The Publishing Performance Show

Kevin Tumlinson - How to Hire a $7.50/Hour Author VA That Actually Understands Your Author Business

• Teddy Smith • Episode 110

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Kevin Tumlinson is a bestselling author and Chief Brand Officer for Author Anchor, a service that connects authors with trained virtual assistants from the Philippines. With extensive experience managing multiple business ventures while maintaining his writing career, Kevin understands the challenges authors face in balancing creative work with business operations. Author Anchor specializes in providing budget-friendly VAs at $7.50/hour who are specifically trained in author-related tasks including social media management, Facebook advertising, Amazon ads, graphic design, and platforms like BookBrush, Vellum, and Kickstarter. Kevin advocates for strategic delegation that increases revenue potential rather than just removing unwanted tasks from an author's plate.


In this episode:

  • Why authors need VAs and what tasks to delegate first
  • The Author Anchor model: $7.50/hour trained VAs from the Philippines
  • How to structure your first VA projects for maximum success
  • The importance of clear communication and process documentation
  • Marketing tasks VAs excel at: social media and Facebook advertising
  • Building trust and working relationships across time zones
  • When to hire additional VAs and scale your author business
  • The economics of VA hiring: only when it increases revenue potential
  • Ethical considerations and win-win economics of international hiring
  • Setting up systems, software access, and payment structures


Resources mentioned:


Book Recommendations:


Connect with Kevin Tumlinson:


Connect with Teddy Smith:

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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Welcome to the Publishing form Show, the podcast that helps self-publish authors turn their passion into a profit. Now, I'm your host Teddy Smith, and if you're serious about building a sustainable business, then you're in the right place. Every week I sit down with successful authors, industry experts, and publishing professionals who share their exact strategies they use right now to how they grown their business, grow their readership, increase their book sales, and essentially to make a bit more money.

[00:00:29] Now, whether you're just starting out or you're looking to scale your existing publishing business, you'll walk away from every episode with actual insights you can implement immediately. Now, if you are new here, it would really, really help me out. If you could subscribe either on Apple or Spotify or YouTube or wherever you are, just simply hit the subscribe button.

[00:00:45] It really helps to show to get more reach, which means we can get better guests for you and we can help you out in in more ways. Alright, let's dive into this episode. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Publishing Informant Show. Today I'm really delighted to be joined by Kevin Tomson, who a lot of you'll know for being bestselling author, but he's also the Chief Brand Officer for Author Anchor, which is a service for getting VAs to work for authors.

[00:01:06] So thanks for joining me, Kevin. 

[00:01:08] Kevin Tumlinson: I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Kenny. 

[00:01:10] Teddy Smith: Yeah, no problem. Well. You've obviously wear a million hats in your business and like just before we started this conversation, you were just telling me about the million different things that you are you've got going on at the moment.

[00:01:21] Yeah. And now you are, now you're kind of solving like a different pain point, which is like helping you like fix your time. And that's one of the reasons I'm guessing that you got into author anchor in the first place. So do you wanna just give me a bit of an overview about why you'd think about using a VA as an author?

[00:01:35] Kevin Tumlinson: Yeah. So like a lot of authors, I, I've got just like you said, many hats, a lot of things happening at one time. And there's aspects of this business that I don't want to have to do anymore myself. So author anchor kind of offered a, a an interesting opportunity. I originally had come on board these guys.

[00:01:55] They're the, the guys who created, book brush 

[00:01:58] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:01:58] Kevin Tumlinson: Also created this service. And I, I had done a little bit of consulting here and there. I kind of helped them early on with rebranding book brush and so they, they were kind of asking me some, my opinion on things, regarding this. I, I love this idea, but the idea is to, train VAs who can help authors to offload some of the stuff that's on their plate.

[00:02:21] And a lot for a lot of authors, that is mostly gonna be things like the marketing, social media management, things like that. We all have tasks that. we know have to be done. That drive us a little crazy that we don't want to have to set aside time and energy for 'cause. All we really, most of us, a lot of us really just wanna write.

[00:02:40] That's what we got into this for. And so that's what this business was set up to do, was to help authors. Find a budget friendly solution to offload some of the, the bigger pain points of their, of the business side of writing so that they can just write, that's what we're here for. 

[00:02:59] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Perfect. And so VA is a virtual assistant.

[00:03:02] That's what it stands for. Yes. So it's essentially just like having another employee in your author business? 

[00:03:07] Kevin Tumlinson: Yeah. You could, you could even, just refer to them as an author assistant because what we do, 'cause you can hire virtual assistants through a variety of. Of sources, but what we're doing is, we're inviting these people in.

[00:03:19] These are all remote workers. They're all in the Philippines. We train them in author really things. We train them in, in all the services that you are accustomed to hearing about as an author, so, And then we have required, it was like mandatory training every month for some of these things.

[00:03:35] We've done training sessions with them on things like, book funnel on Vellum, on, there's some, there's some other things that we're, some of these VAs are really good at, like Kickstarter and Shopify, things like that. So, and of course book brush, Yeah. And so, what you, what you get out of the experience through Author Anchor is a little different than what you'd get if you went and tried to find someone on your own.

[00:03:56] First of all, we're vetting at all of the, assistants, training them to work with authors specifically, and then continuing that training as they go, and all that runs you like seven 50 an hour, which was a, a huge thing for me because I, my first VA was like $50 an hour. This was years before, author Anchor existed and my first VA cost me like 50 bucks an hour.

[00:04:22] They just, they didn't understand my business. 

[00:04:25] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:04:25] Kevin Tumlinson: Like, they didn't understand what I was doing. And, and so, they kept trying to run it like, They would try to run, marketing campaigns as if I was, trying to be the next, I don't know, apple or something, and then they just couldn't click to it and they didn't have, I would, I had to spend most of my energy and time training them how to, do the things that were integral to my business.

[00:04:46] Um, so this has been very different. Working with the, the folks in the Philippines book Brush had actually built their business using these same resources. So that's, that's kind of the origin of this. People kept asking for a, a done for you marketing solution. 'cause, you know, book Brush has a, a bunch of different.

[00:05:05] They've got a social media service and yeah, there's a whole bunch of pieces. But people kept asking, well, you know, what would it take for you guys to just handle marketing for me? Because that's the, the biggest pain point authors tend to have, right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, there's just no model.

[00:05:21] There's no, there's no model that makes that affordable for the author and also profitable for the business, except for this one, which is train people. And allow them to take over the marketing on a one-to-one basis for that author. So that's, that's sort of the origin of it. Yeah. And it's kind of expanded from that.

[00:05:44] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I mean, I've used VAs in lots of different businesses I've had. Yeah. Again, mostly for marketing, especially my e-commerce business. I've trained 'em up on logistics and things like that, which was really, really complicated compared to an author business. Right. Um, but you talked about handing tasks off, like marketing tasks.

[00:05:59] So what sort of marketing tasks are you talking about? 

[00:06:03] Kevin Tumlinson: Well, the big one tends to be things like, there's two, there's two big ones. One is social media. Right. A lot of authors. Don't want to have to deal with it. I'm one of those who does, I, I do a lot of social media stuff, but I, it's more of kind of engaging.

[00:06:17] I probably don't do it strategically enough. So I, I would bring in a VA on to help me kind of figure out like, what's my strategy and what should I be focused on, and how do I continue to do things my way, but also fold in what you're gonna do. 

[00:06:29] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:06:30] Kevin Tumlinson: I don't like TikTok at all. So if, if I'm gonna have a presence on TikTok, it's gonna have to be a VA 'cause I don't wanna touch it.

[00:06:38] The other side is, so there's that side and there's, then there's sort of, the ad side, right? So we have several VAs who are highly skilled with ad placement on platforms like Facebook. You know, we're, we're kind of training now, specifically for platforms like Amazon ads. We, we wanna folding like, you know, BookBub ads and things like that.

[00:06:58] A lot of these platforms, you know, once you've mastered one, it's pretty easy to master another. I don't want to have to deal with ads. You know, I wanna say, Hey, here's my ad budget for the month. Go and, get me a, a, as many new readers as possible using this money. Uh, So, you know, handing that over has been kind of fun and kind of key.

[00:07:19] There's a, there's always a question of trust when it comes to money and things like that, and there's ways to kind of mitigate those problems. But I've found that like when it comes to ad spend or whatever, you're, you're allotting a certain amount of funds to, to that, and how you get it to them is, you know, basically it's all set up ahead of time.

[00:07:37] All they're really doing is placing and running the ads. So as long as you're in communication and checking in and. And you're monitoring, you'll eventually build trust with these people because you'll see, oh, they're good at this, they're not good at that. They're, we're gonna work on this. We're gonna ditch that, whatever.

[00:07:53] And then you, then it's just, it's on, it can basically get on autopilot. But those are the, those are the two main things, mar marketing wise, that VAs tend to help with. And then there's all kinds of. We have some who are good at graphic design, some are good at video, some are good at all the things.

[00:08:10] Some are good at copywriting. So, whatever they're not good at. Frankly, AI is kind of filling the gap for a lot of, a lot of skill sets. 

[00:08:18] Teddy Smith: Yeah. It's interesting you talked about ads. 'cause one of the things I've learned about from doing this podcast is that nobody likes doing ads apart from me.

[00:08:26] So 

[00:08:28] Kevin Tumlinson: you are welcome to do my ads. I'll,

[00:08:30] Teddy Smith: yeah. Now, when you are just starting out using a va, you might not a hundred percent know exactly what tasks it is that you want them to do. Right. Do you find that you, like, say if you're working with author Anchor, do you pick one VA and say, I want you to do this many hours, or do you use the service and then.

[00:08:46] Uh, just tell Aranka what sorts of needs you have and they can split it up out amongst them. 

[00:08:50] Kevin Tumlinson: Yeah. So here's how the, here's how the whole thing shakes out. What happens is, first you set up a discovery call, which you know, we'll give your listeners and your viewers a, a, a link, to check that out. The discovery call's free.

[00:09:01] There's no obligations. You're not signing contracts, you're not agreeing to, to, to even do this. What I tell. People to do is to come in with two lists. And one of those lists is here's all the stuff that, I hate doing for my business. Mm-hmm. Right? And then the other list is, here's everything I think my business should have, you know, new things I should be doing, or skills I should have that I don't have the time, energy of patience for.

[00:09:28] I don't wanna do it. And you bring those two lists in, you do this discovery call and someone from our team talks to you and kind of gets a feel for what you're looking for. And then they will set up interviews with, two to three, VAs who, who. Match what you need as closely as possible. If, if none of those people kind of clicks with you personality wise or skill wise, whatever, then you can request more and they'll, they'll bring more.

[00:09:57] So that's kind of the gist of how it all works. And I think I'm hitting around what you asked the Yeah. Exact question you asked, but, as far as like determining what to hand off, what you should know going into this, there's two things. One, you, you can't simply just hand everything off that you hate to do, right?

[00:10:15] There's gonna be some time, I'd say probably the first two weeks to a month, it's gonna be all about learning how you work with each other, right? Because even though they're getting trained and they come in with some skills. You still need to learn how you work together best. And that's gonna include things like how do we, how do we both prefer communicating, you know, what, what skills is my VA strong in and what are they weak in?

[00:10:43] What we, you know, what are my, what are my strengths? What are the things I like to do, but what also, what do I hate to do? So maybe I'm holding onto some things 'cause I like it. How do they assist me in that? Or how do they keep their hands out of it? So. I always tell, authors, when they first start working with a va, there are some tasks you can use to kind of help, break the ice to figure out.

[00:11:06] How things are gonna work for, for all of you. And one of those is like, and I always use Kickstarter as the example. 'cause that's, that's something I'm kind of preoccupied with right now. But let's say that you are bringing on a VA who has a skillset, in, in, in like establishing Kickstarter campaigns, running them, making them successful.

[00:11:26] The first task I would have them do, week one, take two hours and create a process. For how to start and run a successful Kickstarter campaign report back to me with what you've done. Okay, that's two hours. Um, seven 15 an hour says that's what, $15? Something like that? Yep. Um, so you're, you're spending 15 bucks and you're getting a co, you're getting several things out of this first project.

[00:11:53] Number one, we're seeing how well they pay attention and follow, instructions and how they. Execute because you're giving them the leeway to execute on this project, and this should be something in their skillset. If they, if it's not in their skillset already, this is an opportunity for them to learn something or whatever.

[00:12:11] The second thing you're getting outta this is a process. You're, you have, you have some written documentation. Walkthrough videos, whatever it is, that they managed to create in that two hours to, establish, what, how this works. That means that even if they don't work out now, you've got something you can use for the next va, right?

[00:12:30] Yeah. Uh, and, and frankly, eventually all these VAs, they're, I had a, I had a, I worked for an attorney one time. And, he said something to me that has stuck with me forever. He says, I, I said something about, well, I'm gonna work with you for a while, but I've got some other things coming up and I'll probably ditch out.

[00:12:48] You know? And just so you know, this isn't like permanent, you know, he says, ah, I don't buy people, I rent them. And, and that's always stuck with me. You're not, you're not investing in a VA who's going to be with you forever. You're basically leasing time with this person. So the more you can have them help you shape your business and the way it works, and the, the task, the way these tasks should be executed, the better off you're all gonna be.

[00:13:17] Then the other, the other thing, the other aspects of this that you get out of an assignment like that as a first assignment is you're gonna learn how you both prefer to communicate with each other. So I'm someone who hates communicating via email 'cause I get so much email. It stresses me out. I, I don't wanna monitor email 24 7, So I prefer tools like, slack, has caused me some anxiety in my life in the past, but it is to me, one of the better ways to communicate with, team members. But there's other things kinda like that, discord, whatever. So. the VA's gonna work with you in whatever you prefer. And if you establish upfront, like, here's how I prefer to communicate, here's when, I'm around here, all those things.

[00:13:59] you get all that smoothed out upfront. So yeah, that's what an assignment like that is for, is to teach. Both of you how to work together and what your preferences are. And you can change things. So like if something, if they spend that two hours and the results aren't great, you can give 'em another two hours and let's refine that.

[00:14:16] Okay. That, that didn't quite work for me. Or let's do something a little different this time. So you spend your first week, 'cause you're committing to 10 hours a week when you do this. So that's what, $75, a week? I think that's math. I think I'm math that correctly. 10 times. I'm a writer. So yeah, your, you are, your total investment for the month is, just under $300, like 2 99.

[00:14:42] Okay. Yep. And that works out to about seven 50 an hour. So that's your com, that's your base commitment. It can go up from there and you can actually kind of get some price breaks when you do add more hours. But you'll have to talk to the reps about that. But for most writers, I think 40 hours a month is probably, plenty of time to do what you need to do once you've established a strong relationship.

[00:15:06] Anyway, I, I, I kind of, I digressed and now I forget the point I was about to make, with that. But the, kind of comes down to, spend the first couple of weeks learning how to work with each other. When I first started doing this, by the way, I felt like, yeah, spending more time. Trying to, get up to speed with this va I, I feel like I'm working for them at this point.

[00:15:28] it, it was a little rough, but once we figured out these things out, then I could say things like, okay, now that we have a process for this, go and spend the next, spend two hours doing this. Yeah. and I like to work in like one to two hour increments when I can, but sometimes you get to a point where it's like.

[00:15:46] Okay, look, I know this is gonna take a while. Take, take your 10 hours this week and this is the only thing you're working on. Or, here's a list of, of tasks, divide your time up and, and get these done. But report back to me after, At five hours. 

[00:16:00] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:16:00] Kevin Tumlinson: Report, report in, send me a note, let me know where you are, what questions you have.

[00:16:04] that's the, those are the things that are important is to keep that line of communication open. And I don't, I like to offset my time, by the way. I don't, I'm not gonna be on call. I, and these VAs are 15 hours ahead of me. So, depending on where you are, there's gonna be some time differences.

[00:16:21] So I, A lot of them adapt and work these bizarre hours to me. But I always say, look, it doesn't matter when you communicate. Nothing I do is so critical. There's nothing we're doing together that's so critical that you know, you're gonna need an answer from me right now, or the whole thing falls apart.

[00:16:37] Like, leave a message for me in Slack. I will see it, I will respond to it. and I have rules about, when I wanna do my do calls and things too. Like, I tend to not do calls before noon on, on any given day if I can avoid it, because I, that's, most of my morning is writing time and I've got other tasks, so I try to keep all my tasks in the afternoon.

[00:17:01] So, I've established these guidelines and rules with my VA and it, it ends up being. a well oiled machine by the time it's done, but it does take time to get there. That was a long-winded answer, Teddy, about that. 

[00:17:13] Teddy Smith: No, it was a long wind answer, but I think that's exactly what people want to hear.

[00:17:16] They wanna hear your exact experience. Yeah. I, if you think back to when you first got your first va, especially using your author anchor, what was the tasks that you got 'em to work on first? 

[00:17:28] Kevin Tumlinson: So this is where I ended up having to kind of rethink things and come up with that sort of ultimate task, starter task.

[00:17:35] Because, at first I tried to just hand everything off and I was a big mess. Yeah. Here's all the things I do, and, it just does not work that way. I mean, think about it, like. If you got hired for a job with, unclear guidelines, un an unclear job description, and someone just handed you, like a list of tasks that they hate doing, you, you're probably gonna fail at this job in the first week or two a month, whatever.

[00:18:00] And what we would actually have authors who got frustrated and, and kind of walked on this program because of that, because their expectation was, you know, I want them to do all the things I don't wanna do. You have to, communication is, is the most important aspect of this. You have to, first you have some compassion.

[00:18:19] 'cause you know, you're talking about working 10 hours a week with, with these people, right? Yeah. They may have other clients, unless you're willing to kind of up it go to 40 hours, whatever. You know, it, it, it's, you're gonna have to compromise a little. You should be handing off things that are.

[00:18:37] First, highest priority that you don't want to have to work with. Yep. And then as each of you acclimate to how best to accomplish that, then you add something else in. And then eventually it's gonna come to a point where it's like, you know, people can only do so much in 10 hours. So you're gonna have to either give them more hours or hire a second VA or, or whatever.

[00:19:00] When I started doing this, the things that I was handing off, it, it kind of went sideways because I, I, that's what I was doing, was trying to get rid of all the things I hate doing. 

[00:19:09] Teddy Smith: Yeah. You know, 

[00:19:10] Kevin Tumlinson: I don't wanna deal with my email. I don't wanna deal with my calendar. I don't wanna deal with booking myself on trout for travel to conferences and things like that.

[00:19:17] But I also don't wanna deal with, the marketing, I want to hand off my podcast and let you do the video editing. I want to, I want you to take, start up a whole new TikTok thing. I, I went overboard. And it became obvious pretty quick that that wasn't gonna work, 

[00:19:30] Yeah. She wasn't capable of keeping up with all that stuff, and it was unfair of me to ask her. But, it, it sort of, it was almost good that we had that trial by fire because now, we both realize what our limitations are and what our needs are. But I want you to learn from me. Before you do this, I want you to say, okay, what's reasonable?

[00:19:51] I get 10 hours a week. That's what I'm committing to. No contract, by the way. So if you do this for a month and you, it's not really working, you can always cancel this. Yeah. But, i'm getting 10 hours a week. How do I effectively use those hours to do something that that benefits my business? If you think like that you're gonna do, you're gonna do much better at this.

[00:20:13] Think in terms of this is a human being, not a machine, Give them, you're gonna be, you're gonna have to give them the resources that they need to do the job. So if they, if you need them to do layout for you in velum for your books, then you, they need to have access to velum. So you need to be able to, give them access to you, to that software.

[00:20:30] Same with, if they're gonna be, 'cause some of these, some of these VAs can do first reads for you, help with the editing, things like that. So they're gonna need access to, whatever format you prefer. If you want them to do the work directly in Scrivener, then you're gonna have to give them access to Scrivener somehow.

[00:20:46] So there's, there's, there's gonna be a lot of this there, and you're gonna have to figure some things out as you go, but as long as you're conscious of that and aware and compassionate, you're gonna do pretty well. Yeah. So I think that's, I think that hits all the notes, but 

[00:21:02] Teddy Smith: yeah, for sure. Yeah. Now, one thing I'm thinking about getting a VA to help me with is with, things like, book clicker, uh, yeah.

[00:21:10] Story, origin, book funnels, that sort of thing. So let's, why don't we do a little case study about like exactly say, you and me and you are gonna hire someone to do some of that work for you. And the aim is you want to increase your news exercise. And also to, get more people, to sell, to sell more books through your newsletters.

[00:21:26] Yeah. So how would you start with using a newsletter in that scenario? With using a VA in that scenario? 

[00:21:32] Kevin Tumlinson: Okay, well first, first up, all those things you just said are things I would say to the person on the discovery call so that they can go find you the best resource that matches what you need. I would, before I even brought a VA on, get your own process straight in your head, right?

[00:21:48] Yeah. And on paper. Like, what are the things I'm trying to do? Okay, boom, boom, boom, boom. What are the tools I need to do it? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and get those accounts set up. Figure out how you're gonna share it. if you're gonna use LastPass or something to share passwords or whatever. Get all that stuff set up ahead of time.

[00:22:04] Yeah, right. Just start thinking in terms of like, before you ever even do the discovery call, Well, and you could do the discovery call, but, but before you actually agree to somebody, get all these things set up, actually it might benefit you to do the interviews and ask the VAs, have you done this before?

[00:22:21] What did you use? What tools are you familiar with that might actually help you narrow down like what you need to invest in, right? Yeah. Both in time and, and money. And, and, and kind of just have all that set aside. Put some thought ahead of time into how, what is your preferred method of communication?

[00:22:40] What do you wanna try, if nothing else? What's your backup plan, right? Like if you first, at first think we'll just do email, but then you hate doing email, well, what's, what's the alternative? What's another way that they can reach out to you? what, what software do you, possess that they need to access to?

[00:22:56] And what software do you need to acquire or what can you. Get by with, because maybe you write in Scrivener, but you could export that to Google Docs for them to do the editing and that would be just fine. Yeah. So they may not need access to all that, but putting some thought into that ahead of time and then also asking for their advice, that's gonna put you pretty far ahead.

[00:23:17] Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean. Again, I, I, I think I hit all the notes there, but yeah, just get your processes 

[00:23:24] Teddy Smith: in place first before you try and hire someone to do it. Yeah. Because otherwise, and 

[00:23:27] Kevin Tumlinson: you wanna get them to help you shape those processes when you start, but they, and sometimes that may mean building it from scratch, like I said, with the 'cause Kickstarter, for example, something I haven't done, so.

[00:23:41] I'm not gonna have a process for how to, how best to do that. But if, if I told the people on the discovery call, I want someone who's proficient with Kickstarter, then presumably they are. You wanna ask that, that va that, some questions around that in the, in the interview. And when you bring 'em on board, that's the time to leverage their expertise.

[00:24:00] Create for me a process. Make it so that I can understand it, you know, and so that others can understand it. 'cause another thing that could happen later is like. Let's say you've been working with this VA for a while and you wanna move them on to other things. This service is so inexpensive for, for a lot of us.

[00:24:18] I mean, I, I know, $300 a month can, can get pricey for some people, can be pricey for me. But if I, if I'm doing well, if there's, if this is working the way it's supposed to, it can kind of start to pay for itself. Yeah, you might bring on a second va, or you might bring on more resources to do, to take on tasks.

[00:24:36] You know, so your first va, maybe she's great at, you know, Kickstarter, but she's also, she's been excellent at, getting you booked. You know, I, I use my VA as a kind of PR rep to book me on podcasts and at conferences and things like that. Maybe she's just wildly talented at that. So I'm gonna bring on a second VA that she can train to do the Kickstarter stuff for her.

[00:24:57] Yeah. You know, it sounds like, and she becomes kind of the top. 

[00:25:00] Teddy Smith: I was gonna say, it sounds like you might not even have done the Kickstarter campaign had you not had the help with the VA to get it off the ground. It sounds like that was, and that's, 

[00:25:07] Kevin Tumlinson: yeah, that's, that's why I use that example is 'cause that's something I haven't really done yet.

[00:25:11] Um, yeah, I know everybody's probably rolling their eyes is super easy or whatever, but for some reason. Kickstarter intimidates me. So, having someone kind of hold my hand through it and do some of that heavy lifting for me, uh, that's gonna, that's, that's been great. 

[00:25:26] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Russell Loyalty's probably laughing at you right now.

[00:25:29] Yeah. 

[00:25:30] Kevin Tumlinson: Well, Russell's got lots of reasons to laugh at me. 

[00:25:35] Teddy Smith: Now, when you're working with Author Anchor, you've got that $300 sort of minimum a month. Is that generally working with. One va or would you be able to like split those hours between like multiple different tasks? 

[00:25:46] Kevin Tumlinson: No, that's one. That's one VA for the tasks.

[00:25:50] Yeah. And the way it really shakes down you're, it's seven 50 an hour when you factor in. 'cause like, author Anchor has, in order for us to make money on the whole transaction, there's a, there's this $99, fee, I guess that's associated with it. And then they, they, but the VAs get paid directly, so, you can actually give them a raise if you want, which is something we always encourage people to do.

[00:26:13] Like, you can send them bonuses, you, you're in charge of what they get paid. It's just a $5 minimum. So yeah, that seven 50 is kinda like the bottom bottom, that's, that's, that's all you have to pay. Uh, and you can get quite a bit out of that. But just like any, any business, I mean, if people are bringing, if they're kind of bringing their game and they're helping you to grow your potential revenue.

[00:26:37] Sometimes you wanna share the wealth, so you, it's perfectly fine to do that. It's up to you. 

[00:26:42] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Are there any tasks that you'd recommend not handing off to a va? 

[00:26:47] Kevin Tumlinson: nothing illegal. Don't, no dealing, yeah. it's, there's, there's gonna be some discretion that has to happen here.

[00:26:53] I wouldn't get too personal with things. But some people do, some people have their VAs communicating with their spouse or whatever. I mean, I wouldn't personally want that unless Kara, my wife. Kara, can you break up with my wife 

[00:27:05] Teddy Smith: please? 

[00:27:05] Kevin Tumlinson: She, yeah, my Kara is wanting, wanting to kind of come on board with some of this, and she wants to be a kind of COO of the, of my business.

[00:27:13] And so I'm fine with that. And so she would communicate then, but I would, I wouldn't want to do things like. My wife and I had a fight. Can you order some flowers for her? Um, I mean, maybe I would, maybe I would do that, but, I don't know. There's not, there's not a lot. I mean, you know, physical tasks are gonna be more challenging.

[00:27:32] So if, if one of the things you, you need some help for is to do things like, you know, I have. Books that I've signed that, you know, when readers, you know, fulfill this specific set of tasks, they get this book or whatever. Or I've, I've done a Kickstarter and I want you to send all the books or, or all the swag out or whatever.

[00:27:51] That is, it's possible that you could do that. But then because they are in the Philippines, like there's gonna be like international shipping rates and things like that. So it's probably not wise to rely on them for that kind of thing. But then again, there are circumstances in which that might be fine, 

[00:28:07] Yeah. So it's just you, you kinda gotta, you gotta look close at it. I mean, there's, of course, there's gonna be things that you, you're wise not to hand off. You wanna be cautious when you hand over, like any sort of, anything that puts you in a compromised position financially, for example. Yeah.

[00:28:24] Like. there are services now like, LastPass, for example. You can actually use to set up a credit card that they could use on your behalf. if I were to do that, I, I don't think I would necessarily wanna set up like, just any random credit card. I think what I would do is maybe do a prepaid Visa or something and, and give them access to that so that they can use that for transactions on my behalf.

[00:28:49] But, there's, there's lots of, there's lots of ways to work around that sort of thing. So, yeah, it really, it just kind of comes down to the things that you hand off or won't hand off are gonna come down to like the level of trust you build with this person. You know, the confidence you have in their ability to take care of things and the confidence you have in their, integrity, and then the practical costs of doing that, 

[00:29:12] Yeah. That's, that's about it. There's not a lot that I, 'cause I, I work a hundred percent in the digital landscape, so nearly everything I do is. Is fair game to hand off to somebody. 

[00:29:25] Teddy Smith: One. It sounds like you have quite a lot of different projects going on that you use VAs for. Mm-hmm. Do you think it's better to have like one VA or like a, that that is does multitask on different types of projects and becomes more of a operations person or to hire people for individual projects?

[00:29:40] Kevin Tumlinson: The approach I would take, is to bring on one va. If you're just starting at this, bring on a va. And focus on, on one particular thing that you, the two of you master together, like a Kickstarter or like ads, or, or whatever. And, but a aim for a level of proficiency where you would fold in another task.

[00:30:02] And then once you've kind of got it to a point where there's a saturation there where you know, they, they couldn't possibly take on more of those tasks. Then you might consider bringing in a second VA and having them, hand those things off. The great news here is that they're trained on that. They also know all your preferences.

[00:30:21] They know how you like to work. You can actually have them take care of all the stuff that you had to do with that first VA so that you're, that's not, overwhelming. You, businesses, many, many businesses, especially in our industry, have been built on this whole premise of. Bringing in VAs and training them to take on these tasks on your behalf.

[00:30:42] So if you, if you will, think of yourself as being the CEO of this business. So you're actually more than the CEO when you're the, when, when you're an author, like you're, you're the CEO, you're also the manufacturing floor, right? Mm-hmm. So, but there's, this is the stuff you love. I don't want to have to behave like a business all the time.

[00:31:03] I have to behave like a business long enough so that I can form my, you know, vice president or whatever I wanna call her, to go off and make sure the business works so that I can concentrate on the parts that drew me to this in the first place. So, I think it's perfectly acceptable to stick with one VA and have them do certain tasks, for your career.

[00:31:25] It's also perfectly acceptable to train that person up to be the, the maven, the boss of a whole other crowd of VAs if you want. Yeah. Form yourself a little army. I wanna add something. I keep thinking about it and I keep forgetting to, to drop it in, but there is, there is something you, I think everyone needs to consider.

[00:31:43] Um, and I say this a lot. And, uh, and it matters. But, um, this should never be something that you are thinking, uh, what am how am I ever gonna afford this? Right? It should never be something where it's like, okay, well now I've gotta give va, va. How do I, how do I justify that expense when I'm just kind of squeaking by or wherever?

[00:32:05] It should never be that it the only time you should hire anyone. Um, into your business is if they have, is if doing so will increase your revenue earning potential. So if you, if you're gonna bring a VA in to help offload some of what you do. Even if it's a struggle to afford that person, as long as what they're, as long as the stuff they're taking on frees you up to earn more, then it's a good choice.

[00:32:33] If taking someone on it means you gotta, for some reason now I have to stretch my budget thinner than before and, I have to give up on, one meal a day in order to afford this va. I mean, if it's going somewhere, if you can see like, okay, if I can do this for three months, then that.

[00:32:50] Then it starts to pay off fine. But if you're just trying to justify it so that you can have a va 'cause you think that's what people do, this is not the right time. Yeah. Right. You want, you wanna make sure that when you bring on a resource to help you with your business, that, that, just like any business, that's what business is.

[00:33:08] You, the reason businesses hire people is to increase their revenue, not to, commit themselves to, more overhead overhead. Should only come into your business when it gives you a chance to increase your revenue. 

[00:33:22] Teddy Smith: Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's a really good point. I know a lot of people are just really keen to just take things off their hands, but actually they need to focus on making themselves make more money in the first place before they can actually think about hiring someone to make them more money.

[00:33:34] Yeah. Basically if, 

[00:33:35] Kevin Tumlinson: if, if doing, if doing social media is costing you the time it takes to write the book, that would've made you more money. Then that's something you should consider. Can I afford $300 a month to have someone else do that social media thing so that I can write a book that makes me a thousand dollars a month?

[00:33:55] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:33:56] Kevin Tumlinson: Right. So like when you can, when you can like massage those numbers in that way, this becomes a no brainer at that point. Yes, I need that resource because me having more time means me having more revenue. Yeah. So that's what you need to aim for. 

[00:34:13] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. And the last question I just wanted to go into, we, we are talking about hiring people from abroad, from like different countries.

[00:34:20] Are there any ethical considerations you need to think about when hiring people from the Philippines or, some people have questions about like paying the salary and things like that. Yeah. So have you got any ethical considerations? Think about. 

[00:34:30] Kevin Tumlinson: Yeah, the first thing you should know is it's not a salary.

[00:34:32] You're paying, you're basically paying for a, a, a contractor, right? Yeah. The, the laws in the Philippines and the laws in the US make it very clear that, you are, you are bringing this person on as a, a pay to play resource. They are not your employee. So that. that right there, it mitigates a lot of the problems with like taxes and things like that.

[00:34:53] You don't have to have forms or whatever. There may be some forms, but, usually not. You can talk to the folks when you do that discovery call. You can ask 'em about that stuff. And they've, they've, they've got it all. They know it better than I do. Yeah. 

[00:35:06] Teddy Smith: Uh, but 

[00:35:06] Kevin Tumlinson: there's, there's no, you don't have to worry about taxes or any of that stuff.

[00:35:10] The, as far as ethical, so what's interesting is like the, the cost of living in the Philippines is, is dramatically different than it is here in the US and in the UK and other regions. The, that exchange rate, it's, the last time I checked was like a, a month or so ago, but it was like 55 to one.

[00:35:30] Like, so me paying this person, this $5 an hour wage, they were, they've been able to do things like, Pay for their apartment, pay for grad school, pay, get a car, and, and, and it's a modest living, which is why, you, it's a, it's a sort of gig economy kind of thing, really.

[00:35:47] Which is why you should consider, like, eventually, if this person's really adding value to your business, make sure that you're paying it forward, right? Yep. And, and, and give them, treat this person like a partner. Your business is what you should be doing. Help us, help me grow this business more so that you can earn more.

[00:36:03] And they're gonna be really on board with that idea. Believe me. Yeah. So there's no real, to me, there's never been an ethical question. It's, it's funny because I, I get asked that a lot, but you're not exploiting anyone. You're not, there's no. There's no dark side to this. It's, these are people that, that economy, there's not, there aren't a ton of jobs in the Philippines and so, it's got a booming sort of remote work economy.

[00:36:29] So you're, you're kind of contributing to an entire nation's economy and bottom line, by doing this. 'cause you're, you're providing revenue that they then go and put, fold right back into that economy. And, it is all at will. They can leave anytime they want. You can, replace them or, or quit the service or whatever, anytime you want.

[00:36:48] So it's, I think the best approach, honestly, is to, Treat this person, first of all, with, with the utmost respect, and, and some reverence because they're a partner in your business helping you to succeed. Yeah. as long as you behave in that way, I'm a, I'm a Christian believer, so, I, that's, that's sort of golden rule stuff.

[00:37:06] But you know, whether, whatever your particular flavor of faith or spirituality might be, this, this is, humans interacting with humans. So treat them. The way you would wanna be treated. Yeah. And, you won't have any ethical or moral problems. They're more than happy to do this work. They, they. A lot of 'em are, are, are enthusiastic about this 'cause it, it means financial liberty for them.

[00:37:29] Teddy Smith: It's a win-win. So that's the exact it. You 

[00:37:31] Kevin Tumlinson: want's a win. Yeah. 

[00:37:32] Teddy Smith: Well this is fantastic. I mean, I love talking about this stuff. You know, getting VAs is a, one of the things I talked to a lot of authors about and they didn't really know anything about it. And so when I first heard you were working with Author Anchor, I was like, I gotta get you on to talk about this.

[00:37:43] Yeah, yeah. Um, if people wanna hear more about author Anca book a discovery call, do that sort of stuff, where's the, where's the next step? 

[00:37:50] Kevin Tumlinson: I'm gonna give you two. Two URLs. The first is author anchor.com where you can, you'll see a very handsome man represented as the Chief Brand Officer on that page, and that that can kind of give you, and there's a big old button there that says, book a free discovery call.

[00:38:06] Um, you can do that if you go to author anchor.com/promo. That would actually help me a little because it, it, it shows that you heard about this from one of my things. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, but either way, if you just tell them. I like, I don't get a kickback or anything, it's just, I just like them to see that this stuff is working.

[00:38:26] But either way, if you just say in the call, Hey, I was talking to Kevin Thomas, or in the, they'll get emails and things like that, but if you just say you were, you heard from me, you heard from Teddy Smith, that's appreciated. Author anchor.com. 

[00:38:40] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for coming on Kevin.

[00:38:42] Uh, it's been great to chat to you. I'm really looking forward to starting work with VAs. I'm gonna get them working on the, uh, book clicker and the story origin stuff straight away. So thanks very much. Be sure to 

[00:38:51] Kevin Tumlinson: share your story. I'm gonna eventually, start talking to people who've been using the service and getting, doing some like podcast style.

[00:38:57] Um. Thing calls, to put on YouTube. So, make sure you document how it goes for you. I'd love to chat with you when you, when you've been doing it a while. 

[00:39:05] Teddy Smith: That sounds good. Okay. Well, brilliant. Well, thanks, thanks Camille. We'll speak in soon. Take care. Thank you so much for tuning this publishing Informant show.

[00:39:14] I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I absolutely love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now, just before we wrap up, I want to tell you about our publishing form. Starter packs. These are curated episodes and collections organized by topic that makes it super easy to find the exact content you're looking for.

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