Pretty Messy Human
Pretty Messy Human is a no-BS, conversational podcast where TMI doesn’t exist and pretending you’re “fine” is officially unnecessary. We talk life, love, healing, growth, and the awkward, uncomfortable, hilarious middle parts no one puts on Instagram.
Hosted by Whitney Miller, the show blends solo episodes, raw stories, and real conversations that feel more like voice notes than advice. It’s part therapy session, part group chat, part “oh thank god it’s not just me.”
Pretty Messy Human
#7: Want To Write A Book?? with The Book Coach Rea Frey
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Ep 7: Want to write a book? You need to hear this no BS advice.
In this episode, I sit down with a book coach and “book doula”Rea Frey, who has helped 500+ first-time authors land literary agents, score six-figure book deals, and hit #1 bestseller lists and she does not sugarcoat anything!
After getting burned by her own bad publishing experience, she went all in on learning the industry from the inside out. Since then, she’s built a multiple six-figure business helping authors avoid the same mistakes and stop walking blindly into publishing.
She’s also written eight traditionally published novels, has seen books win big, watched others flop, and knows exactly where people get it wrong.
This is the real conversation most aspiring authors need before they waste time, money, and years.
We get into:
The real truth about writing a book
What nobody tells first-time authors
Traditional publishing vs self-publishing
How to know if your book idea is actually good
Why some books blow up and others die quietly
How to get a book deal
The mistakes that waste years
What it really takes to finish and publish a book
If you’ve been saying “I want to write a book someday”… this is your sign to get honest before diving headfirst. Pretty please subscribe, rate, comment, like!
Work with Rea: https://www.reafrey.com/
Follow Rea: https://www.instagram.com/reafreyauthor/
Follow Whitney on IG: @whitnlove
TikTok: @whitnlove
All right, I'm so excited about this conversation because not only are you one of my favorite people, we've we've become very close recently. Very fast. Yeah, very fast. But I think here's the thing, I think that kind of happens often with your line of work and how closely you work with people. That's very true. Is it? Yes. Okay, so I think that most people have this idea in their head. They're like, I want to write a book, but they have no idea what that actually entails. And so that just kind of lives in their head forever. And you, you've like structured your entire world around not only writing your own novels. What are you in like nine? Nine?
SPEAKER_00I'm about to release my ninth book here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Are we allowed to say what the title is? Yes, Dear Mother. Yes. It's a thriller. Okay, when is that coming out? April 28th. Oh my gosh, right around the corner. Right around the corner. So probably this will come out, I think, next week. Perfect. So everybody should buy Dear Mother. Buy Dear Mother. Can they is it a pre-save? Can they buy it? Yep.
SPEAKER_00Yep. It's available like online for pre-order everywhere. Or you can order it from a bookstore, which is also very, very good to do in this climate that we're in.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I do want to talk about that because I just read something about like indie bookstores are doing pretty well right now. They're having a resurgence. It's great. That's crazy. Um, but outside of that, you also help people bring their own books to life. I do, which is so cool. And I think why you can become so close with somebody because you really have to like get into their psyche.
SPEAKER_00You really do. I mean, people, I always say I'm a book coach, but a few people like, nope, no, no, no, you're a book doula. I'm like, I'm sorry, what? What is that? Because you know, a birth doula really does help bring your child into the world. And so I realized after working with authors, this is my 20th year of helping authors get their books into the world that I really am kind of like shepherding, like birthing people's books into the world, whatever way they want to do that. So, like you said, I mean, it is such an intimate thing to work with someone on a dream that lives in their head. A lot of times when I talk to people, it's a concept. They've thought about it. I mean, 80% of all people want to write books, but 80% of all people are not authors in this world. So when I talk to them, I really try to figure out, you know, what their goals are, really talking about the publication path. Cause as you know, sometimes when you come to the table, you don't know the ins and outs of this industry, how it works, what is the best way to go about it. You just know that you want to write a book. And so my job is to help you not only get clear on why you want a book, but what the options are, and then actually getting people's books out into the world. So no two people are the same. Like I've never gone through a process where it's the exact same. And you do, you have to get to know someone on a very intimate level. I'm word of mouth referral only. So trust is everything. I mean, it's a it's a very delicate balance and exchange. I'm working with a lot of sensitive information sometimes because I typically work with nonfiction authors. Um, so it's more personal in nature. So it's, but it's such a privilege. I love it so much. Um, especially just seeing, I mean, we can talk about your process too. But when someone comes to the table and they're like, oh yeah, I want to write this book, and by the end of our time together, they will hopefully have, you know, a book deal or a physical book that's gonna come out into the world, which is so cool.
SPEAKER_01It's so cool, and it's such a process that I feel like your specific was a process. Yeah. It still is, I feel like, a process, you know, and it's like ever shifting, at least for me, because you'll always find another little part of yourself or the story or the book that makes you want to stop completely. And you're also there to help with that whole thing, which is super necessary. But I do want to go back to like, how did you get into this? Yeah. Because this is not something you hear very often.
SPEAKER_00It's not. I mean, there are a lot of book coaches, I feel like, but they don't necessarily do what I do with people. So my publishing journey started really young. I went to school for writing at Columbia and saw all of my professors publishing books. Every single professor I had was an author. And I was like, oh, well, I need to do that. I want to do that too. But I didn't have an idea yet. I mean, I was what, 20 years old? Um, and so I at the time was a competitive boxer. Long story short, ended up having to get brain surgery. Um, boxing saved my life, alerted me to this mass in my brain, got brain surgery during my spring break, freshman year of college, and got an idea. Terrible first novel idea, but for a woman who's a mother, she abandons her kids in order to go pursue her dreams of becoming a professional boxer. And so I wrote this book like literally a week after I got out of the hospital. Whoa. And was like, I was in a, I think I was 21 at the time, and told myself, I'm gonna get this published. And so I started pitching the book and realized not only did I have no idea how to get a book published in four years of college, I did not have a single business class on how to publish a book, how to make money, nothing beyond the craft and like how to write a story. So I did end up getting an offer for a book deal, but it was with a terrible publisher. Their title was um, the name of the publisher was Dare to Dream Publishing, but it had a two, like the number two instead of TO should have been the first sign. Um, so that whole process and path to publication was so disappointing. The book itself looked terrible. So you're not like designing it or anything like that. No, no. I mean, it was supposedly a quote unquote legitimate publisher, but it really wasn't. It's what they call a vanity publisher. I never made money, I never saw a dime of any royalties or anything with that book. It was a terrible deal. Never should have signed that contract. And so I realized really quickly, like, okay, well, I can write a book and got a book deal, but I really don't know what I'm doing. And so I tried to learn everything that I could. I parlayed that into nonfiction. I got really into health and wellness writing, wrote four nonfiction books that I don't really talk about that much. Um, but then realized, okay, well, I can get these traditional book deals, meaning a publisher's paying me, but I don't have an author platform. I don't really know how to sell and market my book. So during that time, authors just started kind of coming to me really naturally and asking for my help with stuff, like if I wanted to edit a book, if I could help pitch them to agents or editors, if they needed a ghostwriter or working on a nonfiction book proposal. So I started organically working with people and was just trying to actually save them from making the same mistakes I'd made already. Like, uh, and and I just kind of started working with people project by project, no two projects were the same. And it became this like pretty lucrative side hustle. And I remember talking to my husband, was like, should I turn this into an actual, you know, business? And so I did, but I didn't do that until 2020, the top of 2020 is when I created my company, even though I'd been doing it for years and it was right before COVID. My husband quit his job, his like really cushy job to come work with me. And then COVID hit, and I was like, We've we're gonna ruin our lives, we're gonna be bankrupt. Yeah. But that year, everybody decided that they wanted to write a book because they had time. I had a hundred clients my first year, a hundred people who were like, I want to write a book. And as you know, going through the book proposal process, which we can talk about, it's intensive. Like you come to the table with an idea, you leave with like a 60, 80, or 100 page document. So, um, so it's been just kind of this long organic process of working with people, but it's, I mean, to date, again, I've helped like thousands of people get their books out into the world. And it's just, it's so fun. I feel like it's my duty as an author to help others do the same thing.
SPEAKER_01Did you find that there was a time, maybe it was like when you started the company during COVID and all the people came to you? Was there a time that you were like, oh my God, I'm actually really good at this?
SPEAKER_00Uh, I mean, yes. Uh because I think because I realized really quickly, like, oh God, I need to probably hire some people and scale. And I would try to offload clients on other people. And they're like, no, no, no, no. I I want to come to you. I want to work with you. Right there. It is. And it's a it's a catch 22, though, because if you are the product, then it really is hard to scale because people do come to you for your they trust you, your particular expertise or your eye. Um, so that that has been a double-edged sword for me all these years because I am only one person and there's a cap on like what I can take and what I can't. But now I'm a lot more selective about what I say yes to. I say no all the time. Because if if someone's coming to me, like if you came to me and you're like, I want to get a traditional book deal again, meaning someone's gonna pay you for your book, but we look at all the barriers to getting traditionally published. If you'd come to me and you were like, I have 500 followers on Facebook, and that's the only where that's the only place that I'm visible. Not that it's all about a following, but as you're seeing through the pitching process, about it is like publishers today want to see you well over 100,000, like engaged followers, which to me is ridiculous. I push back on that all the time. Like actually, the the normal human was never supposed to have more than 150 connections at one time. We can't even handle that. So the fact that that's the expectation in order to get your book published is I think it's ludicrous. And so I push back on that a lot and have helped so many people get published who don't have big healthy followings like you. But it's I I really like teaching people more than anything what to expect and like how to kind of navigate some of the the tricky parts of publishing.
SPEAKER_01It's so helpful for me when we got connected because we got connected through a friend of mine.
SPEAKER_00Who was a a really good friend of mine, but I've worked with her. I'm working on her third book now. Like I've worked, you know, with her um as well. So it's just funny.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and our process of that was like, I had to really trust you going into this because I was like, You didn't know me. I didn't know you. Yeah. And yeah, I'm like, I don't I don't know you at all, but let me tell you all of my deepest, darkest secrets that I haven't even admitted to myself. Exactly. You know, it is such a crazy thing. But I do let's talk about like what the book proposal, yeah, you know, book pitching process is like, because so, like you said, 80% of people want to write a book. Most of them don't. Yep. Um, and so what is the process like?
SPEAKER_00And and this is this is really great to differentiate. So if you let's say if you want to write a novel, which is what I write, fiction, you would then, in order to try to get it published, you would write the whole book. That's all you have to do. You write the book, get it edited. There's a bunch of other stuff you need to do to pitch, but that's it. Nonfiction, a lot of people don't know this. If you want to try to land an agent and get published, you do not write the book. So if you had come to me and said, Hey, I wrote this book, we couldn't have pitched it that way, which is crazy. So, in order to sell a book, you don't write the book. You have to create the book proposal in nonfiction, in nonfiction, only nonfiction, not fiction. Um, but it is the really, I like to say it's like the roadmap and content strategy for what the book will become. So it's not only kind of all the ins and outs of who you are, what this book is, how you're gonna lay it out, what it contains, how you're gonna market it. Um, it has some sample chapters in it. It's why it's such a lengthy when people work with me. I mean, it is between 60 to 100 pages. It's a six-week process. But a lot of people who don't want to hire someone can go online, you can Google how to write a book proposal. And, you know, you could write 10 pages and then pitch it and do that. But I have found such success with this template and methodology that I've kind of created. Um, but it's a lot. I mean, as you know, like ours, we had what three iterations of your idea. And sometimes that happens. You come to the table, like this is the book, this is the idea, but the proposal process is so almost like mal malleable. It's very alive and it can shift. And yours, yours did shift, which isn't always typical. But it led to, I think, what is what feels so much more like you.
SPEAKER_01It does. And it was like, and I think when you're in that process, you have to allow something like that to breathe. You do. Because you can't be like, this is the book that I want, and I'm not going, I'm not taking like any other route. I'm not gonna explore any other options. It's like, yeah, that might work, but particularly for my book, I had to let it breathe. I had to give it some space to like become something new. Um, because it was so personal.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, which is so much harder, I think. Like I have such empathy for my nonfiction clients. I'm like, why do you think I write fiction? Because I just get to make this shit up. And you don't. I mean, you have to go there and get so personal. And then, you know, the the book proposal process isn't a time to censor, because we talked about that too. Like, just say what you want to say, get it all out, and then then we can go back and like take things out if it's too personal or too uncomfortable. But when you start thinking about, oh God, there's gonna be readers reading this, judging it, making comments, like it can be a lot. It's terrifying, it's very terrifying.
SPEAKER_01Do you think people are more afraid of failing or more afraid of being seen?
SPEAKER_00Seen a hundred percent being seen. Because I don't believe in failing at all. Like, if if you don't get your book traditionally published or it comes out and it doesn't do what you think it's gonna do, none of that's a failure. Like, I feel like the people who are supposed to read your book are gonna find your book regardless, and it's going to impact them in such a phenomenal way. Um, it's funny. I think we want to all be seen, but then we're terrified of it at the same time, especially with what it means today. I mean, what does that even mean today? Is it a post on social media and that's how we're seen? Um, but if someone's gonna spend 200, they're gonna spend time to read 200 pages of your book or listen to an audiobook for 11 hours. I mean, that is a commitment and they're gonna have opinions about what they what they read or listen to. So I think as the author, it's just this kind of oh god, moment before a book comes out because once it's out, it doesn't belong to you anymore. It it really doesn't. It's it's for the reader. And that's hard when it's your story and your information.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's almost like you owe it to them, you know, and it's like, and I go back and forth on this. So I know that so many people want to write a book. I feel like everyone I talk to is like, yes, I want to write a book. People are coming to you constantly about writing books. And I'm like, well, not everyone should write a book. I yeah, absolutely. Okay, because then but then but then I feel like I miss Judgy McJedgerson because I'm like, no, you don't need to write a book. But I do believe that if done right, maybe by like hiring somebody like you or or having the right space to bring that unique story out in a way that connects with people in that specific unique way, then it's worth them writing a book. So I kind of go back and forth on that. Yeah. Is there someone that you think should not write a book?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And I I think everyone has a story to tell and and content to share. I mean, it's a sli slippery slope because like I'm not a huge social media fan. I think we've all like this expectation, like we all have to have platforms and we all have to have something to say, and we all have to have a book and or TED Talk. It's just, I don't know, not everybody is supposed to do that. But what I really love, like on I I do like an initial call with people just to kind of hear their goals. And not every idea, like let's say they have a book idea, not everything's supposed to be a book. So maybe it's a podcast series, maybe it's an essay or an op-ed that they could pitch. Um, and you really have to think about like your book idea. Could you sit down and write 200, 250 pages about it without like running out of things to say or getting bored? I mean, the average attention span is 0.8 seconds. So I mean, like you have to think about that. Like, do you actually want to follow that thought all the way through in book form, or could it live as something else, something shorter? Even like an e-book, like that. You could a lead generation magnet on your website that's maybe 20 pages or something. So I think it's really important for people to think like, is this a book or is it something else? Not that they don't have anything to say, but yeah, not everything needs to be a book.
SPEAKER_01But that's a really good point. Yeah, you know, because it does help you clarify like, am I willing to sit down and do this every single day when I don't want to? Exactly. Or when I feel like I'm stupid or I'm dumb. And I'm talking to myself here because I did that so often during the book proposal process I was waking up at 4 a.m. in the morning and making sure that I showed up when I needed to show up, regardless of how I felt that day. And it was so hard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you I feel like you didn't give yourself or you don't give yourself enough credit. Cause I feel like I'm really good at criticizing myself. Well, I know that. I mean, I'm the same way, but you you okay, there's some clients that when they hire me, they want me to take care of it. They're like, Yes, I have to extract the information, but they're like, I don't have time for this. Like, you know, you go do your thing. I trust you. But they give put you in the driver's seat. Me in the driver's seat. And then they just want to deliver a book proposal because a book proposal is not your book. It's it represents your book. It's gonna feel like you, sound like you, but it's not your book. But for you, you really push yourself like beyond just like, okay, yeah, this is good enough. Like, I feel like you you really dug in there. And I mean, we went through so many iterations, but you weren't going to just settle for something that didn't, I don't know, like didn't feel quite right. And then, you know, if you do want to get a traditional deal, you have to first find a literary agent who's the person who's gonna sell your book. And so we went through that process because I do that for people I pitch, but that's been interesting too. I think you and I are so similar and and the way we like to do things and being a little type A and wanting to control things. So you have to completely put your trust in someone else. It's not on your timeline. So much of publishing is hurry up and wait. You've done all this work, and then when you go to pitch, which sounds really exciting, it's crickets. Like you're just sitting here twiddling your thumbs, like waiting for someone to validate you. And questioning and like, should I have done this a little bit different?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I should have done this different. Wait, we should have talked to that person before we talked to this person. And you're just like spinning your wheels on all the ways you could have done things differently.
SPEAKER_00Completely. And you have and that's why it's so important to even understand how all that works. So, like, once you have your book is one thing, but the pitching process, landing a deal, landing an agent, and then getting your book out into the world. I like to say it's kind of a three-prong approach. Like, let's get the solid book or book concept. Then we have to match you with the right people, the right agent who is then gonna sell it to the right publisher, which can take a lot of time. And then from there, the most important part of this whole thing is getting your book out into the world, how you're gonna market it, how you're gonna sell it. You're gonna have to care about it more than your publisher. Um, no one pushes your book like you will, even if you do have a team. So I like to just kind of prep people every stage of the process, like what to expect. Cause I think a lot of people think, oh, I'm gonna get paid half a million dollars for this book, and then I'm gonna, I'm gonna write it, and then my team's gonna take care of everything. Yeah, I'm gonna go on vacation and have my ties on the beach. And while that can happen sometimes, the the pressure has never been more on the author's shoulders to push their book, to market their book, to sell their book than ever before. So you have to kind of go into it knowing that and um, but taking it one step at a time. And as you know, it's been it's been a long process. It's not just this like snap your fingers, it's two weeks, it's done. You know, it it takes some time. It takes, yeah, way more time than I was anticipating. You're gonna hate this book by the time you're done with it. Yeah. I always joke, I'm like, I never want to read any of my books by the time they come out because you you spend so much time with it. It's very similar to music. Oh, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01You know, because you spend so much time writing it, then you have to get in the studio, and then you're tweaking, sending notes back and forth to your producer. So by the time the song comes out, you've listened to it a billion times and you're like, oh my God, turn that thing off.
SPEAKER_00So when your book comes out, do you think you'll actually read it or listen to it? I don't know. I mean, you'll have to do so for nonfiction, you'll do the audiobook narration. Like you will have to narrate a book. Yeah. Which but also being type A and I'm like, I have I have to. Yep. Oh no, well, nonfiction, nonfiction, you get to do that, which is so cool. Fiction, you don't. So they hire actors, and you know, you get to sometimes choose like between this narrator and this narrator. But as you know, like the voice can make or break a book. So it's yeah, the fact that you get to do that yourself is really cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I look forward to that for sure.
SPEAKER_00But that's a long, I mean, you're talking 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 hours of your own words, and then you can't change anything when you're reading it. Like you can't change anything.
SPEAKER_01Oh no.
SPEAKER_00Good luck to you. Good luck to you, Whitney. That's gonna be bad. It's gonna be hard. And you have to, that's the thing. I mean, by the time this book comes out, you will have written it probably a year or two before, and you're gonna be a different person. You're gonna be a mother, you're gonna have different thoughts and feelings. So there has to be this separation that that occurs where, like, once the book is done, it's done, it's out in the world, and you cannot go back and change it.
SPEAKER_01That has been something that you really helped me with, you know, is like I getting the proposal to a place to where I could like let go. It's hard. And just be like, okay, well, I did my job to the best of my ability, and I have to work on surrender.
SPEAKER_00That's all this process is. Yeah. Like, because I mean, I joke with my clients all the time. I'm like, this industry is 99% rejection. I'm sure music is very similar, but I love when I hear no or when my clients hear no, because we're just getting the the non-matches out of the way. All you need is one yes, one advocate, one cheerleader who is gonna champion this product. And I I think those chances are really good, actually. Because you're when you, if you want to go the traditional route, you're going to hear no. You're gonna hear no so much more than you hear yes. So just using it, my friend's always like, it's not rejection, it's redirection. But it's kind of true. I mean, you're just trying to find that like one person who is so passionate about your book that they're gonna do anything and everything they can to get it out into the world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I when I got my first few no's from the proposal, I was like, oh, it's not a big deal. And then as the day went on, yep. You start to Okay, this is turning into a big deal. Yep, the book sucks. I knew it, and I'm a terrible writer, and I shouldn't be doing this. And then you start to spin out. That's right. But then it's like, hello, you knew these no's were coming. That's right.
SPEAKER_00Well I knew it. You knew it, but it it you have to remember it's not a personal rejection, it's about the book. But when it's nonfiction, that seems trickier because it's it is your personal story. But for authors today, I mean, it is harder than ever to I mean, I hate to say that, like, oh, it's so hard to get a book deal, but the standards just keep kind of shifting and rising and the platform conversation. So, what I mean by author platform is like publishers want you to already have an engaged, I don't like the word following, but just a community somewhere, whether it's online or offline. So they know, like, okay, if we're gonna pay you this much money, like we know you can sell X amount of books. But that doesn't always work like that. Like people with these massive followings, I've had clients, huge followings, and they've sold like really poorly. And then I've had people with really small followings who've sold so well. So it's so hard to predict. And the publishing industry is like, oh, well, it's just kind of luck and timing based on like if a book hits or it doesn't. And that's probably the part that drives me nuts because I'm very business oriented. I'm like, what other business can you like? You put this much time, this much energy, this much effort into it, but you can't guarantee like this result over here. Um, and I guess music is pretty much the same way, right? Like you can do everything to create like a perfect launch or album, and you don't know how it's gonna be received. No, you don't.
SPEAKER_01And it a lot of it still comes back to platform, like even yeah, because I am like I have like 90, 80, like 90,000 followers just on one platform. Yeah, right. Across all, I don't know, 150 or 200 or something. Yeah, which is insane when you think about it. But not to publishers. I know, nothing. You know, like I'm still getting rejections when people are like, oh, that's not that's not a strong enough platform, or it's not a niche enough platform, and that's really frustrating because it's like, wait a minute. So I have to do everything here. I've got to like set you up.
SPEAKER_00Well, and that's where I get so frustrated because I'm like, our job is to create a book. That's it. That's what we signed up for. That's what we're supposed to do. Their job is to market and sell the book. Otherwise, why would you have a publisher? Why? Like if they're not gonna do their job. So that's why I have so many clients who are like, screw this traditional publishing stuff. I'm gonna self-publish or indie publish as it's called. Let's talk about that. Yeah, so it's become so much more mainstream. And honestly, with uh TikTok and TikTok shop book talk, I'm sure people have heard book talk, people are selling millions of copies of their books, they are reaping all the benefits. So when a publisher pays you, they are really recouping most of the money. Um, when you do start earning royalties on the traditional side, you get about a dollar a book and you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Talk to me about like, because this was really good when yes, the math of it.
SPEAKER_00The math. Well, it's kind of depressing. I mean, when I when I lay out like the math problem, I'm like, what am I doing being a traditionally published author? Why is everyone not self-publishing? But okay, so let's say for your book, um, you get $250,000 for your book. Um, so that means a publisher is gonna pay you $250,000, but you do not get that all at once. It is usually paid in thirds or fourths over one to two years. Your agent gets 15% of that. So, you know, do that math. So you're really only making like these little chunks at a time. You also need to put 20% away for taxes. So your take home is never what that initial offer is. But what that actually means is you never have to pay that money back unless you didn't, even if your book sells poorly for some reason, that money is yours unless you don't turn the book in. If you don't turn the book in, you do have to pay the advance back. Um, but that essentially means you have to sell 250,000 copies roughly before you start making royalties. I'm an author. I love making royalties. I love getting those checks while you're, you know, sleeping. But no matter how you cut it, slice it, you're getting about a dollar a book and you're only making royalties once every six months. So you're only getting that royalty check every six months, which is so hard to live on. Now, on the flip side with self-publishing, the moment you don't get paid up front, obviously, because you're doing it yourself. So you're obviously writing the book, editing the book, or hiring a team to help you with editing, cover design, marketing, publicity if you want um to do that. And then once you start selling those books, you start making royalties immediately. So for self-published authors, you get to dictate the prices of your books. So it depends on what you set the prices at, but you can make anywhere from like four to seven dollars a book, um, sometimes more than that, which is great. So if you look at apples to apples, you know, if you sell 10,000 books traditionally, you might be making no money because you made an advance, or you could be making $10,000. Whereas on the self-publishing side, you can make anywhere from $40,000 up to $100,000 for selling the same amount of books. Wow. So, but the the downside of indie publishing that I've seen is people want to do that, but they don't have an existing platform or they don't know how to sell. Like if I was in your position, I always say this to my clients, because I don't have like as robust of a following, but if I had 80 or 90,000 engaged followers, I would self-publish a hundred percent. You market directly to them, you buy digital ads. That's what most people do. They don't fool with like book tours or doing anything crazy like that. And they just funnel their money and time into where people are buying books. And I hate to say, where are most people buying books? Social media. Or just Amaz, not even social media, just Amazon. Um, most people are buying their books online. Um, now there is a resurgence with indie bookstores. I think everybody should buy from a bookstore, um, go to libraries, libraries are so important too. But you have to know where your readers are buying books. The point of having a traditional publisher is let's say, like most of your um readers are buying in bookstores, then having a traditional publisher who's gonna put your books in bookstores, that could be an asset for you. But if most of your, you know, followers or potential readers are just clicking on Amazon or buying off of TikTok shop or wherever online, then you know, self-publishing can be a great, great option because you can just drive everyone there. And you can't be on TikTok shop unless you are a self-published author, which is interesting. Traditional publishers will not, some of them are starting to, but I have no idea why they don't dip their toe into that lane because it's doing so well. So interesting. It's so interesting. I mean, I bet they will. I mean, I hope so, because a lot of traditional published authors are like, hello, this is such a huge part of the market. Now, when you walk into certain bookstores, there's a book talk wall with all the book talk picks, and so many authors have gotten discovered that way. So the cool thing about like if someone's listening to this and they want to write a book and they want to get published, like you can get published today, like a hundred percent. It's just figuring out, you know, what makes sense for you. And self-publishing, if you are a driven type A person, like I'm traditionally published, but I am gonna be self-publishing this year because I wanna, I wanna try it. I help self-published authors all the time, but I'm like, I want to see the difference here so I can speak to kind of both sides. So I'm I'm super excited. Right. Put my type A personality toward, yeah, exactly. Give her a job. Uh I love like controlling the the process. I mean, I'm like, why isn't this happening faster? Like I can do this so much better and faster. Um, so I'm I'm really excited.
SPEAKER_01I'm curious about that too. Like, you know, because I'm getting my no's and I know I'm gonna find my yes, but I also, when you get a yes, you also have to make sure that that yes is good for me. And like, is it enough money for me to give you my story? Are you going to be supporting me in the ways that I feel is aligned for me? And if not, then it's a no. I'm gonna, it's a no.
SPEAKER_00It's a no. And I'm so glad you said that because so many people are just like, I just want my yes. I'm just I want to sign on the dotted line. But you are essentially giving them like, yes, it's your material, but the uh publishing contract is notoriously one-sided and they own, they essentially own your IP almost. So you do have to decide how much that's worth. And I mean, no one can answer that for you, but you do have an alternative. There is an alternative, and I think you can make, I mean, I think people can make so much more money self-publishing, but you have to know how to market, you have to like that stuff, you have to know how to sell. Um, and some people don't. And that's why they think, oh, having a traditional publisher will be great. But unless you go in there and ask yourselves and marketing team, what does a successful launch look like? What are you gonna do? What do you what am I expected to do during this launch? Because so many people don't ask those questions and then they're so disappointed. They're like, oh, my team didn't do anything. I'm like, well, did you go in there with, you know, knowing what expectations to have and what they're gonna do versus what you were gonna do? There's a lot of like just lack of communication between publisher and author because the author just like doesn't want to ask anything. And I'm like, this is you're an entrepreneur, this is your product, this is your baby. Like, you need to make sure that you're asking all the right questions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're working for you. Not the other way around. Yeah. And so that's why it's so important to like ask these questions and and feel like, okay, I'm hiring them to come on my team because I wrote a product that they love. Exactly. You know, that they want to work on.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And when you find that right team, there's so many great teams out there. It's amazing. When everything goes as is as it's supposed to, like you do have that support. And the book, I mean, the one asset of traditional publishing is that they can distribute your book far and wide, they can sell it in other territories. You can still do that self-publishing wise, it's a little bit trickier. Um, but it can reach so many people, but so can indie published authors, like online. I mean, you can reach millions of people at once now. I mean, that's the cool thing about wanting to publish today, is it's so much easier now, um, but it's also really saturated too. Is that is is AI playing a role now? Oh, God. I would want to do a whole podcast on this. So I just wrote a a newsletter and circulating an essay about this. Um, so AI is infiltrating the book space in a very major way, um, more so nonfiction. So, and I am not, it's funny, I I have author friends who are like, oh my God, I will, I will never touch it, I will never look at it. I it is here to stay. And so I have really wanted to understand it, to learn it. Um, I've trained myself on it. And the reason why is because all I'd say 99% of the nonfiction authors I get coming to me are using AI for everything, for social media, for their books. And I can understand that because a lot of nonfiction authors aren't authors, they're experts in their field, they've never written anything. So they're like, oh, here's this beautiful tool that can help me. The problem is AI has very specific tells. It all sounds the same. I can detect it from a mile away. So now I'm like my job has become twofold where not only helping people, I'm having to scrub out all the AI language because publishers are cracking down on it big time. Uh just recently, there were like two authors who lost book deals because they were accused of using AI. And um, but a lot of fiction writers are like, wait a minute, I have I'll feed like a story that I wrote into AI, and AI is saying this was written by AI when it wasn't. So it's causing this like anxiety, worry, and stress for a lot of people because they're like, What if my book gets flagged for AI, but I didn't use AI? And that so it's happening both ways, and it's just it's just causing this kind of like lay new layer of stress. There's all these softwares that are coming out where you can see if someone is using AI. Um, but I think it's a great tool. If you are gonna use it to write your book, just don't do that because or hire an editor who can help you because if it flags it in this system, which it is now doing, you cannot get a copyright on your book and it is public domain. So that book doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the public. And a lot of times now books are getting taken down off of Amazon because they can tell they've been written by AI, which is really sad. So I mean, you can see it. Oh, it and I wrote this whole like how to tell if something is written by AI and that it has all these common tells. So you can train it to not do those things, but you have to train it every single time with every single prompt. So it can be such a useful, wonderful time-saving tool. But if you're if you're like, I'm gonna use it to write my book in 10 minutes, like it's just not a good idea because people can tell.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And what I feel like we were walking the other day and you told me that now they're gonna start doing like a human badge.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, yeah. They're gonna stamp on your yeah, on your book that it's been written by a human, which I'm like, is this where we're at in 2026? Like, just so crazy to me. But I I think it's it's so new, it's it's become very pervasive in my industry. But we are my industry is actually fighting back. Like music, I feel like it's a little bit harder to distinguish if something was produced by AI or written by AI. Um, but with publishing, you can kind of tell really quickly. So I think we'll we'll hopefully find some sort of middle ground. Um, but music, I know it's like it's taking jobs, it's doing all sorts of crazy things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I've talked to or I saw something from a producer that was like, someone sent me a track of them playing at like a dojo or something. And he was like, wow, this is really good. And he was an expert and he couldn't tell that it was AI.
SPEAKER_00Yep, I've I've listened. I had a producer like, he's like, hey, this is AI, like the singer and everything. It was like, I I literally cannot tell that that is not a human being, which is concerning. That that's the kind of stuff that's like freaks me out a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Do you think with the rise in AI that the human touch will be more of an asset?
SPEAKER_00I mean, as sad as that is, yeah, I do. I mean, but I but I think people are already starting to be like, ugh, like they're just craving something real and emotion um in art. I mean, I think I think it's right, we're riding this wave. I kind of knew this was gonna happen, but I don't think I know some people are like, it's gonna take over everything and there's gonna be no human art ever, but I don't think that we will allow that to happen um as humans. I mean, I certainly hope not.
SPEAKER_01Oh god, I hope not. But I feel like we're definitely in the uh pretty messy middle.
SPEAKER_00We're in the very pretty messy middle. I mean, it's it's true though, and I think everybody's trying to, you know, have an opinion and figure out where it fits and how to fold it into their lives. And I mean, it's a it's a pretty crazy thing. Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_01It's gonna be interesting to see how it plays out. I kind of feel like we've talked about this before. I'm hoping that there is a social media that comes out where it's zero AI. Oh my God.
SPEAKER_00If I see one more post with like the big one of the biggest tells is not because it's this phrase that you will see it on every social media post. Like uh AI loves to say what something isn't, and then what something is, it uses contrast sentences, and it's just everywhere on social media. I don't think I've seen a single post in like the lists. Oh my god, they list things out all the time and it uses all the words. I'm like, I just can't. Like, I want to know what you think, not what this little prompt, you know, has spit out. So I think a non-AI, I mean, I don't know how they would police that. I don't know. That would be so awesome.
SPEAKER_01If someone's listening, please someone come up.
SPEAKER_00Just someone do that. Do that. Put into AI how to create a non-AI social media platform, which is hysterical. And that's the biggest thing I'm seeing is people are not thinking, they're not like they're not trusting their own brains, they're immediately putting prompts in, and then they'll work from that prompt. But that's what I realized when I was training myself on it. I was like, I'm like not even thinking for myself.
SPEAKER_01You're making yourself dumb.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. It is making us so much dumber. And I mean, my my brain is my biggest asset. So what? Like it's just crazy that that is happening. So I think really examining if you're using it, examining your relationship with it, why, why you're using it, and then read it out loud. Like before you post anything, if you read it out loud, you can really see like, oh, this is not how this is not how I speak. Um, because it just doesn't do a good job with mimicking that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, I want to talk a little bit about like book writing being like a business or maybe more of a platform starter, or just going back to like why of writing a book, because it is hard to make money in this uh place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. I mean it can be for sure. In a book on the nonfiction side, fiction it gets tricky because it's like we're not over here curing cancer, we're not, you know, telling you how to have a better life, like it's entertainment. So there's no that there's not that sense of urgency to buy this book today or it's not available anymore. But the best nonfiction books are really, again, I like to call them kind of like lead generation magnets or even like a calling card into other parts of your business. So if you can leverage this very, it's usually the lowest price point option that someone will offer in their scope of different products in their business. Like if you were someone and you had like all these like funnels and you did courses and master classes and you go speak all over, you know, a book can be a great like entry-level product to expose your maybe higher ticket point clients, um, or people who can't afford those really high-ticket items, they can maybe buy a $15 book or a $20 book. Um, so it can just be a great like entryway um option or an entry option to get those kind of, you know, maybe people who aren't gonna engage with you in other ways, uh, but they can they can buy a book. And so if you can leverage the book to make money in other parts of your business, I I think it's such a a beautiful, beautiful tool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like it could be something to where you can start doing speaking engagement. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00That's what most people want it for. Honestly, it's like I want to get, I want to lead this to lead to paid speaking, and that's where you make your money. And you know, if you have 300 books to sell at your whatever, you know, speaking gigs you're doing, that's great too. But looking at it as a tool to make revenue in other parts of your business for nonfiction, I think that's the smartest, smartest play, not putting all that pressure on the book making money. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, we were talking about this real quick before we start to wrap up at the dog park yesterday. Yep. About like your passion becoming the thing that is bringing in the money and taking care of your family.
SPEAKER_00It's so hard. It's so hard. I was just joking yesterday after we had that talk. Um, we have a friend, he's like 30 years old, millions of dollars, and he does the odd not anything tied to his passion. He'll like Like go to Costco and buy like a palette of Dutch ovens and then sell them on Amazon and mark them up 50%. And like he just does the most like random shit and it's incredible because he just makes money and it's not tied to his like sole purpose and passion. He just bought a beautiful lake house and he a G-Wagon and like not that any of that's okay.
SPEAKER_01So Dutch ovens, that's where the money's at.
SPEAKER_00All right. Take it notes. He's flipping Amazon stores. Yeah. I mean, it's so incredible. Like, I and I want to sit down with him and be like, okay, I want to make money as fast as I can, not tied to anything that I love. Like, teach me how to do that. Be coming over when we have that conversation. I need to be there for this as well. Because, you know, I because I don't write nonfiction, all my eggs are in this publishing industry basket, like working with other authors and then my own work. And it's exhausting at times because it does put a different type of pressure on it where it's like, oh no, this book has to do so well, or your family's livelihood is at stake. And like, I don't know, in my 40s, I'm like, I don't think that's the best, you know, stable path going forward. Like, I want to find other ways where I can, I would still do exactly what I'm doing no matter what, but not always tying, like having to monetize it. It's it's very tricky. And for not, again, nonfiction authors, I think are are lucky because they're they're not like dying to be, you know, writers and they just want to write like book after book. They might want to write several books, but they have other things going on for them, usually in their businesses where it's not, it doesn't all hinge on a book doing really well. Yeah, that's kind of how I am.
SPEAKER_01You know, I'm like, I want to write this book to parlay other things. And then like I see more books coming in the future. But there's other reasons to it. But it's also like, I think the whole idea that if when you do your dream, what is it? What's that quote we were talking about? Uh which one? What is that quote? Yeah, if you do what you love, then you never work a day in your life. If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. I think is BS. Because at some point, doing what you love, if you're monetizing your life.
SPEAKER_00It is work.
SPEAKER_01It's going to feel like work because you're not going to want to show up on some of those days, but yet you're still going to have to. And if your passion is tied to your well-being, that inherently suffocates the creativity.
SPEAKER_00And it's why I do so many free things actually in my business. Like I have talked probably 50,000 hours to people like giving them all the goods, like everything for free. Because sometimes when it's always that monetary exchange, like it just feels like icky to me. And I'm like, I just want to be able to like share what I love, but not always get so caught up in like a six-week engagement or I'm working with you for six months. But yeah, so it's it's I would love to just figure out a way. I'm gonna sell some Dutch ovens. Call it an A. That's what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_01We could be in a Dutch oven duo. All right. Oh my god, we would slang in Dutch ovens.
SPEAKER_00We would kill it.
SPEAKER_01You know, I did work on a home shopping network out of college as my first job. So I can sell a Dutch ovens to someone who owns Dutch ovens.
SPEAKER_00With like, maybe it's not Dutch ovens, maybe it's something totally different. But let's let's do that. Let's let's do that as a side hustle in the game.
SPEAKER_01All right, I'm in. All right, one last question to wrap this up. If somebody has that, I have this book idea in me. Yes. What do you say to them?
SPEAKER_00What is your advice? Um, well, book a call with me and we can talk about it. Um, I I mean, I I do think, like we talked about, most people say or feel that they do. But really figuring out why you want a book, number one, is it a lot, a lot of times it's ego, to be quite frank with you. Like, I want a book because I want to, you know, do X, Y, and Z, but get really honest with yourself about why you want a book and what you want that book to do in the world. Like start to actually figure that out, not what so-and-so is doing on Instagram or what your best friend did or another author, but why do why is this important to you? And then really learning about the different paths to publication, learning about the business and what you're gonna have to do and what it's gonna take to actually get it out in the world. I think we focus way too much on the craft and like writing a beautiful story and all of that comes. But if you don't know what the business is and like what your place is in it and where your book's gonna fit, who your readers are, like you have to do some of that due diligence. Um, even when you're just ideating, I think it's a great time to start asking yourself those questions. All right.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you so much, Rhea.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01And reminder, everyone, her book, Dear Mother, is coming out at the end of April, April 20th. April 28th. 28th. And you can go to your website or where, what should they do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, anywhere, you know, books are sold, everything like with how to work with me, all my books, everything is on Riafry.com, R-E-A-F-R-E-Y.com.
SPEAKER_01And I literally, I do have to say this, like I there's no way that I would have gone through the started the book proposal process or completed it without having you because I wanted to give up one billion times, at least three times a day. Yep. During this entire process. And having someone who's so knowledgeable within that helped me, but then also someone who like gets it, gets like where your doubts are coming from and where the insecurities are coming from and how to like overcome what seems like a mountain. Yes.
SPEAKER_00But she she really helped me through that, thank God. Well, and the biggest obstacle, thank you for saying that, um, is sometimes you. It's us. Like, and that's the thing, it's why so many people want to write a book, but they're they don't have a book, is because it's too easy to just be like, uh, this is too hard. I'll do it, I'll do it later. Like when you when you pay for something and you're accountable and you have someone holding you accountable, like you're not leaving without hitting your goal. And so really getting honest with yourself too, like, do I need someone to help me? Or am I, you know, driven on my own to do it and get it out in the world? But I'm so glad we we went through it and I can't, I can't wait to see it come out into the world, birth into the world.
SPEAKER_01I can't wait to see it either. I was actually thinking about this this morning, which is funny, because the whole book doula thing. I was like, wait a minute. I started working with Rhea last August, I think is when I sent you the first email.
SPEAKER_00Good lord.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't think we engaged until maybe October. Okay. But yeah. The first email was August, and I'm having my baby in August.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna have your real baby. That's right. But it's crazy that you're gonna have your real baby before your book baby, because you're even if you got a book deal tomorrow, like your your book's not gonna come out till 2027 or 2028. Um, probably. So you're gonna be a whole you're gonna have a whole human.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we'll be talking about my book coming out August. Or not August, 2027 sometime. Yes, all right. Exactly. Yes, love it. All right, thanks, girl.