The BookFunnel Podcast

Jack Shilkaitis (00:54)
Hey folks, welcome to the Book Funnel podcast where indie authors get real world advice on writing, publishing, and growing a career on their own terms. Whether you're just starting out or you're deep into your author journey, we're here to help you build your readership, boost your book sales, and connect with your audience. Each episode, we aim to bring you insights from authors, experts, and industry insiders who have been there, done that, and then some. My name is Jack. I'm our Lead Author Support Specialist here at Book Funnel, and normally your host. However, today for this episode,

to the Book Funnel podcast. Damon Courtney, the founder of Book Funnel, is taking over. He will be hosting today. And our guest, the indie publishing OG who needs no introduction, Johnny B. Truant. Welcome to the Book Funnel podcast, sir. Good to have you.

Johnny B. Truant (01:36)
Thank you, thank you.

An industry OG. I don't want to take that away from the other OGs. Yes, yes, yeah.

Damon Courtney (01:40)
one of the industry OGs. can't,

Jack Shilkaitis (01:40)
Oh, fair enough. Maybe

I was playing it up there a little bit. Well, the one here now at this moment. So there we go. That's true.

Damon Courtney (01:42)
he can't quite claim the title of like the pinnacle, but, pretty, pretty.

Johnny B. Truant (01:45)
Right, right. That's true. That's true, you're right, I am thee. Yeah.

Damon Courtney (01:52)
Right.

That's true. The industry OG currently on this podcast. We couldn't get anyone else. He was the only one available. No, I'm just kidding. ⁓

Jack Shilkaitis (01:57)
Exactly.

Exactly. But all

right, now we've done introductions. I'll go ahead and step aside here. David, I'll let you take over.

Damon Courtney (02:06)
Yeah. So I'm, I'm stepping in for hosting duty today, really just because Johnny is, is a long time friend of mine and I, I like chatting with him. So I thought it'd be fun to have a good chat. Also Emma and Kelly who are usually here doing the podcast, they are off at RWA right now. they're actually doing a talk. They might be even on stage as we speak. So, that left Jack and he's also running around doing kid stuff today. So, I'm stepping in for hosting duties also cause, cause Johnny's a friend, but you know,

For anybody, know, Jack kind of mentioned anyone who's been in the self-publishing game for a long time, they've probably heard of you, Johnny, but our audience includes a lot of authors that are just kind of coming into all of this. And so for the folks, for those folks, give us a brief summary of your, I guess, your career arc. So we're going to, we're going to talk about the new book that you have and your Kickstarter campaign campaign that's running right now. We'll talk about that quite a bit as we get later on, but I think it's important for the audience to know kind of how you got here. So.

When did you publish your first book? how many books have you published in the year since that sort of stuff?

Johnny B. Truant (03:02)
Okay. So publishing wise, I wrote my first book. I published my first book in something like 20, 2012 maybe, but I had written it over the course of several years beforehand. It was your classic first novel that I slaved over for years and years. when I eventually met Sean Platt and then David Wright, who they co-write. Then it was, I saw this kind that was the first spark of like the indie thing and it doesn't need to be as complicated and as hair pulling as I thought. And.

There's this entrepreneurial element to it where we can publish ourselves and that changed the way that I wrote. And then I proceeded to write very quickly after that. Um, not because I needed to, just because that's how I have flow. So, uh, my second book was fat vampire, which has since been picked up and became a TV show on Hulu and sci-fi called Reginald the vampire. And depending on how you count a hundred ish 120, 130, something like that books since.

In a 15 year ish career something like that. But in addition to all of the fiction publishing the aforementioned Sean and Dave we formed the self-publishing podcast in I think 2012 and it was one of the first Joanna definitely beat us. were some others like the science fiction fantasy podcast was before us Yeah, she's she's just too nice to hate, you know for her for her. genus above mine

Damon Courtney (04:12)
to win a pin.

I know you can't.

Johnny B. Truant (04:18)
and, and that was a really popular podcast, think, just because it, people said it just felt like we were hanging out and figuring things out along with them. was like sitting next to somebody at a bar and talking. whereas Joanna's was very polished and the people who knew they knew, but we didn't know we were just like figuring it out. But the show was really popular and we kind of codified all that knowledge into a book called right. Publish repeat. That's kind of become an industry mainstay. and we hosted a conference called the smarter artists summit in Austin for four years.

which is where I learned about Beaver Nuggets from a certain bearded book funnel creator. And, uh, and, yeah, it's just, it's just kind of gone from there. Um, I, I have, uh, I had a period where I wasn't doing that stuff and, just recently kind of came back to the education and speaking side of it. So, yeah, that's, that's my arc.

Damon Courtney (05:01)
Yeah. Well, and we met so, so I

Like every probably everybody else back in the day. I listened to every episode of the self-publishing podcast So that's how I learned all about self-publishing. I know jack did too because jack and I actually met Way back when I think 2012 when we were both self-publishing our first novels, uh, we had the same editor So that was how jack and I actually got connected and and had been friends for for very long time You and I met in 2015 at the at the before the smarter artist, but really we'll call it smarter artist So, you know we're going on

like

10 years now that we've we've known each other. I published my first book in 2011 and I really started working on Book Funnel in 2014. So I finished my fantasy trilogy by then. So kind of working on Book Funnel just before I met you without getting too deep in the weeds because I know that we could spend all day talking about this particular topic. But like in the 10 years just that we've known each other, what are the biggest changes that you've seen in self publishing? Because you've you've kind of

Johnny B. Truant (05:50)
You

Damon Courtney (06:01)
run the gamut you've done all done at all I mean all the way even up to a TV show which not a lot of self-help self-published authors could even could lay claim to

Johnny B. Truant (06:08)
Yeah, it certainly began as this kind of giddy enthusiasm. It was like, um, I mean, it had a gold rush mentality early on, it also had this unexplored territory wild west, like a, like an exciting wild west. was like a discovery. was like, we were all figuring it out together because, you know, Kindle came out in 2008 and it really kind of, took a few years to get enough momentum that people were really doing a lot with it, like more people than just a few. And so right around 2011, 2012, when we started the podcast.

That was like the heady early days and it was just so fun to figure it out. And what I think has happened in the years since is the industry has certainly matured, meaning that we figured out, matured. would be the positive side of it where everybody got a little more professional, like the writing got better. The quality standards rose. Everybody started to take independent authors a lot more seriously rather than just like, you're just some pulpy trash. But then in the last few years, it feels kind of to me like.

it's become, in my personal opinion, it's like all the fun went away. I mean, it is fun to write, but the business of it no longer has that, and it feels a lot more, it just feels more, it feels honestly a little cutthroat sometimes. And I know that that isn't authors going after each other, but there is this like bottom line mentality, and some of that giddy enthusiasm has been replaced by this relentless forward churn of like the rapid release thing where it just doesn't feel

It doesn't feel happy. It doesn't feel healthy in a lot of cases with the burnout. so yeah, it kind of feels that would be the arc from like giddy enthusiasm to, it's a lot more like a job and sometimes not a fun job for some people, I think.

Damon Courtney (07:42)
What do you think hasn't changed? again, in the last 10 years, some things, you know, old or new again, and then some things are just kind of cyclical. Do you feel like there's anything in the last 10 years that really hasn't changed about self-publishing?

Johnny B. Truant (07:55)
Yes, and this is a whole topic in itself, so I'm going to like curb myself on it. But I think that that's one of the things that I've been embracing more and talking about more recently is that a lot more has not changed than I think people realize, or that they realize consciously, or it's like that knee-jerk reaction isn't there. we're still people who are creating stuff that should be good and fun to read, and the readers are there to read it.

And there should be a fair exchange of value, which just sounds like the biggest cop out of an answer. But it isn't, that isn't the way that a lot of people work. A lot of people work is in like, how do I precisely target an algorithm and how do I set my metadata just so, and how do I do this tactical thing? And then it's real easy to forget. Where do I find readers? Where do I find readers? Well, they're, they're, they're everywhere because people still like to read books and people still read dead trees.

and people still are willing to pay a fair price. It's just that we've gotten this very myopic perception in a lot of the community of this one pool of readers that is by no means the exhaustive pool of readers. So I like to of remind people of that, that just settle down, it's okay. We are still producing good stuff and there are still lots of people out there who want to read good stuff.

Damon Courtney (09:05)
Which does tails nicely into The Artisan Author, which is the title of your new book and it's the Kickstarter that just launched a few days ago. I was fortunate enough to receive an early copy, so I read through it and it's a lot of the stuff that I have been kind of...

gently preaching, you know, when I'm on stage for a number of years now, because I do think so many things about writing and being an author haven't changed. I think so often we do get a little myopic and we can kind of lose sight of the the forest for the trees. So, you know, now we've we're talking about the the artisan author and that's going to be that's the title of your new book, which I think everybody should go pick up a copy. It's actually a great read.

Johnny B. Truant (09:22)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (09:48)
But, in reading through that and, learning a little bit, cause of course you talk a lot, it's a very personal book. talks a lot about authors and kind of how you feel about it, but also, you know, relates a lot of your own stories. So, how has Johnny B Truant changed in the last 10 years, right? Since, since the podcast and the, you know, talk about those early giddy days and then kind of

I don't know, The Empire Strikes Back where a little bit of the doldrums and the sad part and you got your hand cut off in the middle and then, you know, now it seems like your Return of the Jedi is coming out the other side with the artist and author. How does that, you know, how have you changed in the last 10 years?

Johnny B. Truant (10:23)
Well, I think that it's, kind of like your question about the industry as a whole, because I think that there are some things that have changed and then some things have been revealed that for me personally, that feel like they've just, it's always been this way. So just as one simple example, so the artist and author is, is about, just authentically being, okay, if I put this in a nutshell, it's just like create the art you want to create and find people who will buy it, which is

It's a, it's, I'm almost stubborn about it. Like I'm almost like, well, I'm, yeah, I'm to write unicorn Western and then I'm going to write the beam afterward, which is this like intense, hard sci-fi. And then we're going to write robot proletariat, which is like, you know, down NABBY with robots and like just all over the place. And, Sean used to, Sean always went along for the ride. Cause Sean is my frequent co-author. I've only written a few books totally without Sean. And he has always been all rah rah about that. But I think that.

the entrepreneurial side of both of us, the ones, the side of us that wanted to figure out the business, kind of like we were a little sad about the fact that we could never hit that mainstream because we don't have algorithmically friendly books. And I'm kind of stubborn about it. I'm like, well, I'm going to write what I'm going to write. I'm not going to contort it to somebody else's demands. And it's kind of a take it or leave it. And my pricing too is kind of take it or leave it. And everything is like, you either love me or you hate me. And that.

We had that all through as rapid release was maturing and as the industry was getting a little bit more serious for want of a better word. And only now that I've articulated it as this artist and author thing do I go, well, that's kind of always been true. Like I've kind of always been this, this stummered art first author who just kind of wanted to do it his own way. But I would say the biggest thing is that I kind of started.

I backed away from a lot of the author facing stuff over the past five, six years. And so doing interviews like this and speaking at conferences and even attending conferences and you know, we did a lot of like masterminds and books for authors. And I just wanted to be a fiction guy. And what I discovered was that when I got what I thought I wanted, Damon, maybe you can relate to this. you know, I'm, I'm at least half extrovert and I didn't kind of realize that. And so when I got what I.

quote wanted and I was able to just write books and just just do fiction, I thought, I miss everybody. And so that's kind of that's why I went to the first conference in like five years, which is what led indirectly to this. And now here I am again, writing books for writers, but it's going to be it's going to be different this time. And I can go into that, but it's it needs to be a sideline. You know, we weren't really heavy into that that business. But now it's like I know where I am.

It's like I saw both sides and now I've decided where the middle is, the sweet spot where I'm kind of half extrovert, getting out there, selling books in person, meeting people, speaking to authors, trying to help people, and then going into the cave and writing books.

Damon Courtney (13:05)
And then for people who don't, so I know you talk about, um, you, mentioned the term rapid release and I know and I know you kind of talk about it in your book and the artist and author is kind of the antithesis of that. Right. But for, for people listening, we're not necessarily talking about the speed at which you write necessarily, cause you're still a pretty prolific fast drafter. Right. So it's, it's, it's more, we're talking about the philosophy of the rapid release, which is what for people who aren't familiar.

Johnny B. Truant (13:31)
Well, so it is called rapid release. And as one of the authors of right, publish, repeat, watching that kind of people started to conflate them and I'm kind like, wait a minute. I don't think that's what we meant when we said, right, publish, repeat. And, but that, that philosophy, it, it, you hear rapid in the name, but that's not really the key thing. The key thing is that it, it, I've been thinking a lot about this and it feels like the biggest key thing is that you're writing primarily to suit the system itself.

You're writing for what the algorithms want. And then yes, there are readers on the other side of that, but the typical rapid release author is, and I take kind of like an extreme version of rapid release. Cause there there's like anything it's a continuum. And so this is like on the far end, it's, it's just Kindle unlimited eBooks. America centric and not a lot else. So you're in Amazon, you're exclusive to Amazon. You're just doing eBooks and you're.

The way that you're juicing that, the way that you're trying to do that is you need to keep pushing books every three to four weeks because that's what the algorithm wants. And your books need to be very similar to one another. If you just released a military sci-fi with a grizzled captain, your next book could better be a military sci-fi with a grizzled captain if you want Amazon to promote it. Ideally in a series, because that's what the algorithms reward is that that recency and that rapidity. And the artisan author approach is.

I ignore algorithms largely. And there's a lot of other aspects to it, but it's that obligatory speed. So yes, you can go fast or you can go slow as an artist and author, but it's not required of you. It's not like, because a rapid release author, you you release every three to four weeks and then you take two, three months off. Well, good luck. You now you get to start over. Or if you're a brand new person and you have one book and you can't write fast enough.

You publish that into Kindle Unlimited because that's the advice you find on Reddit or something. And your book just disappears because, or maybe you're lucky and you get 99 cents for it every so often. And that just doesn't feel like a sustainable model to me for a lot of people. Some people can work it and it's perfect for them, but I think it's a much, much, much smaller percentage of people that it's right for and that it works for than it's advised to.

Damon Courtney (15:35)
Yeah, it doesn't seem, I mean, it, it doesn't feel like, a long-term career. I, I do know some people who rapidly and have done it for years and they just keep doing it. Right. And that's their stick. know way more people who've done rapid release and burned out on it because they just could not keep up that pace or, know, it's like anything it's, it, feels like you're spinning plates and eventually, I don't know, something happens in your life and the plates start to drop. then like you say, they don't.

You know, if, if you're, if your only proposition is, my books are coming out really fast and then you stop people forget you. You know, I see this all the time. My, my kids read books in, Kindle unlimited. We bought that. got a KU account so that they had agency. They could go through and find books that they wanted to read. This is a regular conversation with my son. Hey, what are you reading? he's like, it's this really cool book and blah, blah, blah, spaceships and blah, sounds really good. Who's the author? I don't know.

Johnny B. Truant (16:11)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (16:28)
I don't know. He has no idea. has no idea what the author's name is. It had a spaceship. It looked cool. He started reading it. He's like eight books into the series. What's the author's name? no. Like that happens with some frequency and that like I can tell you exactly who my favorite authors are. I can tell you authors that I've picked up in the last couple of years that have become that I am now like a super fan, a true fan of that I have become as I have discovered them because my reading

Johnny B. Truant (16:37)
Yeah that...

Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (16:56)
method, my reading path is usually like, okay, I finished reading the, books of my favorite authors. I'm looking for a new one, but I'm not looking for a new book. I'm looking for a new favorite author. So I read that book. That was good. And I read the second book and I was like, that was really good. And by the time I'm third book, I'm like, okay, now I'm just going to go read everything that you've ever published. Like I have fallen in love with you. I have become a super fan, which you talk about in the book, the Kevin Kelly's thousand true fans.

Johnny B. Truant (17:13)
Right.

Damon Courtney (17:21)
theory, which, I have, I have espoused from the, from the pulpit many, many times, but for anybody who hasn't heard it, give us the, the bullet list of like what Kelly talks about. you Google anybody who's interested, you can go Google a thousand true fans. You'll find the original post that Kevin Kelly wrote back in 2008, I think was the original post, but what's the, what's the bullet list for

Johnny B. Truant (17:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, so before I give you the bullet list on a thousand true fans, I just want to add one more element to the idea of spinning the plates and sometimes you can keep them going forever. let's not forget that you're actually spinning plates on the deck of the Titanic and it might hit an iceberg and there's nothing you can do about that. Let's, you know, those of us who've been in the business for a while know that Amazon has suddenly and inexplicably changed things several times and ruined many author careers.

Damon Courtney (18:03)
Yeah, we've hit at least six icebergs since 2011 or so.

Johnny B. Truant (18:05)
Right. So I'm to keep spinning these plates and if everything goes perfectly forever and Amazon never does anything different than maybe I'll be okay. but yeah, the thousand true fans. that's the big, that's the big mental shift that needs to be made. If you want to, if you want to go in this direction, because people will say, well, okay. So some of the things like the symptoms of artists and authoring, some of the affects, some of the things that come up are like, you know, higher prices, better connection. And people will be like, well, that, that won't work. Like my people aren't going to pay higher prices.

They're not like if I raise my prices, they're going to leave or they're they don't want to connect with me. Well, that's true. If you don't, if you stay in that mentality of like people who churn through books, the whale readers, which nothing wrong with them, but they don't have bandwidth and time and mental, you know, space to pay attention because they're reading so fast to who the author is. Like give me the next book with a spaceship on it, as you were saying. But the thousand true fans is more like what you were describing the way that you read because.

the, you're forming a connection with the creator. So the root of the thousand true fans thing, the key point is that Kevin Kelly famously said that as a creator to be successful, you really only need a thousand true fans. And a true fan is, is described as like the sweetest spot on the bullseye. It's the, know, get the tattoo ride or die. They're going to wave your flag and talk about you to everybody. Like they're the truest truest fans.

Damon Courtney (19:26)
Yeah, they will buy

everything you publish till the end of, you know, for as long as you're publishing, they will buy all of your, your stuff.

Johnny B. Truant (19:32)
slam dunk. Yeah, you're just like, okay, I see the name. Boom. I don't care what it is. It's a cocktail napkin. I'm buying it. And if you publish, publish or create a hundred dollars worth of stuff in a year and you have a thousand true fans, that's a six figure income, a hundred times a thousand. So it doesn't need to be a thousand, but that's the way that it's usually structured is a thousand is such an easier number to conceive of. There were a thousand people in my high school. I can picture that gym and I can say, okay, every single true fan that I get

Is incrementally closer to the thousand that I need in a way that makes sense to me and feels worthwhile. Whereas if you're in, you know, Kindle and limiting, you're getting millions and millions of page reads. First of all, awesome. Great for you. But would you really care or notice? So I got one more reader. Like, no kind of, and the, the true fans take their time. Usually they tend to be very picky. And so when you are in a special place in a true fan's heart, then you have them forever. Like you said, they'll just buy forever.

And when you have that, will buy whatever weird thing you create. okay, hey guys, I made Unicorn Western, now I made The Beam, which is nothing like Unicorn Western. And they say, okay, give it to me. When I talk to people, because I do a lot, like I mentioned, I do a lot of live selling and I'll ask them kind of, what are you into? And the most common answer I get, like 90 % of the time, I read all sorts of things. So this advice that we're supposed to keep writing the exact same thing.

because that's what people want. No, that's what the algorithms want. That's what Amazon's specific Kindle Unlimited algorithm wants. It's not necessarily what the majority of readers want. So that's kind of the idea is endearing yourself to readers rather than having readers think of you as a commodity, like, let me just get the next one of whatever it is.

Damon Courtney (21:11)
Yeah, I talk about, um, we, we created this idea of, the, to try and explain it as the reader journey, right? So in, terms of authors, um, you know, Kelly was originally talking to music artists, right? Really any kind of creator, but this was 2008. This was a year after.

The iPod and iTunes had come out and like he could already see the shifts that were happening in the music industry. You know, self publishing really didn't take off until 2009 when the Kindle, the first Kindle came out. then eventually 2010, 2011 is where it started to go. So like we, as an industry in the publishing industry, self publishing industry are about four or five years behind.

the music industry as to like the changes that are happening. So I always tell people like, if you want to know where we're going, go look at where the music industry is today. That's where we'll be in five years. And the music industry today is basically, you can't make money on your, your, your digital music anymore, unless you're Taylor Swift, who by the way, love Taylor. but unless like, unless you're Taylor Swift, like nobody's getting paid for, for listens on Spotify, right? You know, back in January of last year of 2024.

Snoop Dogg was on a podcast and was talking about how he had just gotten his royalty statement from Spotify, right? For anybody, for all you old folks out there, Snoop Dogg is a, is a hip hop artist and, Snoop had, had over a billion streams on Spotify in 2023 when he got his, his Spotify account, $30,000. That's how much Spotify paid Snoop for a billion listens of his music. so.

Johnny B. Truant (22:40)
Mm.

Damon Courtney (22:46)
Yeah, that's, know, that that's where the platforms would like us to be, which is basically to just take no money and we'll just, we'll just give all of your content away. And so in the reader journey, you know, I, kind of break it down and I talk to people and I say, you know, they're to me, there are four steps, cause I've gone through this journey many, many times with the authors that I love. And that is, they've never heard of you.

Which congratulations, like I don't care how big an author you are. There's like 8 billion people on the planet who've never heard of you. So there's a lot of room to grow. the second one is like, they probably they've read something of yours, right? There have been plenty of books that I have read that I thought, that was nice, but didn't, I wouldn't say that I'm an immediate fan. just said, that was a good book. That was nice. Maybe I'll go and I'll pick up another book by that author. Usually by the time I'm two to three books in, I'm starting to become a fan right now. It's like,

I really liked this, this person's writing. really liked their books or I liked this particular story. And then I get through done with that series and I'm like, I wonder what else they got. That was really good. And then, then I'm on the way to becoming a super fan. And that's really the true fan. The super fan is what Kelly was talking about. And it's, it's really the focus of the, the artisan author, right? The artisan author approach is really about that super fan, right?

Johnny B. Truant (23:57)
And there's a dignity to it, think. I almost feel like this is, it almost, I don't want to sound self aggrandizing, but it almost feels like it's worthy of a movement. And the reason I say that is because the story that you just told about Snoop Dogg and Spotify, and obviously being a huge Swifty, then obviously, know, the Taylor Swift example where she was like, excuse me, I'm the one creating all this. I'm the one making the music. I'm the one that people care about, not you record executives.

So what if I just kind of do my own thing and she had enough clout to do that? That's a very artisan thing to do. ⁓ and, and, and that's what I feel like, because you said that's what the platforms want us to be. And the way that I, I feel, and I don't have an insider track on Amazon, but it feels like it's kind of, it kind of went like this. Amazon says, Hmm, will you do this? And some eager publishers went, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. I'll do whatever you want, whatever you want Amazon. and then they said, okay. Well, we'll reward you. And so.

Damon Courtney (24:28)
Totally.

Johnny B. Truant (24:49)
And then that will, will you do this? Will you publish even faster? Will you, will you go even cheaper? Because it's beneficial to Amazon to be able to say, we have all of this stuff and you can get as much as you want and it's not going to cost you much. And then we don't have to pay these people nearly as much percentage wise as we otherwise would. That's really, really great for Amazon. And as long as people are willing to do it, as long as they're willing to play the game, it's not going to get better. I mean, anybody who thinks.

Like we talked about the spinning plates. Here's another thing that could happen. Okay, so right now three to four weeks for rapid release. Well, why can't it be two? Why can't it be one? People are publishing a whole bunch of books with AI. And what if we cut the royalties in half? I mean, people are gonna be pissed, but then they're gonna be going, well, okay, I guess I'm willing to do it. And so it takes an author to kind of stand up as an artist and go, no, I'm the swift here, right?

I'm the one who's bringing the readers. I'm the ones that people want to read. And so that approach is kind of a stake in the sand. Like it's that stubborn. I'm going to find a smaller, relatively speaking, a smaller group of people. A thousand is the number we're sort of using. And then it doesn't matter about the other people. I don't, I don't have to play that game. And so just as to conclude this little segment, you you mentioned Snoop Dogg and his, his $30,000. so I'm doing better than ever with my book sales. Now it's taken a little while to.

steer the ship back over and my Amazon royalties as of right now for July are about 160 bucks. And that's with, mean, how many books do I have? How long have I been in this business? And it's just, I forget that I have an Amazon dashboard and then I'm like, okay. I guess I have gas money from them. That's nice.

Damon Courtney (26:26)
Yeah.

And, you know, the thing that, one of the things that I, I, so I, I, I go back probably usually when I'm getting ready to prepare a talk, I'll go back and I'll actually read the thousand true fans post and, and he's updated a little bit, a couple of times over the years to kind of follow along as the industry has, as industries and creators and creatives and the internet has kind of changed things. But one of the things that, that, that he notes specifically and that people often forget is so two things, number one, the thousand true fans is not like

That's not the only people who will ever buy your stuff. Those are the people that will absolutely buy everything that you publish and they will go out and evangelize you to anybody else. Like I'm absolutely, mean, anybody who's listened to me on any podcast knows I'm a fantasy. I'm an epic fantasy nerd, right? If you walk up and ask me for a recommendation, guarantee you, I will have at least six to give you. And they're all going to be my favorite authors. Like I will, I will talk about them for hours if you ask me to.

Johnny B. Truant (27:06)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (27:24)
Because I love their books. They're amazing books and I want you to read them not because I'm like, I maybe I can make some cash for my favorite. No, these are amazing books. You should experience them. They're great. Right. the other thing, the thing that often gets missed with, when Kelly was talking about the thousand true fans and, and was that it's not just that you get a thousand true fans who are willing to pay you a hundred bucks a year. It's, or they're willing to buy a hundred bucks. It's that they pay you directly. So you talk about how like nobody.

I don't think anybody should remove their books from Amazon, right? You, you know, like I know some people do cause they just get so mad and they're like, screw Amazon, but fine. Generally as a self published, like for a career, I would say don't do that. and in fact, you, you really shouldn't, if you can, you should have your books on every platform that you can possibly get them on, but you should also be selling direct your true fans. They will always buy direct from you. They want to support you. We see this all the time. Cause of course.

Like book funnel doesn't do the direct selling part, but we deliver all of a lot of direct sales for some very big authors and a lot of really small authors. What we see from readers all the time is, they'll cause they email us, they email Jamie thinking that, you know, they was like, I just want to pass along a comment to the author or whatever. So many times in the comment is like, well, where can I buy more of their books? I want to support them. Right. I don't want to give my money to Amazon. I want to support the authors at the end of the day.

Johnny B. Truant (28:39)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (28:42)
You definitely have readers that are like Amazon fans, right? I'm a fan of Amazon and I just read whatever I read all my books for free. That's their mentality, right? They read for free in Kindle unlimited. And then you have, or who people are like, I don't care where you're publishing the books. know, Brandon Sanderson did his, his big Kickstarter. I know like he's a huge outlier. And yet the thing that I loved about his Kickstarter was not how much money he made, which was a gigantic pile of money. And we all wish we could have those kinds of fans. number one,

He had made all those fans over decades of, being a writer, of going to conferences, like ask him how he made his fan base. He's the nicest guy in the world. Like if you meet him, he's just so friendly. he goes, he used to travel like six months out of the year going to book signings and conferences and everywhere in the world, meeting people, selling books by hand. And he's built this fan base. But the thing that I loved about his Kickstarter was, he made all that money.

The Kickstarter was literally, I have four books. I'm not going to tell you what the titles are. I'm not going to tell you what they're about, but just know that I wrote them and they take place in my universe. And people were like, shut up and take my money. I was one of them. Right. I backed it for like $300. I bought the hard cover, like all of it. Right. Because I am a Brandon Sanderson super fan. I am a true fan, but it's, it's all about those connections. And I know that you talked about this. You talk about this a lot in the books is, is it, it is about.

Making those connections which is to me if we talk about that reader journey That's a great place to start people I imagine people like of the people when you're doing a live event, right and you're doing a booth um How many people come up to your booth? Because they know who johnny b truant is and they're like, oh my god, johnny I I love you I come up to say hi and how many people are just going walking by looking at the books on the table and going What's this about?

Johnny B. Truant (30:33)
Yeah, it's the latter. I've had twice maybe people come over and knew who I was in advance. And I also had, this was actually kind of interesting, I've had two or three people who've been like, this is the book that Reginald the Vampire is based on. I love that show. Like that's happened too. But that's extraordinarily rare. And that's why I like this approach is...

in some way, or form, you're essentially looking outside of that major pool, which it's kind of a zig-ware other people's zag thing. And then most of the people who buy my books don't even know they're in the market for books. I mean, talk about a ripe audience. And what happens is, so I'll do, for instance, I did this big street fair in Austin called the Pecan Street Festival, and it cost me like $700 to be there. So it's not an easy entry, but like there's a bajillion vendors and people walk by and most people just walk by.

because that's what people do. Any given booth is gonna have most people walking by. But the book people, it's like I got a magnet over there and it's like their head twists around, they're like, books. And they light up because the book people love the books and they're just so excited and they come over and I get to watch that, but they didn't know that I was gonna be there. They didn't know that any book sellers were gonna be there. And it's just like this delightful surprise where suddenly I've created a customer that wasn't, I didn't.

You couldn't have reached that customer any other way. They didn't know they were in the market. And that's what's so cool about it. You you talk about like, well, all the readers on Amazon know they are not. Like some of them are, and the ones that everyone's trying to hit are, but my God, it's not all of them.

Damon Courtney (32:02)
Yeah, it's like saying that this, you know, that lake that everybody's fishing in over there, that one has all the fish. And it was like, there are a lot of lakes in the world, but yeah, it is. I I've seen it over and over again, that like making connections, real connections with those, with readers, be it in live events or even.

You know, online, if it just happens to be that you talk to somebody in a Facebook group, if you, if they emailed you and you replied back and then, know, you, you start up a little conversation with them. You and I met 10 years ago, cause I went to the smarter arts, smarter artists conference and we got to chatting and we got to know each other and we became friends and I was on your podcast back in the day. And now you're on the book funnel podcast all because of a connection we made 10 years ago, Jack and I just happened to have the same editor on our first books. And he was like, Hey,

Johnny B. Truant (32:39)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (32:46)
You guys should chat and just talk about self publishing and talk about publishing, whatever. And here we are. And Jack is our lead support and a really good friend and has been for a very long time. Like those connections are, are so important. And, probably if you've never been, if anybody's listening and you've never been to an author conference, that is by far the biggest value that you will get. Right. Most people go to conferences.

Johnny B. Truant (33:08)
yeah.

Damon Courtney (33:09)
And they, look at the schedule and they're like, Oh, I'm going go to that talk. I'm going to go to that talk and I'm go to that talk. And that's great. And I will be at author nation and you should come listen to me talk. And I do a great talk. However, um, and Johnny will be there too. And you should go listen to his talk. But the most valuable thing that you will take away are those connections that you make with people. And as an author, it might be that you find somebody that you end up co authoring with, even if not, even if it's not a direct connection, um, when you go to publish your book and that author that you met who's way bigger than you.

Johnny B. Truant (33:17)
as will I.

Damon Courtney (33:37)
and you just email them as like, Hey, I've got my new book coming out. you mind telling your newsletter about it? And they're like, sure. Yeah. Let me know when your book is ready. I'll happily tell my newsletter. And that could be the thing that, that launches you off. And it goes back to, know, you, you talk about the six pillars of artisans. Right. Is one of the chapters in the book. And, I don't want to talk about all six of them because it will, it'll take forever, but, also people can just go read the book, when it comes out and you should go.

back to Kickstarter. But one of the things, one of the six that I really loved is really simply be human, right? That's the title is like, I think it's number two, be human. And as we sit recording this in 2025, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about the boogeyman in the room, which is AI, right? ⁓ And I don't, I'm not trying to be dismissive when I say boogeyman, but the truth is like,

Johnny B. Truant (34:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Damon Courtney (34:26)
reading the book and you talk about, you you, you mentioned AI several times through the book. and for the, for the artisan author, it seems to me like the advice that you're giving in the book really is the same advice you would have given if you had written the book three years ago before AI became the boogeyman in our industry. Like the, things that I was reading the tips and not just the tips, but just like the, the, philosophy that you're describing in the artisan artisan author.

I mean, we were publishing over a million books a year, three years ago before chat GPT and all the rest of the models came out, right? So like that stuff is still true. It hasn't really changed. just might accelerate in some ways, or things might be on an accelerated track because of the proliferation of AI. But you talk about being human in the book and that seems even more true today, but it was just as true years ago.

Johnny B. Truant (35:19)
Yeah. So what's fun about that is that I was preparing when you were done speaking, I was going to mention something and then this point that you made teed me up perfectly and kind of mentioned it for me. What I was going to, I know it just, it's, it's simpatico right here. The, the, the, the, the thing about, I think that we're living in a world that's increasingly depersonalized. You know, we're, more and more separated. Like there's this epidemic of loneliness and there's

Damon Courtney (35:28)
I love when I do that.

Johnny B. Truant (35:42)
We do more and more virtually and we do more and more like, you remember like we're, we're around the same age. Like you would just go over to your buddy's house. You just, you just walk over. You'd ride your bike over and you'd, you'd hang out, but you know, then it's like, okay, well, but you better call first and then you better text before you call. And, and now maybe you don't even leave your house. Like my kids will just stay up in their rooms and whatever, cause they can communicate with their friends virtually. And that's great and all, but there's this piece that's missing and this, the community, like third spaces. I think that's what they're called. Like those are.

kind of in decline, like, and we're losing a lot of that, that stuff that we need as human beings and it's, boils down to connection. And so without that connection, we're starving for this. And that's why I think that this is like the best time to, to do a connection based human based sort of. Of thing, but you're to your point about like, I would have given this advice a while ago. Yes, I would, because it's part of that, like what hasn't changed. There's nothing new.

in artisan authoring. Like I'm just trying to remind people of the stuff that's always been true. And we piled a bunch of crap on top of it in terms of like tactical thinking. So being human, that's what I was saying at the beginning. Like we're making good stuff that we want people to read. That's the bottom line. And so AI, the existence of AI hasn't changed that. And by the way, I'm not anti AI. I do not want it to write for me. That's my own personal decision.

I'm not going to demonize anybody who says it, but I will say that, and I like to use it for like summarizing, like I will use it. I'll do images. think it's kind of cool, but what it does is it enables the rapid, the negative things about rapid release. If you see them that way are more easily exacerbated by AI. And so I think that if there is a problem, AI is making it worse. And maybe there's, maybe you don't think that there's a problem, but that sort of

Damon Courtney (37:22)
Yeah.

Johnny B. Truant (37:30)
Again, I just say, you said look at the music industry. I'm just going to say, look at common sense. Do we really think that any is, is it just all going to stop? And like, we're suddenly then, you know, human written books are just suddenly in that Amazon ecosystem, just suddenly going to become really valuable again. And everybody's going to stop using AI. Like, no, that's clearly not going to, not going to happen, but it's that the thing that AI has added for me is, is, the being human is more valued than it was.

But the be human pillar is not about AI. It's not about don't be AI, be human. It's about being human. So I'll give you a really simple example. Because I've fallen in love with live events and meeting people in person. And so I try to pull back from mentioning it too much because I know that I'm not a standard author. Like most authors don't want any part of that.

Damon Courtney (38:13)
Yeah, that sounds terrifying, I'm sure, to a whole lot of

the authors listening right now. I'm like, God!

Johnny B. Truant (38:18)
All right, so the artisan author is not go out and meet people in person. It is be human, it is many of these things, it is form connections. But you can do that virtually, you can do it on social media by being authentic. But my number one artisan author tip, and you would know this if you read the book, is answer your damn email. I don't understand why so many authors, you know, they have an autoresponder or they reply just very briefly. You know, I had these guys that bought,

One guy bought one book from me and then like four months later he came and he bought a friend and they said, well, you meet me somewhere, like a back alley drug deal almost. And they bought 19 books and gave me like $400. And I had to go out to a parking lot to like give them their books. But that came that that one of those guys emailed me a little while later and I spent like 45 minutes answering that single email because that's. That's what I would do with a friend.

Right? Like, Damon, if you sent me something and you had like a thing to talk about, I would spend the amount of time answering that email that that email needed to be answered fully without me cutting corners because we're friends. And that's the way I think of my true fans is, or my true fans in potential as these are people who are potentially my friends or who are my friends. So I'm going to be human. I'm not going to be a jerk. I'm going to answer the email. I'm going to answer it thoroughly. I'm not going to lie and hide behind subterfuge. I'm not going to act like a big shot. Like.

Excuse me. I'm over here wheeling and dealing and I'm gonna go drive my Mercedes later like just be who you are is really what that is because Even if people don't recognize it consciously they recognize it subconsciously and they appreciate it and they open up and they're like I Want to do business with this person? like rather than this person over here who I don't know

Damon Courtney (39:54)
Well, and it's it's the true fans really is almost it doesn't have to be making one fan at a time

But if it is, that's okay because like those fans, when you make them, they are the ones who are going to, they're, they're going to back your kickstarters. They're not just going to be like, he's got a new book out for 499, you know, new ebook for 499. know, the other, Kelly went back and wrote a, a followup blog post years later. after like talking with, and receiving a bunch of feedback from artists in the music industry. And, one of the things he, he sort of went back and revised his theory.

Johnny B. Truant (40:02)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (40:27)
was that you have to, you have to find true fans who will buy higher priced items. There is no way that you're going to make a long-term full, you know, a fully employed writing career selling eBooks at $3.99 or $4.99 a piece. You're eventually going to need to get to the point where people are willing to buy some cool bespoke edition of hardcover that you've got that you're launching on Kickstarter.

Those are the people, but that's where your true fans really come in. They will back those kickstarts. Every, every author that I'm a true fan, a super fan of absolutely. I back their kickstarts. I'll even tell you, Michael J Sullivan, who, if you read fantasy, you should absolutely read Sullivan. Yeah. when I used to back when I was a fan, right? I was a fan of his books and he would launch a Kickstarter. I would back at the $10 level, which got me the ebook, right? And, his, he would always, he'd send out the email ebook like,

Johnny B. Truant (41:07)
I know Michael, yeah.

Damon Courtney (41:20)
Four months before it got published on amazon and everywhere else. So i'm like sweet I definitely want to read it four months early I would back that ten dollar level never backed the higher Print, you know custom like leather bound edition none of that stuff because I don't read it. Honestly, right? I I only I really only read ebooks i'm not an audiobook listener i'm not a paperback reader I read ebooks, in the book funnel app. ⁓ and so I would always back at that ten dollar level until it reached a point where i'm like

Johnny B. Truant (41:43)
You

Damon Courtney (41:47)
Nah, no, I want to give Michael the money right and and I want his i'm gonna put his book on my i'm never even gonna open it other than to look at it and go wow look how pretty and then i'm gonna put it up on my shelf now I back all of his kickstarters at the whatever 150 level to get that beautiful hardcover edition that he's which was the reason why the kickstarter existed in the first place and and I take all those books and I put them on my shelf I never read them that's not the point for me I got the ebook early and that's what I got to read but I want to make sure

Johnny B. Truant (41:50)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (42:14)
that my favorite artists are going to keep writing more and more books until they well, and really like no, none of my authors can ever write fast enough for me. I always read their books and I just want to read more. You've talked about live events a lot. And again, I know that's like terrifying. I'm sure that's terrifying for a lot of authors to think about. You did talk about in the, you when you talk about live events in the book, you mentioned, you know, people come up and you sell

Johnny B. Truant (42:18)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Damon Courtney (42:42)
You take books, you take paperbacks. One thing that did bother me though, was that you said that like people, people like me come up and I see your books and they look great. Even if you know, you tell me about a book and I'm excited about it. I promise you, I'm not going to buy the paperbacks because I don't read them. Right. I just, like, I will buy the super special editions from my favorite authors now to put up on my shelf, but I would not be one of those.

Johnny B. Truant (42:56)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (43:03)
And then you said, well, if they, you know, people come up and they read eBooks and they read audio books and, know, they tell you that and you're like, well, you can find my books on audible and you can find them on Amazon. you need to get you some book funnel print codes. Cause that's, that's how you sell eBooks and audio books in person. And we have so many authors at the, we were at the rave event, the reader event for author nation last year, like everywhere we went, we, they'd have little cards, little postcards, little, you know, little bookmarks or whatever, and you turn them over and they're all.

Johnny B. Truant (43:14)
Yeah.

Damon Courtney (43:30)
book funnel print codes, because you can sell, you can sell them an ebook or an audio book right there. Cause the problem is of course, they were like, yeah, I'll check it out on audible later. My ADHD self is definitely not going to remember that I met you and that I'm going to check that out on audible later. and so like, if you have the opportunity, you like the authors that would meet and they're like, I only listen to audio books. great. I got the whole, you can buy the whole audio book set right now for, you know, 50 bucks and you just take this card and you can go add them to your book funnel app.

Johnny B. Truant (43:57)
Yeah, it's I do have, I feel I need to respond to that since I'm on the book funnel podcast. It's, you know, it's a triage situation. I actually did know that those print codes existed, but I should, I could turn my camera and show you how many books I have. I'm just like, like the, I quail at the idea of like, my God, I would have to so many print codes. I would have to. So right now, right. So I'm like, I want the beam season five.

Damon Courtney (44:16)
That's true, you have a lot of books.

Johnny B. Truant (44:21)
you and I haven't, I haven't gotten to, well, I have all of these and I have all of these. You're absolutely right. But I need like, do you have a batch processing app? Like just give me a sheet of labels and, and, somebody to come over and cut them out for me or something like that. Then I'm down.

Damon Courtney (44:34)
So what I would do though

is like just a few months ago, we actually launched a, just like an addition to the print codes feature, which is multi-book print code. So what, what some authors do now is when it comes to the eBooks and the audio books, they don't sell individuals. You can buy the entire fat vampire audio book set from me here at the booth and they get one code and it adds all the books to their library in one go. So then you don't have to carry like, you know,

Like you said, they, you the beam season five and it's like every episode has it's a no, no, no, don't do that. Just sell them or sell them the beam, the whole series as one thing. What I have found, when I have talked to authors and when I've, seen readers at reader events, the kinds of readers that show up at reader events are the kinds of just by the whole set. If, if you convince them that this book is this series is something that they're going to like that some sure, some people will be like, well, guess let me get book one and see if it's good.

I saw people at the rave event. There were just like a stack of books higher than taller than their head, like walking out. Yeah, exactly. And so like, you know, I, if you were going to do that, it'd be like, well, I, yeah, you can buy the eBooks here. You can actually buy the whole series in one go. so yes. honestly, if you, know, if you have that many books, I could probably help you with some batch processing stuff, but yeah, we all, everybody has the same problem of bandwidth. How much.

Johnny B. Truant (45:34)
wheeling around luggage over full luggage. Yeah.

Damon Courtney (45:55)
How much time do I have? How much time do I have to dedicate to this thing? And do I really have enough time to do that thing? Even though it's like, well, that sounds really cool. And I definitely am going to get to that next week. And then like eight months later, I still haven't done it.

Johnny B. Truant (45:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, that is, that is a thing because I realized that it's probably a very small percentage of people who I end up recapturing the moment they leave the booth. So I am aware of this issue. I like the idea of doing it as a batch because so for instance, fat vampire is six books. go for on my site, what say five average per book. So that's $30. Whereas most of the books on my table orbit that anyway, the paperbacks. So I like the idea of saying, well, I have it, but I only have it as a series. have to get them all. And.

That would be an easy way to have less inventory to deal with, like less logistical, you know, and just do one per series. That I could see. That's actually pretty cool. I actually, I just made a note. I just want to know, like I am, I am following along with book funnels advice. I'm a book funnel devotee, so I got it.

Damon Courtney (46:54)
Well, and, and we, we haven't announced this yet. Actually, Emma and Kelly are at RWA on stage announcing it today, but, at the end of the summer, we're adding a signed ebook feature. So as you're standing there and somebody comes up to your booth and you'd say, even if you just wanted to give them. So the beauty of eBooks is I'll just give you the first fat vampire book for free. I'll just send it to you. What's your email address? would you like to join my mailing list? Let me sign it for you. And you take out your iPad and your pen and you select.

fat vampire and you punch in their email address and you take your pin and you do a little sign and book funnel will automatically insert that signed that signed tip sheet into the book into the ebook when they download it. So whether they read it in our app or even if they take an e-pub and send it to their Kindle when they open their copy of the book, it will have a that little personal signed image just from you every time they read their ebook.

Johnny B. Truant (47:29)
That's really cool.

just added that to my post-it. That's pretty cool. That's very, cool. Very, very cool.

Damon Courtney (47:45)
There you go. Now you got more stuff to do. Yeah. It's,

it's, it's really, really neat. Um, and, and, uh, we're really excited about that. We want to get it. I think it's going to launch in August. We're to do a webinar on it because we want to show it off to authors before we go. Everybody goes to Vegas in November because there's a big reader event there. If you, if you don't know author nation closes up on Thursday and then on Friday is the, is the reader event, which I think they're now calling reader nation. Um, but either way.

We want to get that feature. know the feature will be out there But we also want to do a webinar and kind of show off what it can do so that people can take that with them and and do the sign thing because like every reader wants the the sign thing right and even I will if I find a favorite author of mine I will go and buy a set of paperbacks or something like that so that I can get a sign thing But I'm not gonna read them right. I really am I'm gonna go and buy the ebook and read that

And so even cooler is like, well, I'll just sign the ebook for you. And then every time I go to open my ebook, I get my cool little signature right there.

Johnny B. Truant (48:44)
that's also a cool... like, aside from the fact that it is signed, the idea of a signed ebook is in itself cool. And I could see people going like, like I'm already picturing it. Wait, what? It'll be signed on my Kindle or whatever reader I use? That's really cool.

Damon Courtney (48:58)
Yeah. So the Kickstarter is going on right now. and, and the artisan author is live. I will link to it in the show notes, but also if you just Google artisan author Kickstarter, it's going to be the top hit. yeah. Give us that.

Johnny B. Truant (49:09)
I also have a short link if you want it. Yeah,

it's johnnebetruent.com slash artisan.

Damon Courtney (49:15)
There you go. that'll take you right to the, so this is as we record this on July 18th, it is live right now. How's it going so far? I cheated, I already looked it up, so I know how it's going, but I wanted you to, I wanted to give you the chance to talk about it. So, so how's the Kickstarter going?

Johnny B. Truant (49:24)
Yeah.

Yeah,

it's going really well. There's like 270 backers so far. Like it would be cool to get, I mean, you I have most of a month, but I'm getting a lot of really good buzz, is nice. Like I'm getting a lot of, this is what I've been looking for, this is what I've been waiting for. And one of the things that I really am looking forward to is, and I'll keep this brief, is that I'm doing like an educational thing too. Like if people don't just wanna, cause you can just read the book or listen to the audio book or whatever if you want.

But I also want to do this thing that's like this kind of super affordable, like college experience where we use the book as a textbook. And that'll, think, restore some of that. The things that I really feel personally have been missing to this community that the fun, because it's going to be fun. I'm in my class is going to be fun. And we're going to do like twice a week for 10 weeks. It'll feel like a college course and have that community where we can just go through it together. And so I'm hoping people love that.

And so far people seem to be digging it, but I also think it's weird and people are kind of hmm, so I'll just spend the rest of the month explaining what the hell is I'm doing there. But yeah, it's great. It's great. I'm finding a lot of love that people coming back from the old self-publishing podcast days, the names that I haven't seen in 15 years, it's amazing.

Damon Courtney (50:45)
That's what's, that's about true fans though. Right? Those are people that have followed you now for 15 years and maybe they weren't ever true fans of your fiction writing. Right? Maybe some of those people had never read, but they are self published authors. They remember you from back in the day and they're like, yeah, Johnny, he's got a book. Yeah. Let me go read that. Also just, you know,

Johnny B. Truant (50:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Damon Courtney (51:06)
A lot of times people just back kickstarters cause it's like, well, that sounds cool. I know I've, mean, I'm on Facebook and so I've seen people I've seen author friends of mine posting your Kickstarter. So I'm like, Oh good. Johnny's Johnny's getting some love, which is great. So whether, whether somebody is trying to be the, whether you pick up the book and you, you know, ascribe to the lifestyle, whether somebody is trying to be the artist and author, or they're just plugging along, trying to be whatever kind of author that they want to be. Um, what's your best tip for an author that's, that's trying to make.

Johnny B. Truant (51:17)
nice, yeah.

Damon Courtney (51:35)
true fans. Because I really believe that no matter what kind of author you are trying to be, however it is, whether you're doing rapid release, whether you're you want to do artisan, whether you're doing like one book every three years, right? However you whatever kind of author that you want to be. I think the true fans is the like like Kelly talked about for music artists. That is the the future of a a sustainable long term career, right? Brandon Sanderson, you know, of course his gigantic Kickstarter. We did four books.

But his most recent one, which he did on backer kit was for the leather bound edition of the second book in his, his big fantasy series. Right. So, but he, he threw in, another secret project ebook that, that went with it. So he can't give you the ebook of the, of the series because that's owned by his, his publisher, his traditional publisher. but he has the special edition rights to do that.

And that Kickstarter on, on, that, I'm sorry, there you go. On, on that, campaign on backer kit did $23 million. So like, was amazing that he did like $42 million on his first one. That was four novels, right? This one's one, one book that's already been published, that was published like 10 years ago. And it's a special edition. And then also a secret ebook that he threw in as like a bonus, right? and the, but again, the reason he can pull that off.

Is because he has spent a decade and more making personal connections and building those true fans. So I want to hear your tip, but I'll give one of mine first, which is, probably that I talk about this all the time, the biggest mistake that I see authors on book funnel making, and that is that they, they get book funnel. They, whatever features are going to use it for, but they, they have a list, they either have a newsletter or they start building a newsletter. They're starting to get some people on there. And again, these are, they're not your, some of them will be your fans. Some of.

Some people joined your list because they read your books and they loved you and they're, they're already a fan. Other people are joining your list because they're like, well, I picked up their reader magnet. It looks good. I like to read. It's got a dragon on the cover, which is how you're going to nail me. it's got a dragon on the cover. So I picked it up and I'm going to check it out. Those people aren't your fans yet, right? They, they may not have even read that, that reader magnet that they picked up, but they come in and it's like, well, they were interested in something. the biggest mistake that I see authors doing is they start to build.

newsletter, they start to get people and then they never email them. They never, they get the welcome email that's automated, right? So you get the automation sequence and then they never hear from you again until like nine months later when they have a new book out and they're like, Hey, I got a new book out. Everybody should buy it. Don't do that. Like please send them something, send them anything at least once a month. You really don't have to, it doesn't have to be like a weekly thing.

But at least once a month, if you have people on your list, even if it's like two people and your mom, like send them something, because that is how you're, you're not going to be able to make those connections unless you reach out and try to make those connections. So that's, that's my tip. What's yours.

Johnny B. Truant (54:29)
Well, I mean I do have I do a whole true fans section with a billion things in the book and including like getting you know The mass action and then sifting them out But I would say if I were to boil it down to one thing it's gonna be like a little it's kind of an unorthodox trick this is is to take all the Take all the stuff when you're interacting with people when you have an opportunity to interact with a reader like wherever it is Whether it's via email whether it's in person you run into him at the

you know, you're just getting coffee and they notice you're wearing a shirt that says I killed you off in my novel or something. And they want to talk to you then to just take all the stuff that you know about the tactical things that work in self publishing and all the detailed, like stuff that you've learned over time and the keywords and, then just, just forget it and just be a human, like just, just interact with them, like a real person because there is, and I know that that sounds like simplistic advice, but

All of that tactical stuff is honestly going to get in the way if you're not careful. So remove the temptation. It's kind of like if you can't help yourself around the cookies, then put the cookies in another room. rather than falling back on author persona or what's the best way to convert a lead or something that we've learned instead, just talk to them like a human being warmly, openly, and you'll be shocked. I mean, the guys I mentioned who came and bought the 19 books for me in the back alley book deal.

Like we're just hanging, we're just talking like buddies. Like they're sending me emails of like things that are going on that remind them of things in the books. And that comes from just forgetting all that stuff for at least the length of time it takes to interact with a real human being.

Damon Courtney (55:57)
Yeah. Especially like when you talked about like spending 45 minutes to reply, like I could absolutely see authors going, well, you know, 45 minutes of my time is worth more than just emailing one person. So I, you know, I, I'd be better off writing for 45 minutes. So I'm not going to reply or I'll just fire off a thanks for reading. And like that's, I'm just going to call it a day. Right. And yet you spent.

That time you took that time to, reply in a, in a real and meaningful way and definitely was probably, you know, at the time you're not thinking, this is probably not good for my bottom line. you were just thinking like a person and like, what did it result in? I, know, a back alley, you know, nefarious book deal, where you should like showed up with a cardboard box full of books, but like,

Johnny B. Truant (56:40)
Let me...

Damon Courtney (56:41)
But like how much is

Johnny B. Truant (56:41)
Well, let me add a-

Damon Courtney (56:42)
that going to make a fan? Right? I guarantee you those two guys are probably now like Johnny B Truant fans. And when you're publishing more books, yeah, they're absolutely going to line up to buy.

Johnny B. Truant (56:45)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, let me, so let me add just one bonus tip that counts as a clarification, I think. And that is this is not a fast approach, but you know, the whole thing about like, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. well, you know, it probably is. And these connections take time. I mean, I mentioned that this guy that he bought, it was like months ago and he bought one book and it took time and it was, it's not hot. can't scale it. You just need to be patient.

And the truth in my opinion is that most things are like that. That most things take more time than you think and most things are a little harder than you think. And we want to believe in the quick fix easy button. And so we convince ourselves of that. And then it becomes true. And you say things like, well, you know, my time is worth more than that. Okay, maybe in the short term, but are you in this for the short term? Are you in this for the flash in the pan or are you patient? And you understand that every other business in the world

works under those rules and that it's only the kind of quick of the moment businesses that will work under some weird alternate physics sort of version of the world. So I would say that that replying to that email and being human is like the blue jeans of advice. It's not trendy, it's not hot and hip today, but it has stood the test of time.

Damon Courtney (58:06)
Yeah, in the, in the software industry, we have a, there's a phrase when you're an early startup, which I always tell people, like, if you are an author, if you're a self published author, you really are, you're an entrepreneur, you're, you're operating like a startup, a startup of one, which is how most

Software companies start and they have this this phrase they use that says do things that don't scale Like, you know when you're Microsoft obviously or your Apple well, like you got to do things at a scale That's unheard of to mortals like us but early on when you're really early on No, do the things that don't scale answer those emails one at a time one person at a time We call it Flint stoning right Fred Fred Flintstone like peddling the car with his feet

You're like, it's great. You we'd all like to be driving an EV that rolls super fast, but early on in the beginning, now you're doing all that peddling with your feet. That's how you build. That's how you build a company, which is really, you know, what you're doing. You're building your authorship and you're building your brand, but absolutely do things that don't scale.

Johnny B. Truant (58:46)
Hmm.

Well, and if I could compliment book funnel, cause I know that we're over time, but I figure you're not going to say no to me complimenting book funnel is you guys. mean, you guys aren't Microsoft, but you've, you've grown a lot and within the indie author industry, like you guys have a lot going on, but still, I know that when I email book funnel and I'm not talking about emailing you, I'm talking about emailing. Well, support probably knows me now too, but I'm guessing you guys are this way with everybody.

Damon Courtney (59:06)
Please!

Johnny B. Truant (59:26)
where it's just you get an immediate response and it's very personal, even right down to the fact that you did the whole thing with Jamie so that it was could remain personal even while you had to do, you you were doing some things that required scale, but you kept it personal. it, everybody gets an individual response and I am increasingly infuriated. Ask my wife about this sometime with businesses that don't appreciate their customers. I hate that I gave you money, but more you didn't give me respect back. It's not that I'm entitled. It's that.

I am a customer and I would think you would be grateful for that. You should at least like respond to me. Don't just not respond and that happens all the time. So I think that that's the answer your email sort of rant that I have is because so few people do that, you're gonna stand out immediately just by being cool.

Damon Courtney (1:00:12)
Can you imagine like I 14 year old me imagines that if I could have emailed my the authors that I loved at the time and just sent them an email and said, oh my God, I love your books and they had replied. Holy crap.

Johnny B. Truant (1:00:26)
Mm-hmm.

Damon Courtney (1:00:26)
Like that

would have just blown my 14 year old brain out the back of my head. Like that I, even if they had just said, Oh, thanks so much for reading. I'm so glad that you love the books such and such was like even just a paragraph, right? So not maybe a 45 minute response, but even any response at all would have made me feel like the top of the world. And if I wasn't already a fan, like that would have immediately shot me like a rocket into super fandom.

Johnny B. Truant (1:00:50)
Chuck Pollinick sent me books, physical books. Not his, not his. Some of his favorites. He sent me some of his favorite books when I emailed him as a kid. Well, a kid, like a teenager. Yeah.

Damon Courtney (1:00:53)
Really?

That's crazy. I

love that. Well, Johnny, thank you for coming on. So the artisan author is out in on Kickstarter right now. I assume will be published everywhere widely after that. ⁓

Johnny B. Truant (1:01:12)
Yeah, like in November. And by

the way, like if you're not into the Kickstarter, you can just search for it. It's on all the platforms. And I'll be selling it direct, of course, as well.

Damon Courtney (1:01:19)
And where else can people find you if they're looking for you?

Johnny B. Truant (1:01:22)
probably Johnny B Truant books. My main site, other than that redirect at johnnybetruant.com slash artisan for the Kickstarter is, I haven't put a lot there yet. Again, triage.

Damon Courtney (1:01:31)
Always bandwidth. Bandwidth is always the problem. Well, thank you for coming on. Jack, you want to lead us out?

Johnny B. Truant (1:01:32)
That's right. That's right.

Jack Shilkaitis (1:01:36)
Yeah, thank you, Johnny, for joining us for this episode of the podcast. For those of you who are watching here on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the channel and like this video. Also, leave a comment here about the number one takeaway you had from this episode of the podcast. If you're listening on other podcast platforms, please follow us there and leave a review. It really does mean a lot to us. Again, from all of us here at Book Funnel, thank you for watching and listening. We will see you all in the next one.