who now approach me, or just saying, I'm running my own business. I need this book launch to be another line of income for me. I don't have time to do this. I need you to run the project and clearly communicate what's going on.
[00:10:20] Okay. I can do that. So I think all of those skills that led to my success in corporate America, where, you know, again, the jargon, the report to your stakeholders, timelines and accountability, and things like that all led into having a good interaction with my clients.
[00:10:36] And also some of the marketing. I don't do a lot of marketing for my clients. I really just focus on the technical book elements. But I understand what they need, and I'm able to explain to them this ties in here and this ties in here, to be able to give them those reminders of you're constantly marketing your book. It's not just the one time you launch it.
[00:10:55] So it's those little reminders that I can give them. And I think just realizing that, from the roots of my corporate days, the biggest issue anytime a project went wrong, anytime there was a miscommunication, it really just came down to setting very clear expectations and erring on the side of over-communicating would fix that.
[00:11:13] So that's what I try to do with my clients. I try to make it very clear, Hey, this is what we're doing now. This is what we're doing next. Here's why we're doing XYZ. And erring on that side of telling them maybe more than they want to know or care to know about this strategy and the ins and outs, just to make sure that they're clear on what's going on.
[00:11:29] And trying to actually educate them. I try to tell my clients if you want to do another book, I'm happy to work together, but hopefully I've taught you well enough that you don't need to, you just want to. So always trying to have that learning moment which is what I had when I was mentoring people and managing people in corporate America. Let me teach you so that way you can do this for yourself next time.
[00:11:46]
[00:11:46] Matty: Yep. And I think also, even if they don't, they become better clients of your work because they understand more of what's going on. So I think that there are going to be plenty of listeners who were in the situation where they still have the day job and their dream is to become a full-time author, full-time author / publisher, authorpreneur, however you want to frame that up, if they're listening to The Indy Author Podcast. So what would you recommend, while they still have the day job, are there steps they can be taking to lay the groundwork for having these multiple streams of income that we're talking about?
[00:12:20] MK: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it all depends on your writing style, right? So the first focus has to be getting the writing done or else the author part never happens. And figuring out what you like about the process of publishing and self-publishing your books. Is it the formatting? Some people really nerd out on formatting. Cool. If you're great at formatting, some people hate it. They will pull out their hair. They will just procrastinate all day long. Can you offer formatting? Are you really great at graphic design? Could you help people maybe with covers or with some of their advertising? Are you really good at having that critical eye reading through manuscripts? Like you are the grammar queen or king, you will catch things. Could you help people with proofreading? Are you just really good at the technical nitty gritty? Do you just nerd out on the system updates in KDP and IngramSpark that you're just like, Oh, I know exactly what to do?
[00:13:07] So just start to think of what that could be. And as opportunities pop up, like if you're involved in any of the Facebook groups for indy authors, Twitter, even on YouTube, you'll see people asking for help, offer to help. And as people say, Oh, that's really helpful. How much would you charge for that? Have an idea in mind of what your time is worth.
[00:13:25] Because understanding any time you're helping another author, you are not helping the author. that is you. You are not writing, you are not working in your book. So you want to find that right balance of what's my time worth. What am I willing to offer as an author service? If you hate formatting, don't offer formatting. Don't do it because you're going to hate it, the client's going to be able to sense that you're not enjoying the process, and it's not going to be good for either so only offer what you actually want to do and be able to just provide the best quality service.
[00:13:53] And that is going to mean time away from your books. But again, if it leads to that ultimate goal of, well, then the corporate day job can go away and then you can have an entire half of your day to write, and then a half of your day to help other authors, that obviously is going to grow your author business a lot faster. So I would say really focus on what you are willing to offer, the value of your time and just start to put yourself out there little by little.
[00:14:16] You'll be surprised how quickly people will say, Okay, can you help me with that? Can you just do that for me? I was surprised at first, how quickly people asked, and I was like, Oh yeah, I can do that. Yeah. Oh, I can. Yep. I can do that. And so I would say, be optimistic, be open to when people are asking those questions. But you really have to know the value of your time or else you'll very quickly realize you just agreed to do a 10-hour project for maybe a flat $100. And you're like, my time's worth more than $10 an hour.
[00:14:42] Matty: Yeah. I want to end on the, what to charge question, because I think it's so huge, but that's a nice teaser for the conversation. And you've mentioned a lot of things there. Do you have recommendations about whether you believe it's preferable for someone to become a specialist or a generalist if they're hoping to spin up these other streams of income?
[00:15:02] MK: I think it really depends. So for me, I've tried to specialize because I realized very quickly things that I did not enjoy doing that I initially was offering. And I said, Nope, I don't want to do that again. So with every client I've learned something, and I've specialized more. And I found that more people end up wanting that very specialized service in my case. But some people may say, you know what? I love to do all these different things. I love audio book editing and I love formatting and I love line editing. I love it all. And they want to do that. I do think you'll find more success having one specialty because then people are really clear on what you're doing.
[00:15:35] When you try to offer everything, then it's hard to have processes. It's hard to understand how much time is going to go into an individual project. If you try to offer too much, then it's I would charge X for this and Y for this, add them together. Do I offer a discount? Do I not? I find that specializing has really helped me.
[00:15:52] I have a very clear message. It's very clear when I talk with somebody, like here's what I can offer you. Here's what I can do for you. Here are the people I can refer you to, to do these other elements that I'm not going to do. So I think it's more clarity for the client. It's more clarity on my part.
[00:16:06] But I have seen people who do it all and they offer just a full stack service, from very beginning to very end. And they have either subcontractors that handle the other elements, but it's all being funneled through them. So there are successful people out there in our industry who offer the full line of it, so it can be done. But I would say if you're just starting out, maybe just try to offer one thing that, you'd be really good at doing. You can really speak to you and you can deliver just excellent quality on because that's going to lead to more opportunities to then maybe increase.
[00:16:34] Matty: It's bringing a perspective to this of more of the client than the provider. I think that there's a real branding benefit to specialization too, because I often hire people on Upwork and Reedsy and when I'm looking for something, I have a very specific need in mind. And when I go start looking, the more general the person is advertising their offerings, the more skeptical I am. You know, if they do formatting and marketing and something else, and I think how could good are they really going to be at the formatting part?
[00:17:05] But I also think that if you offer the full stack, then you're appealing to a different audience of authors. You're appealing to probably the beginner, because it's the person who's just getting ready to launch their first book, or maybe it's like in the process of editing their first book, who's going to say, Oh my God, I really want somebody to help me with everything. And then the more specialized you get, probably the more experienced a customer you're going to have because they really know what the specific help is that they need.
[00:17:35] And I think some people would prefer one of those clients and some people would prefer another. So that could be another factor and what they think about when they're trying to decide what services to offer.
[00:17:46] MK: Absolutely. And that's really critical is knowing who that ideal client is for you. So after having a few clients, I was able to work with this amazing woman Kelsa Dickey. She runs Financial Coaching, so she helps people with their budget coaching. And she realized at one point that there were more people who needed help than she could ever coach one-on-one. So she now trains people to coach other people, to grow more. And so she had a course, she wanted a workbook to go along with it. It is a beautiful project. It was really well done. I've actually taken several copies that I had of the book and handed them out to people because they were looking to get into that business.
[00:18:20] And at the end of the project, I said, okay, Kelsa is my ideal client. She knows what she wants. She has other lines of business, so she is not going to question my prices. She says, okay, it's worth the investment. Everything about that project start to finish was my ideal situation. So I just put that energy out into the universe of I need to find more Kelsas. And thankfully I was able to find more people who fit not only just the business model, what she was looking for to have done, but also the personality. We clicked really well on a personal level to the point that I would still consider her a friend now that she's no longer a client.
[00:18:51] And so that's something, to your point, really know who you want to serve and who you want to help. The whole point with author services, I always focus on the word serve. How am I helping that person? Who am I helping? And there's somebody for everybody to get the services that they need.
[00:19:05] Matty: I want to jump back to an earlier comment you had made to sort of lead into to the next aspect of my questions. And that is you had mentioned how you're dividing your time between the author services you offer and your writing. What is the percentage would you estimate?
[00:19:19] MK: I think right now I'm at 60 / 40, and that's because I've actually put a halt on taking new clients, which was scary to do. So when I quit my corporate day job in the middle of 2019, the rest of 2019 was going great. I'm signing new people. By January of 2020. I was like, I have too much going on. I need people to stop asking because I was in this mindset of, I have to say yes to every opportunity to have enough revenue to keep going.
[00:19:47] So in January, I said, I'm not going to take on any more clients. Then we all know what happened in March 2020. And I hit the panic button of, Oh my gosh, nobody's ever going to buy a single book I write again, nobody is ever going to hire me again. The opposite was true. I was flooded with people saying, I've got time to write my book, so can you help me get this out? So I spent most of 2020 more busy than I thought I would be. And as I mentioned before, we started recording, I have a baby girl, she's 15 weeks old, and so I realized I needed to start saying no to projects in mid-summer. So that way I wouldn't be overwhelmed.
[00:20:18] So right now it's a good 60 / 40 split where 60% of my time I'm helping clients, I am moving their projects along, and 40% of the time I'm working on my business, which includes my books, marketing, YouTube, all that good stuff. So I like this balance for now, but it's constantly an ebb and flow. I definitely know there's going to be seasons where it's probably a week where it's a hundred percent client work, because the work is lumpy. Sometimes it'll go back to them for revisions. We'll have a deadline, but something will come up in their lives and, oops, I now have three manuscripts that need to be reviewed in this same week. And then the next week it's crickets because all the manuscripts are back, and it's okay, now I can work on my book. It's definitely lumpy, but I find on average, it's a little bit more than half towards the client side. And I'm good with that for now.
[00:21:00] Matty: So for someone who is not in the situation of they're in the corporate job and they're paving the way for full-time career, but they've lost their job. I think a lot of people are in that situation because of the pandemic and now they have 40, 45, 50, however many hours a week where they get to decide how they want to spend it. And here's the secret that we're probably going to share with everyone. You're probably not going to make a living just selling your fiction. I'll give you a moment to comment on that before I ask my question.
[00:21:31] MK: Yes, definitely. The dream of being the full-time fiction author, where you're just sitting back and letting the inspiration soak in all day and writing beautiful words and it magically is enough to live on is definitely a myth. I know there are some authors that do that. I listened to the Six Figure Author Podcast, and there's certainly prolific writers who can continue to do that. But it's more the exception than the rule. So definitely that's not going to pay all the bills unless you magically have very tiny expenses.
[00:21:57] Matty: Yes, you have to have a roaring FIRE to make that work. So for the person who is now out of work and they have this stretch of time and they haven't been thinking in terms of having this be a goal, but now they're in the situation, do you have a different set of recommendations for people who are thinking, Oh, author services, that's something that I can get into to help pay the bills?
[00:22:21] MK: I would still go with the same set of recommendations, is what are the things that you want to offer? And maybe in really lean times you say, I hate audio book editing, but I know I can charge X amount per hour because it is more high-tech. I have the skills, I have the technology to do it, and I now have the time to do it. So even though I hate it, it feels like I'm getting a root canal when I do it, I'm going to offer it. Go in knowing that's a short-term plan for the holdover, because again, you really hating to do that one service, it's going to feel worse than your worst day job. If it's something you genuinely don't enjoy doing, even if you're great at it, even if you have the skills.
[00:22:54] And I definitely wanted to emphasize having the skills and the technology for it, don't start to offer author services for something, and you're just like, Oh, I'll figure it out on the way, because then if it doesn't go well, that client experience is going to be negative. And then when the next person comes to you, if they go and ask previous clients, how did it go, and get an honest review? It's not going to be good. And to the point of getting referrals, all my businesses come from referrals. I haven't had to do a single, lead form, sign up, cold pitching people.
[00:23:21] And so you want to have that good experience. So do something that, you enjoy doing, that you'll be able to provide that excellent service. And again, those first couple of weeks, if you are finding yourself out of work, they're going to be tough no matter what, but don't hit the panic button and start offering anything and everything, and including things that you don't enjoy doing, and you wouldn't be able to do well because that's not going to make it a long-term possibility for you. It's going to burn out and fizzle really fast on your enjoyment level of doing the work and your ability to generate referrals and new clients.
[00:23:53] Matty: It seems as if a way that people can capitalize on some of the changes that have been happening as a result of the pandemic, is that I know I've gotten requests for work through writers’ groups I belong to. And especially after I've given a presentation, if I give a presentation on marketing yourself as an author, then I'll get a bunch of questions about marketing yourself as an author. And with everything moving to Zoom, it opens up a whole new opportunity because let's say you're really good at making book trailers, let's say. You love making book trailers and you could go in the past to a couple of local book clubs and do a little overview of making book trailers, and you might get some clients. But if you can cast your net wider, look up on Meetup, for example, and look for authors groups, then you can be offering to do overviews of making a book trailer to book clubs that are really far afield. And that might multiply the amount of organic requests you get for that kind of work.
[00:24:55] MK: Absolutely. Yeah, there's definitely a way in this more non-contact Zoom world to be able to get yourself out there. And even outside of Zoom, for me, just having my YouTube channel, where I'm talking about these topics, I have people from all around the world who watch that channel who asked questions. So that is the reach of my potential marketing for my services. But also just the information I'm putting out there in my nonfiction books. So I find, if you are comfortable being on camera and the nice thing about YouTube is you can record and edit, if you mess up, you can cut out the mess up and put that in which you can't really do live on Zoom. It's just kind of out there.
[00:25:31] So you can put yourself out there digitally much better today than maybe a decade ago. Where before, yeah, it had to be, you knew a person, you went in person to speak to that limited group of people. So you definitely have a lot of options now to be able to put your expertise out there. And that's what I would really focus on is the topics that you want to be known for, that you want people to come to you for advice. Those are the things you should talk on.
[00:25:53] And again, it's all about that giving. Give the information and give that service to other authors, and you'll be surprised how many people say cool, I'll pay you to do it. I love that you gave me those tips. I totally agree with them. I have no video editing skills. Send them on over. So it's really great that when you give and you give to be able to help others, they will come back and ask for that help.
[00:26:12] So I definitely want to keep reiterating that because I know there's so many people who go in and they make that hard sell right away. They're like, and I just showed you all of this and for X amount, and this can be yours too. I think if you say I showed you all of this, let me know if you have questions, you'll end up getting the ask.
[00:26:25] And I know that goes against what so many salespeople say is you have to make the sale, make the sale, make the sale. That's never worked for me. I've never been a very salesy person. I know some people, it works for them. Great. And that's good for them. But I find that the kind of clients I want to work with are more of the people who aren't necessarily attracted to that hard sales, in your face attitude anyways. So that works for me.
[00:26:45] Matty: Yeah. Another decision that people would need to think about when they're considering author services that they want to offer is scalable or not scalable. So our history is very similar because I left my corporate job in 2019 and I knew I wanted to continue writing my fiction. I knew I wanted to continue the podcast and find ways of monetizing it. And I was thinking of other things that I could do. And editing was an obvious one. And I took a couple of editing jobs and they were fine, but I quickly realized I could only to one editing job at a time. And so I decided that I wanted to set aside anything that was a one-fer and only focus on things that were scalable.
[00:27:26] So in the sense that if I do a podcast episode, I'm doing the same work whether 10 people are listening to it, or a hundred thousand people are listening to it. If I write a book, I'm doing the same work, regardless of if it's 10 or a hundred thousand. You're doing some consulting. So some of your work is not scalable. How have you made that decision in your own business plan?
[00:27:43] MK: Yeah. So this is actually one of the big issues that I'm constantly thinking on. So I would say I get so much energy talking from other authors and helping them. When I'm working with a client, I'm giving them advice, I'm helping with their book, but I am receiving for them so much energy and excitement. To be with that author when they are launching that first book and telling them, you got to celebrate, there's always more work to do, to be with them. I get so excited for it. But to realize that my time is so much more limited now. Being a new mom, I can't take her to a daycare right now because we're in Florida and guess what? Vaccines aren't rolling out here. And that's a decision we've made for our family. So my time really is very limited.
[00:28:19] And so the idea of not taking on client work has been really troubling for me because, you're right it doesn't scale, but it's something I've loved to do. So I've started to focus on these one-hour consults, like quick questions. I’ll help you work on a plan, things like that, but it's not going to be this multi-month sometimes even a yearlong project because of the scalability.
[00:28:38] Whereas I know, Hey, if we have a really great conversation, I can get you a plan. I can answer your questions. That's easier for my time than these long projects that kind of go on for a while. And the scalability I'm constantly thinking about because it's that constant tension between I want to help more people, but I have other priorities over here.
[00:28:57] So I'm constantly evolving my business for that reason. The decisions that I made for my business in 2019 when I launched it are very different than the decisions I would make today, just because of where we are in the world, where I am in my stage of life. And I think that's okay. if you are going to be offering author services, you might say, yep, I want to offer the range. And then I'm going to see what people actually want to hire me for and what I enjoy doing and narrow it down.
[00:29:19] That's the thing with your business. It can constantly evolve. Our writing skills are constantly evolving. The way we're marketing our books is constantly evolving. If you're offering author services, that should be evolving too. You should be refining. You should be able to say, you know what, this season of life, I don't want to offer this anymore. I've had a few bad experiences in a row. I just don't want to do it. Or the technology has changed enough. I don't feel like keeping up with it. Or, Hey, there's something new. I'm good at. That's come out in the indy author space. I can offer this. So you never want to stagnate. You never just want to be static.
[00:29:48] And so the things that don't scale, unfortunately, are the things I'm going to be cutting first, but I do have the hope to be able to add those back in, in the coming years, as I have more options for childcare based on vaccine roll-out and where everybody's health is and financially and all those things. I am scaling back but hoping to scale up again soon.
[00:30:08] Matty: And you'd probably be scaling up at a different tier, because as you get your name out there through the scalable options, and then in six months or a year or five years, and someone hears MK Williams' and they're like, Oh, MK Williams, I'd be happy to pay her a thousand dollars to talk with her for an hour. And you open up more opportunities because you spread the word about yourself through your scalable opportunities.
[00:30:32] MK: Exactly. I don't charge a thousand dollars an hour right now though. That's too expensive. Not yet. No, no, no, much less than that. But yeah, that would be nice one day. And one of the things I've always kept in mind is I am again, a very frugal person, so I think I tend to undercharge for my services. Some people would say, Oh, I would pay more than that. I'm like, Oh, Darn it.
[00:30:50] But I also, I know what the margins are for us authors. I know that when we put out a book if we price it here, Amazon takes this cut. The print charge for IngramSpark is this. I know what the final warranty is going to be for an author. So I do try to keep that in mind that if there's somebody new, starting out, they have no audience. And I'm like, okay, it's going to take you a while to earn back at least my fee, let alone the other things you're putting in. So I do always keep that in mind for my clients. But yes, it'd be lovely if in five years I was able to just be at that top, top premier level. But we'll see.
[00:31:19] Matty: Talk a little bit more about how you're making the decision because in any effort that I've ever done that involved services, the thing I always got stuck on was what do I charge? So do you have any general tips you can share about how people should go about determining that?
[00:31:33] MK: I would say, and I know there's some people who always say, you should pay an independent business owner what they're worth and they should be asking for more. I started asking for less than I should have. And then I quickly learned, okay, I need to charge a bit more next time because this took me longer than I thought it was going to. So what I thought was going to be a one-hour project turned into a five-hour project.
[00:31:51] Okay. It's averaging four to five hours. Every time I do it, I need to price this based on five hours. So I have set at a flat rate for what I find an hour of my time is worth, and then I go from there. So I'll be transparent with people, too. And we're working on a custom plan to say, Hey, I think it's going to take me this many hours. This is my hourly rate. Therefore, this is what the price quote is. That way they understand my time level effort that's going in. And that the work they're getting from me isn't just what they're seeing, when we have conversations, when I'm sending them an email, there's a lot of background work being done that they don't see. So I find that works on multiple levels.
[00:32:25] I do look at the prices of other people who are offering author services. And I don't call them my competition, I would actually consider them my colleagues, because there is more work to be done than I could do. So there have been times, especially in mid-November, I had been putting out all this great energy, and of course, the week before I was due, I had three people send in requests for book formatting. And I said, I can't do it. I could go into labor at any moment, and then your book is going to be in limbo until who knows when.
[00:32:51] So thankfully from doing my research and seeing what other people are charging, I found other people that I saw were doing quality work, and I said, Hey, you should go talk to this person. They still offer author services. I think that they do a great price, go and talk to them. So it helps me on multiple levels to see what other people were charging. And kind of say, okay, so the middle of this range would be here, for that amount.
[00:33:11] And then also just keeping an eye on who's out there doing the same thing, because you will probably get to a time where maybe you're too busy or you're sick, or you just want to take a vacation. And being able to refer somebody is going to be great, because then they're going to remember that you made that referral. That helps that other person out. And then maybe when they have the same situation, they'll refer people back to you. So the price research on what other people are offering definitely helped being comfortable with the price.
[00:33:35] It's very clear when you're like, um, I think, uh, this amount?, um … People can tell that you're not confident in the value. I know every time I speak with somebody, I'm confident in the value that I offer. And I find people who say I don't want to pay that. I'm like, okay, that's fine. You can watch my videos. I have no problem then saying, Oh, let me discount, let me discount. I know I'm offering the best value at that price. And then I'm not hemming and hawing later.
[00:33:56] Matty: And I think also recognizing that they're making a statement about their business, they're not making a statement about you personally, and that you have to separate yourself personally, from the services you offer sometimes.
[00:34:08] MK: Exactly, exactly. And for some authors who are getting started out, to them, this writing books has been a very expensive hobby to date. And so when they hear another dollar amount thrown out, they're Oh, I could do this on my own. And I'm like, you absolutely could, and here's all the information I have where you can learn it. And that's one thing I reiterate to people is, you could figure any of this out, the stuff that I'm going to be able to help you with. It's just how much time do you want to spend doing it? so I have toughened my skin a little bit when people say, Oh, well, so-and-so charged us. And like they do and go talk to them.
[00:34:38] Matty: You had also mentioned in an answer to another question you had been talking about something that might make people change their minds about their service would be evolving technology and they don't feel like continuing to keep on top of that.
[00:34:51] The cost of the technology is a consideration too. And so if people are doing like high-end video editing, then their technology cost is going to be much higher than if people are doing good old fashioned red pen editing. And I think I'm just suggesting that's another consideration people should make -- what's the investment you need to make, and then how is that going to change over time? And in a year or two years or five years, they're going to have to overhaul your video editing setup because technology has moved on. Do you offer services where you're factoring in the technology as well as your time?
[00:35:22] MK: Absolutely. So for a while I was offering the book formatting. And then I realized, okay, the time I'm putting in, somebody could really just buy Scrivener or Vellum. And they would have, I think, even a better formatted book than what I could do. So I was like, okay, so I'm going to have to increase my prices dramatically because of the value of my time and how long it takes. Somebody else could do this better. I'm just not going to offer it anymore. I just, I don't think it's worth it. Now I'm telling people like there are formatting services out there.
[00:35:51] And there are other people who offer very great author services doing formatting, and they do the full stack. And for maybe a little bit more than what would be for the subscription. So I don't want to say just only go with those softwares. There are other great people who are providing that service. But that's something I scaled back on. Cause I was like, you know what? I'm going to have to keep getting better at these skills. I'm going to have to keep learning new elements of it, to keep up with what can be done by these other services. It's not worth it to me to put my time in there. And then knowing what I would need to charge to compensate that time, I'm like, it doesn't make sense anymore. And so that is something that I have had to consider.
[00:36:24] With technology where I've added is for a while I was, making my YouTube videos with a little point and shoot. And the audio and video quality were not good. As I started to be on more podcasts, as I started to say, okay I'm going to record an audio book from one of my own books to test out what that process is and put it on YouTube, I was like, it makes sense for me to invest in a good microphone and a good webcam and actually buy the software that it's going to be easier to edit with and get a light ring. And those are one-time investments that I use weekly. So definitely their cost per use is very low now. So that's where I realized, okay, I can justify this cost.
[00:37:00] And that was something I really thought on for a while. Some people will pro be listening Oh, just click, click buy. Why would you think about it that long? Again, it goes back to my frugal roots. I really am very deliberate about how I spend my time and how I spend my money. So I’m glad I made those investments though.
[00:37:13] Matty: Let's fast forward to a point where people have decided what service they want to offer, they're getting clients. Do you have tips for how formalized you should make the agreement when you take on a client?
[00:37:23] MK: I like to put things in writing and I'm sure at some point it's going to come back to bite me in the butt that I don't have a more formal contract. But I put it on the invoice exactly what the services will be, next to the price line. And then I put on there about no refunds and cancellations. I had a few people who just flaked and then a month later they're like, okay, I'm not doing this anymore. I want my money back. And I was like, but I spent all this time, and I agree that, yes, the end product wasn't delivered, but I spent this time.
[00:37:50] And so just to be done, I was like, okay, here's a refund, but now I've said no more refunds. I want you to be committed when we signed on to do this because I'm going to be committed. So that's something I had to learn to put in writing. But I do go on the less formal side because usually I'm having several conversations, several email exchanges with a person before we agree to work together.
[00:38:09] In a way that's also me verifying that this is somebody I want to work with. So again, it's tough when you are just starting out and you're like, Oh, but I have to say yes to every client opportunity. I would caution to say, you're going to learn a lot from the first bad client. You're going to learn a lot from the first person who says, Oh yeah, just text me this, and then suddenly they are text messaging you at 10 o'clock at night with questions about their book. And you feel like, do I answer, do I not. I'm really tired. I don't want this to become a habit.
[00:38:36] So I've learned to put very good structures in place to say, Hey, this is the way to reach me. And this is going to be our communication schedule. Really keeping that good professional distance and that's something I had to learn along the way. So the first couple of clients you're going to learn from the mistakes, no matter how structured you think you're going to be.
[00:38:52] And I definitely wouldn't delay when somebody says, great, how much is it? Or, good let's get going, send me an invoice. Don't delay on sending that invoice just to make it as picture perfect as you think it should be, and then a week later you send it and they're like, I didn't hear from you. Get that out there have an idea of what should be on there at first. And then with each client, you're going to have an experience.
[00:39:12] I know the Alliance of Independent Authors and then Independent Book Publishers Association, IBPA, they have sample contracts, and they have things that you can reference that can help you to make sure there's things we'll look out for.
[00:39:24] Obviously if you're offering certain services, you don't want somebody to come back and say, this is bad to the point that it hurt my reputation, and now I'm coming after you. That I would say would be very rare to happen, but I know it does happen. So keep that in mind. obviously if you're charging a small amount for a small project, if somebody comes back and says, I don't like this, I'm not happy with this. You can say, you know what, it's not worth a hundred dollars for this argument. Just here you go. Refund. Bye.
[00:39:50] And that's something that's hard to learn, especially when you're starting out and every client and every amount of money you bring in seems so important, but there are times where you just have to say, it's not worth the headache. But I found that I've been able to attract the right clients, so I haven't had that issue too many times.
[00:40:04] Matty: In my very brief period of offering editing services, I basically did two jobs. And I think the one who's going to get complimented will know who I'm talking about. The first guy who I edited, did a developmental edit of his whole manuscript, and he was the dream client. Fortunately, I even recognized it at the time. I'm like, I'm never going to get a better client than this because, his total attitude was, okay, I'm just going to sit here and listen to what you have to say, and I'm not going to respond. Even if it pains me, I'm going to accept that you're the expert and I'm just going to listen. I was like, you're the best.
[00:40:38] And then the second client, I was a little on the fence about, and I said let's do a sample edit. I charged $50 and I can't remember how many pages I edited. And even while I was doing it, I was like, Oh man, I'm not the person to be editing this because it was a very different genre than I write in. And I sent him the edit and he wrote back and told me all the reasons I was wrong. And we exchanged a couple of emails and I finally said, that's the point of a sample edit is to see if you're going to work well together. Obviously, we weren't meant to be. And we ended it on a friendly note, but I think my point of that story is that if you can find an opportunity to do a sample piece of work for someone for a lower rate than you would charge in a normal scenario that's good for both of you.
[00:41:26] MK: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's about the good fit. And that's, again, another reason to know other people who offer the same things that you do is, Hey, here's somebody who maybe works better in your genre. Here's somebody who has a price point maybe you'd appreciate, or maybe two might click better, and refer them somewhere else.
[00:41:42] Matty: Yep. So that sort of covers the other aspect I was going to ask about, which is firing clients. Do you have any tips beyond what you've already said? You talked about the fact that sometimes it's worth taking a little financial hit just to get yourself out of what is obviously not going to be a positive situation for either party. Any other tips on that front?
[00:42:00] MK: I think at that point, always just trying to be professional and courteous and realizing, again, it may not have anything to do with the service and how you provided it and may have to do with where they are in their life. I had somebody who signed on for a full soup to nuts, I'm going to help them get the book done, get it edited, get it out like everything. And they said, you know what? I got accepted to this program and it's for another part of my career I want to grow. So I'm not going to do this anymore.
[00:42:25] And that was tough because I had already invested time and kind of emotions. I was excited for this book. I was like, I want to read this book. I want you to write it. And so for me, it was instead of saying, Oh, good for you, and here's this back, and I can't believe you did that, I was like, I'm really excited for you. The, let me know how this program keeps going. And when you're ready to write your book again, come on back.
[00:42:44] I don't know that they will they seemed pretty hyped on this other one and kind of wishy washy on getting the book done. But it's one of those things where you want to leave it on a positive note and be that professional. It's tough sometimes if you're like, I left this corporate day job, so I didn't have to do this corporate jargon and those kinds of things anymore. But at the end of the day, you are a service provider, you are a business. And as much as the indy author community is growing, it is still small. And so if one person says I worked with them and they were kind of short with me, or they were kind of snarky and not a positive way, that's going to get around.
[00:43:12] So always be professional, always be polite, and understand that it may, like you said, have nothing to do with your business. It may just be where they are in life, may just not be a good fit because of genre or anything else. And sometimes it is, if you weren't offering good value and then you have to sit and say, I did, I, did I do that the best I could? Is there something I could have learned from this? And just move forward because somebody else needs your time and attention. Don't stew on it for too long.
[00:43:37] Matty: Do you quote and charge for all your work on a per job basis? Is it a one-time fee or is it an hourly rate? I know you base it on an hourly rate, but it's a charged on an hourly rate.
[00:43:46] MK: It's not charged on an hourly rate. So I'll quote them based on the time I think it is as here's the full amount. I'll usually offer a down payment and a final payment option. Some people say, Nope, I just want to pay all at once. And I'm like, cool. I will say yes to that. But I usually offer a down payment and final payment option. And then for my hour-long consults, that's just pay before the phone call and that's it. It's just a one and done. So it's easier that way, versus having an okay, I worked this many hours, here's this month's invoice, and accounting for that, because it's lumpy. So it's never X hours every single month, some months are busier than others. So I just do that full amount, divide by half, and there you go.
[00:44:23] Matty: I also think that a benefit of not breaking it out too granularly, this is the playing the devil's advocate against let the client know what's going on behind the scenes, and that is that there's the story about, I know I'm going to get this wrong, but the machine that's acting up and the people come, and they try to fix it. And they don't. And finally he calls the expensive expert, and the expensive expert shows up with his little hammer and dings the machine, and suddenly it's working. And the guy says, I can't believe I just paid for you to just hit that with your hammer. And the guy with the hammer says, you're not paying for me to hit it with a hammer. You're paying for me to know where to hit it with the hammer.
[00:44:57] MK: Yeah. It's the experience.
[00:45:00] Matty: So there are times when I've been perfectly happy to pay $500, a thousand dollars for an author service, even not knowing what's going on behind the scenes, because I trust that I'm going to get a benefit from my business in that.
[00:45:12] MK: Exactly. It's the value. It's that end line value. It's you not having to spend hours learning something new, pulling your hair out to figure it out, going back and forth on it. It's you, do it? You make my life easier.
[00:45:24] Matty: Yeah. And I think sometimes you can only learn by trial and error what that balance is or what the perceived value is of what you're going to be offering to your client.
[00:45:33] You had talked about transitioning away from offering services, to building a network of other providers. Is that related to that kind of a cooperative referral of clients? Are there other aspects of that?
[00:45:45] MK: Yeah, so I realized I should probably be trying to get affiliate relationship set up with some of these service providers. Like last week it hit me, and I was like, I've been sending a lot of business here, and I know affiliate marketing is a thing. I should probably try to set that up and get some money back from all the money I'm sending to this one provider. But they do great work. And quite honestly, I would keep referring them even if they didn't give me affiliate commissions for it.
[00:46:08] So a part of it, yes, is me wanting to step back a little bit and having good people I can refer. Sometimes it's just the services that I offer can only go so far. I know what my design skills are. They are not good, so I want to be able to have individual graphic designers, cover design teams that I can put people out to based on the client's budget and what they need.
[00:46:29] So there's times that I've worked with clients and they say, I want custom interior, custom exterior. I want to work with one graphic designer who's going to do it all. And I've been able to leverage my network to find people who would pitch for that. And then going through that process to help them coordinate with which designer. Understanding all of the book elements but knowing I can't design to save my life. And so this person's going to do it. And then I'll have clients who are maybe on a much lower budget. And I say, this is the company you want to go with. They do great with cover work. They know the ins and outs. You're going to get a great value. So for me, it's just being able to say, I can anticipate the other questions they're going to have and the other needs they're going to have that I can't fill and saying, I know somebody who can do that for you. I know somebody who can do this for you.
[00:47:08] Matty: Those are all just great examples of the importance of being a generous member of the author community and how the good karma comes back to help you over time.
[00:47:18] Matty: The last question I had was that when I was early in my author career and I was looking for the services like we're talking about here, but I didn't have very much money to spend on them, I always hoped for a scenario where somebody would be willing to take a percentage of my profits rather than getting a payment for them.
[00:47:41] So for example, I'd love to sell on Google Play, but I've sold like two books on Google Play in the time that I've been on it, and so if I were to hire somebody to help me get my books more successful on Google Play, I would pretty much know that any other sales I got were as a result of this person's work.
[00:47:58] And I would love to be able to say, I'll split my royalties in some way with you, the more I make, the more you make, and I've never been able to find who does that, is that anything that you've ever considered? And what are the pros and cons from your point of view as a provider?
[00:48:14] MK: Yeah. So I have one ongoing client where we work on a royalty split basis. And it's great because again, the harder I work, the more I can make for them because we're sharing those profits. The downside is with books, they live forever. So these books could be selling next month, next year, next decade. And so this is a long-term relationship I am in with this group. So in that case, I very clearly outlined while I'm actively working for you, this is the percentage I will receive. It's a royalty only. So I spent a lot of time working with no compensation, and then now the books are out there doing well. I'm receiving compensation kind of back due for that time. So as I'm actively working to help promote their books and bring new books on, I received X royalty. If I ever decide, Hey, I want to go live on a desert Island, you won't be hearing from you anymore, bye, there’s another royalty that I'll receive for the life of the book as well.
[00:49:05] And then if for some reason they decide we don't want to have books anymore, we have certain clauses worked out, so that way it's clear, those decisions have been made. So it's difficult when you get into the royalty space, because as authors, we are so excited that we're like, wow, like my entire lifetime, I can be earning these royalties and my children were own them for 70 years.
[00:49:23] Okay. So if you are helping somebody and you're getting a royalty split, how long do you want to work with that person? So that is one thing to keep in mind. I like the idea of doing a royalty split up until X dollar amount to say, Hey, I'm going to help you out. I know your budget is really tight right now.
[00:49:38] I would value this at a thousand dollars, the work that I'm going to do for you. So we're going to do a royalty split until I earn back a thousand dollars or a thousand dollars plus 10%, because I'm obviously not getting compensated right away. So that's where you have to get a bit more creative with how you do it, and understand if it's royalties forever and ever, or royalties up to a certain dollar amount, or royalties for the length of your contract, whatever that's going to be.
[00:50:01] The royalty game goes on a long time. So that's the positive part for the person who's receiving the money, right? Hey, I could be on a vacation and I got paid or it's, Oh, I really just want to turn off, but I can't because I have to still talk to this person and after a decade of working together and making sure I get paid. So that's a very long-term relationship you're entering into when you do royalty payments.
[00:50:24] Matty: Yeah, somebody you obviously want to have some track record with before you start thinking about something like that.
[00:50:30] MK: And good trust, making sure you have that good visibility and transparency as well.
[00:50:36] Matty: Great. Well, MK, this has been so helpful and so interesting. Please let our listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and your work and your books online.
[00:50:44] MK: Absolutely. So I am everywhere online as 1MKWilliams. So 1MKWilliams.com. @1MKWilliams on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.
[00:50:54] My YouTube channel is /1MKWilliams. Author Your Ambition is the name of the channel, and authoryourambition.com is where I have links to all the videos, my non-fiction books, all about self-publishing, and links to my services. If you want to get on the wait list. I used to say I'm 1MKWilliams because I am the one MK Williams, but I found out there's another MK Williams, but he's a dude.
[00:51:14] Matty: That's an important branding distinction.
[00:51:17] MK: I was using it cause I'm the one MK Williams and then one day somebody followed me on Instagram, and it was MK Williams. And I was like, this is weird. I'm not that big to have a spam account. And it was this other sci-fi writer who's a male.
[00:51:29] Matty: Well, he'll just have to be 2MKWilliams. Well, thank you so much. This has been great.
[00:51:35] MK: Yeah. Thank you for having me
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