Why I'm Hiring a Publishing Coach

On this episode of Killer Pros, I talk about why I am looking at coaching, specifically on the business side of my publishing and writing, and how spending the time and money working with a coach is what allowed me to get into voice acting.

Welcome back to the Killer Pros podcast, the show for horror, thriller, and mystery writers, where we talk about the art and business of publishing, and I talk about my journey learning the industry.

I'm Tanner Rutledge, fellow author and voice actor, and that's actually something that I wanted to talk about today.

So six years ago, I set out to write professionally and to be published in fiction.

I had been writing in magazines.

I had been doing a couple of different things, and I took a lot of creative writing back in college.

Check out the earlier episodes.

And my original plan was to be a novelist and a writer when I stopped being a private investigator.

And I stopped doing that in 2021, about 2019.

Going into 2020, I really focused on learning and building writing craft and learning the publishing industry.

That's what started this podcast.

And it started as an audio diary of me learning my way through the industry.

And then I started interviewing other authors, and it just kind of became this place that was like a mastermind to learn craft, talk to Authors Network, and just follow this journey.

And about two years ago, I was looking at publishing and wanting to do my own audiobooks because it was super expensive.

So I started learning voiceover, and specifically I started learning narration.

And it was fun.

I ended up kind of seeing some promise there, and I was like, oh, this will be like a great little side thing, too.

And I started taking some classes, learning how to really build out a sound booth, learning how to do things here in the VO world, and it grew into its own thing.

And then I got into audiobook narration, and it took off in two years.

I am way ahead of where I am in comparison to six years of writing, and I think there's a reason for that with vo.

And about maybe a year, year and a half ago, it became apparent that we need to homeschool our son.

And I need something that I have total control over my schedule for the most part, but I can still earn a good living doing.

I was really hoping that was going to be writing, but it just wasn't happening fast enough.

So I invested in coaching and courses for voiceover and voice acting to break into that industry.

And I think that's the biggest reason that my VO work, my narration work, is ahead of my writing.

It's because I was able to learn from industry Professionals that were way ahead of me.

I learned their workflows and I learned how to work multiple auditions and get a ton of auditions out in a day and get feedback from that.

I got support on my acting and performance from different groups and these communities that I joined.

And one of the most powerful things wasn't just having access to a person who was doing well and working full time in audiobook narration and corporate void.

It was the community.

There were a lot of people in there like me, where I was and where I am because I'm still in those communities.

And we were able to learn from each other.

So I was able to not only learn from my mistakes and things that I was doing and my wins.

I was able to learn from anywhere from two to 800 people, depending on which group I was in.

And generally it's about 20, 20 of us that are super active and out and chasing down things.

But we were able to learn from each other and it gave me a leg up.

There was also the technical knowledge.

It's super intimidating to come in here and be like, okay, so what do I need?

A microphone, an interface, and yes, I do have a background in podcasting, so I had some of the bass knowledge, but I didn't know anything about acoustics.

I didn't know how to set up a sound booth that was isolated and get a noise floor that was industry standard, which is sub negative 60 dB.

Mine's a little high today because there's a lot of stuff going on in the house, but it sits usually around minus 65 to minus 70 decibels.

That's a really quiet room.

I learned how to do that because people taught me, because I paid them and I did not do that in my writing.

Had I done that, I think I would be a lot further ahead.

And yes, I took writing courses, I took writing classes and I focused heavily on craft.

And I think that was the right move starting out.

You can't market and sell and launch and make workflows around crap because you're just going to keep pushing out crap.

So I'm glad that I spent the money on the classes, the groups, the different things on my writing for my craft.

But I didn't do that on the business side.

And the reason there was I thought that it would be very similar to running the businesses that I had run in the past.

I ran my parents construction business for a little while while my father was sick.

I had my own PI agency, my own personal training business, and I thought that marketing and running a print company would be very similar to that and it's just not so.

I think one thing that really, really held me back in my writing and specifically my publishing business because there's the writing and the art side of it, which I did get guidance there, and then there's the publishing in the business side that I didn't.

So what I am lacking are professional processes.

I have those processes in place from the Voice Acting Academy and from Speaks and Squeaks.

Those are the two communities, the two main communities in voice acting that I'm a part of.

One's done by Joe Zica, the other is done by Alice Socket.

And what they did, Joe gave me in his Voice Actors Academy A like 20,000, 50,000 foot view of the industry and gave me the basics in everything.

And I was able to focus in on corporate work and audiobook narration.

Alice gave me workflows, strategies and feedback on audiobooks specifically, which is what I love doing and honestly is what I see being the most steady work in voice acting.

So I had those.

I was able to build professional processes and build a business around that.

I don't have those processes in place for my writing and print business and I think it's time that I got them because when I look at these two things, that's the difference.

I didn't have the coaching to learn the processes and the workflows to run it at a professional level.

And yes, I could develop those myself, tons of people do, but it takes time.

When I was a personal trainer, I used to tell people, you either pay with time or you pay with money.

If you want to hit your goals faster, hire me as your personal trainer.

You will get there on your own if you're consistent, but it's going to take you longer because there's a lot more to figure out and I already have the the knowledge to, to guide you there faster.

And I think that's what I'm going to focus on this year.

I've been looking at a couple of programs, I've been looking at mentorship and just really checking out a lot of the other podcasts to find out what other authors are doing, who is doing this well and specifically inside the world of the books that I write, who is coaching.

And I think one of the first things that I'm going to do here in the next couple months is join the self publishing show.

They do a podcast, they have a class.

I think it's called self publishing launch, but it is an in depth course on the business side.

The process is running the ads, doing the things that it takes to get business in voice acting, that's auditioning.

So I had to learn how to get get into the rooms that I needed to be in like acx and voice 1, 2, 3.

And how to meet people and be around casting directors to get cast in parts and to land audiobooks and corporate stuff for books.

I need to learn advertising, I need to learn marketing and media strategies and I need to come up with a process that has been proven inside of my genre and I can do that on my own and I can spend years doing it or I can hire a coach, classes and join a community.

So that is what I am going to be working on this year is coaching in the business side of publishing so I can get these books out in a way that is profitable.

And I know a lot of people don't like hearing about the profit stuff and the business side of writing.

We really dial in on the craft and that's a mistake that I made.

I got the coaching and the craft.

Well, okay, that's not a mistake.

I got the coaching and the craft.

I got my writing to where I believe it is good and marketable and the feedback on it is that it is good and marketable but I don't know how to market it.

So that's the issue.

I'll let you guys know how it goes as I go through this year and I get prepared to really dive in to the business side of publishing.

But that that's actually going to be my advice for this podcast.

If you want to get there and you don't want to waste a ton of time and a ton of money developing everything from the ground up and reinventing the wheel, coaching and courses is the way to go.

You can hire someone one on one that tends to be the most expensive, like a book coach who can help you get your book finished and come up with processes to write faster.

You can hire a coach who specifically specializes in the publishing side to make that more efficient.

Show you like, what do you do?

Where do you go to get your cover?

How do you format the book?

Once you put the end on your final revision of the book and it's been through editing, what do you do to get it in the hands of a reader?

And that is the knowledge that I am seeking this year from a coach.

So that's what I'll be doing.

Like I said, I'll let you guys know how that goes.

I know that I'm interested in the self publishing shows courses and I'll link to those down in the show notes God, I have this one panel that just keeps flying off the wall and it doesn't matter what I do, it won't stay stuck to the.

Just came off again.

Anyway.

All right, guys.

Yeah, it's been a hell of a year.

I want to keep like the conversational part, but I also want to get into the meat of the episode.

So something I'm trying right now is putting all this stuff at the end where we catch up.

Currently, I am getting back into writing every single day.

I've been hyper focused on getting the audiobook business up and going.

We had some issues with public schooling, so we are looking at homeschooling our son.

And I had to really focus on getting something that allowed me to work from home and have control of my schedule so that I could be teacher dad and dad and bringing money in at the level that, that I do.

And I like owning my own business.

I love audio.

I've been podcasting for a while, so voice acting was the way to go.

And it seems out of the blue, but I did acting and stuff in theater when I was in college.

I loved it.

Never in a million years thought that I would have an opportunity to do it again.

So I'm very thankful for this.

But it has, it has really held up my writing because I've had to put so much time into literally building this.

I built my sound booth, I built everything.

And this is a writing podcast, so you guys are probably getting tired of hearing about it.

But no, that's been my focus and now that it's cruising, I can focus back on my writing.

So this week I am putting in a goal of a thousand words a day writing fiction.

So I'm not counting anything else.

No blog posts, newsletter stuff.

1000 Words a day of fiction.

Here we go.

And I would love to hear what your goals are and what you're working on.

And you can head over to killerpros.com and contact me there through the website.

Email me@killerpinbooksmail.com and just let me know what you're working on.

Getting the podcast back and steady.

I am shooting for weekly episodes.

I'm talking to a couple of authors about coming on the show.

So we're going to get this rolling.

And coaching is going to be a big thing for me this year.

Like I said in the earlier part of the podcast, coaching is the reason that I even have a shot at full time career in voice acting and audiobook narration.

It's how I learned how to do voices.

It's how I'm actually working with, with another program now on getting better with my accents and I need to take that level of care in the business side of my writing.

So, yeah, I'll let you guys know how that goes.

Currently, if you're looking for something that doesn't have a huge, like pay barrier, Autocrit has their novel 90.

And if even on the free accounts, it's totally free, you sign up, it's, it's a workflow for your planning, a workflow for your drafting, and then a workflow for your editing to get your book done and ready to at least go to an editor within 90 days.

So if that's where you're stuck and that's where you're needing coaching, that's also going to introduce you to some, some coaches who are familiar with your type of writing.

There's a planner, a pantser and a plantser, which is where I am, where you're kind of in between.

So check that out.

That's the novel 90 over at AutoCrit.

Once I finish this and get it ready to go out, I am joining the the self Publishing Shows launch class and I'll link to that down in the show notes.

Anyway, guys, keep listening.

Reach out with anything that you want covered on the podcast and stay tuned.

I'm going to have news about my stuff that's coming out.

Not just my written book, but audiobook projects that are going to be coming out over the next couple months.

And that's it until next time.

Enjoy the process.