Lessons Learned for Vets
Lessons Learned for Vets
Walking 500 Miles to Find a New Purpose with Randall Surles
What happens when a highly-decorated Green Beret with an MFA in Creative Writing decides to forge a completely different path after retirement? Randy Surles takes us on his remarkable journey from 32 years in Army Special Forces to becoming a sought-after editor and ghostwriter for military authors.
Randy's story begins with unexpected change when policy shifts forced an earlier retirement than planned. Facing this transition while going through a divorce, he embarked on a soul-searching 500-mile hike across northern Spain on the famous Camino de Santiago. The trek, intended to help process his military exit and prove his physical capabilities despite injuries, delivered far more than expected, including meeting his future wife on just the second day.
While hiking, Randy received an email about a specialized editing certification program. What began as a simple interest in improving his own writing transformed into the foundation of a thriving business. Within two years of focused effort, Randy built a six-figure editing and ghostwriting practice that now allows him to work just 20 hours weekly from his home in Spain.
The episode dives deep into the realities of military memoir writing, with Randy explaining the different approaches authors take, from legacy memoirs documenting entire careers to focused accounts of specific deployments. His experience collaborating on the New York Times bestseller "Operation Pineapple Express" and over 40 other books provides listeners with candid insights about publishing economics and what it really takes to succeed in the industry.
Most valuably, Randy shares how he's paying it forward through his SkillBridge program called "Story Ninjas," teaching transitioning service members the editing craft and business fundamentals they need to follow a similar path. You can learn more about this program at https://militaryeditor.com/ghostwriting/ and https://thestoryninjas.com/.
His newly-launched Military Writers Academy aims to connect veteran authors with editors who understand military culture and experiences.
If you want to explore how your military background might translate into a creative career, connect with Randy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/randall-surles-military-editor/
This conversation offers both inspiration and practical wisdom for charting an unconventional but rewarding post-service path. Subscribe to Lessons Learned for Vets for more stories of successful military transitions.
The Lessons Learned for Vets Podcast is sponsored by Seek Now and their Drive Academy. Seek Now is the property inspection industry's leading business and they created Drive Academy DoD SkillBridge and CSP internships to teach transitioning military service members and veterans skills that prepare them for lucrative and rewarding careers in the property inspection and insurance industries. You can learn more and apply today at www.internwithdrive.com.
Welcome to the Lessons Learned for Vets podcast, your military transition debrief. I'm your host, lori Norris, and I've helped thousands of military service members successfully transition out of the military since 2005. Thanks for tuning in to hear the after action reports and real stories of your fellow veterans, who are here to help guide, educate and inform you as you navigate your own military transition. By the way, if you find value from today's episode, please share it with others, leave us a review and post about us on social media. On today's episode of the Lessons Learned from Vets podcast, I'm excited to welcome Randall Searles.
Speaker 1:Randy retired as a Sergeant Major after serving 32 years in the Army, where his career included time as a Ranger and a Green Beret. While serving, randy earned his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and after retiring he built a business as a freelance editor and ghostwriter. He specializes in editing military fiction and nonfiction books, but also enjoys editing and writing fantasy, science fiction and thrillers. He has ghostwritten, co-written or collaborated on over 40 books, including some New York Times and Amazon bestsellers, such as Operation Pineapple Express with Scott Mann. We've got to get him on here one of these days. So I promised you all this season that I was going to highlight new and different career paths, and I know I have not spoken to an editor and a ghostwriter yet, so I'm excited to hear from Randy and hear about his story. So welcome Randy.
Speaker 2:Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I love it. You reached out to me and said I'd really like to be part of your show and like, yeah, we've never talked to anybody like that before. I've had authors on the show before, but this is a completely new way of thinking about earning a living, so I'm excited to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really curious what the author said about earning a living as an author, because I find that it's not very easy.
Speaker 1:Every one of them has said I didn't do it for the money, so I think that is it's. It is a tough way to earn a living. Just thinking a book is going to make you a lot of money, but that's a. That's a story for later, right? So okay, so you, you were telling me a little bit about your retirement last time we talked. After you retired from the army as a Sergeant major, you you took on a role as VA benefits advisor for a year, but you told me you went through some personal challenges and you decided to kind of go on a bit of a journey in your transition, right? So we had to make it a story. So you went on. I think it was a 500 mile hike through Europe, right. I think you culminated in Spain, right? So how did that help you process your transition from the military?
Speaker 2:So the Sergeant Major of the Army kind of changed the rules on Sergeant Majors and actually everyone like when the mandatory retirement was right, so if you didn't reach certain kind of gates then you had to get out, and that really kind of messed up my plan because I was planning on staying longer. I was supposed to get out by my rank at 31 years and I thought I had another year I was going to extend in Italy. I was in Italy at the time and then all of a sudden I'm like, hey, you have to get out at 31. Actually I was supposed to get out at 30, but because it was so close to 30, I was six months out. They said, oh well, we're not going to mess those guys over, so we're going to let them stay till 31. But then, but it really messed up my plan and so but I already planned on hiking like six months before I got out.
Speaker 2:Okay, I planned the year that I found out I had to get at 31. I heard a friend of mine did it and I was like, oh, oh, man, that's really cool. So I really planned it out. I talked to my, my boss, it's, it was, it's a month long, it's supposed to take. It takes the average person about a month long. It's 500 miles. It's primarily through Spain. It's like the plains of Spain, like Northern Spain. It starts in France, in the Pyrenees, and uh, I want it, while I used to be a ranger and a Green Beret, but I'm kind of broke now. So it's kind of a proof to myself that I was still fit and that I could do this kind of stuff. I didn't think it would be that much of a challenge but I was very wrong.
Speaker 2:And also, you know, just kind of think about it I was going through a divorce at the time. I had to figure out what I was going to do next and also just the stress of getting out of the military and transitioning and trying to figure out all the benefits and where I was going to get my health insurance. And you know, none of that's clear as you walk out the door. For most people, most people don't know what their VA rating is. You have no idea. Even if you're retiring, you kind of don't really know how much money you're going to get to the dollar, because you don't know about taxes and you don't know about the VA and if it's a percentage, and blah, blah, blah, and so all of that was a mess.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, it doesn't cost a lot to do this hike. Really, when I went you could $50 a day max, so 30 days. $50 a day that's for lodging food and then you got to buy the equipment. You have to buy a backpack and a poncho and stuff. But other than that it's really, relatively speaking, for a month, not that expensive. Nowadays it's probably a little bit more expensive. There are a couple of nonprofits that help veterans to hike it and I gave you some links. I don't know, you probably put those in the YouTube afterwards, but one of them is called Warriors on the Way. It's led by a chaplain and it comes with a for PTSD sufferers, so it's really good.
Speaker 2:But anyway, I was going to go on this hike and figure my life out is what I was and and so I went. The second day I met the woman who would become my wife, who was from Hungary, and we we hiked it all together for the for the whole month and, and you know she was a lot faster than me. Funny enough, she's a little bit younger than me but my knees were toast Like. After the end of every day they were swollen and I would get up earlier and leave earlier than her. So when I say we hiked it together, she like met me at like two o'clock every day because she left. She woke up late at nine and I woke up at like five and so, but it was really, it was really peaceful. I got to think a lot. I got to, you know, listen to some books on tape and sometimes just take in the scenery, which is fantastic. If anyone's interested, watch the movie called the Way it's on Amazon, directed by Emilio Estevez, and it's got all the scenery there. You can find all kinds of stuff on YouTube and now. But when I went, that wasn't really true, but now people do their daily diaries and put it on YouTube and Instagram and stuff like that. And I also.
Speaker 2:I just got my MFA in creative writing the year before and I thought I might be an author, but I knew I wouldn't be making money like right out the door, so I didn't even know how to start that. And I was. I subscribed to a bunch of different things and one of the things I subscribed to was this methodology for editing called the StoryGrid, and I got an email. I subscribed to the newsletter. I got an email or a newsletter edition or something on my phone one morning before I left and it said hey, we're going to train people in our editing methodology in Nashville, tennessee, in February, and this is you can sign up now and get a discount. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:But so I I left in May of 2018 on my hike, and so February of 2019 was when this, this thing, was going on and I really kind of saw it as a sign like, oh, I could, I could learn how to be a better writer by going to this thing. I didn't really understand. I wasn't really. I mean, I was hiking, so I was just kind of glancing at it and it was actually a way that they were going to certify you as an editor in their methodology and then they were going to give you clients that had written to them and said I want my book edited in this methodology. I didn't realize that. I thought I would just be a better writer at the end, which I was.
Speaker 2:But that wasn't my initial goal to become an editor, and even though I'd edited other people my peers in the MFA program and stuff like that so I signed up for it right there and it was going to be during my terminal leave, and so it kind of worked out and I signed up for it right there and it was going to be during my terminal leave, and so it kind of worked out and cause I mean everything kind of worked out that way, you know, hey, it's on my during my terminal leave, whoa, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:And hey, this is something I want to do, and and so I did it, and so I finished the hike. By the way, I lost 30 pounds on the hike, wow and. And I also 30 pounds on the hike, wow and uh and uh. I also my wife was vegan and I I started a vegan diet and then, when I got, when I did my final physical, my cholesterol, which I'd had a problem for 20 years, was normal without medication and I said, whoa, I don't know if it was the laws and the weight, vegan diet.
Speaker 1:Combination of all of those.
Speaker 2:I walked out of there with, you know, and I was like geez, and so my whole life kind of switched around there. So, yeah, so I started that doing that as soon as I went there. I went there. I started editing books that year, so 2019 is when I started.
Speaker 1:So you launched your business in editing and ghost year, so 2018 is when I started. Yeah, so you launched your business in editing and ghostwriting in 2019, right after you finished that the certification training so, and you really have been working kind of full-time in that industry since then, right.
Speaker 2:So that first year you know the hardest part of this business is finding clients, and so they fed me one or two clients that year. I mean I didn't make a stellar amount of money. I retired in June. That's when I basically got my first client and you know I made like whatever five or $6,000 that year. I was saying on my website trying to figure out how to get clients and all that. And they actually have a really one of the CEO, one of the founders of the StoryBridge company, had his own business building websites for bestselling authors and promoting their book and stuff like that. So he had a really good business sense and part of the training besides learning how to write and edit better was the business side of it and how to build your business and how to attract clients and how to build a website and all that stuff. So that was really good piece of it. It was kind of a really good kind of skill bridge program almost. It was kind of weird and um and so uh.
Speaker 2:So I I knew 8,000 or three $4,000 a year was going to cut it for what I wanted to do with my life.
Speaker 2:So I applied for some jobs and the following January January I got hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, who had the VA benefits advisor contract.
Speaker 2:So I ended up working as a contractor for the VA, as a benefits advisor I was the deputy benefits advisor for all of Europe, and so that's what I did the second year while I built my business at night and on the weekends. So I had a full time, you know, contracting job that didn't pay much really, as COVID started so that. So I got to work from home because of COVID, so that helped a little bit. You know, I didn't have any, I didn't have to be traveling anywhere to go anywhere to do this, but basically, night and weekend I built my, my, my business, editing business, and I got probably about 10 clients that year and I made just as much as the VA was paying me at the end of the year. And so at the end of that year the contract changed. They wanted to pay me less, they wanted me to work in an office and they wanted me to move to Germany and I said I'm good and so I went full time.
Speaker 1:Okay, so really it it's been 2021.
Speaker 2:And 2021 is when I went full time.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it and you have been working full time in that business now for since then, since 2021. Okay, got it All right and you know we talked about the there isn't a lot of money in the book writing, so we'll talk about that and just kind of how you balance being an author and, you know, being an editor and I think you, I think you'll tell us and you've kind of already told, alluded to it you make more money as an editor than you do as a writer. Is that right?
Speaker 2:depends on how you define writing, because I'm a ghost, that's true people hire me to write their books or they hire me to write their memoirs. Actually, I probably make 50% of my money right now on military people who want to write their memoirs, their biography. They want to write about a specific event or an aspiring book, a nonfiction book of their own. So that's where I make most of my money. But, like with Scott Mann's book you know it was a big collaboration, you know I helped plan it out, I helped, you know, helped write parts of it. I rewrote parts of it during the editing process. So that's a large, large part of that's my creativity as well.
Speaker 2:So, you know, and there's definitely some books where some generous authors have given me credit on the cover and said you know, with Randy Searles or something like that, and then there's a lot of autobiographies that I completely wrote from scratch. So if you're, if your question is, making money off royalties, then absolutely I make all my money off of editing and ghostwriting other people's books and have those books made money. I mean, the New York Times bestseller operation Pineapple Express has probably made a couple hundred thousand or more. The Amazon bestsellers have probably made a couple thousand, maybe up to $10,000, depending on the book, and so in a way, they've paid me back what they paid me to edit and write their books, and then they've gone on to make some money, so Okay.
Speaker 1:So can you kind of take us through that process of writing and publishing a book, just from concept to final product? Like I want people to know if some, if some, somebody thinks they have a book in them. Right, like you and I talked about this, someday I would like to write a book um, timing, costs, potential earnings, like how the revenue model works. There's a lot of questions I've thrown in there, but let's, can you kind of walk us through that process?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure. So let's just we're just talking about authors, okay. So I see, I see a variety, right, there's. There's people who can write a book in like two or three months and they write four books a year Okay. There's other people that will take a year to write their memoir Okay. There's other people. I've had people the very first person I edited was it's on my shelf behind me the science fiction book.
Speaker 2:She spent 10 years on this book and never showed it to anyone until she showed it to me. And then I edited it and said I think you need to start over and we need to focus. And I gave her some things to think about. She scratched 60, 70% of her book, rewrote the beginning and the end, and she did that. And after I gave her guidance, she did that and like I want to say three months, wow. So a book she went working on for 10 years. I gave her feedback, I gave her like a 15 page report and said, hey, these are the problems. I see, this is why I think that this doesn't belong here and all these kinds of plot holes and character arcs and things like that. And I said here's my, here's what I think. And she, she took it three months later. She's like here I read it, it was a thousand times better, it was, it was great, it was such a great story and uh, and then I gave her some more feedback and she's like I thought I was done.
Speaker 2:He's like I mean, this is a good book, you can probably submit it to the publisher. They're like, oh, she made the changes and she gave it back to me. It's like why are you giving it back to me? She's like I want it to be the best. It's like I don't think that happens, it doesn't. I mean, I can, I'll always find something and so will you. Okay, but we, she can't. She gave.
Speaker 2:It was one time where I didn't charge at all. I was like I'm going to read this, I'm going to give you a couple of verbal notes and then you're going to turn into a publisher. I don't want to see it again. And she did. And she got accepted and got published and then she wrote her sequel and I edited her sequel and then I just edited her third one earlier. This was 2019. Took her two and a half years to write the second one and then it took her a year to write the third one and so in five years she had a trilogy. Now she's working on a new series.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of a that's a way to do it and that's probably, and I've kind of I've come to determine like there's good books, there's great books and there's fine books. Okay, and there's a lot of fine books for sale on Amazon that people love because they love that genre, they love a fantasy thriller, they love a romance in, you know, ireland, they love whatever. And so what if once you find your people and you want, and you people and you want to spit out three or four books a year in that genre and write a fine book? Because to make a great book, you know how many edits it takes. It takes like three, four, five edits, just like Kay Pimpanella is the name of the author for the science fiction, just like Kay did. Four or five edits is a good book and it could be a great book. Okay, one edit can be a fine book, like, hey, I wrote this book, can you edit for me? Yeah, here, here's some notes. Great, implement the notes, publish I mean that's how quickly you can do it now with self-publishing. And then my next book.
Speaker 2:And there's people making six figures with fine books that people love because they like the genre, as long as you can surprise them every now and then and write a decent, readable book that doesn't like you know what's going on, or not confusing, or the POVs are all kind of you know, strange and overlapping. If you have a good editor that can fix it on the first time and then you can go back and do If it's a, if you have a good editor that can fix it on the first time and then you can go back and do it, and you'll get better writing every time too, so it'll be faster. So that's kind of the way I see fiction books. All right, if that answers your question, now can you do. Does everyone make six figures? No, and here's why, primarily, people aren't reading books on how to write, so they don't know how to write better. Okay, ideally, a good editor is going to teach you how to write a little better. Every time he looks at it he's going to say, hey, think about doing this instead of this, or something like that you can hire. I'm also a book coach, so I will teach you chapter by chapter what you're doing, what I think you're doing wrong. I'll read a chapter. I'm like, hey, does this need to be in this chapter? I think it needs to be in another chapter, because it slows the chapter down and the and I'll go through a whole chapter and leave a bunch of notes and then you can go chapter by chapter, um the the.
Speaker 2:The biggest problem, though, is advertising, marketing. Who is going to market your book, even if you publish? Like Scott Mann with his New York Times bestseller, he worked with one of the biggest companies, simon Schuster. What was the marketing they offered? Well, he came to the table having been a talker on Fox and CNN, you know. So he already had all these connections, and that's why they actually got such a good deal, because he had a page and a half. He's like I know these people, I can get on all their shows and market my book, and they're like great, come on board.
Speaker 2:Did Simon Schuster do a lot of extra stuff that he couldn't bring to the table? Probably not, and even if they could, it would be a lot smaller than what he brought to the table, and they would only be involved for a week or two, because that's when most of the books are sold, when it's released, right, and then after that they got to go on to their next book. So their marketing department, which is kind of small, usually goes on and helps market the next book, not your book anymore, and so you're stuck, regardless of whether you get a publisher, a hybrid publisher that promises to market your book or your self-publishing. It's all on your shoulders to market your book. So you're going to have to learn new strategies. You're going to have to learn Facebook ads. You're going to have to learn Amazon ads. You're going to have to learn TikTok Instagram, do you?
Speaker 2:have to learn all this? No, you don't have to learn all of it, you have to learn some of it. You have to, you know, start specializing in some of it and see what works for you. And there's a lot of people trying to do this. There's a lot of people that just aren't social media, you know savants, and they're trying to get out there, and you know you can see it too, because I've I have a TikTok account to promote my editing and I'm always trying to try and do things. But you know, the first one I was like do I dance? What am I going to do? I'm not a dancer. My wife's like no, that's not, you Don't dance, you know.
Speaker 2:So you got to figure out what works for you, right, so? But you're going to have to do the marketing yourself. You're going to have to get a. Ideally, you're going to get an email list.
Speaker 2:If you're going to write, if you're going to make a living as an author, you got to get an email list, just like everyone else does. So you can say, hey, my new book's out and keep in touch with these people. And then you know, get an Instagram account or a TikTok account or a LinkedIn account, or one, two or three, two of the three or something, and then just post occasionally, regularly, you know, so that everyone knows you're still alive. And then when your book comes out you'll post it, it'll come up on their For you page or whatever, and then they'll know your book came out. But you're going to end up being marketing yourself and if you don't want to market it yourself then you're not probably going to be successful, because that's the only way your book is going to get out there and the publishing company really doesn't care that much about marketing your book after the first couple weeks.
Speaker 1:That the company really doesn't care that much about marketing your book after the first couple of weeks. That's just honest truth, they're moved on to the next one. So that's kind of a go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sorry. Then I wanted to switch over to memoirs and nonfiction, which is different, right, and there's a couple different kinds of military memoirs. I have people. I just finished this book right here earlier last year. So this is Life in the Fast Lane.
Speaker 2:Vietnam veteran pilot, he flew 200 combat missions in Vietnam. He flew during the missile crisis the Cuban missile crisis. He had like a nuke on a fighter and he was on the northern border waiting for the Russians to come over the Arctic, past Canada to bomb us border, waiting for the Russians to come over the Arctic, past Canada to bomb us. And he was also involved in the evacuation of the embassy in Vietnam on the last couple of days, the last days of Vietnam. And then he started this business, a gas station business. When he got out with his brothers, they all borrowed. All four of them went to the bank. They borrowed a million dollars, started a gas station business, sold it for a billion dollars a couple of years ago, all right.
Speaker 2:So he wanted to tell a story. He's 85. And he wanted to tell his life story. And it's an amazing life story. It's really great and it starts from when he's born and how his family got in, were doing before and how he got involved in the Air Force and all the way through his career to selling his business and building his business.
Speaker 2:That's a legacy memoir. Most legacy memoirs if you're not famous are not going to sell very well and most military people want to write their legacy. They want to leave a legacy for their kids or their family, and that's fine. Just realize that you can market the crap out of that and will you make money Depends on what you think money is $500?. Will it make over $10,000?
Speaker 2:Most books don't make more than $5,000. 80% of the books out there will not make more than $5,000. There's studies on this. There was a court case with Penguin and I forget some of the other big ones, and they had all the statistics and they had to show them all to the public and what it came up with was 80% of the books are going to make less than $5,000. So is it worth your time to pay someone to write your memoir, which will cost probably more than $5,000? I've done it for six, depending on the, but what I'm giving is a 40,000 word book which is 120 some pages. I'm doing 10 or 12 hours of interviews because it's a time versus writing thing. You know I got to how much money, how much time it takes and how much money I'm making out of it. But I have a system in place and I've been doing it for seven years now, so I I've kind of figured it out how to do that, if that's what they want.
Speaker 2:Um, fortunately this guy was a billionaire, so so he's like but, uh, but so so then you have the uh kind of the inspiration memoirs, uh, and so you have, like, what are you trying to say with this memoir? You know, are you trying to teach the next generation of soldiers to? You know, stand by what's honorable and do the right thing? And you're going to give them examples from your career. And so, therefore, you're not going to write your whole career, you're going to write the pieces of your career that show that thing that you're showing right, that you want to show to the reader. And so you have to think when you write those kinds of books, you say, okay, where's my reader when he picks up my book in his life, in his thought process? What does he think about what I'm going to talk about? What does he think? Does he think it's all black and white? Does he think that every military person is honorable? Does he think that every commander cares about you? Is that what he thinks? Okay, well then, my book's going to convince them at the end that that's not true and you have to take care of yourself, for instance, or that not everyone's like that, but there are people that are like that, and you have to hunt those people down to be your mentors, for instance, so that you can, that you can excel, all right. So whatever you're, whatever you want to teach the reader, you have to be able to write that in a sentence or two so it can be very clear, and then every single chapter that you put in there pushes that thought into the reader and convinces them that you're right. Yeah, through your actions and through your career or maybe it's just not all you, maybe it's everybody, all your friends that you've talked to and all the things you've heard you want to just give military experiences, and some of them are yours, but there's a lot of other ones out there too that are showing this through, and so that's that's kind of the inspirational one that I've also done. And then I've done like, like you know, eat, pray, love is a really famous memoir, but that's only. It's like 18 months long of her life, right, six months in each location, and she learns different stuff in each location. She went on to write like four more memoirs. So you don't have to write your whole life in one book. If you have a lot to say, you can write.
Speaker 2:I just had another gentleman I don't have the book behind me, I'm not going to grab it, but he wrote a book called it was what it was, okay, but he wrote a book called it Was what it Was, and it was about one 18-month tour in Iraq. And the reason he wanted to write it was because everyone thinks that Iraq was just war and people dying, and that wasn't his experience at all. He went there for 18 months and none of his guys died in his platoon and they had a little corner of Baghdad and they built trust. And they had a little corner of Baghdad and they built trust and they used it to build businesses and they did something completely different that he felt that no one in the United States was exposed to. And he's done really good.
Speaker 2:He's been very, very good with the ads and marketing and he's probably beat the odds and he's always on there promoting his book, the odds, and he's always on there promoting his book, and so he but that that takes constant energy to do. That he's got. He's going to write another memoir now because he was you know, he was in the, he was in this unit in Iraq which wasn't a special operations that he went to become Green Beret later on, and so he's going to write that book and he's got a book before that which he was enlisted before he went to Iraq and he went to Afghanistan, I think. So he's got a book before that which he was enlisted before he went to Iraq and he went to Afghanistan, I think. So he's going to write about that book. So he's got these things he wants to write and that's great and I look forward to helping him with those. So those are kind of the three things that I look at when people are writing to Mars, and so there you go. I think that answers your question.
Speaker 1:So I think we know that likely it's a risk, we're not going to probably get rich as an author, but you can make a good living doing what you're doing, which you talked about right. So the editing and the ghostwriting and so you have a Skillbridge program that you created so that veterans can get involved with learning about the editing process. So can you talk to me a little bit about that program?
Speaker 2:Sure, well, I think all your listeners are familiar with SkillBridge, or should we review it?
Speaker 1:Yes, they are Yep. We've talked a lot about that.
Speaker 2:All right. So my SkillBridge program is called the Story Ninjas, which is my name of my company, so it's on the list on the webpage if you want to look for it, and I offer I can taper it to whatever time your commander is going to give off, cause it's obviously a skill bridge. It depends on your commanders. Like I can lose you for a month, I can lose you for three months, whatever his deal is Right. So I can I mean ideally I'd like 12 weeks with you. We can do it as fast or slow as you have time to, as you have time and as you read and do the. So it's all online, first of all, and we'll meet once a week or more often. If you want to speed it up, I'll give you reading assignments, some of the books I've been authorized by the authors to give you in PDF form Some. If you want to go farther than what I'm doing for free, you'll have to actually buy the books and we'll talk about the theory of writing and editing and what makes a good story and what makes a story compelling, and then we'll go over some manuscripts that have been sent to me that I've edited and that I've gotten permission from the authors and so this is the first draft. For instance, I'm like, ok, I've talked, we talked about story, we've talked about how to, how I write a report and all the things that are important. We've gone through some like Harry Potter and, you know, hunger Games, some of these big thriller things, because I mostly do thrillers. If the person wants to write romance, we can talk about romance, we can do that, but most of the time I introduce people by showing them thrillers or action books, and so we talk about these very successful books. What makes them successful? The pace, the flow, the action. And how do you look at a book, first draft book, and say you know what are the different pieces, how you break it down and say, how do I make this more compelling, how do I make this a better book? And so it's not formulaic.
Speaker 2:But there is some formula type things involved where you go, you have a checklist hey, check this, this, this, this, this and then each story is unique. So, hey, check the POV. Well, you know what is the what's working and what's not working, the POV, and how do we fix it. And what are the ideas that you have for the reader or the writer, cause you're not actually telling them how to rewrite it. You're saying these are, these are the problems, this is why it's a problem. These are some ways you might fix it. You may have another one, and so that's how I, that's how I give my feedback, and so, um, I will teach anyone who wants to. You know, pay attention to me and do the work I'll teach them everything I know.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of things I wish I'd done. I didn't plan on being an editor that's my problem but if I'd known a year out that I wanted to do this and I make a pretty good living, I don't want for anything doing this. It took me two years to build my business into six figures.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So, and I haven't made less than six figures since I started making six figures, and I work 20 hours a week, maybe, and I can take a month off for vacation or something like that. I live in Spain, by the way, which we haven't discussed. That's right, so you can do, you can make a difference. Now, everyone, all my peers don't all make the same amount of money, but I also consider myself a go-getter. I, I, I, I often talk with them in meetings every couple of twice a year or something, and I'm like what are you doing to clients? Cause I'm doing this, this and this is like, oh, I'm not, and they're taking notes. So they're not doing all the things, I am Right, but I always. I'm always listening to podcasts, I'm always learning and trying, and I usually have 10 different ways that clients can come to me and I also expanded my services to, you know, encompass what, what writers need, whether it's coaching, or writing their manuscript, or just looking at scenes, or, or you know how, whatever I'll, I have a lot of different ways that like streams of income coming in, basically, and it's all connected to editing. So I will teach them everything I know about editing. I also teach them how I run my business. Uh, you know how I collect money, how I write contracts. I'll give them all examples of that and then at the end, and then they'll have gone through a couple of manuscripts that I call them cold cases. You know the manuscripts. They gave me a first draft, read the first draft and write a report like I taught you, and then afterwards we'll talk about it and what you did different than me and why I think I'm more right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they'll think of something I didn't think of, because 80,000 word, you know book and they have different experiences because they've read different books. And like, hey, you know, maybe, and they have different experiences because they've read different books. They're like, hey, you know, maybe if they did this, that would fix this problem. I was like I never thought of that, but I never read that book either. So there's a lot of times, probably every time, something came out that they thought of that I didn't. However, 90% of this stuff they didn't get that I did the first time.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, okay, this is why I think this, this, this and this, and I'll explain to them and then we'll do another one and the next time it'll be better for them, and then we'll do three, we'll do two or three, however long they can work with me, and then ultimately, when I think they're ready, I will do a client with them. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll have them on the call. They can see how the call works. If, if they have, if they can do the, read it together. You read it, I'll read it. We both kind of write our own reports and then talk about it and and share it, and then we turn it in together and then ideally, that guy, that client, writes a really good, a really good comment about how well we did and that's your first comment that you can put on your Web page for your editing Right.
Speaker 2:Also nowadays I get more clients I can handle. And so once I've trained you and I know you're a good person to turn a client over to if the client doesn't, sometimes I have two or three months wait list. Right now I don't have one, usually a summer, so slow, but usually I have. Sometimes I've had up to a six month wait list. So but, but, and no one wants to wait six months, they just spent two years on their book. Uh, so like, well, I know a guy for you and then I'll call you. Know, dan? Hey, dan, I got a client for you. He's writing a fiction, fantasy adventure. Are you interested? And there, and some of them are in the military yet and they don't have time. Some of them are, and some of them are just on their way out and so they have time. So all depends on the people.
Speaker 2:But I go back to all the people I trained and I've trained. I've fully trained like six now and I'm working with six right now. I can probably go up to 12 a year. So that's a room if anyone's interested. But basically, you know I'll, I'll turn a client over to them and then I'll say are you comfortable doing this client by yourself? And they're like well, some of them are like ah, I, you know. So if you want me to do it with you, I will read it, you write the report and I'll give you my notes, and then I'll go over the report with you and I'll say and we'll do 2080 or something for my time, you know something like that and then he'll get you'll get the you know, the testimonial and put it on your website and then we'll move on. So I don't have a problem with doing that. So that's, that's kind of what I do for the editing.
Speaker 2:Now, if they don't want, they're not interested in editing. If they want to write, I'll help them write better. So I'll go through a lot of the same stuff that I do with editing to teach people what compelling stories are and what they look like and why they are compelling and really good stories. I'll teach them that which is StoryGrid, save the Cat. There's a lot of different resources for that and then, if they want to submit some of their writing to me, I'll go over it. Like every week we'll go over a chapter, or maybe we'll do the outline for the book and look at it and see if it makes sense based on everything I taught them. So I can go either way. I can do freelance author, freelance editor, and then I can go over the things that I go over with my authors and like how to market better, how to make money prior to, you know, launch and things like that through Kickstarter that a lot of authors are doing nowadays. So that's the two kind of two things I offer, depending on what they want to do.
Speaker 1:If someone is interested in exploring that path, that skill bridge path, with you, what would be the best way to get started?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if they want to do the skill bridge, then they have to go to their education center or probably the soldier for life, right and then, and they'll tell them about the store, the skill bridge there, and they'll give them the forms and everything they can take it to the commander, get signed and then I'll have to give them an outline of the syllabus and everything. That's how it works and we all sign a contract. But that's all done through Soldier for Life, I believe still. So they'll have when they start doing their. They can probably go to Soldier for Life before they start getting their briefings and talk to someone there, talk to a counselor there, get their paperwork and then reserve it out six months, eight months, so they have a plan and make sure their commander's aware of it and not depending on them for the last three months or something like that.
Speaker 1:So Soldier for Life is the Army version of it, but you're listed on the official Department DOD Skill Bridge website and it's Story Ninjas, correct? Yes, okay, all right, excellent, all right. So you also talked to me about your intent to launch the Military Writers Academy, and that will be to help veterans get more involved in editing, to learn more, improve their writing skills, like what are some of the things that you recommend, skills people work on if they're interested in that career path?
Speaker 2:things that you recommend skills people work on if they're interested in that career path. So the Military Writers Academy came to me in a dream. I saw a Facebook, I heard a podcast and this gentleman was talking on the podcast. He was a detective, like a New York cop or something like that. I may have, he may not have been any of that, but he was police oriented and he was from a large city and he was an author, and so he realized that there was a lot of people that didn't know about police procedures in America and they were writing crime books and they weren't necessarily affiliated with the police at all and they were trying to figure this out. So he started a Facebook group called Cops and Writers, which is really the title, and so I went there, I looked at it. So he had, you know, I think he's got 10,000 followers of it now but he started answering questions about this and helping other authors write their books, and then other authors that were police would go on there and everyone would share information. And then international cops and writers would come and be in part of the group and they would answer questions like hey, my cops going to Ireland, what do you think they do there. And this guy was like I'm from Ireland, I'm living in Ireland right now and this is how we do it, and so they would all share all this information. And then he ended up writing like four books called Cops and Writers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, which were the most asked questions on his website, which was a really, really good way to make money.
Speaker 2:And I was like, dude, we need one for soldiers. I mean, there's got to be just as many veterans and soldiers as there are. And then, how many books have soldiers? You got Jack Reacher and all these other things Right. So so that would be great. So I kept thinking about it and thinking about it and I didn't do anything. And then I had a dream about it and I chat GPT'd it and I was like, because I was like stories and soldiers and I was thinking of all these such ways to military and midpoints, I don't know and so I chat GPT'd it and chat GPT came up with military writers Academy. I was like that's awesome. So that's what I'm going to, that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:And then, but I want to expand it. So I want to, I really want to use it to help people write better stories about military topics, fiction and nonfiction. Ideally, these people would hire me to help them with their books, but I also want to bring in all these people that I'm training to be part of that too, so they can also find clients there, because all the people I got people from Air Force, space Force, navy, coast Guard that have already worked with or I'm working with right now that come from all of the different, you know, services and they all have different experiences. They all have different jobs. They're not all Green Berets or Rangers. They're, you know, coast Guard captains and Space Force you know, space Force just got invented, so whatever Space Force does and you know, so these are all interesting things that these people are experts in, and so if I can bring the authors into this community and then allow the people to answer their questions about Space Force and Navy and all this stuff and then maybe also may build a relationship and be able to help those guys write their story, that would be awesome. So that's what I've done, but I've built. As of yesterday, I built a Military Writers Academy Facebook group, which has exactly zero people in it but me, and so that's the start, and I started posting some of my blog posts in there, and my idea is to go on this podcast and a few others and spread the word, put them on my social media and eventually attract people into it. And I think I do talk to a lot of military people who want to write and and not all of them hire me or not more ready to hire. But if I can spread the word about this, I think I can get to some kind of equivalence to cops and writers, which I'm really jealous of and was a great idea. So that's that's my goal with that.
Speaker 2:So to get ready to write, I would say read. I think the biggest thing about writers is reading in the genre you want to write. So if you want to write a good memoir, need an editor eventually. And if you can tell the editor, like whenever someone says I really like this and this is what I want my book to be, kind of like I'll read that book. Like that night, I'll read at least the first 10 chapters of that book. So I understand what the guy's talking about. So so you know you being able to have already read 10 memoirs and said I like this guy's memoir, can I do this and we'll talk about it. We'll talk about what he did.
Speaker 2:That was. That was really compelling. What was your favorite chapter? What did you like about it? And stuff like that. And same thing with fiction books, like, if you want to write terminal list, you know, jack Carr, ok, I want to write terminal list, all right, all right, well, let's figure out how, what that means to you.
Speaker 2:What was your favorite part of it? What did you like about it? What didn't you like about it? And then you go the other thing about. Once you find, read widely, we call it in the genre you want to write, read the comments on the books and read the ones in two stars. What didn't they like about this book? You know, I didn't like that. It was so descriptive about the gun because I just wanted to see the action, or I didn't like you know. And then read what they liked. You know, read the tops and the bottoms and see what people liked and didn't like, so that you don't make the same mistakes. For if that's your audience Because if you want to write a book like that, that's your audience how do you attract that audience? You want to write what they like, what they don't like.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think you know, for anybody that has thought about this as a career field, I wanted them to get some insight from you and I also just wanted to put this out there because it is unique and different. I can't imagine that. You know, when you were Green Beret, you sat there and I thought I'm going to be an editor and live in spain someday. I can't imagine that this is exactly how you plan your life to go, and what I really love about it is that you figured out how to make it work and um and I just wanted to throw that out there as an option to give other people ideas and maybe it's not being an editor and a ghostwriter, but knowing that you want to do your own thing and just seeing the formula that you put in place that has helped you be successful. I think is is valuable.
Speaker 2:So so I don't want to. I just want to add one caveat, if we got time. I just don't want to. I don't want to disillusion anyone from trying to be an author and make money. I'm just saying it's for most people it's it's very rarely. I wrote a book, the publishers love it, they gave me a $50,000 bonus and they're going to publish it, and that's the way it works. It's very, it's rarely, very, very rarely that's something like that happens. However, however, if you got a little, you know, if you, if you, if you, you know, grease the wheels and you figure this stuff out and you learn it, and I'm someone that can teach you some of those pieces you can, you can do.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a there's a great facebook group called 20 books to 50k 20 books to to 50K was created by this guy who was writing books and he was in all these Facebook groups, and this is back in 2017 or 16 years, something like that. It was about 10 years ago, eight years ago. He was like hey, let's talk about the business of writing books and they're like shut up, if you write a good book, they'll come, they'll find you, blah, blah, blah. And he's like well, I don't think that's true, and they're like, yeah, you're, you're bringing this down, write your best book and just let the, let the, let the muse take you back. And he's like, no, no, so we started this thing called 20 books for 50 K and the idea was, if you write 20 books and you market them right, you can make 50 K a year for the rest of your life, and that that was the premise. And it was such a very generous Facebook group and still is, I think, and everyone just shares. People who have done really well on and on TikTok ads or Instagram or Facebook or Meta or whatever they're doing, they'll share all their experiences and they'll share. They say, hey, I published this book this year, this book this year, this book here. I never broke 10,000 a year till this year when I got my fourth book this year, this book this year, this book here. I never broke 10,000 a year until this year when I got my fourth book. And then I did this, this and this, and they have these and it's just long Facebook entries that are like pages that tell their whole story and how they got where they were.
Speaker 2:And not to get, not to lose hope. It's very hopeful uh site and there's some people that said you know, nothing ever works for me. And then some people are like hey, here's my cover. What do you guys think? Oh well, I think you should do this and that and that, and it's very. You can't sell anything, you can't sell services, you can't sell products. If you do, you get kicked out.
Speaker 2:It's just a generous place and they have conventions in Vegas every year and they have a convention where I live, in Spain, every year too, and it starts in two weeks and it's very generous and sharing and things like that. Of course it costs money to go there. Of course it costs money to go there. It's not very generous, but but the, the Facebook group, is very generous. But the thing is you can try. You can try and try and keep trying and maybe you'll make it, and but it's not going to be quick.
Speaker 2:And and there's differences between we didn't talk about this, maybe we don't have time. It's about, you know, traditional publishing with Simon Schuster, self-publishing, going in on your own, and then these hybrid things too, that most of them are going to cost a little bit of money and, like we already talked about, you probably won't get that money back. Most people don't. But if you're going through a publisher which usually you have to go through an agent to get to a publisher you're giving up 92 to 85% of your royalties You'll be making if you're lucky with making 15% royalties. Most people are going to start out making eight to 10% of their royalties off their books and once they give it to the publisher, what does that mean? Well, 20 book, 20 bucks for a book on Amazon costs six or seven to make the book. So that means you're stuck with 14 and the publisher takes 90% of that. You know you're getting a buck, maybe a buck 40 or something like that per book. Okay, and that and you've given that and that that's forever. Forever, that's the publisher's got it Okay.
Speaker 2:So if you self publish, well, if you have a publisher and not a hybrid publisher if your publisher is going to pay for the editing and the cover and the formatting and some of the marketing we already talked about that and that's great, so you don't have to pay that. They may give you an advance if they super, super, super love it. But even if they do, it's only like $5,000. And if you spend a year writing it, it's not much. If you go the other way and do self-publishing well. Amazon, most books Amazon written books, digital books are going to be 70% royalties to you. Most written books are going to be 60% royalties to you and most audio books are going to be 50 to you. Okay, and the rest goes to Amazon. That's how they make their money. But you have to pay for the cover and the formatting and the editing and the copy editing. So that's three $5,000.
Speaker 2:If you're going to actually do it, some authors don't do it and they got all kinds of spelling errors in there and you'll see it in the comments, like this was a pretty good book but the spelling suck. Two stars, you know, give stars for really stupid reasons. And then then I want to do a warning with hybrid. You know there's a lot of people out there, a lot of agencies are like, hey, we're going to make your book better but it'll cost you $8,000. Now I've talked to three military editors that put out books in the last year. Some of them paid eight, some of them paid 15,000. And I just they're not, they're most likely not going to make $15,000. If they break even, that'll be the best possible scenario and that'll be, after all, the marketing. They did right Showed up at a paid for their own road to the Fort Bragg PX. Yeah, got it. Anyway, that's my last bit.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I think there, you know.
Speaker 1:know, maybe this is a conversation we need to continue honestly, because there's so much that we didn't get to cover um, but I just wanted to give this as an option. I just think it's really fascinating the the process that you've put together. I love that you have two different avenues for people to come into the program and to learn more about what you do, and so story ninjas is the skill bridge program, and then you're working on putting together the military writers academy, and I think you said you have a facebook group, so let's see if we can get you some numbers in there for people that are interested in writing. So I you are incredibly generous with your time and your knowledge and I appreciate you joining us just to talk about this as an alternative career. Thank you, randy.
Speaker 2:No, I really appreciate you having me on this and so, yeah, I just like to share all the information. I mean, I talk to people all the time for an hour for free, just to let them know.
Speaker 1:Love it Me too. I do a lot of talks for an hour for free, have a great day and our YouTube channel, leave us a review and write a post on social media about the lessons that helped you today from this episode.