THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
It is a phenomenal space to get into for artists and designers. So many people in this space do not have any of those skills. So if you know how to create a beautiful book cover and a beautiful interior, you have such a leg up. It’s so much easier to learn the research portion of this whole process than it is to… I mean, obviously as an artist or a designer, you know it takes years to hone those skills. So if that’s something you’ve already got, you’ve really got a huge advantage over everyone else that’s just kind of pursuing this as a business model, but coming to it with none of those skills of their own.
Speaker 2:
It’s the Inspiration Place Podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place Podcast, an art world inside a podcast for artists by an artist where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hello, passionmaker. This is Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration and author of the book Artpreneur, and you’re listening to episode number 226 of the Inspiration Place Podcast. I am so excited that you’re here today. We have a very special guest, and before I bring her on, I just want to give you a little story about how we met.
As longtime listeners know, I had been a partner for promoting Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy. That is not open at the moment, but one of the advantages of being an affiliate for somebody… And in case you don’t know what an affiliate is, it means I promote somebody’s program in return for a commission. And because I get a commission, that’s why I offer a big bonus package because I’m being compensated for it. So I do have about 30 artists who joined DCA through me, and you’ll be meeting them actually in the coming year, because I promised everyone who launches their course that they’ll be invited back to the podcast to talk about their course. So you’ll get to meet a lot of those artists.
But in the meanwhile, let me just tell you about my guest. One of the things I love about being an affiliate is you get to meet other online course creators in different niches. And today’s guest is in a niche that is very appropriate for artists. So I’m going to introduce her in a moment, but she and I were both the top 10 affiliates. I think Amy had about 150 affiliates or something like that this year. And you don’t really get to meet them all, because we’re in what’s known as a Slack channel, which is kind of like a texting service. So it’s not like a Facebook group where you really get to meet anybody. But I did get the attention of people who are on the top of the leaderboard. I’m going to have to define a lot of terms today, I realize.
So what a leaderboard is, is the people who bring in the most leads or the most sales, they post like the top 10 people. And that is to encourage healthy competition among the people on the top. And I actually am very motivated by competition. I am a very sore winner, let’s put it that way. I’m not a sore loser, but I’m a sore winner. I really do like to win. When I play tennis with my friends, I’m really into winning these little games in the tennis clinic. I just like winning. So, that is super fun. But you also, when you’re on the leaderboard, you get the attention of the other affiliates and they get your attention, if that makes sense.
So today’s guest was also on the leaderboard. So I went to check her out and I saw her content was so appropriate for the podcast that I knew I had to introduce you to her and have her on. So what she does is teach something called low content publishing, which I really didn’t know what it was. I will ask her to explain what that is during the interview today. But low content publishing is very well suited for artists and designers. It’s a great way to generate passive side income from your art or design work. It’s a great way to help an artist or designers build their email list, because when you create these low content publishing… And low content publishing are things, just in brief, I can explain, it’s something like a coloring book or a planner or a notebook. And one thing that you can do when you create this kind of content is that you can put your lead magnet inside your coloring book, and then of course, you can make money selling it on Amazon.
Now, most self-publishers in this space don’t have the advantage of being a professional artist or designer. So artists and designers have an advantage over everyone else to create professional high-quality covers and interiors that can really stand out in the sea of low quality books being published by so many others, because people who are not artists and designers, they rely on stock imagery and things like that. And then a lot of it looks the same. But as an artist, you can use your own intellectual property on these things.
As you’re listening to this, I actually have my book Artpreneur available for presale. And I know you can’t get the book in your hands until January when it hits the bookstores or when, if you pre-order online, it’ll arrive in your inbox. But I do have something else that is totally fun that you’re going to want to get your hands on. So if you go to schulmanart.com/book, that’s my pre-order page, and there are several bonuses on that page that you’ll be eligible for when you pre-order. You can order the book either online or go to your local bookstore, order it, and then bring the receipt to this page. Either way, I’m not going to penalize you. You enter your name, your email, and your order number.
Let me just tell you what you get right away. So that is what I’m working on right now in the studio is I created an entire art journal, an entire art journal based on the book. So each of the chapter titles is an affirmation. So those of you who got your hands on 12 Affirmations… And I’ll make sure I’ll link the 12 affirmations in the show notes as well. If you’ve got your hands on that, what I did was each of the chapter titles, it’s an affirmation and a mantra, and I put each of those chapter titles, each of those affirmations is a different art journal page. And so I created a whole course around it.
Now, normally with online classes, I would charge several hundred dollars for a course like this. In fact, I have. So I have Painting with Words is an art journal course, and that one we’ll link for you in the show notes as well. That one, I believe we put on sale since I did that one in 2016. It’s an awesome course, but you’ll see that I referenced 2016 a lot in that art journal. But you can get a brand new course, brand new, we call it Artpreneur Affirmations, and you get that for free when you buy the book. So, like I said, normally an art journal course is several hundred dollars, but you can get this class for free when you pre-order Artpreneur. And because this book is available in paperback, and we are asking that you purchase the paperback, not the Kindle, not the Audible, when you purchase the paperback, the paperback is less than 20 bucks.
So you can get an entire art journal course for free when you buy the book, which is less than 20 bucks, which is such a huge deal. And this is the only way you can get this course. You cannot buy the course without buying the book. So if you want to get your hands on that, go to schulmanart.com/book. I am editing all the videos right now, which is super fun, and I can’t wait to share it with you. And we’ll be tripping those out week by week. And the first video should be ready as soon as this podcast airs. So, you don’t have to wait any longer. And if you’ve already pre-ordered the book, thank you so much, you will be getting that first video very soon. This week, we hope. All right. So without further ado, let’s go on with the show.
From award-winning, yet acutely dissatisfied art director working in a multinational advertising agency to a wildly passionate and stubbornly persistent online entrepreneur, today’s guest is obsessed with helping others discover and then monetize their unique talents, skills, and knowledge. After building a multiple six-figure passive income business, creating and selling journals, planners, notebooks, and more through the Kindle Direct Publishing platform, she now teaches others how to do the same through her YouTube channel and her digital course, Low Content Profits Academy, which has helped over 3000 students to date. Her work has been featured in Money, Applied Arts, and the Advertising and Design Club of Canada. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place, Rachel Harrison-Sund. Well, hey there, Rachel, welcome to the show.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Hi, Miriam, thanks so much for having me here today. Super excited. What an honor. And what an intro. Thank you.
Miriam Schulman:
You’re welcome. So where in Canada are you?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
I’m on the West Coast. I’m in a little suburb of Vancouver called Langley.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Well, we have some Vancouver artists who listen to the podcast.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Yes, lots of artists out here for sure.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’m not sure where that is, but they do. What’s the weather like today? I mean, in New York, it is so muggy.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
It’s pretty cloudy here today. We’ve had some really amazing weather and today it kind of turned, but I’m kind of glad. I’m inviting in that cool fall vibe, cardigan weather. I’m liking it.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. The change of clothes and the change of season. I mean, we’re recording this on, I guess it’s the fall equinox. Yeah? Is that today or yesterday? But when this airs, I don’t think it… I forget when we’re airing this, actually. I have no idea. Sometime in the future.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
I’m so out of touch with all of that equinox, all that stuff. I never ever know when any of it’s happening. Does that mean today’s like… Oh, nevermind. I’m getting confused with longest day, shortest day. But that already happened, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. No. Apparently it’s actually a good time to sell is during the fall and spring equinox. So, that’s something to keep in mind. All I know is they all are either the 21st or the 22nd, four times a year. All my woo friends remind me.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Right. Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s like, “It’s a full moon now.”
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
I’ve got a few of those too. They can stay on top of that and relay it to me if it’s important.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Exactly. They could let me know. Oh, it’s Mercury retrograde. It’s not my own fault.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
All right. So I’m so excited to talk to you. I saw what you were up to on your YouTube channel and so many questions. Are you ready to get started?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Fire away.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So first of all, I don’t know what low content means. What do you mean by low content? What does that mean?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
So it’s pretty self-explanatory-
Miriam Schulman:
No, it’s not.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
… but it’s basically books that have… I know. Nobody that hears it right off the bat knows what it is, but then when I explain it, it’s like, “Of course.” It’s just, it’s not really a word that’s in the vernacular that people would just know. But it’s books that have little to no content, often repeating content. So this can be daily planners, it can be journals, notebooks, coloring books, activity books, puzzle books, anything that doesn’t fall into your typical fiction or nonfiction category-
Miriam Schulman:
Got it.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
… you lump in with this low content. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. But this is a good thing, I’m assuming, for people who are listening who are artists who maybe want to do coloring books and actually really make some money off of it. Am I right?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
It is a phenomenal space to get into for artists and designers. So many people in this space do not have any of those skills. So if you know how to create a beautiful book cover and a beautiful interior, you have such a leg up. It’s so much easier to learn the research portion of this whole process than it is to… I mean, obviously as an artist or a designer, you know it takes years to hone those skills. So if that’s something you’ve already got, you’ve really got a huge advantage over everyone else that’s just kind of pursuing this as a business model, but coming to it with none of those skills of their own.
But yeah, I mean, you can be using prints that maybe you haven’t sold yet. So many artists I’m sure have stuff that just is sitting there collecting dust, nothing’s being done with it. You could use those prints as book covers. If you’re an illustrator, you could create a coloring book from scratch. Even things like branded prompted journals or anything, like any of these low content books, depending on your own skillset as an artist or a designer, I think it fits really, really well. The low content publishing and anyone that’s in art and design, I think the two can marry very wonderfully.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So I know your background is as an art director, did you do this in your past job for a corporation, or did you only start doing this when you broke out on your own?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
So I had actually decided that I no longer wanted to… I knew that I didn’t want to climb the corporate ladder any further. I didn’t want to be a creative director, and mainly I just didn’t want to work for anybody else. So I kind of just came across this looking for ways to make money online, which I’m sure so many of us have typed that into Google, how to make money online. And I just came across this idea of this business model, which is essentially, you hop on over to Amazon, you do some research, figure out what types of books people are looking for, and then you go and create the books, or you outsource someone else to create the books. And so that’s what I started doing, and I did that until I’d sort of built up enough of an income that I’d no longer had to work. Now that decision was kind of made for me a couple years in, because I ended up getting laid off. But by that point, I had the momentum going where I didn’t actually need to find another job.
So when I first started, I actually started doing this with nonfiction books. So I would hire a ghost writer to create mostly recipe books for me at that time. And then after doing some nonfiction, I got into romantic fiction because that just seemed to be a hot niche to get into. And then I had a little bit more success there. But then when I started hearing about this low content thing, lights really started to go off because now I can use my art and design background. I no longer have to outsource and pay ghost writers to create this content for me. And I can really, all of my skills were converging in that one area. And that’s where things really took off for me, because essentially I could just keep all of the profits to myself at that point.
Miriam Schulman:
Tell us about the first thing you put out with a low content product.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Oh. Gosh.
Miriam Schulman:
Or was it a suite of products?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
The very first one, it would probably either be a journal or a notebook or a planner. This is going back to 2017 and I was producing quite a few at a time.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, okay. So you were just putting a lot of things out. And then what took off for you then first, where you were like, “Oh, this is really a thing?”
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
I think probably the first things that really started to take off for me were planners. And the great thing about this, if you create one interior, and it depends on the type of book, but you could reuse that interior and create multiple covers. So, for example, for a daily planner, I would create that planner, the interior and, of course, it would take several hours, but then I could create five or 10 or 15 different covers. And now I’ve got five or 10 or 15 books that I’m publishing at once.
Miriam Schulman:
Wow.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
And if one of those takes off, I can pay attention to which designs are resonating. And then maybe I take that design and now I create a notebook or a journal, and now I can, in my listings say, “If you want to get the matching journal or the matching notebook, check out my author page.” And so as you get going, you kind of can create these webs of series of books, like a planner and a journal that have the same cover. You can reuse these interiors. Now, of course, that’s not going to be possible for certain things. You’re not going to take a coloring book and then have the same coloring book with 10 different covers. But you can do it with things like notebooks or planners. You’re just going to have to imagine yourself, if you walk into a bookstore, what would make the most sense? I mean, many of us are used to seeing planners with lots of different covers. Most of us, if we’re buying a planner, we’re going to buy it based on the cover. I know I do.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, I’m a planner junkie. So if the inside needs to work for me-
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
Sometimes I’ll experiment in the beginning of the year and then I’ll have to abandon one. Oh, that one looks pretty, but it really doesn’t work in terms of the layout. Do you know what I’m talking about? Planner junkies do.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Of course. Yeah. But there’s so much room for experimentation here and it’s all about testing and just seeing what works. And obviously you’ll know what works, because the sales will either come in or they won’t. You can iterate along the way and make adjustments as necessary. So I’ve got six by nine planners, but you can do the same planner in an eight and a half by 11 or an eight by 10. You can do 18-month planners. I’ve got five-year planners, weekly planners. So you can just experiment and see what’s resonating and just iterate and experiment as you go.
Miriam Schulman:
Now with your students, what is the most popular thing that they produce? By popular, I don’t mean what is the most successful, I meant what do most people want to do? That’s what I meant.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Most people will start out just with maybe a journal or a notebook. Now you’re not going to get many sales because that really is the easiest book to create. So hoping to gain traction in that market, I mean, there’s a bazillion, a bazillion plus a bazillion already out there. But a lot of people will start with that, because they’re completely new to the idea of self-publishing. They maybe don’t have an art and design background. They’re kind of just dipping their toes in to prove to themselves… For a lot of people it’s a big deal to self-publish a book. This is maybe something they’ve been thinking about for years and they’ve made it up to be this massive undertaking in their head.
So a lot of people just want to start small and that’s great. I don’t think you can expect to get a ton of sales from those. It’s just about learning the process. And then once you’ve done that, I encourage people to swiftly move on to a planner or a guided journal or something that you can really have an opportunity to differentiate yourself, offer something unique. Obviously try and offer more value than what’s already out there. So a lot of these books down the line end up becoming a little bit more medium content, if you will, because at this point, there are a lot of people out there doing this. So we’re all looking for ways to make our books stand out and offer as much value as possible.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So now I have to ask you the burning question. And that is, so you do this for yourself to make money and you’re also teaching it, are you worried about the competition that you’re creating your own competitors?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Well, so a couple things there. The first, that’s why I don’t share my pen names. Unfortunately, it is easy for people… It’s not like a novel where someone, they’re not going to go out and rip off a whole novel. But it’s a lot easier to rip off a daily planner. And I did have quite a bit of trouble with that, especially a couple of years back. I did run into a number of copyright issues and I did have to hire a lawyer at one point. So at this point, especially now that I have a following and I’m teaching, I keep my pen names to myself. The other thing, though, is I now spend most of my time teaching other people how to do this. So I’m not doing a whole lot of publishing myself anymore. So most of my focus is on my students, is on creating content for my YouTube channel. And I’m also working on another course that’s on a slightly different topic. So I don’t really worry about that the way that I used to, but it is a concern, for sure.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, so I want to hear some success stories from your students.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
So I’ve definitely got a few of them making full-time incomes. And what I mean full-time, like one of them… And you can see this interview I did on my channel with a woman named Janice. She’s over in the UK and she’s making a healthy, healthy six-figure profit off of this. Lovely woman. It’s really just changed her life. She’s got, I think two college-age children, so she can actually help to foot some of that bill. And she’s just not worried about some of the things that she used to be worried about. And she can have fun. I think she’s retired or semiretired. I mean, this is just a fun way for her to be making money at this point. And it’s just rolling in the door each month.
Miriam Schulman:
And what kind of products did she put out?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
So she does a lot of, I think activity style books aimed more towards children.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
I think.
Miriam Schulman:
Like Highlights Magazine, right?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Now, again, this is something where a lot of people that are experiencing success, they’re not blasting out their pen names because they’re trying to protect all of the research and time and energy that they put into this.
Miriam Schulman:
But this is Highlights Magazine or Ranger Rick, all those things we grew up with that have activities. Is that the kind of thing she’s putting out?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
I think like coloring books, maybe an Easter activity book.
Miriam Schulman:
Got it.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
So seasonality is something that people really like to piggyback off of and can be really successful. So Christmas, I mean, Christmas… Q4 for anyone doing low content publishing, it’s just a gong show, because everyone’s buying gifts. And then it goes well into the New Year as well, because now people have all their gift cards for Amazon. But yeah, things like Easter, Halloween, those are usually good times to put out things like children’s activity books. Back to school, that’s a good time to put out things like composition notebooks and journals and things like back to school supply type stuff. I have another student named Stacy, she’s earning about $5,000 a month now. She does a lot of things like prayer journals. I know she’s had some success with that and I think she’s done a lot of experimentation, I think as well with planners, journals. But I think prayer journals is where she’s had the most success.
It’s interesting because everyone ends up experiencing success in their own way. For me, I was very successful with planners. So it just depends. You have to experiment a lot in the beginning. And then wherever your’re experiencing success, you need to double down in that area. So for me it was planners. For Stacy, I think it was prayer books. For Janice, I think it was activity books. Another one of my students, she does a lot of activity books as well, and she’s had quite a bit of success. So very exciting. I just love hearing about all of their success stories.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that. Okay. And I know you have a free resource for people to get started. Tell us about what that is.
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Yeah, so it’s called 3 Steps to Publishing Your First Low-Content Book in Less Than a Day. And that is just going to give you an overview of the entire process that I use. So that includes sort of the high-level points about how to generate ideas, how to validate your ideas so that, you know, you don’t want to just create a book, throw it out there and hope for the best. The way I do it is I do all of my research upfront so that I’ve got a pretty good idea that I might be able to have a snowball’s chance in hell once it goes out there and is up against all its competitors. And it teaches you how to create the book, and then how to go through the publishing stage. So it’s just a nice start to finish resource of just how to get going on that first book. So yeah, I invite you all, listeners, to go ahead and download that if this is something that you’re interested in taking a closer look at.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, I already downloaded it and it’s very juicy. I was like, “Oh, look at this. This is so good.” All right, so we’ll make sure to include a link to that in the show notes. And the show notes are, this is episode 226, so schulmanart.com/226. And don’t forget, if you liked this episode, be sure to share it. You can take a screenshot of it and tag #SchulmanArt. I’d really appreciate if you share that on the socials. And don’t forget to check out the pre-order bonuses, Artpreneur Affirmations, the art journal course that you get absolutely free when you order the book Artpreneur. So to check that out, go to schulmanart.com/book. Rachel, do you have any last words for our listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Rachel Harrison-Sund:
Yeah, I would just say, if this is something you’re interested in, go ahead. I’m sure most of you artists listening, you’ve got artwork sitting there that you could be doing something with. This is a great way to get it out there and get your art out there, become a little bit more well known that way, but potentially turn it into a passive income stream. I mean, how amazing is that? So that’s my last little piece of advice, I guess.
Miriam Schulman:
I love it. All right, well, thank you so much for being with me here today. All right, my listener, thank you as well. And I will see you the same time, same place next week. Stay inspired.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart, and of course, on schulmanart.com.
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