011 Authors and Money: How to Quit Your Job and Write Full-Time with Zach Bohannon

Welcome back to episode 011 of The Rebel Author Podcast, today I’m talking to Zach Bohannon all about authors and money. Specifically how to quit your job and write full-time.

Episode questions:

1. Do you read the show transcript?

2. What one thing you’re going to do to better your financial situation after listening to this podcast?

More about our guest, Zach Bohannon:

Website – www.zachbohannon.com

The Career Author: Podcast and Events – www.thecareerauthor.com

Zach’s Fiction at Molten Universe Media – www.moltenuniversemedia.com

Episode 44 – Money Tips For the Aspiring Career Author: https://thecareerauthor.com/the-career-author-podcast-episode-44-money-tips-for-the-aspiring-career-author/ 

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https://www.redbubble.com/people/rebelauthor/shop?asc=u

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Book Recommendations this week:

The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/ebook/the-total-money-makeover-classic-edition

Amazon UK https://amzn.to/36Qc5PC

Amazon USA https://amzn.to/2td8yfC

The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/ebook/the-barefoot-investor

Amazon UK https://amzn.to/2Rbipuu

Amazon USA https://amzn.to/2Tqhzgd

The Millionaire Next Door by William D. Danko and Thomas J Stanley

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/ebook/the-millionaire-next-door-6

Amazon UK https://amzn.to/36KMZBD

Amazon USA https://amzn.to/2Nnjxdk

Playing with Fire by Scott Rieckens

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/ebook/playing-with-fire-financial-independence-retire-early

Amazon UK https://amzn.to/380d4N7

Amazon USA https://amzn.to/2sm4w4f

Choose FI by Chris Mamula, Brad Barret and Jonathan Mendonsa

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/ebook/choose-fi

Amazon UK https://amzn.to/2TkYAmY

Amazon USA https://amzn.to/3a7KHOT

Please note these are affiliate links.

Episode Transcript Authors and Money: How to Quit Your Job and Write Full-Time with Zach Bohannon

Sacha Black
Hello, and welcome back to The Rebel Author Podcast. Today I am with Zach Bohannon. Zach writes science fiction and fantasy, nonfiction books for authors, and is the host of The Career Author podcast, as well as the co host and organizer of unique author events, such as authors on a train and the career author summit. Hello, and welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.

Zach Bohannon
Hey, Sacha, how you doing?

Sacha Black
I am really good. And for anybody listening who hasn’t listened to The Career Author podcast, I absolutely love it and I highly recommend the podcast so please do go and check it out. And I will make sure that all of the links are in the show notes. I’ve also voted on your, your, your, your event,

Zach Bohannon
The poll we did. Yeah, I can guess where you probably voted

Sacha Black
it. Yeah. And so I will edit that out. But anyway, and welcome. And thank you for joining me today. And

Zach Bohannon
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And thank you for the kind words about the podcast.

Sacha Black
Oh, I speak only the truth. Everybody knows that brutal Truth and Honesty for me. So can you tell listeners a little bit more about you and your journey and how you got into full time writing?

Zach Bohannon
Yeah, so I’ve been I’ve been full time since 2017. I published my first novel and right at the beginning of 2015. Of course, as I know, a lot of people listening and other authors, you know, like it’s, I’ve always written blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. I’m actually spent. I spent the majority of my 20s trying to be a rock musician, so I played drums and heavy metal bands and I wrote lyrics And one of those bands and so always, and always wanted to write, and of course, you know, had tried starting novels and never finished a thing. And I finally just kind of decided to do it. And, you know, my first novel did really well. And, you know, it just I just kept publishing and it led to me to the opportunity to go full time and 2017 after a nudge from Joanna Penn, telling me, it was it was time so

Sacha Black
And just tell everybody a little bit more about some of the events because they are amazing, and I am so jealous of everybody going to the one in New Orleans over Halloween, but just just tell everybody about the events that you run.

Zach Bohannon
Yeah, so of course I do the podcast with Jay Thorne. You may hear his name come up several times through this because we do the podcast together. We also write we’ve written over a dozen fiction books together. We run a publishing company together and we do these events together as well. So we do, we have two different we have really two or three different types of events.

We do. Of course, we do the bigger conference. So we have The Career Author Summit. Some people may have heard it as the Sell More Books Summit previously, but it was rebranded for this next year to the career authors summit. We’ve done two of those in Chicago so far and we have it in Nashville in May of 2020. It’s sold out so no one’s gonna be able to get tickets but uh, but as we have that, which is like a larger conference, when I say larger, it’s a round we sell, I think around 120 tickets, hundred 150 tickets. And, like, the biggest piece of feedback we’ve gotten is not to get bigger than that and we really liked that size. So we plan on keeping around that we don’t plan on going a bigger and luckily, you know, the our motivation for doing that is not necessarily money, which we’re going to talk about a lot. So, today so it’s it’s, you know, we don’t really have to get we can keep people’s risk. With that,

We also do these really unique world building events. And those are pretty neat because they’re literally one of a kind. So you mentioned one which we still have tickets available for in 2020. And that is vampires of New Orleans.

Sacha Black
Don’t tempt me

Zach Bohannon
So we’re going to get a new one. So we’re going to New Orleans Halloween weekend of 2020. Halloween is on a Saturday, we’re going to have our event Thursday and Friday, and then if people want to spend the weekend in New Orleans, you should if you’re going down there cuz that’s the best time to be there. But that’s one of our world building events. So basically, we get 15 authors in a room with us. And there it is kind of a workshop to like Jay and I do some teaching, but what the bulk of it is, is we go okay, we’re gonna we’re going to sit together and everyone’s gonna sit in this room and we build a world out together. So in that instance, we’re going to like kind of come up with a vampire world. Timeline come up with rules for our vampires, all type of stuff. And then everyone will go away after the event and write stories that are written in that world. And then we publish the anthology with all the stories when it’s over, and we donate all proceeds to charity and stuff. So it’s really cool. We’ve also done Night of the Writing Dead, which was, which is in Pittsburgh and celebration of 50, the 50th anniversary of Night of the Living Dead. And we’ve done rock apoc, which was an apocalyptic world building event we did like at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Cleveland, which was awesome. We also did sci fi Seattle, which was we did aside we built the space opera world together in Seattle. That was just a few weeks ago or last month.

And yeah, so the cool thing about those events is they’re unique as we like to tell people, you know, I’m not trying to tempt you, I promise. But, but people will say that I’ll just come next year and will, there’s not going to be a next year for that particular event. So like, we’re only going to, we can only celebrate Night Living Dead once and do the zombie event. So yeah, so those events are unique. And then the other one and kind of one that J and I are probably most known for his authors on a train. And if anyone is I’m sure most of us know Joanna Penn’s podcast. So you probably heard about there a couple years ago when me and Jay and her and Lindsay broker all took the train from Chicago to New Orleans. And we wrote a book together in a week, J, and I turn that into an event where we take authors with us and so we’ve done a couple of those. We’ve done that same trip in Chicago, New Orleans. And this January, we’re going to be going from LA to San Francisco on the train and rent a mansion up in that area, and we’re all staying together and going to collaborate on some stories. So that’s a fun one. That’s kind of one we’re probably known for the most. So that’s kind of I guess in a nutshell some of some of the events we do so.

Sacha Black
I think that’s so cool and completely unique as well you don’t you hear a lot of conferences and one day events and stuff, but you don’t hear these more unique niche type events, especially in places like New Orleans which is so full of inspiration for authors.

Zach Bohannon
Yeah, or like, you know, when we did the rock apoc one we’re in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the VIP room and stuff and it was, it was really it was really neat. So and those events are fun, like I said, just with 15 authors, and we’re just world building and and it’s it’s awesome. People come up with story pitches and pitch their stories and stuff it’s just awesome, like the collaborative effort that goes into those events. so

Sacha Black
fabulous. I hope I can one day make them and if you ever venture this side of the world, I will definitely be making one. Okay, so on to the topic of our discussion. Which is money. While it’s not always the case for every author I know, I think most indie authors want to write full-time. I think that’s probably why they choose to go indie rather than being traditional. And I think a huge part of that is around financial freedom and earning enough money. And yet, I find that money is still a really taboo topic in the indie world. I would love to get rid of that taboo and that was why I approached you in the first place for this podcast. So what do you think are the key steps an author would need to take financially in order to quit their job?

Zach Bohannon
Well, the first thing I’ll say is just put a disclaimer that I am not a financial expert. So this is just a topic that both both of us are really passionate about. Like you said, we you know, there’s a lot of taboos around money especially in our circles and stuff and it’s just something that really interests me and something that like you I’m trying to kind of get rid of and I’m really passionate about so but that being said, I’m not a financial experts. So talk to an accountant or a financial expert don’t take our advice necessarily.

Um, you know, the big thing for me is I think that you really have to ask yourself, like, how bad do you really want to do this? And what does being a full time writer look like for you? And what what kind of life is that going to allow you to live? And the reason I say that is because one of the things that I see in the author community that and honestly, it really kind of drives me a little nuts is the idea of always talking about success in terms of royalties and money. And that drives me crazy. Obviously, we need money to live. Money is an ends to a means we need to be making money to make this happen. If you’re not earning, then it’s going to be hard for you to be full time and to do this, but like I just you know, and I’m not on social media anymore. And this is a big reason why honestly. But when I was spent a lot of time in author groups and stuff, you would see people brag about, oh, I made this much money this month. And everyone’s like, Oh, I really wish I could do that and bought and my question is always, like, why do you need to make that much like, and we don’t know the stories that those authors have. It may look like they’re making buckets of money, but they could be in a ton of debt or something like that.

Sacha Black
Are they spending it on advertising?

Zach Bohannon
Or absolutely, you’re exactly right they could be spent on advertising. There’s a lot of different things to look at, you know, and some authors will share that like some authors will say, well, this is how much money I actually am making. This is like my take home.But like, I don’t know, for me, it’s like, obviously, money is important, but that my big motivation for being able to do this is not to have money to be able to buy more things or to be able to do this or that. It’s to be able to do this to be able to make my own schedule to be free. You know, for instance, this Friday, my daughter is getting an award at her school and it’s like a secret that she doesn’t even know about, and I’m going to be able to be there. And it’s all and like, I don’t have to ask anybody I don’t have to take off from work. I can just go like, I’m just like, Okay, cool. That’s easy. To me, that’s success. That is more. That’s how I define success more than I define how much money I’m making. Or you know, that’s that’s that’s not hard to find success. I define success by the fact that my daughter when she was in her daycare. There was a there’s a thing called donuts with dad. One more Morning, and I got to go. And I was one of only four dads there and a 15 kid class and kids were crying because their dads weren’t there. And like, understand because they have other jobs, and it’s probably hard for him to ask for something, but like, that’s type of stuff I don’t have to miss. So to me that’s been successful.

So to go back to your original question, um, you know, to me, really think about, you know, if you really want this… I get asked all the time, I get asked, you know, how do you make enough money to go full time? And to me, that’s kind of the wrong question, because it’s not… I’ll be really honest, like, I’m not rolling in the dough and royalties. You know, and I’m definitely not primarily making my income off fiction, these events and stuff definitely help. Even though some of these events don’t necessarily, you know, pull a lot of money in but I’ve built my life to where I just don’t need a lot of money. I think that’s the real key is that I don’t have a debt you know, that’s the bit don’t have a ton of debt. That’s the big thing other than a mortgage, I mean you know, my wife and I worked really hard to get out of debt. I think that’s the biggest thing anyone can do before going full time because the less bills you have to pay and less money going out the less money you need coming in. And that that’s kind of controversial for a lot of people to hear but you know, I don’t put my business stuff on credit cards or anything like that, you know, it’s just not the way that I want to live and so to me, that’s the biggest thing and then just also I’m you know, I kind of live a minimalist lifestyle, I don’t really need a lot of stuff. So to me I would rather be doing this. You know, I would rather be making my own schedule and not be not having to miss things that my kid and being able to like live the life I want. This way, you know, if my schedule then like, have a bunch of stuff or have a bunch of payments on things or be paying the bank. So to me, I think that’s really because the quickest sell, the quickest way to give yourself a raise is to spend less money. So and I think the less you have going, especially to creditors and stuff like that, the better off you’re going to be. And I know it’s not the answer a lot of people want to hear, but it’s just something I really feel strongly. And I, I know from talking to you before that, I think you have similar beliefs.

Sacha Black
They’re 100% I’m like, I’m nodding furiously back here, because I’m like, oh, all of the points. I just agree with all of them. I think, when I was in full time employment, I was constantly stressed because I had to leave at certain times to pick up my son and, and and if I didn’t, and then that, you know, what if I was late and blah, blah, blah, and it is so stressful, and now I’m just like, yeah, I need to go now. So I’m gonna go now and it’s completely you know, I’m completely free. But I think there’s a couple of points there. And that I wanted to come back on and the first one is something that I heard recently and I I think it was in a Rich Dad Poor Dad, audiobook, but one person’s asset is another person’s liability. So where you were talking about reducing debt, any debt that you have, you know, is the bank’s asset. Your debt is making them money. So they make their money. Exactly, exactly. And the other point, which was such an epiphany for me when it happened a few years ago, is that if you have paid off all of your debt, and let’s say you’re spending 500 quid a month or $500, or whatever, a month on paying back debt, you just don’t need that money, which means the bar for which you have to earn in order to survive is that much lower. Now, you know, nobody saying that you’re going to earn that forever. Nobody wants to just earn the you know what you have to earn. But if you want to get out, that’s the way to get out you know, so I just I you It was such a, I just I spent years not recognizing that.

Zach Bohannon
And I think for me too, is if I had a book take off tomorrow and got a movie deal and all this stuff, and I got a big, you know, whatever, like, you know, was just started making way more than I am now. Nothing really changed for me. Like, I mean, I pay my house off. And my wife and I might travel a little more than we do now. But other than that, I mean, nothing really would change. You know, I mean, so and I think that’s, that’s, that’s really really important, too.

Sacha Black
Yeah, exactly. My friend and I’m going to name drop her because she’ll, she’ll appreciate this. But Suzie always says to me, she wanted to create a life she didn’t want to take a vacation from I think that’s how you say it.

Zach Bohannon
That’s how I feel. Yeah. And I’ll tell you too, I’m going back to something else that you said was, you know, talking about the banks, you know, one of the biggest thing I hear from from… I’ve one friend specifically who is really into credit cards but he you know, he pays off the balance every month, which is a dangerous game to play, like a lot of people will say… Because if you miss a month or miss two months or then all of a sudden you’ve got this interest, but he does it for the points and my questions alway like, and I think Dave Ramsey says this he’s who you’re probably gonna hear me mention a lot but like, Do you know any millionaires he became that way based off credit card points? Like that’s just a marketing ploy from from the creditors because they want you to use their credit card and hopes that you’re not going to pay it off. And I guarantee you that the cashback you’re getting if you do start missing payments is going to be way less than the interest you’re going to pay.

Sacha Black
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That is one of the there are various books that I have read on this topic and all of them without exception, and cash rich is the only way forward.

Zach Bohannon
Essentially and then the ones that go the other way I won’t mention it but there’s a pretty popular finance book out there right now. That’s that’s kind of making the round and J actually loves it. And it’s one thing we disagree on but the book starts off talking about how to take advantage of your credit cards. I put the book down immediately. I was like, I just don’t I mean, I went a little bit further but I just so disagreed with it. I was just like, this is it was like don’t budget and and then was talking about credit cards take advantage. I’m like, Okay, this is it’s just not for me. And I just, you know, I have a plan that’s worked for me. I’m just gonna stick.

Sacha Black
Exactly, exactly. I mean, I probably would have put that down as well. Budgeting is the way that I got to leave my job and pay off all the all the student debt and all of that stuff. So yeah, I’m, yeah, I’m shell shocked. How can there be a finance broke that says that? Anyway, when I was employed, I was at risk of redundancy on a number of occasions. Being a business owner now obviously carries inherent risk. But what can an indie author do with their business to safeguard themselves from financial Jeopardy?

Zach Bohannon
It’s a really, really good question. And I think one thing to recognize is, and this is gonna be tough for people to hear, who just want to write. There are very few and far between it’s very, there are very few authors out there who are just making money off their fiction. I’m assuming, you know, this is for for fiction authors to nonfiction is obviously a different thing, because usually there’s other things going on that.

And I totally agree. Now, and you know, hopefully, one day it comes to a point where you can get to that point where you can just make money and maybe you can because maybe you have everyone’s situation is going to be different. So maybe maybe you’re in a position where you’re your partner is making enough money to really support you and you don’t have to do that. So it’s going to be a little different for other for different people. But I think that’s a big thing is to think about other ways you can, you know, have other revenue streams, you know, we I mentioned, we’re doing these events. And I said earlier, and you know, our main motivation is not money, but that is a motivation. That is, it is another revenue stream for us. And, you know, Jay, he does a lot of coaching, I do a little bit of that, but not very much J. But J does quite a bit. He does some editing and stuff, too. But we have multiple revenue streams, we’re not just depending on our book royalties. And so I think thinking of a skill you can take to use and maybe it’s related to authors, maybe you’re really good at crafts, and you can might have an Etsy shop that you’re doing stuff with. If you are in a job if you’re stuck in a cubicle and you’re trying to get out of that and you want to be able to create your own schedule and have more time to write and more thing, more time to do the essential things that you really want to do. I think that’s something you really have to think about.

But so I think one of the biggest things you can do is, you know, have multiple revenue streams and what I’m when I say multiple revenue streams, one of the things that immediately comes people’s mind is they think, oh, well, okay, well, should I be in KU or should I have my books wide and that’s not what I’m talking about. That’s obviously one decision you have to make, but that’s not the type of diversification of income I’m talking about. I’m talking about, what other skills do you have, that you can use to create this life for yourself? You’re going to be writing you can make that your primary thing, but you might have to do some other things to make money, like do some other type of freelance work. And this is one thing that Joanna you know, she’ll send me and J a message every now and then and she’s always asking are you still diversifying income or you do have other revenue streams? And she puts a lot of emphasis on that.

Sacha Black
Yeah, and I would add to that, to to me think about. So I always talk about money and in terms of two types of money, there’s active money and passive money. And Passive money is the obvious one for authors, it’s earning money whilst you sleep, it’s creating a product that you can sell over and over again that will bring you money in your sleep you earn passively from it. And then active money is anything that requires you to trade your time in order to get paid. So for example, being a consultant, perhaps you leave your job but you go back and you consult one day a week, or you teach or you know, you do editing, for example, and you mentioned editing there, that would be an active type of income and I think when you first… certainly for me anyway, I found having left my job I’m so afraid of, you know, not being able to pay my bills that I over egged to the active income and have probably traded a bit too much of my time. But it’s about that balance and understanding it but that is something that I would say to anybody and planning on being self-employed is to think about the balance and and actually make sure you do have a bit of both because obviously active income is short sharp cash injections, whereas passive income you have to build and it is slightly slower. Yeah, okay, so, do you have any tips or tricks for budgeting? How do you go from loads of debt to actually being able to quit?

Zach Bohannon
Well, I think the first thing is you need to do it. I think you know, a lot of people it’s something they just kind of ignore like a toothache and pretend like it’s going to go away or it’s going to fix itself and I think that… I’m not saying that you need to necessarily sit down and be looking at your money every single day and have like, you know, update spreadsheets every day, but I think you need to have an idea of where your money’s going. Because it can really, really surprise you. You know, you’ll hear the analogy and I know some people are tired of hearing this. But, you know, you’ll hear a lot of financial people say, you know, you can’t be drinking lattes every day. And, like when you really add up how much that cost, and you throw on top of that, that you might not just be having a latte or coffee every day, but maybe you’re also going to lunch and spending 10 bucks at lunch and when you add that up, like that, that’s what happened to me. When I started adding that stuff up. I was like, holy crap, I’m spending this much money just going out to eat for one meal a day and then also again, a coffee in the morning and it really woke me up and made me realize okay, maybe I can cut back on this.

But here’s the thing, the numbers don’t lie. So but you need to know what those numbers are. And you need to know exactly where your money’s going. And, you know, as far as getting out of debt, I think that as I mentioned, I really like Dave Ramsey, and I, you know, he’s kind of, you know, big anti-debt guy. And he’s local to me as well. He’s here in Nashville, Tennessee and stuff, but he’s got a national radio show here in the US and stuff as well. And his book, The Total Money Makeover to me, that’s the one book I recommend everybody. But uh, he’s got a really good plan called the snowball effect. And he’s got different baby steps.

But basically, just to kind of give a few like, the first thing is you save a $1,000 emergency fund. So that’s the first thing you do. And again, like it may, it may sound daunting to some people. How am I supposed to save $1,000 But again, if you go back and you start, you start looking at where you can cut, it’ll come away faster than you think it will. So you do that. And then if you have debt, you look at all your debts, you write them all down and you start knocking them out, except for your mortgage mortgage comes later. You don’t worry about that one. But all your other debts, credit cards, car payments, student loans, all that you start knocking out from the smallest to the largest, so doesn’t and I’m talking about smallest like amount that you owe. So don’t worry about the interest rate, all that stuff, you just pay minimum payments on everything else. But you really start throwing everything extra you can towards the smaller amounts. And the reason you do that is because you’re, it’s a mental thing. So once you start knocking out the smaller debts, you’re going to, it’s going to motivate you, you know, if you try to tackle your $40,000 student loan first, you’re probably going to really, and you’re probably really going to just want to give up after a while so but if you can get the small victories.

It’s just like writing a book. you get through a chapter in a chapter. And then once you finish one book, it’s like, oh, my God, I’m ready to do another one. So that’s kind of his plan. You do that. And you’re also another thing and some people don’t agree with this, but you’re not contributing towards retirement when you’re doing that either. So you put off your retirement that comes later, which I know a lot of people won’t agree with, but the fact the matter is you’re looking at getting like a 12% long term return on your retirement. And that doesn’t really help if you’re paying 21% interest on a credit card right now. So, you know, you can say you’ll have all this money to save later if you don’t have these debts. It’s like you said, if it’s not there, you can put your money other places. So, but basically, you just knock them out small ones. And then once you get past that you start paying on your house and you start paying, I believe, it’s like 20, he recommends either 15 or 20%, like 20% towards retirement at that point, and he recommends mutual funds, which I that’s what I invest in. So yeah, that’s that’s pretty much his book, The Total Money Makeover, really kind of lines on that. It’s, it’s, it helped me and my wife get out of debt really fast. And when we got out of we were lucky not to have student loans. But we got out of like, I think, probably around $20,000 worth of debt in a really short amount of time. Yeah, I think it was maybe under a year. I mean, it was pretty fast. But it may have been a little longer than that. I don’t know this was several years ago now but uh, but we got out pretty fast because like, once you really see where your money’s going and you really think about this stuff, you know and and, and one thing he says I love is live like no one else so that tomorrow you can live like no one else. So you might have to give up those lattes for a while, like and I think temporary deprivation is okay. But like later on, that stuff’s not going to matter because you’re not going to have all this other, you’re not gonna have this debt and stress to worry about and you can you know, you’ll have more to do with your money, the stuff you want to do. So,

Sacha Black
Yeah, I totally agree, even on the days where freelancing and being self employed is difficult. I would never, ever change it in a million years. And if you know a couple of years of deprivation is what it took to get me here. Well, I would do that every day of the week.

Zach Bohannon
And I think once you really get into really get on the plan like that and you really get into it like you’ll be surprised where money will start coming from you know you’re you’re probably going to want to sell things. You might be you might start a brain on the weekend you might go deliver pizza I mean maybe pick up more freelance gigs like you’re going to really want to get this debt and stuff paid off as fast as you can. And and like I said, it really set me up to be at a point where where it was really when it came time I stayed in my job longer than I should have honestly and when I finally quit like it was, we’re in good shape so.

Sacha Black
Amazing. And I’m going to ask the same question, but this time in terms of business so I know it’s hard and what I found it hard certainly at the beginning to know where to spend money in my in my business. I definitely got carried away with the latest thing and some of them were useful like Vellum, but you know, you can end up hemorrhaging money. And being on ads or software or gadgets or whatever. So any budgeting tips or tricks to know what’s a good spend of money on your business and what’s a bad spend of money?

Zach Bohannon
I mean, that’s I think that’s going to depend from person to person. I know for me, I keep my business really lean. And I came from a job where I was able to learn from somebody who was very frugal, I would say, he is if and this is another good book recommendation, if anyone has read the Millionaire Next Door. That was my old boss, Mitch, he was like the epitome of that he’s a millionaire. But he buys all his clothes at Goodwill. He buys used vehicles with cash, like he’s the epitome of that person. But he taught me a lot about just running a really lean business and not spending money where you didn’t need to. And to some people, it sounds a little extreme, but when you really sit back and think about it, and it’s your money now going out and you really are like okay. So to me I think first off, it’s important to realize like we are running a business. If you’re wanting to be an author, I don’t care if you’re independent, or if you’re traditionally published. I mean, I’ve seen a French traditionally published marketing plan lately and I’m like, Oh, well, they’re still going to be paying for water and party and doing water and stuff. And this was, you know, traditionally published Big Five house obviously, you know, it’s, you’re, you’re running a business, it’s gonna, it’s gonna cost some money, you’re gonna have to have a marketing budget, and there’s gonna be some things you have to pay for. What kind of bums me out is when I see people complain about stuff costing too much, and I think about, you know, lucky we are that we don’t have that much overhead.

One of my best friends start a coffee roasting business recently, and before he could even sell a coffee bean. He had to put $25,000 into it because he had to build a place he had to get a roaster. Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of he had to get a website built for online ordering. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff he had to do. This is actually my same friend. I have the credit card points debate with money. David, I know you’ll never listen to us. He’s not an author. He’s not gonna care. But uh, but I think just, you know, it’s really easy to get distracted as you’re saying like the newest gadget or I’ve seen people stress about like, oh, like what writing software should I use? Should I get this or that? And I think that there’s, to me there’s it doesn’t matter what you write in. Yes, Scrivener is great. I think Scrivener is probably the best thing but in Scrivener is only 40 bucks. So like don’t beat yourself up for Scrivener. But other than that, you know, you’re going to need a mailing list there’s you can you have to pay for that at some point, you know, MailChimp I know you can start for free but at some point you’re going to pay. You’re going to need some kind of advertising budget especially as you get more books. It’s funny, we just record an episode about that advertising with career author and J and I are in a really weird place with that because I don’t know like I think unless you have a long series like spending too much money on advertising doesn’t really is kind of hard, but It’s also a thing it’s also a thing where it’s kind of necessary. So now I’m in a weird place with that but and then always my two non negotiables for sure is always pay for good editor. And always pay for a good cover designer unless you are a cover designer. Not Photoshop, not I know how to do Photoshop, but you actually can design covers. And I know very few authors who are good cover designers who can make their own covers, you should pay someone who can do it well and do it in your genre that and as I said, pay pay a freelancer to edit your book. And at least do line edits and stuff. I think those are two non negotiable. And again, it’s not that much money and like especially for the business we’re running. It’s very, very, very low overhead. So when I see people complain about that, I’m just like, go try to start a coffee roasting business or a restaurant or something like that, where you’re going to spend thousands of dollars before you can even make a penny. Yeah, so very, very low.

Sacha Black
Yeah, I can Completely agree and I think it’s a mindset shift, I think, yes, when you are writing a series, you are probably going to have to sink a few thousand pounds on covers and edits, you know in that series. But the whole point is, you will make that money back millions of times over over the course of the years because you’re creating something that can pay you back forever. A whole lifetime plus 50 or 70 years, depending on whatever country you’re in, so it is a bit of a mindset shift. And I think the same can be said around the advertising. And I also am not advertising my current fiction because I’m waiting until I finish this third book because what’s the point that you know, you can’t most most people obviously will reduce the first one and then you’ll get the read through but the the with that advertising you I think it’s the same mindset shift in that if you if you have got the data to say, you’re spending $10 and you’re making $100 then why would you not want to spend $100 to make $1,000 and but that that mindset shift to spend that money is very difficult. I think a lot of people are afraid I think there’s a lot of fear around around that. But

Zach Bohannon
You should be investing in yourself to like I think it’s important to you know, buy courses you know, my books obviously like educate yourself on craft stuff like that go to events go to off go to conferences, I mean, you should be invested in yourself as well. But you know, try not to get too caught up with you know, the latest gadget or, or whatever. I mean, I wrote a lot of my first books like on a 10 year old laptop sitting in the back of my car on my lunch break. So like it wasn’t, you know, I think on like Scrivener or sometimes even on like Google Drive which is free. So I mean really like you shouldn’t have to invest like don’t try not to get too caught up because in a lot of times on honestly, that’s resistance and I’m talking about like resistance with a capital R like Steven pressfield talks. Yeah, you’re just, you know, just write. ,

Sacha Black
Yeah, exactly. I used to write down the corridor on my phone waiting for meetings, or people to meetings, like, I kind of wish I still I don’t quite know what’s happened to that girl. I definitely have some resistance issues now. But yeah, I think you know, that is it. Write anywhere, anytime, anyplace, you know, no excuses. And, okay, so I think you’ve probably answered this question, but I’ll just ask it in cases anything else you can take off but I’m key books or resources you would recommend. I know you’ve mentioned a couple.

Zach Bohannon
Yeah, those are my two favorites. As I mentioned The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. And then the now I just forgot it’s a Millionaire Next Door. Yeah, what is the other big one? I can Remember the author on that one, but those are those are the my two by far like favorite financial books and the two that I’d recommend the most. And Dave Ramsey has a podcast and he has a national radio show, but they do a podcast version of it. So people can go listen to it and hearing. So he’ll have people call in and talk about how they got a debt and how fast and it is amazing to hear some stories and it’s like super inspiring and encouraging. When you hear how much debt people got through with some of the with the income they have, like if you’re sitting at home saying I’m not sure I can do this, like you’d be really surprised by some stuff people can do if you just, you know, sit down, put your mind to it and focus on it. But those going back those are my those are the two big books I personally would recommend.

Sacha Black
Yeah, I will add another one. Because why not? But I haven’t. I read the Barefoot Investor and he has a very similar ethos to Dave Ramsey and some of the things you were saying about saving a thousand pounds and doing the domino. And all in there as well. Yeah. So I think it’s Scott Pope or Pape. If you heard scribbles on my mic, it’s because I was noticing them down, because I’ll make sure they’re in the show notes. Okay, so I have a question that from Patrick, who is a patron, and he says, most authors, I know, seem content with building a publishing business, which is a great way to create passive income. But what are your thoughts on diversifying one’s asset portfolio by using a publishing company as a springboard into unrelated sectors such as property investment and the stock market market? I know you kind of alluded to this a bit earlier. So yeah, what are your thoughts?

Zach Bohannon
Well, if you as I’ve said, if you don’t have debt other than a mortgage, like if you have a mortgage, that doesn’t count, but if you don’t really have debt, then you absolutely should be investing in the stock market and thinking about your future, again, like 15 to 20% of whatever you have coming back, you should definitely be investing in property investment, I think is a really good. I mean, that’s really I know, a couple authors who actually do that, who have, you know, done pretty well. Though I’m talking about like authors who’ve, like seven figures, and that’s one way they’ve diversified their income, obviously, that’s riskier and, and and going to be there’s a lot more money there, but uh, and you kind of know what you’re doing. But I think that that’s, that’s a really good investment. And then yeah, so I think that I think those are I think if you’re in the right financial position, and you know, you’re not, you don’t have a bunch of debt overheads. I think that’s real. I think those are both really good things. And again, if you kind of know what you’re doing so, yeah,

Sacha Black
yeah, absolutely. I’m just reading. What’s it called? Rich Dad. Poor dad’s guide to investing no reading and listening. I’m listening to the audiobook For because I am just about, you know, now starting to be interested in that area as well. And it’s interesting, actually, because this is a conversation I’m having with several authors at the moment who are all starting to think about actually, you know, how else can they earn money passively? Yeah, I think this is I think this is going to become a trend in with indies anyway. Right. This is The Rebel Author podcast. So tell me about a time you unleash your inner rebel.

Zach Bohannon
I know it’s cliche, but I guess it’s probably when I quit my job. That’s like the best thing I could probably think of. As I said earlier, I waited way too long. I should have left way sooner. Again, we were in a really good financial situation. You know, my wife’s a massage therapist. And you know, so she’s got a job she loves, you know, only having to work four days a week which is awesome. So really, really rad but uh yeah, that that was probably it. I mean, and I’ve told this story in other podcast but I know the moment that I wanted to leave and it was…

I’ll keep the story short but basically I was a warehouse manager for an operations manager for a big music instrument distributor like worldwide and for the North American facility and I’d like 15 employees I manage and stuff but I would get in the office really early every day and I’d beat all the bad traffic here in Nashville and I get there early and I’d work on my writing business in the building I had a key and stuff is no big deal. And I would get there right and I would still like get to my desk like 15 years sometimes even 30 minutes early and start working. And and one one night the cleaners who worked at our place stole the president of our company’s laptop.

And the next day my boss came to me, it was like, yeah, we’re not going to be able to let you come in the building anymore. And they weren’t accusing me of doing it by name or like doing anything might, but it was more just like for your safety too. And I totally understood. I was like, that’s cool. I understand kind of sucks. And it kind of bummed me and kind of pissed me off, because there were other people that got to come to the building, like on the weekends and work, which was like, what’s the difference? But anyways, but the part of that conversation that I didn’t like, and this is where I put everything together later when I was like, oh, they’re letting this guy come in on the weekends and work when no one’s here and do stuff was he said, he said to me. Well, you know, honestly, like, I really don’t think you should be writing in the morning before you come to work. And I was like, Oh, okay. So the and this was my direct boss, not the President or company but and And just to be clear, like, I have a I have a good relationship with this person. No, ill will. And he wasn’t a creative so he didn’t he didn’t understand that by telling me that and by suggesting that, that… Cuz his whole thing was like, I’m not sure if you’re like really focused when you come in, it’s like, No, dude. It’s the opposite. If I don’t do this for comments, all I’m going to think about and I’m going to be thinking about is when I get to my lunch and when I get home from work, and I can actually work on this, but I was able to come in like knowing I’ve already written like, 2000 words this morning or whatever, I feel good. I can focus on my work now. That was the moment I knew, Okay, I’m done. And I stopped. I started getting to my desk right when I was supposed to because I had to start going to a coffee shop and work sometimes write in my car. And but I knew then, but it was about probably, I think it was less maybe a year after that. And when we were on authors on train trip, and on that last night, we were all kind of drinking and Joanna had a few drinks in her and she looked at me and she said, can I cuss on your podcast, by the way I forgot. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Joanna, I love this because Joanna hates dropping the F bomb and I’m gonna call it out. She looked at me and she said you’re fucking scared. And, and she’s really like, the sweetest person ever. But she’s kind of intimidating in person when you meet her. And I was like, oh, wow, okay. And because the whole week she, you know, obviously be able to talk to her about my situation and, you know, leaving my job and health care was a big deal because my wife doesn’t get health care through her job site. And I knew I was so we were that’s a whole other thing in the United States that we have to deal with. And, and anyways, join it was like you’re scared. You just need to go home and quit your job. And I was like, okay, so I came home and I told Catherine, I was like, I think I’m going to quit my job and she just goes finally, that was my wife’s reaction. She was like, finally. And so it took a slightly drunk angry British woman to tell me off. Yeah, I walked in. Once I got back to work. My boss is actually on vacation when he came back out a letter ready and I was like, I’m done and three weeks later I was gone. So I guess that was probably my most rebellious moment for sure. So

Sacha Black
That’s a funny you if you ran ahead and tells you to do something you absolutely should do whatever Joanna tells you. It’s funny because I spoke to her just before I quit and it kind of, you know, that she was like, you shouldn’t you should quit. So

Zach Bohannon
yeah, yeah, it’s, she’s awesome. And, and she was right. I mean, you know, like, and what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? Like, my wife and I, personally are really good financial situation. My wife has a really good job. And it’s like, Okay, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go get another job.

Sacha Black
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Zach Bohannon
But it’s worked out that we haven’t missed any bills and we’ve been living fine. So everything’s working out just fine. So

Sacha Black
Absolutely. So if you’re listening, and you’re scared, and you’re in a good financial position, just fucking quit.

Zach Bohannon
Well, maybe get rid of some debt and stuff.

Sacha Black
Okay, tell readers where they can find out more about you your books and your podcasts.

Zach Bohannon
Well, I think for your this audience being writers, I think the best place to send them is just to thecareerauthor.com That’s where you can get information on the podcast. You can also find the podcast wherever you’re listening to this right now. It’ll be on there. But we have stuff on it. We have our podcast over there. We have our all the information on our events, where they sell out quick, and there’s a mailing list you can get on there. We’re going to be announcing our next. I know that sounds crazy, but we’re going to be announcing our 2021 events in May of 2020. At The Career Authors Summit, there’s obviously a lot of logistics and stuff that go into them. especially some of stuff that we’re thinking about. So we have to we announced them kind of far out so anyway, there’s a you can get on a waitlist over there and you’ll get information as we put them out or the star podcasts will put out but and then we have books and stuff. We have our big nonfiction thing we’re working on is we have a book coming out probably early next year maybe this year, we’re not really sure yet but uh, called the Three Story Method. And this is the process Jan I use it basically will take you from idea all the way up to getting you ready to draft your book. So it’s kind of our proven process that we’ve used on between the two of us over like 20 books now that we’ve published. So we’ll have that coming out. And there’s a there’s a three story method tab up at the top. We’re really excited about that though. And we’re going to have some courses and some kind of live events and stuff planned around that too. So people who have been through it already and come to our other events and experience are loving it. So we’re really excited to get that book out there. But that’s the best place if you are if you like post apocalyptic sci fi and you’re interested in a fiction stuff. You can go to moltenuniversemedia.com that’s probably the best place and that has all the books, that’s our publishing companies that has all my books and Jay Books and we are currently working with 10 other authors to publish them so we’ll have some other stuff coming out from other authors release.

Sacha Black
Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you to everybody supporting on Patreon if you would like to get early access to all the episodes, you can do so by going to www.patreon.com/sachablack. Thank you to everybody listening. Thank you to Zach. I’m Sacha Black. You were listening to Zach Bohannon and this was The Rebel Author Podcast.

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