The Pint and Portal Author Podcast

Herman Steuernagel
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Weekly

What are successful authors actually doing? How are they turning this love of writing into a career? That's what I want to find out. Welcome to The Pint and Portal Author Podcast. Where I sit across the table from authors who've built lasting careers and get them to share proven strategies that they've made work. Each week we're diving into the details of a variety of strategies to sell more books. If you're looking to build a sustainable author business, you've come to the right place. I'm looking to build a legacy and learning as I go. I hope you'll join me.

  1. 2d ago

    She Left Her Desk Job to Build An Author Brand | MK Williams

    This week I'm chatting with MK Williams about how she became an entrepreneur and built a YouTube business that helped new writers to self-publish. This is what enabled her to fund and fuel her dream of being a full-time fiction writer. For the last decade she's built a platform that freed her from the day job and enabled her to write her next book while raising a family. We walk through the ins and outs of using YouTube as an author revenue stream, including ad revenue, affiliate links, sponsorships, memberships and attracting clients who found her through her videos. By 2023, she had to make a decision: be known as a self-publishing guru and non-fiction writer, or focus on the novelist she wanted to be. Despite continually increasing her prices and generating even more revenue as a publishing coach, she had to make the call to stop taking consulting calls, stopped promoting her nonfiction, and put her focus back on her fiction. We talk about how she finds fiction readers through Instagram, retailer promotions, Stuff Your Kindle events and newsletter features, how she handles writing across genres, and how an idea from her desk job at Ironman became her latest spy romance, Fake Out Make Out, written as Kate Williams. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Find MK Williams Website: https://1mkwilliams.comAuthor Your Ambition: https://authoryourambition.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1mkwilliamsAll books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B06XK438L5?tag=hermansteuern-20Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1mkwilliams/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@1mkwilliamsNewsletter: https://1mkwilliams.substack.com/subscribeMentioned in This Episode Nick Nimmin (YouTube tips): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCei6wyubYC1I1FwZ54LZFiASeth Godin: https://seths.blogMK's Affiliate Links 100 Covers: https://100covers.com/?ref=49Stamps.com (USPS & Media Mail): https://www.stamps.com/?source=si10993878&subsource=cj-text━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📘 Back my next Kickstarter Campaign https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 🎙️ The Pint & Portal Author Podcast https://pintandportal.com 🛠️ Deals on writing and marketing tools I use https://www.pintandportal.com/deals 📚 My books & author newsletter https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ Time Stamps 00:00 When she saw herself becoming a self-publishing guru01:00 Why this isn't only about YouTube03:58 Meet MK Williams and her road to self-publishing11:10 Why she chose YouTube and how she got monetized20:41 Affiliate links and sponsorships28:58 What's changed on YouTube, from AI summaries to Shorts34:06 How YouTube memberships work37:54 Scaling back the guru path to protect her fiction47:11 Finding fiction readers across multiple genres55:22 Why she wrote a spy romance━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎵 Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC, licensed via Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662. Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. © Herman Steuernagel — The Pint & Portal Podcast

    She Left Her Desk Job to Build An Author Brand | MK Williams

  2. Oct 28

    10X Your Author Career By Doing Less | E.A. Winters

    A second round with E.A. Winters!This time, we're digging deeper. In this episode, E.A. explains why your goal needs to be bigger, not smaller, if you're stuck. She then runs the 2x versus 10x test live on my own author business, scoring time, energy and upside to show why more social media accounts score low and Kickstarter scores high. We get into owned audience and why it matters more when a platform stops working, preparing for failure and for success in equal measure, and how a goal you're almost too embarrassed to write down changes the questions you ask and the people you meet. We also talk about her move into LitRPG with Monster Makers, her first experience with a traditional publisher, and her first novel Kickstarter: a Dragon's Kiss special edition with sprayed edges and gold foil built in from the start. She explains why she put part of an advance into Kickstarter ads and isn't paying herself back yet, why a $50,000 ad year looks better from the outside than it is, and how a subsidiary rights agent and a new audio deal are part of spreading her author business beyond one basket. Buckle in, this is a deep dive. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ E.A. Winters Links Website: https://www.eawinters.comSpecial edition Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eawinters/the-blood-and-flame-saga-special-edition-book-1Monster Makers: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX2Z88XL?tag=hermansteuern-20Her books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B09YQJKGXK?tag=hermansteuern-20For Authors FAQ: https://www.eawinters.com/forauthorsMentioned in This Episode Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell: https://www.amazon.com/dp/059342297X?tag=hermansteuern-20Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0800740963?tag=hermansteuern-20━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Time Stamps 00:00 Why your goals are too small01:39 Welcome back, E.A. Winters06:36 Moving into LitRPG28:48 Marketing a new subgenre and her launch playbook37:04 When author friends grow faster than you46:40 Why your goal needs to be bigger1:04:14 Doing only what moves the needle1:13:10 The 2x vs 10x test1:22:38 Staying connected to your why1:29:02 Why she finally ran a Kickstarter1:32:19 Her revenue was cut in half1:38:33 Going all in on the special edition1:59:57 Her number one piece of advice ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📘 Back my next Kickstarter Campaignhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 🎙️ The Pint & Portal Author Podcasthttps://pintandportal.com 🛠️ Deals on writing and marketing tools I usehttps://www.pintandportal.com/deals 📚 My books & author newsletterhttps://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎵 Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC, licensed via Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662. Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. © Herman Steuernagel — The Pint & Portal Podcast

    10X Your Author Career By Doing Less | E.A. Winters

  3. Oct 20

    He Went Full Time Without Writing Fast. Here's How. | S.L. Rowland

    S.L. Rowland has been a full-time author since 2019, writing one to one and a half books a year. In a corner of indie publishing where colleagues release a book a month, he calls himself a slow writer. He was ten books in before his career turned sharply upward, and he's now about to release his fifteenth. Fun fact: If you've been searching for Author Steve Rowland from Dungeon Crawler Carl, that's him too. We get into the book marketing that works at that pace. Steve explains why readers are happy to wait a year for the next book, how a passion project written during a hard stretch became his breakout series, why Kindle Unlimited is now less than 10% of his income, and how going wide with audiobooks overtook his Audible income in about a year. He breaks down the Instagram trial reels that regularly reach 60,000 to 80,000 views, the one hook he recycles that keeps hitting six figures, and how comp titles tell both readers and the algorithm who a book is for. We also talk about the business behind it. Steve walks through the numbers on the Kickstarter for his first three Tales of Aedrea novels: what the print run, freight, fulfillment and art cost, what he kept from the campaign, and why the leftover inventory could be worth another $50,000 to $60,000 at events and on his store. Then the story of how a joke comment to Matt Dinniman made him a character in Dungeon Crawler Carl book six, and what that has done for his in-person events. Are you searching for Author Steve Rowland from DCC? https://slrowland.com/2023/06/are-you-searching-for-author-steve-rowland/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Find S.L. Rowland Website: https://slrowland.comShop: https://shop.slrowland.comBooks: https://slrowland.com/books/All books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0727V4WZW?tag=hermansteuern-20There Be Dragons Here Collector's Edition late pledges: https://slrowland.com/2026/09/there-be-dragons-here-collectors-edition-late-pledges/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slrowlandauthorFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/slrowlandauthorPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/slrowlandNewsletter: https://subscribepage.io/SLRowlandMentioned in This Episode Fourthwall (his direct store platform): https://fourthwall.comMerrick Books (fulfillment and shipping): https://www.merrick-books.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ Time Stamps 00:00 A slow writer with a full-time career01:11 Meet S.L. Rowland06:44 Why cozy fantasy suits a slow writer08:42 The passion project that became his breakout13:06 Kindle Unlimited, going wide and audiobooks18:35 Less paid marketing, more Instagram trial reels26:57 Hooks and comp titles that sell the feeling34:31 Kickstarter, events and where the money goes51:09 How he became Author Steve Rowland in Dungeon Crawler Carl1:03:47 His number one piece of advice━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ Support the Show Back my next Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627The Pint & Portal Author Podcast: https://pintandportal.comMy books, newsletter and socials: https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/linksDeals on the tools I use: https://www.pintandportal.com/deals━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎵 Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC, licensed via Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662. Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. © Herman Steuernagel, The Pint & Portal Podcast

    He Went Full Time Without Writing Fast. Here's How. | S.L. Rowland

  4. Oct 13

    From No Sales To $20K in One Day - This Built Their Author Careers | Liz Delton & S. Usher Evans

    Liz Delton didn't make any money from her books for five years. Then a short story she'd already written became a cozy fantasy series that now raises five figures on Kickstarter, and every campaign has beaten the last. S. Usher Evans has 49 books and a series that's earned her $100,000 a year for three years, yet her Kickstarters kept shrinking. In this live conversation, we work out why. Usher explains what happens when you treat a side quest like your front runner, and what changed when she finally put her best-selling series on Kickstarter. Liz breaks down how she presents a campaign, from the banner to the story page, and how she's grown a community of backers who come back every time. We also get into the business behind it: print runs versus print on demand, early birds and secret tiers, how much of a campaign lands on day one, running Meta ads to a pre-launch page, referral links, and why bundles have become a huge part of Usher's income. Both campaigns are live now. 🥧 Find Liz Delton The Pie Maker at the Edge of the Wood on Kickstarterhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lizdelton/the-pie-maker-at-the-edge-of-the-wood-deluxe-cozy-fantasyWebsite & shophttps://www.lizdelton.com/Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/lizdeltonwrites/TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@lizdeltonwritesFacebookhttps://www.facebook.com/lizdelton🐉 Find S. Usher Evans The Weary Dragon Inn Omnibus, Vol. 1 on Kickstarterhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susherevans/weary-dragon-omnibus-vol-1Websitehttps://susherevans.com/Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/susherevans/Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/susherevans/Usher's previous episodehttps://youtu.be/uIsOl-eGBsE🔗 Mentioned in This Episode Kickstarter for Authors (2nd Edition) by Anthea Sharphttps://www.amazon.com/dp/1680131818?tag=hermansteuern-20New to Kickstarter? Start with my episode with Oriana Leckerthttps://youtu.be/byCWcx2ZRx0Novel Publicityhttps://novelpublicity.com/BookVaulthttps://bookvault.app/SeSe Printinghttps://www.seseprinting.com/⏱️ Time Stamps 00:00 Shrinking launches vs growing ones01:58 Meet Liz Delton and S. Usher Evans06:13 Why Usher's Kickstarters kept shrinking22:14 Side quests vs the series that pays the bills26:07 What makes a Kickstarter campaign stand out48:29 Backers, fulfillment and the personal touch57:46 Print runs vs print on demand1:06:20 Early birds, secret tiers and day one1:17:52 Meta ads, pre-launch and bundles1:38:58 Their number one piece of advice⭐ Interdimensional Drink Masterhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 🛠️ Deals on Writing & Marketing Tools I Usehttps://www.pintandportal.com/deals 📚 My Books & Author Newsletterhttps://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC (Envato License). Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. © Herman Steuernagel, The Pint & Portal Podcast

    From No Sales To $20K in One Day - This Built Their Author Careers | Liz Delton & S. Usher Evans

  5. Oct 6

    He Makes Six Figures Before Most Authors Are Even Awake | Brady Hunsaker

    Brady Hunsaker works a full-time job, writes for two hours before he leaves for the office, and earns six figures from his fantasy books. He published his first book in 2023, has sold around 80,000 copies since, and now runs six-figure Kickstarter campaigns for his deluxe editions. We get into the book marketing strategy behind those sales. Brady explains why he stopped caring about followers and started measuring posts by whether they sell books, how he runs separate TikTok accounts for different kinds of content, and why he pitches the world of a fantasy novel instead of the characters. He tests a book idea on social media before he writes it. One of those videos reached 300,000 views, so he wrote the book. We also talk about the business side of being an indie author. Brady breaks down where his income comes from across Kickstarter, direct sales from his own store and Kindle Unlimited, what he spends to produce a special edition, and when it made sense to hand fulfillment to someone else. He walks through how he drafts a novel in about two months without a second draft, and the daily schedule that fits writing, marketing and a family around a day job. Find Brady Hunsaker Website: https://bradyhunsaker.comShop: https://shop.bradyhunsaker.comDepths of Vanalf: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRDYL2C6?tag=hermansteuern-20All books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BRL74ZDJ?tag=hermansteuern-20Instagram: https://instagram.com/bradyhunsakerTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@bradyhunsakerYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BradyHunsakerMentioned in This Episode Jeff Brown Graphics (cover art): https://www.jeffbrowngraphics.comMerrick Books (special editions and fulfillment): https://www.merrick-books.comTime Stamps 00:00 Sales over followers00:43 Meet Brady Hunsaker03:30 Why he chose self-publishing07:28 A thousand sales on day one09:47 A second TikTok account and a new pitch14:17 Posting every day for sales16:38 Covers, audio and Kindle Unlimited19:03 Six-figure Kickstarters and where the money comes from26:32 Writing fast around a full-time job36:38 His number one piece of adviceSupport the Show Back my next Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627The Pint & Portal Author Podcast: https://pintandportal.comMy books, newsletter and socials: https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/linksTools I Actually Use All deals: https://www.pintandportal.com/dealsPublisher Champ, 10% off: https://www.publisherchamp.com/referral/42246/Publisher Rocket: https://publisherrocket.cartknox.com/buy-rocket?aff=442Wise, first transfer up to $800 CAD free: https://wise.prf.hn/l/RlANJvG/Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662Stallion Express: https://ship.stallion.ca/register/Qr3Wy5Riverside: https://riverside.com/?via=herman-steuernagelTheme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC, licensed via Envato. Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. © Herman Steuernagel, The Pint & Portal Podcast

    He Makes Six Figures Before Most Authors Are Even Awake | Brady Hunsaker

  6. Sep 29

    The Author Business Blueprint You've Been Missing - Using Kickstarter To Fund Your Next Release

    Eighteen authors, seventeen original urban fantasy stories, one Kickstarter anthology. Daniel Coolbaugh and Ben Schenkman built Arcane Awakenings by pooling their audiences instead of launching alone. A business to consumer author entrepreneur success story. They set a funding goal that covered only the base book and saved the bells and whistles for stretch goals. We recorded this live in May, during pre-launch. The campaign went live on September 15 and funded in under 34 hours. We get into how the anthology came together. They widened a Halloween theme into origin stories about the emergence of magic so more authors could say yes, and recruited from a shortlist of about two dozen. They asked for 8,000 to 10,000 words per story, and we talk about how fantasy authors treat a word limit. The cover is a single illustrated piece from Miblart that pulls in elements from all 17 stories. Ben explains why they kept the price fair to readers rather than paying for a big-name artist. Daniel walks through the one-year exclusivity deal that lets every author take their story back afterwards. Daniel also shares the rule he applies to every project: never waste words. Launch book one, book two and book three separately, then an omnibus, and you have four products instead of one. His own anthology story is a prequel to his Nathaniel Wither: Monster Hunter series, so it sends new readers straight to his books. Ben talks about his three urban fantasy series, publishing through Caffeinated Terrier Press, and narrating his own audiobooks. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FIND DANIEL COOLBAUGH Arcane Awakenings on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcaneawakenings/arcane-awakenings Website: https://authordanielcoolbaugh.wordpress.com The Fantasy and Sci-fi Fanatic's Podcast: https://thefantasyandscififanaticspod.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_danielcoolbaugh FIND BEN SCHENKMAN Website: https://benschenkman.com My Brother's Keeper: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GKHWPBKT?tag=hermansteuern-20 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Time Stamps 00:00 Books are expensive 01:24 Welcome and what's changing in November 06:47 Meet Ben Schenkman and Daniel Coolbaugh 14:44 Building an urban fantasy anthology 24:34 Why Kickstarter 30:24 One cover for 17 stories 34:45 Keeping the cost fair to readers 41:21 Getting more than one product from a story 47:32 Reward tiers and the pre-launch push 53:58 Where to find Ben and Daniel ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SUPPORT MY NEXT KICKSTARTER https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 THE PINT & PORTAL AUTHOR PODCAST https://pintandportal.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TOOLS I ACTUALLY USE All deals: https://www.pintandportal.com/deals Publisher Champ, every sales dashboard in one place, 10% off: https://www.publisherchamp.com/referral/42246/ Publisher Rocket, keyword and category research: https://publisherrocket.cartknox.com/buy-rocket?aff=442 Wise, international payments, first transfer up to $800 CAD free: https://wise.prf.hn/l/RlANJvG/ Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662 Stallion Express, discount shipping from Canada: https://ship.stallion.ca/register/Qr3Wy5 Riverside, what I record the show on: https://riverside.com/?via=herman-steuernagel ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ MY BOOKS, NEWSLETTER & SOCIALS https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links MEDIA CREDITS Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC, licensed via Envato. Stock video licensed via Envato. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. © Herman Steuernagel, The Pint & Portal Podcast

    The Author Business Blueprint You've Been Missing - Using Kickstarter To Fund Your Next Release

  7. Sep 22

    This Author Can't Write to Market. She Made Seven Figures Anyway | Melissa Storm

    Melissa Storm built a seven-figure career without writing to market. Learn how she finds the right author marketing strategy. Her first novel got a stack of rejections from literary agents, and she cried over every one. Fifteen years later she has over a hundred books across multiple pen names. Plus she's a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. We discuss the realities of self-publishing today, including why she treats direct sales as ads on hard mode. Whether you are struggling with Facebook ads or trying to build an ecosystem for your pen names, Melissa shares how to adapt your book marketing to fit your personality. She calls it a seven-figure career, and she'll also tell you she can't write to market to save her life. In addition, she runs Novel Publicity and runs Kickstarter campaigns that teach Facebook ads for authors. We also talk about how Meta's AI is changing Facebook ads and how she sees authors adapting. Back her Facebook Ads for Authors Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/melstorm/shopify-ads Creator page: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/melstorm ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FIND MELISSA STORM On Amazon: On Amazon: https://link.amazon/B06yoYJRD Website: https://www.melstorm.com Novel Publicity: https://www.novelpublicity.com Book Marketing with Melissa (Substack): https://marketwithmelissa.substack.com Molly Fitz: https://mollymysteries.com Luna Ryder: https://lunarauthor.com MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Author Marketing Archetype quiz: https://www.novelpublicity.com/quiz/ Luna Ryder's books, including When Life Gives You Legends: https://lunarauthor.com/books/ Cal Newport: https://link.amazon/B06Bb14Cz 📘 SUPPORT MY NEXT KICKSTARTER https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Time Stamps 00:00 Intro 02:21 Hundreds of books and dozens of pen names 14:57 From agent rejections to a marketing business 22:33 If your heart's not in it, readers can tell 25:27 Matching your marketing to your personality 34:41 Why selling direct is ads on hard mode 45:12 The sunk cost fallacy and knowing when to quit 54:20 Running courses on Kickstarter 1:01:45 AI and the future of Facebook ads 1:08:47 Her number one piece of advice ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 LISTEN TO THE PODCAST Website: https://pintandportal.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3UGMgBmH0YQJBdT6Mw9MxK Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-pint-and-portal-author-podcast/id1697315896 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/2c6a0d11-a60b-418a-a568-580bef9c904d/the-pint-and-portal-author-podcast 🛠️ TOOLS I USE All deals in one place: https://www.pintandportal.com/deals Publisher Champ — all your sales dashboards in one place, 10% off: https://www.publisherchamp.com/referral/42246/ Publisher Rocket — keyword and category research for Amazon: https://publisherrocket.cartknox.com/buy-rocket?aff=442 Wise — international payments, first transfer up to $800 CAD free: https://wise.prf.hn/l/RlANJvG/ Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662 Stallion Express — discount shipping from Canada: https://ship.stallion.ca/register/Qr3Wy5 Riverside — what I record the show on: https://riverside.com/?via=herman-steuernagel 📚 MY BOOKS & NEWSLETTER All my books and links: https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ MEDIA CREDITS 🎵 Theme song — Commercial Rock by StudioKolomna https://app.envato.com/music/96865697-95b3-4554-866e-6d4ad66a575e Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. © Herman Steuernagel — The Pint & Portal Podcast

    This Author Can't Write to Market. She Made Seven Figures Anyway | Melissa Storm

  8. Sep 8

    She Ignores Every Book Selling Rule They Taught You | Maggie Beeler

    What if you broke all the rules they tell you for building an indie author career? Maggie Beeler doesn't run ads. She doesn't post on social media. She barely sells on Amazon. She built her author business by attending 30 to 45 events a year, setting up a table at everything from craft fairs, markets, bars and bookstores to niche events. Why don't most indie authors do the same? According to Beeler it's because "A lot of indie authors have this precious mindset where they think that their books are just going to sell themselves. And that is not the case." In this episode, Maggie breaks down how she picks events worth paying for, what to say to someone walking past your table, why she scaled her display down instead of up, and how to pitch a book in fifteen seconds to a person who has never heard of you. We also get into Tropetails, the cocktail and mocktail book for bookworms that she turned into a genre-inspired drink mix brand, now stocked in roughly 100 retailers. Plus, what you actually have to put in a bookstore's hands to make them say yes to stocking your book. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NEVER MISS AN EPISODESubscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@pintandportal My Kickstarter campaigns: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/hermansteuernagel/created ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FIND MAGGIE BEELERWebsite: https://margaretcbeeler.comTropetails: https://tropetails.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaretcbeeler/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@margaretcbeeler ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE PINT & PORTAL AUTHOR PODCASTWebsite: https://pintandportal.comSupport the show: https://www.pintandportal.com/deals SUPPORT MY NEXT KICKSTARTERThe Bartender Between Worlds: Illustrated Special Edition HERMAN'S BOOKS & NEWSLETTERhttps://hermansteuernagel.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Time Stamps00:00 Your books are not going to sell themselves06:48 Nine years to finish the first book12:51 Why she only sells in person16:29 Finding events worth paying for21:45 Working the table without being weird about it34:03 Pitch the tropes, not the plot36:54 Tropetails: turning a book into a product line41:57 Getting into 100 retailers58:05 Selling in person in the age of AI1:01:47 Her number one piece of advice ---👉 NEVER MISS AN EPISODE: Subscribe Here: https://www.youtube.com/@pintandportal?sub_confirmation=1🛠️ TOOLS I ACTUALLY USEAll deals in one place: https://www.pintandportal.com/dealsPublisher Champ — every sales dashboard in one place, Get 10% off your subscription:https://www.publisherchamp.com/referral/42246/Publisher Rocket — keyword and category research to optimize your Amazon listing for both ads and organic sales: https://publisherrocket.cartknox.com/buy-rocket?aff=442Wise — how I handle international payments. Your first transfer up to $800 CAD free:https://wise.prf.hn/l/RlANJvG/Riverside — what I record the show on. Premium remote recording:https://riverside.com/?via=herman-steuernagel📚 MY BOOKS & NEWSLETTERAll my books and links: https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/linksInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/hermansteuernagelFacebook (the podcast): https://www.facebook.com/pintandportalpodcastFacebook (my books): https://www.facebook.com/hermansteuernagelwritesTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hermansteuernagelwrites━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━MEDIA CREDITS🎵 Theme song — Commercial Rock by StudioKolomnahttps://app.envato.com/music/96865697-95b3-4554-866e-6d4ad66a575eSome links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show.© Herman Steuernagel — The Pint & Portal Podcast

    She Ignores Every Book Selling Rule They Taught You | Maggie Beeler
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What are successful authors actually doing? How are they turning this love of writing into a career? That's what I want to find out. Welcome to The Pint and Portal Author Podcast. Where I sit across the table from authors who've built lasting careers and get them to share proven strategies that they've made work. Each week we're diving into the details of a variety of strategies to sell more books. If you're looking to build a sustainable author business, you've come to the right place. I'm looking to build a legacy and learning as I go. I hope you'll join me.

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