I've sold over 15,000 copies of my book. Yesterday, I turned off the ads.

It's the most relief I've ever felt in business.

I’ve sold over 15,000 copies of my self-published book Harvesting Rainwater for Your Homestead in 9 Days or Less since June 2022. 

Yesterday, I opened up the Amazon ads console that has been humming along in the background for 2 years, the voice in my head sounding all the alarms, and toggled all of my campaigns to Off.

In an instant, the biggest wave of relief washed over me.

These ads have been the hand that has fed me for the past 2 years.

They have been a gift. 

I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of my time learning how to create books that sell, and it’s taken a long time to understand how to do market research, learn copywriting, manage contractors, perform a successful book launch, and manage profitable ads.

I’ve spent uncountable hours in front of the laptop, usually from 5 AM — 8AM before logging into my corporate job, on calls with expensive consultants or diligently watching course modules.

Only in the past year did I finally understand what it takes to manage profitable ads, as well as how to sell thousands and thousands of copies of nonfiction books.

Amazing things came from these book sales too: podcast episode invitations, speaking gigs, paid consulting invitations, trips to Hawai’i.

As I type this, I still wonder why the heck I turned off the ads.

You may wonder too.

I want to give an honest answer. I desperately want to step into the light of integrity and finally lift the weight of fear off my chest, so here goes.

The Seed is Planted

To answer this, I want to go back to the day my dad gave me my first copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad over family dinner at Food Terminal. I still remember having ordered Singapore-style curry noodles as my dinner that night.

When my dad gave one copy to me and one copy to my sister, I was 24 years old, and I was about to graduate from college and enter grad school to follow a world I wanted to be a part of: healthcare process improvement. 

As soon as I tore through the pages of that book, however, my entire view of the world flipped upside down (as is the origin story for many entrepreneurs).

Ever since my first internship in college, when my first manager said in passing that she would be working in that sterile, fluorescent-lightbulb, go-home-to-sleep-and-wake-up-to-do-it-all-over-again office for the next 40 years, I knew, I just knew, that a life beyond those fluorescent lights had to exist.

I just had no idea what it looked like, and I had no idea how to get there, until Rich Dad Poor Dad illustrated to my young mind the concept of “financial freedom.”

All of a sudden, memories of reading about digital nomads with laptops on the beach in high school (a novel concept in 2014) and hearing about millionaire bloggers from NPR flooded my mind.

Since high school, I’d had the dream to live like these fabled “nomads”, and suddenly it felt like Rich Dad Poor Dad was providing the first portal to make this dream real. 

On my first day at my first “real job,” I started Googling, “how to make money online.”

A Fire Is Lit

From Rich Dad Poor Dad, I learned of a concept called “passive income.”

I was too green at the time to understand that there really is no such thing as 100% passive income, but when I saw a Youtube ad for a course on how to sell audiobooks online and make passive income, I decided that with my writing and design background, as well the $1,000 in graduation money my uncle gave me that year, I would learn how to publish and sell audiobooks.

I remember taking those 10 Benjamins out of a red envelope and went to the Wells Fargo to deposit them — at the drive-thru ATM. On my bike.

I figured it would take me 6 months to make a cool $10k/month, quit my job, and begin my travels as a full-time digital nomad.

By this time, it was in the middle of 2020, and the pandemic was raging in full-force (re: my only hobbies turned into taking walks around the neighborhood in masks with my then-boyfriend-now-husband and publishing audiobooks).

My first ever book was Networking for Introverts. While it’s not a great book, I’m still kind of proud of it, because it was based on an actual conundrum I had experienced while learning how to land my first job.

No one ever teaches you how to socially network, especially as a shy introvert, and based on this experience, I created this book and the audiobook for people experiencing similar roadblocks. To this day, I still receive royalty checks for this audiobook from Audible.

The first check I ever received from this book was for $600. 

The second was for $200.

The third was for $150.

The fourth was for $200.

I started ramping up the number of books I was creating, realizing that if I was ever to get to $10k/month, I would have to publish…500 books?!

It dawned on me that there was no way I was going to create enough books in enough time, at least not at the level of quality that I needed to create true, lasting fans and true, lasting income.

I learned many lessons about selling books as I created more and more of them: 

• Quality matters. You can’t be lazy. 

• Number of reviews matter. You need a lot of them, at least 75, and the average rating needs to be at least 4.5 to maintain your product’s reputation. 

• You need to have a really good cover. 

• You need a title that doesn’t sound spammy, and it needs to be enticing. 

• The content of the book can’t be old stuff that everyone already knows; it needs to introduce new concepts, in a new and different way. 

• You need to create true, loyal fans. Creating multiple books in multiple niches isn’t nearly as effective as creating a series of books in the same niche, under the same author name.

• You need to have a proper book launch.

I also learned, accidentally, that shoppers much preferred to purchase the paperback version of my books over the audiobook version. And there was a higher royalty percentage with each paperback sold.

It was also around this time that I became attached to a philosophy called FIRE, an acronym short for “Financial Independence, Retire Early.”

This seemed very aligned with my motivations and what I thought I had learned from Rich Dad Poor Dad.

While working my corporate job during the day and publishing audiobooks during the night, every fiber of my being was also dedicated to saving money, whether it was related to food costs, housing costs, energy costs, or travel costs.

Cracking the Code

After much hemming and hawwing, I realized that the original audiobook course I purchased was trash, and I needed to purchase a better course.

I also needed a community: a proper community of encouraging, sharp, motivated, and disciplined entrepreneurs seriously looking to replace their 9-5 income.

It was at this time that I purchased Audiobook Income Academy (now Audiobook Impact Academy) from PublishingLife.Com (now Publishing.Com) and implemented a very disciplined schedule to make a dent in my dream of living as a digital nomad.

Every day, Monday through Friday, I woke up at 5 AM, worked on my book until 8 AM, and then switched gears to work at my corporate job until 5 PM.

I would then exercise and sleep for a grand total of nearly 16 hours in my bedroom each day.

Mind you, I take full responsibility for these actions and decisions, but I had never experienced this level of discipline before, and never realized what this lifestyle was doing to me.

I wanted the money. I wanted to travel. I wanted the lifestyle. My 20’s were dripping away (or so I believed).

Screenshot of me practicing a speech for work in the fabled bedroom of doom. I look back on all the photos I had of myself at the time, and boy, were they depressing.

AIA was a good course because it taught a way to make up to $10,000 in 1 month with 1 book.

Naturally, they didn’t explain that this would be every month, but at the same time, they showed how it wasn’t about the number of books you have; it was about the number of sales you make per month, per book. And this was related to the size and competitiveness of the topic your book is published in.

Because I was very much interested in energy costs, saving energy, and natural-building at the time due to my my interests in FIRE, I researched profitable niches relating to these interests.

When those didn’t turn out to be in high-enough demand, a topic adjacent to these did: rainwater harvesting. 

F*ck it, I thought. The income potential was there. There were barely any books on this topic. I was interested in learning about it. Let’s just do it.

I threw myself into mastering everything about book marketing, from the book itself, to the book title, to the book cover, to copywriting, to ads.

I built my book stage-by-stage, and I didn’t let myself compromise on a single step of researching everything I could about the topic and its potential readers. I was tired of making mistakes and failing. It was time to do this right.

I still look back on that time fondly, because I must have DM’d hundreds of strangers on Facebook.

I ended up having not just educational conversations with them related to market research, but I also had personal conversations with many of them. I even visited one of these ladies in France, of whom I am dedicating the upcoming book to.

Jeff and I visiting Anne and Christy at their homestay near Toulouse, France.

I even purchased the Publishing Accelerator package from Publishing.Com, the most expensive thing I had ever purchased online at the time: a 6-month intensive coaching package for $7.8k.

I remember shaking as I told Jeff about this, telling him that I was planning to pay for this coaching from the money I had saved for 6 months from my corporate job (money that was originally intended to buy more index funds).

It took me 8 months to complete Harvesting Rainwater. Everyday I wrestled with self-doubt and fear. I had spent so much money, time, and energy creating this book, and there was still no guarantee it would work out. 

I also realized, somewhere in between finalizing the book cover and the book description, that I was massively depressed.

I had never experienced anxiety on that level before. All I had ever known was pushing. Taking action to get from A to B. Set a goal and work towards it everyday. Turns out, for complex, emotionally-involved goals, it’s not always that easy.

Luckily, I decided to do something about it, and I started taking other coaching programs from a coach named Cathy Heller to learn something I had never heard of before: reprogramming my thoughts and beliefs. 

This was also my first foray into the woo world of manifestation. Instead of waiting for the outcome to materialize to feel happy, I realized that it was my thoughts and beliefs related to money, working, and striving for outcomes that kept me in my room for 16 hours per day, every day, working working working.

So, instead of waiting for the $10k/month to materialize to travel, I began taking short road trips to coastal towns near where I lived (I was able to do this because I worked remotely), all before I ever hit “Publish” on my book.

Melting the anxiety and doing the things that made me feel free were, in fact, the things my soul was searching for. Not the $10k/month.

A trip to Savannah, Georgia I took in February 2023. It was so warm. I realized I had the freedom to travel all along.

The $10k/month still seemed nice, though.

So, I hit “Publish” and launched my book to the stars.

$9,352.01 and Accidental Thought-Leadership  

I remember it all finally coming together: the checks started landing in my bank account like mini atomic bombs. 

$9,270.20.

$9,352.01

The money started leaving my account quickly too, and I realized that this income was a byproduct of buying ads from Amazon on a continuous basis. I would need to start budgeting, bookkeeping, and accounting.

Weird emails started showing up in my inbox too.

“Would love to collaborate.”

“Podcast?”

“Loved your book. Interested in working together?”

I first ignored most of them, accepting only offers for free promotion, but avoiding the ones that would require me to act as if I had spent my life dedicated to the topic of harvesting rainwater.

After all, I had done tons of research and knew more about rainwater harvesting than most people, but to speak about it with passion like a thought-leader would be unusual.

But the requests kept on coming.

I started to wonder, “Was this the avenue by which I would create the 7-figure business I had been dreaming about? Rainwater harvesting?”

After all, I didn’t have to push much at all; isn’t this what people talked about when they say everything should be “easy”?

Wasn’t I finally “attracting” rather than chasing? 

I started appearing on podcasts, and I gave talks at my local prep store and online. I visited the Island of Hawai’i to visit my now-friends Archer and Tilo, who had met me in my rainwater Facebook group and were impressed that I had published a book on rainwater. 

Going to the beach with Archer and Tilo, my new rainwater friends from Hawai’i.

Because I trusted them, I told them why I actually did it. To my surprise, they actually didn’t care that much, but I felt a huge surge of relief to tell them my deepest, darkest secret. I’ll be dedicating the second book to them, too.

It was like the world viewed me as one persona because I had published this book, but I was too chicken to tell them that the persona was actually an illusion. 

An illusion I was too scared and confused to break.

Here I was, somehow on a pedestal, because I had published a popular book on a topic I had chosen for its income potential.

Opportunities kept finding me, ones that I tried to keep at arm's length because of my fear of being “outed,” but people still found it constructive to ask me questions about rainwater.

Somehow, in all my research and DM’s with strangers on Facebook, I was able to drum up helpful answers to all of their questions, but never did the nagging feeling of misalignment leave me alone.

It was also in this era that I realized that $10k/month, with all of the ad costs required to keep this level of income, was not as much as I had originally thought.

So began my quest to learn how to market my book more effectively and sell more books.

I even considered selling a course and program on rainwater harvesting, but I realized that would really have been misaligned.

In my quest to learn how to sell more books, I learned how self-published authors like MJ DeMarco, Mike Michalowicz, and Robert Kiyosaki used intense podcasting to build a brand and lead people to more valuable offers. I took an amazing course on podcasting called Hell Yes Guest that taught me how to turn listeners into customers (affiliate link).

I tried many things to sell more books, including bulk sales and trade shows (which is how I initially got coaching from Jack Canfield and subsequently, an endorsement from him on my book). I also almost accepted an offer to sell my rights to a big-name publisher for the chance to get my book sold in Tractor Supply Co., but the offer felt too cheap.

I realized I was in the wrong niche, but I also realized over time that I finally had the tools that could unlock mega book launches and book sales for people looking to grow their brand.

It dawned on me that the most effective way to market a book was to become the face of whatever your book is about. And no way in hell was I going to be the face of rainwater harvesting.

But, I learned:

• Book sales themselves don’t amount to much money. You have to sell millions to make a dent in your long-term living expenses.

• When you’re an author, you’re on a pedestal. Opportunities seem to find you, rather than you having to chase them.

• The best topic to publish a book about is the topic you’re selling anyway.

• Readers become your most natural customer.

• Podcasting and book sales are a natural pairing, and have been the backbone of many famous author careers.

• Why not sell your readers a more valuable offer that they already want to buy from you anyway?

Teach Us How

In a mastermind with Jack Canfield in early 2023, I met 3 other women, who are still my really good friends, who were shocked when I told them how many books I had sold. While they had sold several hundred, I had already sold 8,000.

My new friends wanted me to show them what I had done, but I had no belief that I was qualified enough to teach them how to do it.

I told them that I just wanted to grow my business, so I continued to obsess over making more book sales, rather than helping other people, even when I told them rainwater harvesting wasn’t my passion.

I stayed stuck because I believed it was the only thing I was qualified for. 

In November of 2023, I got laid off from my corporate job, and I finally started traveling full-time because I had the time and money from my savings.

The thing that I had wanted to do for so long, which was to travel as a lifestyle, had finally come true.

I also finally began taking on a handful of book marketing clients. 

I was really sick of staying small.

As I began teaching them how to launch books like I had, something about the way their smile lit up the entire room when they saw their own results melted away every ounce of anxiety I had about teaching others.

I realized that it was time to devote every ounce of my being to alignment.

Yesterday, I turned off my ads because it’s a distraction.

I don’t need to sell books on rainwater harvesting to make money anymore.

I want to help people sell their books. 

Focusing on one thing at a time is a gift.

It’s long overdue.

This spring, I will be launching the second book in the rainwater series, titled Purifying Rainwater, for all the people I met in Hawai’i struggling with clean water, and will be using it as an experiment to achieve USA Today Bestseller. 

But after that, I will only publish books that come from my heart and my own experience.

Perhaps one day I will publish a book talking about this experience.

I never want to feel that out of integrity again. There’s nothing quite as bad as the feeling of doing something just for the money.

No one ever tells you what that feeling is like until you experience it. Some people never notice it. It doesn't bother them. We all have varying levels of what we’ll tolerate.

But, I’m finished with tolerating incongruity.

It’s a relief to finally turn those ads off.

15,000 books sold. $117k. Podcasts, gigs, trips, money. It wasn’t what I thought it would be. 

I’ve learned that nothing is as valuable as my integrity. And maybe the second most valuable thing is the lesson I learned coming out of that experience, and the ability to look back on this experience as I write it, with some shock, some relief, some humor, and plenty of humility.

Thank you for reading.

Much love,

Renee