KWL – 349 – The Abundance Mindset for Authors with Renee Rose and Lee Savino

In this episode, we are joined by Renee Rose and Lee Savino, best-selling authors who have written over 20 titles together! The best-selling Bad Boy Alpha series is the result of their collaborative effort to write spicy wolf-shifter books. Their collaboration goes all the way back to 2015, when they first met at a writing conference and became fast friends. Lee and Renee had so much great advice regarding indie publishing, collaborative writing and thinking abundantly that we could have recorded for twice as long!

We also discussed Lee and Renee’s writing careers, how they got into indie publishing, their views on marketing books, advice for writing and rewriting, what makes a great co-writing relationship, how having an abundance and exponential growth mindset can help your writing career, trends in the indie publishing industry, and much more!

In this episode:

• We asked Lee and Renee about their writing careers, their foray into self-publishing, and how they got started writing collaboratively together on the Bad Boy Alpha series
• Lee and Renee give us some great advice on writing collaboratively, and making sure you love the writing of the author you are working with
• We asked how they co-write, what their process looks like, and more
• Lee and Renee get into how they handle creative visions and alternative writing visions
• We hear about Lee and Renee’s sales strategies for making sales on Kobo and Kobo Plus, and how they’ve managed to reach seven figure sales on their collaborative books
• Renee and Lee get into their abundance mindset, and how they apply their excitement about writing projects to their collaboration
• We hear Lee and Renee’s thoughts on trends in the indie publishing industry, and how making changes to their business, such as going wide, helped them make their business more sustainable
• Lee and Renee tell us about their experience translating books and making sales in Europe and elsewhere
• We chat about Lee’s Facebook group, Millionaire Author Mastermind, and what new authors might be able to learn from this group
• We also hear about Renee’s Facebook group, Author Abundance Central, and how the group is all about celebrating author wins and finding author community
• Renee and Lee get into their mindsets around abundance and law of attraction, and how focusing on your wins can help your career
• We get into Lee and Renee’s marketing tips for TikTok, author newsletters, and making the most out of your advertisements
• And much more!

Useful Links

Lee’s website

Renee’s website

Lee’s books on Kobo

Renee’s books on Kobo

Lee and Renee’s books on Kobo

Mentioned in this episode:

Kobo Plus

Big Bad Boss series by Renee Rose and Lee Savino

InkersCon

Sarra Cannon

Tony Robbins

Millionaire Author Mastermind

Author Abundance Central: Write to Riches

Write to Riches by Renee Rose

Adventures with the Universe by Lee Savino

Money Magic Membership

Episode Transcript

Transcription by www.speechpad.com

Laura: Hey, writers, you're listening to the "Kobo Writing Life Podcast" where we bring you insights and inspiration for growing your self-publishing business. We're your hosts. I'm Laura, one of Kobo Writing Life's author engagement managers.

Rachel: And I'm Rachel, Kobo Writing Life's other author engagement manager. On today's episode, we had the joy of chatting with co-authors, Lee Savino and Renee Rose. Lee is a seven-figure romance author with multiple USA Today bestsellers. She has extensive expertise in selling direct, going wide, rapid releasing and branding, as well as less commonly explored but extremely lucrative areas such as translations. She runs the Millionaire Author Mastermind Facebook group and co-teaches the Money Magic membership with Renee Rose. Renee is a 15-time USA Today bestselling romance author who is passionate about helping other authors find and maintain an abundance mindset to catapult their careers and create their best futures. She is the author of Write to Riches: Seven Steps to Manifest Abundance from your Books, and the coach of the corresponding Write to Riches course.

Laura: We spoke to Lee and Renee about their experience co-writing 20 plus books together, their advice for authors who are considering trying to co-write, and we also talked about their abundance mindset and how it has positively affected their writing career. We also touched on translations, audiobooks and more. There's so many great tips in this episode, so definitely take a listen.

Rachel: All right, we are joined today by authors and co-writers Renee Rose and Lee Savino. Thank you so much for joining us.

Renee: We are so excited to be here. Thank you.

Lee: Thank you.

Rachel: And let's kick things off with why don't you two tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Renee: Yeah. So, Lee and I met...I think it's 2015 did we decide?

Lee: Yes.

Renee: At a writer's conference. And we had that instant "you're my people." We both were ambitious, I have to say. I think I recognize that... because she was like, "You know..." She's a brand new author. I don't know. Had you been published already or you self-published a few?

Lee: Yes.

Renee: But, like, really very new but already had this... She already understood the whole strategy of building a mailing list. She wasn't like, "I'm a helpless author," which a lot of new... And not to make fun of new authors but a lot of people there are like, "Show me the way," but she already had a plan. She was like, "The importance of my mailing list," or whatever. And I was like, "You're my people because I'm strategic that way as well."

So, we totally hit it off. We were in the hotel room talking till late in the night. And a few years later, we decided to co-write. We, sort of, volleyed the idea back and forth. And then there was a series I was, kind of, waiting from an agent to hear if something was going to happen for me, and it did not. And that became the Bad Boy Alphas series.

Lee: Yeah, it was really exciting because I had read Renee as a reader, and she saw I was going to come to this author conference and she reached out to me to say, "Oh, my gosh, I'll see you there. I can't wait to meet you." She did this for all the authors coming, but I then had to fangirl. And I tell people to this day my biggest tip for co-writing is love the other authors' books. If you're a real fan first, then you're going to love the drafts that you're passing back and forth. And for both of us, it really is about loving your books.

Renee: And I do think that's important because I do know sometimes collaborations happen where you're like, "Oh, this strategically makes sense. You have this audience. I have this audience." And then the writing together is not fun. And I think it goes back to the like, "Well, you had separate audiences because you wrote differently," right? Or, you had different, you know, visions maybe. So, anyway I do think that Lee's point about loving what they write is crucial. Yeah, so we've now co-written maybe 25, 26. I've lost count.

Lee: It's a big, successful co-writing endeavor for sure. But again, it comes down to the love. And not only alignment with our friendship and what, which is very spicy books with wolf shifters, paranormal romance, but we align when it comes to marketing and the strategy side, too. And if you are listening to this and you want to co-write, I think another tip from me is start small. Start with a newsletter swap. Start with a shared promotion, "Oh, let's both promote this 99 cent book of ours." Separate books, right? And we both write in a big series, and we can promote the Book #1s of our series to each other's audiences. Let's do a TikTok live together. Let's hop on a podcast together. Let's just gel and see how it goes. And you don't have to write a full book. You can write...

Renee: You can do an anthology with them.

Lee: Yeah, an anthology. You can write separately or you can write a 10,000 word short story. And if you open that Google Doc, which is how we write, we write in Google Docs. You share it. It's easy. And you wake up the next day, and they've put a couple paragraphs in or maybe a couple chapters. But you just want to see how it goes. And when it goes well, you'll know because you're excited. Your energy is there. And for us, it was that way.

I got these books from Renee, and the Book #1 was called "Alpha's Temptation." And it was written in third person, and I felt very strongly that I wanted to change it to first person, which is a very craft decision but also, kind of, aligning with the market. And that was great because then I got to touch every single sentence. So, basically she handed me this beautiful book, and I was the rewrite draft I guess. And not that it needed to be rewritten, but I was putting in my voice and I wove in my voice. And together I've always found that, in a great co-writing relationship, one plus one does not equal to one plus one equals a million. Author math for you.

Renee: Yes. No, it's true that there's, like, an exponentialization that happens, you know, because I was even thinking, well, we have pretty much the same audience like maybe just 90% of the same. So, I doubt our co-written books will do much better than my normal books, but that wasn't true. Even though we had the same audience, it was so much bigger as a result. So, yeah, magic can happen when you meld your creative forces.

Laura: Definitely seems like some co-writing magic for sure. I want us to talk a little bit about getting your start in publishing. Did you always plan to do indie publishing or how did that part of it come about?

Renee: So, I started...which is where I met Lee, she also did a little bit with the a niche publisher. So, it was not long after "Fifty Shades of Grey." I know so many writers got their start because of Fifty Shades of Grey, and I am one of them. It was like a girl at dance class was like, "Hey, have you seen this book? Blah, blah, blah." She tells me the story and I'm like, "Wait." I didn't know about kinky romance before, and I am kinky AF. And so I was like, "Wait, there's a market for this?"

And so I found a niche publisher who was doing kinky romance and sat down and wrote my first book in six days. It was a novella. It was like 25,000 words. And then I just sent it off, you know, just like, "Here's my story," and then it's just almost like the universe aligned perfectly because they had a new editor they just hired. Mine was the first book on his desk. It was literally published two weeks later, and this never happens. It's such a crazy story. Two weeks later. And then it was selling a hundred books a week, and for a brand new nobody-heard-of author... But that was also the early days of Amazon. You put it up, it sells. And of course my next books were not so easy or well-received but to me, it felt like a sign from the universe that like, "Get out there. You wanted to write. Here's your entry place."

Lee: Yeah, and I was at that niche publisher's conference, and that's where I met Renee in 2015. I had put out some books on my own, but I really, like Renee said, I guess I was thinking strategically and going, "What can I learn?" I'm new, and maybe I don't know... I know I don't know much, and I also want to do it right and I want to build it right. So, I decided to sign a contract with the publisher and learn more about marketing and access their audience and use them as a stepping stone.

And I love the world that we live in today because authors have so much opportunity and I think there's a lot of noise and negativity. And Renee and I have never tapped into that. Well, we do. We can complain. We can be grouchy for sure, but one of us will then remind the other how great we have it and how much opportunity there is and then we sort of...

Renee: And also just if you focus on what you want, that's what you get. If you focus on what you don't want, you get more of that.

Lee: Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say.

Renee: I'm sorry.

Lee: No, you said it better. Your brain is like, "Okay, are we going to look for the problems or are we going to look for the opportunity?" And even when you look at the problem, it's useful to say, "What's the step past it? What's the solution, right?" Spend a second being grouchy with your best friend about the obstacle and then look past the obstacle because there's a way past it and that obstacle will be a stepping stone. And you love...

Renee: Right.

Lee: ...your career.

Renee: Right.

Rachel: Listening to the two of you talk and literally finish one another's sentences, it's obvious that there is a deep co-writing relationship here, and I'm really curious how that energy translates onto the page. How do you make that work?

Renee: Yeah. So, we have an I think pretty unusual way of writing, and it was, kind of, because the way we started was where I had this mostly written... I had the first three books. They were not all written, but all three had been started to pitch to a publishing house. And so she followed... I was leading. As I finished it, she was following. And then the next book, she led and I followed. So, we'd have this back and forth rather than volleying... Most people do with chapters or points of view, and we really have like one person leads the entire book and the other person adds the color and then we swap. So, she'll have an idea for the next book and then I'll follow along and be like, "Love it. Let me add this, let me add that," and then vice versa.

But we definitely are plotting it all together and vibing it together like we both have, but you're right. I remember this one time she had this vision of a heroine, and she was describing her to me. And I already could see what she looked like. It's like we really did meld minds, you know? So, yeah, it was having that ability to I think capture your co-author's vision is important. So, sometimes we don't have the same vision, but you got to tap into the person who has the vision. You have to tap into them, right, and not to just go in and make it your own, but it's like get into that space that's already there and work with what's there, you know?

Rachel: And not to assume that there ever are creative differences, but how do you tackle those moments when you both have a very different vision of how a story is going to take place?

Lee: I love to bring my A game but not be precious, meaning I'm taking my work really seriously. I'm going to do my best, but I love that actually because it allows me as a creator to take risks and know that my co-author is a safety net and she's going to say, "Okay, you're off the deep end," which is fair, or she's a bit of a safety net like, "Okay, what you're doing isn't working, but I know how it can work," or we're in disagreement and I'm like, "Well, let's save that for the next book." I have this really strong vision, and that's why we take leads on different books because, oh, I really want them to climb a mountain and that's not going to fit in this book but it can go on the next one.

Renee: Yeah, and one of the things we did from the very start that I think helps is, when we work in Google Docs, we don't turn on edits as suggestions. In other words, it's not a red line. So, it really just becomes like you forget if you wrote that sentence or she did. It's one living doc, right? I'm never going like, "Oh, she crossed out my word," because it's not shown to us that way. It's like it's ours, you know?

Laura: I love that.

Lee: I've reread books and gone, "That is so good. I bet Renee wrote that sentence." And I read it to Renee and she's like, "Oh, didn't you...?" And we have no idea, and that's the best.

Renee: Yeah.

Laura: So, it really is like a full melding of the writing. Did it take a while to find the workflow that worked for you with one person, kind of, flushes everything out at the end or have you always done it the same way?

Renee: In a way, it was easier at first because we had those books to start with. But we've done whole... And I think this is harder. I think it's easier if we're both in there and one person's following, but we've done where she's like, "I'll focus on this book, you focus on that book." But I think that's harder because then your minds are in two different places versus being in the same... So, I think that does not work as well for us. But eventually we both come into each book, but I think it's better if both our energy is juicing in the same book at the same time.

Lee: Yeah, we're plotting a new one. And yesterday we were at the pool and Renee goes, "Okay, so what if she's a thief and she repels down, and the vampire is waiting for her?" and I'm like, "Yes." Then, we have to figure out the villain, and we're still figuring that out but that's okay because we'll sleep on it, and I'll get a great idea, and she'll get a great idea. And then we'll pick one or the other, or we'll meld both great ideas together. And that's where one plus one equals a million because the best of the best of the best of the ideas are landing in the book.

Renee: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's creative potential. I think that's why we don't show edits because when you're in that space of creative potential, anything's possible. But when you get into the, like, where you're shutting each other down, you know, like that sort of... If I showed up and my words were crossed out or...you know, from my point of view, saw words crossed out, I might think, "Oh, she didn't like that sentence." So, it's like that never shows up. It's just we stay in that generative space, right?

Lee: Yeah, positive, moving forward. Even saying, "Oh, this will go in the next book." I mean, how do you think we wrote 20 books together? We have a lot of ideas. And, again, do your best but don't get precious.

Renee: Yeah, definitely.

Rachel: I love that. And I also love the visual of you just vibing out by the pool crafting your next novel. Laura, you and I really need to do more brainstorming poolside.

Laura: Yes.

Lee: Yes, you do.

Laura: Yeah, that's a takeaway we have from this podcast—more poolside brainstorming.

Renee: Definitely.

Rachel: Now I'm curious, kind of, how your collaboration has evolved over time. Did you just immediately hit it off and find a workflow that works or have there been little road bumps along the way?

Renee: We've taken pauses. Both of us have co-written with others, and life changes. Lee has younger children than I do. I had a relationship disaster honestly, so the different parts of our lives were... We didn't write a single book last year, and the cool thing is we didn't write a single book and we still made seven figures with just our co-written work. So, that's about what we'd love to also talk about is our abundance mindset. That's pulling it in and instead of focusing on problems like, "Oh, my God, I can't write a book right now," it's, "How can we still generate income from what we have from our backlist?"

Lee: Yeah, and the way we did that was really cool because we were both at a little mastermind, so six authors in a hotel room, and we went around the room, "What's working for you?" And Ines Johnson, a really awesome author that we've collaborated with before and will again, she said direct sales or direct sales job and some certain marketing things that go with that that actually push your books on Kobo and push your books everywhere. And actually box sets was a big part of that, and I know the Kobo readers love box sets.

Renee: Oh, yeah, Kobo readers are huge on that. Yeah.

Lee: We really wrapped our minds around that, and we're not exclusive to Kindle Unlimited. And I think there's great opportunity especially with Kobo Plus. I'm hoping Kobo Plus... All the Kindle Unlimited readers just replace that program with Kobo Plus. I tell them, I'm like, "I know you love the subscription. I do too. Let's get Kobo Plus, and let's go because it's non-exclusive."

Renee: And we make more in Kobo Plus now than we do on Kobo regular.

Lee: Yeah, and I'm marketing that way. But, again, we followed up and we were like, "This sounds right." We both had this intuitive hit that we had when we first met. Like, yes, and so that is definitely something I want people to take away. If you feel that gut level...

Renee: Yeah, follow your gut. If something gets you excited on, sort of, a physiological level, that's a yes. You get that electric yes feeling.

Lee: And go all in on that.

Renee: Yeah, and don't talk yourself out of it. Don't look for someone to validate it. You got it. You know.

Lee: Yes.

Renee: Yeah.

Laura: Do you have any advice for authors who are looking to co-write together? I know you touched on this a little bit, but I'm sure you have so many tips.

Renee: Definitely Lee's tip of loving...like, pick someone whose books you already love to read. I think that's super important. And then I do think the don't... In my opinion, I think you don't turn on the edits. But I guess I shouldn't say that because other co-writers do. I talked to someone, and she was like, "Oh, we never touch each other..." Just did alternating POVs and they never touched each other's words. And I was like, "Oh, totally different," but it works for them.

Lee: Some people write other chapters, or his POV is one author, or her POV... I've co-written a different series, and I would write a scene. And then Golden Angel would come in and flesh it out. She would make it three times longer. And I was just trying to get the words on the page. And we both had little kids, so I think we were both just trying to get words on the page. And then I worked with another author, and I just wrote the erotic scenes. She didn't want to write those, but she had this whole world in her head and I've freed her up. And I can do that. I can drop in and write certain scenes.

So, our last trilogy, there were certain scenes I was so excited to write and I would skip ahead, but I had the safety net of Renee writing the emotional scenes and following the thread of the emotion. And she said, you know, "I want to write...

Renee: Sequentially, yeah.

Lee: Yeah, and...

Renee: Because I need to know where their head is from the moment before. I need to know.

Lee: Yeah, so following the emotional thread, but I also got to write the big fight scenes and those, sort of, blowing up pack wars scenes. And that was really exciting. So, then I'm just writing what I'm most excited to write, and she's writing what she's most excited and amazing at writing. And it's really fun. Other than do your best but don't get precious, it really comes down to a gut level thing. If you wouldn't shake their hands and have an agreement, if you were like, "This might all blow up but I'm going to still sign a contract," if you wouldn't just do a handshake agreement with that person, do not move forward with that relationship. Follow your gut.

Renee: Right.

Lee: And start small. Start small. If you really want to collaborate and see how it goes, pick the smallest energy investment, time investment, smallest project you can think of because...

Renee: True, just get the taste. Yeah.

Lee: ...it might be... Yeah, it's like some people are better friends than getting married, than married partners. We're better friends than dating. It could be that sort of thing in the author space.

Renee: Right, absolutely.

Rachel: It's such a good analogy.

Lee: Yeah, you don't have to marry. You don't have to marry. You can just date or go on one date or be friends.

Rachel: Yes, and I'm so curious because you've touched on you co-write with other authors. You both have your own lists, and you have a 20 plus book series together. So, I think my question is, how? How do you balance all of these different worlds, all of these different series, and all of these different collabs both creatively and physically how do you do it all?

Renee: Well, we have slowed down.

Lee: Did we?

Renee: I know … Right.

Lee: Did we balance that?

Renee: I know. We were at AnchorCon last weekend, and Sarah Cannon had this thing where she's like, "Okay, you come to the conference. You get all these ideas and now you have to implement them all." It's not possible. All the things that we think we need to be doing, it's just not... Especially for creatives, we have a zillion million things that we think we should be doing, right? But sometimes having a co-author can really make things...it keeps the ball rolling. And especially they can pick up the slack when things in your life aren't...when you're not as prolific, then sometimes that can be a saving grace. But also sometimes, for me, it's like having someone to answer... We work for ourselves, right? So, having someone, "Oh, she's expecting that chapter, that's going to help me...it gives me a little motivation, right?"

So, there's a lot of reasons why co-authoring can increase your output, and it's not just... Because you are maybe still writing the same amount of words but it's more than that. It's more like having accountability. It's having a partner in crime. It's getting excited because there's someone to bounce, because it can be lonely authoring. So, having someone to just share the journey to share the ups and the downs is really magical and keeps you going.

Lee: Yeah, we get to celebrate together, and we get to do things that keep our energy high. And in some of our co-writing relationships, one person will take care of managing the audiobook creation, and the other person will do the translations. We're at a level where we can hire people. I didn't have to find someone to hire. I already had someone really good, and I basically got an editor, a brander, a marketer, a packager, a friend, and a writer all in one just in this one co-writing relationship. And that's why it is exponential growth that we're able to tap into.

Renee: Yeah.

Lee: Tony Robbins says you overestimate what you can do in a year and you underestimate what you can do in a lifetime. So, don't forget. We met in 2015. Renee had written these books. I came in and, you know, co-wrote. And we published Book #1 in 2017, and it went well. So, we kept doing it, and now we have a lot of books. So, don't overestimate and don't underestimate. Look at the long game.

Renee: Yeah.

Laura: That, kind of, leads into my next question because at this point, like you said, you have a lot of books between the two of you. Throughout your time in the indie publishing business, have you noticed a change in trends when it comes to how frequently authors should be releasing titles? Do you feel pressured to release quickly?

Renee: I do think... I don't know... I'm like, "Can we talk about KU?" But I do think getting out of KU helped that, because part of that game is that every six weeks, you get lost, right? So, coming out of KU, going wide really stabilized our income.

Lee: Yeah, it did amazing things. And I think for our health and our energy levels, too. We're able to write our new trilogy and take more time with it, and then launch it with an eye to making another seven figures but in a very sustainable way. And so, yeah, being in Kobo has been amazing, and we also translate everything.

Renee: And Kobo's a huge part of that income as well.

Lee: We access so many readers through Kobo.

Renee: And it seems to be growing. I mean, the European audience, it seems to be growing quite a bit.

Lee: Yeah, Europe top French seller.

Renee: Oh, for sure, yeah.

Lee: French is an amazing seller, so thank you. Keep doing that, French Canadians and the French in France.

Renee: Yes.

Rachel: Well, let's talk a little bit about translations then because you've mentioned it. What is that process like for you and do you have any advice for authors who are looking to branch out into other languages?

Renee: Yeah, I mean, I highly recommend... If you're indie, you already have a system, right, and then all you do is you duplicate your system in each language. So, you already have the newsletter with the welcomes and the automated...you know, you write the bonus scene. Hopefully, you already have a call to action at the end of your book asking them to sign up for your newsletter. You do it all the same. You just replicate your system in the new language. And you may think, "Well, I don't know how to write newsletters in German." I just Google Translate a little bit. I'll just put in the blurb. You know, like, I don't get too... Of course, I don't Google Translate the books. We have, you know, professional translators do the books and do, you know, ad copy, things that matter a lot, but I still just send out a newsletter with, like, the blurb and the photo and the link. But I've replicated... I have, you know, a mailing list that's substantial in German, and French, and Italian, and a little bit in... I wouldn't call it substantial in Spanish but, you know?

Lee: Yeah. And if you're looking for a translator, go to my group on Facebook for authors. It's called Millionaire Author Mastermind. There are translators in there, and there's a pinned thread with them. You can also just post, you know, "I have a three-book series and I'm looking for a great rate. Get me in French." So, there's ways to find translators by networking with other authors. And Renee just mentioned that she has a substantial list. How do you do that? You take your newsletter freebies, your cookies that you wrote for English, and you have the translator translate them. And then you take your best emails and your best ads, and you have your translator translate them. And voila, like Renee said, you're duplicating your English business into another language.

Renee: And so that's just about, you know, making your assets work harder for you, right? So, like, you already wrote the book. You only have to write one book and now you've got it in five languages or whatever many languages. So, now you've, like, really maximized your potential return.

Lee: Yeah, just like you would get an audio book in English. Now you're doing the same. And we are looking at German audio. We'll see about French audio. We found a really great narrator hub who finds us narrators in those languages, and we're really excited. The Bad Boy Alphas series, our co-written series, is coming out in German.

Renee: And it's on Kobo.

Laura: So, it seems like the tip for translations overall is don't overthink it and don't feel like you need to...

Renee: Don't be daunt. I was definitely daunted at first, and then this is that thing where we were talking at the beginning of you get what you focus on. So, I was worried, "Oh, gosh, I don't know how to do this." Somehow I ended up with a translator who was in fight with the editor because I attracted like, "Oh, gosh, this is hard," and I made it hard like, "Well, I can't solve their disagreement because I don't speak German." No, the answer was like, "Make it easy. Get someone who's not going to fight with each other." And then I haven't had any bumps since, but it's like you will attract...like, if you think it's hard, it's going to be hard. If you think, "I already know how to do this. I did this in English. It's just a replication," it'll be easy.

Lee: Yeah. And, guys, we're indie authors and in a lot of ways, there are no fixed mistakes. You can upload an Italian book under an English cover and go, "Whoops," and then redo it. I definitely have done that several...

Renee: I've done it too. I had done that.

Lee: You get that email and you're like, "Oh, I'll send to the Bad Boy Alphas list," and then you get a bunch of responses in German because you clicked the wrong newsletter. And you know what? You just say, "Great, here's my German freebie," and you get Google Translate to help you out to translate…

Renee: And Lee even had a book where people were hating the translator, and you were like, "That's okay. I'll get it retranslated." Like, you just... You know, mistakes happen. You don't go, "Okay, I'm going to give up on translations." You just get it redone. You put it back out there. It still made you a ton of money, right?

Lee: You what's really bad, Renee, is I asked you for a German translator for mafia romance. You had a great one, but I had already gotten it done or it was in process with another guy. Now I have two.

Renee: Love it. That's something I would do.

Lee: But I paid them and I get to choose.

Renee: Oh, shoot. That's crazy.

Lee: It was all me. I got emails back and I was like, "Wait, oh, man." We keep moving forward.

Renee: Well, I thought the narrator hub place, they sent back a book in my Bratva series, but she's like, "Oh, here's 'Mafia Daddy,' " which is from my Vegas Underground series, which has already been narrated. Yeah, narrated. And I was like, "Wait, what are you doing? This is already done." "No, it's just her mistake. She doesn't speak German." So, she just... I don't know why she called it...

Lee: She had to Google Translate it.

Renee: She just called it "Mafia Daddy," but it was not "Mafia Daddy."

Lee: The title that is... Yep, I mean...

Renee: So, she terrified me for a minute there. I was like, "What are you doing? I didn't want that done."

Lee: You just take those obstacles, and you use them as stepping stones.

Renee: Mm-hmm.

Lee: Yeah.

Rachel: I love this a lot and...

Renee: Yeah, I think just knowing mistakes happen and then not beating yourself up for them. Especially with this many moving parts in a system, things get dropped, things get... You know, there's so many things we could do better, and that's okay. We're still doing great.

Lee: Your question is, how do you balance and manage it? And I'm like, "What?" You do your best.

Renee: Yes.

Laura: One of the things we like to say at Kobo is that there's never an eBook emergency, and I feel like that really applies here.

Renee: Yeah.

Lee: I'm going to use that. Thank you so much. I'm going to post that in my author Facebook group, "There's never an eBook emergency."

Laura: Yeah, everything can always be changed. Especially when you're indie, you have that freedom to change anything at any time. Lee, you mentioned your Facebook group, Millionaire Author Mastermind. Can you tell us more about that?

Lee: Yeah, I started it because I wanted a really positive place where people weren't complaining about Amazon but going, "Okay, I hate Kindle Unlimited, but what can I do now?" And I would go, "That's a very solution-oriented question, right? And let's come up with a solution, and the solution is Kobo Plus." And you have come in and talked about how to optimize and get readers and Kobo, so thank you. I try to have really smart people come in and talk about marketing and talk about making money from your books, talking about craft, and then Renee and I really are all about mindset and focus on the solution, look past the obstacle. And so I keep it really high vibe, and everyone's lovely in there. So, if you need a really nice, lovely place to land as an author, if you've never published, that's fine. You're going to be in there with seven-figure authors though. So, if you would come in and just learn and stay open-minded and listen, because we talk about some high-level stuff. And there's definitely plenty of newbies who are asking questions too. But, yeah, it's a wonderful group. And then Renee runs a group that is 100% mindset and abundance, and she can tell you all about the...

Renee: Yeah. So, no nuts and bolts in mind. We don't do business strategy. It is just mindset. So, it's called Author Abundance Central: Write to Riches. And if you just search for Author Abundance Central, you'll find it. Yeah, so it's to post your wins so we can celebrate, and it can be as small of like, "I just published my first book," or, "I just published my 160th book," or what you know? But we will celebrate all wins. Anything you're celebrating, we'll celebrate with you. And it just stays like... And then people will bring, like, mindset problems or like, "Hey, can you guys help me? I'm having a block. Like, I'm stuck. My mother-in-law hates my writing, and it really brings me down," and then we'll try to help people's mindset. The nuts and bolts we strategize around are all mindset issues, so that kind of thing.

Rachel: I'm so curious about this abundance mindset that you're talking about. Can you, kind of, like, take it back to the very beginning and just, like, what it is and how it's impacted your writing business?

Renee: Yeah. So, I think maybe also why Lee and I felt like kinship immediately is that we both believed in law of attraction. So, we're just really clear that, like, what you focus on, you know, becomes your reality. And so you could easily focus one everything that's hard or that sucks in the biz and then you will just see more of that. So, we really just try to stick to... And I love this story, because I just remember so clearly exactly where I was when she said it. It was like we'd maybe put out our second book, and she's like, "Someday we're going to be making $30,000 a month." And it was like four months later. Like, it was so fast. But at the time, I was like, because we were so far from that at that moment, you know? And now she's going, "Someday we're going to make a million a month," and I'm like, "Yeah."

Lee: Let's do it. Let's do it. We're sitting by the pool in this really fancy hotel in Dallas planning our next vampire romance and I'm going, "Why not us?" And I felt very billionaire in that pool. So, I said, "Let's just go for it," because I wanted to be an author and I stopped myself from being an author. I told myself I couldn't do it for years.

Renee: And you can't make a living, right?

Lee: It was a lot. It was a lot...

Renee: You got to be a good girl and go get a job, right?

Lee: And I did all that. And meeting Renee really helped with that to realize when you believe something, even if it's a lie, it can feel as concrete as a boulder in your path. It can feel like that heavy obstacle. But there are ways to remove it on all levels, not just saying affirmations, not just taking the steps forward but energetically, and that was new to me and it really helped me to just say, "I clear this. I clear it. I clear it on all levels. Energetically, I clear it from my mind, from my nervous system.

Renee: From my subconscious.

Lee: We use meditation. We use visualization. We use dream boards. And I think the most fun thing we do is Renee will send me mugs that say Millionaire Author, and I'll send her... And she sent me one recently that says Eight-Figure Author. So, that's my new one, because why not? I mean, we did it as a joke.

Renee: And now we're living it.

Lee: So, why wouldn't we? We'll get candles that say Millionaire Author, and we play with it. And we do our dream boards, and we cut out The New York Times and put our names there and put our books there. And we take our Kobo statements, and we add zeros. We add commas.

Renee: Yes.

Lee: These are very silly things that it normalizes our goals.

Renee: Yeah, and both of us have non-fiction books on this. Mine's called "Write to Riches," and it has an accompanying journal. And Lee's is called "Adventures with the Universe," also with an accompanying journal. And those are great resources for authors or just anybody.

Lee: Creators.

Renee: Yeah, any creators. Yeah.

Lee: CEOs. Because as we look at going to another level to getting a Netflix deal, to getting movie and show deals, to getting comics, getting art, and whatever, we are doing the same things that we did when we were baby authors with nothing in our bank accounts because that's where I started. That's how I met Renee. I had no money. At that hotel, they were going to put a debit on my card for the room charges. I did not have money in that bank account. I gave them $100 bill. I said, "I do not have anything. If you put that debit, it will overdraft me." I handed them cash and then I met Renee.

And even then, we were believing that we could do it, because when you believe you can do it, you take actions. You take the money you do have. They gave me that $100 back, and I probably used it to get a website. I signed that publishing deal. They gave me a little bit of an advance. I used it to get covers on my indie books. And you act as if you move forward. You set up your newsletter, and you go well, "It's going to be $20 a month for whatever," and you say, "Well, I'm an author and I'm legit and I'm going to make six figures and you pay that $20 a month." And from that, from newsletters and writing our books, we built a multi-million-dollar business. And now watch us go, we're going to go the distance.

Renee: Yeah. And blocks come up. I used to tell... Because I started kinky, I used to say, "Oh, well, I'm not mainstream enough to make it." Again, it's like when you focus on that, then that's what I'll see. But the other day, Renee was like, "You know..." I hesitate to say this, because it'll sound overly...not ambitious but egotistical, but I'm trying to lean in to letting that be true. She's like, "We're one of the biggest paranormal authors there are right now." And I was like, "Wait, we are?" But the more I believe that, the more I can make that happen, right?

Lee: You just called me Renee. Did you mean Lee?

Renee: Are you kidding? That was really weird.

Lee: That is so true. Someone emailed me and he said, "Well, you're one of the biggest paranormal authors on the planet," and I was like, "Well, I'm very flattered." And I thought about it, and I went, "Well, I think we all know that I..."

Renee: I'm still trying to absorb that. I'm still trying to allow that. But I have to tell you, because this is law of attraction work, I have seen a lot of authors come in... I don't want to say a big ego is the answer, but they come in with that energy of like, "I am the shiz," and the readers respond to that energy, "She is the shiz."

Lee: Absolutely.

Renee: And it may be that that book is no better than anyone else's, right? And so having that, embodying that energy, so just loving what you write, putting it out there with the energy of, "I love this. I know you're going to, too," that will attract the readers. That is the way the law of attraction works. And so the more you can love your books, the more you can lean into that. The more it'll show up, the more I can lean into what Lee said. I don't know why I called you Renee, that's so weird. What Lee said is like...

Lee: We were just in a conference, and everyone was like...

Renee: Oh, yeah.

Lee: "I can't wait for your talk," and it was like...

Renee: I was like, "I'm not speaking."

Lee: It's the other person talking.

Renee: "It's okay, that's all right."

Lee: What you're saying is really good keep going. I'm sorry I interrupted.

Renee: No, no. So, I'm still trying to absorb that. When you said it, it kind of was a jaw dropper for me, and I'm still trying to embody that so that I can make that more true, you know? Because what we believe is what shows up like as within, so without, you know?

Laura: You also teach a course about this mindset, kind of, sharing it with other authors. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Renee: Yes. So, we coach a monthly membership called Money Magic, and it is I would say 99% authors but it is open to, again, any creator because it's really just manifestation and we're applying it to author business, but it can be applied to coaching, to artists, whatever, starting your new business, anything like that, and we're really just helping people clear their money blocks, clear their success blocks, clear their worthiness blocks, and then invite in the energy of what they do want so that they can really marinate in that, resonate in that and have it show up.

Lee: Yeah, they're little things. If I see, "Oh, I can apply to promote my books on Kobo in your promotion tab," and then maybe I do and then you can't fit me in. You say, "Oh, this time, you're rejected," right, and I take it personally. Then, you stop yourself in your tracks. Let's stop myself in my tracks. Instead...

Renee: "Oh, I'm not good enough for Kobo promotions," that might be your story.

Lee: But really y'all are just trying to fill slots and my goal is to get rejected by you 50 times a year. And of course that won't happen because you'll accept one of my books and then I'll get a promotion and those are great. And then I build my readership, and then I make enough money that I can invest in audiobooks, and then a translation. And then, oh, now I made enough, I can do the whole series or now I'm going to write a new series. And it really makes a difference when you go, "I'm going to do this. I deserve a Kobo promotion."

Renee: Yep, I love this book. I know Kobo's readers will, too.

Lee: And I would keep applying.

Renee: So, just make a calendar appointment with yourself to go apply again, you know, every time.

Lee: I bring this up as an example because I have thought that negatively about myself and my books, "Oh, I'm not good enough." No, it's just that wasn't the book. Try the paranormal book. Try the dark mafia. Try the box set. The box set. Try the box set.

Renee: Yes. Right.

Lee: And then maybe the promotion that I do get actually goes way better than the one I would've gotten.

Renee: Right, and same thing for BookBubs. People will just go, "Oh, BookBub won't take me." Okay, so first of all, this is a freebie here. You don't have to join our Money Magic membership for this. You want to submit from that energy of love. So, Lee taught me this. This is so great. It was by accident but now we do it every time. She was re-reading one of our books trying to pull a passage for something, and it was just like, "Oh, my God, this book is so good," and she just kept reading and reading and reading. And then from that space of, "Oh, my God, this book is so good," she went and applied for a BookBub and we got it like that. And so now any time that happens, I'll be like, "Oh, that cover's so hot," she'll go, "I'm going to go apply for a BookBub," and we always get... So, we're coming at it from, "This is so good, we love it." And then, again, BookBub matches that energy.

Lee: Yeah, and I know USA Today list has changed, but it used to be you could be in a box set and you could... You could be in a box set, and you could hit USA Today. And Renee and I did that several times, and I know there's some people who are like, "Well, that doesn't count." But you know what? Because we did it so many times with box sets, we learned exactly what you do to market and promote and get that pro Kobo promotion, etc., to hit the USA Today. And then we were tracking our launches for our new releases, and I realized the numbers were close. I said if we market this pre-order the same way we would market a box set, we'll hit USA Today and we did. We hit five times.

Renee: In a row.

Lee: One of those was with BookBub and then we got the BookBub for the same release week as another book. That's just magic. Renee lit a candle, said a prayer, and made that magic happen. That was a magic spell. But, again, we're applying, we're doing this.

Renee: The last one we weren't even trying. We were like, "Oh, let's not try this time. Let's not do any ad spend." We just, like, pulled back. We still hit it.

Lee: Yes, and I feel like people talk themselves out of things and they go, "Well, I'm not good enough or I'm not going to try," or they'll be negative and be like, "Well, that didn't count. That one didn't count." You're whatever and it all counts. So, please I've had seven-figure authors come to me and said, "I made a million last year but I spent a lot on ads," and I go, "You made a million last year."

Renee: Celebrate.

Lee: "So, stop. Celebrate that." Because what do you think? I made a million last year but I have to pay taxes. Would you say that? I'd be like, "Of course you're going to pay taxes. It still counts as a million-dollars."

Renee: It counts. And, like, the more you count that, you celebrate that first thousand, that first hundred that comes in, the more you celebrate it, you're telling the universe, "I'll have more wins. I'll have more abundance. I'll have more of that." If you're like, "Oh, that wasn't enough though," then you're telling them you're not enough and that's what's going to show up for you.

Lee: Imagine that you don't do something or you do do something and either way, you're not disappointed. You're excited. Just remove the disappointment. A lot of times people are afraid to do something because they'll be disappointed if they don't or they'll be disappointed if they do it and then never do it again. Just remove the disappointment guys. Just say, "I'm going to be happy no matter what." I'm going to go out with my husband for sushi dinner, our favorite thing no matter what and we're going to celebrate it.

Renee and I would call each other and say, "I had a six-figure day." What was a six-figure day? Whenever we made $300 in a day. Did we make six figures a year at that point? No, but we celebrated every day that we were closer. And guess what, now we celebrate the million-dollar days.

Renee: Yes.

Lee: And that's $2,740. Whenever you hit that in a day, that's a million-dollar day. And whenever you hit $274, that's a six-figure day. So, anything over $300 and you...

Renee: Celebrate, yeah.

Lee: ...celebrate. And you can get yourself a mug, The Six-Figure Author. It's silly and it works. So, why not try it? You don't have to come on a podcast and tell the world you did it. We're going to do that.

Rachel: I love this and I love the celebrating of the smaller wins because everything builds on top of one another, right?

Renee: Yes, because if you keep doing it... And I've been there. Like, I've done the like, "Oh, but I'm not enough yet and I haven't hit USA Today list yet." That is putting that resistance out into the... Your energy is resistance. So, when you're celebrating like, "Oh, my God, I got this many words in today," then you're telling the universe, "I'll have days where I get lots of words in," you know?

Rachel: And also just a disclaimer to never take the Kobo promotion, not getting it personally. Sincerely, the person who does Kobo promotions.

Lee: They love you guys. They're just filling slots.

Renee: Exactly. It's not persona.

Lee: Same with BookBub. Your goal is to get rejected 50 times a year, and celebrate every time you get rejected. Give yourself a sticker.

Renee: You have applied.

Lee: And you'll apply again and eventually you'll get it.

Renee: Yes, but do try to apply when you're like in mad love with whatever you're applying for and see what happens.

Lee: See what happens.

Rachel: I, kind of, want to take a little bit of a turn into marketing because we've touched on it a few times and I'm really curious because it seems like, especially over the past few years, the marketing trends in indie publishing have really evolved and changed. And I'm so curious how you find what works best for your books, both individually and as a co-author team.

Renee: Yeah, so speaking of resistance, I honestly resisted the new TikTok. I went like, "Oh, I'm not good at that. I don't know how to do it." Well, and I was like, "Wait, stop saying that. You know what I mean?" Because that's clearly like it has changed the entire industry, right? People can with zero ad spend can go completely viral with their videos on TikTok. And so it's just about like, "How can I make this fun for me?" So, my mindset thing was like, "Let's make this fun stop with the resistance," because like you said, things have changed drastically and I was in the like, "Darn, the thing I was doing before isn't working anymore. This sucks." And that's not the place you want to be. And things change. In this industry, they change every three to six months. You have to stay nimble.

Lee: Yeah, so after this call, I'm going to go to the roof with the pool with our book, and I'm going to dance around, and I'm going to show it off. And I'm going to get a bunch of video and images, still shots, and then I'm going to take... I'm a big fan of do it once and profit forever, so I'm going to take that video and I will put it on TikTok, put text on it, put different texts on different videos, put the same text on different videos. You know what I mean? Just play with it and then I'm going to send that all to the ads guy. I'm going to send it all to the TikTok people to post on TikTok, send it to the lady who does Instagram and Facebook. So, I make one video and I get all this mileage out of it. And you know what? Maybe it goes viral on TikTok. Maybe it doesn't but maybe it's a great ad or maybe my Facebook group love it or whatever. And then the other big thing is "do it once, profit forever" is your newsletter.

Renee: Definitely, because the newsletter is something you own. So, investing your time and energy there is a great place to invest.

Lee: Yes. We have a new book coming out on Thursday. I went ahead and made some, "Hey, we're so excited. The book will be live tomorrow," and I put in some cute pictures and I could put in some cute video after I make those on the roof today. And then I saved them as templates and then I set them up into our autoresponder sequence, meaning I have those emails going out to anyone new who joins. They get a sequence of emails that I've created years ago, and I keep adding to it. So, it says, "Meet the 'Big Bad Boss,'" and our new book is "Big Bad Boss." And our trilogy is the Big Bad Boss trilogy. So, I have new emails going out to say the book is live. Here you can click and read it. Read the complete trilogy. And then I went ahead and put them into this autoresponder sequence so that next year, if I decide to go to Italy for the year, I have all these emails going out.

Renee: Yes.

Lee: Do the work once, profit forever.

Rachel: I love that. And, kind of, along the same, like, trying different things and seeing how long they last, how does Facebook ads fit into your marketing scheme in this ever-changing landscape?

Renee: They are still working well for us, especially with the direct sales because, again, similar to the newsletter, when you're sending them to your store, then you're actually capturing the pixel data. So, even if they... Yeah, I guess if only if they go to the store. But it seems like half the people, not even half... So, what we noticed is like some of them will go to the store. That covers the cost of the ads, but a lot of people are still going to the other retailers. Because if they're a Kobo reader, they're not going to go buy on my store. They like their Kobo e-reader. Or, if they have an iPhone, if they want the iBook thing. So, I'm not going to get them to switch because I have a cute ad. And I used to think that. I used to really think that like, "Oh, I'll get them to do this." No, they stick with what they do. So, me running the ad, basically my direct store covers the cost of my Facebook ads but I'm sending them everywhere. So, that's working out really well for us.

Lee: It's working out amazing. That's how we did seven figures last year. We only advertise the store, but we profited from the readers on Kobo.

Renee: Yeah.

Rachel: And that's so interesting because if you're directing folks to your store, then you're getting all of the information regardless of where that purchase happens.

Renee: Well, I started to say that and then I realized... I think only if they end up purchasing on the store do I get their... So, the ones who go elsewhere, we don't, but it still is working.

Lee: You can retarget people who click for sure.

Renee: True, true.

Lee: We're going to do that because people who clicked on Book #1 of our trilogy, we're going to retarget them. I just had that conversation. I just got to go dance on the roof, guys, and get these videos to my ads guy. Wish me luck. That sounds a little dangerous. I promise it's not. If I put this book in the pool, is that okay, Renee? That might be an interesting thing.

Renee: I'm like, "I actually don't have..." I was looking to see how many I have because we're going to Book Bonanza, and I only have four.

Lee: Okay, that'll be a wacky idea. I'll do it later.

Renee: Keep that nice... Yeah, keep that nice because I think I may be having more shipped there. I need to figure that out.

Lee: I'm going to hold it up in front of the pool and people will be like, "What's happening? Is she going to drop it?" That'll get the clicks.

Renee: Okay, good.

Rachel: All right, and I am conscious of time and I know that Lee needs to go not dump a book in a pool.

Renee: Yes.

Rachel: So, before I let you both go, two final questions. One, what are you working on next? And where can listeners find you online?

Renee: So, we just complete... Thursday is the completion of our trilogy Big Bad Boss, but then we decided they get their HEA in the book that comes out. It's marked. It comes out on Thursday. But we are writing a bonus book which is like the shenanigans around their engagement party.

Lee: And there's a king of Manhattan vampire who will be a hero in a coming book that we're plotting by the pool.

Renee: Yes, yes.

Lee: …The Vampire King.

Renee: Yes, so that's what's fun. So, let's see, the best place to find us. I would say our author groups. If you're an author, please join Millionaire Author Mastermind and Author Abundance Central. If you're a reader, you could find our midnightromanceshop.com or is it publishing?

Lee: Well, also we’re on Kobo. Find us on Kobo.

Renee: Find us on Kobo. Yes, yes, yes.

Lee: Look up Big Bad Boss and join Kobo Plus and read all of our books, especially if you read in print.

Renee: Yes.

Rachel: Well, we will include links to all of those, including the Kobo Plus signup in our show notes. And thank you both so much for sitting down and chatting with us today. This has been so fantastic.

Renee: Thank you so much for having us.

Lee: Yay, thank you.

Rachel: Thank you for listening to the "Kobo Writing Life Podcast." If you are interested in picking up Lee and Renee's books or learning more about their abundance mindset, we will include links to everything in our show notes. If you are enjoying this podcast, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. And if you're looking for more tips on growing your self-publishing business, you can find us at kobowritinglife.com. Be sure to follow us on socials. We are @KoboWritingLife on Facebook and Twitter, and @kobo.writing.life on Instagram.

Laura: This episode was hosted by Laura Granger and Rachel Wharton with production by Terrence Abrahams. Editing is provided by Kelly Rowbotham. Our theme music is composed by Tear Jerker. And thanks to Lee and Renee for being a guest. If you're ready to start your publishing journey, sign up today at kobo.com/writinglife. Until next time, happy writing.