Episode 4 of the Beyond the Book Podcast is live 🎉. You can watch it on YouTube here, Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and find it anywhere else you listen to podcasts 😊.
I bring on a very special guest,
, who makes millions per year writing story letters called ScareMail. Story letters are stories told by letters delivered through the mail to readers. As each letter arrives the story unfolds and readers typically pay for installments (usually in 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month chunks) upfront.It’s a beautiful business model, an amazing experience for the readers, and a stellar example of what can happen when you go Beyond the Book.
And not only does David join us, but a handful of writers from the Gold Bug Collective Discord who ask David and me questions live. This makes the podcast actionable, relatable, and hopefully a lot more fun to listen to!
We cover everything from:
How to reposition a book for success that hasn’t sold well to readers so far
How to start a merch store that sells to folks who aren’t just readers of your books
What books are best suited for Reddit Ads
Unique author collaborations (such as character cameos)
Putting hyperlinks inside of books to make stories interactive
AND of course, a TON about David’s experience starting and growing ScareMail to multiple seven-figures in revenue in less than 6 months 🤯
This is a new, but fun format for the Beyond the Book podcast and I’d love to hear your feedback and if you think we should do more episodes following this format!
4 Awesome Story Letter Brands (besides ScareMail)
Story Letters are an emerging industry within publishing and there are many creators succeeding and making six-figures and even seven-figures per year.
Following is a small sample of some Story Letter brands that are succeeding across genres:
If you are interested in getting access to a larger list of Story Letter companies as well as endless resources to help you succeed in going Beyond the Book, then the Beyond the Book Accelerator is just for you!
The founding cohort will be launching in June and will contain 10+ modules, 100+ sessions, as well as 4 group coaching calls that help you identify who your core fans are, how to reach more of them, and how to build an empire of products, media, and services that help your fans beyond the book (we like to call this all Readers First Publishing).
You can join the waitlist here.
Coming Soon 👀
I have some exciting updates to share with you here that will be released to all of you FOR FREE in the coming weeks.
#1: Next week I’m headed to Austin to tour the ScareMail HQ in person. There will be an in-depth interview with David on the Beyond the Book Podcast as well as a behind-the-scenes tour of his operations. For Sidekick Plus, I’ll even have a special treat for you during our monthly workshop next Friday where I share some exclusive insights directly from Austin. You can join Sidekick Plus here.
#2: Me and David are going Beyond the Book together to develop informational cards for authors. These cards are in-depth covering 50 Marketing Superpowers for Authors (I’m making these) and 50 Storytelling Superpowers for Authors (David is making these). It’s a full course worth of content and knowledge to help you further your author career. But instead of being delivered over video lectures or blog posts, they are fun, easy-to-digest cards!
The best part, is we are giving the virtual cards away completely for free. That includes all of the content along with some beautiful illustrations to highlight the different business and storytelling concepts you need to know.
The physical cards will be made available for an affordable price via a Kickstarter campaign we are launching next month. At first, the Marketing Superpower cards will be available, then at a later time, there will be a separate campaign for the Storytelling Cards.
As always, there’s more fun things happening behind the scenes, but for now, that’s it from me. I am SO grateful to you all for listening.
We have already crossed 250 listeners on average for each episode which is mindblowing! Once we consistently cross 500 average listeners per episode, I’ll be bringing an editor onto the team to help me produce these episodes and make the quality better. So be sure to share the latest episode, if you enjoyed it, with your author friends. Y’all are the best 💙.
I’d also love to hear your feedback on this episode!
And in the meantime, don’t forget…
Together we are boundless,
Michael Evans
The Author Sidekick
P.S. Normally episodes of Beyond the Book release on Wednesdays. This one came a day late due to birthday celebrations (it was my bday yesterday). I’ll aim to be back on schedule next week!
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