Jonathan Green: Power Publishing with special guest Magnus Carter on today's episode.

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Announcer: Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now, then you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master podcast, where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now, here's your host.

Jonathan Green: Now, as someone who's passionate about books, when you reached out to me and talked about publishing books as well, I got excited because it's one of my favorite topics. I'd love to know really how your journey began and how you realized that books were really going to make a difference for your business.

Magnus Carter: Okay, well, thank you for having me on the show, Jonathan. It's great to be here, but my journey in the poetry was really creative. It's definitely not planned. I know a lot of people plan about writing book. Everybody talks about writing a book, whether it's memoirs or some accounts or trying to figure out whatever they want to get across. But I was actually out late one night. I'm a network engineer by trade, and I just got home from traveling. And I got home, I was out, we were out celebrating a friend's birthday or a party of some sorts, and when I got home, I seen this ad on YouTube. In the state of mind I was in, I was like, you know what? I think I can do this. They made it sound so easy. I'm like, it can't be that easy to actually do it. So I ended up buying the book, saying I can do what they did and actually help people with providing a solution for it. So the next day I woke up and found out I bought this program. And I'm like, all right, well, I bought it. There had to be a reason why I bought it. And when I got started in the program, I found out I really enjoyed it. The steps were so simple. I shouldn't say simple, but for dealing with computers and networks on a daily basis, this was actually starting to become relaxing. And I found what topic I wanted to write my books about, because traveling the US. It was always the same conversations coming over and over again, and it all had to do with either investing or how much money they had or they didn't have any money at all and they don't know why. So when it came to that. Finding the topic of my niche that I've been working in, I felt it's like, all right, perfect. I had a lot of great mentors throughout my life, especially with investing, with dealing with money, and it's not talked about or taught in school. So that's how I actually got started. It's very unconditional, especially from a YouTube ad and a purchase that was made in not the best frame of mind, but I enjoy it. And I see a lot of great results from the books, and I talked to a lot of people that have read them, and it's been an incredible journey.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. In a moment, I do want to get into the topics of the book, but what I'm really interested in is your path to finding success. About 90% of books on Amazon never get a single review, let alone a five star review or a positive review. I'm including one star reviews there. That first review is so hard, and you have to really get seven or eight so that the page looks full, because Amazon will always show about seven rate reviews on a page. So if you have less, it looks like the page is missing a little something. But you have more than 100 for both of your books. And as a new author, what was your path or technique for getting that first Kickstart? Because you need reviews to get readers. You need readers to get reviews. It's this circle that it just crushes so many people.

Magnus Carter: It was a hard circle to start to get into, because as you're saying, Jonathan, you're actually looking at the circle and you see all these books in these niches and categories and subcategories, and you're like, well, how did I got to compete with all these giants out there, like over 10,000, 5000 or 6000? But getting that first review was the hardest, honestly, because you're self publisher, you don't have the swing and the backing. As these major publishing companies out there that have been doing this for multiple years, it was very daunting. But I reached out to a lot of friends and friends and family, and it didn't work so well. Honestly, you think they would actually be wanting to support you. And it's like, oh, yeah, I'll help you. It's like, anything ever you need or anything, it's like, yeah, I'll be there for you. Not the case. Not one of them. They read the books, but they never left a review or even finished the books. So to break into that is you have to be creative. You have to actually figure out where the people that you wrote the book for, and that's where customer research comes into play. If you find someone that is actually having this issue and whatnot it's like, okay, I'll give you a free book. I'll give you my book. The only thing I want you to do in return is just leave a review. Well, nine times out of ten, they won't. But that one 10th of a person out of that circle that you've given it to will actually read it, and then it becomes a little bit of word of mouth. And especially Amazon and other bookstores, it's best to have a minimum amount of reviews before you start running ads. And for that gets very I want to say the word frustrating because it takes a lot of money. You don't realize this one little click is costing you $0.80, that they looked at it or over a dollar or something every time someone clicks on your book. And they don't buy it's. Like, you're still paying for it, but you get nothing in return. It's a lot of persistence. It's a lot of thinking out of the box. As I was doing computer work, a lot of my research and my research folks and work groups that I've worked in my circles actually love investing. So I start reaching out to them. Instead of just friends and family, I've been finding out that they're actually more willing to help than your friends and family, because it's like, okay, well, I'm going to get something out of it, and I'll get you something out of it. It's very hard, and it's still hard because I'm still trying to get those more reviews and more reviews because other books are coming out, and the books that are already out are still gaining. You can't stop. It never stops.

Jonathan Green: Yeah, you brought up something really important. My experience was the same when I started publishing books so many years ago. I went to my friends and family, and I thought exactly the same thing. I was like, even people I'd done hundreds of thousands of dollars of business with, I'll never forget. My mom was like, I'll give you $10 to not have to read your book. And I was like, wow. But it's such a true story. And I feel the same way when people I will not read someone's book now unless they pay me, because I've written hundreds of books myself. I've worked with tons of clients now. It's like, it's work, right? It's absolutely my work. And I'm reading books for clients constantly. I'm working on four or five client books today that I've worked on throughout the day before this call. So it's a big part of my life. So I have a different excuse, but I know where they're coming from. Actually, my best story is there's a guy where I used to live who was not very quick. He was kind of like, not the smartest guy, you know? And he wrote a book, and he kept begging me to read it, and it was amazing. I was so shocked. Everyone was like, Why did you read his book? I was like, Guys, it's really, really good. Not just good for him. It was like, an amazing book. And I was like, what? He just really talked me into, and I was like, man, this book is really good. So you never know. The one time someone did get me to do it, the book was amazing. So I know that they're out there, but that is the biggest hurdle. And then there's this assumption that you need an existing audience to get going. And that's not what I had when I started out. I had to grind. And I know that it's different. I was doing this a lot in 2016 when I put out my first big bestseller, was A Different Process. It always is changing. I think the thing that a lot of people skip is the middle. The hardest part of the book is between when you publish it and when it starts to get momentum, that kickstart. There's a lot of people I see all these pictures. They post a picture online. I'm done picture of glass of whiskey in the book is written. I was like, no, you're starting, right? And a lot of people are afraid of reviews because you're going to get a bad one. My main book has, I don't know, between four and 500 reviews. And there's a couple in there that are really mean, and that's going in. A lot of people are afraid, but you're not going to get good reviews unless you get bad reviews. Nobody has 100% good reviews. I think Harry Potter has, like, 10,000 really negative reviews and the most popular book of all time, right? It doesn't matter how popular book is. So I think there's an emotional hurdle as well. Like, the first time you get that negative review, it's like, this person has judged me for the totality of who I am as a human and found me wanting. That's how I felt, like a massive rejection. And that's the next hurdle, I think, is to realize that it's part of the game. If you're not getting negative attention, not getting positive attention, but it's a tough one to hit. But when you were building that momentum, like the part you went through the grind, which is the part where most people quit. That's why most people can't even get their mom. If everyone's mom left a review, everyone would have one review. On Amazon, most people have zero. 90% of people have zero. So it's really prevalent that we can't get a friend, a wife, a kid, a sibling. Guess what? No one from my family has left a review. And I have a lot of books with more than 1005 star reviews. Not a family member or friend ever. I wish that works. So the grind part being like, I'm going to do whatever it takes. And I love how every author does something different. Some authors go to their local bookstores, and they somehow get the bookstore to let them do a signing for a book no one's ever heard of. Or they reach out to different Facebook groups where they find a book reading club in their town and then 20 people buy the book and I'll talk about it while they're reading it together. There's things you can do and it's not the method, it's the motivation I think is the magic. Like you did something that was a little bit hard. There's obviously things in life that are way harder, but most people get caught at that hurdle and they don't get to that first review. So when you're going through that process and kind of realizing, oh, I want to find people that are already interested in this topic, it's a lot easier. How long was the time period between when you realized your friends and family weren't going to do it and when you went to the next thing that actually started working? What was that timeline?

Magnus Carter: It was like two or three days after I got those.

Jonathan Green: That's really good.

Magnus Carter: The text messages. It was extremely quick because I figured it's like, okay, you don't want to do it? Fine. I'm going to find someone else that will do it. I didn't get hung up on it like you were saying, especially with the bad reviews and whatnot, I got more into the fact that it's like, okay, this didn't work. So I actually wrote a list down of things, of what to try. They said it in the coursing like you pointed out quite a few of them that they suggested, but everybody else is doing that stuff. So people get really annoyed with the same questions over and over and over again no matter what group they're in, because they're trying to socialize, but you're trying to take that socialization away and make them actually do something, something productive about things. So when I found that after the second 3rd day I started implementing the other things, it got more creative with it. I would do actually computer work for a lot of either small businesses, mom and pop places and also personals, personal computers. Because I've been doing it for so long. I had a clientele that did it. So instead of charging the full rate of what I was doing, I would be like, okay, well, either you can have my full rate that I just spent 2 hours of my time fixing your computer or network or whatever it was, or you go on an Amazon right now, you buy my book and you read it and you write a review for it within three days. If not, I will get that bill right over to you and it's due in 30 days.

Jonathan Green: Like what was the bill? Around hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars.

Magnus Carter: A couple were 1000. Don't get me wrong, because it took some time. Granted that was just the time and labor they still had to buy for the equipment that they bought. I couldn't do it just for that. But it was a time and labor aspect of things. So a couple of $100, buy a $20 book and take 2 hours of your time, your choice.

Jonathan Green: How many people said, no, I'll just take the bill?

Magnus Carter: Like, two. There's always two out of like, 30. Yeah, there was still, no, I don't feel I should do this. I'm like, okay, well, that's if you don't want to or they don't like the book or they don't like something about it, it's like, okay, I'm not doing this. Fine. Here's your go.

Jonathan Green: That's interesting.

Magnus Carter: And that was it.

Jonathan Green: Nobody would do that. Nobody would pay 2 hours of their time put in that effort. That's what I found interesting about your books and stuff, is that you'll do what nobody else will do. I've never heard of anyone doing that, like, going that far with their customers, and even with my existing customer base, when I'm like, hey, guys, I'll give you something free if you'll leave a review, they're like, It never goes away. That's an important lesson, is that the challenge is always there as being in books and publishing for almost ten years now, throughout my career, there's always a new hurdle, right? The rules change, the structure changes, and the people who keep going are the one who sees obstacles as opportunities. Say, oh, there's a way around this. I just have to find it. So it's very interesting because what you did is very different to what I did. And the hardest thing is telling everyone, oh, every story starts differently. The way I got started is nonreplicable. I had a blog and a publisher called me and said, would you write a book for us? That doesn't happen very often, right? I didn't expect it. A lot of it was luck, right? Like, they contacted me about something else, and I'd been nice to the guy, and he remembered I was the one who was nice. Really small things that, over time, led to a really good opportunity. But I can't teach that, right? I can't tell other people, write a blog and hope, right? I still didn't make a dollar for more than a year. I had to wait an entire year for the first dollar from that project. So it's not always what you expect. It's how you deal with the unexpected. So having now you're in the second phase, right, where the book is getting reviews, it's getting sales. How do you maintain the momentum? Because I know that every 3 hours, amazon changes the rankings, right? They're constantly changing. Ads are constantly changing in prices. When I started running ads, they were a penny a click. Then they went to a dollar a click, and I was like, yeah. That was when I was like, okay, I've got to make some adjustments myself, because it 100 X to my cost. And there's always that next challenge. The way do people get reviews, the way people talk about books, the way you can promote books, the way that Amazon lists the books and lists the categories changes constantly. It seems like it's always the same to someone who's a reader. But as a consumer and a creator, I know that there are so many categories that are hard to find, or books move up and down categories without you realizing it, and all you have to do is slip off the first page, and then it's so hard to recapture that momentum. So what are some of the processes you do now to maintain momentum, now that you have a little bit?

Magnus Carter: Well, you're exactly right. It's constantly changing. I can give you, for instance, I was number three for two weeks in my niche, in three different niches, and I could not bump this guy off to save my life. No reviews, no books sold. But he was still number one and number two. And it had absolutely nothing to do about the niche. It was just a story. It was just a business story. That's all it was. But I tried multiple different things. I couldn't get them bumped, and I had to actually go in daily to adjust. Well, one thing I did was I adjusted my keywords. I adjusted the back end of everything because Amazon loves keywords and reviews and whatnot. So I actually worked harder to get the reviews. So even one or two reviews would actually bump it maybe ten spots every time, and still going up and down the top 100 in multiple categories and on multiple platforms as well. Formats, I should say. But to keep things moving, you got to be it's a nonstop thing. Like you're saying it's a game. The ads are I had multiple ads running. Amazon shut down one of my ads because I was outperforming. Like, top tier publishing companies. They found a reason to ban it. They honestly changed either one of their policies or something overnight that banned that thing. I was getting at least five to six sales an hour on it, and they found a way to ban it. And you're right. It's Amazon's platform. It's their sandbox. We just have to follow their rules. Get as close to that line as possible, but keep pushing forward.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. A lot of the challenge is the changing market. The way Kindle Unlimited is paid out, and it changed when I first started out. If someone read 10% of your book, you got a dollar 35. Even if they didn't read a single page after that, those days are gone. Now it's based on page because it used to reward shorter books. If you had a ten page book and someone turned the page, you got paid. If someone had 1000 page book, they needed 100 patreon. So I know that was unfair in the wrong direction, but it's a lot of decision making. Oh, do I go on other platforms, or do I go with just Amazon? And it's really a struggle. A lot of authors come to me. They go, I have a book. I'm going to publish one book and become a millionaire. And I said, well, got some good news and bad news. Good news is you can publish your book. The bad news is it's very hard to become wealthy just from book royalties. When you think of every famous author who's making big money, they all have movies, right? Like, even authors who are really big. When I was a kid, like Danielle Steele, one of those authors who was a millionaire author, romance novel. She's still writing one or two books a year, right? She's been doing it for like 50 years. So the way to maintain is to do constant output. Stephen King has written like a million books. So there's these other parts that sometimes we don't see. It's not like, I don't know, being in a movie star, you get in one good movie, you get that huge payday. That doesn't really happen for authors unless your book gets turned into a movie. So for me, the core to monetization is what I sell after the book. My courses, my trainings, my membership sites. That's where all the money is made. And that's the only way to compete on ads as they get so expensive. It can cost $20 to get a single sale on Amazon now, for an $8 book, you're losing $13. You have to make it back somewhere. So it's harder and harder for pure authors to compete. So what do you see as, like, your path forward? Or how do you see this going from a few books and the beginnings of business into a business that would allow you to leave behind working on computers and really make this the main thing you do?

Magnus Carter: Well, there's actually a lot of things in the process right now I'm doing because I fret when I see those Amazon bills come in. It's like, Amex is going to love me this month, but I'm getting points on it. So always sign up for your points if you have a credit card that you're doing this with. But as you're saying, I got to constantly keep moving. I have two more books coming out. I have one book that's in editing right now, and I'm working on two other books at the same time. I'm just getting them ready. So when I do sit down and write them after the third book is out, it's a never ending process. Like you're saying, I enjoy the process. A lot of people don't enjoy the process and said, okay, I did four books. I'm done it's. Whatever it makes, it makes. And you brought up another point, is you can't just rely on Amazon. I have the books actually out on probably 30 different platforms that are actually selling. But as you're saying is the royalty is constantly changing. You got to realize that each royalty that you're selling on the platform is different from the next one or one before that. And you got to make sure that you're not actually outselling yourself, because a lot of the same platforms, work on the same back end to fulfill. So that's one of the main things I've been doing. Funny story was I've been doing for promotions of the book and the brand. And one major thing I've been doing is I've been trademarking the series because I make both books and the books to come a series of them. One major thing is that trademarking, which is another cost, but in the long run it's going to pay off. So I'm doing that as well. And from doing my promotions of radio shows, podcasts such as this, articles I've written, reaching out to colleges, students, and actually I'm starting to actually reach out to high schools because these topics are not taught in school whatsoever. And a lot of my not my listeners yet, but the book sales are actually the lower 18 to 22 year olds. But the books I've been writing were from 30 to 35, but they span from 18 to 65. Now after I've seen the ads and I've seen the people, the sales and the demographics of it. So I wrote the book that anybody that wants to learn it can get something from it. But as I was doing the promotions and whatnot, I had a call come in that I figured I was actually going to be a guest on a show. And this was actually on voice. America. And they reached out to me. I'm like at the end of it, it's like, okay, we'll get back to you. I'm like, okay, fine, no big deal. Three days later, they called back and they offered me my own radio show. So now I actually have a live radio show on Voice America Business channel. And I'm starting to actually doing what you're doing with your podcast and starting to reach not only just a small niche now, I'm actually reaching on a global platform. So I'm promoting the books on that. I'm promoting the books with my guests now as well. That's another feature. It's like I don't charge to be on a guest or anything right now. But one thing I do want in return is I want to review all my books. Because as we were talking about earlier, that one star review, I want to know what I need to fix in my books. You did your research. You didn't see too many one and two star reviews coming out of them, which is fantastic. Every publisher and writer wants to see that. But I was actually looking forward to that so I know what to fix on the next book. So since I don't.

Jonathan Green: Well, they're usually mean so they're not usually informative. I went through that same process. I was like looking for something to change or fix. And every once in a while you get something if it's very, oh, you don't talk about this specific situation, but most of the time it's I didn't like the sentence. And they pick one sentence from the book, and that's that. They review that one sentence. Someone misinterpreted a sentence, wrote a really long review. And I was like, what's? Not what I meant. I meant the opposite of what they thought I meant, which means they were agreeing with me but didn't know it. And that's a challenge. And it's another hurdle for authors. And don't worry, you'll get there. You'll start getting bad reviews. It happens to everyone. And it can devastate sales of a book, to be honest. If Amazon decides that's the best review, it puts it at the top, right? And they show that above all the five star views, then it kills the sales of the book, which can happen. And that happened to one of my books. I was like, what? This has hundreds of five star views, but the five negative reviews are all what's, ranking? So those things can happen, and it's outside your control. And that's part of the reason that it's so important to build out this other part of your business, which you're talking about, these other strategies, other tactics. And you mentioned something really important that is your audience wasn't who you thought it was going to be. A lot of people miss that because your demographic can change. My demographic has changed about three or four times in my career. It used to be all people in their twenty s. Now nobody in their 20s has any interest in what I have to say. The gender split switches, the age split switches. And if you're not paying attention, you can miss who your audience actually is for who you hope they are, right? Like you think it's this and it's that. And for a long time, I thought, for example, all my best customers were male. And I looked was almost all ladies. All the people buying more expensive products. They weren't as interactive, but they were the ones doing the purchase. I started looking at the purchase names or the credit card names, and that was helped me to adjust some of my content, and it made things get a little better. And that's really important lesson is that books are not static. There's this idea that once you write a book, it's written. And it's not just this week. I updated a bunch of books from, I think, 2019, like three or four years ago. I put them on Amazon and I found some need to tweak this, need to tweak that. Oh, this link had a typo in it, fixed these things. And that's what's really cool, even for physical books. My first physical book, I think this is 2014, 2015 had no back cover. It was just a solid color. I was like, I don't know what to do. And it was selling a ton of copies. And then I put the barcode like, in the middle of the back, like the worst spot. I didn't know. So there are hundreds of people who bought a. Book, and they looked at the back cover, they were like, what? It looks like a child Adventist. Because I didn't think about that. I was like, let's just get it out there. But then you can change it. You can change the back cover, the front cover, the designs, and that's what's really important. A lot of people get stuck in that well, it's not perfect phase. So it's very interesting to see some of your process as someone who's a newer author and seeing there's a lot of opportunity in that. A lot of it comes from, again, just tenacity. Like the main ingredient. When people ask me, what's the secret to my success? It's I just do it every day. It's not that I'm a genius. It's not that I work harder than anyone else. I'm not smarter than anyone else. I don't know. I'm probably not smarter than you. I don't know you well enough to say that. But I'm not a genius. I'm not sitting here as, like, a mad scientist, but I'm here every day. And that's really the difference, especially for books, is Amazon. If a lot of people don't realize this happens, you can get 100 reviews on Monday, but by Friday, Amazon doesn't care anymore. It's like, my kid Amazon is like, what have you done for me today? You haven't gotten a review for me today, right? And it's like, well, come on, I got you one yesterday. Yeah, but it's like eating, right? Yeah, I'm hungry yesterday. I'm also hungry today. You have to constantly feed the machine, and that can be really big surprise. There are some really great things to being an author, but there are a lot of challenges to it. Like, now you don't need to work with a publisher. You can get out there, and you can really build your audience, but you have to be proactive. So I really like the things that you're doing. It's very interesting to me to hear someone who's kind of willing to do whatever it takes. That mindset, I think, is really an important lesson that's the thing I really wanted to share with my audience is that it's not where you come from, it's not your background, it's not your experience, it's not your education, because you could be in a different topic, and it would still be the same process, right? You could write children's book, poetry. It doesn't matter. It's tenacity. Finding people that are interested in that topic and then convincing someone to leave a review really is a process of convincing, right? People are always like, what if I pay you extra? What if I pay for the book twice but don't read it? I have that conversation all the time. What can I do? Can I leave a review without reading it? These are the conversations I've had many times. I'm like, come on. Especially for my shorter books. I know for my flagship book is really long, so I'm like, okay, do a shorter one, but it can be really daunting. So I think you're doing a lot of really cool things, and it's very interesting. So what do you kind of see as, like, your plan for the next year or the future of growing your publishing empire?

Magnus Carter: Well, there's quite a bit in the works for that. But to add to the point about the covers and the designs of the books, I fought with my coaches because the program I bought, I had coaches that would actually help along the way. And whatnot I had to fight two weeks with multiple coaches about the first book I put out because they didn't like it. They didn't like it's like, oh, no, this is too busy. It's like, it's not really doing what the book is doing. But if you sat back and actually looked at the title of the book and see the guy that's actually on the front cover, as I'm sure you have seen, we're all in that state of mind, and we want to get there, but we don't know how to get there. And after I explained that to him, then they see him like, oh, okay, that makes sense now because they weren't my reader. So once I explained that to him and then they read the book, it's like, oh, wow. Now I'm like, I'm glad you stayed with it. You have to actually, like, with the tenacity part of it, you have to stand up for what you actually know from doing. Your due diligence is actually going to work. So for the next upcoming years, I'm still publishing books. I still have more books that are in the circuit. The program actually focused on. You're supposed to do one book at a time. I blew that right out of the water because I had so many book ideas that I had to get them down or I was going to lose them. And so I wrote everything down. I got everything built out to it. So when I get to it, it's ready there to go. And plus, as we're talking about the markets changing, I have options now. I don't have to sit there and waste time to figure out what book I'm going to put out next. So I'm working on that. And the radio show is still climbing. The show is my producer and whatnot in the station, the platform is unbelievable because somebody that has no authority is now an authority figure. So I'm still building my brand. I'm still building the brand for the books, the business. I'm still getting my name out there, still building myself as an authority figure with all the articles and podcasts that I'm doing right here with you and whoever else comes along. And I'm willing to help people along the way. See, a lot of the people I did this class with is only for them and only thinks about themselves. It's not a one on one thing here. It's like, okay, you have people that are around you that are actually experiencing things that is out of their realm that you know you can help. I've been helping them, and in return, they're actually helping me out as well. I actually got a show guest out of it because someone's Facebook group didn't like their book. I'm like, okay, I read their book. I loved it. So they're actually going to be a guest on it. And when people start seeing that and seeing how the progression is going, a lot of I've been finding, and I'm sure you found out as well, is people start disliking you because you're actually gaining success and you're not doing the proper things that they're actually teaching you or expect you to do. So I'm still dealing with that and still learning. That's a personal problem that I'm dealing with because the success and there's different types of success that I've been seeing, like the radio show, the podcast, the publications, all that stuff. The monetary aspect will come as long as I build the brand right, and take the time to build everything up brick by brick instead of starting off at the third floor and then putting a ceiling on.

Jonathan Green: Yeah, you're absolutely right that there's always going to be people that don't get it or don't believe. Most of my family thinks I'm a dummy. Like, I live on a tropical island in a house that's bigger than I think I deserve. We have a pool on the beach. Monkeys play right next to our pool all the time in the jungle. It's an unbelievable life. And yet there's a lot of people in my family who don't get her. People from my past or people from high school and all those things. And that's always going to be the case. And the opposite happens as well. Sometimes I'll be on a call and someone's like a really big fan, and my wife will walk in and start laughing, which to me, to her, I'm a regular person, right? So there's always people that see you from both ends of the spectrum. And I think it's an important thing to bring up because just like I want to bring up the negative reviews, people never talk about the challenges. And then what happens to people they think is the only one. I'm the only one who's ever gotten a bad review. I'm the only one who's, like, people get annoyed that I'm succeeding too fast. And that's another thing, is that when you start to grow financially, I always thought that the person who gets wealthy is the one who abandons their friends, but it's often the other way around, is that your friends jump shit because they think you're going to change, right? Or they think you don't work hard. Like, the way I write is not how anyone else writes. Everyone writes differently. And I mostly write the entire book in my head and then I sit down and write it by hand, or now I dictate it and then I edit. But it's all written in my head first. That's why I can only do one book at a time, because I can only hold one thing in there at a time. But it's always different. Every author looks like they're not working when they're thinking about and that's part of their process, however they do it. So these are very important lessons for people that are thinking about getting into publishing or building a business online. That tenacity is very important, realizing there's going to be challenges and it's always going to be there, whether it's exciting, ups and downs. And that's kind of the reason we do the things that we do, because there is an element of excitement to it. Every time you sell a book, every time you get that royalty check, every time you get another interview, all those little things add up. And yeah, it is important as well, as you said, to know who your audience is and to pay attention. I realize that sometimes who you think the book is for is not who it's for. And the most important thing, I think, is that it's a democracy and the readers get to vote. It's funny you brought up covers because I've had some clients that had some really bad book cover ideas. And I have a rule. I say if you have an emotional attachment to the COVID that's when you have a problem. So I'm like, don't let your kid design the COVID or your friend, because then you won't want to change it if it's not working. And I'm usually right, but not always. I put up some covers from my own books that people hated, and I had to change them even though they were my favorite covers. And that's the most important thing, is like, yeah, you can change the COVID you can change the title. All of those things are changeable. And that's part of it is that you see it as it's not about the COVID it's about the message, right? I'd rather sell ten times more books, help ten times more people if they put on a cover that I don't like. And sometimes that's hard for people because we think of our first book as our only book, right? It's like, oh, now I'm immortal because I've written a book. And that's certainly how I feel. Tens of thousands of people have read my books or listen to my podcast or watch my videos, and so I have that piece of immortality. But I totally understand with your first book especially, that it becomes like, really precious because most people think they have one book inside of them, and maybe that's the case, but that's really important to kind of see it as part of a process, right? What is the real goal of the book? And this is the first question I ask every client I'm like, what do you want this book to do? Is this going to make you more famous? Is this for posterity? Is this for just your family to read? Is this to tell your story? And some people don't want anyone read their book. They just want it out there, right? They don't care if they get one reader and that's okay. And some people, whatever it takes to get maximum readers, I'll change the title, I'll change the subject, I'll change the COVID So there's a spectrum for everything. And most important thing is to know what you really want up front because that's the only way you're going to get there. So this has been really cool. Where can people find your books online so they can see what you're talking about, what you're teaching about, and kind of maybe even listen to your show on voice America?

Magnus Carter: Oh, absolutely. My books are distributed all over. The main place where all the reviews are is actually on Amazon and it's the making more money for you books with Magnus Carter. It's there. I have it on all four formats, ebook, paperback, hardcover, and it's also an audiobook we don't all have the time to do these things. So one of the things is, I did an audio version of the book and it came out really well. It took forever to find the narrator but that's on audible. Also, the radio show is on VoiceAmerica.com. It is actually still the same thing, same name as making more Money for you. It is also streamed on all the major broadcasts on all the major streaming platforms. Spotify itunes stitcher iHeartRadio google Apple tunes So it's out there. There's a wide variety of shows out there. I've been doing it for seven months now and each month is over 1000 listens on a brand new show and it's about making money for you. But it's about the weird ways that everybody overlooks to actually make money. It's the weird things that it's overlooked. It doesn't matter. And some shows are done by myself and a lot of shows are done with a lot of expert guests. So everybody from Tommy Breedlove to ex military people to the CPA that I had on the show, charles Reed last week, and even anybody that's actually looking for tomorrow, what's happening tomorrow is Daniel Tool from drone Deck was on it and it's been phenomenal and everything's changing.

Jonathan Green: Well, sounds great. I'm glad things are looking up for you. I know that it's going to keep growing and it's excited. And again, that's making more money for you. The books, the podcast, the Facebook group, it's all out there. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. This has been Magnus Carter.

Magnus Carter: Thank you for having me, Jonathan. It's been a great show.

Jonathan Green: Thanks for listening to today's episode. Making that first dollar online doesn't have to be daunting. I've got you covered. Get my free guide on how to make your 1st right now@servemaster.com.One k.

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