S02E08: What Sources of Money We Tap

Sam and Matilda are drilling down into income diversification once more!

Next week they will be talking about branding and everyone's favourite topic... social media! 

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with:

Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/3QHym3m

Most recent book:

Heart of the Wolf (Moons & Magic Book 2) https://amzn.eu/d/4HecH3a

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: www.MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)  

Mentioned on the show:

JOIN THE PEN TO PAYCHECK DISCORD: https://discord.gg/w7BjxmeXfF

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the Self Publishing Mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books about Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Samantha Cummings, here with my co-host Matilda Swift, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our mastery through missteps journey.

Each week we cover a topic to help along the way, and this week's topic is income diversification.

I hope it's such a long word.

Before that, what are your wins and whinjies of the week?

I feel like it's been such a long week this week.

Like, I feel like I haven't seen you for a year.

And partly that's because I have just done so much work.

So I had my book into like book three of my new series, so the last of the rapid release ones I'm prepping, went into the editor on Wednesday, which meant like, in fact, it wasn't super late, I had quite a much more relaxed time, by which I mean, I finished at midnight rather than 2am.

And I gave myself like little breaks from the evening.

I think I've got better at trying to give myself breaks.

I'm trying to be really conscious about that, about saying rather than just plowing on until I die, take an hour off, have a dinner break, like watch some TV.

And I'm the same this weekend, actually, I've done lots of breaks.

So I got my book into the editor on Wednesday, I need to proofread book two and get everything for myself in the next few days.

Ideally, I wanted it on this weekend, but actually, I've just been so, I feel like I'm very close to, not burnout, but like feeling awful, like feeling like I, it will take me a long time to recover.

And so I'm just trying to tread a little bit lightly and maybe be a couple days behind schedule now, rather than need a couple weeks off.

So yeah, kind of winds and whinges, all wrapped in one.

I've just had a very long and full feeling week, lots of editing, but also I have had conspicuous breaks this weekend, but I've also fit in lots of errands.

So I got my hair done, got my nails done.

I took a like six hour craft workshop this weekend, which is really good, but very intense.

Did like a hotel visit, done some finding, cleaning around my house, and also have been doing a lot of proofreading, such as editing, but slightly more editing than I would have liked on this final copy.

So yeah, it's just, it's been a lot, but I feel less like I'm dying like this time last week, even though I'm comparatively at the exact same stage.

So that has been positive.

How about you?

I also feel so much better this week and like today than I did this time last week, because last week I felt like I actually was on the cusp of death.

To be dramatic.

Yeah, this week I've had, I feel really optimistic.

I've got so much energy today.

And I did have like a little bit of a stumble early on in the week where I just felt so like blah.

And I went to the discord to talk about it.

Like I just felt really like rubbish about everything.

And I took an impromptu day off.

And I never take Tuesdays off.

But I thought, I thought to myself, there's just no way I could do any work in the mind state that I was in.

So I took Tuesday off.

And then on Wednesday, I thought to myself, just get back on the horse.

You took a day off, doesn't have to be a big deal.

And then since then, I have had such a good week.

I'm so on schedule and loving the stage that I'm at right now, which is writing the end of this book that's gonna go to the editors later this month.

And I am just loving it.

It just feels I've got to that point again.

I love my...

I'm just following the same trend constantly of I hate work, I love work, I hate work, I love work.

And back to the part where I'm like...

I think so much of it is related to timeliness.

And I think it's so useful that we're both in the same stage together.

Because I have this week felt so up and down.

Like last week, I was saying, oh, it's such a pain that I don't...

Like, why don't I have a second full term job?

And what work I'm doing, it feels like I'm wasting time, but I'm just in the phase of making things happen.

Or like, you know, creating content for it to work later.

I have dealt with that up and down, like over and over again in cycles this week.

And it's very much like I'm just too tired.

So I do really want to make sure I am scheduling more rests so I can not waste time on being negative.

Because I am just losing time to feeling like, you know, today I had quite a rubbish day actually, because I was having to proofread this book, but it needed some change at the beginning that I knew from having reread it while I was at the editor.

I was like, I need to read the beginning a couple of ways.

And it felt so unpleasant, like facing something that wasn't quite working.

My case started to catastrophize it.

I was like, it isn't working.

The whole series will tank.

I will just absolutely fail.

Everything's been a mistake.

And it was just from like, I'm still really tired this weekend.

I'm not as dead as I was last weekend.

But if I had been in a better mood, I forgot I went roller skating as well this weekend.

I've been so busy.

If I had just been in a better mood, I wouldn't have kind of spent so long the negativity and it would have because the second half of the day is fine.

I got three things I just and I also when I'm in the negative part, I know I'm going to get through it.

So it feels extra annoying.

They're like, this is just a feeling I'm in and it's partly coming from being tired.

So it is a good reminder for both of us.

I mean, forcing someone else is useful.

I've just like, it's like you're doing yourself a double the service by letting yourself get really tired because then you have to deal with both the tiredness and then the like negative mood consequences of it.

Yes, 100% and I took the time this weekend to get outside a little bit more.

So Saturday morning was really nice weather and I woke up earlier than I wanted.

My dog did wake me up as she likes to do on a Saturday morning.

And I thought, you know, I'm just going to get up.

I mean, it wasn't actually very early.

It was about quarter past eight or something.

But on a Saturday for me, that's just disgustingly early.

And we got up and we went out on a massive walk, which I've not done at all this year because it's just been too cold and gray and rainy.

So we haven't done our usual Saturday morning trek around town.

And this weekend we did.

And I think I just started off the weekend on a really good foot, excuse the pun, because I felt so energized and happy that I got out.

We can't excuse that, it's terrible.

Yeah.

I was walking to the park.

I got there before the weekend runners got there, which is the bane of my life for the weekend.

So I got into the park before they did and felt like I'd won.

Just from the get go, I was winning.

And I think that that has just been like, I've just felt really energized from that.

And I've just and I've done loads of chores around the house as well.

So it's like, who am I?

Who is this girl?

I've cleaned.

It's like such an issue this week.

Yeah.

Yes.

So feeling great.

Loving it.

No whinges.

Fantastic.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm going to roll right past that then just in case you remember any.

So this week, there was quite a tricky topic.

So talk about the topic of income diversification.

We've discussed it before and we sort of talk about it in lots of different, you know, from lots of different angles.

So firstly, can you explain what it is and why we're touching on it again?

Oh, yeah.

Thanks for throwing that.

I didn't read that question.

I did not see that was the question.

Yes.

So income diversification is the fun challenge of trying to make money from other avenues rather than just relying on your books because we all know that it's a fickle business and there are ups and downs within it.

So it's better to have some money coming in from other places just so that you know that hopefully all your bases are covered as well as they can be.

We are touching on it again because we always said we were going to talk about it again and we just brushed it aside because who has the time to think about making money in other ways when we've both got full-time jobs and are writing full-time as well.

But I think it's important that we do raise it again and again because we have talked about this before we started recording about how we can come at this from a different angle to make it not just us making promises again, but just trying to to figure out a nicer way to look at it.

That's not like I don't I don't really know like the right words to describe it.

Just yeah, we don't want to be making promises that we can't keep by saying this is what I'm going to do.

And I think in the past, when we maybe talked about this topic, it felt quite abstract.

And I think one of the reasons why I wanted to revisit it now is we're both we've got much more of a sense of like where we're heading in a professional sense.

And like the books we're publishing are with a specific like money making goal.

And, and that's not necessary right now, you know, we're talking to make a full time income.

But kind of now we're moving towards that we need to kind of revisit the idea of what does that mean in terms of other income?

And how do we balance those rather than just, I definitely don't want to be thinking of Oh, I can't leave my job, or even think about it until that magical day when I replace my income with book money, because it's not really far away from me.

And also, we are both in a position where we have very few demands on us, as in or like other, we don't have to think of other people in the same way that others might have to, so we don't have kids.

We don't have particularly expensive lifestyles.

And so I think it is useful for us to kind of talk through this as an exercise in like how we make this decision and what it depends on.

So when I was maybe two weeks ago now, or a week ago when I met with someone from my Discord, I think I mentioned last time, one of the things we were talking about was like money and quitting your job.

And I was saying, I sort of feel like it's going to reach a stage for me where it is stupid to stay in a job than to leave my job, even if I'm not on the stage where I make enough money for my job to pay for my bills.

Just because I have a large sense of myself is from being someone who can leap in a net will appear, and I enjoy taking risks.

And in the past, I've done that a lot through traveling and doing fun, exciting things.

And I have set my life up in a way to enable that.

Like I have not got a family on purpose so that I can take wild risks in my life and enjoy it.

And I think you only get one life, you should be doing the most you can.

And I don't want to be stable and secure.

I want to be like pushing boundaries and doing the most that I can.

So I feel like since I moved back to the UK, it's definitely not an environment that encourages that.

And I can feel myself getting dragged into the idea of like security and prioritizing that.

And I want to make sure that I am not getting, I'm not preventing myself from doing things by getting such into that.

And so one of the things I want to do is think about like, how can I give myself enough security that if I quit my job, it would feel not stupid, but also how do I avoid waiting too long?

Because I don't have to replace my income, right?

I've got other sources of income that we'll talk about now.

And I want to do more income diversification so that I feel confident with it.

But I don't want to feel like I'm like treading water.

So that's, that's partly why I wanted to think about it.

Do you feel like you're in a similar position, or you got other factors that you're thinking about?

I think it's, it's funny that you had mentioned about taking risks and feeling like you don't want to live just like the same life that everybody else lives, because that's definitely how I feel inside.

But even just recently, I realized that I'm still, even though like I live like away from my family, like I say away, I just mean, not in the same house, that's two minutes away.

But I live away from my family, so I'm living my own life.

And yet I'm still, I still feel the pressure of expectation from them.

And I'll just like have like, say tell this little anecdote about how like, this is my mental state, is that recently, I have a dream house, which is down the road.

It's the gate house of a cemetery.

It's beautiful.

My absolute dream of a house.

And I got the wheels of the universe turning and got this house put on the market.

So it's every, I have started this, this thing that I think eventually will lead to me living in this house.

And the house actually came back onto the market because somebody bought it at auction and then tried to resell it, but it was like too much money and no one's bought it.

So they put it back on auction for 100 grand less.

And I was watching the auction, nobody bid on it, not a soul.

So like, because I'm not in a position, you have to be a cash buyer or, you know, like get a bridge loan, which was like, yeah.

So it's like, I'm not in a position to buy a house at auction.

Maybe one day.

Yeah, exactly.

You've got to, they're looking, they were looking for developers, but nobody bid.

And so in my mind, that means they'll probably put it back on the market again, for sale, hopefully fingers crossed, and less than they put it on the for auction, potentially, or even at the price that they put it on auction, I could buy that house that is now within my price range.

And I said this, this is such a long story.

Sorry.

And I said this to my dad because like my dad knows how much I love this house.

And my dad said, oh, you know, like, that house is a money pit.

It needs so much work doing on it.

Like it's just, it's just ridiculous.

Like you should never buy that house.

And I was just so like, it just really hit me really hard because it feels like that house and everything about it and like the project and the strange location is everything that I feel like I've been building towards.

Yeah, and like me and my dad both love watching people doing up houses on YouTube.

Like this is one of the things we just love people like DIYing houses.

And so I feel like he should really know that about me, that I am the sort of person who would love to do that, even though like I can't imagine how I'd ever have the money or the time to do it.

It seems like he should have encouraged the dream like, oh, you know, imagine it would be so fun.

We could do that.

We could do the house up.

It would be a dream house.

But he basically like said no to my idea.

Like to my dream and it just kind of like knocked me back quite far because I realized that I'm still living the life.

Like I'm kind of stuck between two worlds because I want to be the person who takes risks because I don't want to live the life that everyone else is living.

But I'm accidentally in the life that everyone else is living.

So that's my mindset.

So I would have found it really hard if I hadn't lived overseas to kind of stay out of that because I think growing up within not even just like the UK in general, but like a certain section of like UK society.

So like, I think we both come from sort of safe middle class, like suburban families.

Yeah, people who I think because our parents are boomers, they're both maybe from generations above them didn't have lots of money.

And they're the first generation to have like a safe stable amount of money.

They can feel like, oh, I've worked really hard my whole life.

And now I have the things that you're meant to have like the markers of success.

And I'm now comfortable.

I don't have to worry.

I want that for my children.

Whereas, I don't want that for myself.

I don't want like a...

I don't want the house I grew up in.

The house I grew up in was like a nice big family house, but I don't want a nice big family house.

I want like, I've lived in a caravan.

I've lived, you know, in like very random huts in the forest, in like random places.

And I've enjoyed that.

I've enjoyed every moment of that.

And I think my family in general, are, you know, the like marriage and baby's kind, but they're also lots of enjoy traveling and maybe slight adventures.

But definitely towards the safety side of things.

But I think having lived abroad and being able to be out of that for like very formative years.

So like, you know, a lot of my 20s and all of my 30s, I was out of the UK.

I really got to avoid that time in life where people might keep asking you like, Oh, are you buying a house?

No, I only own this house by mistake, like by accident because of the pandemic.

I just, you know, situations happened that meant it was made more sense for me to own a house.

And I only own like probably the bit I'm sat in right now.

Whereas like sensible people would own half the houses by now at my age.

But it's fine.

I don't care.

And I don't want to care.

And I think I worry that the longer I don't quit my job, the longer the scarier it feels to quit my job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's the thing that's really in the back of my mind is that I'm struggling with these two versions of myself where I know in the future, I know the version of me in the future that I'm working towards is the person who is self-sufficient, self-employed and living in...

Happy.

Yeah.

Happy.

Like living in the creepy cemetery house with the ghosts and like and the horses in the field behind, who obviously is going to be my best friends, and the crows that are going to be my best friends.

Like I know that version of me is in the future, but I don't know, like it feels almost impossible to walk through that door to become that person with like the way that I am right now.

And that's really why I'm happy to be talking about this, because I feel like this conversation is definitely the mindset conversation where we can talk about, like the realities of if we quit our jobs now, how would we, like, where are we going to replace our money?

Like how are we going to replace the money?

What, like actual rug pull you've been fired, now what?

Yeah.

And that's-

Which I think we talk about a lot is on, you know, on SPS panels, the SPS conference, I have seen several people saying the thing that made me become successful was being fired, because I had no other option.

And I just drew myself into it absolutely 100%.

And I had a very limited time and limited budget, and I just made it work.

And I think there's so much to, like, the fact that I hold myself back.

Like I don't think it's necessarily even that I hold myself back in terms of like, I'm not working hard enough.

No, I'm working really, really hard.

Yeah.

But I, I'm not, I could be, if I had to make money from my books, I would be much more dedicated to making it work.

And it's the thing that's the first thing that drops off my list, because if I don't have a lot of time, I will be like, I'll look at my ads again next week.

I'll have to let this set is due to end, you know, the end of this trial, and I'll have to come back next week.

Whereas if I knew I had to make my income from it, I would take the savings that I have in my bank that are for this particular purpose and be spending the month.

And it's not a huge amount of time either.

It's more that I, it's the mindset constriction, mindset restriction.

Anyway, it's mindset that's kind of like, making me think I have to be in kind of like, peak mental state to focus on ads.

That's not true.

But anyway, it's just, it's the first thing my brain lets go off, because I don't need it in the same way that I would need it if I lost my job.

So yes, I think I want to think today about if I lost my job, what would I do?

And my first instinct is get another job.

And I don't want to be my first instinct.

Because I think I'm at the edge at the moment of having enough things in play that I don't need that.

And I have enough savings objectively, right now, if I had to, I could not work for a year, just live on my savings.

So why am I not doing that?

Just because it feels really scary.

And then the money would be gone.

And then I might have no more money.

So I do want to have, I don't want to just be draining my income, draining my savings, and then at the end of that not have a plan.

So I have been putting other income diversification and strategies in place.

And I think we want to just talk through if you couldn't get another job, so you are legally barred, just you in the whole country, the whole world, it has been made illegal for you to have a job.

How else would you be making money?

So for me at the moment, one way that I am making money, which I could announce today, because we just signed contracts and we've had first payments.

Yes, everything is in play.

We're starting on Monday.

I am co-writing with someone who has a very successful Crazy Mystery series.

And that came to me absolutely out of my control.

Like it just came to me from being loud, I guess, in the crazy mystery space from like being present and contributing conversations and talking to other crazy mystery authors that meant that a couple of people, when they knew that somebody was looking for a co-writer, knew that I was looking for more money and more work and mention my name.

And that has come to the situation where now we're going to start work together.

And we already had a few meetings, and we've exchanged some work, and I'll be starting writing on it next week.

And that is, we're already starting with one book, but the ideal situation would be to get to a few books a year.

And that would cover about half of my income needs.

So that is amazing.

Yes.

I'm so glad that you get to talk about it now.

It feels amazing.

Obviously, it's not a short thing at all.

Like, it might be that the whole process falls apart.

It might be that the book publishes and it's a flop.

It doesn't really matter.

It's that like, this is the thing that I am trying in order to replace my income.

And it is a thing that I want to do.

And I will learn from kind of regardless of how well it goes, I will learn a lot from it.

So I'm happy to do it.

And it's not so time consuming that it feels like a job and it will feel fantastic in every way and I'll get money for it.

So that feels phenomenal.

And it also feels like a very big, like almost a year ago, I could not have imagined this, like, unthinkably big step towards becoming a full time author.

So yeah, it would cover about half of my like bare minimum costs.

So like the amount of money that I need to have coming in.

So that is fantastic.

And then other place I get some money, I have got my savings.

I also have some another part of money that comes in regularly, that is a small stipend that I get for something else.

And between those things, I could much more comfortably then say, okay, I will slowly drain my savings.

Or I could even talk to my day job and do some freelancing for them and just say, I will do maybe the equivalent of a day or two a week, or even just as it comes up, just top up my savings.

And that would feel much, much more doable than thinking about how to get a day job.

I still think I would like more options.

So other things I have thought about in the past, you know, I have got a house that is for one person, but you could live in as a couple.

But it has got an extra room that I currently use as an office.

But if I needed it, I could use this in my bedroom and then let my bedroom out upstairs as like a spare room.

I would not like that.

Like I really wouldn't enjoy it.

I don't like to live with other people, but it's an option.

And it's something that I, it wouldn't kill me.

So I want to kind of keep a few things on, on deck that wouldn't kill me, but I would, you know, find money from.

And then I have a background in tuition.

So I could find some tuition work.

There's various websites in the UK that do that.

It's not hugely well paid, but also I don't find it very hard.

So it would actually be kind of a nice break if I did just some evenings of tutoring and, you know, again, had like a little bit of raking the money coming in.

I think that would feel better to me than just seeing my savings budget go down and down and down.

That would feel quite anxiety-inducing.

Yeah, so that's a couple of ideas.

Let's have a chat through your options and then maybe see what else we can come up with.

Yeah, I have always been really into the Internet.

This isn't me saying go on OnlyFans, but I'm not saying that.

But you know, like I would.

So, but if, you know, if I'm not going to work on OnlyFans, I really love the Internet and I really love like doing website stuff.

And in my day job, I do like work on websites and things.

Not so much the same kind of job that I used to do for them.

I definitely am more in the project planning side of things now, although I'm still kind of tinkering with particular CMS systems and stuff.

But I would really love to help other authors with their websites, because I know not everybody is as proficient with like WordPress, and Wix, and Squarespace, and everything.

Strangely, like I find technology like easy, easy enough that I could help people who really struggle and make money from it.

And whether it's like whether that would be doing it for writers, but also just like local businesses around where I live, because I kind of do that every now and again anyway.

That's, and it doesn't take a lot of time for me.

It's, you know, just picking up bits and pieces that people need, updating like fonts or images and everything that would take somebody hours would take me literally minutes.

So I really do think that that is something that I would fall back on because it just seems like a simple solution to make some easy money.

Another thing that I have on my list is my bookshop, which I have also another business.

And it's like a hobby business.

So I don't make any money from it right now.

Every now and again, I'll sell some second hand books online.

I've got a website and everything, which obviously costs me money and doesn't pay for itself.

But if I had to, I would get out onto like markets and stuff.

And sell books at local markets because I would make money that way.

I just literally don't have the time right now to do that.

But if I had to, I would be out there.

I love, strangely, even though like I'm such an introverted person, I love customer facing jobs.

And even though it drains me, like I just absolutely love it.

I love talking to people about books.

So I would happily do that.

And then something that I've been thinking about recently, which I might do anyway just for fun, is we all know that I love watching YouTube videos with writing sprints.

I love them.

There is nothing stopping me.

Oh, can I say I watched the Dark Academy Train one that you both loved.

It started having adverts on it.

Yes, YouTube does it.

Yeah, YouTube will add them in on their own.

And then it's up to the person to go back and take them out.

So yeah, it's very annoying.

They've just started slamming them into quite a few of the ones that I watch, which is very frustrating.

But there's nothing stopping me from making those because I'm also like, I really like video editing.

And I used to do a lot of YouTube stuff in my youth.

And they used to make videos and edit stuff.

And it's not like too hard for me.

It's a bit time consuming.

But I like the ones that pop up on there.

They're often so bad.

Like they're bad loops of AI things where they'll be like me falling and then a giant leaf the size of a house falls.

And be like, what, where am I?

Yeah, you can spot the loop.

Yeah.

And I like and I love making music.

And I have got plenty of opportunity to make music like myself if I wanted to.

And that would be such a nice little creative thing to do, which might bring in money if I put some time and effort into it.

So I feel like creatively, I am well equipped to make money should I need to.

I really don't feel like it'd be that much of a problem.

But obviously the thing is like, I don't have to do any of those things.

So what am I going to do about that?

Because I do love my day job, but it's also a full time day job.

And they all know what I do outside of work.

Like I talk about it all the time.

And they like they know about the podcast.

So they know that I'm like going home and working a second job.

I don't think they'd be surprised if I dropped down to part time.

But I would miss them if I didn't go every day.

Like I love them.

They're great.

The reason why I definitely feel like I want to stop doing my day job is not really because I'm interested to do the job.

Because if I hated the job, I would just find another job.

Yeah, I think the job, you know, I've thought around this a lot of times and I go up a dime with how much I enjoy the job.

But it is just that I feel so much more myself on the weekends when I'm writing.

And when I can control my own time.

And I work hard at the weekends, and I do more, but I feel better.

I really just, it's the like, it's the being showing up at the office at certain hours of the day, it's having to do the same things over and over and over again.

And it's like the performativity of it.

I'm just, it feels like it's...

And it's fine.

Like I get well compensated for it.

So I wouldn't do it if I felt like it wasn't worth the money, but I just feel like I'm done.

And if I could make money from writing, why would I be doing it in another way?

And I think I could make money from writing, I just need to have more push.

And be able to say, I'm feeling really tired today.

I'm going to like read until noon, and then work from like noon until midnight.

That's fine.

That's what I want to do today.

Whereas you just can't do that in a day job.

You have to be there even if you're feeling tired.

Maybe you're going to do nothing but like chat on Slack about something or like do nothing but sit at your desk.

Play with the dogs, because we have dogs in the office, and I am just the dog person, just constantly on the floor with them.

Yeah, well, it would just be amazing.

Maybe I could be a dog walker.

Yeah, I do think, and I was talking about this the other week when I met with the person from my Discord.

I do think that I would have some work, because I am by nature just very antisocial.

And if I'm really busy, like last week, before I hit the weekend, before I handed my editing in, I had probably spent a week without seeing a single person, like leaving my house even, because I just don't need to.

I work from home, and if I'm writing, I'll happily just stay at home.

And I just forget, and like I have at the moment, because the lorry hit my house last year, I have a gigantic bar across the front of my house, like across my front door.

So I have to bend down quite extremely to get out of my front door.

And I leave my house, it would freak me sometimes that I forget it's there.

I was like, oh gosh, I'm gonna bend down to get out.

That's really hard.

I love that you like, just don't see anyone, because you're so social compared to me.

I just feel like I'm always out.

I never get to stay in the house, and that all I want to do is stay in the house, and I can't, I have to show up to work every day.

And it's a struggle, and they know it's a struggle.

I'm not an outside person.

I think that's maybe why I can be more sociable actually, is that like working from home definitely feels like it.

I don't ever have any of those interactions that you really just are glancing drains.

Anytime I'm talking to somebody, it's an intentional meeting.

And I do find that draining, but like we're often talking about a specific thing for a bit, and then you're done, and you can take a break and then come back to work.

Rather than like, oh gosh, there's that person is annoying again, or I cannot believe they are having the same conversation again and again.

And just I used to wear headphones and work all the time.

And so it's sort of was being there.

And then I have my own office.

I was like, finally, a door.

Get out.

Your own office.

I basically have my own office in that I sit in the back corner so no one looks over my shoulder, which means I get away with murder.

Yeah, but I think if I did rightful time and had like various income streams that were remote, I would try and find something face-to-face for a couple of weeks, even if we're just like working in a cafe.

I live in a popular town which has just no end of cafes.

And that might be east of the town because that's not my background.

My background is in retail, like when I had other jobs.

And definitely here, there are people finding hard to find jobs.

But it's also a very like arty and creative town.

So I think anything where you've got some sort of connection that, like I went to a workshop this weekend that was a glass fusion workshop.

And it was so good.

But like I've gone to art workshops in the past.

I've done, you know, felting workshops, I've got loads of wool, I could run various craft workshops, and I've done like lino cutting and things.

So and there's lots of craft centers here where you can run workshops out of them.

So I think I would like to kind of once I have made the jump, and I've got rid of my day job is like add an extra side hustle in.

So an extra side hustle maybe doesn't bring a huge amount of money and start with, but it's just a way to kind of be building up.

So once I got rid of like the writing side hustle, because it's my main hustle, bringing a new side hustle of the craft workshops, or even if it's like my side hustle is working in the market store, I don't know what it would be.

Yeah, I do think that that's important to think about is that you don't have to be doing a nine to five.

But if you wanted a job just for the comfort of it, you could work in a shop, a local charity shop.

I would happily go and work just like clearing tables in the coffee shop for a few hours a day.

There's a lot of small businesses where I live.

It's quite nice how the local business side of things is quite bustling.

There's a local women's group who all meet up for working, remote working people meet up and work together and have little lunches together and stuff.

So there's definitely the vibes are great around here to do that.

Yeah, I feel like it's possible.

I just my whole kind of like hesitation is that every month, I get a set amount of money.

And this is like a writing thing in general anyway.

It's like every month I get a set amount of money.

And when you aren't doing that and someone else isn't paying you, your monthly income could be different every month.

But that's just like this game that we're playing.

That's going to happen no matter what.

So I need to get over that kind of hurdle of thinking, oh, I don't like the idea.

So you have to have a way to pay the essential bills.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think it's hard?

Yeah.

So it would be a case of if I was going to do websites with people, I'd have to have a set list of clients to know that I could meet particular costs, like living costs.

And then at what point does the side hustle then become the full-time job?

Yeah.

Hopefully it wouldn't, because hopefully with the time that you would be putting into writing and marketing and getting more books out, the balance would shift.

Maybe to start with, it would be just like replacing a job, but then you have the option yourself to move the sliding scale thing to spend more time doing this than that.

So yeah, it doesn't feel as scary.

Thanks for listening to Sasha Black do her finance episodes over the last few years.

So I think she did them for five years.

I think she's stopping now.

But she did it from her first year as a full-time author and just talked about kind of moving that sliding scale.

So she had a lot of copywriting clients and that would take up a huge amount of time, but over time she could then like drop them bit by bit.

I think that's definitely something that I, maybe should look more into because I think I take it for granted that people can, that I can do copywriting.

And like I've done a lot of different, you know, marketing jobs and publishing jobs and things like that.

And some people are just really bad at writing.

Just like really bad.

And yeah, there's enough, maybe small businesses around here that could benefit from something like that.

It's just about like the time it takes to kind of put things together to like start the promotion for that.

It's another like thing to be contacting people about, to be marketing yourself for.

And do you want to do it locally?

Or do you want to try and do it, you know, online?

And then there's kind of various ups and downs to both.

But yeah, I don't know.

That's just a lot of work.

But I think it's useful to at least have knowledge of what's available in that area before you need to, and to start looking into that before it's necessary.

Yeah, I'm showing myself a note to be like, I need to work out if I was going to take on clients for websites and things, how many do what would I charge?

You know, if I think if I come up with an idea of costs of like, how much would I charge people?

So how many people would I need to help in order to make like, even like the bare minimum of my living costs?

That's something I've been putting off because I hate looking at numbers, but I really think that that needs to be something that I do before the end of this quarter.

I think that that's a good thing to bring to our quarterly catch up.

I do think that there are some small businesses that you could, you know, approach to manage their websites and kind of do some personal support.

Because like I, in the UK, work for a small kind of UK arm of a bigger company, and the big company is based in Hong Kong.

So we have one tech person who's based in the UK actually, who works at a Hong Kong company, but does some work for us as well.

And if something goes down with our website, it's a crisis and we need him to be in the UK.

Because if he works Hong Kong hours, he's finished like midday.

So we need him to be here.

And it's just so useful to be able to have someone where you can literally message him like, can you just hop on and fix this?

And it's always a two minute fix for him.

It's always nothing.

He's like, oh, we just updated this and forgot to change this thing.

I was like, well, A, that's very frustrating.

I wish I hadn't done that.

And B, thank you for doing it so quickly and fixing it straight away.

Yeah.

But if we didn't have that, if we had to keep trying to figure out ourselves, it would just waste enormous amounts of staff time.

We just don't have to leave the problem because no one has the time to fix it.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

I think that's a good thing to think is, what do you have to offer other people?

And I have years of experience doing these things.

That is my offering.

It's like, that is something that...

People can ask you to come in and look at things on their computer and stuff like that.

And you can...

Rewrite copy and all that kind of stuff.

It's funny because I always kind of put myself down and think like, who would hire me?

Who would ask me to do that?

Yeah.

But that is actually a skill.

I know that.

I know it is a skill and not everyone can do it.

And a lot of people glass over when you say, oh, you know, what are you on Squarespace?

You're using WordPress and they don't even know the answers to those questions.

So, yeah, I think it is.

I mean, I have dealt with enough people to know that what I can do shouldn't be grumbled at because people ask the dumbest questions.

It's fine.

Yeah.

But yeah.

I mean, also, like, the kind of aside from just bringing out, like, what the cost of it is, like, the next first ep is like getting a couple of clients, even if you don't do a huge amount for them, like getting a couple of people you can get testimonials from.

And then ask for them to provide referrals and stuff like that so you can start to grow.

Because I would say, what you don't want to do is like when you need it to have to be growing a massive business and then say, okay, I need to cover more my income costs.

So I need to go and recruit 30 clients.

So that's a lot of work.

Whereas if you like, okay, I've got five clients need to grow to 10.

Okay, that's doable.

Whereas like zero to 30 is massive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's partly why we went to kind of cover this today is to start putting some little things in place.

Like this co writing thing I'm doing was like, we've got one book going and it might go nowhere.

But then after that, I've kind of got the experience of that I could look for other co writing experiences, and would at least know or have a better sense of what it's like, or it goes well, and we build up to more books a year, and that becomes part of my income.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's kind of a low stakes way to test out a new source of income.

But I think I do need to look at more I do need to look at like, maybe local copyright opportunities and how I would start to develop that.

Yeah, and start to think about that.

Yeah.

I like that we've just like, it's just nice to get a ball rolling.

It's nice to get the hamster on the wheel and lure it into some sort of trot.

Because I feel like a lot of our conversations, whilst they feel like we haven't really done anything other than just speculate, it does lead me to, I love just like setting things off in my head and leaving it because I know that eventually something will come from that.

That's how my writing works and that is how my life works in general.

Yeah, I mean, I think if you start things when you need it, it's too late.

Like, then you haven't got anything going, you haven't even had a chance to think about it.

Like I made my first list, which I couldn't find today, I made a list of like, alternative income sources.

And things on there were things like Airbnb tutoring, going to my job.

I think there were some other things on there that obviously have not made the grade in my mind.

And like Airbnb, I've just like, or, you know, renting it out some other way.

It's just like, absolutely, it's not, it's sinking to the bottom.

It's doable, but I would hate it.

Yeah.

But I, you know, my parents have an extra flat attached to the house and they Airbnb that's like, I know that if I needed to do it, I could get the information that I need for that and figure out.

So I've kind of got that ball rolling in my mind of like, if I really had to, because also if I had to, I could figure out like, could I move out of here and move in somewhere much smaller, and then just rent this out?

Like, there are options available that I am kind of keeping them back in my mind.

Though, I wouldn't want to, like my mortgage is very cheap, so it's feasible for me to stay here.

But it's just useful to kind of have those things in mind and start to see like, what lingers, what keeps going in my mind?

And things like tuition, like I do a small amount of tuition in my day job still.

I have a few students who have been with me for years, and that doesn't feel like work.

It feels like, oh, how nice we get to talk about poetry or, you know, A level of biology, or we're doing like prep for your university admissions.

Like delightful.

It's just talking to teenagers about things.

They feel a bit nervous about what they want someone to talk to them about.

I can do that for, you know, every evening and enjoy it.

Yeah, yeah, that's really nice.

So why not start getting some like private clients?

Yeah, not necessarily even now, just like make sure I'm aware of what the field is, what the availability is.

And there are tuition companies in, you know, where I live now.

So I've done that already.

I've made a list of those.

I looked into them.

And I've met with someone for a whole different reason, but I do know someone.

So it's an option I want to kind of keep rolling.

And I just want to know like, Oh, that could bring in enough for my utilities.

And another thing could bring in enough for my mortgage.

And I just want to have a few things that bring in like guaranteed enough for those certain bills.

And then I'm using my savings just to cover book publication costs.

And that's fine.

Then that's going to kind of hopefully cover itself after a while.

Yeah, it just it feels a lot more achievable just having this conversation.

I feel like, oh, like this, this is actually easy.

The idea, like the starting idea, it feels easy.

It feels like we're, I'm going to say manifesting.

But I mean that in the not in the silly way.

I don't mean they like the magic way.

I mean, manifesting just in terms of where we're speaking our intentions out loud.

And that does always lead you down the path that you need to go.

That is a bit woo-woo, but.

I think there is no silly way.

I think manifesting is what you want it to be.

And it's what works for you.

I don't think the universe is part of it.

I think it's all me, but I just need to make me work on it.

Yeah, I think what's also useful for me is that like, I obviously we do live in an environment that's generally quite like safety and security focused.

But where I live now is quite a creative community.

And so it doesn't feel as crazy.

A lot of people I know here, you know, make money as artists of various sorts.

So it feels more like it's an option.

There are people juggling things.

Like I go to a writing department in a pub on Wednesdays, and it's just upstairs in a pub.

And I was chatting to the bartender there, who was actually an artist, who just does some shifts to make money between her art jobs.

And we were just chatting about that.

And again, we could do that.

Just nice way to get some extra money in.

I feel like I need to, in one of the towns over the road in Macclesfield, there's a women's business collective, and they have a meeting every month or so, where they just go and socialize and talk about business and running their own businesses.

And I've forever put off going to it.

One of my friends goes, and she sometimes regularly hosts it.

And I just think, I've put it off because I've felt like I wasn't the right person for it.

Even though I've been invited to it, I always think that I'm not running, I'm not a woman who's running a business, but I am.

And I feel like I need to have more conversations with people who are doing, not just running their businesses, but running different types of businesses, because there must be a common truth to it.

There must be information that's really helpful, that's just nothing to do with writing.

That sort of person who doesn't make my salary is, I think, quite different.

Yeah.

So I think maybe I have to go to the next one.

I have to add one more thing, but I've maybe forgotten what it was.

About women in business.

Yeah, I mean, also you can get referrals from them, right?

Like, I think those networks often, they provide work for each other.

So if someone there needs a lawyer and someone is a lawyer, oh, great, I will connect you guys together.

So I think that's just useful in terms of various side-hustling things, or to figure out what their problems are and how you fix them.

I think there are also loads of options that we haven't considered.

I think lots of people in the self-publishing world, they provide other services to other authors.

So, you know, things like having more social media or helping with formatting or editing, things like that.

I think for me, there's nothing that particularly caused me in that direction.

But I do kind of want to stay aware and think about that.

But it's not something that I've got top of my mind at the moment.

So, but also I'm kind of excited to see what people in the Discord will say about this.

So I'm hoping, if we ask people in the Discord, like, what are your income diversification, like, what's your situation currently and what are your goals for future?

We can get some ideas of like ways people would like to diversify or are currently diversifying and to give just more ideas of what's possible.

We'd be really good.

Yes, I can't wait to hear what everyone else is doing slash thinking of doing.

Because you do only think about what you can imagine and you can't know things that you don't know.

Wow, I'm so good at speaking.

Get this girl on a podcast.

Oh, it's just, it's been a long day.

Okay, so I think we have exhausted the topic maybe, yes?

So next week we are revisiting another topic that we've looked at a little while ago, which is social media and branding.

Do you have any initial thoughts on this right now?

Yes, I don't want to talk about it because I have done no social media at all.

I was finding it so useful as a way to just keep myself focused on putting my books out there, and even just the way it affected my feeling about my own work, and its presence in the world was very useful, but I have absolutely not had the time or bandwidth to do it recently, and that feels really rubbish.

And it's a thing I may want to...

I think the podcast will be useful to get me refocused on it, but also to think about why it's always one of the first things I drop.

Like ads, first thing I drop, this is probably the second thing I drop.

Why?

When it's actually quite quick, it's not the time it takes, it's like the mental energy.

So how can I figure out a way around that?

Yeah, yeah, understandable.

I can't wait to talk about it because I feel like I've got a lot of whims.

And I'm sure that I will fall flat on my face, but yeah, I'm looking forward to talking about it because I feel like I've done a lot of work around this recently.

So it'd be nice to actually talk about it.

Well, thank you very much everybody for listening.

Hopefully you enjoyed this episode.

Don't forget to like, like it wherever you are, subscribe wherever you are, and share it with your friends and family.

And also people who are writers and stuff.

Mostly them.

But mostly people who you think will enjoy this and find this beneficial.

If you're not in the Discord, there is a link in our show notes to join.

It's a very fun place and we hope to see you there.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

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