The Complete Creative Podcast

This week I’ll be down at San Diego Comic-Con, and with all the hype around that event I decided not to post an interview this week. I didn’t think it would be fair to any of our upcoming guests. So instead, I am doing something special. I’m giving you a sneak people inside my Facebook group, Writers and Authors Making Money Selling Books. It’s a completely free group I moderate that helps authors...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.hapitalist.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.hapitalist.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podcast.hapitalist.com

When I started setting real, tangible SMART goals in 2015, my career saw hockey stick, exponential growth. Before then, I had a set of goals that I wanted to attain, but they were usually either too easy or impossibly hard to achieve. Most importantly, there was no way to measure success so I usually abandoned my goals before too long. Now that I use SMART goals to set realistic expectations, I’ve...

Today we have a very special episode. We are going to talk about the reasons the Kickstarter didn’t go as well as we would have liked. Before we get to the 13 reasons that I think the Kickstarter failed to live up to it’s potential, let us say the good stuff. We funded! Yay! We raised $2162 from 65 backers to make this project a reality. I love you all for backing. It’s because of our amazing fans...

I just wrapped up my fourth Kickstarter campaign in 12 months. Katrina Hates the Dead ran from September until October 2015. Then My Father Didn’t Kill Himself ran from February to March 2016. Then I Can’t Stop Tooting: A Love Story ran from April to May 2016. Finally, Spaceship Broken, Needs Repairs ran from August 2016 to September 2016. Along the way we also launched Gherkin Boy and the Dollar...

If you make it long enough in this business, cons will be a big part of your life. We make 90% of our income at cons, and the bigger the con the more we make. However, big cons mean more responsibility and more chance to be lost in the shuffle. So it’s even more important to be vigilant with your marketing. It’s so easy to be looked over at San Diego that if you don’t have a good strategy to stand...

Query letters seem like they should be easy, right? After writing a script of several thousand to a hundred thousand words, writing a one-page email should be cake. So why do so many people have problems with it? It’s because they don’t really understand the purpose of a query letter. A query letter is not designed to tout your greatness, it’s to interest other people to become part of what you ar...

I was at the Broad Museum this week. It’s a gallery in downtown that displays modern art, which apparently isn’t very modern at all. Did you know that modern art includes works created from the 1890s to 1970s, while contemporary art includes art created from the 1970s to now? Isn’t that weird? Modern art isn’t actually modern at all and contemporary art eventually won’t be contemporary. That’s cra...

I wanted to keep this episode short and sweet, but I get so heated about the idea of collaborations that it ended up getting away from me. Today I’m asking a simple question. Why would anybody want to work with you? I’m constantly bombarded with questions about collaborating with people, and how to find artists to work with creators for equity/for free/for deferred payment. They tell me they have...

We talked earlier this week about how to market yourself as an exhibitor, but there’s a big pool of people who go to cons as attendees that are trying to market themselves as well. That’s how most of us start. I don’t know many people who start going to cons as exhibitors right off the bat. Why would you? That’s a big investment without any product. Almost everybody I’ve ever met started by going...

“I’m going to stop doing shows.” It’s a statement a lot of artists have thought, but more and more people I know are committed to stopping shelling out big money on shows when they aren’t even making table fees back. I used to hear rumblings about it once and a while, but I’ve heard it a couple dozen times in the past few months, and at least 10 times in the past week alone. Artist say they are si...

Let us end these Comic-Con special episodes with a complete look at our financials for this year. I will state for the record that I only have rough numbers for 2015, as I didn’t start keeping detailed financials until this year. However, I can tell you that in total we sold 350 units last year and made a total of $5250 in revenue. That roughly broke down to 153 copies of Ichabod Jones: Monster Hu...

There are two levers which control every business. It’s the only two levers that matter when it comes to cash flow. Most people don’t think of cash flow when it comes to their business. They think about making more money. Unfortunately, making more money usually comes with extra expenses. People tend to raise their expenses to their income level. If you can understand these two levers, your stress...

The most important part in the sale of any book is the cover. That’s why people pay hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for a known cover artist to do their covers. That’s crazy of course. You should never pay somebody thousands of dollars for a cover, but it is the most important part in selling your book. Why? Because it’s what makes people give your book a chance. It’s what tells people...

Today we’re going to do something fantastically different. A good friend of mine how I pitch my material and sell so much. We sell a lot at shows. We sell more at shows than anybody else around us by a massive amount, and now I’m going to show you exactly how I do it. In order to do this, you have to know a little bit about how our table works. Right now we have two main books at the front of our...

So you have a project, an idea, a prototype, or a new line of business you want to get started. It’s fantastic. You know all the inner working, all the machinations, and now all you have to do is get the word out and the monies will start rolling in and piling up. For this example, I’m going to use a question a friend posed on Facebook this week. How to do you tell people that you are open for art...

I was on a flight and met a model and host who you would recognize if you saw her face, but maybe not if I said her name. She is the kind of minor celebrity you meet all the time in LA. Like all minor celebrities, she wants to take the next step in her career. We talked for the hour flight from Vegas to LA, and eventually I asked her who she wanted to be. Without blinking she said Guiliana Rancic,...

Sometimes you have to jump even if you don’t have a parachute. I know because it’s happening to me right now. If you’ve been listening to the show then you know we are profitable, even if barely so, but it’s been a struggle to get through most months because our production costs are so high. Right now we are paying $6/book and selling them for 1 for $20, 2 for $30, or 3 for $40 at shows. If you lo...

This is my 51st show, so bear with me for a minute before you throw a fit about me hating on a living legend. I do have a point I promise. I know it’s crazy to call Stephen King a loser. I mean that’s insane. He’s one of the most popular authors on the planet. But he is a loser and I’ll tell you why. Here’s the deal. Stephen King does very well for himself. He sells between 1-2 million copies of e...

There seems to be a common misconception out there that creating a podcast is really expensive. Well that’s just not true, and I’m going to show you today how to start a podcast for $221 right now. I know this isn’t our usual episode, but so many creatives have asked me about this exact thing that I feel that I need to talk about it. Besides, starting a podcast is one of the best ways to grow your...

So I’ve been working on a project for a long time now, over a year. It’s been a year of developing characters, story, plot, and actually writing an 80,000 word novel. It hasn’t been my only project, but there have been several hundred brain hours devoted to this project. And the thing is…I’ve never really loved it. I mean I loved it in inception and concept, but it hasn’t been something that I fel...