Automation Tools for Authors: How to Adapt and Save Time in 2026 with Chelle Honiker

307 / How can automation, AI, and genuine relationships help you thrive as an author? Chelle Honaker shares her insights on blending creativity and business, building community, and navigating the ever-changing publishing world.

✨ This week’s sponsor is: Reedsy https://reedsy.com/studio and https://reedsy.com/studio/templates

• Flywheel marketing instead of funnel marketing
• Building community and collaboration
• Social media burnout and challenges
• Discoverability and reader relationships
• Trends in publishing and tech for authors

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⚡Links:

• https://reedsy.com/studio 
• https://reedsy.com/studio/templates
• Author Automations Substack 
• Indie Author Training
• Indie Author Magazine 
• Author Nation
• StorytellerShowcase
• ChelleHoniker.com

Transcript

Sara 0:00

What do you wish authors knew about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I think I wish they knew that I don't do as much as it looks like I do. I use automation. I do I use automation to do 99% of what I do.

Jami 0:19

Welcome to the Wish I'm in podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette and I'm Danielle Bright. And this week on the show we have Shell Hunker. We do, we do. We're excited to have her. Okay, so I'm gonna tell our secret, Sarah. Yeah, you go for it. In over 300 episodes, this has never happened before. So I did tell Shell she should go buy a lottery ticket. Lottery ticket, yes. But we recorded her last year at this time, and her episode never got uploaded because there was some confusion with the numbering. And like she just messaged us a few weeks ago and said, Hey, did my episode ever air? And we're like, then we looked and we're like, no. So she was very gracious. And came back on the show, and I actually think it was great, maybe even better than the first time. So I I think that you guys are gonna love it.

Sara 1:19

Yes, it's a very good interview. And it was so weird because I could remember, I remember the things we talked about. I was like, Yes, of course we talked to you and we are done. And I think the numbering thing, we I remember Adriel sent a message and said, Hey, we're off on our numbering. Do you want me to fix that before the next episode goes out? And I said, Yes, please. And I didn't go back and look. I think that I suppose we were off. Yeah, I think I'd probably typed in the wrong number and then didn't realize that we had skipped one. And then, you know, we get in this zone where we're just doing interviews and and posting episodes, and I just thought it had gone out because you know we're writers first, shall we? Podcasting's our side gig. Yeah, yeah, it is. So anyway, so apologies for that, Shell, and thank you for coming back on. But it's we talked to her about a lot of the things that people are talking about right now. She is very good at using AI for automating things. And she's very good at delegating to people that she works with, and so she talks about how they use AI and humans together, and how everything that comes out through the Indie Author magazine has humans doing the sexual writing, yeah. The writing, and they don't use AI-generated art, but she uses it to kind of help her organize and admin. And one of her things she said was that she says what the bots do, and the robots do the boring stuff, so you can be brilliant. And that's kind of the philosophy that she has.

Jami 2:51

Yeah. I I was I was impressed by some of the things that she automates. So I think that that's really it's great. It's a great episode. You guys are gonna love it.

Sara 3:01

Yeah, so that's coming up. And so we have a new sponsor this week, Readsy, Readsy Studio. So we'll talk about that here in a little bit. But yeah, the episode's great.

Jami 3:11

And what have you been doing lately? Anything going on? Just writing. I was at my mom's last week and I worked last week, and but not every day. I went every day to write, and I did write something every day, but I didn't get a ton accomplished a couple of days. But I think I tell job that I'm trying to go there at least once a month just to spend, and I spend several days because it's a three and a half hour drive. I mean, it's not like I can just pop up and pop back, so can't go for the afternoon, right? And if they need like they had a doctor's appointment, I went with them to it to that, and I was glad I did, and then you know, just some other things that to help them around and get things taken care of. I mean, my other sisters live there, but they either have young kids or they are working and in a job where they don't have a lot of flexibility, so it yeah, plus I just want to be there. I I enjoy spending time with my parents. I mean, I may be one of those weird people, but I I enjoy it. I get that. So I did that and then came home Thursday and have been just writing. I'm just kind of getting this book ready. It's supposed to go to the editor one month from today. So I've just been writing, but y'all, I am really trying, and I think I have really gotten better at this. That you know, the whole feeling guilty because you don't write, the the whole shoulds, I should be doing this, I should be doing that, not being able to step back and take a break if you need a break, or or just doing what you can do and walking away and being okay with that. I am really trying to do that, and I have gotten a lot better about that. And yesterday I had three things on my list that I needed to or needed to, I wanted to get done. I felt like needed to be done, and I got one of them done, but I did it really well, and that had to be enough because I can only write about four hours, like I can only do creative work for about four hours, and that's even pushing it. But I was sort of at the end of my creative energy. Rope. I yeah, and I just had to say this has to be enough for today, and I will either make it up tomorrow, or maybe the other two things weren't as important as I thought they were. So here's a little secret: nobody is mad at you. Nobody, nobody is mad at you if you don't write, or if you don't finish things, or if you nobody. So you can just be free and get done what you can get done enjoy like and have some joy in it. If we're not, if there is no joy in this process, why are we doing it? And I really feel like and and for some people, accomplishment is joy, and I get that. I'm so happy for you. However, for a lot of us, it is not about the accomplishment is not what brings us joy, it's the process that brings us joy. So please enjoy that. Um so few few people get to do what we do. We are we are in such a minority of people, and yeah, nobody's mad at you. Just live your life and enjoy yourself.

Sara 6:40

In this interview with Shell, we talked about that, and she said something about you know, nobody's gonna track you down if you didn't, you know, turn in a certain thing at a certain time. And I I wrote in my notes, I wrote, there is no publishing police, there is nobody who's going to come and say, you know, you moved your deadline, or you know, you thought you you told your readers you would release a book this year, but it's going to be pushed, you know, six months in the future, and it's all fine. Yeah, totally fine.

Jami 7:04

And if you are like, well, but I'm disappointing myself. Okay, okay, but but let's look at that. Let's not just take that as, oh, that's how things should be, because I'm gonna tell you right now, having a ton of guilt and feeling bad about yourself all the time because you're not getting things done the way you think you should be getting things done is not healthy. I'm gonna say it again. That is not healthy, and that is not normal either. We need to make sure that we are, if we're having those kinds of feelings, that we're evaluating those. Like we're not just accepting those as the norm and facts and then feeling bad about ourselves all day long.

Sara 7:45

Yep.

Jami 7:46

It's not, and no, I've done it, I've done it for a long time. I've done it for a long time, and I can tell you I'm enjoying writing more now than I ever have because I if I feel those feelings come up, because I still have them, I really step back and say, Why am I doing this? Why am I feeling this way? Nobody is mad at me. Like that is the thing. Nobody is mad at me, I am not in trouble. So yeah, anyway, that's me.

Sara 8:16

I came to a realization a while back that the two there's always more for the two to-do list. I never get everything done. So even if I think, oh, I'll just do this other thing really quick before you know it's like five, five thirty. Yeah, I'm like, oh, I will do one more thing and just get this little thing off my to-do list. There is no little thing. It's always like this Russian nesting doll with like six tasks included for one. And then, and then you you know, then you don't get that feeling of I had a a good day. You you feel like you're behind. And that's part of I think is realizing that there will always be more, and I can only do this much today. And that's fine.

Jami 8:58

And it has to be enough. It has it just has to be enough. So, anyway, that's my thing. How about you?

Sara 9:05

What's going on with you? So this week I have been doing some more writing and doing tax stuff. I think I'm about to get all that off to the CPA, so that's good. I got swept up into world events this week of everything that's going on and being military family. Totally get it. If you're if somebody you know is deployed, if your family has a family member deployed, totally get it, totally sympathize with the stress and the and I'm high input. So when something big happens and I love history, and so I'm all into these things that are going on, and I'm trying to keep up with the news, but I have to step back and say, you know what? I don't need to know every single thing that's going on every moment of the day. And yeah, it's been I'm I that's one thing I'm learning is that I don't have to keep up with all this, and I don't have to personally monitor the situation all day.

Jami 10:04

No one's calling me for strategic updates. You're not right, yeah. Joint chief of staff meeting every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I mean it, you know, you're had you had a husband in the military. I mean, you you feel a lot of empathy, empathy too for those.

Sara 10:20

Yeah, just for the people that and I would say, like, if you're you know in that situation now, just read into your community wherever it is, and you know, try not to watch the news as much and and stay strong with the uh the opsect because no one gets more questions than a military spouse about where is your husband? What's going on? Where is he? Do you know where he is? Oh, you oh what is he here? Is he there? And you know, and it's not you're not supposed to talk about that stuff, so just stay strong. It's in I in social media age, it's really hard to uh but anyway. So I was thinking about that today. That's kind of on my mind. But yeah, just during writing, the book is you know, itching along as always, and I made a t-shirt, embraced the creative chaos. So like that's pretty much my philosophy right now. It's gonna be chaotic, and I'm just gonna go with it because I can't form it down into something that's predictable, you know.

Jami 11:19

Palatable even.

Sara 11:20

Yeah, true. You just you just gotta go with it.

Jami 11:25

Oh my gosh. Well, that is great. Um, but let's talk about Readsy.

Sara 11:29

Yes, we have a corporate sponsor this week, ReadZee, new sponsors. So thank you to Readsy. And they have this really cool thing. It's called Read Z Studio. It's a free online app for authors, and you can plan, draft, edit, and format your book. And it lets you create an e-pud and print ready files, and it's really cool. And it's yeah, it is very user-friendly.

Jami 11:53

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It is. I love it because you can leave yourself notes like check on this, and did I do that? I like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara 12:01

It's very user-friendly. It's not if if you don't like Scribner, I would say this could be a good alternative for you.

unknown 12:08

Right.

Sara 12:09

Because Scrivener can be a little intimidating.

Jami 12:12

Yes. It can be overpowering. Yeah.

Sara 12:14

Yeah.

Jami 12:15

Yeah. Well, we appreciate Readsy. We love Readsy. I'm telling you, Ricardo and his team over there are just some of the best people. You know, I mean, we you and I've been super fortunate that we have known these people since we pretty much we started indie publishing, and they are they're good people. We've seen them in all kinds of circumstances, and we know their character. And that's to me, that's super important when you're working with with people.

Sara 12:48

So it really is, especially now with sometimes services pop up and they don't last. And reads been around for a long time. I've used them for years for translation stuff and you know, just finding editing, they can do the ad stuff.

Jami 13:03

I mean, they have such a suite of services that really you should go and check it out.

Sara 13:11

Yeah, yeah. So we'll have that link in the show notes. That's reasonreadsy.com slash studio. And then they also have templates that will well work with studio. We'll talk about templates next time. Yeah. But yeah, they have lots of stuff over there, so check those out. And thanks to all our continuing supporters. We really appreciate you guys. We do. And we do, we will have a supporter episode that will come out the same day as this episode comes out. So if you're a supporter, be sure and go check out the green chat with show where we talk about fear again a lot of these changes and things that are going on. So we have that, and then we have the supporter chat.pin names. We have, I think it's we're getting close to 20 or so, maybe more than that, of exclusive episodes. Yeah.

Jami 13:57

Cool. Cool. Very good. All right. Well, we should get on with the interview because this is such a great one. Yeah. All right. So here is Shell.

Sara 14:08

Today we are really excited to have Shell Honiker here. Hi Shell, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Hi, ladies. I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Sara 14:14

We are so glad you're here.

Jami 14:15

We'll let Sarah read your bio and then we'll get started.

Sara 14:18

Shell Honiker empowers entrepreneurs by bridging the gap between creativity and business. As a co-founder of Indie Author magazine and founder of Author Automations, she helps independent authors navigate the evolving world of publishing with confidence, strategy, and community. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

I'm a nerd. I'm a geek.

Jami 14:37

And she is she is everywhere and into everything. So tell us how you got started working with writers.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

So I was I had a Trad publishing deal and I went to the Smarter Artist Conference where I was trying to learn about how I could take control of my own career. And that's where I met you, Jamie. I turned around and I saw her name tag and I had read her book literally the night before. So it was very meta moment.

Jami 15:09

It was very exciting for me.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

That was my first. You were the first. So then I went to the 20 Books Edinburgh conference the next year. And that's where I really decided to switch career paths. I was in the travel industry and my tribe deal was for travel books. And that was where the whole thing sprouted. And then the next year I went went to the SPS live show in London in March of 2020 and during and got locked down and went over to Ireland to quarantine for four months and was Zooming with people all day. And that's how the magazine and the other magazine was born. And that's how we got started. It's I can't believe it's been five years. It's been a blip. It's gone by so fast. That's how it all got started.

Jami 16:00

That's crazy. That's so, I mean, so interesting. And again, you know, as we've said a million times over the last, I don't know how many months because of AI and everything. Every time there's a disruption, thing good things come from a disruption. And COVID was definitely a disruption, and Indie Author magazine came from that. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

It did. And I think it really, for me, it helped me take stock of what was important to me and who I was spending time with and what my creative well looked like and who was filling it. And I just was I I say now I get up and play with my best friends as a living. How crazy is that?

Sara 16:40

Yeah. Yeah. You do a lot. You have a lot of different hats that you wear. Well, and over time you've done a lot of different things. So take this question whichever direction you want. What do you wish authors knew about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 16:57

I think I wish they knew that I don't do as much as it looks like I do. I use I use automation to do 99% of what I do. And that's how my Substack got started, authorautomations.com, was I was automating the magazine. And so I just started writing it down because I was figuring out, oh my God, this is so cool. I can automate my social media. I don't have to spend seven hours on Canva. I can do this and I can do this and I can do this. And so yeah, that's what I wish everybody knew is that it's very achievable. And as much as people say I do so much, I'm really more of an orchestrator of a lot of things and not really a doer of a lot of things.

Sara 17:44

So you're really good at delegating and you use technology. You delegate to technology, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Delegate to technology. Yeah, and a team. And I think one of the biggest things, even though I use a lot of AI in my business to do marketing and things, we still have very human people doing very human things. For example, at the magazine, every article is written by a writer. We have 80 plus writers and we have Nicole Schroeder, who's a phenomenal editor. That's never going to change. We're not going to have any AI written articles. We also don't use generative AI imagery in the magazine. Every image we use is either stock photography or source photography from humans. We still have very much humans in the loop and we still make sure that humans are doing human things. We always say let the bots do the boring so we can do the brilliant. So none of our team has shrunk. They've just changed things. So for example, when we uh brought on Live for the Win at the end of 2025, Grace Snoke is the community manager for that. She's doing very human conversations and posting questions and answering questions. We don't want to replace the humans doing things. We just don't want to do the stupid stuff.

Sara 19:00

I think that's a dream for all authors. Not all authors, many authors, we don't want to do all this kind of like the repetitive task that the point and click and fill this block. You don't want to do all that. So we must talk about this more. We'll get into this.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

I would say one of the biggest things that I've seen with using automations in AI is not so much that it's it can do more tasks for me, but it gives me the brain space to not have to constantly task switch between creative and administrative, between maker and manager. That's the biggest, that's been the biggest thing for my stress level and for my nervous system, is that I don't feel like I'm constantly putting things, putting fires out. I feel like I I start the day calm and I end the day calm.

Jami 19:46

Oh, that's really great. Because I mean that is the hard part. You know, you get into something and and then something comes up and you have to switch modes, and that's just not good.

unknown 19:55

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

It's not good for the brain. Constant switching too, right? There's you get an email, and all of a sudden you have to go figure out why your emails aren't going out because there's a DMARC entry, and like you then you have to figure out what a DMARC entry is, and then you have to figure out like you have to back it all up. And now, right, I've got my automations and AI so in tune that I can just say into Telegram, which I use to dictate, hey, go fix this. And it understands and knows how to go fix this. So I've in a sense cloned myself.

Jami 20:26

Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing. Well, what do you wish you'd known about either indie publishing or working with authors or both?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

I think I think it's not so much what I wish I'd known, it's what I've learned now. And it's a very relational business. And it is your success depends on the people that you surround yourself with and that you help and that help you because it is a very small industry. It really is. And and if you do it right or you're giving and generous, then people are very giving and generous back.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

I there is absolutely no way anything that I've achieved is on my own. Everything has been somebody helped me. So that's uh that's why I feel incumbent to help people back because people have been so generous and poured into me. I feel like I it's my not duty, it's my pleasure to say that I can do things for others. And I love the fact that this industry, we're not strictly competitive. It's the very, it's the most interesting industry there is, I think, in that sense, because we're not competing to sell a widget or a pen. Right. We have the ability to help other authors and it doesn't take away anything that we're doing.

Sara 21:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

And that's joyous.

Sara 21:54

It's like the it's comparable to the never ending pie of IP, how you just keep cutting. And cutting it. I feel like the connections that you have and the way you do things, you can collaborate with lots of people. And it just magnifies what you're all doing. It doesn't really undercut anyone if you're all focused on the same goal, which is usually helping everybody find more readers.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah. I think if we think of the uh there's two things that I like to think of it as. One is our goal is a happy, satisfied reader. It's not to sell a book. Right. We satisfy them by selling them a wonderfully written book or a wonderfully recorded, narrated audio book or whatever it is. But but we also don't operate strictly speaking in marketing funnels anymore, right? We've always been taught that you have a top of funnel and you get everybody on your newsletter and then you go to the middle of the funnel and you go to the bottom of the funnel. And I think that's really changed now to be a flywheel, meaning you talk to somebody and then you send them over to, you know, somebody else that loves cozy paranormal mysteries. And that author sends them to the next and to the next and to the next. So it's it is a very generous industry in that sense. And if you think of it in terms of how you can participate in a circle of marketing as opposed to the you have the only pie and you get all of it, it's you'll feel I think you're happier and you're more successful.

Sara 23:22

Right. Yeah. What do you see authors doing that they're doing because they think they have to, but it isn't producing results?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I think authors are trying to be on every social media platform. And I will go on record again as saying, I just hate social media. I just that's just awful. But that's part of partly just because of burnout, because I did the same thing where I tried to be on every social media channel and I was trying to have conversations, and I was thinking of it as a marketing tool instead of a place to have conversations and meet people and connect with people. So I think that's my biggest thing that I see now is that they're trying to do too much.

Jami 24:03

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I I also wonder because the social media platforms I think have become less effective than they were, if if we even have to be on them. And for me to say that is a lot because I love social media too much. Too much. I love it too much. And in fact, am I asking those count those questions and having starting to have those conversations because I do like it too much. I'm on it too much. And I don't think it's good for me. It's not good for my brain. And I want to know how I can get in and get out without getting sucked in. And that's that's hard. That's hard for some personalities. It's very hard.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

I agree with you. And I think you, if you're having those second thoughts, because you are very relational and you love having conversations. I I post and run. Like stick something in there, and then I run away and I don't answer comments or threads. And that's the absolute wrong way to do social media. Right. Well, there are studies that talk about how social media and online behavior is as is as addictive as opiates and other things. It's really, I don't think we will we will really know the effects of things for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Right. But yeah, it's and it's unnecessarily evil. And I also think that the companies that own these social media platforms now have a better understanding of how they keep us addicted with clickbait and rage bait and all the things. And they also have, especially TikTok, have such a finely tuned algorithm now that it keeps us coming back for more. It's I know I spend an inordinate amount of time on TikTok, but I'm endlessly entertained. It's a dope hit.

Jami 25:58

It's so fun. People are so stinking clever.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And I also learn a ton.

Jami 26:04

Me too. Me too. I have learned a lot. I've learned a lot. But it's I I just think short form video is dangerous. I think it's dangerous for kids, but I think it for people of a certain age, I think it's dangerous for us too, because we're we're operating on fewer brain cells than we were when we started. And I just think I've got to protect them. So I am thinking about things like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yeah. I think we all have to. I think that's something we have to think about with AI too, right? What is it doing? Is it dumbing us down? Is it making us better? Where's the creativity stack? I look at those things a lot in terms of ethics and morality. I think we all have to take stock of that. It's AI, I want to be sure that I'm never drifting into AI advocacy as much as I am known for being an AI educator. Right. To be sure that people are really thinking about does this make my life better? Does this make my career better? Is this adding to my life? Or is this just another thing that's going to stress me out, suck my brain cells?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

I like the fact that, especially like with anthropic, as mad as we are at them for what they did with all of our books and how they trained them, the co-founder and the president is an English major and a literature major and has come out very strongly in favor of using AI to get back to the thing that you want to do, which is read and write and have creative endeavors. As ethics go, I'm more aligned with that than I am anything else.

Jami 27:41

Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's all hard. And I was just with some friends last weekend that are not in this business. They're my they're my old friends from way back. And, you know, they were talking about AI in such a way that was so, in a lot of ways, naive and a little dangerous because it is so naive. And for someone like me who is, I mean, I am not as versed as m a lot of people, but I'm more versed than most people in kind of the pros and cons of AI, the how it the benefits, how we can use it effectively and ethically. I mean, thinking of it in an ethical way, and their thoughts were just completely naive, and that worries me so much for the general population, because the majority of people are not having these conversations that we're having. Even if we feel like they're not necessarily productive, because we're we can't change someone's mind, at least we're having the conversation, and so much so so much of the population is they're not. They're just kind of going along because they're naive about the the pros and cons of it.

unknown 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah. And I think we live in a world where algorithms and news feeds are very targeted and very manipulated. And so it's very hard to get straight information. And it's also very hard for your friends, they are probably fed a narrative for them to believe one way or another. That's just the general world that we live in now. So it's you can't really blame them for not knowing, but I wouldn't know I don't.

Jami 29:22

I just, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

I will say living and working in it all day, every day. I can comfortably say within six to twelve months, we will have a revolution with colored jobs and how those jobs are done. We will see entire industries completely disrupted, like finance and law. We've already seen disruption in publishing. There's this whole thing about what's called open claw or clawed bot or moldbot, change names. It's it there's a it's hype. There's a lot of hype around it, but the features of it are quite impressive. And I've replicated some of those features to a certain extent. So you get the tech bros that are saying what they're doing, and none of that is really interesting or exciting to me. But for me, I can say, go fix the footer on my website, and it will go fix the footer on my website. I can say send an email to the team, cancel the meeting next Thursday, because I'm gonna be on a plane and reschedule it for two weeks from now, and it will do that. So we've moved from conversational chat to agentic doing things. And I posted last night on Facebook, I said this is the closest I've ever gotten to cloning myself. And I'm a layperson user, right? I'm using it to build apps and I'm using it to do things, but now I have a personal assistant that I have never been able to. I've gone through six from really great companies that have never been able to get my full picture of things and have never done things the way I like them done.

Jami 31:06

And I think being on the this the user, I mean not user, learning training side of things, like trying to take on that mentality is what will help us as opposed to you know being just a user AI. And I think that you know, a lot of people aren't gonna want to do that. It's work, it's you know, it's they make AI makes it easy to have the work done, but we have to learn to train it in a way that is beneficial, and that is work on our part.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

It is work, but we learn how to use mail or light and we learn how to use WordPress, and right, so the more things change, the more they stay the same. At least at the end of this, you won't have to try and remember how to do something in WordPress in six months. And just be able to, in natural language, say to your assistant to do something and it works that way. And again, it's going to disrupt some ways and some things. Like, for example, we probably won't need to pay web designers to do basic stuff. I think we'll still need them for great design, and I still think we'll need them for advanced things, but you probably won't need them when you have a new book launched to add the book to your website. And AI can go in and look at it and do it. I had a situation where I had one of my team was switching from Wix to WordPress, and I set my ClaudBot to that task and it converted the site over, and I didn't have to pay someone $2,500 or $3,000 to look at that.

Sara 32:50

Yeah. It's just a re- it's figuring out how where you're gonna fit in the new world, right? Because things are gonna be different, yeah, but there will be tasks that humans will need to do. There will be things that only humans can do, and then there will be things that we'll want to offload to our AI assistant because it's so much more efficient. So it's just we've got it, we're in the transition phase right now. At least we are. I think there's a lot of people like Jamie was talking about that I've met people like that, people in my family that they don't really understand the potential of what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

I as Gen X, I've been through AOL and then and then websites. We're all than Google. So like I don't feel like this is so and we're also Gen X, so we're just like, okay, today we're doing this, all right.

Sara 33:46

Yeah, right. What are we gonna do except roll with it, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:49

We've had so many unprecedented times that that word doesn't mean anything anymore. But but yeah, but I do think in a sense it gives us opportunity. Like you said, Jamie, disruption always brings some form of opportunity, even if it's terrifying and scary.

Jami 34:04

Yeah. What are common mistakes you see authors making?

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Not bringing more of themselves to the relationship with their readers. I think as we talk about this AI conversation and automation conversation, I think one of the things that's key, especially to me, is how do you keep AI from taking your job or how do you disinter not disintermediate yourself? And one of the ways that you do that is by having a relationship with your readers and making sure they understand your taste and your humor and your sharp focus. I the best newsletter that I read every single week is Lucy Scores email because she brings so much of her humor and so much of herself to that that I just can't help but open it because she's funny and sharp-witted and I vibe with her and she always has good news. And so it's not just a hey, buy my book, hey, buy my book, hey, buy my book. And I think just on the macro level, that's what authors sometimes do is they have to do the thing by they think they have to get the word out when in reality they need to create the relationship and start having a conversation with their readers because that AI can never replace that. AI will never be able to replace that. Even those authors that write with AI, they have to go back and edit those books very heavily to put back inside jokes and taste and things. I just, it's harder than people think to write with AI. And I don't really teach or get into that side of things. That's not my lane. Mine is more marketing and business operations. But yeah, anybody that's worried about AI replacing them, just keep focused on your reader and keep focused on keeping that relationship with them. And as long as you do that, you're gonna be okay.

Jami 36:00

Right.

Sara 36:00

That's great. Yeah, classic advice. It was good before AI, it'll be good after AI, right? Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

And I think it again, the more things change, the more they say the same thing. That's the same thing that Trad said about indie publishing, which for me, I don't define indie as self-published. I define indie as taking charge of your career so that you can use your work as a story and tell it in many different ways. I think that's a shift in our industry that is extremely positive for us as a whole. Now you can have games and tarot cards and movies and all of that is just going to be that much faster. But as long as you're focused on what it's how it's serving your reader, right? Everything needs to be in service of your reader.

Jami 36:44

That's right. Yeah. And and we're uniquely set up to do that. Like that is the entire model of indie publishing. We have our readers, we have always, sometimes to the detriment, have always been able to get to us. And you can't do that with a tribe-published author. And so we are in a unique position to pivot in a way that other people and other authors are not set up to do because we're used to that. We are nimble in in the way we run our businesses. And so I think that you know, it's easy to fall into the gloom and doom. I've done it. I mean, everybody's done it that I know of, but I think if we think the way we've always thought, which is how does this, what opportunity does this present to us, then we will be okay. We just have to follow that path and try to stay positive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

And that's not to say that there are some folks that are introverts, that terrifies them. Hi, absolutely. Raising my hand right now because that is terrifying to me, but but there's ways to do that. That's why I started when we started the magazine, we had an avatar called Indiani, because I didn't want to be out front.

Jami 38:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

But there's ways to do things. And also, I don't want to dismiss the fact that it is still hard to be discovered. Discoverability is still a hard thing. There are lots and lots of books that come out every single day. And and AI has made that there's more, right? That's it's still a competitive industry in terms of discoverability. But that's why if you partner with other successful authors and you tap into their reader base and you've got that generous flywheel, yeah, you have more success than if you try and go it alone.

Sara 38:38

Yeah. I agree, true. Yeah. We've talked about AI. So are there any other trends that you see things happening in the industry right now that you've spotted? I think you're more of a futurist than Jamie and I are.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Yeah, I live in the future. I for better or for worse, I think I see a lot of our vendor partners, our partners in the industry are coming out with amazing tools to help us. Book funnel, right, is always on the cutting edge of things to try and help us figure stuff out. The draft to digital is always out there trying to. They just did a deal with bookshop.org. And so I think uh look at our suppliers and our vendors as business partners and pay attention to the things that they're doing because as easy it is as it is sometimes to get mad at them for whatever thing you read or think, they really are trying to help us in the best way possible.

Jami 39:38

And yeah, I was just gonna say assume the best and not the worst. Yeah. I mean, because it's easy to see some deal about to happen or hear something and think, uh, you know. I mean, I just hear people doing that all the time, and I hate that because and maybe it's easier for us because we know these people, and other people maybe don't know them the way we do. But I can tell you right now, Damon Courtney is always thinking about what is gonna help me, Jamie Albright, the best. Even if I'm not gonna use that tool, he has me and everyone else in mind when he's creating it.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

He is, and he asks the right questions. He doesn't assume, he in particular doesn't assume that he knows everything in the right way to do it. He really does tap into smart people that are saying, hey, this is what I want. And I have seen him, I've said something on a Friday, and by Monday, he'll email me and say, Hey, I built this over the weekend.

Sara 40:36

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

It's just it's astonishing because it is a small industry, how much our vendors' business, I like to think of him as our business partners, honestly. Yes, um, are there for us and do a lot for us.

Jami 40:49

And and you know, I mean, some of the things they do will work and some of the things they do won't work, just like everybody else. Just like in our own business. They have provided such amazing service for I I get this is a thing for me. When I hear authors complaining about certain vendors and or you know services and stuff, and I'm like, my gosh, we they have helped us so much. We can at least assume the best.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

I feel like we're all growing up together in this business. They are too, as well as we are.

Jami 41:20

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, tell us about your Substack and your we've we've kind of alluded to your author automations and stuff. Like, if someone came to your Substack, what would they find there?

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Beginning automation information. That's the one thing that I've tried to do is make my Substack, which again, I didn't set out to write a subs, a best-selling Substack, it just happened. And it was because I was writing down what I was learning. And that's really what I do every single week is I write down the things that I've learned every single time yeah. So if you go to authorautomations.com, I've got almost two years worth of articles now on technical stuff, non-technical stuff. Like I have things, I have weird things like NFC tags, right? I wrote an article where if you tap your phone on an NFC tag, it will start your Calm app and put it into Notion to make sure that you write it down. Like those are the kinds of automations, weird automations I do. I have automations that when I tap it on the way out the door, it starts my health workout app on my watch. And it's little tiny time savings like that. I write about. I have one tomorrow that I'm writing about where if you if your phone is stolen, you can text your phone from any phone and it'll yell at the person and take a picture of them with the front and back camera and text that picture back to you and send the list and location and lock it down. And yeah, so automations really. I do talk about AI a bit, but only in the context of here's what's coming, here's what you should think about. Never like you're gonna. I don't, I'm not one of those folks that says if you don't want to use AI, you're gonna miss the boat and you're gonna lose your career. I just don't think that's gonna happen. I do think there's very much a space and a place for artisanal authors that don't want AI to touch any part of their business.

Sara 43:18

So yeah, very interesting. Great. Well, I've read a couple of your articles over there and they're very good.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

I chose Substack for a couple reasons. One is I the audience over there, as a social media network goes, it is one of the better ones because everybody seems it's like the early days of Twitter, I think, where you would post your lunch and everybody would go, Oh, that looks great. You're great, you're pretty. Substack is a little bit like that. They also don't allow technology and automation, so you can't automatically post to Stubstack. They have a you have to pull up Substack and click here and post your own newsletter there. So it's More work, and I think that keeps the noise down a bit over there. So it's a it's a cool place, it's a cool place on the internet to hang out.

Sara 44:07

Yeah, yeah. It's good to good to hear. There's places that used to be like that, but are not like that now.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

So that's no longer there. There's a lot of authors now that are exploring Substock and use it for their own reader-facing newsletters. It's not just that. I know Elena Johnson is doing some stuff over there with her readers, and and there's tons of people that are episodic stuff. It's a cool place.

Sara 44:31

Yeah. Yeah. I think we're gonna have somebody on soon to talk about that. So that'll be interesting for the fiction side.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah.

Sara 44:37

So tell us a little bit about Storyteller Showcase and Indie Author Magazine, in case people aren't familiar with those two things that you do.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Yeah, sure. So Indie Author magazine started five years ago. We look at ourselves as the business journal for the industry. We really are there to cover large and small topics. And we went that we used to be a monthly publication, and now we're a weekly publication. So we do much longer articles on things. We just did an article last week that's on how to do your own audiobooks. How do you record your own audiobooks and who are your resources? So that's the business journal side. And then Storyteller Showcase is a reader-facing magazine, and that is distributed at conferences all over the world in readers' gift bags. So that's we're trying to help with the discoverability of authors by putting them in a magazine to get in front of readers. So that's a new endeavor for us as of this year. But they're both journalistic and editorially edited brilliantly by Nicole Schroeder, who I I'm hyperbolic about things. I'll say, Oh, this is the greatest thing ever. And she'll go, No, this is a thing, and this is what that thing does. And she takes yeah, everybody editing is editing is a superpower, and I don't have it. I'm just kind of a I'm a golden retriever when it comes to writing. I just write all the exclamation points.

Jami 46:05

Me too. And I love to repeat myself. You make a point. In fact, I posted a TikTok today and I listened to it back just a little bit ago, and I was like, oh my gosh. Like I said two things repeatedly in a minute and a half video. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

You are continuously on my FYP, Jamie. I am very much your algorithmic target audience. I'm like, what's Jamie wearing today? Oh my god, that's so cute.

Jami 46:35

It's funny, but I don't know. My my social media is so messed up anyway, algorithmically, because I listen, I watch everything. In fact, I was just thinking when we were talking about social media and how bad it is for you. But one of the people I follow is a plastic surgeon here in Houston. She's just adorable and so fun. And I've actually seen her. I went for a consultation for something, and she's just great. And she has this great social media and she's super successful. And she made a video the other day talking about how she had had a bad day because this happened and this happened, and like her assistant quit and some other things. And then she said, and because my social media is stalled and I'm not getting the views I want. And I thought, oh my gosh, this amazing, successful doctor is worried about her social media views. This is a proof that we we have hit an all-time low. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

But I think it also goes to show that we very often see people's highlight reels and not what's really going on in people's lives. So it's it's that's a good lesson and a reminder that if you're going through something, yeah, other people are going through it too. Even if they're bright and shiny and showing off their amazing hair and makeup and traveling. Exactly. Exactly.

Sara 47:56

Well, that actually happened to me one time. I it was back when we were doing all that travel, and I would posted a picture of, I think we were in London, and I had this friend text me and say, I wished I lived a glamorous life like you. And I was like, No, you don't see the the layover where we missed our flight and how just exhausting it is. And it was fun, it was great to see these places, but you're just giving a little snippet. You're not giving the whole thing, everything is distorted.

Jami 48:25

Well, and that that's one reason right now. I mean, this week I decided to stop using the touch-up filter on my videos, which let me tell you breaks my heart because I like the way I look with the touch-up filter on. It's just not real. It's not real. I have wrinkles, I have, you know, my skin has, you know, some discoloration and stuff. It's just not real. And so I have decided to stop using it, and it's been a shock to see myself. But I think that that's the most authentic thing I can do.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

I think your engagement's gonna go up, Jamie, and I'll tell you why, because TikTok especially is one of those places I've seen people lying in bed with their mouse guards on, in a silk bonnet, and they're spitting facts, and they've got 10 million views on that. I yeah, it's a very different, I think TikTok more than any of the others is much more come as you are and less less polished. I think Instagram is polished to perfection and TikTok is not.

Jami 49:28

I agree. Well, let's talk about before you go, your your author training, your indie author training. Yeah. Tell us about that. Tell us what we need to know.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

So indie author training started a couple years ago, and it was because I saw there were a hundred different people teaching great classes. One was on Teachable, one was on ThinkIphic, what was on Coursera, one had their own stuff. And I just thought, you know what? What if we put everybody under one big tent and everybody brought their own courses in there? So it is a marketplace for you to come and learn things from really smart people. So, like Jonah C has story engines there, and you can learn that. And then we've got webinars every single week, and we get about 300 people on webinars every single week registering and learning stuff. So it's anything from craft to you know how to price your books. Celeste Barkley did a big thing on how to price your books correctly, and it's the smartest subject matter experts and people that are doing the work that come and teach. And that's why we exist there. So it's not me, it's not my courses, although I do have some courses there, but it's the idea was to have everybody in one big place so that we could have conversations. So India Author Training is webinars, courses, and then we also have a library of product tours. So, for example, you can come and learn about ReadSe and you can come and learn about draft to digital, and it's not a sales pitch, it's a walkthrough. And we ask them to show us the back end of stuff. So if you're thinking about using a tool, you can go there and learn about it. And you're not looking at a sales page, you're looking at an evaluation, and it helps you decide if that tool is going to be right for you. We also have wide for the win community, which is where we also have places where you can come and ask and talk and engage and and ask. I I say there's no dumb questions, and that's absolutely true. So if you have questions about how to use something or what to use or what people's experiences are, that is a very generous community that I'm really excited that is now part of the Indie Author magazine family as of December 31st.

Jami 51:38

So how do they find how do listeners find that Indie Author Training?

SPEAKER_01 51:44

IndieAuthraining.com.

Jami 51:46

Okay. Wide for the wind is it, is it it's still on Facebook?

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Well, there's a Facebook group. There's still a really large face group Facebook group of like 19,000 authors, but then also wide for the wind.com is where all of the courses erin's Erin Wright still has her courses up there, and there's still a ton of legacy courses that are there. We didn't want to change anything. So everything that you knew and loved about Wide for the Wind before is still there. We're just adding to it.

Sara 52:16

Great. That's awesome. Well, we like to ask everybody what's the best thing you've done to set yourself up for success?

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Gone to conferences. Yeah. We knew I was gonna say that, but everything that's ever happened that's been good for me, for my business, has happened because of a conference, because of an in-person gathering.

Jami 52:37

I can 100% agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Large, small, it doesn't matter, but in-person conferences.

Sara 52:44

And you're an introvert.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

I am an introvert. Isn't that wild? Yeah, I am. I am. I there's been a couple of times, especially like with 20 Books Vegas, I was very overwhelmed and had to go up to my room and just decompress for a little bit because it was just very overwhelming. Even though Craig Martel did an amazing job of trying to have people and things in place to mitigate that. But yeah, I'm still very drained by conference life. And I s and even still I raised my hand and when Joe said, Would you come and help me plan Author Nation for two years? And I said absolutely, and I'm really proud and really excited that I was able to do that. But yeah, I I leaned into my conference mom mentality when I was doing author nation.

Jami 53:31

So you've moved on from that.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

That's that's I've moved on as the programming director. I'm still helping the team, I'm still on the team, and I still but I like we've talked about, I had so much of my own stuff that I I had to let one job go. And and I made my word for 2025 contraction and sharp focus. I wanted to contract, focus on my stuff, and so I'm still helpful. I still help Joe with automations, I still help Suze with connecting writers, I still evaluate talks and do all the things, but I do it more on my time, and it's not a full-time job anymore. Great.

Sara 54:12

This has been great. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Thank you. I'm really glad we got a chance to chat. It's been too long.

Sara 54:21

Us too. Well, we will have all the mini links in the show notes, and those will be at wish I'd known for writers.com. If you want to support the podcast, you can go to that same link slash support, or you can find us on Substack. And also don't forget our sponsor for this week is Reetzi. And that link will be in the show notes as well. All right. Bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

Bye.