Mastering the Art of Self-Publishing: Unveiling the Secrets to Writing Success

Amazon Best Selling Author, Writing Coach and Publisher, Lamonique Mac shine a light on what is self publishing and how the 21st century author can learn to thrive and grow   with their writing and publishing of their work.

Highlights

• Take the time to learn the business of writing
• The Pros and Cons of being an Independent author
• There are limitless options for authors to profit from their works

Book: Poor Little Mixed Girl ( Affiliate Link)

Connect with Lamonique Mac
Website: www. AuthorLamoniqueMac.com
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Youtube: authorlamoniquemac
Podcast: Dropping GEM with Lamonique Mac

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🌟Free Self-Publishing Guide: Self Publishing 101

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Transcript

Destiny: 0:00

Welcome to the Penned By Design podcast, helping authors learn the latest strategies and resources to become successful. Create entrepreneurs. I'm your humble host, destiny, Jordan, and let's get writing. Have you thought about self-publishing? What do you need? How do you start and should you Self Publish. Today on the podcast, I'm joined by LA Monique Mac she's based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She's an Amazon best selling author, a writing coach and a publisher. She writes Christain ,fiction non-fiction and Teen YA when she's not writing, she can be spotted coaching, new authors on how to write, publish, and market their book on her podcast.

Destiny: 0:44

Dropping Gems with Lamonique. Please enjoy my conversation with LA Monique Mac. As we dive into what is self-publishing. Hello, Ms. Lamonique, how are you

Lamonique: 0:54

hi, thank you for having me destiny.

Destiny: 0:57

Awesome. So I'm truly excited for this interview to really kind of expand on what self-publishing is and how today's author can really get started. And so I wanna know a little bit about your journey, how you got started as a writer.

Lamonique: 1:11

Okay, well, I, let me tell you, I've always wanted to be a writer ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a writer. And as I became an adult you know, I'm, I'm a little bit older than you are So when I became an adult there, wasn't like this easy access to self publishing that we have now. It was very gated. And it was called vanity publishing then. So it, it really had like a negative connotation about it. I know there's somewhat, we we're cleaning up the self-publishing industry now, but you know, there's somewhat, sometimes people kinda look down their noses at self-publishing, but I mean, when it was vanity press, it was like really negative connotation. And if you wanted to publish your own books, you would have to pre buy them. The, you know, there was no, like with KDP, you publish maybe eBooks or you publish and you know, the customer orders it and, and nothing comes outta your pocket. You're just given a royalty. There was none of that when it came to self-publishing you had to PA purchase a thousand dollars in upwards of books. Or more or thousand books or more. So it actually would probably be a few thousand dollars. And so I was a young mom when I got married young, I was a young mom and I had this hope of publishing, but I knew that was just not affordable. Create space. Hadn't came out, KDP hadn't came out. None of that. And so I just kind of put it on the back burner. And I did not want to apply for traditional publishing. And like, if you guys read my story, poor little mixed girl or my series, you kind of know the way my self-esteem was. And the rejection that I had faced in life, there was just no way I could ha I had the stamina to. You know, do query letters and, you know, get, I knew you had to get hundreds of generally now there's outliers, you know, people who make it right off the rip, but normally you're gonna have to face hundreds of rejections before you get a yes from a publisher. And I knew like emotionally, I couldn't, I couldn't do it. So I just put it on the back burner. I went to college for business. Even when I was in college for business, I was thinking, man, it would be so great if I could not only write my own books and publish them. And I ended up focusing like so much more on marketing than like the, the whole aspect of business. I really honed down more so on marketing. And so once I got done what's going, it was like a two year degree. Like I don't have like an associates or MBA or, I mean, I do have an associate, but not. Masters or MBA or anything like that. But I did like two year, cause I believe in put, like learn and then move your feet. You know what I mean? so after two years of that I was ready to implement some of the stuff I did. So I was just doing like marketing as a whole, like so far as online marketing, you know, building websites Like doing blogs and things like that. And so I had some men, I had a minister friend who was also an author and she had published through back then create space and she wanted me to help her market, her book. And then she brought in another minister and that's what that, that's how I started off. I started off marketing, other authors and one of my clients a minister author, she, she decided to teach me. I told her I did have, you know, books in my heart and mind and she decided to teach me how to publish. and that was when create space had just switched over to Kindle direct publishing. And that's how I got started. wow. What a journey that is quite different.

Destiny: 4:48

Yeah. You can start as a, so that's how you got started publishing. She showed you on the new create space.

Lamonique: 4:57

Well, create space had just Transferred over to KDP and it was one of my marketing clients.

Destiny: 5:03

Wow. That's awesome. So you really kind of learned then, I guess, in the reverse of what most people think that you go out out there and just try and do it and you just learn from that, but really you helped others first and then you got started on it. Yeah.

Lamonique: 5:17

Yeah. It was really so seed and, and, and I could go even deeper in a spiritual aspect. If, you don't mind, oh, please do. Yeah. So I was like I said, I was marketing my client's books. Now she was paying me like at an intern level because she knew I was kind of fresh outta college with this information. And, you know, she was kind of like my practice person that I was practicing everything I had learned on. So I was learning at an intern level. And so she, sometimes she would pay me in classes sometimes she'd pay me in money. So she had me take this class, which was like From from, from this, this lady who taught about publishing now that was her whole thing. Her whole deal was you can publish in 24 hours. That was her whole little slogan. And so she was teach. Yeah. So she was teaching on like different things about like the, the she was teaching. She was teaching like the psychology of covers the colors a lot of different things that go behind With with, with publishing cuz it was actually a marketing class. And so since it was a marketing class, that course that's why my client thought I should just take the course for her cuz I would be the one applying everything to her marketing. So she set this course up for me the day of the course. I had a vision board party with some of my friends and we created that's how before this is before the course in reverse order. So we had a vision board party my, my husband and a couple and some friends of ours. And on my vision board, I put up a bookshelf. Now I hadn't written any book yet. It was just in my heart and mind. Okay. And so I put up on, on a bookshelf with like a magazine picture on my vision board. I said, my book on your. Right. And so my, my actual class marketing class that my client had paid for, for me, for this wasn't until midnight. So AF until later I'm in the afternoon, I mean, in the evening, after the vision board party, I go home. And I take this class and I learn everything that I have to learn about marketing, you know that she had to teach about marketing. And she said, well, LA Monique, is there anything though that I could do for you? Cause you know, I was doing this for my client and I said, well, yeah, I do have a book in my heart in mind, but I just don't know how to get it from a to B. And she. Well, so she helped me with the ebook. So it was my client who I know I'm going back and forth. It was my client who had me helped me publish my actual paperback. It was my this marketing teacher. She had her, like I said, her whole forum was published now. And she said, LA Monique, what is my platform? I said, publish now. And she said, and that you are. And so from that moment forward, she took me over. She, we were doing screen share. We went over to KDP. She had me sign in, create an account while we were together. She said, you're gonna, she said, right now you are going to. To put up for pre-order the book that's in your heart and mind. And by tomorrow you're going to be a published author because you don't have to have like the manuscript to do a pre-order. You just have to have a cover. She said, you're go. And she said, I want you to repeat to me that you are tonight going to make a cover for an ebook cover. I said, I am going to make an ebook cover tonight. And so I did everything she said after we got off that call. And within the next day, after making my vision board, I was a published author.

Destiny: 8:40

Wow. That's awesome. Being a heavy action taker, like 24 hours, she say,

Lamonique: 8:45

let's go ahead and do it 20 hours. Yeah,

Destiny: 8:47

that is so awesome. Cuz I feel like that was ebook the ebook. So you had your yeah. Client help you with your paperback and marketing teacher help you with your ebook. Yeah. Mm-hmm look at that. Covered all bases there. It did. It did. That is so awesome. And so with that being an action taker, what did you say for. This one's not on one your question, but what would you say far as new authors, aspiring authors having been being action oriented? Should we be big on going action first or being big on learning first? Probably

Lamonique: 9:22

I. Well, I think you should learn, but you need, but sometimes people can be learning forever. Okay. Here, here, here's the thing. Oh, I, oh, I wanna think of this saying so bad analysis paralysis. Oh, I see so many authors who would be authors who have not published their books from analysis paralysis and perfectionism. And good is better than perfect because you cannot get better with your publishing until you start writing and publishing you're. You're going to have to put out things that later you're like, okay, now this book three is much more improved than book one. Book four, you can see the growth if you're just always only you know, you you'll be practicing and practicing and not putting anything out forever that way. And I've seen people who have delayed publishing their books. My, my client, the one who taught me how to publish, she had had that book in her for 20 years. 20 years. And there's many people like that and I've taught live workshops here in, in Tuscaloosa. And the biggest thing I've I've seen, which has held people back is perfectionism. So you cannot grow. If you do not put what you learn into action, you you'll never grow. You'll just be always gathering information. Trying to make everything perfect. And it's not gonna be perfect. You're going to make mistakes. Somebody is in the review going to have something to say, you can do your best. I'm not saying don't do your best. I'm not saying throw out anything there, you know, but there comes a point where you're like, okay, I've studied now. I've gotta put something into practice. I've gotta put it out there and let people review it. And then I have to learn from my reviews. Now, of course, you're gonna have your critique partners before you put it out editing, but they're still no, nobody, a hundred percent of people. Once you get outside of your immediate circle of people who just love you. And they're just so happy you published a book and FiveStars cuz it's so amazing when you get past the people who don't know you personally, and it gets out there in the world, somebody's gonna hit you with that one star. And they're gonna, you know, hopefully they'll tell you why and you can learn from it.

Destiny: 11:50

Ooh, author's nightmare. That one star is like, oh gosh, I just like, what have I done?

Lamonique: 11:55

Yeah. that's good. When you say, what have I done? Because please put why, because I've I'm on TikTok, right? And some of the jokes that some of the authors make on TikTok they'll use like Cardi B's voice. And like, what is the reason?

Destiny: 12:16

Wow, that is so awesome with that. And I guess another question would be. What would you guys recommend for a new aspiring author? Like a kind of a timeline, like say I have this book and I'm always say, I'm just about ready to go for it. I'm just there. I'm still working on same things and, and a bit of a procrastination. And then being the perfection you were talking about, what would some of you kind of tell them, like

Lamonique: 12:43

you can get them going. I mean, there's a couple different things you can do to get yourself going. I'm gonna tell you me the way I started off. I had to give myself pre-orders, now that can really put the pressure on I've taken a break from pre-orders, but when I first started writing, I wrote like four, well, no three books within a span of like a year. So like every three to four. Another book. And that's because I put a pre-order because if I wouldn't have, because I had to have something to make me accountable. Right. I could be telling my friends, my family, people, my critique partners, people in my writing groups, I could be saying, I'm gonna write a book for ages. Like the people I told you, who it took 20 years, but I need, I, we don't punch a clock as authors. We don't punch a clock for, for writing. There's nobody standing there with the whip to say, okay, did you do you know, Nobody's making you do it. So I needed some source outside of me that I was accountable to, which is why I put beginning a four month pre-order three to four month pre-order I would say at least four months. And then. It's on the line because you don't wanna disappoint Amazon. You don't wanna disappoint the people who have pre-ordered that book. And that's, that's what made me like get into gear. awesome. Yeah. That's one way

Destiny: 14:07

What made you wanna become an indie author since you didn't really have a didn't feel like going to traditional publishing? So what are the pros and cons of being an Indi in the author or an independent.

Lamonique: 14:19

Well, the pros or cons are that you can do. You can do things more, how you wanna do 'em. You can have more of your own royalties. You know, what a lot of people aspire to become signed, right? A lot of people aspire to become assigned through traditional publishing. And what you need to understand is you get about 10 to 15% royalties. When, when you are traditionally published, so yes, you don't put any money up front. You know, they're covering everything for you. You're cover you're editing, but you're making a smaller amount of royalty. Now what you're gonna do well at is if you know, the book sells in mass, a lot of books, even through traditional publishing, don't sell in mass. And so, you know, they. They may get like a $6,000 payout the first time. And then the publisher may drop 'em. I had published, I, I personally have not been traditionally published, so I wouldn't be able to tell you all the ins and outs of being traditionally published. But I just, I know that much. If you watch there's a YouTube channel called 20 books to Vegas and they also have an accompanying Facebook group. Now, some of those, some of those authors in there are six figure authors. Some of those authors in there have been traditionally published and chose self-publishing and some of those authors are hybrid. They do both. And so that would be a good resource for you, but, you know, obviously you can put out you, you have more control. And one of the things that I've heard, some of the authors in 20 books to it's 20 books to 50 K is, so those from 20 books to 50 K say is the control. Like they couldn't control their cover art, you know, a lot of times the Traditional publishing wants to change what you've written into, what they deem is marketable. And there can be so much rewrite that it feels like is not your story. I actually have a friend who I interviewed on my podcast lane and she's a, a romance mystery author. She's got her books in Indy book bookstores, as well as in airports around the. And she finally did get that call that she always wanted for traditionally published. And she said they wanted to change her story so much. And the traditional publisher told, told her if this story, cuz she has like a whole series don't close your eyes is the name of her series. And if, if this is something that you care about, like is it from your heart is in it. Don't submit this book to me, cuz I'm gonna rip it up and make you write it again. Basically not because it was wrong, but just be, it has to fit a mold, you know? So sh you know, she, she hasn't sworn off traditional publishing, but it would have to be something that she was specifically doing it for marketing, you know, not for. Necessarily she's married to it, you know? Oh, okay. That makes sense for business she's, you know, for business only. So that would be the difference like with, with and now with self-publishing now you are more responsible for more things you're responsible for, you know, the cover and doesn't mean you have to make your own cover cuz you can hire out. If, if that's not your forte, you should hire out. But. You're you're responsible for the cover you're or getting it done. You're responsible for the editing or getting it done. You're responsible for the formatting or getting it done. Now you need, you, you don't want, you know, to just throw up anything. So you wanna make sure that you're putting books in the way they go, that the front matter and the back matter and the way the book is, you know, laid out is umpire with traditionally published books. So you are responsible for educating yourself. and, you know, so you're responsible for a lot of education and but at the same time, the pluses are, we get about 70% of our royalties versus 10 to 15%.

Destiny: 18:18

That's true. So really a kind of case by case basis about what you wanna do in your author journey, try stick around for traditional publishing and go through the process. Or yeah, Marco on your own, this is different territory, but it's not like you're alone. Indian publishers has seen the grown a good bit.

Lamonique: 18:36

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. And, and, and that's when I speak of that, that's traditional publishers. There's also small press publishers. I'm a, I'm a small publisher. And so in that respect, sometimes you just, you, you keep all your royalties and you just kind of pay a fee for the publisher to put that up. Or you may pay a smaller fee. Some hybrid situation. And then you share still much more royalties than you would for traditional. Like you might share 40 to 50% versus 10 to 15, you know, so really, so that's another scenario.

Destiny: 19:11

Okay then, so with this also, why should authors also possibly become their own publisher as well? What would be the benefit of.

Lamonique: 19:21

Well with self-publishing when, when you buy your ISBN number, you depending, let me start from the beginning, beginning, depending on what state you're in. You can just kind of declare businesses as doing business as you don't have to go and like, do anything really far formal. I now I'm originally from Michigan and Michigan for doing business, as we just had to make sure nobody else had our title for our business within the state. And we go down and it was like a $25 filing fee here in Alabama. You don't even have to file for it. You just kind of declare. So it's a good idea to establish a name. Now you don't have to publish other people, but it's a good idea to establish a publishing name for what you're doing for the self-publishing that you're doing so that when you register your ISB numbers, you can register them in that name. And so if you want to, you know, look on par with the traditional publishers, when someone scrolls down on Amazon to the bottom, where it gives all the description, instead of just saying independently, publish or KDP publish, it's going to have your publishing company name on there. So,

Destiny: 20:32

awesome. Also what all entails being a publisher. Exactly. So

Lamonique: 20:37

if someone's just trying do that. Now that would be, if you were just doing that for your own books, right. Mm-hmm now I'm a, I'm a publisher in the fact that I do publish other people's books and that really just came about. And I can tell the story about that if you have a moment. Oh yes, please. Okay. So when I was telling you guys about, when I finally published my paper bag I, I kinda went on social media, talked about it, kind of, it was called cupcakes and poetry. Seven life lessons. And I don't think I have it up right now, so it's not really something you can buy right now. Cuz it was like my first book and sometimes I feel like, Ugh, should I tweak this? Do I want this out? You know but anyhow, my first book, I was like I was like, basically promoting it and talking about it on social media. I used to have like a media show. I'm I've been heavily into media in and a, in a When I say heavily into media, not, not like on the actual television news, but you know, since social media has made it open to where we can just kind of be our own media people now. So I have this little show on Facebook and I was talking about my book and I just, I don't know what prompted me to mention, but I just kind of said if anybody needs help, With their book, I can help you. And that, that was like the main thing that people wanted. Like, yes, I need help with my book. And so I, I had my first clients Stata temple. We published her book, a broken heart made whole, and I didn't charge her very much. I, I, because I felt like with, you know, she was my first client and and for publishing. And so I decided I would not give myself a raise until I knew more and more. So she knew that she was my first client and, and, and we published her book. I'm sorry, I'm kinda lost my train of thought. what was the last question you asked me

Destiny: 22:21

ask about the process, but publishing your describing publishing as a publisher and publishing other people's

Lamonique: 22:26

books. Okay. So now where I'm at now I've progressed. That was like back in 2018. So now we're in 2022 and I have, I've just like honed in on publishing. And that was because I had a coach who this woman, she saw that I, I had this entrepreneur spirit, so I was always Doing entrepreneur things. So I would, I would, I would publish people, but then I would be like making tutus I would be like making Tutu, like cuz of the creative mind that I have, I'd be making tutus. I would be, you know, doing this, doing that. And she said, LA Monique. The publishing is the thing for you. You need to focus on the publishing. And once she told me that I just really took off, she just spoke that word to me. And I just really took off with focusing on writing and publishing and I just educated myself. You know, to be able to make better covers, to be able to format books better, to, you know, to, to understand what it takes to sell books to understand the ins and outs of, of, you know, what a professional book is. And so that's what I do for my clients now is when they come to me and need their book published, I not only publish it, but I also edit it with developmental editing. So we go through a whole develop, not just the line by line grammar, you know, grammatical fixes, but I go through their book with we, we, we insert an outline cuz a lot of times people have written a book with, with no outline in mind. You know, we're missing any kind of plot points. I, I just go through and add that outline in, add developmental, editing in with them. We do zoom meetings and you know, we, we, we insert what needs to be inserted. Sometimes I ghost write for them. If that's the package that they choose, like I let them write just like the skeleton. Of the book. And then like through me having still zoom meetings and questioning them, then I'll kind of you know, scale. Like I said, goals, write the book. It just depends on what they need. I, after doing that, I'm obviously gonna then gram edit the book for grammatical errors. I use pro writing aid. Which pro writing aid is a software for writers. I really would encourage people to check out pro writing aid. They actually have a free version. You can use like so many thousand words at a time pro writing aid, but it is worth purchasing as well, but pro writing, aid's gonna go through now, you're gonna be limited with the free version. So I don't know how much you can do for free, because I do have the paid version, but they're gonna go through and not only look at grammatical errors, but they're gonna look at Like too much purple pros, like, you know, is this becoming unclear? They're gonna look at pacing. Like how many, how, how often also are you using this same word too close together within the paragraph? Like if this book was intended for such and such a type of audience, like academic general, young adult you know, is it hitting that with the, you know, the level that it's written at? So definitely I would not write a book without pro writing aid. So then there's pro writing aid. Then you're, you're gonna need a format. I use Velu I use VE velum. It goes with the Mac, but they, there is a way to work around that where you have to pay for like some iCloud space, if you have like a traditional PC, but yeah. Vem is gonna make your books look more like the traditionally published books. There. And there are some like Joanna pin. I don't know if you've heard of Joanna pin, but she uses vem. So she's a, she's a, she's a woman who gives advice for self-publishing. She's also traditionally published in some of her fiction books, as well as she's self-published. So she's kind of hybrid that way and she uses vem. So vem is really good is gonna, you know, set. All the formatting for your back matter for you is gonna set up like the drop case where, you know, your pages are beautiful, where you have like that big first letter, like if this was L and then, you know, it's, it's really beautiful. You can even have like pictures at the heading for every chapter. Excellent. It's gonna format your eBooks for all platforms. It's also gonna format your paper bags in many sizes. Now, if you have a crazy size, like eight by 10 or a kid's book, it's not good for that, but if it you've got like a novel type book, poetry book, it's perfect for that. So I, I go ahead and I format the books for them. After I format their books, you know, I do upload them. I buy their ISB number. Through through my publishing company I do sometimes publish with them for Ingram spark as well, so that they have the opportunity to get in bookstores. Now I can't guarantee people are gonna get in bookstores, but I do submit them through Ingram sparks. So they do have the opportunity to be selected. So I do a lot for my clients. I really do so I can't, I can, because I do so much for my clients. I can only work with so many people, so that's why I don't mind sharing how to do it. There's some people who wanna learn how to do it. And then some people are just like, I work full time. I don't have the time, just do it for, you know, so I'm flexible either way. So

Destiny: 27:35

that's awesome right there. Well, being a publisher is a, it's a lot of work, but however, everyone can learn how to do it and get, and develop the skills to do. To be the best quality book that we could put out there.

Lamonique: 27:48

Yeah, for sure.

Destiny: 27:51

So with that, the question is really, should authors really start being a publisher or it really kind of just depends.

Lamonique: 27:59

It really depends because I have surveyed my clients. One of my best clients. I did a poetry book for her and she brought me in so many clients and, you know, I told her if she wanted me to teach her how to do it and she, and I've had a couple people, couple of my clients tell me I don't. I don't wanna deal with that. you know what I mean? So some people, that's not what they, they just don't wanna do that, you know, because they that's just not their priority. They would rather write and then have it published for them. And, you know, they might learn a little bit of marketing. Because everybody has the market, whether they're traditionally published independently published. Now everybody has to do their own marketing. So, but becoming a publisher is not, I would say, I would say it would be behoove everyone to, for their own books, but it's not for everyone cause every to publish other people's books because you have to think about, am I gonna have time to write my own books? Like right now I had to tell some of my clients. I'm gonna have to get, you guys are gonna have to wait until the end of the summer. if you want me to publish your books, because I have to write a book myself this summer, you know, so I don't know, not everybody wants to publish other people's books, some people do, but I think it's best. It's definitely a good idea to become your own publisher for your own books.

Destiny: 29:20

Awesome. That's do, do we noted? So either or so anyone who believes you could have the time, it'll be great. Yeah. Just another business of how it

Lamonique: 29:29

works. That's true. And you know, you, and even if you don't wanna get into everything that I do, because like I said, I, and everything I named you guys, that's not even the end of it. that's like I set up their their arcs. I set up their groups for people, their review group. Like there's a lot. What you could do is you could pick one thing out of the publishing process. Like if you wanted to make extra money aside from writing your books, you could pick one thing out of the publish and then still have time to write one thing out of the publishing process and get really good at that one thing. And then have people come to you for that. Like some people need help with the formatting, right? And just have people come to you with strictly the formatting. So maybe you're good at art and covers. Just have people come to you for the covers. Maybe you're like really meticulous. And you can edit. And so just have people outside come to you for the editing. Maybe you're a big picture person like me. I like developmental editing. Right? So you could just focus on developmental editing or you could focus on line by line editing. You could focus on proof editing. You could, you could niche down. And that's, that's what I would say in order to. To like, kind of maintain your ability to write your own books if you're also, cause this is like three jobs now, like if you are working outside of your house and you're writing your own books and you're, and you're doing publishing support for other writers, and now, now you're into like three jobs. So I would probably focus on one aspect of the publishing process and get really good at that and help others and make money that way on the side.

Destiny: 31:15

Brilliant idea. So that's like, while you're learning all these different skills, you might as well come and monetize on one or two. That you're really good at.

Lamonique: 31:23

Yeah. There you go.

Destiny: 31:25

Now, now that's the thing now with self-publishing you're writing your own books, you're putting it out there in the world. Now with any young, new aspiring author, what would you say would be a good timeline? Cuz sometimes people think their first book is gonna be a smash. It it's gonna kick care all their bills and they've got it. But it doesn't really like, like

Lamonique: 31:43

that does it? No. So when you, you said what's a good timeline for success with your books, or I guess give

Destiny: 31:50

some I guess idea of like, kind of a timeline, cuz sometimes we think as soon as we publish it, give it like a three months. Now we're a failure cuz it didn't get so many copies where that might not be the

Lamonique: 31:59

case. Let me give you a good timeline. It goes right back to when I was telling you about that group 20. To five 50 K. And so that has been studied by multiple authors, some of them six figure authors, and it is reasonable to expect after you have written 20 books to written to market. And we can talk about writing to market if you want to, but writing to market 20 books. Not just writing any book, but you know, like my first book, that was like my first book. Okay. We're not gonna count that but but writing two markets, 20 books. Then you should reason, and you should be getting better with each book and growing with each book, then you can reasonably expect to be successful. So the way you would do your timeline is how long does it take me to put out a book? Ah, so that's why you don't wanna be taking a whole year to write one book. If you, if you could, if you could write a book every four months, that would be excellent. And I'm gonna tell you, there's fast writers who put out a book every other month. Now that's not me. That's not me but some of the more successful writers, they put out a book every month or every other month. Or at least every three months. So I'm, I would push it to every four months if you're new at this, but I would make a goal, but I would not be trying to write one. That's gonna take you 20 years. If you put out one book a year it's cause this, these are the statistics that is it's your 20th book that you have written to market. So go ahead and get the bad books outta the way. Cause you, you gotta get 'em outta the way to grow. There's a saying in business that says fail fast and fail often because you fail up, you fail up, you can, some things you can only learn by experience. You can, you can learn and hear about 'em and research about 'em and watch a video about 'em and take a class about em. But you, you really won't learn it until you actually run into it. And somehow it impacts you. And that, that will give you some kind of priority. To, to learn it. Okay. And so, yeah. Think about that. If it takes you 20 books to become successful, which is the, the average 20 good book, 20 books written to market. Now I'm gonna talk, we can talk about written to market if we have time. Yeah. If it takes you 20 books to do that. And if you only write one book a year, how long is it gonna take you on your time? So you get to decide, you really do get to decide. Now the average is about five to seven years. The average is about five to seven years. Would that makes sense, because if you look at writing, you gotta marry, you gotta marry. This is what I try to tell my clients and anybody who approaches me about writing, you have to marry the creativity with business. And so when you look at any business, how long does it typically take for a business become successful? Five years, huh?

Destiny: 35:06

Never thought about like that, but since we're in the business of getting our books out there and to make money from our creativity, it's why we start

Lamonique: 35:15

treating like the business. Yeah. You have to treat it like a business.

Destiny: 35:19

So that's awesome. So now fair time and interview is our rapid fire question. You're ready?

Lamonique: 35:26

Okay. Yeah, I'm ready. All right. First

Destiny: 35:29

question. What is the best advice you've been given?

Lamonique: 35:33

The best advice I've been given, especially when it comes to writing, came from the coach. I was telling you about who told me stop making tutus bars of soap, creating blogs, making books publishing, you know, and focus on one thing you grow exponentially when you focus on one thing, Julie, Julie agreed. Yeah. All right.

Destiny: 35:56

Question number two. What is the book you recommend young people to read?

Lamonique: 36:02

I recommend everybody to read the battlefield is the mind by Joyce Myers. That book changed my life outside with the Bible. you know, it go and it it's complimentary with the Bible, but the battlefield is the mind changed my life because some things, whole writer back is negative self talk, which, you know, as a Christian, I believe is the enemy, you know? And so. When you realize that it's not you, that you can overcome the thoughts that you have, that despite how you feel you can move forward. I mean, it's a game changer in every aspect of your life, including writing.

Destiny: 36:37

Ooh, that's awesome. Question three. What a book are you reading or writing right now?

Lamonique: 36:45

Oh, I'm glad you added writing to that question. Cuz I'm reading like five different books right now and it's hard to pin it down to one. And I'm reading for research. I'm doing a lot of reading right now for research, cuz it's best to read and the genre that you wanna write in. And when I get done with the series that I'm getting ready to complete this year, I will be Moving into cozy mysteries and that's new for me. So I'm reading various cozy mysteries, hard kind of hard for me to put one down, but name one, but I can tell you what I'm writing right now is a book called a new house, a new car. I'm writing multiple books right now, too. And that is a book that God gave me the title for. I have certain books that go that don't really go under my name. They go under my ministry, which is called ubiquitous ministries. and there's one book out in that then that ministry it's called overcoming anxiety in the hood. And that is on Amazon, but anyhow, I'm writing a new house, a new car, and it's studying the, the new craze with manifestation and, and we're kind of looking to see is that biblical. The other thing that I'm making is a picture book for people with dementia and Alzheimer's. Yeah, with scriptures in it and a third book that I have coming out very soon, it just went through some critiquing with my criti critique group. It's called no more labels. And I wrote that in conjunction with my niece. And it's, she grew up with label LD, learning disabled and some bullying. And so we're just talking about how she overcame that. And it's a picture book for actual middle schoolers. So yeah, a lot of stuff going on. all right.

Destiny: 38:22

That's a wonderful schedule right there. Yeah. Next question. What is the best advice to manage stress,

Lamonique: 38:30

to manage stress? Don't overschedule yourself. That's what I did because I knew I was trying to hit him hard. I was trying to beat that timeline. Too fast And so you, you know, if you can get three to five things done a day don't then that's good. Even if it's just three, there may be some days where it was one big thing, you know, don't beat yourself up about it because I was, I, I overworked myself to the point being in this chair so much. That I end up having like a disc issue with my back. So I would recommend writers use if they can use dictation software so they can move around and, and voice their writing and not use so much time in the chair. You're gonna have to come back and clean it up, but maybe not use so much time in the chair. And balancing your writing life with your family life. Yeah.

Destiny: 39:28

Could you expand on that one a little bit more also, you said dictation. So what, what kind of dictation resource would you recommend resers get started with?

Lamonique: 39:35

Let me look up the name of the cause I did, I've tried different dictation. I tried dragon software and I did not like that. Dragon software, it's like 70% accurate. So you're like going back and fixing so much that it felt like not even worth it. Otter. Otter is a good one. It's about, I would say 90, 92%, 90% accurate. So you're not fixing as much. Now you, now, if you want, now that they do have a free version of that, but if you're gonna be writing quite a bit, it's like 1499. Now you can try if you want your Just go on like Google docs and just, you know, use your microphone. You can there's settings in your computer where you can, you can make it dictate also, but then you're back in the chair then, you know what I mean? You're still back in the chair. So what you could do is you can download actually word, word can be downloadable to your phone and connect it to your word account. You also can put Google drive and Google docs on your phone. And so you can and then you can connect your, he. or your AirPods to your iPhone. And you can then use Google docs and that's free now. I don't know the accuracy, so I can't tell you about the accuracy of that, but you can then dictate and a lot of non-fiction people do that.

Destiny: 40:58

Mm-hmm good. Good to know. Yeah. Good resources out there. Free to pay it. Also our next question is what is a piece of advice you would give an expiring author? Just one piece of advice you had to tell them.

Lamonique: 41:12

I would tell them to learn all about writing to market be before they start writing what they think they should write, write what they know is gonna sell and a good resource for that is Chris Fox. And he has an ebook on it. It's like 2 99.

Destiny: 41:30

Wonderful. Also, could you expand a little bit about what is writing to market that we look for?

Lamonique: 41:34

Sure. Writing to market is writing what the market will bear it's doing. It's really, like we talked about marrying your creativity with your with business, right? And so it's doing research before you write. So I have a software called publisher rocket publisher. Rocket is about a hundred dollars. It's not very expensive. And you can look up keywords and see like, you know, what would be. What are people interested in? Like, say, you say, like, we're talking about manifestation and then it's gonna pop up and let you know. Is this something that's really searched for on Amazon? Because even if you're gonna sell your book outside of Amazon, Amazon is like, where you wanna do your research because things are gonna follow suit with them anyway. And they have like the best ability for you to research on their, on their platform. For business, the business of writing. So you're gonna wanna see, like what exactly keywords are people searching for when they're looking up manifestation, affirmations, things like that, then that then you're gonna wanna see is there. And publisher, rocket will tell you, is there a big demand for that, but yet, is it oversaturated now a way to do that for free because I still double check it on Amazon. A way to do that for free is put your keyword in, in amazon.com. And then you wanna see how many books come back? Like, are there 50,000 of those books already? Are there 10,000? Is there only 1000? So that then, you know, is it oversaturated? Then you wanna wanna maybe go and find one of the books that pops up when you put in those keywords and then you wanna scroll down to the bottom, to the description area and you're gonna wanna see what. Sub genre it's placed in. So then you'll wanna go to the sub genre that it's placed if it's doing well. Like if it's and the book is doing well, if it's selling anywhere from like 150,000 down. So with Amazon, the lower, the number. The better. So, yeah, I think there's anywhere from six to 8 million books on Amazon. So the further away that number is from really a million, it, the further away that book is from a million, the better it's doing. So obviously if it was in the Amazon, top 100 is doing great. If it's, if even if the number is a thousand, it's still doing great. It can be 50,000. Cuz you gotta remember there's million. So it's like a graduating class. I'm 50,000 out of 8 million. It's still, it's selling, it's selling hundreds of dollars a day still. Okay. So you're gonna wanna go down and see what if that book that you use that keyword to find that book. And if it's 150,000, then you're gonna wanna look at it. If it ain't doing well, find another book. So when you find that book, Then you wanna see what sub genre it's in. Go to that subgenre, see the top 100 for that sub. Then you're gonna wanna study the top 100 for that sub what are these books about? What are the subtitles about? You're gonna wanna look at the number one book that's in the best selling rank for that sub you're gonna want to see, excuse me, you're gonna want to see. What the be BSR, Amazon best selling rank is when you scroll down to the bottom, look at the detail page. What is the, what is the best selling rank? It should be 8,000 or it should be anywhere. Be it should be low. It should be really low. It shouldn't be at 150 already for the number one book. If it is that mark is oversaturated. You don't wanna book in that area. So then you wanna go to the number 50 of number 50. See where's that at? Okay. Is it at 20,000? Is it at 80? Even a hundred at 50 is good second page cuz Amazon second page is 50 to 100 top one hundreds and I have a video on all of this. Yo, I also have a group called golly entrepreneurs and marketer. It's it's called gyms. Psycho club I have on Facebook and it's a gems club, which stands for godly entrepreneurs and marketers. And it's for writers. And I have a video like showing you how to do all of this, but so basically you need to do this research and see how's overly saturated is a market. And then after you find, after you see like what the BSR ratings, then you wanna go and see how many of those books Amazon on the left hand side, if you go into the sub genre, It will tell you how do you wanna see how many books were P produced in the last 30 days or 90 days you choose how many books were written in the last 30 days? If there's been a thousand of them in 30 days at that market's oversaturated. If there's only been 50, 20. Okay. You got, you know, you can do it. So that's, that's just step one that is only step one. ready to market. The other thing is you need to include the tropes that are from your genre. And I would recommend everybody go look at TV tropes, and I don't know if it's dot com or.org, but just like put in Google TV tropes. It will show you all the. Now it's, it's using TV, but you can still equate this to genres, you know, cuz you got romance tropes, like an example is enemies to lovers, right? Every time you see a movie and you know, it's a romance cause and, and the font and everything, when it first comes on, tells you this is a romance and then. When the, when she meets the guy and she can't stand him, you already know they're gonna end up together. There's enemies to lovers. That's a trope. And so readers have expectations. People are like, oh, no, writers are like, I'm so unique. I don't wanna be due. What's been done before. Okay. You don't wanna write to market because you, I mean, you still can do your unique things in there, but you have to include things that are expected by the reader. The tropes. That are respected by the reader. So that is a big thing for writing to market. I mean, a big thing. You wanna read books that are in your genre not to copy them, but so at least you get familiar with what the tropes are. Oh, is it like it, for instance, what I'm getting ready to write cozy mysteries? There's usually a pet there. She's usually supported. It's usually a small town. It's usually a female. She usually has a lot of friends. The person who's murdered is somebody that nobody liked anyway. It's generally you never let kids or pets get hurt. You need to know that there's usually some romance in it. You, you need to, you need to know what is normal for your genre, so that the readers get the expectations and Amazon. Like, if you're gonna, like most selling is done online. Okay. And Amazon needs to know where to place you, what other authors to place you next to, and they're gonna use their algorithm. And if you haven't built any of this stuff and your, your book's just all over then, Amazon's like, I'll know what to do with your book. So I'm just gonna leave it alone. so, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you can to put marketing dollars and try to build it up, but I'm just saying. Writing to market is really more important than what people think. And that's just, that's a step. The other thing you have to compare the covers you. Can't just go. Willy-nilly making whatever cover field makes you feel good. You have to go right back to that top 100 in your sub genre and see what is the prevailing current thing going on with covers in your genre. And it needs to be the current thing that's going on. Are most of them, like, for instance, my client here, when we did his poetry book, meet me at the coffee shop we had, I went and did market research. What are the prevailing colors in poetry books? What's the prevailing graphics in, in, is it like a person on the front? No, cuz that's a memoir. It's usually you know, something like this. So you have to, you, you have to do all that market research before you put a book out and still get it written in four months. I would suggest I mean, that is awesome. It really is a great perspective of like, yes, you're being right. Yes. It's so fun. And it's just creative and you're just like, ah, but it's really. It's really tooth and nails. It's really a serious business that have serious rewards, but it's also serious work. Yeah. If you take it seriously. Yeah.

Destiny: 49:50

Yep. So that was, that was awesome. Just kind of getting, getting head straight, cuz right now what there's so much different information on the internet and really having concise information about, about the publishing and author journey. I thank you so much, Ms. LA Monique also where's. Where can they find you on social media connect with you? Because obviously you have the gyms right now. You've dropped so many gyms on

Lamonique: 50:14

I had surgery last month. And so I hadn't been doing a lot of my regular things. Cause like we were talking about managing our stress. I had to manage, you know, I had to do like some self care. So. I am trying to, oh, I'm trying to find my group so I can shout it out. But it's book marketing gems by LA Monique Mac. So that's the group where you can go in there. And some of the things that I mentioned, I have a whole video that I did explaining all of that. I'm also on Facebook under now. I have a professional Facebook page, LA Monique Mac. I think it's this author LA Mac or LA Mac. And then I have my personal page, but my personal page is open. So and that's LA Monique Mac and I'm on there, like more than I am on the professional page. I'm on Instagram, under author LA Monique Mac. So you can connect with me there. I'm on TikTok, under author LA Monique Mac as well. And I do have a YouTube. Like I said, I, some things I had to manage like 80, 20, I'm like, you know what I mean? Y'all know about the 80 20 principle. I had to like say, okay, some things I gotta slow down with right now, but I do have some videos on YouTube about, and, and that's under Arthur LOM Mac about outlining books, how, especially when it comes to using the save the cat method, which is like a screenplay writing way of outlining books and destiny. And I talked about that recently. I've got like some beginning videos of putting up a pre-order on KDP. So if you wanna know how to do that, like I said, I can only. One on one, a certain amount of people and you know, I know God wants people to get their books out there. So I would, I would give you the information, if you want handholding, then I, you know, then you have to become a client. But if you wanna just, if you're like, oh, I can learn this and go, then I've got videos out there.

Destiny: 52:08

Awesome. LA Monique. And that's wonderful. Again, thank you so much for being joining us on the podcast. Thank you for listening to the day's conversation. Please follow me on Twitter at B Y P E N N D links for the show will be in the show notes below. Keep on writing

52:37

writers.