Episode 82: [Sharissa Bradley] How To Get Your Book Published Without Breaking the Bank

This week Elizabeth chats with Sharissa Bradley, owner of  @projectseedmoney and 5Two Press, about resources available to writers who are ready to publish. If you want to put a quality book out into the world, you're going to need to spend some money because when you try to do it for free, you'll find it won't meet your expectations.

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Transcript

Elizabeth: 1:06

Welcome back to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth, and I'm joined here today by Issa Bradley. And let me just tell you, when I met this woman, what was it like a year ago? We connected, I don't even know, social media, somehow Instagram or something, threads maybe? No, I wasn't on threads yet. I don't know. But we connected and as soon as we sat down to have that initial kind of like get to know you conversation. We both have. Businesses that are modeled around helping women get their writing out into the world. And you have gone above and beyond, in my opinion, with the way that Project Seed money, um, your educational resource hub, which also has grants and uh, podcast as a part of it. it just does so much heavy lifting for those who are ready to get their writing out there. And so you and I just instantly clicked. And I know in the spring you had me as a guest on the Project Seed Money Podcast. So we'll link that episode in case anyone missed that. Um, but I'm so excited to have you here today'cause we're gonna be talking about all the nitty gritty of getting that book published and also how to do it cost-wise. I wonder if you might take a minute too, to talk about your background in that, because you actually started your own, your founder and owner of Five Two Press, which is an independent publishing house. So

Sharissa: 2:40

Thank you.

Elizabeth: 2:41

a little bit on that.

Sharissa: 2:42

Thank you so much for having me, Elizabeth. Like, like you said, we met over a year ago and we connected and then kind of everything fell apart for me, like truly. And even like I lost, yeah, I lost my original partner on Project Seed money and I ended up closing the business and like completely restarting from the ground up. And so it was kind of ironic, like the time that we met was like a very big tower moment for me. Like everything was. Falling apart. And so to be able to be here on this podcast with you today and do this interview feels very full circle for me. So thank you so much. And like you said, like I started my publishing house about about three and a half years ago now, and I quickly realized that there was a big disconnect with creative people in the world of publishing where it came to actually writing and then being able to like. Get that book out into the world and not really realizing the cost of that process. So writing a book is obviously free for the most part, as long as you have like some sort of word processing on your computer, access to a computer. Uh, and then everything after that becomes pretty high ticket from the moment your manuscript is done. It's like money, money, money, money, money, money. And if you're trying to like do this to. Earn money or like get your return on your investment, that brings in a whole slew of other challenges. So I did run my publishing house for a few years, just kind of watching the process happen and,

Elizabeth: 3:59

Mm-hmm.

Sharissa: 4:00

as an author, I published my own book about 10 years ago and it cost me$10,000. And at that point I had to ask my husband for the money. And because I didn't actually know that publishing costs money, like I thought everybody says it like, oh, you can just do it for free. You can do everything for free. Um, there's all these YouTube videos like do do everything for free. I mean, technically, yeah, but really not. If you're trying to make your investment back, if you want your money back or you want your time investment back, it's not gonna be free. You no matter what.'cause it has to be quality and there's such a steep learning curve if you're trying to do it all by yourself. Um, so that's obviously where Project C money came in. It was like, okay, well how do I bridge that gap? How do I give people. Everything they need from the time that they've, you know, got that manuscript written all the way to the time that they would come to me as a publisher and, and have all of those things ready. So I wanted to have a place that could serve because there's such a lack, there's such a lack of resources of money, a funding, um, and it's not because the money isn't out there or the education isn't out there, it's just there's like, it needed almost to have like a bridge, right? It needed to have like that. How do we connect. The creator to the actual money and the funding. So that's where Project C Money came in. And, um, that's my background with that and I hope you can tell already that this is something I'm super passionate about. I love books. I've always loved books, but it's not just that it, this is about story. This is about connection. Uh, this is about, uh, post apocalyptic world where we've been separated and segregated and pushed into our own living rooms and made to be afraid of people made to be, um. Separate. Right. And, and we know, like divided we fall. So if we can figure out a way to reconnect, to come back together in a world that we've never experienced before, no one knows how to do the next step, the next thing. And, and it's, it's kind of like this new beginning. We're all little babies and, um, and I want to bring connection back to the world. So that's where 5G Press even stemmed from. It was the, the idea that. Can we still be together alone in our living rooms? Can we still hear story? Can we still grow and heal even if we have to be alone in our living rooms? Um,'cause we really don't know the future, right? If we can, um, if we can kind of keep that connection going, that's where 5G Press came from. But if we don't have the money to put the books into, into fruition, then, then that whole point is mute. So, yeah.

Elizabeth: 6:28

Yeah. So when you published your book with the$10,000, was, did you have use like one of those hybrid publishers? Were they like, pay us. X, and then we'll do all this heavy lifting for you? Or did you have to go out and find each individual person?

Sharissa: 6:44

Yeah. Okay. So I love,

Elizabeth: 6:46

existed back

Sharissa: 6:47

yeah. Okay. That's so true. That's so true.

Elizabeth: 6:49

Mm-hmm.

Sharissa: 6:50

publisher, I did go with a publisher. We met in a business group and at the time she had just started her publishing house and she was also doing a coaching business for authors. So she, I hired her to coach me through the self-publishing process and that was like$4,000 and it was like a year long program. And we met. Weekly to kind of talk about my writing process. And then when it came time to get an editor, get a format or get a book cover designer, this was somebody who was experienced in the industry. So she was able to point me in the direction of those places. They were additional fees. So my editor at that point cost$2,500. My manuscript is, um, completed like 175 pages. So that kind of gives you like a little frame, like it was about$2,500. That was. Not line editing or, I mean, sorry, not, um, not any developmental editing. It was just line editing and proofreading right before the manuscript came out. So only the two editing services. That's not like. There's a full range of ways that you can have your books edited. So that was the only two that I chose at that point. I also then had to hire a formatter, which cost I think it was like$1,500. And then I hired a book cover designer and that was$800. So those three, um, big services were like my big tickets. Plus I had the$4,000 for the coaching. And then right up at the very end when I was deciding whether or not I wanted to. Self-publish. Um, she opened up that, that publishing house and was accepting manuscript. So I decided at that very last moment to go ahead and sign on with her as the publisher. Um, which did have an additional fee, uh, I think around like the 14,$1,500 mark to get that, um, that last step of being the publisher. Uh, she ran with me for a.

Elizabeth: 8:34

get in exchange for that? Like she did the ISBN and she made sure it got posted everywhere and cataloged and all that.

Sharissa: 8:41

Exactly. And because we had been working together for the past year and I had hired all of her people that she worked with anyways,

Elizabeth: 8:47

Mm-hmm.

Sharissa: 8:48

it made for a pretty symbiotic relationship. Uh, and so we just kind of kept that going. She then took over the communication with those people. Um, anytime there were edits or things that needed to happen, she also applied for, uh, an award. So my book is an award-winning book. I won, um, bronze for the indie reviews. Um, in the health category. So she was, she was the one who was instigating those services as well. So it was a pretty, uh, it was a pretty good thing for a little while. I did end up buying my rights back to my book about a year and a half ago, and so it is published under my own publishing house now. And even at that point, she, um, she helped me through the whole offboarding process, so teaching me about like how to take my book back, how to change the copyrights, how to do, um, do all of that. So even though she didn't exactly charge me for that service, I mean, it was kind of like all. Bundled in, right? I guess after about an eight years.

Elizabeth: 9:37

Swift,

Sharissa: 9:38

Yeah. Yeah. I had to get,

Elizabeth: 9:39

again.

Sharissa: 9:40

I had to get my rights back. Uh, it was pretty crazy. I had my publishing house for a year before I owned my own book. So it kind of crazy like, to think that it is a process and there's, there's shady ways to do it. You can definitely do it like in shady ways, like just publish a new edition and like, technically that's like a way around it. Um, I didn't wanna do that. I definitely didn't wanna burn the, burn the bridge. Uh, we're still friends. She.

Elizabeth: 10:02

make's,

Sharissa: 10:03

No, I did not. Yeah, I see. That is, that's one way to do it. Right? And you can do that as an author as well. Like if you're having problems, like I do have friends who've had issues with their publisher and, um, having a hard time getting it back, having a hard time getting the rights, no communication. And then that was really the only way forward is to do that other edition. And same thing with Taylor Swift, right? It was the only way for her to forward was to rerecord, um, until now.

Elizabeth: 10:26

Yeah. Um, curious, um, especially since you know, people who have had struggles with, you know, some of these smaller publishing houses, you know, hybrid ones where you pay a check on money tube and they do everything for you, then maybe, you know, because you lose some control over your book. Are there things that we as writers who are getting ready to enter that stage need to like, look out for, be aware of what kind of questions do we need to be asking to make sure we don't find ourselves in those kind of situations?

Sharissa: 10:54

Oh, absolutely. There are things called, so there's the hybrid publishing, um, which is kind of muddy a little bit as far as like what the actual definition is. Um, and then there's something called a vanity press. And a vanity press is something I would always, always watch out for. So if you're just submitting a manuscript and they immediately take your manuscript based on your money, like you're paying them money, so they take it, that's a vanity press. That a hundred percent. They don't care about you. They don't care about your book, they don't care about sales. The money that they are earning is off of you at that first moment. So that's something like immediate red flag walk away if they're just taking your manuscript because you pay them money. Um, and the second thing, and probably even more important than that just is building the relationship. If you have to be able to talk to someone, you have to be able to. Ask your questions as a brand new author when you, when you publish your book that day one. So like, launch day, it would be nice to know for me how many books I sold. Like I would wanna know like, how's it going? Like what does that look like? Um, if you're with a vanity press, you're, you're not gonna get any communication on that. They're not gonna tell you, they don't give you any of those types of answers for at least. Six months when you get your first royalties check and you'll get a royalties report and it'll tell you what you earned. And that for me, that level of, um, curiosity would probably just like eat at me. I would want to know, so for myself.

Elizabeth: 12:16

working? Is the marketing I'm doing worthwhile? Am I wasting my time? Do I need to find different, do I need to list it under different categories of under Amazon because it's not getting, you know, seen

Sharissa: 12:26

Yes, but it's a pain in the butt for the publisher on their side to go and check the metadata. The metadata to see how it's going. Because if it's a vanity press, they already made their money off of you. So the statistics are pretty abysmal. It says that like new authors will sell in the lifetime of the book. Up to 250 copies of the book, like 100 to 250 copies of the book. That is not ever gonna get New York Times bestseller. That's not ever gonna get like top charts or, or you know, number one bestseller, these kind of things. So they know that vanity presses know that. They know like, oh, you're probably not gonna sell more than like a hundred books. So what they do, you'll see in their packages, they, they charge you the money five to$10,000. They, they publish your book. And in that package price that they charged you five to$10,000. It includes. Guess what? 100 books. And those are the 100 books that they imagine you're gonna sell. And they already sold'em to you, so now they're done.

Elizabeth: 13:17

Mm

Sharissa: 13:17

Yeah, so it's important to find somebody that you want to have like this relationship with, this publishing relationship with. Because if, if you want someone who's gonna communicate with you, like everybody that I published through my publishing house are my best friends. They're like super, super close people to me. They all have my cell phone number. I feel comfortable with them having my cell phone number. And on day one they texted me all day, how am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing? And I checked all day because I was just as excited for them. All day long. I was looking like, yeah, we're doing it. You're killing it. You're doing great. Keep going. And the same thing like once a month for like a couple of months. That first couple of months when things are still kind of rolling, like I'm checking, I'm checking and I'm letting you know because. It feels good to have that communication. If I win, you win. And if you find a person, a publisher who's like that, that feeling, if I win, you win. Like if we rise, we rise together. Um, immediately. Green flag, right? You know, you built, you built something and

Elizabeth: 14:08

Mm-hmm.

Sharissa: 14:08

this book, which is basically like putting a baby out into the world. And if you wrote, if you wrote a memoir, right, Elizabeth, if you write in memoir, your, your emotions, your vulnerability, your insides, your core, your shadow, it's all out there in the public in a light. That is something you would wanna have a relationship with the other person in order to make sure that feels right for you. So just honestly, if you're looking for someone, don't take it because they were like, oh, if you, if you gimme your money, I'm gonna publish you no matter what. Like just self-publish, honestly, just self-publish. There's so, so much out there to just do it on your own. Like if you want any kind of control, if you want any kind of say, and you can't find the person who's gonna give you that like. You're texting me, you're winning. Like if it's not that, like, you know, if it's not those vibes, if it's not that energy, like just walk away because it's just, it's too much money. It's too much money. It's too much time. It's too much energy. And if you're not connecting, you're not vibing and it's not perfect. Oh, it's gonna be such a hassle. It's such a heartache because it is, it's hard. And as a new author, especially in the memoir, I'm like, that's'cause like that's the space I ride into. And so it's like. Gut wrenching, and you're just like, oh, waiting. And like, how do people feel? What do they think? What do they say? Um, if you're not getting that feedback, if you're not getting that communication, it's not gonna feel good.

Elizabeth: 15:30

I think the self-publishing group though, sees those things as like, okay, I just pay one person instead of having to research my cover designer and find a formatter and negotiate with a marketing person who's gonna build me some graphics that I have to put up. And you know, and they see that like single ticket item and yes, it's large, but then they feel like they can just wash their hands a bit

Sharissa: 15:51

Mm

Elizabeth: 15:52

Maybe realizing on the backend that that means they have very little knowledge, control,

Sharissa: 15:57

mm

Elizabeth: 15:58

over

Sharissa: 15:59

new,

Elizabeth: 15:59

the information.

Sharissa: 16:00

it seems new to me. It may be, it may not be new, but it seems like it's new to me and on the rise, but there's, there's this other, uh, like. F kind of, uh. There's this other group kind of populating in the publishing industry, and they're called publishing assist companies. So what they do, it's almost the same price as a publisher. It's almost the same price as a publishing house. Like really, truly, it's a number like two to$10,000. Really, and, and what they're doing is they're building your website for you. They're building out your social media for you. They're getting all your edits, formats, everything. But at the very, very end when it would be like, who's publishing this? They put everything in your name. They put everything in your name, your, oh, this is like one thing that I felt like is kind of sneaky, so. Um, ISBN numbers, it's a 13 digit number. ISBN numbers actually have a code. The code is identified with the publisher, so I buy my ISBN numbers in, in packs of 1000, and in that 1000. Every single one has my code in it. So if I publish your book using my ISVN number, it's, I own it. I own the name and the, the ISVN that your book is under. In order for you to republish it, you need a new SVN number and you have to move it all into your name. So publishing assist companies, they help you buy your own ISPN numbers. Very simple. It's$125 for this little package that you buy of three with a barcode, and they put it all in your name. So then when you go to publish that code is your code and you're technically a little hybrid press. You're your own little everything and it can go to the libraries that way it can go to the library of Congress that way, all under your name. So. Even if, like, if you do go this route and you're like, and they're like, oh, I'll give you an ISVN number, run away from that. Because if they give you the ISVN number, they own it. It will always show up under their name, under their code. So that's very like a little sneaky thing, right? So these publishing assist companies, they will do that work for you. They will put it all in your name and at the very end it goes to over to you. And then that is when you decide whether or not you wanna keep those companies on for marketing because. It may seem like once the book is published, it's done, but when the book is published, it just, you just start. You just started. You're brand new. You're a baby again. Now you have to learn how to do sales.

Elizabeth: 18:24

Well, I mean it, the analogy to pregnancy is so apt. It's like, okay, yep, you birthed the baby. Now you've gotta take care of the baby. So like, your job is not done. Your job has only just started.

Sharissa: 18:34

Exactly. Exactly. And so some of these publishing assist companies, um, they do that part for you too. So you can pay them on like a monthly basis to manage your website, manage your email list, things like that. Um, so that keeps. It's kind of like this really awesome middle ground where I feel like hybrid publishers, myself included, used to serve this role of the middle ground. Like, oh, you don't, you can't get an agent. You don't have the time. You wanna put your book out right now, so you're not gonna go traditional. You wanna go hybrid? It's a little faster. Well, that used to kind of serve that middle ground, and now I think that people are. Authors, women we're starting to kind of stand up in our own power and go like, Hmm, I think I could do a better job of this if I just had my own way with it. Right? And so publishing assist companies have kind of like risen up and now they're like teaching you how to do it, helping you, guiding you through. And some will even go so far as to do everything for you. Like literally you give them the manuscript, they will give you back a book, a website, a social media, a content strategy like, and that's, it's almost the same price. As a hybrid publisher, but you're getting to kind of pick, you get a lot more control

Elizabeth: 19:39

Hmm.

Sharissa: 19:39

because they're gonna ask you everything you want, whereas even some hybrid publishers. I think probably even most won't let you pick your cover. You might have some say, you might have some like, I like these colors, I like this font. But they have market researchers. They have people out there who are learning like what covers are selling. It doesn't really matter what you think your cover should look like if that's not what's trendy when you're publishing. So it's really, do you want say and control over all those things? And if you do, then you gotta kind of. Do those other types of things, like a hybrid publisher that either lets you have your full, say like someone like me, you do everything before you come to me or like, I help you through those things, guide you through those things, but you pick everything and then when you're done, we publish together. And so I keep it super, super, super inexpensive so that my last step is like basically. Nothing. It's not like breaking your bank at that point, you know? And then you get full control. But everybody's different in that. And the last couple of years, all I've met are hybrid publishers that they control everything. You don't get a say they might be three covers. You might get to vote.

Elizabeth: 20:41

Mm-hmm.

Sharissa: 20:42

know, there might be a little bit of formatting. Like for my own book, I really wanted like. The, I really wanted the page numbers on the side of the book, like I wanted them where you would keep your thumb. So like if you're holding your book like, I wanted it here and I got it. I mean, it looks cool. I love it. I'm so glad I did that. But like that was something that I, you know, was able to have control over because I went with somebody who was assisting me rather than controlling the situ, controlling the book pro. Yeah.

Elizabeth: 21:09

so as I'm sure listeners heads are reeling right now. We've just thrown out a bunch of really large numbers, right? And this is all at the end. You think you're gonna get your book out, now you see this giant price tag in order for this thing that you've slayed over for months, years, however long. Before it can get out into the world. This is where you come in with project seed money and your knowledge of grants and grant writing process. So what's the great news you have for our listeners as far as where in the world we source this money other than husbands?

Sharissa: 21:45

Yeah, and that was like that situation for me when I was asking, my husband was like, we were in, like, our marriage was really like rocky at the time and things were, we were like at that 10 year mark. Things were like really, really challenging. We had little kids and so when I asked for that money, I felt filled with shame. Like it was not this like, oh honey, like we have all this money. Like, I was like so ashamed because I. Didn't know. I felt like a foolish for not knowing and then feeling like, and telling all these people, I'm writing a book, I'm doing this thing, and then not knowing that it was gonna come with this price tag. So that's really where like my heart is in it because it wasn't just that I had to like have this experience asking someone else for the money, it's that I felt like shame. Shame is probably the most horrible emotion that we can feel as human beings. It's heavy, it's ugly, it's nasty. It makes you wanna like wash your skin of it. Right? And so that is what I was. Feeling while I was trying to publish my book instead of this like joy and elation and feeling of like, yay, I get to do these things. I was feeling like sick inside and so.

Elizabeth: 22:46

there too. I, I ended up rewriting the book, so now it wasn't ready, but I had initially sent it off to an editor for developmental edits. I planned to get it back. At the same time I was researching one of these hybrid presses and they gave me, I think it, with the stuff I had picked, it was gonna be around like$7,500. Went to my now ex-wife. Then she, we were still married and was like. Um, so this like chunk of money that we have set aside for something like, can I use like, most of it as the stay at home mom and yeah, I can absolutely relate. Like that's you. Yeah. And, and to have, to choose, like to potentially destabilize your family's financial situation versus getting this book out into the world that you've already poured your heart and soul into. Like that's a, that's a really tough choice to make.

Sharissa: 23:35

It's so uncomfortable. It's so uncomfortable. Even just you telling me like, I've got chills, like it's so, so uncomfortable, and I. Sitting in that, like, and I know that there are women who are out there sitting in that feeling. And so, yeah, I want to combat that. I wanna be the bridge. Like you can see the problem. It's massive. So how do we, how do we fix it? Um, my background in grants comes from my master's program actually. So I have a master's in psychology, uh, experimental psychology, which means research. So I didn't do any kind of clinical, like one-on-one, nothing like that. What I did was I had a question and I learned how to design a question and then find the right people and have a. Some sort of power analysis to that. I could say this answer is the answer to this question. Okay? And in order to do that, you have to have funding because you have to have research assistants, you have to have a laboratory, you have to have all these things. So the way that I learned grant writing was actually through funding my own projects. As you know, as a grad student so that I could actually find my answers so I could write my graduate thesis and so that I could graduate. So I actually was trained in college to write grants that are like massive, like a hundred page grants because you have to explain everything in extreme detail. But I think the thing that I took from that the most was learning that grant givers, right? The people who are giving the grant, they actually have a motive and I think. We think that as like a negative connotation. Like they're, they're a little manipulative, right? Emotive and it's, and it is true, right? It's like they have this money. And they wanna give it away, but they only wanna give it away if you are going to give something back that makes sense for them. So as a researcher, if I was doing research in a field that the answer was beneficial to the grant giver, that's the only way they were gonna give me the money. So that was something I learned that was extremely valuable, and I use it here in Project Seed Money because I've learned that it's not just about matching your niche. Like if you're into memoir, you're into fiction, nonfiction, you're writing children's books. It's not just about the niche. It's about what are you going to give back to them that makes it worthwhile for them to give you the money. Now, that may seem a little bit shady, but that's literally the truth. That's exactly how it works. That's. Probably how most of the world works, right? What are you giving back? Because it has to be reciprocal and no one's just giving away anything for free. If you're getting it for free, they're probably getting information from you, right? Information or marketing for themselves. And if you're gonna share about their, oh, I want this grant, they wanna make sure that you are actually gonna publish that book. That you wanna make sure that you are going to be sharing it on your social media and telling them the reason you were able to write that book was because of their grant. So all of that, all of that verbiage, all that language has to be written. In the grant, that way of not, I need this money because it will serve me, it's. I'm the the best person to give this money to because this is how I'm gonna serve you. And that is how we write grants. That's how we actually get real money back. So that is how I used my education, my school education, to kind of put it into project seed money and then help support women. So I do offer a quarterly grant writing masterclass, and we dive into that like super, super deep. Every little section of grants and the bio and how to write about your budget and how to write about all the timeline. And then again, how to put in that language of this is how I benefit your community, this is how I support your values, things of that nature. Okay, so project seed money, like not just gate. We're not just trying to remove the gatekeeping on the grants and the money side of things, but we also wanna educate. So one of the ways just to kind of break down that number a little bit, because even if you decide to self-publish, it's still that number. At the end of the day, if you self-publish, do this all on your own, and you don't go with a hybrid publishing company, you don't go with anybody, it's still that number and I will tell you how to get to that number. But writing your book costs nothing. It's just your time and your energy. Okay? So that part of that section is kind of like free, but during that time, that is free. It is very important to start thinking about the fact that editing is gonna be the biggest nugget. It's gonna be the most expensive part of the journey. So if it's taking you 6, 8, 9, 10 months to write this book, that is the timeline to get that money. And if you break up, instead of, especially on self-publishing journey, because you can do this, you don't have to give someone at one time$10,000, you just need the money for editing. So if you can give yourself the time at. To build up the money for the editing. There's lots of really interesting ways you can earn that money. So we all know about crowdfunding platforms, things like GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and then there's other ones like Indiegogo where you put up a profile and you say like, if you pledge this amount of money, I'm gonna give you something back again, like that value system, right? We don't wanna give for nothing. So if you're giving, if they're giving you$20, maybe they're getting a free copy of the book, they're giving you$50, maybe they're getting. Some time with you, some live event that you're hosting, you know, something like that. So there's like this little give and take, right? And then there's also things like microgrants. So I just recently, two weeks ago, won a micro grant for five two press. It was 25. 20. Yeah, it was$2,100. It was here in my town, and they were looking for local. Small businesses run by women to support now it was just this like smaller thing, but it, it ended up working out. Obviously won the grant. It's keeping my business afloat. It's helping me out for sure. But it's these like smaller little bites that might be local, might be in your community. And when we do that, when we do these like little bite sized pieces, it's not this huge nugget we have to crack. It's like this little tiny thing, right? And then when you get to the next step is formatting. And formatting is. Like a way less than, than editing. Way less than editing and like maybe half, maybe even a third of the price of editing. And the nice thing about when you start your, with your editor and you know, it's like maybe$2,000, maybe$3,000, you know, you're gonna pay that to your editor and you're working on getting some little micro grants so that you can add that up right? Then by the time you're done with editing or like start with editing, you have about six more months. You have about six months of going back and forth now. That may seem long, but I swear to you, like the first time you go through with an editor, you do this like first draft pass, right? You're, you're rewriting things. You're rereading things, you're you, yeah. There's like a lot. A lot.

Elizabeth: 29:44

years away from my first developmental edit at this

Sharissa: 29:47

Yeah.

Elizabeth: 29:48

to do such a massive, like rewrite and then a, a whole new rewrite that I then figured out myself that I still had to do.

Sharissa: 29:55

Yes, yes. I had a, I had, um, someone who came on the project Seed Money podcast. Her name is Toby Dore, and she wrote this amazing book, living With Conviction, and she talks about her editing process. Her editor went through the first pass with her, did the first edit line editing, developmental, not. Not, I think it was maybe developmental editing, not quite line editing. And then she told her at that point, like, okay, we're done. Now you go into your computer, open up a Microsoft Word document and have your, your manuscript right next to it and do a line by line rewrite, literally the entire manuscript, word for word all over again and a new document. And she was like, what? But she did. She did. And it changed so much. It helped her in so many ways. And then when she was done with that pass, she sent it back to the editor and she was like, okay. Now I want you to put it back on Microsoft Word and have Microsoft Word read it to you because you can do that now. Like it can read your document for you out loud. Right? And she was like, just listen to it so you can hear like, do I say words over and over again? Too close together. Right? And that, that extended her editing process months and months and months. So. That's hard. That's a challenge. It's not easy. Editing can get like really tedious because you've read it already 1 million times and you like can't possibly look at it One more time.

Elizabeth: 31:12

get sick of it at different points throughout, and you're like, oh, this thing, is it ever gonna be done?

Sharissa: 31:17

I totally get it. But while you're doing that, while you're in that infuriating process, you can be applying for more micro mini grants that help with formatting because now you're onto that next step. You have a couple months, you've already paid your editor. Now you start building up and working towards that formatting. And again, you can do these kick-starting campaigns for small amounts of money. It's not this$10,000 nugget, it's. Hey, friends and family, Hey neighbors, I need$1,000 to format my book. And in the grand scheme of things, like if you have a couple of months to build the$1,000 and you're at getting these little microgrants, which there are like, it's shocking, but there are like$900 grants,$500 grants, 1000 grants that are meant for. This exact thing. Parts of the publishing process for self-published never been published before. Authors not going with an independent house, not all. It. It's out there. It is out there. So if we don't look at it like, oh, I have to win$10,000 in order to write my book, but we look at it like, I need to take six months to get$2,500, and then I need to take an additional six months to get$1,500. And then that last little nugget is these little small things, your book cover design, which can be anywhere from like 350 to a thousand dollars. It just totally depends on what you're. What you're going for. Like mine was really, really simple. It just is like white cover, like a eucalyptus, like watercolor, and then two fonts. And that was like, I think it was$800. So that process of getting that$800, like it can be broken up. We don't have to be looking at it like this huge thing. And then there are programs like Amazon will give you a uh, ISBN number for free. You can't sell it anywhere else by Amazon. But if you're pinched and at that moment you can't. See yourself publishing like on every platform, Barnes and Noble, things like that, then, then, yeah, you could go with the free ISBN number and the worst case scenario, literally the worst case scenario is that when you do have the 125 bucks to buy the next ISBN number, you buy it, you edit it on Amazon, and then you can go right over to IngramSpark, which is also. Free and you publish on IngramSpark with your own ISBN number for free, and now all of a sudden you can say things like, I am sold in every bookstore.'cause technically yes, and technically the, you know, libraries will have access to it and every, it, it's everywhere at that point. And that is also free if you have your own ISBN number. So just break it down like yeah, it's these big fat numbers that make people scared and feel ashamed, like I'm not. I'm not immune. I'm not immune, but I do know that there's these things out there. Like I literally just want a$2,000 grant, like that helps me and my business for four months keep going and keep things going the way that I need them to go. So it doesn't have to be like this huge nugget. It can be like maybe a little bit of crowdfunding, maybe a little bit of micro mini grants, maybe a little bit of support. I also saw this cool thing where you, um, community colleges that are doing like design work, like these classes that are designers, they're like learning Adobe, they're learning Photoshop. They need work for their portfolio. You could go to them and ask them to help you design your book covers and things like that. They're, they're amateurs. They're not in the industry. They're not learning book cover design. They're not doing that specifically, but they do use the programs that help you get a more professional cover, like. Unfortunately, when we use covers from like free programs like Canva, the, the layering on the colors, the layering for the cover, um, it, it comes out printed different like in every single order because the color codes that we're using from the free programs are just, they're no match to professional design. Like truly they aren't. So if you're not gonna go through like. Professional designers, um, and to get like a real cover designed. Then there are, there are gonna be quality control issues. We do have a book, um, through, for, through my publishing house that has this little green wheel on the cover of it, and it isn't always green. Sometimes it's yellow, sometimes it's like a, but we just, it was at that point, like bootstrapping. We went through the, we went through Canva and did the Canva cover and you know, it's free that way. Right? But it, there's variations, there's color variations on every single one. When we order a box of 70, there's no two that are alike. And that's a challenge. You're gonna face that.

Elizabeth: 35:38

yeah. Yeah, so do you cover in your, in your quarterly masterclass, like how to go about finding these grants? Because love the idea that there are grants. Love that. There's ways to write grants and make sure that you're telling them how you're going. You be receiving the grant is going to help them get all that. Where do we find these things?

Sharissa: 36:02

That's such a good question. Like literally the way that I find grants is good old fashioned research. I just Google and then search to the end of the internet because. There's a lot of fake, there's a lot that's fake. That's scary to say. Like then you might give somebody your money and it's like completely a fake program. So I actually cover this in multiple ways. So a hundred percent it's on the grant. In the grant writing masterclass, we do this. Like first hour is all about like how to find the grants, how to find your niche, how to find. Like the do the actual application, but also just right now on project seed money.com/resources, there are two lists that are revolving door, um, grants. Uh, there's not just grants, there's fellowships, there's contests, there's, um, writing programs. There's, there's a lot that is beyond grants. Like, if you have an idea for a book and you want to write it and you want to like, get all the way through this whole process and you wanna like, go to a place and like, I run a write in a cabin and like, do you know, okay, they, that exists. And there's scholarships for those things, and once you go through their fellowship program, they help you with all the process. Okay? So there's fellowships, there's contests, and then of course there are grants. All of that are on the list, on the resources page. And all you have to do like there's no. Truly, truly I, I try to avoid any gatekeeping on the Project Seed Money website. There's none of these things that I've talked about cost anything, like I don't sell anything at all. The way that Project Seed Money makes money is through affiliate marketing. So if you use my directory, if you go through my directory and you hire somebody out of my directory, they pay me. For that marketing. That is the way that Project C. Money makes money. The consumer, you coming and getting resources and coming and getting support. It doesn't ever cost anything. So everything on the podcast, all the resources, the directory, the um. Masterclass. It's always, always free, so there's not this additional hoop to jump through to get the information. Okay. The second way that I do that, right now, on the website, on the homepage, every single week I update a bulletin board, so you can just go right on the homepage of the website. There's a little down arrow that opens up the bulletin board, and you can see who's currently accepting applications for grants right now and what the eligibility is. There's also a link to each one's application page right from the homepage, so it's not, you don't have to do this work like I'm doing this work so that you don't have to do this work. It's already there for you.

Elizabeth: 38:31

beautiful.

Sharissa: 38:32

so homepage bulletin board, um, the dropdown you'll see every, every week. I update that, make sure there's no, um, expired ones on there. And then on the resources page, there are two current, there are two lists currently, and you just. Project cmo.com/resources and they're right there and you're gonna click it, it's gonna open up a Google Doc. From there, you can print or you can just save it on your computer. Every single one of those links is hyperlinked. So just literally, boom, click each one and you're gonna see the eligibility. You're gonna see the timelines, you're gonna see the dates. Um, there's also on that resources page, there are. Sample proposals. So if you're looking to, um, go the traditional publishing route and you want to send a proposals into agents, there's sample proposals up there. There's also sample grant applications, sections, um, that are like good and bad. So you can see like, oh, what's a bad example? What's a good example? Um, there's also like how to pick the grants, how to find the grants, check out the resources page because seriously there's like 20 or. 25 resources up there. Like even how to build your own author website, how to build your brand as an author, how to create a social media content calendar. Uh, all this is all free and none of these things are collecting your email address. Even like, you don't give anything for this part. Uh, right. You know what I mean? It's just like I gotta tell you. Uh, the other thing is that, uh, I do send out a newsletter. It's on every single page of the website, uh, every month. It's like the first week of every single month. And I do list that month. Who is accepting? Grants right now and what the eligibility is. So literally, if you wanna do nothing, sign up for the newsletter and every month I'm gonna send you what's pretty much on the bulletin board. Some things don't go on the bulletin board, um, if it's not going to be like longer lasting. So that'll go in the email, like first of the month, you have 10 days. Get this in. Um, all the micro grants, all the bigger grants, all the fellowships, literally all those things that I mentioned in the contest. They are also in that email every single month with that link. So. Easy peasy.

Elizabeth: 40:30

You are a Godsend woman. What would we do without you? I'm so glad to have you on the podcast this week. Um, we will certainly be linking to all of those things, and I know you also have one of your master classes coming up. We can also put the link for whatever the previous one was, um, so that people can, if they wanna go to it right now, they can see the old one or if they wanna sit in on the next one. You listed it as September 13th, uh, 10:00 AM Pacific Standard Time. How do people sign up for that?

Sharissa: 41:02

That's such a good question. So it's always gonna be in the email, right? That's always there. It's on the Instagram, it's on the social media. If you click on the social, any of my social media accounts, and click on that, like links. It's all there for you, but also at any point in time you can go to project c money.com/masterclass and that is updated all the time. So if you miss the one in September, uh, it's no, like, it'll be totally fine. The next one will be populated up on there. So project c money.com/masterclass is always whatever the next masterclass is that's coming up.

Elizabeth: 41:35

All right. And for one last question, if you had one piece of advice to give to first time writer who's trying to get their work out into the world, what would that be?

Sharissa: 41:44

Don't get caught up in overwhelm. We all get there. We all get there and we all get, it's like it gets like foggy and muddy and icky and you're just like, how am I ever gonna get outta the weeds? And it feels like you maybe never are gonna get outta the weeds. You just literally take one bite at a time and just keep moving forward. And if you can't. C, moving past that big nugget. Don't, don't break it down. Make it smaller, make it digestible. And maybe it takes a year, maybe it takes two years so you can spread it out, but never stop working on your dream. Because if you've been given those words, if they're coming to you and it's time to publish that, you're not gonna be able to. Deny that either it's gonna be too uncomfortable, right? It's gonna be too uncomfortable to not answer the call. So answer the call. Don't get caught up in overwhelm and break it down. And if you need support, you can reach out at any point. charissa@projectcmoney.com and I'll help you find your grants. Like that's what I'm doing.

Elizabeth: 42:33

I love it. Thank you so much.

Sharissa: 42:36

It's been my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I.